On this July 4, when the United States celebrates its Declaration of Independence in 1776, the country is grappling with the dismaying thought that it is losing a war. This is unusual. Every American war so far has been a victory, with the haunting exception of Vietnam. And the Vietnam War now looks with hindsight to have been a strategic victory, in that communism did not triumph in South-East Asia. China and Vietnam are no longer communist except in name. Capitalism has prevailed.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty recently asked viewers a provocative question: "Should America or should Israel bomb Irans nuclear facilities?" Unfortunately, it is no longer a moot question. The lame duck phase of George W. Bushs presidency could become anything but lame in its last six months.

Listening to Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain endlessly debate U.S. energy policy according to their fixed positions is depressingly like listening to a conservative and liberal matched pair of Jekylls and Hydes.

It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war. The same can be said about the other war, the one being fought with sound bites, sharply worded communiqués, and party spokesmen trading accusations and counter accusations much in the same manner that infantrymen would lob hand grenades at enemy foxholes. In the battle for the Oval Office rarely does one take prisoners.

Winston Churchill used to say that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. How right, he was. So when it comes to political experimentation mankind is still in the Stone Age.

The emollient assurances of Saudi Arabias King Abdullah at the weekend oil summit went some way to stabilizing energy prices. And his words may have come just in time to fend off a real crisis in globalization.

Change is afoot in Iraq though you would not guess it from listening to U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric, which often has a tenuous relation with reality. Security has improved significantly. Last month, for the first time, fewer U.S. troops were killed in Iraq than in Afghanistan. The numbers of Iraqi citizens killed has also dropped markedly, though it remains unacceptably high.

Even the announcement of a ceasefire with rebels in Nigerias Delta Region and a pledge of another increase in oil production by Saudi Arabia did not prevent oil prices pushing yet higher on Monday, back up to $137 a barrel.

Members of the British Parliament approved Monday an order by the home secretary to lift the ban on the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the PMOI, a member of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran. In the United States the group is known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or the MeK.

During the decades of the Cold War Russia armed itself for an eventual attack from the outside. Today the threat to Russias security and stability comes not from the outside, but from within, in the form of radical, militant Islam.