Clinton Administration

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has prompted much handwringing over the problems with prewar intelligence. Too little attention has been paid, however, to the flip slide of the picture: that the much-maligned UN-enforced sanctions regime actually worked. Contrary to what critics have said, we now know that containment helped destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine and his capacity to produce weapons.

A new book sees the troubled U.S.-China relationship of the 1990s growing as much out of domestic politics on both sides as out of overarching strategic considerations.

Strobe Talbott's memoirs provide a richly detailed account of the U.S.-Russia relationship in the 1990s. They are an insider's chronicle of critical (and often overlooked) successes mixed with deeply regrettable lost chances.

The United States has an opportunity to set new terms for its alliances in the Middle East. The bargain struck with Egypt and Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War seemed successful for a decade, but now the United States is facing the consequences: Washington backed Cairo's and Riyadh's authoritarian regimes, and they begat al Qaeda. The Bush administration should heed the lesson.