What I absolutely will not do, though, and what no one with an interest in getting things right should do, is to cram all of my analysis into a simplistic narrative of decay and decline.

FORBES: Russia's Population is Growing For The First Time Since The Early 1990's

Daniel Yergin, in his latest and arguably most promethean work, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, infuses a rich ingathering of information and analysis with the narrative power of a McMurtry, the human interest of an O.

FORBES: Daniel Yergin's The Quest: Human Ingenuity, Passion, the Fall of Caliphatism and the Rise of Prosperity

"You have cherry-picked information and woven a misleading narrative, " says Mr. Miller of the Journal analysis.

WSJ: Congressional Staffers Gain From Trading in Stocks

And the bottom line is this: The Iranian narrative really does, I think if you do a sharp analysis of this, fall in a quite empty way across the region when compared to the historic changes underway.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House