Greg Myre

Since emerging as a powerful force two years ago, the Islamic State had focused its energies on building its self-proclaimed caliphate in the Middle East. The carnage in Paris, for which the group has claimed responsibility, demonstrated it can unleash a ferocious, coordinated assault far from its home ...

Russia's military intervention in Syria is intended as a lifeline for Syria's beleaguered President Bashar Assad. Yet the Kremlin's track record on bailing out floundering leaders is largely a litany of failure.

Over the past quarter-century, Moscow's proteges, clients and allies have often lost power, and sometimes their lives, despite ...

President Obama entered the White House with a pledge to bring home U.S. troops from two major wars. Now it looks almost certain he will leave office with U.S. forces engaged in three ongoing conflicts: Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Throughout his tenure, Obama's impulse has been to shrink the U.S. ...

Given the flood of migrants into Europe this year, one might think that continent is the main destination for those fleeing the miserable conditions in their homelands in North Africa and the Middle East.

But as the charts on this page show, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers overwhelmingly take shelter in ...

U.S. troops in Afghanistan lowered the flag and boxed up their gear at the end of last year as President Obama declared the formal end to 13 years of U.S. combat operations.

As far as most Americans were concerned, that brought down the curtain on the ...

The migrant crisis in Europe and the Middle East lurches from one drama to the next by the day. First it's a rickety boat floundering in the Mediterranean. Next it's a new surge of migrants landing on European shores. Suddenly it's thousands of refugees stranded in an unwelcoming Hungary.

The ...

A single photo of a drowned Syrian child shocked the world's conscience this week and focused international attention on a conflict that has left a quarter million dead and sent 4 million fleeing in the past four years.

But beyond the powerful emotional impact and a surge in aid ...

It started so well. When Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States swiftly cobbled together a broad coalition, unleashed a stunning new generation of air power and waged a lightning ground offensive that lasted all of four days. Iraqi troops were so desperate to quit ...

The Iranian nuclear negotiations were hugely complicated. If you understood them, even vaguely, congratulations.

Now that there's a deal between Iran and six world powers, there's a whole new set of issues to master. Iran is obligated to scale back its nuclear program, inspectors will be poking around to ensure ...

Is it a good deal?

President Obama and his detractors are headed for a ferocious debate on this question following the nuclear agreement announced Tuesday in Vienna between Iran and six world powers.

The evidence likely will trickle in over an extended period. What's certain is that the narrow and ...

The Greek crisis is messy and complicated, filled with nebulous terms being casually tossed around. Most every story has obligatory mentions of "austerity," "bailouts" and "capital controls," but it can be difficult to determine what, precisely, all that jargon means.

So let's stick to the numbers. Here's a primer on ...

Greeks waved flags and danced in the streets after they overwhelmingly voted to reject further austerity measures from their international creditors. But now comes the reckoning, as Greece faces the realities of an economy out of money and creditors out of patience.

Here are some of the fundamental questions:

When ...

In Afghanistan's rough and ragged reconstruction, one of the most frequently cited bright spots has been the surge in Afghan kids going to school.

When the Taliban were ousted in 2001, fewer than 1 million Afghans were in the classroom, and a minuscule number were girls. In recent years, the ...

The past year has been a bleak one in global affairs: The relentless carnage in Syria. Russia's annexation of Crimea. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Is there anything to applaud?

The coordinated international pressure on Iran, which has led to detailed negotiations on the country's nuclear program, was one ...

With a deadline looming Wednesday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cobbled together a new coalition government that gives him the bare minimum of parliamentary seats needed to govern, according to news reports.

The deal assures Netanyahu of a fourth term as prime minister, but it is not the ...

When a major earthquake pummeled Kobe, Japan, in 1995, more than 6,000 people were killed, many buried as their traditional wooden homes collapsed under the weight of heavy, unstable tile roofs.

The quake's power was extraordinary and demonstrated Japan wasn't as prepared as it thought it was. Still, it was ...

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has a much better relationship with the U.S. than his predecessor. But he's still struggling to entrench his position in Iraq and defeat the Islamic State.

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who had joined al-Qaida after his release, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, the group said in a statement Tuesday.

Ibrahim al-Rubaish had fought in Afghanistan before being arrested and held in Guantanamo. He would go on to be one of the ...

The president is trying to persuade Republicans and other skeptics to support the nuclear framework agreement with Iran. But he may have harmed his own cause.

President Obama is lobbying hard for a full-fledged nuclear deal with Iran. He hopes to raise the U.S. flag at an embassy in Cuba before he leaves office. He traveled to Myanmar last fall as he moves to normalize relations.

Obama's tenure has been marked by this outreach ...