Killing the world's most wanted terrorist will not be enough to fundamentally change the nature of the battle against terrorism or eradicate the cancer from Pakistan. That will only be possible once Pakistan itself decides to fundamentally change the way it governs itself and pursues its national interest.

Elizabeth Warren is again at the center of a political controversy. Despite her insistence that she is part Cherokee, based upon “family lore” and her observation that some in her family had “high cheekbones like all the Indians do,” she has failed to produce any concrete evidence to substantiate her claim.

What matters for China is not whether Westerners believe the system is cracking. The question is: How do the Chinese view their own system?

The recent improvement in payrolls and the unemployment rate are welcome news, but the plight of the long-term unemployed in the United States is considerable. The policies that have been executed since mid-2008 to foster an economic recovery have failed to deliver measurable results, and those most hurt by the current downturn are often the long-term unemployed.

By delaying retail foreign direct investment, the Indian government has protected the intermediary status quo, and ignored the plight of 500 million desperately poor Indians living on farms who have publicly voiced their support of allowing retail giants to enter the Indian market.

Syria has always been among the Middle East's most repressive regimes. Any hope that Bashar al-Assad would usher in reform were naïve to begin with, the stuff of diplomats' fantasies. The question of what might come after Assad is a difficult one for American diplomats who have spent far more time trying to engage Assad and his functionaries than in reaching out to the Syrian opposition.

Widespread public support for direct outlays to a segment of society that now tends to be relatively wealthy may be waning.

The next president will be faced with this challenge: Will he or she pay reflexive obeisance to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, or will the new president write his own narrative?