It has been many years since a party convention in the United States has been decided by superdelegates rather than delegates from state primaries and caucuses. It could happen this time again, says our guest writer Brian Livingston, editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com. Plus: He expects "the worst kind of racist smear literature coming from far-right extremists" should Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination. Here's what else he had to say shortly after the Washington State primaries:

My wife and I attended our precinct caucuses on February 9, and about 100 people were there to vote, as opposed to about 25 in the same precinct four years earlier, when Kerry, Dean, and Edwards were candidates. The vote in our precinct this month was more than 2-to-1 for Obama over Clinton (we supported Obama).

Hillary won in zero out of 39 counties in Washington State. The interesting part for people around the world, of course, is not how Washington State liberals voted, but how the nomination process will go in the rest of the U.S.

As much as many Americans are looking forward for policy change, Europe is hoping for a multinational foreign policy under a new administration in the United States. In an article addressed to our "Dear Americans", former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt asks (in German; following translation and editing by Sonja Bonin) what Europe can expect from the next US president:

How do you intend to end the war in Iraq and what should Iraq look like afterwards?

What is your goal in Afghanistan? Eliminating just Al-Qaeda or the Taliban as well? Establishing democracy?

Should Al-Qaeda evade to Pakistan for good, perhaps even gaining access to nuclear weapons, would you military intervene?

What is your strategy for a peaceful solution of the decades-old conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors? Will you support the establishment of a Palestinian state?

What is the future US policy regarding Iran?

After all, the current Administration’s denigration of “old Europe” was not just a rhetorical aside, but a centerpiece of its reckless approach to foreign affairs.  That is why any serious break with the disastrous Bush legacy should start with rethinking and rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance.  That a renewed Atlanticism would be a priority for either Obama or Huckabee is extremely doubtful, however.
Candidates have no incentive to focus attention on a subject, such as the strained Atlantic Alliance, that seldom if ever enters the consciousness of the average voter.  Obama’s failure to convene a single policy meeting of the Senate European sub-committee which he chairs (a committee that oversees, among other things, US relations with NATO and the EU) has had absolutely zero resonance among the electorate at large.  When the topic arises, the Republican candidates, for their part, seem less blandly indifferent than overtly hostile to Europe.  Their anti-European animus, while crudely uninformed, reflects, among other factors, the scorn for secularism typical of Southern white evangelicals and the perverse notion promulgated by some distinguished Republican defense intellectuals that Europe today can contribute little or nothing to American security. (...) Other candidates, notably Hillary Clinton, would be more likely to conduct an intensely Atlanticist foreign policy, placing emphasis on rebuilding America’s alliance with those extraordinarily prosperous countries best positioned to help the US face the daunting challenges to global stability that lie ahead.

Looking for a Christmas present? Here’s a hint: Atlantic Review editor Sonja Bonin has translated Howard Zinn's bestseller "A People's History of the United States" into German. Her translation was presented at the Frankfurt book fair this fall and selected second-best non-fiction book on the highly esteemed recommendation list (“Bestenliste”) by NDR, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Buchjournal and Börsenblatt in October.

Howard Zinn’s classic, which was first published in English in 1980 and has reached more than one million readers so far, has become an all-time favorite of both students and the intellectual left in the US. The octogenerian author, a historian, WWII-veteran and civil rights activist, has become quite famous in the US, but (unlike his friend and occasional co-author Noam Chomsky) is not well-known outside America yet. Zinn’s German publisher, Schwarzer Freitag in Berlin, is run by German Fulbright Alumnus Andreas Freitag.

You can order the book directly via the publishers or support the Atlantic Review by ordering it on Amazon.de. Schwarzer Freitag has also published the DVD “You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train”, a documentary about Howard Zinn with German subtitles. For more information on Howard Zinn, visit Wikipedia (German, English) or the following websites: www.howardzinn.org; www.howardzinn.de.

If the complete edition puts too much of a burden on your financial or time budget (700 pages, € 28.80), consider buying one or more out of nine slim volumes that comprise two to three chapters each (circa 100-150 pages, € 7,80).

People who vote(d) for the Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP) probably consider it "civic" or simply conservative. But the international press (from the UK to South Africa to Israel to the U.S.) calls it what it is: "nationalist", "right-wing", "rightist", "far-right" or "anti-immigrant".

"The stabbing of a rabbi in Frankfurt by a young man speaking Arabic has prompted Germany's Jewish community to renew its warnings about no-go areas for minorities in Germany, and to warn that Germany's young Muslims are becoming radicalized by hate preachers," according to Spiegel International

Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch, 42, was walking home from his synagogue in Frankfurt's Westend district with two guests on Friday evening when he was approached by a young man described by witnesses as being of "southern" in appearance. [.] The man, flanked by two women, spoke to Gurevitch in what sounded like Arabic and then switched to German and said: "You shit Jew, I'm going to kill you." He stabbed him in the stomach and ran off. Gurevitch was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery. He is now recovering.
The head of Germany's Jewish community condemned the stabbing of a rabbi in Frankfurt on Friday night and said it made her wonder whether "no-go areas" for immigrants were emerging in western Germany as well as the east, which has seen many racist assaults since unification in 1990. [.] Talk of no-go areas resurfaced after last month's attack on eight Indian men in the eastern town of Mügeln by a group of Germans shouting "Foreigners Out." The economically depressed east has seen a high incidence of attacks on foreigners ever since unification in 1990. German politicians expressed outrage at the attack, which was reported in the national media.

1. Update for the Atlantic Review post Study Abroad Programs Questioned:
According to Indystar and the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York attorney general has issued five subpoenas in this matter, with more to come. Among the companies under investigation are the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University; the American Institute for Foreign Study; the Institute for the International Education of Students; the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University; and the Danish Institute for Study Abroad, affiliated with the University of Copenhagen.

2. Update for More Iraqi Fulbrighters Seek Asylum:
Australia has recently granted asylum to three former Iraqi diplomats, but its foreign minster has since stated that this did not create any precedent, reports the IHT.