Robert Siegel

Is its damage permanent?

Or can a new administration that reasserts commitments to a broader notion of leadership can get past all this?

I've come to the conclusion that all discussions of the future nowadays, all questions that arise can be answered with one of two answers.

It's either China or artificial intelligence.

Those two, you can use them as the answer to anything.

That's brilliant, Robert.

That's really useful for columnists.

Feel free, feel free.

It's just the three of us talking.

Who knows?

When Canada talked about new arrangements, it was about trade with China.

Do the Chinese have the stuff to succeed the United States as the world leader, or are they ultimately leaders of that part of the world which doesn't care about being too free?

Well, let's move on to a very important, I think, very influential and important piece of journalism.

This week, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported with remarkable detail on how Donald Trump decided to go to war against Iran.

And they gave more than a glimpse into how the decision process works

in this particular administration.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu did in fact pitch Trump and his top aides on a war to crush Iran's military and military industrial capacity, and then that would lead to, he said, a public uprising and a change of regime.

Trump heard this, several of his top aides certainly disagreed with the latter aims of

counting on a public uprising and a popular uprising and regime change.

But Trump went ahead anyway and did it.