The Obama administration has vastly expanded the use of armed drones and concentrated a great deal of diplomatic effort on building and maintaining alliances that share information about terrorists, provide access to get near them, and then strike against them.

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.

Today's status symbol is the Palm Pilot; tomorrow's is not having one, because you have a whole staff keeping track of you. It's like a winter coat in Washington: The ultimate status symbol isn't cashmere, it's no coat at all on the snowiest day of the year - because that means you have a car and driver waiting for you, so why do you need a coat?

I want to be the first guy to reverse a communist revolution.

Israel's flexibility is dependent on its sense of security.

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

The anchors of the Arab consensus have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and both are now weakened forces in Arab politics and diplomacy.