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You could be forgiven for dismissing the latest diplomatic spat between the United States and Pakistan as just another hiccup in a long-estranged marriage. Trading accusations and navigating diplomatic crises has become a weekly affair for this deeply troubled alliance. But the broadside launched against Pakistan by the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in congressional testimony on September 22 represents a rupture so dramatic that its significance is difficult to overstate.

Does the Islamic Republic of Iran pose a cyber threat to the United States? On the surface, the idea seems far-fetched. Squeezed by sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, suffering from widespread social malaise and weathering unprecedented divisions among its leadership, Iran hardly seems an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland - even if it does pose a vexing challenge to American interests in the greater Middle East.

Yet mounting indicators suggest that Iran's leadership is actively contemplating cyberwarfare against America and its allies.

Ten years after the attacks of Sept. 11 and the start of the war on terror, it is fair to ask: Where do we stand in this struggle? Listening to the rhetoric of the White House, it would be easy to get the impression that Washington is just days away from declaring “Mission accomplished.” With the death in May of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. commandos, the United States “is within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda,” newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters in July. “I think we have them on the run.” More recently, John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism czar, said much the same, telling the Associated Press that the group that carried out the most devastating attacks on the U.S. homeland in American history is “on the ropes.”

Such triumphalism, however, is both premature and unfounded. After all, the contemporary terrorist threat confronting the United States and its allies is considerably larger than just al Qaeda. America today faces a trio of distinct - and daunting - strategic challenges.

As the United States and other NATO countries begin to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, Afghan and US policymakers alike fear a return to the carnage that characterized the five year civil war (1996-2001) between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. In that conflict, battles over large population centres and campaigns of ethnic cleansing killed thousands. To prevent a repeat of that disaster, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration are now seeking to negotiate a truce with the Taliban. But just how likely is such a peace deal to materialize – or to hold, if it does?

With soaring inflation, chronic unemployment and rampant poverty, Iran is nobody’s picture of economic health. So when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued its latest working paper on Iran last month, the rosy assessment contained therein raised more than a few eyebrows.

That study, “Iran - The Chronicles of the Subsidy Reform,” heaped praise on the regime in Tehran for launching a raft of much-needed rollbacks of costly subsidies on everything from energy to foodstuffs. This effort, the report says approvingly, “has created a unique opportunity for Iran to reform its economy and accelerate economic growth and development.”

That rosy view has gained quite a bit of resonance of late. In June, no less prominent a publication than the Economist - using the IMF’s preliminary conclusions as a point of departure - lauded the “exemplary” steps Iran has taken in commencing structural reforms to its economic sector. All of this, of course, must be music to the ears of Iran’s ayatollahs, who in recent months have redoubled their efforts to convince the world that the country is thriving despite the West’s best efforts to ratchet up the costs associated with its nuclear program.

But there’s good reason to think the opposite.

On August 18th, after months of dithering, President Obama finally took a firm stand on the unrest roiling Syria when he announced that “the time has come for President Asad to step aside.” By doing so, the United States has belatedly brought itself in line with the growing number of nations that have abandoned the Syrian dictator as a result of the brutal five-month-old crackdown he has waged against his own people.

But, now that America is well and truly engaged, is there anything that we can actually do to speed Assad’s ouster? In point of fact, there is. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the United States has at least two means at its disposal to pressure the Syrian government—if only it possesses the political will to use them.

Make no mistake: U.N. Security Council sanctions and additional U.S. and European pressures are hurting Iran. Tehran is having a harder time importing food and other key goods, its foreign investment is drying up, financial firms and shipping companies are turning down its business, and its central bank is running short of hard currency.

What sanctions are not doing, however, is achieving their goal - to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Not only is Iran making more progress in its nuclear program, it's acting more boldly in its region, threatening U.S. interests while distributing weapons that are killing U.S. troops. Because neither current nor additional sanctions alone will deter Tehran, and because a nuclear Iran would be a disaster for the United States and the world, Washington must seriously consider a military option.

