Geoffrey Aronson, who participated in two years of intermittent talks between unofficial Israeli and Syrian representatives, said contacts continue even though they have not sat down together since last summer. Aronson says talks led to a “non-paper” and unofficial accord by which Israel would return the Golan Heights to Syria and in return get access to water in the region.

Iran has emerged as Washington’s chief bogeyman in Iraq. But some experts say Iranian influence may be exaggerated.

Iran's influence in Iraq is the subject of enormous speculation. The United States is taking steps to counter that influence.

Afghanistan continues to demand that Pakistan purge terrorist cells. Can Pakistan's controversial proposal to mine the frontier halt cross-border raids into Afghanistan?

President Bush plans to increase U.S. spending and troop levels in Afghanistan. Despite widespread resistance to Bush’s Iraq “surge,” most policymakers seem to think an Afghan boost makes sense. 

As the U.S. security plan for Iraq takes shape in Baghdad, Muqtada al-Sadr appears to be moving to forestall a U.S. crackdown on his Shiite militia.

Gary G. Sick says an “emerging strategy” is developing that brings the United States, Israel, and Sunni Arab states in an informal alliance against Iran.

Despite the ouster of the Islamist militia last month, stability in Somalia remains elusive. Its leaders must decide whether to reconcile or return to warlordism.

A top U.S. State Department official says Washington wants the alliance to beat back the Taliban’s resurgence.

With Iran’s economy struggling and the conservative camp split, President Ahmadinejad may find himself increasingly marginalized on foreign policy matters. 

Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading strategic analyst of the Iraqi war, says the Bush administration’s latest strategy on Iraq makes victory there “possible” but “the problem is it also isn’t probable.”

President Bush’s plan to secure Baghdad faces a number of obstacles: a war-weary American public, a resistant Iraqi government, and an entrenched sectarian dispute.

Steven A. Cook, a leading Middle East expert, says the current U.S. effort to make progress in the Israeli-Palestinian talks is inevitably linked to the U.S. desire to get Arab support for the shaky government in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s latest round of Mideast diplomacy hopes to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Yet little evidence exists to support the idea that either party to the conflict currently shares that hope.

A Congressional Research Service report on Afghanistan’s political transition. The report notes that while the insurgency led by remnants of the former Taliban regime escalated in 2006, after several years in which it appeared the Taliban were mostly defeated. Taliban fighters have been conducting large-scale attacks on coalition and Afghan security forces in several southern provinces, possibly assisted by popular frustration with slow reconstruction, official corruption, and the failure to extend Afghan government authority into rural areas and provinces. In addition, narcotics trafficking is resisting counter-measures, and independent militias remain throughout the country, although many have been disarmed.

With a new team of Iraq advisers emerging, President Bush looks set to call for a “surge” of more U.S. forces to Iraq. Some critics, including newly empowered congressional Democrats, think the emphasis should be on redeployment from Iraq.

Partial text of a report from the left-leaning Global Policy Forum on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The report considers what it calls a ‘failed policy’ in detail, with special emphasis on the U.S. Coalition’s responsibilities under international law. It also considers political and economic issues in Iraq and argues for a speedy withdrawal of Coalition forces

A breakdown of coalition fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan in the six months through December 2006.

This report on Open Democracy and written by Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University, England, argues that without a change of NATO strategy, the prospect for Afghanistan in 2007 is escalating violence.