The Iranian Qods Force plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in Washington in a terrorist attack using Mexican drug cartel associates shows the complex threat the Iranian regime poses.

The outlook for the future structure of the credit rating agency sector improved greatly when the House passed the "The Credit Rating Agency Duopoly Relief Act."

Steps should be taken to increase competition in the rating industry, which would increase customer choice, price competition, innovation, and the analysis available to investors.

Allowing foreign buyers of goods produced by international cartels to pursue civil antitrust damages in U.S. courts would deter cartel formation and price-fixing.

Iran's new Bolivarian buddies--Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa --are not the most cautious cats in the Western Hemisphere. But they look like Bismarkian "satisfied powers" by comparison to the drug cartels that are an increasing part of Iran's anti-American network.

The most disturbing aspect of the plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States is that Iran's thugs are developing a strategic partnership with Mexico's most violent thugs: Los Zetas.

Venezuela's impeached supreme court justice, Judge Eladio Aponte-Aponte describes a judicial system that is systematically corrupted by Chávista cronies and military leaders who have made billions of dollars trafficking in cocaine and laundering the proceeds of an international criminal syndicate.

Despite China's emergence as an economic power and all the talk about how America has become a service economy, U.S. manufacturing is alive and well.