Contents

WAR AND DEMOCRACY
A Warning from History
Don’t expect democracy in Iraq
John W. Dower

Waiting for War in Damascus
Syria has been opening up. A war will shut it down
Helena Cobban

Nationalism’s Mired Hopes
Partition, Cold War, and the conflict in Kashmir
Uday Singh Mehta

The Best Defense
The problem with Bush’s “preemptive” war doctrine
Neta C. Crawford

New Fiction Forum

Skirting the Issue    Patrick Erouart-Siad
French literature out of touch with social realities.
Maxwell’s Lives    James Campbell
The New Yorker editor who became his own best charge.

Poetry

Poet’s Sampler: Aaron Kunin  introduced by Peter Gizzi
Imaginary Places    Rae Armantrout
As One    Rae Armantrout
La Musica Nova    Susan Davis
Hall of Records   Emily Fragos
A Man, His Dog, and Some Fish: An Aubade    Brian Henry
Portrait   Bill Knott
Poem    Bill Knott
Prothalamion    Timothy Liu
Prothalamion    Timothy Liu

Fiction

Sweet    Diane Williams
She Began    Diane Williams

Reviews

Nonfiction
The Politics of Rescue   Carroll Bogert
Debating humanitarian intervention
Can Social Movements Save Democracy?   Archon Fung
Lessons from grass-roots organizing
Nonfiction Microreviews

Poetry
Celebrating Presence   Tod Marshall
The lyric poetry of Peter Sacks and Donald Revell
Laughter and Oblivion   Sarah Manguso
Dean Young’s Skid
Poetic I.D.’s   Thomas Fink
John Yau’s Borrowed Love Poems
The Uncertainty of Knowing   James Longenbach
Carl Phillips’s Rock Harbor
Poetry Microreviews

On Film