Fareed Zakaria: True or False: We Need a Wartime President. There are two key things to this argument. The first is:

It is by now overwhelmingly clear that Al Qaeda and its philosophy are not the worldwide leviathan that they were once portrayed to be. Both have been losing support over the last seven years. The terrorist organization's ability to plan large-scale operations has crumbled, their funding streams are smaller and more closely tracked. Of course, small groups of people can still cause great havoc, but is this movement an "existential threat" to the United States or the Western world? No, because it is fundamentally weak. Al Qaeda and its ilk comprise a few thousand jihadists, with no country as a base, almost no territory and limited funds. Most crucially, they lack an ideology that has mass appeal. They are fighting not just America but the vast majority of the Muslim world. In fact, they are fighting modernity itself.

You can argue that WWII was a genuine existential threat, although you'd probably be wrong even there. You can argue that Korea and/or Vietnam were genuine threats, if not directly to us, at least to the world's hopes to share our way of life; even there, you'd certainly be wrong. But once you realize that Al Qaeda represents at most a very tiny sliver of Islam, you should understand that all attacking them does is flattery.

The other key thing is what does having a "war president" do to us? Nothing good. One lesson we should have learned from self-perpetuating Cold War was that it undermines the left and bolsters the right, leading to a militarization of society and industry, a vast degree of economic waste and corruption, and other debilitating policies. Zakaria could develop that further, but at least he ends:

In fact, America is an extremely powerful country, with a unique and extraordinary set of strengths. The only way that position can truly be eroded is by its own actions and overreactions -- by unwise and imprudent leadership. A good way to start correcting the errors of the past would be to recognize that we are not at war.

And therefore we have no use for a war president.

Tom Engelhardt: Why Cheney Won't Take Down Iran. As the last days of the Bush-Cheney junta wind down, Iran remains their last best chance to launch one more really catastrophic war. The nominal excuse for such a war remains Iran's potential to develop nuclear bombs -- an argument both more realistic than the one proferred for invading Iraq but still poorly grounded in reality or realpolitik, and widely recognized as such (admittedly, less in the decisive world of political discourse, still easily swayed by demagoguery, especially propagated by Israel, than in the overstretched and oft-fooled military-security establishment, where such acts are most certain to blow back). Still, Engelhardt's argument is based on more elementary grounds: the pocketbook effect of an oil crisis that any attack on Iran would trigger. Simply stated, the higher the price of oil, the less the world can afford to fuck with the supply chain -- especially given that we're not just talking about taking Iran's oil off the market. Iran could conceivably take the whole Persian Gulf down with it.

The list of things Iran could do in response to an American and/or Israeli attack has been kicked around for several years now. Some, such as a flare-up against Israel by their buddies in Hamas and (especially) Hezbollah don't seem likely to get much respect. Indirect threats in Iraq and direct threats in the Straits of Hormuz are another story. But one thing that's never mentioned is: what if Iran, before striking back, takes its case to the UN, demanding censure and sanctions against the aggressors? Technically, the US can block such a move, but only by making a mockery of the whole UN.

Michael Massing: Embedded in Iraq. A field report as the New York Review's media correspondent goes undercover to see what little can be seen in post-surge Iraq. He sees some "progress," aggressively sold by the Pentagon's PR staff. He also sees the frustration and ineptness in his guardians. The resulting cascade of negatives suggests we've fallen into a black hole of non-reporting from Iraq. Things are getting better but we can't see the results because better is still too bad to permit any form of monitoring.

Gareth Porter: Pull-out Demand Signals Final Bush Defeat in Iraq. The current UN sanction for the US occupation of Iraq expires at the end of 2008. Bush has tried to legitimize further occupation past that date by negotiating a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with the al-Maliki Iraqi government by that time, which would have the extra effect of saddling the next administration with commitments to keep up the fight. However, al-Maliki appears to have other ideas, leading toward sending US troops packing. This should have happened several years ago, and might have except for the deviousness the US exercised in playing each group off against the other. While Porter may be right that this spells Bush's ultimate defeat, the key thing for Bush has always been that it didn't happen on his watch.

For some time now it's looked like the al-Maliki government might be able to control and stabilize the country without the support of US troops -- US arms, of course, will still be welcome, although Iran is readily available as a fallback. This would be a change from the pattern set in Vietnam and Afghanistan, where rump governments held on for a few years before falling. But it still seems that it would require more power-sharing than al-Maliki has been willing to commit to, or the US has been willing to permit. The latter, at least, is likely to change in January 2009. Obama doesn't need to want to withdraw so much as he needs to just go along with the flow, unlike Bush, who fought tooth and nail to protract the war in every way.

Fred Kaplan: Obama Gets Help From Iraq's Prime Minister. This is another way of looking at the Iran and Iraq stories. That both countries are even stories is mostly due to the dilligent work of the Bush administration stirring up conflicts where there is little reason for them. Obama's desire to extricate us from those conflicts, as opposed to Bush's (or McCain's) eagerness to crank them up, may be all the tilt it takes to make change. Especially when indications from the other side look favorable.

James Gustave Speth: The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing From Crisis to Sustainability (2008, Yale University Press)

Speth was Chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality (the president was Carter), and founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute -- unusually establishmentarian credentials for one who has come to see today's "pragmatic and incrementalist" environment movement as inadequate, who is willing to go so far as to cite capitalism itself as the problem that prevents us from moving towards any sort of sustainable economics. He could, of course, go further, but he is certainly on to something. We've seen that the class struggle between labor and capital can be mitigated by a more equitable political division of the pie. However, sustainability cuts far deeper into the essence of capitalism. A sustainable economy may retain aspects of private property and markets, but losing the prospect of endless growth certainly changes its nature.