In the transition from an old dictator to a new one, some observers were losing faith in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, believing it had lost its magic touch in the arts of dissembling. Others had deeper faith, though, and they were rewarded last week when the State Department proudly announced the umpteenth breakthrough toward the goal of denuclearizing North Korea.

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.

The best option to regain control of the multilateral negotiating process would be to suspend the Doha talks.

The Iranian enrichment deal indicates that efforts by the Obama administration to stop Iran's nuclear program have failed and further emphasizes that the UN Security Council is gridlocked and impotent.

While the administration accepts the urgency of halting the spread of nuclear weapons, the policies it has embraced to reach that goal are likely to make matters worse.

Somewhere in the alphabet soup of institutional acronyms--WTO, G-7, G-20, IMF--it would seem there might be one that could prompt China to revalue its currency. Certainly, Washington's had little luck on its own.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decision to return home fifteen British hostages has put Iran in a win-win situation.

Sanctions against Iran are proving effective at weakening the regime, and there is no reason to relieve the pressure right now by rushing out to engage the regime.