In recent months, Uzbek leaders have intensified a campaign to contain Turkish economic and cultural influences in Uzbekistan. The most prominent component of this crackdown has been the arrest of 54 Turkish entrepreneurs over the past two years and the closure of at least 50 Turkish-operated businesses.

A vestige of the “anti-public diplomacy” of the previous decade is likely to get trimmed. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, a giant of a compound that dwarfs in physical size and the number of people of any other diplomatic post, U.S. or otherwise, is likely to shrink. According to The New York Times, the compound costs $6 billion annually. (Seriously?)