AS IF THE COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR WEREN’T HIGH ENOUGH, the battle over a new roster of permanent UN Security Council members may add to the tally. Some of America’s allies see their cooperation with America in Iraq as enhancing their bona fides for possible permanent Security Council membership.

STILL NOT ABLE TO GET ON LINE HERE IN LONDON, but I have had an interesting week, some of which is worth reporting. . .discreetly. First of all, the British are overall not pleased with Bush or the U.S.

REMEMBER WHEN GEORGE SOROS BET AGAINST THE BRITISH POUND and raked in more than one billion dollars for his efforts? I do. I was in London at that time, and the currency was going through the floor. Although the pound is much higher against the U.S.

I AM IN LONDON FOR A FEW DAYS, meeting people and sorting out to what degree the American foreign policy debate is the U.K.’s as well. I just spoke to a friend, who will remain unnamed, in circles close to Tony Blair.

RON ASMUS HAS AN INTERESTING OP-ED IN THE WASHINGTON POST today. Early in his article, he writes: The president proposes something that generations of U.S. diplomats and soldiers fought to prevent and that our adversaries sought unsuccessfully to achieve: radical reduction of U.S. political and military influence on the European and Asian continents.

CNN’S LOU DOBBS IS REPORTING ON THINK TANKS each night this week. He is looking at which tanks are most influential and why — as well as looking at the question of whether non-transparent funding is inappropriately using think tanks to push various agendas. His show is called “Thought Leaders.

WESLEY CLARK AND RICHARD HOLBROOKE ARE MAKING A MISTAKE in their criticism of President Bush’s military realignment plan. Clark went the farthest in a DNC arranged conference call, by saying that the proposal “will significantly undermine U.S. national security.

JOSH MARSHALL AND KEVIN DRUM HAVE BOTH ADDRESSED KERRY’S IRAQ WAR resolution problem — and I don’t really want to pile on.

AFTER 9/11, THERE WAS SO MUCH ANGER AND DEMAND FOR REVENGE that raising questions about how and why a group of highly educated, middle class mostly Saudis would be willing to sacrifice their lives and inflict such horrific damage on America was considered to be unpatriotic.

“THE NEOCONSERVATIVE MOMENT” BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA is an important new essay in the latest edition of The National Interest. The link only provides an excerpt — but a subscription to this magazine is a cheap price to pay to read what may be the beginnings of a civil war among neoconservatives.