This is a guest note, exclusive to The Washington Note, by James P. Pinkerton — a contributor to the Fox News Channel and frequent poster at FoxForum.com. Pinkerton is also fellow at the New America Foundation, and contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine.

Yigal Schleifer, a journalist who consistently provides excellent analysis of Turkish politics and foreign policy from Istanbul, has a thoughtful article over at World Politics Review that breaks down the agreement among Brazil, Turkey, and Iran from Ankara’s perspective.

Financial Times Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator Martin Wolf will discuss the state of the global economy this evening at 5:30 pm EST at the New America Foundation.

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.

Live TV by Ustream The Washington Note is live streaming a half day event this morning, May 17th, focusing on the war in Afghanistan in the wake of President Karzai’s visit to DC. The schedule follows below but some of the headliners include James K.

My colleague Peter Beinart has just published in the New York Review of Books what will be for his career a “defining piece” that challenges key Israel-focused institutions to change up their game or face a bleak future.

(Photo Credit: State Department Photo by Michael Gross) This post also appears at The Race for Iran.

Noam Chomsky‘s politics are not my own — but I read him and want to remain aware of his views. I also read Alan Dershowitz, who essentially has become a Noam Chomsky of the right when it comes to Israel policy.

(photo credit: Maxwell Snow) Ali Gharib has just published “Behind Enemy Lines,” a penetrating profile of Nir Rosen, whose supporters and critics alike recognize that he more than any other reporter has an unmatched ability to burrow into the meetings, mosques, networks, and thinking of insurgents who are fighting America and its allies.