The Obama administration is revamping its effort to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, acknowledging that the terrorist group has been far more effective in attracting new recruits, financing and global notoriety than the United States and its allies have been in thwarting it.

President Barack Obama said he wouldn’t decide whether to supply weapons to Ukraine until European leaders exhaust one last diplomatic effort to resolve the conflict there, setting aside for now trans-Atlantic differences on the best way to get Russia to relent.  Mr. Obama announced his decision after a White House meeting Monday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that followed days of sometimes testy exchanges between U.S. and German officials.

The likelihood that the Iran negotiations are reaching a make-or-break point was reinforced by President Obama on Monday when he told reporters: “I don’t see a further extension being useful” if the Iranians don’t agree by late March to a framework that shows the world “that they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon. 

Some European leaders are in a full court press to oppose Washington’s potential plan to give lethal aid to the Ukrainian military. The problem is, there has been no decision in Washington, and the Europeans may be fighting against a plan that U.S. President Barack Obama will never approve anyway.

The president’s 2015 National Security Strategy, released Friday, promised Americans the administration will confront a myriad of security and social threats with a strong focus on diplomacy and an aversion to meddling too much in developing events.

In several recent interviews, President Obama has attempted to put the fight against radical Islamist terrorism in perspective. The president’s personal style is indeed often laconic, but in this case, it is out of place.

As the State Department confronts a number of global challenges ranging from extremism in the Middle East and Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, a surprising provision in the White House’s newly unveiled budget proposal for Foggy Bottom would boost funding for Central America, where a mass migration of unaccompanied minors to the southern United States has exposed profound societal problems in the region.

U.S. President Barack Obama will appear in public at an event attended by the Dalai Lama in Washington in the coming week, the White House said Friday, a move sure to anger Beijing.