A paper cutout of U.S. President Barack Obama is displayed at a shop Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 in Shanghai, China. China signaled Thursday that it's ready to allow its currency to rise just days ahead of a visit by President Obama. (AP)

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President Obama, on his way to a week in Asia today. A quick stop in Alaska, then Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul, South Korea.

Every stop has its agenda. Bucking up old allies. Talking trade, military bases, America’s commitment in the Pacific.

And at the heart of it all, Washington’s dance with China. Our “vital partner and competitor,” as the president calls it.

Obama will be face to face with China’s top leaders. They build, we buy. They lend, we borrow. It’s a giant relationship at the heart of the world economy.

This hour, On Point: The president goes to Asia.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington, D.C., is James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic. He’s covered East Asia for more than two decades, and he just finished a three-year stint living in China. His latest book is “Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China.”

From Lincoln, Neb., we’re joined by Susan Shirk, professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She oversaw U.S.-China policy at the State Department from 1997 to 2000, and she founded the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a forum that right now is sponsoring high-level talks between North Korea, the United States and others over Korean peninsula nuclear issues. Her latest book is “China: Fragile Superpower.”

And from Shanghai, China, we’re joined by Shen Dingli, professor and executive dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies, in Shanghai. He’s director of Fudan University’s American Studies program. He’s also a fellow at the Asia Society. For a sense of how he sees China-U.S. competition in the coming decades, see his recent paper for the Centre for European Policy Studies.

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Vali Nasr, Iranian-born Iran scholar and adviser to the Obama administration, sees the same headlines you do when it comes to the Muslim world.

Just in the last week, it’s terror plots, missile tests, and nuclear dreams. And Nasr is advising special envoy Richard Holbrooke as the U.S. decides on more troops for Afghanistan.

It’s a daunting line-up. And still, he says, look behind the headlines.

There’s a Muslim middle class rising that wants business, not bombs. Exports, not extremism.

If they win, he says, moderation wins.

This hour, On Point: Vali Nasr on Islamic extremism and the Muslim world’s middle class.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Vali Nasr joins us from Washington. A leading thinker on the Islamic world, he is professor of international relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. His new book is “Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What it Will Mean for Our World.”

Read an excerpt from “Forces of Fortune.”

President Barack Obama chairs a meeting of the United Nations Security Council at the United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009. At rear is U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. (AP)

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The small-world principle was on big display in the U.S. this week. Leaders from all over, sitting elbow to elbow at the UN in New York. Leaders of the world’s twenty most powerful economies descending on Pittsburgh.

We’ve got a nuclear weapons vote in the Security Council. “Rebalancing” on the table at the G20. Explosive charges that Iran is hiding secret nuclear capacity.

Health care reform grinding on in Wahsington. And terrorism plot allegations tumbling out of Denver, Dallas, and Springfield, Illinois.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Ruth Marcus, editorial writer and columnist for The Washington Post.

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Susan Glasser, executive editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

And from Hanover, N.H., we’re joined by Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech, in front of pictures of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, left, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, before Friday prayers at Tehran University on Friday, Sept. 18, 2009. (AP)

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President Obama, before the United Nations General Assembly and the world today, talking about the world’s challenges and how the United States cannot solve them alone.

In the middle of those challenges — and very soon at the center of six-party talks including the United States and, for the first time, the Obama administration — Iran and its nuclear program.

Can the Obama White House succeed where others have failed in rallying the world to cut Iran off from the path to nuclear weapons?

This hour, On Point: On and offstage at the UN — diplomacy, threats, and tackling the challenge of Iran.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us in our studio is David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times and author of “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.”  You can read an excerpt here.

From New York, we’re joined by Gary Sick, senior scholar and professor of Middle East Politics at Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan and was principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. He’s author of “All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter With Iran” and “October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.” He blogs at Gary’s Choices.

