Israel-Palestine: What the US Should Do Now on Settlements (Walt)

If I were President Obama (and you can all be glad I'm not), I'd call my entire Middle East team into the Oval office for a little chat. Here's what I'd say:

"I made a promise to the American people, and to the world, that we would achieve 'two states for two peoples' during my first term. When I was in Cairo more than a year ago, I said this goal was in "America's interest, Israel's interest, the Palestinians' interest, and the world's interest." And I meant it. I trusted each of you to help me bring that goal about, and I've taken your advice for over twenty months. Let me be clear: it isn't working, and I'm not one who is satisfied with failure. Nor am I going to reward it. So I am telling each of you now: If you can't help me get this deal done within one year, I'm going to fire every one of you and get some new faces in here."

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Afghanistan: From Bad to Worse in the North?

Anna Badkhen writes for Foreign Policy:

I returned to Northern Afghanistan in April to document for Foreign Policy the implacable spread of the Taliban in the region (the dispatches I wrote were recently published as an ebook, Waiting for the Taliban); I left the region in May. At the time, the Taliban were terrorizing travelers in Kunduz and Baghlan provinces, along the main route that NATO uses to bring in supplies from Tajikistan; launching swift attacks on government forces in Takhar Province; and flagging down traffic at impromptu checkpoints on the ancient roads of Balkh.

How to measure the progress of the war since my visit? Violence has been metastasizing across the north. A string of bombings in Kunduz killed at least 19 Afghan police officers in the last five weeks. Last month, 10 Western aid workers, members of a medical team, were slaughtered in Badakhshan -- the remote redoubt of the legendary Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, where the Taliban did not dare venture even when they were ruling most of the country from Kabul. It was the largest massacre of relief workers in Afghanistan in years. The United Nations, which last winter considered parts of the north volatile, now regards a large swath of the region as extremely dangerous for its personnel.

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