Concerns About Iran's Falling Nuclear Breakout Time Are Set to Grow

Although the ruling party calculates that it has the political heft to withstand growing economic concerns, it has hedged its bets by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy that appeals to nationalism.

The Islamic State has lost its territory and leader, and the jihadist struggle has entered its post-"caliphate" phase.

Russia's aging workforce won't collapse its economy. It will, however, greatly suppress economic growth over the next decade, as well as the country's resilience against macroeconomic threats.

Several recent seizures of homemade explosives have stoked fears that protesters may start using bombs to voice their political grievances. But doing so would also risk blowing up the movement's remaining shreds of legitimacy.

The drug cartels have the means and the opportunity to use vehicle bombs in their battles with rivals and police, but their desire to avoid blowback has held them back.

Rather than trumpet Russia's praises overseas, Moscow's propaganda machine is focused more on undermining the Kremlin's enemies.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis fought Saddam Hussein, engineered attacks on Western embassies and took on the Islamic State. His death in the same strike that killed Iran's Qassem Soleimani increased local hostility to the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The country's new president is likely to use the questions surrounding the implementation of the 'safe third country' agreement to wrest additional support from the U.S.

By sending Turkish troops to defend Libya's U.N.-backed government, President Erdogan hopes to force a cease-fire that will protect his country's oil and gas interests in the Mediterranean and burnish his regional reputation.

While there are few obvious historical analogies for the political crisis Britain's scheduled exit from the European Union has precipitated, there is one suggestive parallel -- and it prompts some sobering thoughts.

Whether and how people celebrate Christmas is clearly a complicated affair, bearing only a subtle relationship to Christianity itself. The contemporary, increasingly international version of Christmas is less a religious festival than a celebration of affluence, modernity, and above all Westernness. Without anyone willing it, Christmas has become part of a package of Western soft power.

The world's stronger powers hold the upper hand over its weaker ones but the underdogs may find a few "stones" to help them hold their own.