And from Berlin, we’re joined by Constanze Stelzenmuller, senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is former defense and international security editor at the German weekly Die Zeit.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. (AP)

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Dire warnings, made public today, by the top U.S. general in Afghanistan. “More Forces or ‘Mission Failure,’” is the headline in The Washington Post. Taliban victory. U.S. defeat.

My guests today say listen carefully, past the headline. Daniel Ellsberg, in 1971, leaked the Pentagon Papers that changed the country’s understanding of the Vietnam War.

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s right-hand man at the State Department, called the case for war in Iraq a hoax.

This hour, On Point: The push for more troops in Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Daniel Ellsberg joins us from Berkeley, Calif. He had been a top-level defense analyst at the Defense Department and State Department and was working as an analyst at the RAND Corporation in 1971, when he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. He served as a rifle platoon leader in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s. He is the subject of a new documentary called “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

Joining us from Williamsburg, Va., is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S. Army-Ret.). He was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. A former director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia, he’s now a professor of national security studies at George Washington University and of government and policy at the College of William & Mary. He has been an outspoken critic of the George W. Bush administration and its case for the Iraq war.

Joining us from Berlin is George Packer, staff writer at The New Yorker. His article “The Last Mission” — about Richard Holbrooke, Afghanistan, and the ghosts of Vietnam — appears in current issue. His most recent book is “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq” (2005).
 

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, in Washington, on Thursday, May 21, 2009. (AP)

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For years, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, has been the big player in Israel lobbying in Washington. Still is, dwarfing all others in its field.

But there’s a new player in town. It’s called J Street. It’s much smaller. More liberal. And it’s trying to open up the American debate on the Middle East and represent, it says, more American Jews’ actual views. To be “pro-Israel,” it says, and “pro-peace.”

Small as J Street is, it may matter right now. This hour, On Point: The new Israel lobby. A conversation with J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Seattle is Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and executive director of J Street, a year-old, Washington-based lobbying organization that describes itself as “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.” He served as President Bill Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser and as policy director on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign.

From New York, we’re joined by Marty Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic. His blog at TNR.com is The Spine.

More links:

James Traub, in a piece titled “The New Israel Lobby,” wrote about Jeremy Ben-Ami and J Street in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill

In our first hour today, we reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and spoke with Ambassador Christopher Hill. He’s been President Obama’s diplomatic point man in Iraq since April.

Hill said that the key to progress in that country remains reconciling the various political factions. Recent violence has inflamed tensions among them. The Ambassador was candid about the difficult environment.

“Now ironically, it’s the security situation that hits the headlines, the various hideous bombings that one sees,” he said. “But it’s the political situation that I think worries a lot of people, because this idea of working together and trying to have rules of the road for the political process is a bit of an elusive concept here.”

Hill also commented on the recent formation of a new Shiite alliance, which Prime Minister Maliki has decided to opt out of. He said Maliki is playing a “dating game”:

I want to emphasize that, you know, we have elections coming up. And while Iraqis may have not totally embraced democracy, they sure have embraced politics…So recently you had a sort of Shia grouping put together. Those are people mainly in the South. But interestingly the Shia prime minister, Maliki, put a condition in there that he knew the others would not accept. And so he’s out there playing a sort of dating game with Kurdish partners and Sunni tribal partners. So there’s a lot of politics going on. That’s the good news. The bad news is they sometimes, you know, don’t get to the real homework of reconciliation and working some of these problems.

