Senator Obama has an op-ed in the New York Times today restating his vision for the future of our policy in Iraq, even as the political terrain on the issue begins to shift.

Three more must reads this morning: 

Amid news reports that violence is rising in Afghanistan, the New York Times offers a major new look at how Bush Administration policies have contributed to the regrouping of Al Qaeda in the region. 

The New York Times editorial page reviews Israel's recent spate of diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, reminding us how these new bold initiatives are a direct repudiation of the now clearly failed Bush strategy for remaking the region.  

And the Washington Post offers an insightful piece on the growing conventional wisdom on how the GOP plans to go after U.S. Sen. Barack Obama - casting him as a politician without beliefs, willing to say and do anything to get elected. 

A link to the New Yorker story everyone is talking about.

The Washington Post gets its hands on an early copy of the new Scott McClellan book and writes:

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq.

There is so much wrong with what Bush said in Israel yesterday that it cannot fit in one blog post. The Huffington Post has this brief writeup, which includes the Secretary of Defense's repudiation of the Bush argument from earlier this week. But what galls me the most is that the cause of recent ascension is the Iraq war itself, and the placement of an Iranian-friendly Shiite-led Arab government in the heart of the Middle East; and that it has been this Administration who has been unable to do anything about the Iranian nuclear program. If there is any group responsible for the rise of Iran as a regional hegemon it is the neocons running the White House, not a Senator who opposed the Iraq war in the first place.

This speech was a dark moment in a terrible Presidency, one that has done so much to betray the core values that have made America a great and generous power. For more on the Bush legacy in the Middle East check out this essay I penned on returning from a 6 day long trip to Israel earlier this year.

If you haven't read it, you need to. Here it is.

Will be interesting to see how the networks and the cable networks react this week. The piece draws into question the integrity of their entire coverage of our adventure in Iraq these past 5 years.

I agree with those who say that McCain's confusion about Sunni and Shiite in the Middle East is scary, dangerous, unbelievable. This is a subject I've spent a great deal of time writing about in recent years (for example here and here) and came to believe that it was not just McCain who didn't understand this dynamic, it was the Bush Administration itself. So much of what has gone wrong in Iraq can be traced to this fundamental misunderstanding by Bush and his supporters.

I wrote this recently:

Senator McCain's confusion about Sunni and Shiite, Al Qaeda and Iran, I think is no simple thing to explain away. Our whole adventure in Iraq has been infused by dangerous levels of niavite and ideology, and all too little informed by the facts on the ground or common sense. The very lack of understanding of how hard it would be to bring Sunni and Shiite together - and how an Iraqi Shiite-led government would result in Iran's regional ascension - is the main cause of why Iraq has cost America so much in the lives and limbs of our young, of "our money," and of our standing in the world. That he is confused about something so central to the entire enterprise over there - after having been there for days and been briefed by many parties - is a virtual disqualifier for the highest office in the land.

Rather than suggesting that McCain is recklessly stupid, perhaps his campaign can say his confusion has been brought about by age. That men of his age often get confused, particularly when they travel and are meeting lots of new people. That running for President, to paraphrase our current President, is "hard, hard."

Update: As our readers may recall, NDN spent a great deal of time last year helping draw attention to Administration's apparent lack of understanding of the Sunni-Shiite dynamic in the Middle East. Visit here to watch a video interview we conducted with Professor Vali Nasr, one of the nation's foremost experts on Islam and the Middle East. His book, the Shia Revival, is one of the best books I've read in recent years and has done more to help me understand the challenge of our current strategy in the Middle East than any other thing I've read.

David Broder takes a deeper look at John McCain's dangerously stupid comments about the nature of the Sunni-Shiite struggle and the overall geopolitics of the Middle East.

We weighed in about his astonishing statements yesterday. Watch the video of his remarks here.

Senator McCain's confusion about Sunni and Shiite, Al Qaeda and Iran, I think is no simple thing to explain away. Our whole adventure in Iraq has been infused by dangerous levels of niavite and ideology, and all too little informed by the facts on the ground or common sense. The very lack of understanding of how hard it would be to bring Sunni and Shiite together - and how an Iraqi Shiite-led government would result in Iran's regional ascension - is the main cause of why Iraq has cost America so much in the lives and limbs of our young, of "our money," and of our standing in the world. That he is confused about something so central to the entire enterprise over there - after having been there for days and been briefed by many parties - is a virtual disqualifier for the highest office in the land.

Rather than suggesting that McCain is recklessly stupid, perhaps his campaign can say his confusion has been brought about by age. That men of his age often get confused, particularly when they travel and are meeting lots of new people. That running for President, to paraphrase our current President, is "hard, hard."

Update: As our readers may recall, NDN spent a great deal of time last year helping draw attention to Administration's apparent lack of understanding of the Sunni-Shiite dynamic in the Middle East. Visit here to watch a video interview we conducted with Professor Vali Nasr, one of the nation's foremost experts on Islam and the Middle East. His book, the Shia Revival, is one of the best books I've read in recent years and has done more to help me understand the challenge of our current strategy in the Middle East than any other thing I've read.

Perhaps Senator Lieberman should buy his friend Senator McCain a copy of the book.

Update 2: Watch the video here.