The last U.S. convoy rode out of Iraq yesterday in the early morning hours, marking the final moment of the Iraq War. The war was officially declared over last Thursday during a ceremony attended by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a terminal in the Baghdad airport. The statement and withdrawal were more than two weeks ahead of the end of year deadline for ending U.S. combat in Iraq. Panetta told troops, "You will leave with great pride, lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace."

More than 1 million U.S. troops have served in the almost 9 year war, of which 4,474 were killed and roughly 30,000 were wounded. The U.S. spent more than $800 billion on the war that cost more than 100,000 Iraqis their lives. The war does little to change day-to-day life of the Iraqis, as U.S. troops withdrew from most cities last year to focus on training Iraqi military forces.

The situation in Syria is rapidly devolving into a civil war. Embassies are being attacked, and defectors from the military are meeting violence with violence. The international community's window of opportunity to protect Syrian civilians is closing.

While the Arab League threatened to suspend Syria's membership in the organization, it has given the Assad regime one last chance to cooperate before continuing on the path of isolating the regime. This proposal would allow civilian and military observers to enter Syria to determine if the Assad regime is complying with ending the violence against civilians.

The annual game of hurry-up-and-wait has begun in earnest for those of us who follow the congressional appropriations process.  Although Fiscal Year 2012 officially began on October 1^st, neither the full House nor the full Senate has yet approved legislation to fund the State Department and other international affairs agencies for the upcoming year, and it remains unclear exactly how or when they will do so.

For the past few weeks, the talk in the Senate has been about "minibuses"-combinations of several appropriations bills, which are smaller versions of the large "omnibus" packages to fund the entire federal government to which Congress frequently resorts when it fails to pass individual appropriations bills on time.  The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed the State/Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which provides the bulk of international affairs funding, and this bill was expected to be combined with several other appropriations bills into a minibus and brought to the Senate floor for a vote last week.  However, delays have set in, and the latest word is that no Senate action on a State/Foreign operations bill is likely until at least next week, and possibly even later than that. 

Citizens for Global Solutions, as a partner organization in the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, launched a new peacekeeping report today at the National Press Club. The report provides Congress and the Administration with tangible recommendations on how the U.S. can improve its participation in international peacekeeping missions.

The impetus for the report came from a desire to implement the aspirations of the Obama Administration for the U.S. to increase involvement in peacekeeping missions. In 2009, President Obama delivered a speech to the leaders of the top troop contributing countries where he said,

"We will consider contributing more U.S. civilian police, civilian personnel, and military staff officers to U.N. missions."

This report's goal is to provide a plan for implementing this mission.

The event featured a key note address from Amb. Nancy Soderberg, President of the Connect U.S. Fund and former Alternative Representative to the U.N. Soderberg believed the report's recommendatoins were important, and said,

"This report should be read by senior policymakers within the U.S. government writ large." 

Soderberg also noted,