Asked about the current sentiments of Iraqis toward the American occupation, Ambassador Hill said the “slow” progress remains “frustrating,” and he suggested there is only so much the U.S. can do:

We’re into the seventh year of this very difficult period. And to be sure, I think that a lot of Iraqis thought that it would go a lot better, thought that we would essentially bring America to them. And that hasn’t been the case. It’s been very tough. It’s been very tough politically. It’s been very tough to reconcile various sectarian communities. You know, there are many Sunnis who feel that they are the big losers with the demise of Saddam Hussein. Even though they didn’t like him, he was a Sunni. And then frankly there are Shia who feel they are winners, but they always worry about what comes next. So it’s a very nuanced picture. But with respect to the view of the United States, that’s also very complex. There are a lot of Iraqis who feel that it has been such a tough time, that you know, [they say], “Why hasn’t the U.S. completely rebuilt this country?” Well, we have…spent billions of dollars, but to just rebuild Iraq or to somehow turn it into something that never was, would be costing trillions. So we have really tried to work with the Iraqi authorities, tried to stand up a market economy, tried to get them to have a proper use of their natural resources so they can bring in foreign investment and that sort of thing. And there’s no question that progress is being made, but it’s very slow, and it’s very frustrating to a lot of people.

A burqa clad woman walks past a poster of Afghan President Hamid Karzai pasted on the back of a vehicle in Herat, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009. Afghans will head to the polls on Aug. 20 to elect the new president. (AP)

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The people of Afghanistan go to the polls tomorrow to elect a president — if they have the courage. At least one Taliban commander has threatened to cut off any finger he sees daubed with the blue ink of the voter.

British diplomat, soldier, and scholar Rory Stewart knows Afghanistan far better than most. He walked across it. Learned it up close. He’s an adviser to the U.S. envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke.

But Rory Stewart says we’ve got our vision wrong for Afghanistan, the war, and nation-building. We need a rethink.

This hour, on election eve, a reality check on Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us first from Kabul is Laura King, reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Joining us from London is Rory Stewart, professor and director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He has served as a British soldier and diplomat, has been an outside adviser to U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, and is executive chairman of the Afghanistan-based  Turquoise Mountain Foundation. He’s author of “The Places in Between,” about his 2002 trek across Afghanistan, and of “The Prince of the Marshes,” about his time as coalition deputy governor of two southern Iraqi provinces in 2003 and 2004.

Stewart’s recent essay, “The Irresistible Illusion” (in the July 9 issue of the London Review of Books), offers an extended critique of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy.

In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo, former U.S. President Bill Clinton meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Tuesday. (AP)

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The Obama administration dispatched Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to meet the North Korean dictator, pose for the propaganda shot, and bring out American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The job done, the White House put to rest all the Beltway gossip about whether the president, the secretary of state, and the former president would serve the country or their own egos.

But the big questions are still unanswered. Up next, On Point: Bill Clinton’s mission to Pyongyang, and what it means for the US, North Korea, and an administration facing a world full of problems.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Joining us from Seoul, South Korea, is Evan Ramstad, Korea correspondent for The Wall Street Journal covering the Clinton mission and the release of the American journalists.

Joining us from Busan, South Korea, is Brian Myers. He is a researcher of North Korean ideology and propaganda at Dongseo University, where he heads the International Studies department, and author of a forthcoming book on North Korean propaganda titled “The Cleanest Race.”An American citizen, he has lived in South Korea for eight years. 

Joining us from New York is Michael Crowley, a senior editor at The New Republic. His most recent article, “The Decider,” looks at the Obama foreign policy team. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, and Slate.

And joining us from Aspen, Colo., is Mitchell Reiss, diplomat-in-residence at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He held several top diplomatic positions in the George W. Bush administration and has extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, including as chief negotiator for the United States in the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization in the Clinton administration. He was United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, with the diplomatic rank of Ambassador, until stepping down in 2007.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak hold a joint press conference at a Jerusalem hotel on Monday. (AP)

Iran, nuclear weapons, and the Middle East. Is it never going to happen? Or is the US ready to accept, and put up what Hillary Clinton calls a “defense umbrella”?

Guests:

Graham Allison, professor of government and director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy school of government. Author of “Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe.”

Barry Posen, professor of political science at MIT and director of the MIT Security Studies program. Author of “Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks” and “The Sources of Military Doctrine.”

Ephraim Sneh, former member of the Israeli Knesset. Served briefly under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as Deputy Minister of Defense. Also has served as Minister of Health and Minister of Transportation. Left the Labor Party in May 2008 to create a the Yirael Hazaka (Strong Israel) party.

