Opinion - Georgie Anne Geyer

WASHINGTON -- Behind the cheers and jeers of the political conventions these next two rousing weeks -- with their focus on the all-important domestic questions during a troubled American era -- the single real foreign policy question waits ominously in the wings. It is like a policeman ready to arrest the actors once the first act of the Shakespearean "play" is over.

WASHINGTON -- The next two weeks could be among the most exciting in our nation's history. Think of it: Despite all our flaws, we will once again engage in this amazing, and still almost unique, process where the balance of political power of the nation will be publicly displayed and absorbed -- and end up dependent upon the will and approval of the people.

WASHINGTON -- I have seldom swooned since I was 17, many years ago, but I could almost swoon -- with gratitude -- in thanks to pastor Rick Warren for what he did for common sense and, his favorite word, "civility," in the candidates' visit to his California church Saturday night.

WASHINGTON -- Watching the Russian invasion of independent Georgia in the Caucasus this week -- and trying to figure out what an intelligent and winning American response should be -- one would do well to look back at Father Bush's response in 1989 to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

WASHINGTON -- In the summer of 1998, I was reporting from Georgia, the Caucasus state now dominating the news as Russian troops pour over and into it. The president, Eduard Shevardnadze, was reminiscing about the most recent Russian assassination attempt against him.

WASHINGTON -- When Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote his first book on the horrors of the Soviet camps in 1962, the excitement that burst forth in Russia and the West came pouring out like a torrent of hope. Virtually every Western analyst not only praised "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" but also saw its big, bear-like, bearded author as the forerunner of profound change in his tortured land.

WASHINGTON -- For at least the span of my lifetime, the exact dates of which shall remain unmarked in my columns, many Americans have struggled in vain, waiting for the time when race in this country would become, at least for the most part, an irrelevant factor in our political life. Progress came, but it plodded along.

WASHINGTON -- As we face the opening of the Beijing Olympics next week and speculate about what this intensely historic event could mean to mankind, two questions come to mind.