Washington is agonizingly slow at learning from its mistakes. Especially in the Middle East.

As I'm learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.

The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.

From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins - small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different - Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.

One of my earliest recollections is being woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning by my parents and sat in front of the fairly new black and white television, watching a grainy image of a man in a white suit climbing down a ladder. It was the first moon landing, and I became a sort of spaceman, as many kids were.

I visited a Child Friendly Space where children take part in structured play and development activities in a safe environment. These are designed to develop their cognitive ability as well as address their psychosocial needs. As I watched them sing songs and take part in games, it struck me that these kids could be anywhere in the world.

I don't like family stories forcefully mixed with commercial elements.

I grew up mostly in Germany, but my favorite summer trip was driving from North Carolina to Texas in a camper with my parents and us six kids.