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Deal or No Deal
Diplomatic Chicken

So we have a framework deal with Iran. Now we can expect an avalanche of hype about the supposed significance of this deal. No doubt the President’s supporters will portray him as a hero and a tactical genius. This is, of course, absurd.

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Political Decay
Real Putinism

The Russian state as it is today is more akin to the world as it was in the beginning: without form, and void.

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Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015)
Lee’s Advice to Nixon, 1967: End China’s Isolation

The late Lee Kuan Yew’s small but significant role in the U.S. opening to China.

Pro-Rouhani Defector Blasts US Negotiators as Iran Apologists

This could be a sign that the nuclear deal taking shape will strengthen, not weaken, the hardliners’ position in Iran.

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Awakenings
The Rise of the African Street

Social media-savvy, disaffected urban youth are shaking traditional power structures across Africa—but this isn’t the Sub-Saharan version of the Arab Spring.

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Asia's Game of Thrones
China’s Uncertain Future

The Chinese Communist Party is slowly ossifying under Xi.

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Now You See Him...
Has the Russian System’s Agony Begun?

Or was Putin’s disappearing act just the dress rehearsal for the looming collapse?

photo by Richard Westall, Wikimedia Commons
Know Thy Enemy
The Tyrant’s Hopelessness

The ancients knew: to understand a tyranny, you have to understand the tyrant’s soul.

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Farewell to Arms
False Dawn for Turkey’s Kurds?

Turkey’s push for peace with the Kurds is laudable, but politics and bad timing may doom the whole effort to collapse.

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Iraq and Ruin
With Friends Like These

Why the U.S. cannot ally with Iran to defeat the Islamic State.

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