US Secretary of State John Kerry’s foray into the politics of peace between Israel and Palestine appears to have run aground despite his tireless and single-minded efforts. It is clear that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never believed in it. Israelis of

E.M.

The widespread perception that China is or will become soon an aggressive, expansionist power is simply wrong. It is propaganda, rather than fact, a kind of right-wing agitprop. Far from being an aggressive power, China is a defensive one, and has long been so.

Russia and China feel under threat from the US, and their people are clearly behind their governments on this. Not without reason.  NATO has pushed itself up to Russia’s borders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech to both houses of the Russian parliament last week got bad notices. Anne Applebaum, the experienced Russian watcher, wrote in her column in The Washington Post that it was “an imperial rant” and went on to say that &ldq

The big immigration debate is often the big obscurantism debate.

It was the Americans, back in the time of the deposed shah, who encouraged Iran to develop a nuclear bomb-making capacity.

Thank heavens for the Sochi Olympics. Russian President Vladimir Putin was committed to ensuring they showed Russia in its best light, and they did.

The drumbeats are already sounding for the soon-to-be-held general election in the world’s largest democracy, India, the country that shows China how it should be done. There is a sense in the country that the ruling Congress Party and the influential Gandhi/Nehru core of