Clockwise from top left: A Uighur woman protests before paramilitary police in Urumqi on Tuesday (AP); Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in an interview on Tuesday (MSNBC.com); Janet Jackson (l) and LaToya Jackson (r) stand behind Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris Jackson, during the late star’s memorial service in Los Angeles on Tuesday (AP); President Obama speaks about climate change during the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy (AP).

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No smooth sailing for Barack Obama’s priority list this week — at home or abroad.

Health care and climate bills up against headwinds in Congress. The G8 and developing countries in Rome going slow on tackling global warming. Continued tough numbers on job loss in the U.S.  At least GM’s out of bankruptcy.

In China, there’s blood in the streets this week. Russia’s talking reset with the U.S.

Sarah Palin is bailing out as governor of Alaska. And Michael Jackson, King of Pop, gets a royal sendoff in Los Angeles.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Kathleen Parker, syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

Also from Washington is Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for The Chicago Tribune.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

President Barack Obama and Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev sign a preliminary agreement to reduce the world's two largest nuclear stockpiles by as much as a third, to the lowest levels of any U.S.-Russia accord, before a joint news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday, July 6, 2009. (AP)

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Last summer, it was all but proxy war between the United States and Russia. Russian troops in neighboring Georgia. Washington’s rhetoric on fire.

This summer, it’s Barack Obama in Moscow, talking about a new beginning in U.S.-Russia ties. He talked with Medvedev. Talked with Putin. He got the start of a nuclear arms deal. He got over-flight rights for the U.S. military to Afghanistan.

But as for a real restart, a reset — not so clear. There are tough issues here with a defiant, oil-rich Russia.

This hour, On Point: Zbigniew Brzezinski, and more, on Obama in Moscow and the push for a reset with Russia.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From Moscow we’re joined by Karen Travers, White House reporter for ABC News. She’s been traveling with President Obama in Russia and covered his speech today and the arms agreement signed yesterday.

From Washington, we’re joined by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor under President Jimmy Carter, from 1977 to 1981, and now a professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

And joining us from New York is Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and a contributing editor to The Nation.  His most recent book is “Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives.”

In this photograph posted on the Internet, a protester is seen after throwing a projectile at Iranian riot police in Tehran on Saturday, June 20, 2009. (AP)

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In Iran, a tense and violent dance over the country’s destiny continues — while in Washington and the capitals of the Middle East, no one knows who will rule Iran when the dust has settled.

For the Obama administration the stakes could not be higher, with two American wars on Iran’s borders — in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east — negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and the fate of Middle East peace in the balance.

This hour, On Point: The Iranian uprising and its shockwaves, from the Middle East to Washington.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jack Beatty, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Beirut is Rami Khouri, director of the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at American University of Beirut and editor-at-large for the Lebanese English-language paper The Daily Star.

Joining us from Arlington, Virginia, is Anthony Cordesman. He holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Over the course of his career he has worked for the U.S. Defense Department, State Department, Energy Department, and NATO International Staff, with assignments in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. He is the author of numerous books and reports on U.S. security and Middle East policy.

A South Korean protester displays portraits of American journalists detained in North Korea. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV media venture, have been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering North Korea illegally and engaging in "hostile acts." (AP)

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North Korea just keeps boiling: Nuclear test. Missiles flying. Succession fever. War threats.

And now two American journalists — Al Gore’s journalists, no less — sentenced to twelve years hard labor.

Pyongyang seems to always talk hot and push buttons — selling weapons, counterfeiting U.S. dollars by the truckload, threatening Armageddon. But the latest rash of threats and steps is the hottest in years.

China’s on edge. So is Washington. And two Americans are prisoners.

This hour, On Point: Hot times. We’ll try to pull back the curtain on what’s going on with North Korea.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us first from Seoul is Evan Ramstad, Korea correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He reported last week on North Korea’s succession mystery and reported this morning on the situation of the two American journalists.

