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Columbus did it most famously in 1492, and ever since people from all over have been coming to America.

Every group had it challenges.

Arab-Americans have a story of their own. A story that’s gotten hotter with time.

In mosque and church and town hall, Arab-Americans have put down deep roots. But events have not made it easy. Arab-Israeli war. Iraq wars. Oil tensions. 9.11.

This hour, On Point: We’ll talk with civil rights lawyer and writer Alia Malek about her new look at the history, and reality now, of Arab America.

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

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Alia Malek, author of “A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories.”

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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.”

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.

Iranians and Iraqis carry the coffin of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, shown in the picture, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders, in a funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran, on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009. Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim died Wednesday in Iran, the country that was long his powerful ally. (AP)

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What will Iraq look like after the American troops are gone? After the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars and the loss of thousands of lives of U.S. servicemembers, could Iran, and not the U.S., be the dominant influence in Iraq? Will security deteriorate?

These questions and more have been raised lately — after a massive bombing of two key ministries in downtown Baghdad, and with the number of Iraqi civilian deaths back up in August.

The initial American “democratic ideal” of Sunni-Shi’ite co-operation was always tricky. Now, in advance of next year’s elections, Iraqis themselves are asking what kind of country they want.

This Hour, On Point: Iraq without the “American friends” — in a dangerous neighborhood.

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

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Guests:

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill. He has been serving in Baghdad since April 2009. Prior to his posting in Iraq, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

David Ignatius, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post. He is also co-moderator of the “Post Global” forum. His latest column on Iraq is called “Behind the Carnage in Baghdad.”

Steven Lee Myers, Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times. He has been covering the new challenges to the current Iraqi leadership.

President Barack Obama, right, and Vice President Joe Biden, left, have a beer with Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., second from left, and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday, July 30, 2009.(AP)

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Stories brewing up all over this week, from Washington to Tehran.

A much-hyped round of beers at the White House. More news from the world of steroid baseball. And bankers at the trough — 33 billion dollars in bonuses paid by bailed-out Wall St. firms.

Health care hurdles in Washington. A passel of U.S. diplomats in Israel. The secretary of defense shows up in Iraq. In Afghanistan, U.S. deaths are the highest since 2001. And in Iran, the opposition grows more restless, despite crackdowns.

This hour, On Point: What’s your take? 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.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Joining us from Philadelphia is Trudy Rubin, foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

From Washington, we’re joined by Ezra Klein, blogger and reporter for The Washington Post.

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

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Middle East politics is stone-cold serious. Israel’s soldiers and spies and Palestinian militants compete so ruthlessly, it’s more than a little incongruous that Mideast history took a hairpin turn in 1997 with a crazy tale of Israeli assassins saving the life of the man they tried to kill.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Fast forward about a decade, and the intended victim is a savvy Hamas mastermind, and the same Israeli prime minister who tried to take him out is back in power.

This hour On Point: The story of the mission to kill Hamas leader Khalid Mishal.

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

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guest:

Paul McGeough joins us from Sydney, Australia.  Chief foreign correspondent and former executive editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, he has twice been named Australian Journalist of the Year and in 2002 was awarded the SAIS-Novartis Prize for excellence in international journalism by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. His new book is “Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas.”

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.

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 supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi hurls a stone at riot-police during clashes in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 14, 2009. (AP)

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Anyone who thought the world would wake up Saturday to a remade Iran, on easy street for reconciliation with the West, got a rude shock this weekend:

A landslide re-election victory announced for President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Rioters in Tehran alleging a stolen election. And, on its face, a much tougher road ahead for President Barack Obama’s outreach effort.

Today, the scent of teargas and burning tires lingers in Tehran. Opposition outrage is not over. But what’s next, for Ahmedinejad’s opponents?

This hour, On Point: What now for Iran — and for the U.S. and Iran?

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

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From Istanbul, Turkey, we’re joined by Scott Peterson, Iran correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He was in Tehran covering the election until early this morning.

Joining us from Tehran is Mohamed Marandi, an Iranian political scientist and lecturer at the University of Tehran’s Institute for North American and European Studies.

