First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its influence and that of Hamas and Hezbollah are strengthened.

For 22 years, Bandar bin Sultan was Saudi Arabia’s influential, irrepressible ambassador in Washington.

History may someday record that the Arab awakening that began with the Arab revolt of 1916 against the Ottomans ended about a century later with a whimper.

Cheney’s memoir is not about 9/11, or solely about Bush’s administration, but about his entire life and political career.

The United States should encourage Israel to take further steps to improve the Palestinian economy.

I would have thought that if you’re going to try to punish the Syrians and prevent them from using chemical weapons again, the thing to do is a one-time strike. Maybe a cruise missile strike...

Obama isn’t good off the cuff, especially when challenged; he is far better with a prepared speech.

Iran exports about 2.2 million barrels a day.

It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all...

The United States already has in place comprehensive trade sanctions against Sudan, imposed because of the regime’s support for terrorism. While we maintain diplomatic relations, we do not staff our embassy there.

In the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo is the daughter of Diosdado Macapagal – but his term ended in 1965, and she was elected in 2001. Hardly a hand-off.

If you said to people you can cast a secret ballot on whether to turn back the clock and have Morsi in power again, I don’t think very many people in Washington would turn back...

Rahm Emanuel seems to think he knows Israel very well, and that the way to treat that country and its democratically-elected government is the way he treats all opponents in politics: by attacking and attacking.

The war on drugs is not being won, and it continues to threaten stability and democracy not only in the Andes but throughout the Caribbean as well, where tiny police and military forces are outclassed...

The courage of the Syrian protesters is remarkable, for they face prison, torture, or death every time they lift a banner.

The early reviews of Dick Cheney’s memoir have not evaluated the book, but instead have used its publication as an occasion for attacks on Cheney and his record, with general assaults on George W. Bush’s...

Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

The Assad regime is quite reliant on oil exports.

Egypt needs law and order in Sinai to save the tourist industry in Sharm el-Sheik and prevent the area from becoming a base for terrorists that will target Egypt itself, as well as Jordan and...

The U.S. has the power to block all anti-Israel moves in the Security Council, not just some of them, and to do so without agreeing to unfair, damaging compromises.

Now in its third year in office, the Obama Administration has never championed the cause of human rights. Its slow reaction in June 2009 to the stealing of the election in Iran and the birth...

Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

For many societies, the journey to modernity has been painful and costly.

I don’t see kids with Palm Pilots. They are not common on college campuses, except among professors. Gen Xers don’t need them. They are a phenomenon of the 50-something who can’t remember if his broker’s...

China has concluded that trade trumps all.

The United States should help strengthen nongovernmental humanitarian agencies working in Sudan so that they can handle an increased flow of aid.

In 2007, early in the improbable presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, the young first-term senator began a series of foreign-policy speeches that seemed too general to provide a guide to what he might do if...

There are examples of fraternal dictatorships, or one, anyway: the passing of power from Fidel to Raul Castro.

Israel’s flexibility is dependent on its sense of security.

The Egyptian military plays positive and negative roles in Egypt, but the most significant single thing it did under Mubarak was to guarantee an Islamist victory once he left the scene.

The United States treated Gaddafi as an enemy due to his support for terrorism against us, until a rapprochement of sorts began under Pres. George W. Bush at the very end of 2003.

It’s not good for Israel to govern millions of Palestinians.

If you say to the White House, ‘Obama has been very unfriendly to Israel,’ they say, ‘What do you mean? It’s the best military-to-military relationship ever.’ And that part is true.

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

Opponents of U.S. sanctions have made ‘unilateral sanctions’ their special target. They argue that sanctions observed by many nations would be much more effective. True enough. Far better for trade with an outlaw regime to...

The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint.

The fake republics are goners; the monarchies have a fighting chance. That’s my conclusion after a short visit to the Middle East and discussions with officials and analysts there.

In public, an admission of technological inadequacy would be too embarrassing.

The best-armed and best-trained divisions of the Syrian army are Alawite.

Even today, when the Obama administration has liberalized travel to Cuba – and failed to reverse that liberalization when Alan Gross was imprisoned – there are limits.

The United States needs to be far clearer: we cannot and will not support any government where Hamas has a real influence and the security forces stop fighting terror.

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion – not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran’s...

A Palestinian state will never be created by terror.

Immanuel Kant famously claimed that ‘he who wills the ends wills the means,’ but he never spent much time in Washington.

If a Jewish group sat down with a Christian conservative group, and there was a so-called Messianic Jew at the table, that would be the end of the meeting.

Evangelicals too often fall short in their actual teachings about Judaism.

The way for the Palestinians to get a state is to go ahead and build it.

In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us – the foreign leaders across the table – do. They are not keeping secrets from us,...

There isn’t any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what’s going on in Nicaragua.