John Podesta, Lawrence J. Korb, and Brian Katulis, "Strategic Drift," Washington Post, November 15, 2007
With apparent disregard for the opinion of the American people, the debate over whether the large U.S. military presence in Iraq threatens our national security has been put on hold. Both political parties seem resigned to allowing the Bush administration to run out the clock on its Iraq strategy and bequeath this quagmire to the next president. The result is best described as strategic drift, and stopping it won't be easy.

President Bush claims that his strategy is having some success, but toward what end? He argued that the surge would provide the political breathing space needed to achieve a unified, peaceful Iraq. But its successes, which Bush says come from a reduction of casualties in certain areas, have been accompanied by massive sectarian cleansing. The surge has not moved us closer to national reconciliation.

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Joseph Cirincione and Andrew Grotto, "A Report Half Empty: Iran Needs to Level with the IAEA," CAP Article, November 16, 2007
The new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s nuclear program is a report half full. The IAEA received enough new information from Iran for Tehran to claim that the nation is cooperating with the agency to resolve the unanswered questions about Iran’s past nuclear activities. But it also is a report half empty, lacking so much information that the United States and other nations can correctly claim that Iran is falling short of the full disclosure necessary to resolve the issues that have already brought two sanctions resolutions from the United Nations Security Council.

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Andrew Grotto, "Needing NATO," Armed Forces Journal, November 14, 2007
Analysts on both sides of the Atlantic agree that the NATO mission in Afghanistan is a litmus test on the credibility of the trans-Atlantic alliance. If the 26 nations that comprise NATO can’t sustain a coalition against the Taliban, which helped orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the U.S. homeland that prompted NATO’s historic invocation of its mutual defense clause, then friend and foe alike have good reason to doubt the durability of the alliance.

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Colin Thomas-Jensen and John Prendergast, "A Strategy for Success in Sirte," ENOUGH Report, November 19, 2007
If not revamped, the Darfur peace process will almost certainly fail. Though hopes were high for talks that convened in early November, the United Nations/African Union joint mediation team made a critical mistake by trying to unify the rebels and assemble them all in one place without a clearly defined vision for an end state that resonates with Darfur’s civilian population. Most of the myriad rebel groups—and all of the significant ones—declined to attend the November talks in Sirte, Libya because they feared a repeat of the Abuja peace process that produced the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA.

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Financial Times- Joe Cirincione discusses the mystery surrounding Israel's Syria attack.  The evidence so far “tilts towards the theory that it was a reactor in Syria but does not establish it.”

The Raw Story- Lawrence Korb comments on the U.S. military's enormous oil consumption.  "If [the U.S. military] were a country, they'd be the 38th largest consumer of oil."

Scoop- Lawrence Korb explains how the 2008 Defense Appropriations Act could be used by the President to draw unlimited funds for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  "The war could be continued indefinitely without a supplemental, unless a provision is included in the regular budget that prevents it."

Fox News - Joseph Cirincione analyzes Iran's justification for a nuclear program.  "[Iran] frames the issue around the 'right' of Iran to this technology.  If nuclear technology is the energy of the future, like the United States and other countries say, then Iran has a right to it.  It’s a very effective frame for their domestic political purposes, and it makes Iran seem like the victim, not the aggressor. "

Bloomberg - Spencer Boyer assesses the surge in Iraq. "The current policy in Iraq is not working.  President Bush’s surge, while it has decreased the violence in the short-run in Iraq in some specific areas, it hasn’t done what it set out to do, which was to provide the al-Maliki government with the political space, the breathing room necessary to make the painful political compromises necessary for long-term reconciliation in the country.”