Joining us from Washington is Hillary Mann-Leverett. She worked for 15 years for the Bush and Clinton administrations at the National Security Council and State Department. For two years following 9/11, she was one of a small number of U.S. officials authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan and Al Qaida. She is now CEO of a political risk firm called Stratega.

Joining us from Honolulu is Farideh Farhi. Formerly a professor at the University of Tehran, she teaches political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is an advisor to the National Iranian American Council.

Egyptian villagers watch a live broadcast of the speech by President Barack Obama at Cairo University from a coffee shop in Qena, south Cairo, on June 4, 2009. (AP)

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Tectonic shifts this week.

General Motors actually in bankruptcy. Straight up bankrupt.

An American president, middle name Hussein, in Egypt speaking Arabic and quoting the Koran in ardent outreach to the Muslim world.

In the skies over the mid-Atlantic, a French airliner mysteriously down with 228 aboard.

And in church in Wichita, Kansas, Dr. George Tiller — serving as an usher on a Sunday morning — shot and killed in the church foyer by an anti-abortion crusader. He was 67.

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:

From Washington, we’re joined by Tony Blankley, columnist for The Washington Times and author of “American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century.”

From Paris, France, we’re joined by Christopher Dickey, Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek. His latest book is “Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force – the NYPD.”

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

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a media conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on April 22, 2009. (AP)

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The first foreign leader Barack Obama called after assuming the presidency was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Tomorrow, Abbas and Obama meet at the White House. Their agenda: difficult, and almost too well known. A two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis; a stop to Israeli settlement in the West Bank; what to do about the Palestinians’ own split, with Hamas.

Ten days ago, it was Obama and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. Now, the other side.

This hour, On Point: Mideast watchers Juan Cole and Rashid Khalidi on Obama and Abbas.

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 Gerald Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, where he writes the Capital Journal column. He’s co-author with John Harwood of “Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power.”

Juan Cole joins us from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is professor of Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and author of “Engaging the Muslim World” (2009), “Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East” (2007) and “Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shiite Islam” (2002). He blogs about the Middle East, history, and religion at Informed Comment.

Rashid Khalidi joins us from New York. He is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East” (2009) and “The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood” (2006).

President Barack Obama speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, May 18, 2009. (AP)

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Nobody expected a shouting match in the Oval Office. But there is wide speculation that the agendas of Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu may ultimately put the U.S. and Israel on a path to tough tensions.

Tensions over Iran, and whether to talk or attack. Tensions over a “two-state solution,” and whether to push forward.

Observers joke, grimly, of a “yes, we can” Obama versus a “no, we won’t” Netanyahu — and don’t joke at all about a potentially very real U.S.-Israeli test of wills.

This hour, On Point: Obama, Netanyahu, and the way forward in the Middle East.

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 are:

Gerald Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, where he writes the Capital Journal column. He’s co-author with John Harwood of “Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power.”

Aaron David Miller, public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. From 1978 to 2003 he advised six U.S. secretaries of state on Mideast policy and Arab-Israeli negotiations. His latest book is “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His most recent book is “Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands.”

Neil MacFarquhar and bodyguards, Marib, Yemen.

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New York Times correspondent Neil MacFarquhar grew up on a beach in Libya, son of an American oil engineer, before our age of violent jihad, war, and Middle Eastern turmoil.

He studied Arabic and went back to cover upheaval in the Arab world. But he could never ignore the other side of Arab life — the human, the everyday, the sometimes comical — behind the headlines of terror and tyranny.

In a new book he says Americans need to remember and speak to that humanity.

This hour, On Point: Neil MacFarquhar’s unexpected encounters in a changing Middle East.

Is there another Middle East to call on, draw on, beyond the endless headlines of conflict? Or not? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Neil MacFarquhar joins us from New York. He was Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times from 2001 through 2005 and is now its UN correspondent. He grew up in Libya and covered the region for the Associated Press. His new book is “The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes you a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East.” He’s also the author of a novel, “The Sand Café.”

