The American president's award to the wartime Polish hero Jan Karski was tarnished by a historical blunder that reveals all too much, says Adam J Chmielewski.
The formation of an official agency charged with helping Washington identify and address threats of atrocity around the world is notable. But the United States's own foreign-policy record raises serious questions over its likely impact, says Martin Shaw.
A decade of violence and insecurity has deeply marked Colombia's society, politics and institutions. For Colombia to move on, its beleaguered yet independent justice system will have a vital role to play, says Adam Isacson.
The uprisings across the Arab world are becoming more complex and variable as they enter their second year. This makes it all the more important to identify their main dynamics, says Volker Perthes.
The cost of the United States's trillion-dollar pension system is high on the presidential-election agenda. But turning problems into workable proposals is hard, reports Matt Kennard.
The prognosis of a thirty-year war looked outlandish as Saddam's regime toppled, persuasive as Iraq's insurgency erupted - and now less plausible amid American forces' retreat. But two core issues continue to give it life.
With increasing geopolitical instability in oil producing states and the barriers that stand in the way of reaching a multilateral policy, the threat of sanctions in Iran only serves to intensify uncertainty surrounding oil price forecasts for 2012
The real Iranian threat is not its nuclear capacity but its independence. If Iran continues to stand as a model of defiance for increasingly poverty-stricken and restless populations of family fiefdoms in the Gulf, the current US-backed setups will either fall or be forced to democratise. These po
After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has now turned its belligerent attention towards Pakistan. But opening up a new battlefront, this time in Pakistan, in the run-up to the presidential elections, will prove another quagmire for the Obama administration.
The combination of a faded president, discredited rivals, and a dysfunctional political system spells trouble for the United States - at home and in the world, says Godfrey Hodgson.
The United States's capacity to build alliances and extend influence was once founded on confidence that history was on its side. No longer, says Godfrey Hodgson.
The coup of 1973 and the attacks of 2001 were very different in character. But the contrast in the responses of Chile and America to their respective national traumas is instructive, says Patricio Navia.