Are sanctions capable of derailing Tehran's nuclear drive? Some skeptics reject such measures altogether, preferring to deal with Tehran by either accommodation or containment. Others point to the spotty historical record of sanctions in altering state behavior in arguing that they will similarly fall short of forcing the ayatollahs to rethink their long-standing nuclear ambitions. For example, sanctions were found to be successful in only a third of the 105 instances in which they were applied between World War I and the end of the Cold War.

As the past year has shown, however, Tehran may well turn out to be the exception to the rule—but only if the Obama administration (and Western governments more generally) make swift and skillful use of the economic and strategic means at their disposal.

Are Washington and Tehran headed for a showdown?

For much of the past decade, conventional wisdom has held that Iran’s dogged pursuit of a nuclear capability – carried out in spite of mounting pressure from the international community – will ultimately become a casus belli for Washington. Early on in his tenure, President George W. Bush even went so far as to declare that the U.S. “will not tolerate” Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons, and to indicate that he was prepared to use force to prevent it. Despite its more dulcet diplomatic tones toward Iran, the administration of Barack Obama has grudgingly repeated much the same thing since taking office: that all options, including the use of force, remain on the table for dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Still, some eight years into the international standoff over Iran’s atomic program, it has become clear that a military option for dealing with an Iranian bomb, if not out of the question entirely, is an exceedingly remote possibility.

That does not mean, however, that Tehran and Washington won’t soon find themselves embroiled in a war. Indeed, Iran’s escalating activity on the territory of its western neighbor, Iraq, could end up becoming the real catalyst for a U.S.-Iranian conflict.

Increasingly, the idea of being a modern Russian means to be detached from Russia itself. The problem has long, Soviet roots, and the ruling tandem acknowledges there is a problem. But are they capable of reversing the trend, wonders Wayne Merry ...

“Modernisation” is the mantra of the current Russian leadership. Both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, albeit in somewhat different language, stress that modernisation is critical to Russia’s future both as a post-hydrocarbon economy and as a competitive state player on the global scene. They describe modernisation as essential to make Russia receptive for investment and entrepreneurship. In recent months, this goal has taken on tones of more than policy priority, but of actual urgency.

"There is no question that talented young Russians are compatible with modernisation, but there is a basic issue whether modernisation is compatible – or even tolerable – within today’s Russia"

For this discussion, “modernisation” may be understood to mean the ability and willingness to adapt to (or even embrace) contemporary ways of doing things in a global context, with the object of adding value to any particular field of human endeavor. It need not be limited to technical or business innovation, although that is the focus of Russian policy.

Welcome to “The Hangover,” Cairo edition. The widespread grass-roots protests that broke out in Egypt this spring succeeded in accomplishing what many skeptics doubted they could: ousting long-serving strongman Hosni Mubarak and ending his 30-year authoritarian rule. But now, some four months on, Egypt’s revolution is obviously on the skids.

The problems start with Egypt’s economy. Under Mr. Mubarak, Egypt’s economic fortunes were comparatively rosy, with the national gross domestic product growing an average of nearly 6 percent annually over the past three years. Today, by contrast, they are anything but rosy. Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster in February, the Egyptian stock exchange has lost nearly a quarter of its value, prompting its chairman, Mohamed Abdel Salam, to embark upon a frantic tour of Gulf monarchies in an effort to drum up Arab investment. Tourism, the lifeblood of the Egyptian economy, likewise has plummeted, falling an estimated 60 percent over 2010 levels and costing the country more than a half-billion dollars in revenue to date in the process. Nor is a reprieve in sight. According to observers, it could take a decade for Egypt’s tourism industry to rebound fully - if, indeed, it rebounds at all. The prognosis is grim: As a recent analysis in the Asia Times put it, “Egypt’s economy is in free-fall.”

