The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Air Force has increased bombings of Taliban and insurgent targets in Afghanistan, surpassing air operations in Iraq. According to Air Force officials, U.S. aircraft conducted 750 air strikes in Afghanstan during May, an average of 24 a day.

Incoherence at the UN. Stephen Schlesinger (my brother, who has written a book on the founding of the UN) has a good take on the Mark Balloch Brown/John Bolton kafuffle over at HuffPo. China has cracked the Da Vinci Code. Or more precisely cracked down on it.

It’s been exactly a year since cranky French and Dutch voters rejected the European Union’s draft constitution, and pundits can’t resist hyping an EU “crisis.” A steady stream of copy is provided by die-hard federalists in Brussels, ever disappointed by slow movement toward a “United States of Europe.

Is what happened in Mogadishu during the past week a microcosm of how badly the Bush administration has fundamentally mishandled its “global war on terror?” Superficially, at least, it would seem so.

I woke up this morning to the breaking news that Coalition forces had killed public enemy number one in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, in an airstrike. This is certainly good news.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s killing is not surprising, less significant strategically than it will inevitably be presented to be, and the man will in all likelihood be replaced sooner or later.

Mark Mazzetti’s NY Times front-pager on the most recent U.S. failures in Somalia is worth reading on two levels. First it’s an illustrative account of where we went wrong in allying ourselves with Somali warlords.

I just got through my first read of the outstanding roster of diverse and provocative posts that TWN‘s guest bloggers have posted this week. Thanks to all of them who have posted and to the many others who will cover the rest of the week and weekend.

In case you missed it, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike Wednesday. Good. It will be interesting to see to what extent this affects the insurgency in Iraq. If we have learned anything about modern terrorism it’s that these violent Islamist movements are constantly evolving and able to replace their leaders….

For months, various groups, former government officials and foreign policy experts have called on the United States to engage Iran directly to find a diplomatic solution to the continuing nuclear standoff.