From Gregge Jaffe, the Washington Post:  The Obama administration is considering nominating retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as the next commander of the U.S.

From Dan de Luce, AFP:  France's decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than planned deals a blow to the US-led war effort and threatens to trigger a "rush to the exits" by other NATO members, experts said Monday.

From Marcin Sobczyk, the Wall Street Journal:  The U.S. will likely keep its commitment to place missile interceptors in Poland to counter a military threat from Iran regardless of any opposition from Russia and despite defense cutbacks, a U.S. senator said Thursday.

From Doug Saunders, the Globe and Mail:  Ten years and seven weeks ago, this paper’s front-page headline read, in banner letters, “Canadians head off to war.” That would become the longest, and possibly the most controversial, military combat operation in Canadian history.

From Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, the New York Times:  It would be premature to call the war in Libya a complete success for United States interests.

From Lexington, the Economist:  “I venture to say that no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.” Edmund Burke should be alive today. None of America’s several wars is popular.

From John Barry and Tara McKelvey, Newsweek:  Aboard the Pentagon jet on his last foreign trip as secretary of defense, Robert Gates takes a moment to peer across the American horizon—and the view is dire: the U.S. is in danger of losing its supremacy on the global stage, he says.

From Thom Shanker and Elisabeth Bumiller, the New York TImes:  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, as he prepared to depart the government for the second time, said in an interview on Friday that the human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had made him far more wary