"A hundred years ago last Saturday, World War I was ignited by a murder. Actually, two murders. Today, the murderer is being celebrated in parts of the former Yugoslavia, notably by a seven-foot statue in Lukavica, a suburb of Sarajevo, the scene of the crime: a testimony to the special kind of fanaticism that lurks in the Balkans."

"...[T]he Sunni-populated part of Iraq is virtually bereft of natural resources. The Kurdish and Shia parts in the northeast and south respectively are not. This is largely what renders partition problematic."

"To me, the way forward is limpidly obvious. It consists of two parts: one, increase aid to the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA); two, do not intervene in Iraq....the FSA is one of the few pressure points we have against Vladimir Putin, now that he has forfeited the goodwill of the West. Secondly, strengthening the FSA should give it more clout if and when the time comes for a political settlement in Syria."

"We should look at what happened from a different point of view. This was another successful special operation: recovery of a prisoner of war, with Taliban shooters in the hills overlooking the scene somewhere — nowhere — in Afghanistan; and with American C-130 gunships prowling overhead. In came the helicopter, and in a few minutes Sgt. Bergdahl was whisked away. No one got hurt."

"In his straightforward, though somewhat aseptic performance, Snowden drew an interesting distinction which Williams did not fail to point out: Snowden did not deny that he took out military documents, but said that he gave them to journalists to be published. That is, he apparently sought to absolve himself by putting the onus on them to decide which documents should not be published for reasons of national security."

"The anti-EU far-right National Front has won big in the elections to the European Parliament on May 25....This is the most significant victory of the National Front since its formation in 1972."

"Overall, while this series is a dramatization, it should serve to remind us that world powers spy and the Soviets/Russians did not spy on America just because they were communists....Clandestine activity is not just a way of life, it is a way of Russian life. All this is underscored by the recent and continuing events in the Ukraine."

"What the Germans came looking for in their visit was a no-spy agreement with the U.S., and indications are that they thought this was to be on the agenda for discussion. Where did they get the idea for this? It may have come from the abortive no-spy agreement with France in 2011...."

"Taking a leaf from Hitler's playbook of the late 1930s (Austria, Sudetenland, Memel), Vladimir Putin has now declared himself the protector of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers no matter where they are. His seizure and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula disregarded international law and the inviolability of nation-states and raised the specter of a resurrection of the former Soviet empire in its dimensions though not its ideology."

"Manuel Valls is the first French Prime Minister born outside the country, in Barcelona, to a Spanish father and a Swiss Italian mother. The family were Spanish Republicans who were forced to flee the Franco regime and come to France when Manuel was a little child....Valls is on the right wing of the French Socialist Party, and even at one time suggested taking the word socialist out of the party's name. He can best be described as a social democrat, as Hollande also declared himself recently."