There is a huge crisis of employment in America, in the Western world in general.

We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

Religions are vague, of course. This means that they are easy to follow -you can interpret their prescriptions as you like. but it also means that it is easy to slip up -there is always some injunction you are violating. But Islam has no religious establishment - no popes, no bishops - that can declare by fiat which is the correct interpretation. As a result, the decision to oppose the state on the grounds that is insufficiently Islamic belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

Street protests in Saudi Arabia might warm our hearts, but they could easily lead to $250 a barrel oil and a global recession.

It is absolutely clear that government plays a key role, as a catalyst, in promoting long-run growth.

If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years, it is surely that military intervention can seem simple but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.

It's not possible for two countries to be the leading dominant political power at the same time.