A Pakistani soldier pictured during operations against militants in June.

Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.

I base this conclusion on three principles. First, when I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world — all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile on my face — all of them have one thing in common: America had nothing to do with it.

America helped build out what they started, but the breakthrough didn’t start with us. We can fan the flames, but the parties themselves have to light the fires of moderation. And whenever we try to do it for them, whenever we want it more than they do, we fail and they languish.

The Camp David peace treaty was not initiated by Jimmy Carter. Rather, the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, went to Jerusalem in 1977 after Israel’s Moshe Dayan held secret talks in Morocco with Sadat aide Hassan Tuhami. Both countries decided that they wanted a separate peace — outside of the Geneva comprehensive framework pushed by Mr. Carter.

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President Obama and his national security team meet in the White House Situation Room.

Ed Henry
CNN Senior White House Correspondent

There's an air of mystery hanging over President Obama's war council, which meets in secrecy yet again this week to discuss a new strategy for Afghanistan in the highly secure White House Situation Room.

But senior officials closely involved in the decision-making process reveal that the president and his team are grappling with one particularly urgent question: Will Gen. Stanley McChrystal's push for 40,000 more U.S. troops really secure Afghanistan?

McChrystal, who has been joining the president's war council by secure videophone, framed this debate weeks ago by writing in his now-famous memo that failing to send that many troops could result in the mission failing. But some of Obama's other top advisers are privately expressing heavy skepticism that sending 40,000 troops will result in a successful Iraq-style surge.

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," one senior administration official said. "To say that we can take what we did in Iraq and Xerox it and send it to Afghanistan is obtuse."

A second administration official confirmed this viewpoint has real currency inside Obama's war council.

"With 40,000 more troops, you cannot do an Iraq-style surge," this official said. "It's totally different than Iraq. The strategy is not easily transferable - there are unique challenges in Afghanistan."

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Alyssa Fetini
TIME

The split between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims is one of the most important schisms in modern religion — yet in the West, at least, it's one of the least understood. The centuries-old strife sporadically erupts into new bloodshed throughout the Middle East — today, particularly, in war-torn Iraq, where the power vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein has reopened old wounds. As British-born journalist Lesley Hazleton argues, these wounds have been left to fester by a lack of adequate planning or understanding of the issue's complexities on the part of American policymakers. Her new book, After the Prophet, recounts the epic story of the split between Islam's two main factions and its present role in the Middle East. TIME talked to Hazleton about the history and misunderstandings of this dispute and what, if anything, can be done to extinguish it once and for all.

What's the Shi'ite-Sunni split really about?
It's about who should lead Islam, and it began at the moment of Muhammad's death. As the founder of Islam, he was the undisputed leader. And if he had had a son, the split might never have happened — a son would automatically have inherited his father's authority. But he died without sons and without leaving a clear will. His closest male relative was his cousin and son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, whose followers — the Shiat Ali [followers of Ali], or Shi'ite for short — say that he was the only one with the spiritual authority to succeed Muhammad. The Sunnis believed that the caliphate should go to whoever would be best equipped politically to maintain the burgeoning Muslim empire, backing Muhammad's father-in-law Abu Bakr. In the end, Abu Bakr was named the first caliph. Though Ali eventually assumed the caliphate 25 years later, he was assassinated, power fell to the founder of the first Sunni dynasty, and the Shi'ites felt a terrible, lasting sense of dispossession. In a nutshell, the difference between the two is that the Sunnis tend to respect how power actually works rather than the way it should work in an ideal world. In a sense, the Shi'ite ideology is more idealistic, while the Sunni one more pragmatic.

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Marium Al Wata, 32, used to own a pharmacy in Iraq.

Charity Tooze
AC360° Contributor

Marium and Hassan Al Wata* are stalked by their shared past. They are haunted by memories of death threats and murder. In 2006 they fled the violence in Baghdad in search of a safe haven. They settled in Amman, Jordan but their security quickly turned to imprisonment.

They say their modest apartment in the city’s Heshami Shamali neighborhood feels like a cage. Their days and nights are spent within the confines of sheet rock, sweat and anxiety. “We never leave the house during the day,” Marium said, “At night we’ll go on the balcony and talk about how we’re feeling.”