You can read “The Beachhead,” Chapter 1 of MacFarquhar’s new book, at his website.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish rests his head on his son Abdullah, 6, in a car near his house in Jebaliya, in the northern Gaza strip, Jan. 21, 2009. Three of his daughters and a niece were killed by an Israeli shell which struck his house, and he returned to Gaza to collect his remaining children. (AP)

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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was, and is, that remarkable Palestinian welcome on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

A resident of Gaza, fluent in Hebrew, deeply devoted to peace. An obstetrician who treated both Palestinians and Israelis — who was welcomed by Israeli medical colleagues, one of whom called him a “magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.”

On January 16, in the Israeli invasion of Gaza, an Israeli tank shell hit his home — and killed three of his daughters. Three. And still he calls for peace.

This hour, On Point: A conversation with Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.

You can join the conversation. Do you remember the news report back then? Of Dr. Abul Aish and his family’s tragedy? Could you keep reaching out for peace?

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish joins us in our studio.  He is a Palestinian physician, an obstetrician, living in Gaza and has worked closely with Israeli doctors for years treating patients and doing research at Soroka University Hospital in Beersheba in southern Israel. He lost three daughters and a niece when his home was shelled during the Gaza conflict in January.

Joining us from Tel Aviv is Gadi Taub, a writer, essayist and historian. He writes a regular op-ed column for Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest daily, and teaches at the Department of Communications and the School for Public Policy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is author of “Allenby,” “A Dispirited Rebellion: Essays on Contemporary Israeli Culture” and the forthcoming “The Settlers & the Struggle for the Meaning of Zionism.”

Dr. Abuelaish’s reaction to his daughter’s deaths was heard on Israeli TV:

People are seen in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on Saturday, April 4, 2009. President Obama visited the mosque on Tuesday. (AP)

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There was the president of the United States, introduced as Barack Hussein Obama, standing before the Turkish parliament, reaching out to the Muslim world. The president, in Istanbul, in the midst of a town hall meeting with largely young Muslims, taking their questions one by one. The president, shoes off, walking solemnly through the great Blue Mosque.

The facts on the ground in trouble spots across the Muslim world are hard to change. But President Obama is trying hard right now, for starters at least, to change the music, the message, the tone of the United States toward the world’s Muslim populations — and mend a rocky relationship that has plagued and cost the United States, and much of the Muslim world, dearly.

Can he do it? Can put it on a new path? This hour, On Point: Obama’s message and the Muslim world.

You can join the conversation. What do you make of President Obama’s outreach? Is it the right message? Can it change the context? Tilt it toward a better day?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Robin Wright, longtime diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, currently a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She’s the author of five books, most recently “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East,” now out in paperback.

From London, we’re joined by Ali Allawi, Iraqi Minister of Defense and Minister of Trade from 2003 to 2004, following the U.S. invasion, and Minister of Finance in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 2005 to 2006. He’s the author of “The Crisis of Islamic Civilization” and “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace.”

From Washington, we’re joined by Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and host of “Beyond the Atlantic,” a current affairs show on Turkish Radio and Television. He is also co-director of the CSIS Caspian Sea Energy Project.

And from Chicago, we’re joined by Rami Khouri. Based in Lebanon and currently traveling in the U.S., he is 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.

Adm. William J. Fallon in February 2007. (AP)

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Four-star Admiral William J. Fallon had a brilliant Navy career and a mouth, it was said, that could peel paint off the walls.

He flew fighter missions over Vietnam, rose to head of the Pacific Command, then was named by George W. Bush Combatant Commander of U.S. Central Command — Centcom — the U.S. military’s top commander in the white-hot region from Egypt to Pakistan.

He oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and abruptly retired after Esquire magazine called him the last man standing between Washington and war with Iran.

This hour, On Point: The admiral who spoke his mind.

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for the fighter-pilot admiral who once ran your country’s wars? What’s your question for William Fallon today on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Gaza? On “smart power”? On Al Qaeda?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Adm. William J. (“Fox”) Fallon, retired four-star Navy admiral, Commander of CENTCOM from March 2007 to March 2008, Commander of PACOM (Pacific Command) from Feb 2005 to March 2007, and currently a Robert E. Wilhelm fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies.

