Various U.S.-backed factions in Syria are set to go at it as the Obama Administration looks on helplessly.

Africa is an under-appreciated new frontier for Israeli diplomacy.

Engagement, not estrangement, is the best policy for influencing African states.

President Obama hosted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at the White House yesterday, but the way for the U.S. to improve relations with Brazil isn’t to make empty comments at a substance-free summits.

Some targeted outreach by U.S. diplomats to Caracas appears to have prompted Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro to announce elections. No word yet on whether international election monitors will be allowed near them, however.

A State Department official decided to speak his mind on Thailand’s military government on a recent trip to Bangkok. A triumph of “smart diplomacy” this was not.

Building bridges with with allies’ elites is one of the critical tasks of an ambassador—especially in the face of concerted efforts by revisionist powers to gin up public feeling against the United States.

A State Dept. spokeswoman says that the Administration is open to talking with Iran about ISIS, though opposed to “coordination.” These words are likely to annoy the Sunnis—exactly the people whom Obama is trying to recruit to fight ISIS.

It’s not just in the Middle East where the initiatives of the Obama Administration can be quietly ignored and brushed aside. China, too, is getting in on the latest trend in international relations.