Now, it’s no secret that in the contest between democracy and autocracy, the United States — and I, as President — champion a vision for our world th… - Joe Biden

I’ll never forget the end of the closing statement of Anthony Cordesman, an expert on military strategy and the Middle East: ‘To be careless about this war, to me, would be a disaster. I am reminded of a quote about 2,000 years old by (Bion of Smyrna): ’Small boys throw stones at frogs in jest, but the frogs do not die in jest; the frogs die in earnest.’ This is not a game, and it is not something to be decided from an armchair.

The spread of ISIL’s bloody rule changed the political calculus for all three factions in Baghdad, forcing them to think like the old American revolutionary Ben Franklin. “We must all hang together,” Franklin had famously said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

I used to stutter badly when I was a child. And it’s something — if you know anybody who stuttered, it’s a very debilitating thing. If I told you that I used to talk — t- — t- — t- — to talk like that, people will smile. But if I told you I had a clubfoot when I was kid that was fixed, no one would laugh about it.