AI contributor Saim Saeed has been reading Husain Haqqani’s Magnificent Delusions, a scathing account of sixty years of US-Pakistan relations. It’s a good and worthy analysis of a complex history, but it ultimately excuses American policymakers too easily for some of their mistakes.

South Korea is responding to China’s expanded Air Defense Identification Zone by expanding its own Air Defense Identification Zone, which now intersects with China’s and Japan’s over a disputed underwater reef. Fears of a reduced US presence in the Pacific are stoking instability in the East China Sea.

The 159 countries in the World Trade Organization are finally ready to ink a major free trade agreement after a week of heated debates between the U.S. and India that nearly derailed the process. The agreement, nicknamed “Doha Lite” by some, is far less sweeping than the original Doha plans, but it’s difficult to overstate its importance as one of the biggest victories in the body’s history. The Obama administration has a lot to be proud of here.

Whatever happens in Ukraine, if Putin thinks he has won, Russia will have lost.

We have a problem, but we can’t see it clearly because our focus too often discounts history.

Among the ESA’s many stakeholders, a consensus is forming that the law cannot accomplish its goals without greater reliance on markets. And in Texas, the outlines of just such a market-based approach are coming into focus.

Despite the recent arrival of French troops, there appears to be no end in sight for the violence sweeping CAR or the underlying issues—poor governance, corruption, religious divides, a badly struggling economy—driving it.

Like Vallejo before it, the city of Stockton, California is preparing to exit bankruptcy after nearly a year. Unfortunately, Stockton is also following Vallejo’s footsteps by refusing to include pension restructuring as part of the plan, despite the fact that Vallejo is again struggling with its pension burden less than five years after going through bankruptcy.

A date has been set for Iran and the P5+1 powers to work out how to implement the landmark nuclear deal. But to what extent we’re actually witnessing the prelude to a historic bargain remains something of a mystery.

Diplomatic sources have told Via Meadia that, contrary to the muddled and contradictory reporting by the international media on East Asian tension in recent days, Washington and its allies in Asia have actually been on the same page regarding China’s new Air Defense Identification Zone. The international press has, with a few exceptions, bungled this important story, which is still unfolding.