The West is in a war of ideas against political Islam, and if free speech is not protected in Europe, we are already losing.

Upon the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led Friday prayers at Tehran University. His sermon would carry the weight of an American State of the Union address. With time, Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei designated a substitute prayer leader from amongst the regime hierarchy.

Mr Obama's message to Gen David Petraeus was clear: time is up. Ten years, a trillion dollars and 1,600 American casualties later, the White House is essentially abandoning the attempt to build law and order in Afghanistan.

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

Merely monitoring Iran's foray into Latin America is the very least the United States must now do to frustrate Teheran's plans to threaten U.S. security and interests close to home.

A quick take on President Obama's address to the Muslim world.

It is too early to tell whether the revolutions sweeping across the Arab world will prove the long awaited "third wave of democratization." It is clear, however, that no regional regime is immune to their impact, not even the self-proclaimed vanguard of permanent world revolutions, the Islamist regime in Tehran.

The danger that Islamist groups may exploit a Libyan vacuum power is real, but no reason for the US to be silent.