The devastation of the ancient Christian community in Iraq is well known.

Can Israelis be wistful? It is not the characteristic we usually associate with them; more typically they are said to be tough, sweet, angry, thoughtful, demanding - not wistful.

Does anyone believe that Kofi Annan scares Bashar Assad?

The presence of jihadis in Syria should be no surprise.

The Obama administration appears to regard intelligence leaks and briefings more or less like briefings by the Democratic National Committee or White House flack Jay Carney. You use any information at hand, classified or not, and you spin it any way you like, fairly or not.

The Egyptian military and the government of Israel have long had a common interest in maintaining order and fighting terrorism in Sinai.

Tunisian liberals say that the U.S. Embassy in Tunis is unengaged with their efforts to make sure the Tunisian model remains one of expanding freedom.

When freedom of the press is threatened, the United States should be leading efforts to protect it.

What does 'politicizing intelligence' mean? Using intel, or more often, partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.

Pundits are used to analyzing the gap between what our ideals suggest and what our security interests require.

President Obama has never summarized the Obama Doctrine with such clarity, but here is what it would look like: 'I will undertake any military attack against our enemies, regardless of the risks and collateral damage, so long as it is over by the time I have to announce it.'

Barack Obama's military triumphs will come neither in long wars nor even short ones, but in a series of raids.

There is no softer target in GOP primaries than the United Nations and foreign-aid spending.

While all Alawites fear vengeance against their entire community should Assad fall, there are varying degrees of loyalty to the Assads.

The Assad regime has lost the consent of the governed, and it is difficult to see how a replacement Alawite regime would be able to regain this consent.

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

Syria's population is 74% Sunni Muslim.

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

Al Qaeda's message that violence, terrorism and extremism are the only answer for Arabs seeking dignity and hope is being rejected each day in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and throughout the Arab lands.

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 Kuwait there is already a real, elected parliament with genuine power, but the prime minister is always a member of the ruling al-Sabah family. That must end.

In Jordan, where the prime minister is always a commoner, the king has announced some new reforms that would tend to move the country toward a more democratic system: Notably, the prime minister would emerge from the victorious political party, not from back room conversations in the royal palace.

Every Arab 'republic' has been a republic of fear, but only Saddam Hussein's Iraq surpassed the Assads' Syria in number of victims.

Gadhafi's vicious regime has left Libya far worse than he found it on the day of his coup in 1969.

Gadhafi has established no national institutions, not even allowing a fake parliament of the Mubarak or Ben Ali variety that could perhaps be turned into something real.

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.

Moammar Gaddafi, who has called himself the 'Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,' should go down in history with the Emperor Bokassa and Idi Amin as a grotesque reminder of why people have the right to change their government.

It's time to bury the unreal, failed 'realism' of those who have long thought that dictators brought stability.

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

For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their 'freedom deficit' signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies.

Obviously, every dictator pays a great deal of attention to who is running the army. There's always a base right outside the capitol to protect the head of government.

Tunisia was not for the United States an important country in the way, let's say, Algeria was because of its gas, because of its size, because of its struggle against terrorism that sometimes turned bloody.

Sari Nusseibeh is a man without a country.

Why are diplomatic cables secret at all?

Huge numbers of embassy cables are labeled 'unclassified' or 'limited official use' and deal with mundane matters.

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, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.

Terrorism exploded after the Camp David talks broke down in 2000 because the Palestinians' leader at the time, Yasser Arafat, supported it.

Being an Arab leader has its rewards: the suite at the Waldorf-Astoria during the United Nations General Assembly, travel in your own plane, plenty of cash, even job security - whether kings, sheiks or presidents, with or without elections, most serve for life.

The Arab view that someone should bomb Iran and stop it from developing nuclear weapons is familiar to anyone who meets privately with Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf.

The Erdogan government's first major step outside of the U.S. alliance was during the Bush Administration, when it wouldn't let Washington use Turkey as a launching ground for U.S. troops entering Iraq in 2003.

Every Israeli government since 1967, of left or right, has asserted that Jerusalem is Israel's capital and has allowed Israeli Jews to build there.

At the height of the Cold War, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviets and their allies and satellites did not shirk human rights debates with the West. They had their arguments ready.

I first met Kim Dae Jung when he was a Korean dissident whose life was threatened by the military regime ruling in Seoul. I was Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, and Kim was directed to me because the East Asia Bureau at the State Department had long shunned him.

U.S.-Israel relations are often depicted as an extended honeymoon, but that's a false image.

Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel's history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948.

There are no Muslim ghettos in the U.S.

Grasping the realities of the Middle East is never easy. This is not primarily because they change quickly, but because so much time, effort, and money is spent to prevent reality from breaking through.

In the spring of 2007, Israeli intelligence brought to Washington proof that the Assad regime in Syria was building a nuclear reactor along the Euphrates - with North Korean help. This reactor was a copy of the Yongbyon reactor the North Koreans had built, and was part of a Syrian nuclear weapons program.

Pessimism is rife in Israel.

The debate over same sex 'marriage' has engaged the heartfelt feelings and convictions of millions of Americans.