The Best of Web in 2012

Iran is holding terrorist leaders as an act of defense -- so long as it has them, al Qaeda will likely refrain from attacking Iran. But the strategy also has a defensive component -- if the United States or Israel bombed the country, it could employ al Qaeda in responding.

The conversation in Israel about an operation against Iran's nuclear program is centered on whether or not Jerusalem should strike, not on what might happen if it does. The lack of public debate about the "day after" may leave Israel unprepared both to attack and to defend itself.

Forget the Machiavellian appearances--A Song of Ice and Fire is really a parable about the disastrous consequences of unchecked realpolitik.

The U.S. government has begun to think of Anonymous, the online network phenomenon, as a threat to national security. This is the wrong approach. Seeing Anonymous primarily as a cybersecurity threat is like analyzing the breadth of the Vietnam antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture by focusing only on the Weathermen.

In the coming years, Gazprom won’t be able to rely on high profit margins to stay at the top of the energy business. And Putin won’t be able to rely on Gazprom as a source of power.

The eurozone's troubles -- including the possibility of Greece's exit from the union -- no longer qualify as a crisis. What looks like significant instability is really just the slow-motion settling of the continent's new economic order.

Although shooting female FARC members first during battle is not official policy, a retired Colombian colonel told the author in 2009, any sensible soldier would do so. With their "Kamikaze-like" mentality, he said, they are the deadliest combatants. This profile of one former member illustrates how the abuses women face once inside the group create such a mindset.

Militant Buddhism was a driving force behind the 25-year war between Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils. Combative monks remain, inflaming religious tensions on the island and threatening to shake up the country's fragile peace.

Until recently, Asian countries' competing claims in the seas around China did not cause outright conflict. But now that drilling technology can tap gas and oil beds there, Asia capitals are stepping up their games.

Secularists have taken to the streets to argue that Egypt's new constitution, likely to be ratified this week, is an illegitimate document produced in an undemocratic process. What they really fear, however, is that normal politics will soon return to the country -- setting up a fight that they know they can't win.