Baghdad is all atwitter over the P-5+1 talks with Iran beginning today. A sandstorm kept many European and Western diplomats from landing, but the Iranians were out in full force, with Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili leading the way.

On Monday, President Obama will sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With a showdown looming over Iran, their summit will not only be the most important meeting for either leader but it may also be the most consequential meeting for the entire Middle East since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s 1993 handshake with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

The Obama administration’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline (which would bring oil down from Canada’s province of Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast) is emblematic of the pervasive, systematic hostility the administration has shown to all forms of fossil-fuel production and consumption. 

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who faces the end of his political career, has decided to go out in a blaze of glory. Mr. Kan dramatically announced last month that Japan should end the country's reliance on nuclear power for electricity generation.

What direction should the U.S.-India strategic partnership take on global issues such as climate change, energy policy, and security demands?

Followers of cancer-stricken strongman Hugo Chávez are stunned after nearly 3 million Venezuelans voted Sunday to select a unity candidate to compete in presidential elections scheduled for October. If the opposition has any real hope of defeating Chavismo, they will have to be prepared for dirty tricks, provocations, and even a narco-coup in the months ahead.

Several events in recent days indicate deepening ties between Iran and Russia. To this end, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced last month in Washington, D.C., Moscow's "step-by-step" proposal for restarting negotiations with Iran.

The president was quick to embrace the Keystone delay to 2013, as it will spare him the need to either approve the pipeline, infuriating environmentalists, or kill it, infuriating everyone else. Whether one views such a move as cowardly or as pragmatic, it’s indisputably foolish.