Barack Obama's political fortunes suffered a devastating blow at the election polls Nov. 2. Since then, whether on domestic policy or in the international arena, nations as well as American politicians have raised their price for cooperating with him.

Looking for a sign of when the multipolar moment suddenly seemed real? You could do worse than mark the day when Brazil and Turkey -- two of the world's most avidly internationalist emerging powers -- joined together this May to announce they had stepped in to broker a nuclear-fuel swap deal with Iran that potentially -- though sadly not actually -- paved the way toward a peaceful solution to the standoff. Turkey and Brazil aren't superpowers, nor are they permanent U.N. Security Council members. But just as U.S.

The efforts to resume peace talks on ending the Israeli-Arab conflict are in full swing. The United States is aggressively courting the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, trying to embarrass them with sufficient riches that would convince even the most recalcitrant Israeli politician to reconsider Israel’s settlement policy (for ninety days at least). U.S.

Ted Sorensen, who died early last week, was legendary among all of us in the speechwriting fraternity for the extraordinary body of work he crafted with President John F. Kennedy. Even the Republicans pilfered from him, and inside the Clinton White House, he represented a gold standard that we constantly strove to reach, with imperfect results (it’s harder than it looks).