With the drama of the Arab Spring and the death of Osama bin Laden dominating the headlines, you might have missed the most important development in months surrounding Iran's nuclear program: Zimbabwe's emergence as a key enabler of the Islamic Republic's march toward the atomic bomb.

In recent days, officials in Harare have confirmed that the government of Robert Mugabe is finalizing a massive resources deal with Tehran, in defiance of United Nations sanctions aimed at derailing Iran's nuclear push. That agreement, in the works since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the African state in April 2010, would provide the Iranian regime with preferential access to the country's estimated 455,000 tons of raw uranium over the next five years.

The deal sheds light on what amounts to a major chink in the Islamic Republic's nuclear armor. For all of its atomic bluster, the Iranian regime lacks enough of the critical raw material necessary to independently acquire a nuclear capability. According to nonproliferation experts, Iran's known uranium ore reserves are limited and generally of poor quality. It desperately needs steady supplies of uranium ore from abroad, and without those supplies the Islamic Republic's nuclear plans would, quite simply, grind to a halt.

Is a new Cold War brewing in the Middle East? That’s the conventional wisdom surrounding the so-called “Arab Spring,” which has further corroded the already poor relations between the region’s Saudi-led bloc on the one hand, and Iran and its allies on the other. Yet the two competing sides have found common ground on at least one strategic issue: Syria. Each desperately wants the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to survive.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the recent death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of American commandos is the reaction it has elicited throughout the Middle East. That is because, while most regional governments have welcomed news of the al Qaeda chief’s demise, not everyone is embracing the post-bin Laden era.

The Taliban, for example, have been quick to lionize the terror mastermind and threaten retribution against the coalition and its allies. “Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets,” a spokesman for the movement’s Pakistani branch has warned. “America will be our second target.”

Among the lessons from the successful raid on Osama bin Laden's refuge is the value of cooperative relations with Russia.

Consider that until recently, Pakistan enjoyed a chokehold on supplies for American and other allied forces in Afghanistan. A trickle of the vast logistical requirements of the war came in from the north, by air through Kyrgyzstan. The Pakistani leadership exploited its near-monopoly to extract massive aid from Washington and to limit American operations across the porous frontier region joining Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What's next for the U.S.-Russian reset? Having already succeeded in ramming the ambitious New START arms control treaty through a reluctant Senate late last year, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is now eyeing the next step in its reboot of relations with Moscow: integrating Russia into the world economy.

The United States and Pakistan have sustained a decades-old partnership on the strength of a Cold War alliance and a set of narrow but shared vital interests. However, the relationship has undergone profound changes as a result of the Afghan War, which on one hand has forced the two countries into an awkward but necessary embrace, and on the other exposed deep and potentially irreconcilable differences.

President Obama's announcement last night that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. special operations forces outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad is welcome news indeed. The death of the man responsible for the worst attack on the U.S. in history represents a major counterterrorism victory, and long overdue justice for the victims of 9/11. But it's hardly the "end of the War on Terror," as some observers have been quick to suggest.

The effects of this game of brinksmanship being played by China, and to a lesser degree India, have so far been constrained by prudent and cautious political leaders in both capitals. However, the longer the aura of confrontation perpetuates, the more it generates a momentum of its own. Hawkish comments by officials and newspaper editors are easily dismissed; shifts in military doctrines and public opinion are much harder to reverse.

Call it belated full disclosure. Ever since the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, the Muslim Brotherhood has reemerged as a major force in Egyptian politics. For most of that time, however, it has played coy about its political aspirations and ideological agenda. These days, though, the Islamist movement has become a great deal more frank about its plans for Egypt.

"At this period, we would like to lead the society to achieve its Islamic identity in preparation for the Islamic rule," Saad Husseini, a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, proclaimed at a recent rally in Cairo. These ideas have been echoed by other Brotherhood officials, who have outlined sweeping social changes once “Islam enters the lives, ethics, and dealings of the people.”

