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, 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.