This is a guest note by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett. Flynt directs the New America Foundation/Iran Project and is a former Senior Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. Hillary is chairman of Stratega, a political risk consultancy. They are co-publishers of the forthcoming blog, The Race for Iran.

Jon Weinberg is a research intern at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. A couple of weeks ago, Angelina Jolie, who makes periodic trips as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), visited Iraqi refugees in southern Damascus along with her partner, Brad Pitt.

Stephen Kinzer, author of Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds and one of the United States’ most knowledgeable Turkophiles, has an optimistic op-ed in today’s Boston Globe about the recent normalization agreement between Turkey and Armenia and Turkey’s potential as a regional power.

This is a guest note by Arianna Huffington who co-founded and serves as editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of twelve books. She is also co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” public radio’s popular political roundtable program.

I was supposed to be flying off to Portland, Oregon tomorrow to speak to the Portland Business Alliance on Friday on the subject of America’s “Green Trade Deficit.

At the Clinton Global Initiative, I interviewed Palestinian-American businessman Hani Masri, founder of Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, an institution based in Nablus in the West Bank of Palestine that is committed to improving the lives and opportunities of young Palestinian women.

This is a guest note by Flynt Leverett. Flynt directs the New America Foundation/Iran Project and is the former Senior Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. He is also publisher of the forthcoming blog, The Race For Iran.

This is a guest “note” by Daniel Levy. Daniel Levy directs the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and formerly served as a senior Israeli negotiator. Levy is a principle drafter of the Geneva Israel-Palestine accords. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, reopened today after a long break for the summer and the Jewish holidays.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Here is a short clip of my appearance on Countdown tonight discussing Liz Cheney’s reaction to Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

This evening at 8:15 pm Eastern time, I’ll be in Countdown with Keith Olbermann discussing Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and how crazy it has made some of America’s leading pugnacious nationalists, particularly Liz Cheney. Some background reading: My CNN piece on the subject. A first and second response from the reasonable opposition at Powerline….