It should come as little surprise, but U.S. headlines are again dominated by dour news out of Pakistan. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship is today under severe strain, rattled by heated disputes over CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas; clandestine U.S. intelligence operations inside Pakistan; and Islamabad's persistent refusal to crack down on the Taliban and their radical allies. Intelligence cooperation is at an all-time low.

These are trying times in Morocco. Over the past three months, the small North African kingdom has seen regime change roil two of its neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt, and a third—Libya—descend into civil war. The Moroccan street itself has seen its fair share of ferment; large-scale rallies calling for new social reforms and sweeping governmental changes have taken place throughout the country in recent weeks. In response, the country’s monarch, Mohammed VI, outlined a series of far-reaching constitutional reforms in early March, even going so far as to propose a diminution of royal power in favor of the country’s government and parliament. But, at least for now, the protesters do not appear to be entirely mollified.

Is President Obama finally learning to love the idea of freedom in Iran? If the Administration’s Persian New Year message is any indication, it is certainly starting to seem that way.

That video greeting, issued on March 20th to mark Nowruz, took a serious stand in support of Iran’s opposition forces—and against its repressive regime. The Iranian government’s heavy-handed response to the grassroots protests that have taken place throughout the country since the fraudulent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the summer of 2009, Mr. Obama declared, demonstrate

that it cares far more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people.

With regimes collapsing throughout the Middle East, many Washington experts wonder if two U.S.-aligned monarchies, Bahrain and Jordan, might be the next possible candidates for the type of regime change seen of late in Tunisia and Egypt. In recent weeks, thousands have demonstrated in Bahrain in favor of overthrowing the monarchy after security forces killed several protesters calling for constitutional reforms and investigations into government corruption and human rights abuses. In Jordan, meanwhile, demonstrations against rising food prices and rampant unemployment quickly transformed into pro-democracy rallies, rocking the Hashemite Kingdom to its core.

The stakes for the U.S. are enormous. The overthrow of either regime would threaten American interests and further destabilize the already-volatile region. Bahrain's strategic position in the Persian Gulf, through which approximately a fifth of the world's oil exports pass, as well as its role as host to the U.S. Fifth Fleet (which helps protect that oil), makes its continued alliance with the U.S. crucial to American energy security. As for Jordan, its long border with Iraq, which will likely host American troops for many more years, and its peace treaty with Israel, makes the country an important strategic partner for America.

In the wake of grass-roots protests that swept Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak from power, more than a few commentators have cautioned that the current political turmoil could end up bearing more than a passing resemblance to the events that led up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Even that bleak outcome, however, might end up being wishful thinking. Ominously, the present situation in Egypt closely resembles the events leading up to Algeria‘s bloody 11-year civil war, which stretched from 1991 to 2002.

It took a day longer than expected, but the Egyptian opposition has gotten its way. Less than twenty-four hours after issuing a defiant address to the nation in which he pledged to serve out the remainder of his term, Hosni Mubarak has formally resigned the Egyptian presidency.

Mubarak's departure was by and large predictable. Beset by widening domestic disapproval and bereft of his traditional support from the West, it was clear that Egypt's long-serving strongman would eventually be forced to make an exit. What comes next, however, is far less clear. Indeed, since the start of the unrest some three weeks ago, the depths of the political and economic challenges confronting those seeking a new future for Egypt have become apparent.

What does Iran think about the Middle East’s democracy wave? On the surface, officials in Tehran have taken an optimistic view of the anti-regime sentiment now sweeping the region, depicting it as an outgrowth of Ayatollah Khomeini’s successful revolution 32 years ago—and the start of an ‘Islamic awakening’ in which the Islamic Republic will inevitably play a leading role.

Privately, however, Iran’s ayatollahs must be quaking in their boots. Why? Because the current anti-regime sentiment being expressed in Tunis, Cairo, and beyond could end up breathing new life into their country’s own beleaguered pro-democracy movement.

Prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have not been rising. The central issues of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements and Palestinian refugees seem no closer to resolution, and turmoil in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere in the region further complicates efforts to reach long-term solutions to vexing challenges.

Now, Hezbollah's de facto takeover of Lebanon's government puts a final nail in the coffin of Israeli-Palestinian peace, giving the terrorist group and its backers in Tehran and Damascus still more leverage to doom any serious peace initiative.

As the wave of grass-roots unrest sweeping across the Middle East envelops Egypt, all eyes are on the next move of embattled President Hosni Mubarak and his increasingly rickety regime. The telltale signs, however, are already becoming apparent; even as he has offered political concessions to his opposition, Egypt's aging autocrat is steering his country toward military control.

Since it began late last month, the turmoil taking place in Egypt has spawned no shortage of expert commentary here in the United States. Some observers have argued that, despite the current ferment in Cairo, strongman Hosni Mubarak will stubbornly cling to power and ride out the storm. Others, however, have come to question the utility of America's historic backing for the Mubarak regime—and counseled unequivocal support for its overthrow. Still others have taken the long view, seeing the Egyptian tumult as a belated vindication of the "Bush doctrine" of democracy promotion.

Precious few, however, have bothered to ask exactly what it is that ordinary Egyptians are after. They should, because—beyond the general dissatisfaction with the Mubarak regime now visible on the Egyptian "street"—the values and beliefs of the protestors are likely to have a profound influence on the nature of the political order that will eventually emerge there.

On that score, it turns out, there's ample reason for pessimism.

When the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was engulfed by the “Arab Spring” last March, many waxed optimistic that regime change in Syria wouldn’t be long in coming. But ten months into the ensuing civil war, Assad’s regime shows no signs of fading away quietly. To the contrary, it has doubled down on repression, waging an extended campaign of official brutality against its own people in its bid to remain in power. As of mid-January, the death toll from Syria’s uprising had topped 6,000, with no let-up in sight.

Call it the Great Game, round three. The first such contest, famously chronicled by Rudyard Kipling, involved the 19th century struggle for dominance between the British and Russian empires over access to India and its lucrative trading routes. The second centered on the post-Soviet scramble for resources and influence in energy-rich Central Asia. Today, a third such round of geopolitical competition is emerging in South Asia, spurred by the vast energy potential of the post-Soviet space and the uncertain political disposition of Afghanistan.

Last month, this competition took a giant step forward when Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with the presidents of Turkmenistan and Pakistan, as well as with India's oil and gas minister, in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat. The meeting netted an agreement to begin construction of a new natural gas route known as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline in two years' time.

Practically overnight, it seems, the "Jasmine Revolution" that has swept over Tunisia has reshuffled the geopolitical deck in the greater Middle East.

Over the span of less than three weeks, protests over unemployment and political restrictions in the sleepy North African nation became a nationwide phenomenon, challenging the country's long-serving president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and his ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally. In the face of this widespread dissatisfaction, Ben Ali blinked, making a number of major political concessions—among them, announcing he would step down as president once his term was up in 2014, and putting curbs on the national military's use of force in dealing with the protests (thereby effectively giving the opposition free reign of the streets). Rather than mollify his opponents, however, these conciliatory measures only served to embolden them, and less than 24 hours later Ben Ali had fled the country for the relative safety of Saudi Arabia. Since then, political turmoil has reigned, as remaining politicians have attempted to cobble together a durable interim government in the face of ongoing public discontent.

In the process, Tunisia's popular uprising has become a model of sorts. The catalyst for Tunisia's turmoil—the self-immolation of an unemployed 28-year-old vegetable seller—already has spurred copycats throughout the region (specifically, in Egypt, Mauritania and Algeria). And in many quarters, there is new hope of movement toward true democracy in the historically-stagnant Middle East. "Tunisia is now the model to follow for all Arabs," one hopeful Algerian has told Reuters. "The time for dictators and dictatorships is over."

