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.

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

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

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned, it seems, to direct the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.

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.

When you work in the White House you talk to the White House staff all day, so you're talking to the guy who handles the congressional liaison and the guy who's handling domestic politics and the guy who's handling the American economy and so forth.

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?