[OPINION] A little more than 50 years ago, the United States signed a pact with Generalissimo Francisco Franco allowing U.S. military forces to use air and naval bases in Spain. The agreement was a momentous event for Spain, and its repercussions still matter. For Americans, however, the pact, though significant, was a minor moment in the Cold War. U.S. historians barely mention it. The 50th anniversary passed in September with hardly any notice in Washington. Yet, the event should not be overlooked, especially at a time when the president proclaims his commitment to whip up democracy throughout the Middle East. The pact is a bald and astonishing example of how easily the United States can abandon a commitment to freedom -- even one for which almost 300,000 American soldiers died during World War II. What counted more in 1953 -- and probably still does -- was stability and the U.S. perception of what is best for the United States in the short term...

[OPINION] If Saddam Hussein had few or no weapons of mass destruction, why did he act as if he possessed arsenals of them? Why did Iraqis harass U.N. inspectors, bar their entry into certain buildings and sneak trucks out the back gates of compounds if there was nothing to hide? Analysts have been quick to suggest reasons. A prevailing view is machismo -- Hussein was trying to conceal his weakness, not his strength. Some experts, such as former weapons inspector David Kay, have said that scientists, seeking to enrich themselves with funds for phony projects, hoodwinked Hussein, not the inspectors. But one factor, just as important as the others, has been overlooked. U.N. inspections were undercut from the start by U.S. policy.

THE U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have ignited so much confusion, controversy and cant that myriad books are sure to descend upon us for many years, all promising to shed light on the morass. Here are three of the first, all very different. The most surprising is “Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War” by William Shawcross, a British journalist who established himself in 1979 with the publication of “Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia,” an attack on U.S. intervention in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The intervention in Iraq does not bother him at all. In fact, he hails President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and their allies as “courageous in their determination finally to confront a regime that was an intolerable burden to its own people and an unacceptable affront to the world.” If you view the invasion as a misguided adventure, as I do, yet admire Shawcross enormously, as I do, the book may make you feel like the little boy in front of Shoeless Joe Jackson...

During the Renaissance, the city of Florence was infatuated with the biblical story of David and Goliath. Florentines liked to think of themselves as youthful and strong and ready to defend their home against the power of larger Italian city-states. Rich and prominent citizens decorated their palaces and public buildings with wonderful statues of David. The most famous, of course, is Michelangelo’s colossal marble sculpture. But there were other great ones as well. One of the finest -- older, smaller and crafted in bronze -- was made by Andrea del Verrocchio in the late 1460s for the powerful Medici family. Americans have a rare chance to see this work in a restored state and an altered pose. In exchange for financial help in restoring the statue, the National Museum of the Bargello in Florence has sent it on display...

During the last years of the 20th century, scholars managed to break the code of the hieroglyphics of the ancient civilization of the Maya people. Perhaps 85% of the writing on Maya artwork and monuments can now be deciphered. The new knowledge has led to new understanding. A Maya exhibition, which just opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, is one of the first gifts of the new scholarship. “Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya” places some of the finest pieces of Maya art into a coherent and focused story about the life of the kings and courts that ruled the splendid city-states in what is now Mexico and Central America during the height of Maya civilization from the years AD 600 to 800. Maya art has long been admired for its beauty and scenes of realistic action. “There is a poignancy about Maya art that reaches into your heart and soul,” says Kathleen Berrin of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a curator of the exhibition. “There is an elegance and beauty that appeals to Western taste.” The exhibition, which displays more than 130 pieces, includes some of the finest samples of this appeal...

A case can be made that the American and British invasion of Iraq a little more than a year ago enhanced the moral force and international standing of the United Nations. The Security Council, after all, had refused to be bullied. Most of its members, even the weak ones, had stood up to the United States and made it clear they would not pass a resolution authorizing the invasion. The American failure to obtain UN authorization galvanized demonstrations throughout Europe and elsewhere against the invasion. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the United States had no right to topple a tyrant, no matter how evil and dangerous, if the UN did not agree. The UN was clearly the world’s only anointed keeper of peace and war...

So much wonderful critique of the Bushites, the foolish war, the botched occupation and the torture scandal has come forth recently (especially the articles by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, the daily news coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the extraordinary book of James Mann on Bush’s Vulcans) that there is no need to add comment. But I would like to summarize a little...