From Culver City, Calif., we’re joined by David Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute and professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California. He’s the author of ”China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia” and co-author of “Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies.”

And from Seoul we’re joined by Brian Myers, director of International Studies at Dongseo University, where he researches North Korean ideology and propaganda.

President Obama introduces federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, at the White House. (AP)

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Big issues in the news this week. General Motors — GM — sliding into bankruptcy. Nuclear tests and missiles flying in North Korea. And an Obama Supreme Court pick named Sonia Sotomayor.

In North Asia, Chinese fishing boats have pulled back from the Korean coast and no one knows what comes next. Same in Detroit.

Across the country, Judge Sotomayor’s nomination has set off Hispanic celebration and a wild war of words over “wise Latina woman” and GOP charges of “racism.”

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Ron Brownstein, political director for Atlantic Media, columnist for National Journal, and author of “The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America.”

Also from Washington we’re joined by Margaret Talev, White House correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. She’s headed out to cover the president next week as he travels to the Middle East.

And from Hanover, N.H., is Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier with a rocket launcher stands guard as local residents gather close to the site of suicide bombing on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP)

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The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan are sitting down with Barack Obama today at the White House. One with a country in desperate trouble. One with a country in desperate trouble — plus nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is a significant nuclear power, with maybe a hundred very real nuclear bombs. It also has a Taliban insurgency on the march only 60 miles from its capitol, a military of uncertain capacity and uncertain loyalty, and a hovering Al Qaeda that all assume would love to have its own nukes for terror.

This hour, On Point: Pakistan’s frightening instability, and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

What do you see coming from Pakistan? If the country blows up, what about its bombs? Do you fear they will be everywhere? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

 Joining us from Islamabad is Mosharraf Zaidi, columnist for Pakistan’s biggest English-language newspaper, The News, and for the Egyptian paper al-Shorouk. His work also appears in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Joining us from Washington is David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. He reported earlier this week on increasing U.S. concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

In our studio we’re joined by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he tracked Al Qaeda’s efforts to obtain nuclear arms. Before that he spent 23 years at the CIA, where he was a senior officer sent to Pakistan to determine whether nuclear technology had been passed to Osama bin Laden. He is currently senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Mowatt-Larssen contributes to an online discussion, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Scenarios, U.S. Solutions,” at NYTimes.com.

And from Washington we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. His books include “Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia” and “The Idea of Pakistan.”

More links:

As Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari heads to the White House today, The New York Times reports this morning on his efforts to reassure Washington about his government’s stability and its campaign to repel the Taliban.

In an opinion piece in yesterday’s Washington Post titled “Pakistan’s Critical Hour,” Pakistani journalist (and past On Point guest) Ahmed Rashid writes: “Pakistan is on the brink of chaos, and Congress is in a critical position: U.S. lawmakers can hasten that fateful process, halt it or even help turn things around.”

Detail from 2003 memo by John Yoo, a Justice Department lawyer in the Bush administration, outlining permissible interrogation techniques.

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More news over the weekend on the U.S. torture debate.

Waterboarding used 266 times on two suspects. Republicans pushing back on President Obama’s release of Bush-era memos. And Obama’s chief of staff says no one – not even the Bush architects – may face charges.

From wiretapping to detainees to the red hot CIA memos controversy, President Obama has roiled some on the left. He’s too much like Bush, they say. Meanwhile, conservatives are upset over the release of the sensitive memos.

Defenders, however, say he’s found middle ground in some rough terrain.

This Hour, On Point: The debate over President Obama’s legal moves in the terrorism fight.

You can join the conversation. What’s your view on President Obama’s legal moves on the national security front? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Ari Shapiro, Justice correspondent, National Public Radio.

Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University Law School. He writes a widely-read legal blog.

Robert Turner, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. He also serves as the associate director at UVA’s Center for National Security Law.

