As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.

The ultimate goal is to change Syria's behaviour on a variety of issues - on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms.

There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua.

The intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.

For the entire first term, Obama and his people blamed Bush for everything - which is another way of saying they felt Bush and the Bush years were the inescapable reference point for everything they were themselves doing.

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Irans theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.

Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.