Last week’s unanimous vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on legislation allowing congressional oversight of a potential nuclear deal with Iran has been interpreted by some as a setback to President Obama. The opposite is the case. The fact is that the president’s patient and intricate diplomatic approach, along with other major world powers, to negotiating this historic agreement has gained real traction and it now seems highly unlikely that opponents of the deal could sabotage it through congressional action.

When people talk about the resumption of relations between the United States and Cuba, as they did over the weekend as President Obama and President Raúl Castro sat down for the first meeting between leaders of their two countries in more than 50 years, they talk mostly about history and diplomacy and influence, and what it could mean for the future in terms of trade and travel, not to mention human rights. What they do not generally talk about, however, is fashion.

The examples of Iraq and Syria, not to mention NATO’s 2011 campaign in Libya, should be enough to make us stop and think. Bombardment alone cannot replace a political strategy, even if in Libya - a country with Sunni majority - ISIS cannot feed off the same sectarian claims that helped it in Iraq and Syria.

Turkey and Pakistan have turned to political dialogue in an attempt to resolve tensions surrounding the conflict in Yemen between Houthi militias and Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries. Turkey has been in close contact with regional and international powers to seek a solution in Yemen which includes all the country's parties, while not overshadowing its territorial integrity.

In his weekly address on Saturday, US President Barack Obama began his campaign to assure Americans and sway skeptics that the framework for a nuclear pact with Iran was a "good deal." A day after Obama called top lawmakers to urge support for the agreement, he pressed his case that Iran would not be able to build nuclear bombs.

And so it came, after years of protracted negotiations, extended deadlines and a diplomatic dance of unprecedented proportions – a deal that could signal a new era for Iran’s relations with the world. (...) Beyond the technical details of the agreement lies a triumph of diplomacy and the potential, if not for a realignment of US interests in the Middle East, then certainly a significant adjustment which has concerned its traditional allies in the region.

China's new Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a very big deal for Asia's economic future, but the way its establishment has played out makes it an even bigger deal for Asia's changing political and strategic order. And Canberra's announcement last weekend that Australia will join the AIIB despite the objections of the United States may come to be seen as marking a  historic shift in Australian foreign policy.

Ben Affleck made his way back to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify on behalf of Eastern Congo in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Oscar winner, who was joined by wife Jennifer Garner and philanthropist and Microsoft founder Billl Gates, spoke about his Eastern Congo Initiative in front of the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs subcommittee hearing on diplomacy, development and national security to ask them to allocate some of their budget to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.