Dropping the Language of the War on Terror
Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced that it was no longer going to use the term "Global War on Terror." A few months ago journalist Nicholas Schmidle explained in an On Day One video why, exactly, that terminology is problematic.

Obama realizes that after seven years, Afghanistan war fatigue has begun to set in with the American people. Some 51 percent of Americans now oppose the Afghanistan war, and 64 percent of Democrats do. The president is therefore escalating in the teeth of substantial domestic opposition, especially from his own party, as voters worry about spending billions more dollars abroad while the U.S. economy is in serious trouble.

The encounter between two men widely seen as pragmatists is likely to see the beginning of a new, slightly improved era in US-Russian relations. Under their predecessors, George Bush and Vladimir Putin, ties sank to their most dismal level since the cold war.

Russian officials concede that Obama won't give Moscow everything it wants. The lengthy shopping list includes an end to Nato expansion, the scrapping of the US missile defence shield in Europe and a new strategic arms reduction treaty.

Why Cheney was wrong
Dick Cheney created an uproar when he told CNN that President Obama's terrorism policies were making the country less safe. "He's making some choices that in my mind will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack," the former vice president said.

Cheney's comment was outrageous for several reasons, not least in that he was continuing the kind of fear-mongering that has itself weakened the country. But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a mistake with his gratuitously disrespectful and partisan remark, "Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next-most popular member of the Republican cabal."

A more useful response would have been to say that America isn't less safe because Obama hasn't changed anti-terrorism policies as much as Cheney's broadside implied. In fact, the administration's new policies on interrogation and detention reflect a careful effort to balance law and national security -- and are a return to pre-Bush administration standards rather than some new left-wing experiment.

Now Iraq's fiercely anti-Baathist prime minister has come close to fulfilling Mutlaq's implausible prediction—though on his own terms. Without naming the party, Maliki announced that Iraq would welcome the return of "those who at one time were obligated to be on the side of the former regime," as long as they accept Iraq's new order. Sami al-Askari, a confidant of the prime minister's, puts it this way: "He's trying to say, 'Look, our door is open if you're willing to participate in the political process and willing to stop the violence'." The call has set off a national debate on the Baathists, with Mutlaq in the thick of it.

Holbrooke on Afghanistan and Pakistan
During a briefing on President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, a reporter asked a question that elicited an unusual nonanswer from Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton's humbler tone plays well
Clinton's tone is part of a conscious public diplomacy effort by the Obama administration to change world opinion of the U.S., which sank deeply during his predecessor's eight years due to the war in Iraq, the treatment of detainees and other actions.

The approach by Clinton, who's on her first trip as top U.S. diplomat to Latin America, seemed to be playing well.