The way for the Palestinians to get a state is to go ahead and build it.

Persecution of Christians is growing around the world, and Congress needs to pay more attention to it.

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

While all Alawites fear vengeance against their entire community should Assad fall, there are varying degrees of loyalty to the Assads.

While Argentina, Brazil, and Chile - what in textbooks used to be called the ABC countries - seem settled into democratic politics and free market economics, the Andean countries are in disarray.

It’s unlikely to change – there’s nothing in King Salman’s past as governor of Riyadh for about forty years that suggests that he was particularly a reformer, not on the role of women, not on democratic development. There’s been a rumor in the last couple of days that he said to someone in an e-mail that he’s in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but I would be surprised if the level of repression started to go down … I think the kind of thing that we would view as significant reforms is unlikely.

There is no way around the contradictions and dangers inherent in Israel's decision to free over 1,000 prisoners in order to liberate Gilad Shalit.