Striking First: Preemption and Prevention in International Conflict by Michael w. Doyle, Princeton University Press, 175 pages, $24.95

Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats by Matthew Yglesias, Wiley, 272 pages, $25.95

Not long after George W. Bush delivered his June 2002 speech severing relations with Yasir Arafat, a White House reporter wondered whether Natan Sharansky had become one of the president's speechwriters. By the time of President Bush's second inaugural, in January 2005, reporters no longer had to guess at Sharansky's influence. The previous November, the president had received the refusenik-turned-politician at the White House for a lengthy discussion. “If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book,” the president later told The Washington Times. Sharansky's argument that terrorism can be fought only by expanding global freedom, Bush said, is “part of my presidential DNA.”