From Adrian Croft, Reuters:  NATO is considering holding a summit in mid-2013 to mark a milestone in the handover of security responsibilities in Afghanistan to local forces, alliance Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday.

From James Traub, Foreign Policy:  In a White House where foreign policy is made, to an extraordinary extent, by the president and a few close advisors, [Vice President Joe] Biden is first among equals.

From Philip Stephens, Financial Times:  The administration has tried to put foreign policy on hold for the duration of the campaign.

Repost from Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO:  [Eleven] years ago today in the United States, terrorists killed nearly three thousand men, women and children. Citizens of 25 NATO Allied and partner countries died that day.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported a purported landslide revelation in the new book “No Easy Day,” which is taking Washington by storm (SEAL book depicts Osama bin Laden shot on sight in hallway, contradicting original account, Washington Post, August 29).

From Joseph S. Nye, Project Syndicate:  Obama’s rhetoric during his 2008 campaign and the first months of his presidency was both inspirational in style and transformational in objective.

In a speech Monday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, made a forthright defense of the drone war currently being conducted against Islamic militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

What a difference a year makes! Today school children play cricket on the ground where a year ago Osama Bin Laden lived…and died. The sun is shining in Abbottabad. But clouds fill the horizon for the United States-Pakistan relationship.