By Steve Clemons

It will be released officially later today by the White House. But here is the official pdf of the National Security Strategy report. More on this important report later.

From the BBC: West Bank rabbi bans women from local election Rabbi Elyakim Levanon of the Elon Moreh settlement, near Nablus, said women lacked the authority to stand for the post of local secretary. He wrote in a community newspaper that women must only be heard through their husbands.

This is a guest note by Dr. Christopher K. Tucker, founding Chief Strategic Officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s Venture Fund. Tucker is also a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.

This is an interesting short discussion between writer Mark Perry who broke the story on General Petraeus asking that the West Bank and Gaza be part of the Central Command’s territory.

Peter Beinart’s important New York Review of Books essay, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” outlining a generationally bifurcated American Jewish community in which Israel-focused institutions are increasingly dominated by zealots while more liberal American Jews are disconnected from the Israel enterprise has drawn some strong critical responses.

President Barack Obama’s speech at West Point on Saturday may be among the most important he has yet made during his sixteen month old presidency. The speech intimates a number of the key themes likely to appear in the National Security Strategy report to be issued this next week.

Yesterday evening, I was at the annual board members/fellows retreat of the New America Foundation and got into an interesting discussion with one of the institution’s supporters. He said he was at a meeting not too long ago in which people were discussing “what the world would look like in a hundred years.

Freshman Congressman Alan Grayson (Fl-08), fresh off some real victories in the House on financial regulatory reform and Federal Reserve Bank transparency, is now focusing his attention on America’s expensive wars.

This is a guest note by Barbara Slavin, freqent TWN contributor and author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. Slavin has visited Iran seven times.

What follows below the fold is White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ statement on Brazil & Turkey’s possible diplomatic achievement with Iran.