A U.S. Army soldier stands guard next to a poster depicting radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during the reopening of a street in the Kazimiyah area of northern Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2009. (AP)

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In the depths of America’s worst days in Iraq, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas Ricks laid out the origins of early failure in his bestselling book of expose, “Fiasco.”

Now, Ricks is back with the story of the insurgency within the Pentagon that brought the surge and stabilization in Iraq.

And with a tough message. Despite Barack Obama’s campaign trail promise of withdrawal, the war in Iraq may not be half over yet, says Ricks. And Afghanistan looks even tougher.

This hour, On Point: Inside the U.S. military at war on two fronts, with Tom Ricks and his new book, “The Gamble.”

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for Tom Ricks on military’s lessons from Iraq? On what U.S. troops are facing in Afghanistan?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Thomas Ricks joins us from New York.  A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he’s the author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005″ and its follow-up, just published, “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.” He’s covered the U.S. military for more than 25 years, most recently for The Washington Post. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, where he writes the blog The Best Defense.

More links:

“The Generals’ Insurgency: The Story Behind the U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq,” a two-part series this week in The Washington Post, adapted from “The Gamble,” with web-only features including video, key documents, and a timeline.

“Stop Commuting to War” — an excerpt from “The Gamble,” at The Daily Beast.

On his blog, Ricks recently wrote a penetrating series analyzing lessons learned, or unlearned, from the costly battle between U.S. troops and Taliban fighters last July at Wanat, in eastern Afghanistan.

Iraqi election officials check the seals on a ballot box after the polls closed in the country's provincial elections in central Baghdad on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009.(AP)

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Iraqis have voted. Again. Provincial elections. A candidate’s house blown up here, some mortar fire there — but overall, a remarkably orderly democratic process in a country not long ago soaked in blood.

And once again, Americans look to the exits and ask: “Can we go now?”

Barack Obama promised combat troops out in 16 months. That’s summer, 2010. The Bush administration committed to an exit by the end of 2011. Meanwhile, it’s costing $10 billion a month, and we’ve got other problems.

This hour, On Point: Iraq — when can we go?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Sudarsan Raghavan, Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post.

Stephen Biddle, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent piece for Foreign Affairs is called “How to Leave a Stable Iraq.”

Judith Yaphe, senior research fellow at the National Defense University and a former CIA analyst. She testified before Congress on Iran-Iraq dynamics.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks as Vice President-elect Joe Biden, far left, President-elect Barack Obama, and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton listen at a news conference in Chicago, Dec. 1, 2008. (AP)

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Barack Obama keeps rolling out the heavyweights in Chicago. Last week, on the economy. This week, on national security, defense, diplomacy.

Yesterday, the president-elect officially named Hillary Clinton his pick for secretary of state; President Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, as his defense secretary; big Jim Jones, Marine general, former NATO chief, and John McCain friend, as national security adviser; and more.

Big characters. Rivals. A-Team players. Not exactly anti-war. So what’s the bottom line? The “change”?

This hour, On Point: Reading Obama’s national security team.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post. His latest piece is “Obama’s All-Star Roster.” He is also co-moderator of PostGlobal, an online forum on international affairs at washingtonpost.com, and author of many books, including the novel “Body of Lies.”

From New York, we’re joined by Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and editor of The Nation, where she writes the Editor’s Cut blog. Her latest entry is “Robert Gates: Wrong Man for the Job.”

And from Monterey, California, we’re joined by John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School , specializing in unconventional warfare and terrorism. He’s the author of, most recently, “Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military.”

More links:

The New York Times’ David Sanger writes about Obama’s national security team and a “sweeping shift in foreign policy.”

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page considers Obama’s choice of Hillary Clinton for secretary of state.

David Corn at Congressional Quarterly weighs the importance of Obama’s pick of retired General James Jones as national security adviser.

Susan Page at USA Today explores Hillary Clinton’s future challenges running the State Department.