Atlantic Council

There’s something morally perplexing about President Obama’s stance on the war in Syria. It’s not any clearer in its strategic logic.

Finally, Iranians got the chance to party in the streets.

The solid election victory on Friday of the least hard-line candidate -- moderate cleric and former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani -- touched off spontaneous celebrations in the major squares and avenues of Tehran that authorities did not try to stop.

President Barack Obama should use his speech tomorrow at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to call for more active, confident German leadership of the European Union—which is needed if the continent is to rise above its present political and economic crisis.

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is having a bit of a romp. Last year, the United Kingdom hosted the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, and celebrated Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. This year, Britain holds the rotating presidency of the G8, the high point of which is the heads of government meeting at Loch Erne in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, Monday and Tuesday June 17 and 18.

As President Obama heads to Europe for the G8 summit in Northern Ireland and a state visit to Berlin, the official launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations figures prominently on the agenda. Meanwhile, in Brussels, European Union trade ministers are working feverishly to assuage the fears of certain member-states and secure a wide negotiating mandate for a comprehensive transatlantic deal.

Democritus wrote, “I would rather discover one true cause than gain the Kingdom of Persia”. With the election of the maybe vaguely reform-minded Hassan Rouhani many in the West are again hoping that this new Prince of Persia will also mark a new beginning for Iran.

Make no mistake: On the current trajectory, Russia won't be immune to many of the forces that provoked the so-called colored revolutions in adjacent states and even the misnomered Arab Awakening.

The US administration has, at long last, crossed the Rubicon of authorizing lethal assistance to selected units of Syria's armed opposition.

The New York Times editorial board complains, "Except for a few leaders and members of the intelligence committees, most lawmakers did not know the government was collecting records on almost every phone call made in the United States or was able to collect anyone's e-mail messages and Internet chats."

Now what? The ostensible goal of the Obama-Xi “shirtsleeves summit” was to head off the trajectory of a volatile U.S.-Chinese relationship that appeared to be sliding toward confrontation—and define a new cooperative direction, new understandings and a new framework. In this respect, it was a potentially important but modest beginning.