author - oman observer

The Group of 7 countries might have set a record when they met in Italy last week. Has there ever been a less popular assemblage of leaders of the free world? Approval ratings ranged from Giorgia...

Last week, a friend asked me what I could learn from a four-day trip to Ukraine I was planning that I couldn’t glean just by reading the news. It was a fair question. With the trip now behind me, I...

In every life, there are a few indelible dates: the birth of a child, the death of a parent, a national tragedy such as 9/11.An indelible date for me is September 19, 1985.I was an 11-year-old boy...

A half-century from now, Joe Biden’s presidency will be remembered, as most presidencies are, with a short summary sentence. It will read: “He defeated Donald Trump, and ____________.”It won’t...

On June 18, 1940, Churchill delivered his celebrated “Finest Hour” speech. The British army had been evacuated from Dunkirk. France, under Pétain, had decided to surrender. “Hitler knows that...

We live in a time when the people who are in charge are scared of the people who aren’t. Professors report being terrified of their students. Publishing executives fear the wrath of junior...

Why do we admire Volodymyr Zelensky? The question almost answers itself.We admire him because, in the face of unequal odds, Ukraine’s president stands his ground. Because he proves the truth of the...

The scariest story I read over the holidays had nothing to do with winter wildfires, the Covid-flu combo or the threat of Russia invading Ukraine. It was Christopher Leonard’s superb profile in...