Are Iran's democratic stirrings truly a thing of the past? Ever since the so-called Green Movement coalesced in the wake of the country's fraudulent June 2009 presidential vote, Western observers have rushed to write its epitaph.

Over the past year, more than a few Iran watchers have argued that the internal contradictions within Iran's opposition movement doom it to failure and that, as a result, Washington has no alternative but to engage with Iran's ayatollahs. Similarly, some media outlets, in reporting the Green Movement's lackluster showing during Ashura celebrations in mid-December, have suggested that Iran's once-vibrant democracy drive has run out of gas. Still others have concluded that, at least when it comes to mobilization and mass protest, the Green Movement should now be considered largely defunct.

But is it? Unquestionably, the wave of opposition that swept over Iran in the summer of 2009 has receded significantly. Organizationally, Iranian democrats' lack of sustained leadership and the absence of a unifying common vision have served to undermine their long-term cohesion. Practically, these opposition activists gradually have been cowed into passivity by the widespread brutality of the regime's domestic militia, the Basij. Any yet, if the Iranian government's recent machinations are any indication, the powers-that-be in Tehran are far less certain than are Western foreign-policy experts that Iran's democratic impulses have withered on the vine.

The late-December sentence handed down by a Moscow court against Mikhail Khodorkovsky should have surprised no one. Ever since the Kremlin launched new legal proceedings against the former oil tycoon about three years ago, a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion. Still, the repeat conviction of Khodorkovsky, already serving an eight-year term in a Siberian jail, to an additional six years in prison on fresh (and blatantly fabricated) charges speaks volumes about the receding rule of law in Russia. So, too, does Washington's apparent ambivalence about it.

The Senate's passage this week of New Start, the latest U.S.-Russian arms-control treaty, was greeted with some jeers in Washington, where worries over its technical deficiencies persist in spite of White House reassurances. Here in Russia's capital, however, news of New Start's ratification was met overwhelmingly with cheers of approval from officials and experts alike.

More than anything else, however, Russian leaders see New Start as a political victory confirming that their country still matters to Washington and on the international stage writ large. Some Russian officials also have taken it as affirmation that, under President Obama, the United States has adopted a hands-off approach to Russia's interests and political system.

U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state is one of those tempting silver bullets that upon close examination would produce the opposite of its promised result. Rather than promoting peace, it would likely ignite conflict both within Palestinian society and between Israel and the Palestinians.

Never mind that such recognition would undermine the very process of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to which the two parties agreed, which the United States and the global community have endorsed, and which is supposed to produce a Palestine that lives in peace with its Jewish neighbor.

Never mind, too, that we have been here before with a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood followed by strong international recognition, followed not by peace but, instead, by more conflict.

In late 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization adopted a resolution that declared an independent state of Palestine. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat declared himself the president of Palestine, and more than 100 nations have since recognized an independent Palestine over the years.

No state arose and no peace ensued because Israel and the Palestinians had not ironed out the details of mutual recognition, borders and other basic matters that are the sin qua non of real peace. Why anyone would expect a different result this time with the parties wrangling over the same issues defies explanation.

How do you say "chutzpah" in Farsi? That's the question many observers of Iranian politics must be asking in the wake of the latest, hollow round of international diplomacy over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

The two-day meeting which took place between Tehran and Western powers in Geneva in early December may have been heavy on pomp and circumstance, but it was remarkably devoid of substance. Ahead of the talks, Iranian officials had made abundantly clear that they weren't prepared to discuss the main point of discord between their government and the West—their regime's nuclear ambitions. True to their word, the dialogue that followed skirted the substantive issues relating to Iran's persistent nuclear effort, serving simply to set the stage for more in-depth discussions which are ostensibly to follow in the future.

It's probably safe to assume that Australian Internet activist Julian Assange wasn't thinking specifically about Iran when his brainchild, the information clearinghouse WikiLeaks, released its latest round of classified U.S. government cables. Still, the data dump, encompassing more than a quarter-million internal memos issued by the State Department and U.S. embassies overseas, successfully demolishes a number of sacred cows relating to American policy toward the Islamic republic and its burgeoning nuclear effort.

