Roundup: Historians' Take

David W. Lesch: What Could Shake Syria's Regime

David W. Lesch is professor of Middle East history at Trinity University in San Antonio. Among his books are: "The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Assad and Modern Syria"; "The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History"; "The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics and Ideology"; and "1979: The Year That Shaped the Middle East". His website is: www.trinity.edu/departments/history/html/faculty/lesch.htm

Timothy Garton Ash: European Union ... Everywhere You Look, a Crisis

Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to Opinion, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University. textSize() Like an overladen container lorry laboring up a steep hill, the European Union is close to stalling.

Mark LeVine: Arab Revolutions Mask Economic Status Quo

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. He has authored several books including Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine (University of California Press, 2005) and An Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009).

William H. Chafe: Wrestling Partisanship is the American Way

William H. Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University, and the former president of the Organization of American Historians.THE partisan battles tearing us asunder in America today raise a fundamental question that has reverberated throughout our history — who are we as a people? Are we a community that places the good of the whole first, or a gathering of individuals who value first and foremost each person's ability to determine their own fate.

Joel Beinin: The Voice is Obama's; the Hands are Bush's

Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. His most recent books are "Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa" (Stanford University Press, 2011) co-edited with Frederic Vairel; and "The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt" (Solidarity Center, 2010).

Julian E. Zelizer: 5 Key Questions for GOP Candidates

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press.

Walter Russell Mead: The Conservative Revolutionary

Walter Russell Mead is the Henry Kissinger senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World.

Fouad Ajami: Syria ... Where Massacre Is a Family Tradition

Mr. Ajami is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is co-chair of the Hoover Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. Pity the Syrians as they face the Assad regime's tanks and artillery and snipers. Unlike in Libya, there is no Arab or international "mandate" to protect them. Grant Syria's rulers their due: Their country rides with the Iranian theocracy and provides it access to the Mediterranean. It is a patron of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Prejudice Fuels Our War on Excess Weight

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.Run, Chris, run!

Tom Engelhardt: How the National Security Complex Grows on Terrorism Fears

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books).

Walter Russell Mead: Fanniegate: Gamechanger For The GOP?

Walter Russell Mead is the Henry Kissinger senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He also writes a blog for the American Interest.Democrats, watch out.

Victor Davis Hanson: Europe Is Warning Us

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. © 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

John Steele Gordon: A Short History of Political Suicide

Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004).Woodrow Wilson's most famous piece of political advice was "Never murder a man who's committing suicide." Rep. Anthony Weiner's critics might keep that in mind. The Twitter disaster has undoubtedly ended his hopes of being New York City's next mayor and may well cost him his seat in Congress.

Michael Kazin: The ‘Indignants’: Can They Save the European Left?

Michael Kazin teaches history at Georgetown University. He is the author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, which will be published in August.

Andrew J. Bacevich: Afghanistan ... Obama’s Moment of Decision

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. Once the capital of a nation defined by inalienable rights; government of, by, and for the people; Fourteen Points; Four Freedoms; and “Mr.

Arthur Herman: When Iran Gets Nukes

Arthur Herman's Gandhi and Churchill was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009. Barack Obama surely wants to be remembered as the president who got Osama bin Laden and passed the nation's first universal-health-care plan.

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg: Sarah Palin's Vacation from History

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are professors of history at Louisiana State University and coauthors of Madison and Jefferson. On MSNBC's "Hardball" Tuesday night, Chris Matthews ended the show with an extended comment about Sarah Palin's crude concept of America. "I don't think she's at all interested in American history," he said, characterizing her as a professional troublemaker.

Victor Davis Hanson: Bush Did It! Bush Didn’t Do It!

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

Noah Feldman, David Landau and Brian Sheppard: Fixing Honduras

Noah Feldman, David Landau and Brian Sheppard are law professors at Harvard Law School, Florida State University College of Law and Seton Hall University School of Law, respectively.

Victor Davis Hanson: Bush Did It! Bush Didn’t Do It!

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome