When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.

It is true that I have known Straussians almost all my life. And the one thing I was taught about them from the earliest age is that they are wrong.

Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find - and there will be plenty.

Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus: they agree on little and understand each other less and less.

Based on all criteria - military power, economic influence, cultural dominance - America remains number one, even though other, new players are increasingly challenging it in that role.

The thing that I would say is that U.S. power is not eternal. I am not saying that it won't come to an end. Because it will.

I believe it is still true that conflicts among major powers usually stem from geopolitical rivalries but rarely from economic competition.