More links:

“The Man Between War and Peace,” the Esquire profile by Thomas P.M. Barnett that caused so much controversy.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan, writing in March 2008,  looked at the context surrounding Fallon’s departure.

Smoke rises following an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 30, 2008. (AP)

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Nightmare scenes in Gaza, where for five days F-16s and Apache helicopter gunships have rained fire on one of the poorest, most crowded enclaves on Earth.

And nightmares across southern Israel, where rockets out of Gaza have now reached as far as an empty kindergarten classroom in Beersheba. Four Israelis dead since Israel’s assault on Gaza began. Nearly four hundred Palestinians dead. Many more injured.

After grinding seasons of embargo and tunneling and Hamas defiance, Israel’s defense minister now speaks of “war to the bitter end.”

This hour, On Point: Bloody showdown over Gaza.

You can join the conversation. Did Hamas make this inevitable, with its rocket fire and its fury? Did Israel make this inevitable, with its chokehold and its demands? Will this turn Palestinians away from Hamas, or more deeply against Israel? What should the U.S. have done? What should it be doing now? Tell us what you think.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Margaret Coker, Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Aaron David Miller, public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He advised six U.S. secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations, from 1978 to 2003, and is the author of “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”

Shai Feldman, chair of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and professor of politics at Brandeis University.

Issam Nassar, professor of history at Illinois State University.

U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama shakes hands with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 21, 2008. (AP/Iraqi Government)

Barack Obama’s big caravan across the world’s toughest region moves on today, from Afghanistan and Iraq into Jordan and Israel.

He’s played hoops with US troops in Kuwait, broken bread with heads of state in Kabul and Baghdad, and wrestled over policy and pullout with US commanders in Iraq.

John McCain, looking on from home yesterday, said Obama’s got it all wrong. But what if the American people decide otherwise? Decide for an Obama path? What would his real options be, from Jerusalem to Jalalabad?

This hour, On Point: Obama’s study abroad, and the options he’s surveying.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Ned Parker, Baghdad correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, he has reported from Iraq since 2003.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, served as President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor from 1977 to 1981, now a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He’s author of “Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower” (2007).

Lawrence Wilkerson, retired U.S. Army colonel, he was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. He teaches national security at William and Mary College.

Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister of Jordan and former Jordanian ambassador to the United States. He was first Jordanian ambassador to the State of Israel after the 1994 peace treaty. His new book is “The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation.” You can read the introduction here (pdf).

Through nearly 20 years of wild ups and downs, Aaron David Miller was in the middle of American efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace in the Middle East. He saw the good, the bad, and the ugly of our efforts, and theirs.

Now he’s out of the bubble, and talking. Very frankly. About how Americans have lost sight of their country’s own interests in the gale of lobbying over the Mideast. About the need for tough love with everyone, including Israel, if peace — and U.S. security — are ever to be found.

This hour, On Point: Aaron David Miller on America as broker in the Mideast.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Aaron David Miller, former advisor to U.S. secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations between 1978 and 2003, his new book is “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”

As a zone of American military interest, US Central Command is as critical as they come. It stretches from the hot zones of Pakistan and Afghanistan, across Iraq and the Middle East to the Horn of Africa.

Right now it has two live wars going on, talk of a third with Iran, and tremendous questions of US strategy in hot debate.

This week, the four-star commander at the head of Centcom, Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon, abruptly resigned after only a year at the post. He was a blistering critic of much US strategy in a critical region. Now, he’s gone. We ask why.

This hour, On Point: Reading an admiral’s exit at Centcom.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

William McMichael, Pentagon correspondent for the Military Times newspapers

Zbigniew Brzezinski, professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, he was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

Volney Warner, retired 4-star US Army general, former commander of the precursor to the US military’s Central Command.

William Nash, retired US Army major general, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

James Dobbins, director of the RAND Corporation’s International Security and Defense Policy Center, he was Special Envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo in the Clinton administration and the Bush administration’s first Special Envoy for Afghanistan