At last week's Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert politely asked his colleagues to shut their mouths about the recently released U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.

Olmert's gag order followed two weeks of unhelpful, knee-jerk reaction by some Israeli politicians caught off guard by the reports' conclusions, which found that Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that it acts as an essentially rational player pursuing traditional national interests of "security, prestige and regional goals."

The intersection of ongoing structural shifts in international energy markets with strategic trends in global financial markets poses the most profound challenge to American hegemony since the end of the Cold War.

To understand the implications of Benazir Bhutto's assassination for Pakistan, first imagine what that country would look like without her Pakistan People's party. It has been overwhelmingly a dynastic party and she was the last politically viable representative of the Bhutto dynasty. Without her to hold it together, it is highly probable the PPP will disintegrate.

In the short term, this is likely to benefit President Pervez Musharraf and the army but, in the longer term, Islamist extremists may have the most to gain.

With the Annapolis conference and the Paris fund-raising effort to aid the Palestinians behind us, the Middle East peace process is now in need of constant vigilance. President George W. Bush will visit the region in January, but it is Condoleezza Rice who will be looked upon to provide a guiding hand.

The new peace effort is very much her baby. A look at the war in Lebanon last summer, and Rice's management of it, provides some clues to the challenges ahead.