A teacher, no matter how good, has to give this one size fits all lecture to 30 students blank faces, slightly antagonistic and now it's a human experience.

For one thing, it puts men and women in a really antagonistic relationship with one another, because the men are these devious tricksters up there who've put up this glass ceiling.

And, in fact, it was Kennan who first drew my attention to this similarity, when in a private conversation about 9 11, he noted that, for many Muslims, Russia and the West were becoming indistinguishable. Both were viewed as secular states antagonistic to Islam.

Her delegation was disappointed that negotiations in the Commission on Human Rights had not produced the desired results and that the very nature of the Working Group on the draft declaration, as well as antagonistic positions, had caused negotiations to stagnate for several years.

Russia is in no position to create an alternative international system but, if Putin continues to pursue an outdated and antagonistic foreign policy, it can undermine the existing one. At a time when the world is facing so many destabilizing challenges, this would not be good for anyone.

Rather, the process remains open and indeterminate. EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle insists that enlargement is progressing, but the western Balkans remains a fragile region, defined by mutually antagonistic nationalisms, incomplete state formation, deep and pervasive patterns of corruption, and endemic economic mismanagement.

Why keep such an anachronistic construct alive when the world is no longer frozen into two ideologically antagonistic blocs? Furthermore, given the proliferation of strategic partnerships that claim many NAM members (India, for example, has strategic partnerships with the United States, Japan, and Brazil), are the non aligned really still non aligned?

But neither side seized the opportunity to build on this common ground, and today US Iran relations are as antagonistic as they have been in years. For the US, Iran s nuclear ambitions, opposition to Israel, and support for extremist groups have become increasingly intolerable in the context of the war on terror.

Handled with forbearance and firmness, relations with Russia should remain difficult but manageable. With NATO backing off, the European Union stepping in with its Eastern Partnership initiative to shift continuing competition in the post Soviet space onto a less antagonistic footing, and President Barack Obama demonstrating his willingness to assuage Russia s damaged pride, major confrontation should be avoidable.