ELLIOTT ABRAMS

Rahm Emanuel seems to think he knows Israel very well, and that the way to treat that country and its democratically-elected government is the way he treats all opponents in politics: by attacking and attacking.

The Assad regime has lost the consent of the governed, and it is difficult to see how a replacement Alawite regime would be able to regain this consent.

Needless to say, if the Arab-Israeli conflict is about interstate disputes and the need to resolve the future of the West Bank and Gaza, it can be solved; if it is a religious conflict, nothing but violence is ahead.

Tunisian liberals say that the U.S. Embassy in Tunis is unengaged with their efforts to make sure the Tunisian model remains one of expanding freedom.

Iran exports about 2.2 million barrels a day.

In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us - the foreign leaders across the table - do. They are not keeping secrets from us, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.

The real crime of Hosni Mubarak is that he ruled for 30 years and left behind an Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is the single strongest player.

An effective U.S. policy toward Sudan - one capable of changing the situation in the south and affecting the lives of its people - will require top-level attention and a great deal of energy. It should have three elements: aid, diplomacy, and financial disclosure.

The U.S. has the power to block all anti-Israel moves in the Security Council, not just some of them, and to do so without agreeing to unfair, damaging compromises.

A Palestinian state will never be created by terror.

The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

I well remember a leading Egyptian liberal saying to me in 2003 that she did not favor free elections right then in Egypt; she favored them in a decade's time if she and others had those 10 years to organize freely.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its influence and that of Hamas and Hezbollah are strengthened.

In Kuwait there is already a real, elected parliament with genuine power, but the prime minister is always a member of the ruling al-Sabah family. That must end.

The Sandinistas are dedicated Communists, and if they are going to make a compromise with democracy, it's going to be under pressure.

American power remains today what it was in the Second World War and the Cold War: the greatest force for freedom in the world.

In public, an admission of technological inadequacy would be too embarrassing.

President Bush was disgusted by the Assad regime's oppression of the Syrian people as well as its support for terrorism, interference in Lebanon, and encouragement of jihadist attacks on Americans in Iraq.

You are not practicing Judaism if you celebrate Christmas.

Pundits are used to analyzing the gap between what our ideals suggest and what our security interests require.

Libya as a country is a relatively new concept. The period of Libya as a modern nation really starts after World War II.

For many societies, the journey to modernity has been painful and costly.

The intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.

The Obama administration rarely demonstrated the ability to shift gears and change policy in its first year. Even in the face of historic events such as the continuing demonstrations against Iran's regime, it stuck devotedly to prior plans.

Times change. Cable news and the Internet alone have transformed the way outreach to the American people can be accomplished.