A breakthrough it's not. Still, if all goes as planned, Israelis and Palestinians will be holding negotiations -- indirect talks, but talks nonetheless - next week, for the first time since President Barack Obama took office more than 15 months ago.

"We will be starting with proximity talks next week. Senator Mitchell will be going back to the region," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday during a brief press appearance with Kuwait's visiting deputy prime minister. 

Mitchell is former senator from Maine and current special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who will have the unenviable job of shuttling between the two sides, who will not, at this stage, be meeting face to face. They'll be in "proximity."

The 22-nation Arab League is due to meet Saturday to decide whether it wants to give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas much-needed political cover to enter negotiations with Israel about a peace deal and eventual Palestinian state.

The Obama administration's last attempt to get talks started was derailed by Israel's approval of 1,600 new housing units in Palestinian-claimed East Jerusalem. The Obamatrons responded by demanding that Israel halt new construction in East Jerusalem, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resolutely refused to do.

Unclear whether the U.S. government made any new promises to Abbas to lure him to the bargaining table. Clinton resolutely refused to answer that question, although she did not explicitly deny reports of a new letter from Obama to Abbas.

The State Department's annual report on worldwide terrorism, supposed to be out by tomorrow, is going to be delayed a bit, N&S hears, due not to any major policy battles, but to mundane bureaucratics.

That hasn't stopped others from weighing in on the state of what used to be called, in days of yore, the War On Terrorism.

In a newly updated report released today, the nonprofit and bipartisan American Security Project finds that Islamist terrorism was down significantly in the last two quarters of 2009. The study's based on the National Counterterrorism Center's Worldwide Incident Tracking System, the same database used by the State Department and other agencies to track trends in terrorism.

Study authors Bernard Finel and Germain Difo say that much of the decrease is due to declining attacks in Pakistan.  "Though there have been several high profile attacks in Pakistan, Islamist violence in that country is down 60% from the first six months of 2009," they write. "There was also a marked decrease in Islamist violence in Russia in the last months of 2009, though several high-profile attacks in March 2010 call the durability of that change into question."

The study is an update of a report ASP issued last year, entitled Are We Winning. The data excludes attacks in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Finel and Difo argue that U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan's tribal areas, as well as harsher--but still ambivalent--policy by Pakistan's goverment have made life difficult for Islamic fighters. "Ultimately, radical groups in South Asia are currently under more pressure than at any time since September 11, 2001," they write.

The attempted Christmas Day attack on a U.S. airliner, plotted by an al Qaida branch in Yemen, underscores the growing threat from the group's regional affiliates, as opposed to al Qaida's core leadership, they write.

It seems that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to take his campaign against a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran to the United Nations itself.

U.S. officials say that Ahmadinejad has applied for a U.S. visa so he can attend a conference at the United Nations in New York on strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of the international system designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration may have no choice but to approve Ahmadinejad's application.

"We have certain responsibilities as the host of the U.N.," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington. "Any foreign official who is coming to the U.N. for official business is normally granted a visa."

The NPT Review Conference, which is held every five years, opens Monday. It coincides with negotiations at the United Nations between U.S., Russian, British, Chinese, French and German officials on a new round of sanctions that the Obama administration wants slapped on Iran for defying repeated U.N. demands to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

U.S. and European officials contend that Iran's program, which was kept secret for 18 years and is based on technology provided by a Pakistani-led smuggling ring, is part of a covert nuclear weapons development effort; Iran insists that it needs the enriched uranium to power civilian nuclear reactors.

The NPT Review Conference would provide Ahmadinejad with an international soapbox from which to promote Iran's case against new sanctions and air anew charges of hypocrisy against the United States for continuing to maintain hundreds of nuclear weapons of its own and overlooking the arsenal amassed by Israel (although Israel is not a party to the NPT). Nor is Iran happy about being targeted with U.S. nuclear weapons under the Obama administration's recently released Nuclear Posture Review.

It will be interesting to see how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handles Ahmadinejad. She is to lead the U.S. delegation to the opening of the conference on Monday and was scheduled to speak fifth. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was scheduled to speak seventh. But because Ahmadinejad outranks both and may be most senior official to attend the May 3-28 session, protocol may dictate that he speaks first.

So has Syria transferred medium-range Scud ballistic missiles to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant Shiite Muslim militia movement that holds posts in Lebanon's coalition government?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, were asked that question today at a Pentagon news conference that was served up as part of an effort to prove that U.S.-Israeli relations really aren't as poor as they actually are.

The pair accused Syria and Iran of supplying Hezbollah with massive quantities of rockets and missiles. But both avoided using the word "Scud."

"Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability," said Gates, without elaborating. "We are at a point now where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world and this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we are watching it very closely."

A Kuwaiti newspaper reported earlier this month said that Syria had supplied Hezbollah with Scuds. Israeli President Shimon Peres repeated the allegation, raising fears of a new Israeli-Lebanese conflict because such missiles could reach every city in Israel. Syria and Lebanon deny the charge. The Obama administration insists that it has reached no conclusion, but has repeatedly expressed its concern to Syria over the issue in recent weeks.

