Denying Iran nuclear-weapons capability is not only a means of limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is also part of a broader ideological struggle that Tehran is taking much more seriously than is the United States.
Global financial markets currently obsess about the fate of a small Balkan country’s sovereign debt and its impact on the Eurozone. However, if the burden of Greek debt were to disappear overnight, the miracle would just reveal the underlying weakness of the Greek economy and its dependency on Europe for the foreseeable future.
Listening to the President's State of the Union address last week, you might have come away convinced that, at least in the field of foreign policy, everything is coming up roses. Yet a look at the real world provides a jarring contrast to the complacency and unrealism of that speech - and of the Obama administration's policies writ large.
To hear President Obama tell it, the West is winning in Ukraine. In his State of the Union Address last week, the President sounded downright triumphant in his description of the current situation in Eastern Europe. "We're upholding the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small - by opposing Russian aggression, supporting Ukraine's democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies," he insisted publicly.
You have to feel a bit sorry for the Obama administration. The White House in December announced plans to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, including establishing a U.S. Embassy in Havana and formally revisiting Cuba's status as a state sponsor of terrorism. The move was a clear effort by Washington to distinguish itself in a new international theater.