President Barack Obama's 10-day tour through Asia is being deemed a disappointment in some Washington circles after the President failed to secure a free trade with South Korea, or forge a consensus on issues of currency manipulation and trade imbalances. However, the President's underwhelming performance in East Asia risks overshadowing his more commendable performance in South Asia, where President Obama announced that America now supports a permanent seat for India at the United Nations Security Council. The policy change was warmly received in New Delhi, where politicians have been lobbying the U.S. for such an endorsement for years (not even the Indophile Bush administration was willing to offer one). And while there is little likelihood that India's Security Council aspirations will be fulfilled anytime soon, President Obama's announcement at least temporarily silenced critics who had begun to question the President's commitment to the U.S.-India partnership.

For the moment, Muhammad Ibrahim Makawi is still far from a household name. Outside of a small corpus of terrorism experts and national security specialists, few people are familiar with the Egyptian-born militant who is arguably al-Qaeda’s most dangerous operative. But they should be. Mounting evidence suggests that, after years of absence, Makawi—better known by his nom de guerre, Saif al-Adel (“sword of justice” in Arabic)—is back in action and spearheading a new stage in al-Qaeda’s war with the West.

It’s a tried-and-true tenet of warfare, showcased throughout centuries of combat, that it is a great deal easier to attack than to defend. Attacking forces have the luxury of setting the time, the place and the means by which conflict is joined, while defenders are forced to anticipate the actions and objectives of their adversaries—or suffer the consequences.

In the age of modern terrorism, those consequences could mean another 9/11, or worse. And while the United States has fared better than most in thwarting these kind of attacks (the Heritage Foundation estimates that the U.S. government has successfully foiled over 30 significant terrorist plots since September 2001), talk to any counterterrorism professional and you’ll come away with the impression that America, like its allies abroad, is still very much playing defense.

Last week, Iran rolled out the red carpet for an unlikely dignitary. The visitor wasn’t Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the spiritual head of the Hezbollah Shi’ite militia Iran created in Lebanon in the early 1980s and has sustained since. Nor was it Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s newly-reconfirmed prime minister, whom—having failed to supplant in favor of a more pliable politician in recent elections—Tehran is now actively courting. Rather, the head-of-state that garnered Tehran’s most lavish diplomatic reception was none other than Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who over the past decade has emerged as one of Iran’s most dependable international allies.

There is trouble on the high seas. Few doubted China’s astonishing economic and geopolitical rise would fuel competition and rivalry with the United States and China’s Asian neighbors. Most observers, however, have been left guessing where the first serious points of conflict would emerge. We may have been given our answer this summer: in the disputed and crowded waters of the Asian Pacific, where overlapping claims of sovereignty and territorial rights among the United States, China and a handful of East Asian nations have spilled into confrontation and political brinkmanship this year.

This Sunday marks 20 years since German unification. It also coincides with a low point in the commitment of post-war Germany to European unity. The two are directly related.

Alone in Europe, the people of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) did not have to qualify for entry into the European Union. German unification made them automatically full-fledged members.

Nothing was asked of East Germans for this extraordinary benefit. Nor were they educated about the European project and Germany’s unique role, based on its history, in building a common European home.

All other former Soviet-bloc countries — Poland, Hungary, Latvia, etc. — had to work hard for E.U. membership, both in the complex formal qualifications and through years of learning to become “European” in a pragmatic sense. For these countries, entering “Europe” was a long-sought goal and finally a celebrated achievement. Eastern Germany never moved up this learning curve.

For quite a while now, policymakers in Washington have worked diligently to try and test a simple hypothesis: that energy sanctions can help derail Iran’s march toward the bomb.