Do Gates and Barak really not know if Hezbollah has Scuds? Or were they trying to tamp down regional tensions just as it appeared that the Obama administration had succeeded in persuading the Israelis and Palestinians to start indirect peace negotiations next week?

"We do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon or vis a vis Syria," said Barak.

CIA Director Leon Panetta today unveiled what he called a blueprint for positioning the spy agency to deal with future threats.

"There's something I've often said about government, but it applies to every organization," Panetta was quoted in a CIA handout as telling an "all-hands" meeting in the headquarters auditorium that was broadcast to agency personnel around the world. "We govern either by leadership or by crisis. Leadership means making tough choices and planning ahead."

The aim of Panetta's plan, known as CIA 2015, is to "ensure that the agency continues to act decisively on today's national security challenges . . . while pivoting more easily toward emerging priorities." The news release identified those current challenges as terrorism, the proliferation of dangerous technology, cyber threats, and the action of rogue states, but it didn't enumerate on what Panetta sees as "emerging priorities."

Some aspects of Panetta's plan, however, sound vaguely similar to those trotted out by predecessors, beginning with a determination to increase the numbers of clandestine officers and analysts who can speak foreign languages proficiently.

He also intends to increase investments in technology "to extend the CIA's operational and analytic reach and become more efficient." The efficiency upgrades include bolstering the agency's ability to sort through and make sense of the massive amounts of data that it collects.

Panetta, who took over the agency in February 2009, said he will streamline the CIA bureaucracy as part of an effort "to achieve a new level of agility in maintaining the agency's global presence and surging for emergencies," according to the news release.

Other steps of Panetta's plan build on existing initiatives, including expanding the number of clandestine officers and analysts posted in the same offices at home and abroad, and using "new approaches" to concealing the identities of CIA field officers. Of course, he didn't elaborate on that last item.

National Security Advisor James Jones has been holding preliminary discussions with foreign policy veterans and others about whether the Obama administration should abandon the longstanding American effort to broker step-by-step peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and instead propose a comprehensive settlement similar to the one that former President Bill Clinton proposed at Camp David in 2000.

It's not clear whether the discussions — and their disclosure here in N&S — are a measure of the administration's frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to what some officials consider repeated attempts to embarrass the administration, an effort to pressure Netanyahu to bow to American pressure to halt construction of new Jewish housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, or a bit of both.

A comprehensive administration proposal, according to people with knowledge of the internal discussions who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential, is likely to include, as Clinton's did, a return to Israel's 1967 borders in many but not all areas, a plan that would enable a shared Jerusalem to serve as the capital of both Israel and a new Palestinian state and a very limited right of some Palestinians to return to homes and land in what's now Israel.

Administration officials are frustrated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to freeze new and expanded Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which the Palestinians have made a precondition for renewed negotiations, and Army Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the military's Central Command, has warned that the continuing Israeli-Palestinian dispute complicates his troops' efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Some officials also argue that the American Jewish community is more divided on the issue of settlement construction than it has been in many years, and that the administration's victory on a health care overhaul has given President Barack Obama valuable political capital and momentum.

However, even some proponents of an ambitious comprehensive settlement acknowledge that Netanyahu is almost certain to reject such a proposal because doing otherwise would topple his center-right coalition in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. In addition, some administration officials worry that offering such a proposal could cost some Democrats their seats in this fall's congressional elections, and possibly even diminish support for Obama's expected 2012 re-election campaign, much as former president George H.W. Bush's effort to pressure Israel to curb settlement construction cost him support for his 1992 re-election campaign in some important areas.

— John Walcott

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, and the enormous power that he wields in the southern city of Kandahar, are the subjects of a extremely well-researched report published today by the Institute for the Study of War.

The report by Carl Forsberg outlines how AWK - as he is known among Western officials - has acquired "shadow ownership of the government of Kandahar" through his control over an empire of private security companies, real estate holdings and contracting services and alliances with other local strongmen.

The Taliban have been exploiting public discontent with Ahmed Wali Karzai, who heads the Kandahar provincial council, with rival power-brokers lining up behind the insurgents as the "only viable means of political opposition," according to the report.

The report raises serious questions over whether the U.S.-led international military force's pending offensive against the insurgents in Kandahar can succeed as long as Ahmed Wali Karzai remains the city's kingpin.

"Ahmed Wali Karzai's influence over Kandahar is the central obstacle to any of ISAF's governance objectives, and a consistent policy for dealing with him must be a central element of any new strategy," says the report. "Wali Karzai's behavior and waning popularity among local populations promote instability and provide space for the Taliban to exist." 

President Karzai has resisted intense Western pressure to rein-in or replace his half-brother, defending him against allegations that he is deeply involved in drug trafficking and organized crime. He may get another earful from President Barack Obama when he visits Washington next month.

