I will be in Manchester today at the "Smart Power, Smart Philosophy" conference, one of a series of interrogations of "Hard, Soft, and Smart Power in the American Century".
Updates on our LiveBlogs on Iran and on Syria and Beyond will resume this afternoon with James Miller and Josh Shahryar. In the meantime, my thanks to readers for bringing in news and ideas via the Comments sections --- and do have a read of our features today on Iran and Egypt.