Last week I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.

Any serious candidate should explain which strategies they will employ not only to bring Iran to the table, but to raise the cost of defiance beyond Tehran’s tolerance.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The recent kidnapping of a handicapped French woman from a Kenyan resort, initially attributed to Somali pirates, was the second such kidnapping in a month. Kenyan authorities now blame al-Shabab, the Somali terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda. Why should we treat the growing menace of Somali piracy differently from terrorism?

President Obama entered the White House determined to renew diplomacy with Iran. During his campaign, he said he would meet the leaders of Iran "without preconditions.”

The attack on the British compound suggests that the Iranian government fears economic isolation much more than diplomatic isolation. Perhaps it is time to enforce both.

Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz are at a more than 20-year high after Iranian authorities threatened to close the 34-mile-wide channel through which more than one-third of the world's oil tanker traffic passes.

For almost a third of a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran has confounded American presidents. It has taken hostages, conducted terrorism, undermined the Middle East peace process, and worked unrelentingly to become a nuclear power and develop missiles with global reach.