The split within Iraq’s three-million strong Turkmen minority will test Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi’s intelligence and ingenuity as the complex and internecine conflict underway in Nineveh Province surrounding Mosul continues.

Despite his flowery promises about “hope and change,” Obama entered office embodying the most ambivalent view of American power since the end of the Vietnam War.

When history renders its awful verdict of Barack Obama’s responsibility for the human catastrophe of Syria, the Corker-Blinken confrontation will be part of the brief.