both domestic and international issues is hollowing out american strength and is leading to these kind of log jams in congress where either nothing happens at all or something happens at the last second when the situation is particularly perilous. there is a realfear, particularly in foreign policy circles, that russia or china or other potential american adversaries look at these kind of things and feel that america is becoming almost self—defeating in the way that its political culture is seizing up to a large extent. that was the white house columnist for the political website the hill. and don't forget you can get much more analysis from the middle east on the bbc news website. it includes bbc verify latest analysis of satellite images that appear to show that an iranian air defence site was damaged in friday's air attack on iran by israel.