NATO foreign ministers began debating today in Tallinn, Estonia, the future of the estimated 240 tactical nuclear weapons that the United States maintains in Europe nearly 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

Germany is leading a handful of the 28 NATO members in calling for the removal of the aircraft-delivered B-61 gravity bombs from the five European countries where they are deployed, believing that they are no longer required for the defense of Europe. But that argument is unlikely to prevail.

The U.S. tactical nukes "combined with NATO's unique nuclear sharing arrangements under which non-nuclear members participate in nuclear planning and possess specifically configured aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons, contribute to Alliance cohesion and provide reassurance to allies and partners who feel exposed to regional threats," says the administration's new Nuclear Posture Review.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asserted at a news conference that the U.S. nukes are also required "as long as there are rogue regimes or terrorist groupings that may pose a nuclear threat to us."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to tell her NATO colleagues that the future of the weapons should be decided as part of a new NATO doctrine, known as the New Strategic Concept, that is to be unveiled when NATO heads of state gather in November in Lisbon, Portugal.

Finally, the administration appears unwilling to give up bargaining chips it could use in negotiations it wants to hold with Moscow on eliminating the vastly numerically superior arsenal of short-range tactical nuclear weapons that Russia still maintains.  

UPDATED: Dear readers. I have received some more specifics from the Air Force about this topic and updated this blog accordingly.

The volcanic ash cloud hanging over Europe is slowing down U.S. military transport of equipment and soldiers injured in Afghanistan back to U.S.-based hospitals by eight hours, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Rather than flying from Germany’s Ramstein Air Force base, which has been grounded by the ash cloud since Thursday, soldiers are now being transported to the naval base in Rota, Spain. The resulting re-routing to get troops to Rota means an additional eight hours of flight back to the United States, the Pentagon said.

Indeed, Air Force Brig. Gen. Steven Kwast, Commander, 455th Air Expeditionary Wing, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon this morning in a video conference call that some troops are being sent to Balad, Iraq -- home to the region's largest military base -- to be stabilized before going to Rota.  

So far, there have been 5 aeromedical missions, transporting 81 patients. Of those 81 patients, 13 had sustained battle injuries, according to Air Force Lt. Col. David Honchul, a spokesman at Ramstein.

Since it erupted, the volcanic ash cloud has hobbled 80 percent of European airports. The military could not say how long it would have to depend on Rota. On Tuesday, airlines allowed for more flights to take offfrom cities throughout Europe. But don't celebrate yet.  Meteorologists warned that a second cloud of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano could spur another round of canceled flights. 

In the meantime, it remains unclear what are the costs of those eight hours during those critical hours immediately after an injury.

Earlier this week, officials in Afghanistan closed a remote – yet controversial – outpost in the Korengal Valley.  Some of the most aggressive fighting took place there, and Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal announced early in his tenure that he wanted to close remote outposts like Korengal. He felt that rather than have small outposts in areas leading into population centers, he should put troops closer to the population centers themselves. Yet while Korengal may now be closed, most of these remote outposts remain open. But I digress.

Yesterday, I was transported back to the Korengal Valley outpost during a private screening at our office of a documentary called Restrepo, which followed a platoon of soldiers stationed there for a year, beginning in mid-2007. It was honored at the Sundance Film Festival. There are no frills, special effects or celebrities in this movie. Rather it is an honest depiction of the life for most soldiers in Afghanistan – the mendacity, the thrills, the bonds between troops, the frustrations over mistakes made and the horrors that come with being stationed there. The movie is called Restrepo after a mini-outpost the troops built that year, named after one of their fallen during their tour.

There are several connective threads in the movie. You see the culture barriers, like when Afghans come to the outpost seeking compensation for a cow killed by the troops. The soldiers follow their orders, seek approval and find out they can only give the cow’s owner grain and rice equal to the weight of the cow. The owner, whose livelihood depended on that cow, and the Afghans walked off base disillusioned. An opportunity to win hearts and minds was lost.

In addition, you see anguish and, at times rage, of the troops when one of their own is killed. Most of all, you see the desperate efforts they make to find a solution to a seemingly intractable problem. 

Many service members who have deployed to Afghanistan will recognize parts of their own experiences while deployed there in the film. And as such, some troops may enjoy watching it while others may find it takes them back to a place they are not ready to see again. But the film is not for them. It is for those who have spent these last nine years blissfully ignorant to what the nation has asked of its troops and what it has meant to the Afghans. 

It may seem like bad timing for the movie makers that the film is coming out just as the outpost has been closed. And yet, I think the timing could not be better. It allows viewers to see the cost of changing course.  At least 50 soldiers were killed while serving in the outpost in Korengal Valley and scores of Afghans. Does the United States owe it to them to stay there and try to win over that part of Afghanistan? Or it is better to walk away now, concede it is no longer working and cut costs soonest? As I mentioned, the military has said it will close more outposts soon. Is that the right decision?

The U.S. military owes it to those who served there and the Afghans stuck between the Taliban and the coalition to at least have a discussion about such matters. Perhaps this movie can contribute to the discussion.