NATO Urged to Plan Afghanistan Exit as Violence Soars

NATO's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack ahead of an important summit - with one public call to discuss an exit strategy from the Allied forces' bloody confrontation with the Taliban.

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Ferocity of Iraq Attacks Leaves US Troops Helpless

More than 3 years after President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq, which his supporters proclaimed would be a "cakewalk," American troops were engulfed in a wave of sectarian bloodletting yesterday that threatens to destroy the Iraqi government and may jeopardize a crisis summit this week with Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister.

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Iraq Panel's Real Agenda: Damage Control

"Even as Washington waits with bated breath for the Iraq Study Group to release its findings," writes Andrew Bacevich, "the rest of us should see this gambit for what it is: an attempt to deflect attention from the larger questions raised by America's failure in Iraq, and to shore up the authority of the foreign policy establishment that steered the United States into this quagmire. This ostentatiously bipartisan panel of Wise Men (and one woman) can't really be searching for truth. It is engaged in damage control."

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US Dominance of the Middle East Has Ended

"The age of US dominance in the Middle East has ended, and a new era in the modern history of the region has begun," writes Richard Haass. "It will be shaped by new actors and new forces competing for influence, and to master it, Washington will have to rely more on diplomacy than on military might."

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