The Rundown - January 5

News & views on RFE/RL's broadcast region

Iran
#
A planned EU delegation to Iran has been postponed
# Christopher Hitchens on Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon
# A number of Capitol Hill staffers are discussing Iran in Europe

Afghanistan/Pakistan
#
The man who bombed the CIA station in Afghanistan was a Jordanian double agent
# William Saletan on what the CIA deaths mean for the drone campaign
# The 5 Americans detained in Pakistan claim their innocence
# Michael Crowley discusses counterinsurgency (COIN) proponents
# Eric T. Olson thinks it's too early to be discussing what comes next in Afghanistan

Of Interest
#
Graeme Wood discusses breakaway territories that may become countries
# Julia Ioffe profiles Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko
# Peter Doran on European energy supplies from Central Asia
# Ellen Barry reports on one of Russia's "one factory towns"

U.S. Politics/Foreign Policy
# Gideon Rachman thinks the free world is moving away from America
# Walter Russell Mead on the possibility of Obama becoming like Jimmy Carter
# Richard Cohen on the paradoxes of the Obama presidency
# Michael Kinsley on the rule of law in America

-- Zach Peterson