Irwin Arieff 
When working on sticky world problems, should the United States use the United Nations as a forum to try to drum up global support for its policies, reasoning that it gains strength by linking its interests to as many other countries as possible? Or should it stand alone in a blind embrace of President Trump’s … Read more
When you’re a reality TV star running for president who likes to talk tough and you know nothing about foreign policy, maybe it makes sense to repeatedly attack the Iran nuclear agreement as “the worst deal ever” and to pledge to kill it if you ever get the chance. If you end up getting elected, … Read more
Donald Trump will have his third chance this October to weigh in on Iranian compliance with the international nuclear agreement reached by Tehran in 2015 with the United States and five other world powers. The United States Congress requires the president to certify every 90 days that Iran is observing the pact’s terms, and Trump … Read more
If you are reading this, it must mean we have not been annihilated by a nuclear war between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not that Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, will be able to take much credit — not because she didn’t try but because she … Read more
Will it never end? When will time run out on the array of shape-shifting militant Islamist movements intent on moving into shaky trouble spots around the world to impose their extreme ideology, harness the population and hijack the local economy? How long will it take for the international community — the ubiquitous West — to … Read more
Nikki Haley is one lucky Trump appointee. Sure, sure, it’s a great honor to be a public servant, especially when you’re way up at the top. But the GOP wastes no love on the United Nations; Republican presidents can take years to realize that it can prove pretty useful every once in a while. So … Read more
Peak Thai is hidden on a side street — East 49th — and easy to miss. It may never win a Michelin star. But there’s a reason lines form around noon: you can count on this quiet, efficiently run restaurant for solid cooking and pocket-friendly prices. These days, that’s no small thing. It is minutes … Read more
It is widely believed that the Allied powers were in the dark about the “final solution” — the Nazi campaign to exterminate Europe’s Jews — until the discovery of the death camps, strewn with corpses and emaciated inmates, at the end of World War II. Yet Russia, Britain and the United States publicly declared their … Read more
The long-simmering dispute over the fate of Jerusalem stands at the center of the Middle East conflict. Israelis and Palestinians, divided on many points, become most emotional when discussing the future of the walled, ancient crossroads city that is holy to three world religions. So international diplomats took notice when foreign policy neophyte Donald Trump … Read more
Here is a brief political history of Jerusalem, in timeline format, dating from the earliest human settlement to the present. The chronology is selective, focusing primarily on the development of competing visions over the years of the ancient city’s past and future. The timeline accompanies a separate article, “Jerusalem’s Fate: Myth Versus Reality,” by Irwin … Read more
More than 700 educators and students, meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York recently, called on the international community to protect refugees’ lives, encourage countries to take in “large numbers of refugees and migrants” and do more to ensure they get an education and are protected from sexual and gender-based violence. Acting as President … Read more
The butterfly effect teaches us that seemingly insignificant actions can have enormous future consequences. A tiny pair of fluttering wings can disturb the air in a way that helps trigger a hurricane halfway around the world. Witness Syria, where the Arab Spring made its debut in 2011 in the form of a tame wave of … Read more
During New York’s bad old days, Vanderbilt Hall, the waiting room at Grand Central Terminal, was a vast public space populated by homeless people napping on heavy wooden benches alongside some hardy souls actually waiting for trains. The benches were banished in the 1970s and the space has been at loose ends ever since, used … Read more
Evidence is piling up: the global security framework that emerged from the ashes of World War II is no longer capable of pursuing international peace. The arrangement, conceived by the major powers that won the war, has expanded into a grab bag of rules and institutions that the crises of our own era have gradually … Read more
Diplomacy is hard work, and you can easily work up a fierce appetite at United Nations headquarters, whether you’re an actual diplomat or just there to watch. Here are five spots — in no particular order — where you can take a break and get a good meal within easy walking distance of the General … Read more
It’s an unforgivable cliché, of course, to say that good things come in small packages. But hey, in this case, it is true. @ The Spot is about as small as a place can get and still count as a restaurant. But it is a potential destination nonetheless. The modishly named spot focuses on what … Read more
Too much of Africa is a mess. While there are, of course, great success stories, many countries continue, despite the end of colonialism and the Cold War, to suffer wildly from poverty, illness, corruption, coups and wars — too many compared with the rest of the world. Even as an outsized slice of United Nations … Read more
It started out as fast and filling food for impoverished students. Now ramen is a huge commodity and restaurants are ladling it out all over New York City, often with haute cuisine pretensions and prices to match. So what’s the big deal about a bowl of broth with noodles? Well, how about if the guy … Read more
Entering Sons of Thunder, past pictures of surfboards and surfing, you might think this Murray Hill restaurant is dedicated to the thundering of waves. In a sense it is. The top dish here is poké, derived from a Hawaiian snack based on marinated raw tuna. The name, however, derives from the Bible: among the 12 … Read more
Foxy John’s calls itself an Irish bar, and it’s true that Guinness and Jameson flow there freely. But the place looks like a sports bar, feels like a neighborhood watering hole and dishes out food that is more Cajun, Mexican or Italian than Irish. So don’t bother stopping by for lunch or a midafternoon break … Read more
