These powerful developments emanating from the Middle East demonstrate a region constantly disturbed by sectional interests and polarizing ideologies. Is there a solution?

As the new Myanmar government—now with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi involved—pursues its reforms and hopes to improve its relationship with the West, a larger problem remains: the new Myanmar is still racked with its old Burma problems, so to speak.

The face of Walid al- Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, appears on television: “Syria always keeps its promises,” he says to Ban Ki-moon. The scene cuts out, and immediately cuts back into an image of Syrian warplanes raining hellfire down upon the Syria landscape. Explosions, smoke, and misery ensue.

Snowden’s leaks didn’t just expose U.S. surveillance programs—they recklessly endangered our alliances, aided our adversaries, and proved that this case was no ‘Pentagon Papers.’

On October 26th 2013, the two most powerful politicians in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, leader of the ruling Awami League, and Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition Bangladesh National Party, had a phone conversation after many years. All the two leaders did was bicker and squabble.

We revisit our discussion with Lee Ann Bell, Shamus Khan, Pedro Noguera, and Ms. Ravitch on the state of education reform in America.

Hassan Rouhani’s election as President of Iran has generated great excitement in the West. But the new president is not the only actor who could stand to play an important role in resolving the ongoing crisis between Iran and the West.

Cover Story: Fall 2013

As it now stands, the Republican Party has convinced a segment of the population that government is antithesis to the health of this nation. It has enabled a radical collection of far-right congressmen to eschew all compromise and centralized party direction. Tea Party politicians in Congress can afford, even relish, the political ramifications of a shutdown because, after forty years of anti-government rhetoric, these congressmen only need to re-affirm to their voters that government cannot function.