"It is true, as Hadley points out, that a brutal dictator (Saddam) has gone, and that Al Qaeda's resurgence doesn't change that fact. But was it worth all the American blood and treasure, and the many more numerous Iraqi casualties? One can only conclude that some of the officials involved remain in a state of denial...."

"...Russia has given no indication that it is ready to drop Bashar al-Assad as part of a transition process in Syria. Unless the Russian position changes, the departure of Assad, who is ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent Syrian civilians, does not seem in the cards anytime soon."

"...I will note, in the context of inviting a new war in the region, that, for the first time, a majority of members of Congress (268 out of 534 members of the 113th Congress) are millionaires. Our congresspersons have a net median worth of $1,008,767. Additionally, at the beginning of the 113th Congress, the average age of a member of the House of Representatives was 57, and the average age of a senator was 62, according to Wikipedia. None of them should ever have to go to war."

"Troop presence means influence. And troop presence is something the U.S. doesn't have what it once had in the region. American forces left Iraq in December 2011. The U.S. has just now promised to help the Iraqi government with military supplies in its struggle with al Qaeda elements in Anbar Province. But this means little in terms of influence...."

"I find it astonishing — and enraging — that a reputable and a leading American newspaper does not recognize the fact that, in turning the decision to attack Syria over to the U.S. Congress, he avoided yet another military intervention in the Muslim world, after Afghanistan and Iraq....You couldn't end the humanitarian crisis in Syria without attacking the country."

"The notion that if the West had given military aid to the rebels, before the Islamists moved in, we might have had a different Syria today is to my mind absurd. The Islamists would have gained the ascendancy sooner or later, as extremists usually do over the course of such movements."

"The notion that the Palestinians would somehow go away has proven to be a will-o'-the-wisp and a gross misreading of Arab attachment to the land. Israel can hardly claim to be a Jewish state with millions of Palestinians living there under its control. Even Netanyahu seems to have come around to the idea that a one-state solution, such as exists now in effect, is untenable for Israel's future."

"The Obama Administration is on the way to becoming the peacemaking presidency, after having been handed down two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and having been urged to start two others (Syria and Iran). The way the President handled these challenges should ease the way for Hillary Clinton in 2016, should she decide to run."

"What remains unknown is the question of contacts Oswald might have had with agents of the powerful Cuban intelligence service, the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI), in Mexico City or elsewhere. And in the final analysis, the question remains open as to whether Fidel Castro himself might have been implicated in the assassination of the young American President. With fifty years having gone by, nothing concrete has emerged as to the involvement of the Cuban government or Cuban intelligence in the assassination; which leads to the conclusion — provisionally — that Oswald acted on his own, out of his admiration for Castro."

"The French are the most forward-leaning of Europe's militaries....Former President Nicolas Sarkozy led the charge to get rid of Gaddafi. His successor, François Hollande, intervened rapidly and effectively to save some 6,000 expatriates, mostly French, from being overrun by Islamist fanatics in Bamako, Mali. Earlier this fall, the French were all revved up to join in an air attack on Syria...."