In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option.

There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.

One has to be willing to face the fact that what has transpired in Iraq is not exactly a very successful exercise.

Shared Sino-American global security goals would not mean that one partner dictates to the other. U.S.-PRC differences will persist, and on the Asian regional level they can even be a source of mutual irritation. Nor should it mean that we ignore the basic differences between our political systems and values.

America has exercised its power to insist on elections in Palestine, which Hamas did win. Once they won, we then engaged in a policy not only of ostracism, but by financial boycott, in effect of undermining it, and creating more tension and radicalism and poverty in Gaza, which was susceptible to exploitation by Hamas.

In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last.

Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.