Timothy Garton Ash believes Europe needs a Churchill to prevent decline or disaster. I understand the sentiment, but even the use of Churchill's name brings up the real reason "Europe" won't work. Europe is a continent, not a nation. Churchill was the quintessential Englishman, a tireless advocate for the power and purpose of the British Empire. Europe has had other great nationalists, some good, like Churchill, some bad, like Napoleon, and some downright evil, like Adolf Hitler. The peoples of Europe need to wake up, discard the bloated bureaucracy in Brussels, regain their complete sovereignty, and then make whatever arrangements make sense between them to maintain commerce and prevent discord. The fact that independent nation-states exist on the continent of Europe is not the reason why they fought so many ruinous wars, and the existence of a "European" government is not what has kept the peace since 1945.

Ralph Peters sees the recent announcement of a nuclear fuel deal between Iran, Turkey and Brazil as an ominous sign that nuclear proliferation is about to go wild, which means the prospect of a nuclear detonation or nuclear exchange sometime in this century is becoming more likely.

Charles Krauthammer sees that deal, and other recent developments on the international scene, as signs of the weakness of Obama's foreign policy.

Paul Krugman continues to bang the drum for more government spending, not less.

I think David Brooks is an intelligent man, but this column is nonsensical.