Bret Stephens
5/18/2010

The nuclear game Tehran is playing isn’t any more complicated than checkers. But the trouble is they’re whipping us at it. The agreement of Turkey and Brazil to enrich Iran’s uranium is a signal defeat for the Obama administration. Iran’s leaders have learned to habituate the international community to its nuclear advances. What was once considered intolerable Iranian behavior–calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, enriching uranium in defiance of UN resolutions, even becoming a nuclear power–is increasingly seen as unremarkable or understandable or inevitable. The US will now be hard-pressed to explain why a deal they never withdrew from the table–and which they insisted remain unaltered–no longer makes sense.

Stephens writes ‘Global View’ for the Journal.

Link to full text in primary source.

Is Pakistan truly falling apart? Does the Zardari administration have credibility abroad? Is the Obama administration really serious about aiding the world’s only Islamic nuclear power? Does Pakistan trust the US? Read on for the answers.

• The political crisis and the reinstatement of the higher judiciary in Pakistan
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• Assessing the creation of the new civilian government in Pakistan
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The success of Obama’s plan to finally bring the troops home from Iraq will depend upon his ability to negotiate the stabilization of the Arab country after the military exit with Iran and its ally Syria. It is a high-risk, but very courageous, decision.

With the two-state solution all but dead, a bi-national democracy considered national suicide, and a political left in disarray, Israelis are becoming attracted to fatalism and embracing extremist ideology normally unheard of in Western style democracies. Read on to discover why.

• The Israeli political system: outdated and ineffective (Second Part)
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• The Israeli political system: outdated and ineffective (First Part)
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Understand why the war in Afghanistan could turn into an authentic nightmare for Barack Obama, unless he gets commitments from regional powers like Iran, Pakistan and India, aside from Russia, China and the EU.

• The "carrot and stick" policy in Afghanistan
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Although an outrage against the Israeli offensive in Gaza was sweeping the globe, fear of the Jewish State and its dependable American ally has kept the international community from laying down the law. In the author’s view, the world lacks strong political leaders capable of rising to the occasion.

The United Nations Security Council should meet at once to declare Gaza an emergency zone under the umbrella of the United Nations in accordance with Chapter VII, and immediately send a multinational peacekeeping force to the Strip in coordination with Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

The author says that Israel now has to lead a massive humanitarian aid effort directed at the Gazan population, and make sure that Hamas does not continue with is weapons contraband effort. Israel must send a message of normalcy to the Palestinian population.

In 1968, Israel was warned that if it were to lose its self-control and ability to keep its position in the tumultuous Middle East would weaken significantly. In 2008 and on into 2009, it waged a devastating three-week long war against an enemy interspersed within a civilian population. Discover how Israel has gradually turned into a quick-tempered military machine, and what the concessions that the country must make in order to achieve true peace are.