Recently, Japan and Korea have begun to express deep concerns about the “ability of the United States to address profound problems in its political and economic system.”

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former president Mohammad Khatami have little in common. Mr Ahmadinejad, a rabble-rousing populist hardliner, is a world apart from Mr Khatami, a mild-mannered reformist with a bent for philosophy and a distaste for confrontation.

They are unlikely to be found breaking bread together, but if they did, talk might turn to something they have in common: the Supreme Leader as their supreme nemesis.

Amid the international debate over the future of Afghanistan, a false binary has taken hold. Afghanistan is torn, we are told, between two choices: a corrupt, ineffective, increasingly unpopular government of President Hamid Karzai or the prospect of the return of the Taliban and their twisted and violent vision of Islam and a manifestly disastrous ruling history. In this stark choice, Mr Karzai is the usual winner.

Chest-thumping threats by senior Iranian officials in recent days to close down the Strait of Hormuz sound like the proverbial cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Iran's economy is overwhelmingly dependent on oil sales, most of which moves through the Strait to markets in Asia and Europe. A shut-down of the Strait would largely close the taps on Iran's own oil sales.