If you are a Middle East policy junkie, then you are most likely already acquainted with “The Middle East Channel” at Foreign Policy.

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. Clinton, Karzai Define Down Kandahar: “A Process, not an Operation” Experienced politicians are experts at downplaying expectations.

Maybe Newsweek‘s Ramin Setoodeh meant to stir up the controversy he did about gays being unbelievable in straight entertainment roles, and maybe he didn’t. But the topic has been busted open, and he and others should use this as a learning moment.

One of my frustrations with the global justice community has been a general aversion to thinking through and articulating clear road maps to secure human rights advancements in a way that can stand up to cost/benefit assessments of other contending policy goals.

This is a guest note by Dan Kervick, a regular reader and commenter at The Washington Note. Reaction to Aaron David Miller’s recent pessimistic piece on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has raised calls for outside-the-box thinking as the only alternative to despair and endless conflict in the Middle East.

(Photo Credit: Jon Connel’s Photostream) The huge news here in Istanbul this week is the resignation of Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Deniz Baykal. Baykal leads the main opposition party that represents a secular, nationalist, pro-military alternative to the conservative, religiously-oriented ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Brazilian President Luiz In

This has to be watched. As the narrator says, “the Gulf appears to be bleeding.” Thanks to UT Austin/LBJ School’s James Galbraith for sending my way. For those of you following this disaster, the blog Gulf Oil Slick is a good resource.

Andrew Lebovich, a frequent TWN contributor and staff member at the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program, prepared today the AfPak page brief for Foreign Policy this morning. This slightly disturbing kicker caught my attention: Afghanistan’s creepiest game When not on the watch for Taliban, U.S.

Nicholas Maliska is a research intern with the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note. With President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, the U.S. Supreme Court is changing (although this change should not significantly alter the ideological balance of the Court).