Earlier this month, the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson lost a defamation suit against Le Monde, which had published an article calling him a “professional liar” and a “falsifier of history.” Paul Berman traces Faurisson’s intellectual development—which began when he was exposed to the ideas of the “sad-sack left-wing pacifist” Paul Rassinier—and the bizarre quarters that have been receptive to his work:

Considering the current state of the region and the policy mistakes of the recent past, David Pollock and Robert Satloff outline a strategy that is “both virtuous and realistic” for defending human rights and encouraging democratization in a region plagued by autocracy, chaos, and brutality. They argue that “in the long run, more democratic, tolerant, and inclusive governments are likely to be better at defending themselves, and more reliable and effective security partners for the United States.”