CFR’s James M. Lindsay summarizes President Obama’s first year as "great expectations running smack into daunting realities," including the Afghan war, China’s rise, and Iran’s nuclear program.

Iraqis don’t blame Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an uptick in violence, but that doesn’t mean he’ll prevail in March 7 parliamentary elections, says veteran Middle East correspondent Jane Arraf.

Edward Alden, a CFR trade and immigration expert, says it is wrong to pin blame on NAFTA for the ills of the U.S. economy. Most of the competition that has affected U.S. manufacturing has come from t…

Crucial to the success of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is dealing with the country’s "predatory misgovernance," says CFR’s Stephen Biddle. Targeting U.S. contracting practices is a good place to s…

Henry Siegman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the director of its U.S./Middle East Project, says that even though neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Israeli government…