Iran, NATO, and the Role of the West

I wanted to write, of course, about the apparent deal that Turkey and Brazil were able to strike over Iran's nuclear program today, a deal that has eluded the Western powers led by the United States. It is a good way to start pondering how international politics is changing. Another way to get at this is NATO's new strategic concept, a first draft of which was presented to NATO's secretary general today. NATO, chair of the drafting committee Madeleine Albright said, is a regional organization first, and it is not a global policeman. This points in the same direction as the Iran news, namely that the "West" such as it is (think also of the EU's current crisis) is no longer what it used to be in the world. But I just saw Dan Drezner's latest post on his blog, and it articulates just about everything I was going to say about it. So why don't you read that. In the meantime, I'll get ready for the briefing about the NATO paper by the vice-chair of the drafting committee, Dutchman Jeroen van der Veer, this Friday in The Hague-- so that I can report on it all here, of course.