Global politics remains extremely complex and countries have different interests, which will also lead them to make what might seem as rather bizarre friends and allies.

Many more people in the world are concerned about sports than human rights.

I think we can expect leaders of Muslim societies to cooperate with each other on many issues just as Western societies cooperate with each other.

U.S. foreign policy is in every area impacted by ethnic groups of one sort or another as well as economic groups and regional groups.

Some Westerners […] have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.

The U.S. has and still is cooperating with various military dictatorships around the world. Obviously we would prefer to see them democratized, but we are doing it because we have national interests, whether it's working with Pakistan on Afghanistan or whatever.

Quite obviously power will continue to play a central role in global politics as it always does. But usually there is something else.