From William S. Cohen, Nicholas Burns, and George Robertson, the Hill:  [R]ecently, our friend Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, spoke for many when he wrote in the Washington Post that “Europe no longer matters”

From Nicholas Burns, Deutsche Welle:  There's no question that the European members of NATO would have been more effective as a military unit if German forces had contributed to the mission.

From Reuters:  France said the war could drag on for weeks. "I doubt that it will be days," Admiral Edouard Guillaud, the head of French armed forces, told France Info radio. "I think it will be weeks. I hope it will not take months."

The post-election drama in Iran continues, with the Guardian Council announcement that it would recount ballots from disputed boxes in the wake of mass demonstrations that have left at least seven people dead.  The Obama administration has remained quite cautious, while European leaders have been more direct in their condemnations.

Nick Burns, a career diplomat who recently retired after a quarter century of service as the number three ranked official in the State Department, has a long piece in Newsweek declaring "We Should Talk to Our Enemies."  It pointedly takes John McCain to task for his repeated hammering at Barack Obama for pledging to negotiate with adversaries without preconditions.