PARIS ― The fact that U.S. President Barack Obama is putting hundreds of boots back onto the ground in Iraq to protect American interests is the result of some bad decisions and missed opportunities to correct course. Except that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already staked out the proper course ― and the Obama administration seems intent on turning every action into a political spitball aimed at getting Putin’s attention.The administration’s preoccupation with economic warfare against Eu

Americans are too worried and at the same time not worried enough about political polarization. Ideological rivalry is a good thing, not a bad thing: It’s the reason for democracy, not a drawback of democracy. However, when rivalry hardens into a sullen standoff ― not a contest of ideas but a bloody-minded refusal to engage ― you have a problem. And to put it mildly, the U.S. has a problem.The Pew Research Center’s new report on the polarization of U.S. public opinion is essential reading. It do

MEXICO CITY ― Less than two years into Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency, Mexico is implementing an ambitious structural-reform package designed to lift its economy out of a multi-decade low-growth trap and create new opportunities for its citizens. The reforms involve restructuring economic sectors once deemed politically untouchable, and are backed by constitutional amendments and a bold legislative agenda.Indeed, thanks to the “Pact for Mexico,” much of this agenda has the support not only of P

One thing is painfully clear about Shinzo Abe’s program to revive Japan: The man’s in no hurry.What else can be said about a prime minister who pledged in June 2013 to provide specifics on how he planned to make Japan relevant again ― only to wait until June 2014 to reveal them? If Abe wonders why stock markets yawned this week when he unveiled his deregulation agenda, that lack of urgency provides a partial explanation. Two other reasons: policy vagueness and a lack of audacity.Japanese chief e

Just how terrifying is the Sunni Muslim extremist group that’s taken over a huge swath of territory in northern Iraq? Here are some clues:After seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, the group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, boasted of massacring 1,700 prisoners in cold blood.ISIS leaders have announced that they intend to assassinate Iraq’s Shiite Muslim religious leaders and destroy their shrines.ISIS is so extremist that even al-Qaida expelled the group earlier this year

Humans have, throughout history, treated animals in a peculiar manner. They have elevated some of the dumb creatures which they otherwise cherish as delicacies to oracles or even deities. Using animals as fortune tellers is usually thought to be confined to the not-so-enlightened developing world, but, in reality, that practice is popular the world over even in western countries which have taken vast strides in science and technology.No FIFA World Cup tournament is complete without psychic anima

Seizing power was the easy part; the everyday task of running the country is proving far more difficult for the Thai military. Chief among those difficulties is management of the workforce, which the junta must now realize is not primarily a security issue.Pictures emerging last week of Cambodian workers fleeing the Kingdom are a worrying development. Cambodians searching for work have of course flowed back and forth over the border for years, but the Thai junta’s declaration that it would “mana

Several analysts seem to read too deeply into what they consider the strident tones of nationalism and protectionism in the nationally televised debates between the two presidential candidates, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Prabowo Subianto on Sunday night.But we assure foreign investors within and outside the country that much of the talk about the dominant role of foreign capital and the urgent need to restrict foreign investment is mostly nationalistic rhetoric that usually acquires political curr

The escalating conflict in Ukraine marks an unfortunate tendency in the world of international relations: The people responsible for defusing the crisis are losing their ability to be diplomatic.The latest gaffe came June 14, when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia tried to calm a mob that had attacked the Russian embassy, overturning cars and hurling Molotov cocktails, to protest the shooting down of a Ukrainian military transport plane near Lugansk, in which 49 people were killed. D

One year ago this month, Americans learned that their government was engaged in secret dragnet surveillance, which contradicted years of assurances to the contrary from senior government officials and intelligence leaders.On this anniversary, it is more important than ever to let Congress and the administration know that Americans will reject half-measures that could still allow the government to collect millions of Americans’ records without any individual suspicion or evidence of wrongdoing.It