Just as the United States is struggling to deal with major postwar headaches in Iraq, its efforts to pacify Afghanistan appear to be unraveling, according to a new report by a key group of experts sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Asia Society.

In its recent attempt to revise an EPA report on climate change and the environment, the White House cites a study by Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that has drawn harsh criticism from climatologists. "Greenhouse skeptics, pro-industry groups and political conservatives have seized on the results," David Appell writes in Scientific American.

How did the U.S. end up in the growing Iraq quagmire? "One theory is that the neocons, like many in power before them, tend to believe their own propaganda .... The degree to which they helped twist the intelligence about Iraq has become increasingly clear over the past few weeks, as angry intelligence professionals have taken their complaints to the press," journalist Jim Lobe writes.