Liberalism in the 20th century made two enduring contributions to American foreign policy. Early on, it contended that global stability and prosperity were better guaranteed by architectures of international cooperation than by great-power competition. Later, it brought the human-rights revolution to the center of geopolitics, declaring that state sovereignty provided no excuse for impunity. As the 21st century began, Samantha Power, a journalist barely in her 30s, exposed the hollowness at the core of those contributions. A Problem from Hell , Power's first book and her masterpiece, explored the United States' consistent lack of interest in preventing and stopping genocide, a problem that the foreign-policy establishment did not realize it had. Power, returning from a searing experience of reporting from the Balkans, discovered that respect for human rights was a liberal fiction that did not survive first contact with organized eliminationist slaughter. In a hybrid style that blended...

For any fan of the Iron Man comic books, Jon Favreau's new movie adaptation isn't just good, it's glorious. Robert Downey Jr. delivers an emotionally raw, ironic, and compelling portrait of brilliant billionaire defense mogul Tony Stark -- so compelling, in fact, that it's hard to believe the character has spent the last 45 years in a four-color world running around in a suit of armor battling villains named Thanos, Kang, and Zoga the Unthinkable. Even more amazing is Favreau's refusal to lift Iron Man out of the context of America's current endless wars. Within the first five minutes, an IED disables a Humvee carrying Stark through Afghanistan's Kunar Province, setting off a series of events whereby a jihadist gang with dreams of overrunning Asia kidnaps our hero and forces him to use his weaponry against the innocent. That's a reasonable update to Iron Man 's origin myth, and on the screen it works fantastically well. But what's missing in the movie is what has sustained the...