An exhibition of ancient Maya art points up the opulence and violence of the great Mesoamerican civilization. While most of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, the Maya of Mexico and Central America flourished. Living off a bounty of corn, they devised an elaborate calendar, charted stars and planets and invented the most complex written language in the Americas. And at the peak of their civilization, from a.d. 600 to 850, the Maya built monumental cities and produced art—stone sculptures, painted ceramics, delicate figurines and jade jewelry and masks—of astonishing beauty and striking, revelatory detail. Recently, scholars studying these pre-Columbian artworks have gained new insights into the life of the ancient Maya kings and their retinues. Now, an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. of more than 130 Maya masterworks, many of them never before displayed in the United States, affirms the pomp and sophistication of Maya courtly life, from its royals’ fondness for mirror-gazing to its chilling brutality...

In an era when American newspapers and television bristle with images of Islamic terrorism, another side of Islam is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington -- a show devoted to the calm and mesmerizing beauty of Islamic art. The exhibition, “Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria & Albert Museum,” was not put together for political reasons. It has a more mundane genesis. The Victoria & Albert in London has closed its Islamic rooms for reconstruction. While the revamping goes on, the museum has agreed to send a small but exquisite portion of its 10,000 Middle Eastern objects on a worldwide tour. The first stop is Washington, where the exhibition opened July 18 and will close Feb. 6. The 150 pieces in the Washington show include some of the Victoria & Albert’s finest holdings...

More than 30 years ago, during the dark days of the despicable Idi Amin, I would yearn for some way for the world to rid itself of tyrants. As a foreign correspondent covering Africa for the Los Angeles Times, the injustice of it all would torment me. Why should innocent people be forced to endure the terror and poverty inflicted upon them by the cruel whims of Idi Amin? Why should they be condemned because of their accidental birth in an unwieldy country put together by European colonial pooh-bahs in the 19th century? Could not some international entity like the United Nations be empowered to pluck him away?

A major exhibition showcases the streamlined, glamorous look that dominated architecture and the decorative arts during the 1920s and ’30s.

In 1952, the first time I ever voted, I cast my ballot for Adlai Stevenson. Since then my presidential choice, always a Democrat, has lost more often than not. But no loss has been as dispiriting and bitter as this one. It is hard to take. The Iraq adventure is a catastrophic failure, launched on arrogance and faith, managed with ham hands and closed minds. The cost has been awful. Yet the know-nothings who launched and managed it have received a resounding endorsement. Bush and his ideologues will face no accounting for failure and stupidity...

For almost a half-century, the American sculptor Alexander Calder and the Spanish painter Joan Miro looked on each other as good friends. When apart, as they often were, they sometimes exchanged a letter or postcard of greeting. “A good smack on the butt for you,” wrote Calder in French in 1934. “A hug, kisses, and see you soon, you big stud,” wrote Miro in Spanish in 1945. They liked to embellish the postcards. Miro, for example, added underarm hair to the portrait of a Spanish dancer. But one thing they never did. Their correspondence has no discussion of theories or techniques or movements of art. This lack of serious art talk makes sense. There are strong similarities in the work of Calder and Miro. Both artists have an impish quality, a sense of play, a love of adventure and a penchant for creating colorful spheres and biomorphs. But they did not try to imitate each other. Nor did they try to compete. They were simply at ease, like good buddies, and their art somehow fit together. There was no need for pronouncements. This interplay of Calder and Miro is displayed in an unusual exhibition -- brimming with some of their finest mobiles and paintings -- that opened Oct. 9 at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

The oldest museums in America have their storerooms full of paintings that were the rage in art more than a century ago but are now out of fashion. This gloomy repose is often the fate of the 19th century Barbizon painters of France. Their paintings were once prized by collectors all over the world, but the Barbizon painters had the misfortune to work just before the Impressionists came on the scene. These younger painters eclipsed them long ago. A Barbizon show is thus a rare and pleasant chance to look closely at a group of wonderful landscape painters whose work paved the way for the now more famous Impressionist artists. Curator Simon Kelly of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has dipped into his stores and those of the Baltimore Museum of Art to help put on that kind of show. Of the 48 works in the show owned by the Walters, 34 have not been exhibited for decades. Called “The Road to Impressionism: Landscapes from Corot to Monet,” the exhibition runs until Jan. 17 at the Walters. There are no plans for the exhibition to travel. Kelly has assembled 70 works from the most distinguished painters who lived or worked in Barbizon, a village on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau 35 miles south of Paris...