Over the years, this effort has taken the form of a number of legislative initiatives aimed at curtailing Tehran’s energy trade with the world. Of late, however, American pressure has honed in on Iran’s most glaring economic dependency, its deep reliance on foreign refined petroleum. The culmination was the passage by Congress this summer of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act, a sweeping set of new provisions aimed in large measure at throttling the Iranian regime’s oil sector.

Can sanctions stop Iran's nuclear drive? Since the passage of new U.S. and multilateral measures this summer, there have been unmistakable signs that Iran has begun to feel the economic pinch. Prompted by mounting international pressure, a slew of foreign multinationals have exited the Iranian market, while a range of countries - from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates - are in the process of curtailing their financial dealings with the Islamic republic.

But, despite these heartening signs, the ultimate success of sanctions depends on what could come after. In order for economic pressure to be taken seriously in Tehran, Iran's leaders must be convinced that their continued intransigence on the nuclear front will lead to something far worse.

For the moment, at least, they clearly are not. That is in large part because, despite repeated assurances from U.S. officials that "all options remain on the table" in dealing with the Iranian regime, Tehran has been permitted to wage not one but two irregular wars against America for more than half a decade and to do so with virtual impunity.

If economic sanctions fail to stop Iran's march toward the bomb, and either the U.S. or Israel is compelled to use force against the Iranian nuclear program, China will shoulder at least some of the blame.

Since this summer, concerted international pressure has unmistakably tightened the financial noose around Iran's ayatollahs. The June passage of a new round of United Nations sanctions against the Islamic Republic has been followed by an exodus of European and Asian firms from the Iranian market, and new, stricter regulations on financial dealings with the regime in Tehran. Simultaneously, unilateral American sanctions have honed in on Iran's most glaring economic vulnerability—its deep dependence on supplies of refined petroleum from abroad—with marked results. According to energy consultancy EMC, Iran's gasoline imports plummeted by 50 percent, from 120,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, in the month after the imposition of U.S. sanctions, as skittish foreign suppliers scrambled to exit the Iranian market.

But the push to isolate Iran economically may end up being undermined by a key global actor. China's leaders may have reluctantly gone along with the latest round of Security Council sanctions passed this summer. Yet, even as other foreign stakeholders have constricted their financial stakes in Iran, Beijing has done the opposite.

On the very day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States would lead a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, Iran boasted that it had test-fired a surface-to-air missile.

A day later, Iran began loading fuel rods into its Bushehr nuclear reactor, marking further progress on its quest for nuclear weapons.

A day after that, Iran's leaders unveiled the nation's first home-built unmanned, or "drone," bomber, with a range of more than 600 miles and which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said could serve as a "messenger of death" to hostile outside forces.

These developments illustrate a big problem with the U.S. peace effort - it will divert U.S. time and attention from the far more pressing challenge of containing Iran's regional hegemonic ambitions, which threaten our allies, our role in the region, and our ongoing efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hotspots.

The furor accompanying the recent dissemination of classified military files by WikiLeaks has focused some much-needed attention on the damaging role Pakistan plays in the Afghan theater. As the WikiLeaks documents highlight in damning detail, Islamabad's close - and ongoing - cooperation with the Taliban has made it a key accessory to the worsening insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition on the war on terror's first front.

But what can actually be done about Islamabad's double-dealing? Disengagement, after all, is simply not an option. By dint of its strategic geography, Pakistan is a key player in Afghanistan, and its constructive involvement is essential to ensuring lasting stability there - especially following the planned July 2011 U.S. withdrawal. Pakistan is also a nuclear power, and the specter of Islamists gaining control of its burgeoning atomic arsenal is a nightmare scenario the West has sought to forestall through increased diplomatic engagement and foreign aid.

For years, Pakistan has played on these fears to get a pass on its domestic conduct and keep American dollars flowing. But this does not mean the United States lacks the ability to steer Pakistan toward a more constructive course. To the contrary, a number of opportunities exist for Washington to influence Islamabad's stance on terrorism and radical Islam.