During the escalation of sectarian violence between 2005 and 2007, thousands of Iraqis fled to Jordan and other neighboring countries. According to a Fafo Research Foundation report, commissioned by the Jordanian government, there are between 450,000 and 500,000 Iraqis living in Jordan. But many of these people find themselves isolated in their new homes, fearful of deportation and waiting in limbo. The United Nations now recognizes the situation as the largest urban refugee crisis in history.

After their arrival three years ago, the Al Watas discovered layers of bureaucracy that made their life in Jordan difficult. Jordan did not sign the 1951 Convention on refugees and while it has been historically welcoming to displaced people, Iraqis are not officially recognized as refugees and therefore cannot work legally. The large influx of Iraqis was a shock to Jordan’s infrastructure and the country quickly changed its immigration policies and began requiring visas for Iraqis. The visa requirement - and the inability to work legally - has made it nearly impossible for an Iraqi to live some semblance of a normal life in Jordan.

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Three-year-old Saba Fahed, an Iraqi refugee, plays with Legos on the floor of her family's apartment.

Neba Fahed, 4, laughs when company comes to visit her family in Jordan.

Charity Tooze
AC360° Contributor

Mohammad Fahed is an Iraqi refugee living in Jordan. He and his family fled Iraq in 2004 after their house was bombed. His mother was paralyzed during the attack.

Fahed is a tall, thin man with piercing blue eyes and an angular face. He speaks quietly, with measure, and stares across the room with intense frustration. He sits upright in his chair and his striped button-down short-sleeve shirt is tucked neatly into his navy-blue trousers. His two youngest daughters Saba, 3 and Neba, 4, stand next to him as he talks about his life in Jordan.

Fahed first arrived in Jordan in 2002, before the war, to find work. He said the economic situation in Iraq made it impossible for him to earn a living and provide for his family. He found work in Jordan in commercial trade, doing odd jobs as a blacksmith and plumber.

Immediately following the outbreak of the war in 2003, he returned to Iraq to gather his family. “Since the war everything has changed,” Fahed said. Like most of Iraq’s neighbors, Jordan is not a signatory of the 1951 Convention on refugees and therefore they do not recognize Iraqis as refugees. Arafat Jamal, deputy representative of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), said, “despite the fact that it’s not a signatory on the main international instrument on refugees its [Jordan’s] practice has been very generous.” Jordan classifies Iraqis as “guests.” Iraqis can apply for residency and work permits but, still, many reside in Jordan illegally. Only those with “specialized skills,” that Jordan’s labor market lacks - such as physicans - receive work permits. Hundreds of thousands are not allowed to work.

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Editor's note: This is a video of a church in Baghdad. It was the worst hit on Sunday evening.

Landmines are laid out after being turned in at an Iraqi police station in 2004.

Editor's Note: According to a new report released today, Iraq has a landmine problem that could take decades to clean up. That fact concerns the report's authors – UNICEF, the U.N. Development Program, and the Iraqi Ministry of Environment – as it could jeopardize the country's commitment to the global treaty to ban landmines. To read the report in its entirety, click below. Tune in to AC360° tonight 10p ET to hear the latest on the situation in Iraq from CNN's Michael Ware.

Click here to read the UN's report

EA man grieves as he sees a coffin carrying his relative who was killed in the Wednesday blast at a Baghdad market.

Emad Al-shara
The Philadelphia Inquirer

A recent spate of attacks largely directed at Baghdad's Shia neighborhoods is fueling concerns that sectarian and political violence may be returning to the city. Residents are especially worried, given that American forces are to withdraw from Iraqi cities by next week.

Shias haven't been the only victims. Car bombings have also occurred recently in the Dora district, which is predominantly Sunni. But some fear that the high number of incidents aimed at Shia targets indicates that sectarian and political violence is on the rise.

"This environment is really scary," said Mohamed Ali, a Baghdad resident. "There are whispers of the possibility of more sectarian violence and sectarian political parties taking control." Ali al-Allaq, a member of the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance bloc, said he believes Shia areas are being targeted "to stir up a sectarian war."

Many recall that the bombing of the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra in 2006 ignited bloody sectarian battles that brought the country to the brink of civil war. "Iraqi citizens have been burned by sectarian fire," said Abdulmunam al-Asam, a writer and political analyst. "They fear [sectarianism] will return."

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