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While some US universities with Chinese partnerships have spoken out in the wake of ill-treatment of Chinese academics, too many have been silent. Foreign universities underestimate their leverage in supporting academic freedom in China even as they hurt their own reputations.

To achieve a long-term deal with the P5+1, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani must also win the battle against his critics at home. His real challenge is to convince the poor that they stand to gain from a rapprochement with the West. If life gets more difficult for them, this will be a hard sell.

The US must take a stronger role in addressing three key challenges in Azerbaijan: energy development, with support for a new natural gas pipeline to Europe; democratic reforms, especially those that ensure free speech; and peace with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted 65 years ago paved the way for decades of progress. The picture of human rights today is hardly as encouraging. But changing norms takes time and doesn't follow a linear path. From this view, 2013 brought some notable advances.

We spent many a Sunday with the kids at the Cleveland Museum of Art. At first all they wanted to do was slide down the marble banisters. Then, thanks to a stroke of genius and a dollar bill, five art critics – and lovers – were born.

Mandela is revered worldwide as champion of nonviolence and peace. Human rights activists and freedom fighters around the globe aim to follow his example of reconciliation, forgiveness, and non-retributive justice. This philosophy will be vital for future transitions in Iran and Syria.

Nelson Mandela and his extraordinary life will enrich the great moral debates on war and peace for generations to come. For the moment, however, at the news of his death, I am thinking about tomatoes – in my garden in South Africa and in Mandela's prison garden.

This history of bipartisan compromise between President Reagan and then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill couldn't be more relevant today. A message to Patty Murray and Paul Ryan as they forge a budget deal: the beauty of compromise is that its worst aspects can be blamed on the other party.

The six-month deal with Iran gives the regime in Tehran exactly what it wants, thanks to nuclear blackmail, and reflects a blurred distinction between allies and foes in the region. Moreover, now the US has little moral authority to pressure Israel on an agreement with the Palestinians.

The Thanksgiving 'tradition reminds us that no matter what our background or beliefs...at our core we are first and foremost Americans....This Thanksgiving Day, let us lift each other up and recognize, in the oldest spirit of this tradition, that we rise or fall as one Nation, under God.'

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu warns that the nuclear deal with Iran increases Iran’s chances of building nuclear weapons. He’s exactly wrong: With this deal in place, it will be much harder for Iranian hardliners to make the case that Iran should tear up its agreements and build a bomb.

World powers have reached a historic six-month nuclear with Iran, but not everyone is cheering. Just as the 'anti-deal' crowd is wrong to burn diplomacy in the womb, so too is the 'pro-deal' crowd wrong to crow with gleeful triumphalism. The only sensible reaction: hopeful but healthy scrutiny.

King Mohammed VI is seeking US backing for Morocco’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara where the Sahrawi people await a vote on independence. Suppressing this option for the Sahrawis could push younger generations to violence, further destabilizing North Africa.

With the help of US military advisers, African forces have made progress in the push to apprehend Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, but challenges remain. The US, UN, and African Union must pressure the region's governments to allow access to LRA safe havens.

As the third round of talks on Iran's nuclear program begins in Geneva, the US must realize it was the election of Hassan Rouhani, not sanctions alone, that brought Iran to the negotiating table. Continuing sanctions will undermine the new government's efforts for a peace deal.

The Obama administration faces pressure from Congress for more sanctions against Iran. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani faces increasing pressure from hardliners who oppose negotiations with the US. But a diplomatic deal is still clearly preferable for all sides.

China's President Xi Jinping is neither a reformer nor a non-reformer. He is a pragmatist – a disciple of former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping. Mr. Xi seeks to build the overall vitality of the Chinese nation, and to do this, he feels the Party must maintain absolute control.

Things are getting worse for the United States, not because of our weak policies but because the times are changing, our capabilities and energies limited, and we haven’t recognized it yet. We can’t afford to keep on doing those things we shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.

The US should make two key reforms. First, the over-designation of material as classified makes it is harder to protect the few real secrets; this must be change. Second, the FISA court must become a gatekeeper for NSA access to communications data.

At the request of Afghan officials, Pakistan has reportedly released almost 40 Taliban combatants, supposedly to help spur peace negotiations. But experience shows this is wishful thinking. These prisoner releases give the Taliban something they want, while providing nothing in return.