A small news item about Turkish-American relations and the latest stage of the Syrian civil war recalls the wisdom of Lord Palmerston, a mid-19^th-century British prime minister. He said that England had no eternal allies or perpetual enemies but only eternal and perpetual interests. The same could be said of Turkey, the U.S. or any state.

The history of arms control agreements is the history of violations. States sign agreements when they must, but break them when they wish. Secret violations are especially hard to monitor in dictatorships and closed societies.

Small and medium-sized states located between great powers often develop impressive survival skills. At the dawn of history in the third millennium BC, the smaller city-states of Sumer no doubt had to scramble to survive the wars between such giants as Lagash and Umma or Uruk and Ur.

The destruction of Iraqi and Syrian archaeological treasures by ISIS appalls the entire civilized world, and rightly so. Yet what we call cultural vandalism, ISIS calls tearing down idols, the symbols of an unholy, pagan past.