Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph
By driving ISIS out of Fallujah, therefore, Mr Abadi will hope he can save his political skin. But it will prove a Pyrrhic victory for the Iraqi people if all he achieves is to hand over a key Sunni city to Iranian control.
Matt Phillips, Quartz
Vietnam exported roughly $30 billion of goods to the US in 2015, making the US its top export market. But the US is eager to show that the trading relationship works both ways, and that Vietnam can be a lucrative market for American goods, too.
Barbara Slavin, Voice of America
Addressing a huge audience at a convention center in Hanoi on Tuesday, Obama focused on the positive. He said that the example of U.S.-Vietnamese rapprochement âÂÂholds lessons for the world.à At a time when many conflicts seem intractable, seem as if they will never end, we have shown that hearts can change and that a different future is possible when we refuse to be prisoners of the past,â Obama said.à âÂÂWe've shown how peace can be better than... Читать дальше...
Noah Rothman, Commentary
Once again, President Barack Obama has forged a âÂÂnew way forwardâ with a former Cold War adversary. In the process of âÂÂunshacklingâ his fellow countrymen from the past, the president is also blazing a new trail for his party to follow. In time, Obama's fellow Democrats may come to regret the course he chose for them.
David Sanger, New York Times
As Mr. Obama's time in office comes to an end, Asian nations are deeply skeptical about how much they can rely on Washington's commitment and staying power in the region. They sense that for the first time in memory, Americans are questioning whether their economic and defense interests in Asia are really that vital.Ã
Patrick Smith, Fiscal Times
We won't know for some time just what causedà EgyptAir Flight 804à to plunge abruptly into the Mediterranean shortly after midnight last Thursday. But weekend reports suggest that a detonated explosive device is one of two probable causes.Ã
Daniel Gordis, Bloomberg View
Netanyahu may be undermining one of the Jewish State's founding principles.
Noah Feldman, Bloom. View
The far-right government joins Hungary and Turkey in rolling back political liberalization.
Brandon Christensen, Notes on Liberty
There's no such thing as a national interest. Cooperation, choice, and trade-offs do exist, though, and I think they can walk us through a hypothetical federation between Japan and the US.
Patrick Radden Keefe, New Yorker
The computer technician who exposed the darkest secrets of the global super-rich.
Joe Myers, World Economic Forum
A snapshot of exports around the world.
Borzou Daragahi, BuzzFeed
When Aleppo's leading pediatrician was killed in an airstrike, his friends and colleagues were devastated.Ã
Joe Cirincione, Huff. Post
Neoconservatives are furious that their efforts to trick the country into another unnecessary war in the Middle East failed.
Jacob Shapiro, Geopolitical Futures
India deployed four ships, including two stealth frigates and one guided missile corvette, into the South China Sea and the western Pacific Ocean, where they will remain for two and a half months, according to a statement released yesterday by the Press Information Bureau of India. The statement said that the Indian ships will participate in the annualà Malabar exercises with the Japanese and U.S. naviesà and will make port calls in Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Malaysia. Читать дальше...
John Banville, New York Review of Books
In his Journal 1935âÂÂ44, Mihail Sebastian left a profound and moving record of some of the most terrible years in the history of Europe. The Journal is not only an invaluable historical document, fully as significant as the diaries of Victor Klemperer and Anne Frank, but also a beautifully shaped and subtly executed work of literary art. Never has the savagery of which human beings are capable been recorded with such insight, style, gracefulness, and, amazingly, humor. Читать дальше...
Tom Nichols, The Federalist
The Obama administration decided early on that the only way to get the United States out of the Middle East was to replace it with Russia and Iran.
Tom Cooper, War Is Boring
Not much.
David Ignatius, Wash. Post
U.S. military commanders must be careful about not outrunning their bases of support.
Barry Strauss, WS Journal
The story begins about 2,500 years ago with an alliance between Athens and the Greek city-states of the Aegean. Historians usually call it an empire, but it was more like a cross between the European Union and the Warsaw Pact. It was meant to protect Greece against Persia and it succeeded so well that it left some allies complaining it had turned into a protection racket in which they were bullied into playing along but got nothing in return. Athens didn't allow allied exits and backed up its position with force.
David Moser, China File
For those of us who teach and research the Chinese language, it is often difficult to describe how the Chinese characters function in conveying meaning and sound, and it's always a particular challenge to explain how the writing system differs from the alphabetic systems we are more familiar with. The issues are complex and multi-layered, and have important implications for basic literacy and the teaching of Chinese to both native speakers and foreign learners.
Kerry Brown, Diplomat
China, be warned: being number one isn't all its cracked up to be.
