The following is an edited transcript of a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on "John King USA," talking about the NATO summit in Chicago and NATO's relevance in the world today.

KING: This year's NATO summit is in Chicago. And topping the official agenda is the transition in Afghanistan, but there are other giant issues for the 34 heads of state attending.

ZAKARIA: The truth is NATO was a defensive alliance. It was designed for, really, to protect against Russia, against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And ever since 1990 when all that ended, it's been flailing around looking for something to do.

But it is a very useful time when all these heads of state, heads of government get together, and there's always something or the other on the agenda that's pretty crucial. FULL POST

And you didn’t think there was a soft side to the Taliban.

A controversial new book has hit shelves in Great Britain that contains poetry written by members of the group or authors who seem quite romantically devoted to it. It's titled, appropriately enough, "Poetry of the Taliban."

The spot on my heart makes a candle like the sun
To watch the earth and skies with.
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Editor's note: Michael O’Hanlon is co-author, with Martin Indyk and Kenneth Lieberthal, of the new book Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Michael O'Hanlon.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

The Afghanistan war is a slog at best. There is little doubt about that.

Even those of us supporting the mission must acknowledge that it has been slower and harder than expected. The reasons are generally well known, including a resilient and highly motivated insurgency with sanctuaries in Pakistan; a corruption-ridden Afghan government that, by its poor governance, gives sustenance to the Taliban; and mistakes on the part of NATO, which for years pumped too much poorly regulated cash into a country unable to handle it, fueling corruption in the process.

As NATO leaders gather in Chicago this week for a major summit where Afghanistan will be issue No. 1, it is understandable why their citizens are tired of this effort. And with Osama bin Laden dead and other al Qaeda leaders out of the picture or out of the region, the motivation behind the effort seems less compelling to others as well.

Nothing I saw on a recent trip to Afghanistan dispelled the above realities. But I also saw plenty of good that should give us encouragement.

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Editor's Note: Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. This is his First Take.

By Richard Haass, CFR.org

President Obama has been of two minds toward Afghanistan since the outset of his presidency. In December 2009, en route to tripling the U.S. military presence there, he declared that U.S. military forces would begin to withdraw from that country in eighteen months. Now, two-and-a-half years later, he stated that U.S. military forces would continue to leave Afghanistan but that American soldiers would remain in the country until at least 2024.

The announcement of the U.S.-Afghan "Strategic Partnership Agreement" raises at least as many questions as it answers. How many U.S. troops will remain in country after 2014 and what will be their precise role? What will be the ultimate scale of Afghan army and police forces? How much will all this cost, and what will be the U.S. share? And what is the extent of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan if, as is all too possible, this mix of Afghan and U.S. effort is not enough in the face of Taliban ruthlessness, Pakistani provision of a sanctuary for the Taliban, and Afghan corruption and divisions? FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael O’Hanlon is coauthor with Martin Indyk and Kenneth Lieberthal of the new book, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

President Obama’s trip to Afghanistan this week is a very good thing for American national security in general and the Afghanistan mission in particular. Thankfully, it should probably arrest some of the unproductive dialogue on both sides about whether Governor Romney or President Carter or anyone else would have authorized the same raid that killed Osama bin Laden a year ago. (In fact, of course, Carter did authorize a similar raid, Operation Desert One in 1980 in Iran, but largely because the U.S. military was not nearly as proficient at such things at the time, it failed.) President Obama deserves credit for authorizing the bin Laden raid but it is time to move on to a broader debate. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations. This is a CFR First Take.

By Max Boot, CFR.org

Afghanistan is facing a crisis of confidence in its future. In 2014, the only president the country has known in the post-Taliban era, Hamid Karzai, is due to leave office; there is no front-runner to succeed him and it is not clear whether it will be possible to hold an honest and secure election. More significantly, that same year, the bulk of the Western troops, currently 130,000 strong (including 90,000 Americans), are also supposed to depart. The Taliban, meanwhile, has been weakened, but remains secure in its Pakistan redoubts. Whether the Afghan National Security Forces will remain strong enough to fend them off largely on their own remains unknown. Many Afghans fear the answer is no. That is why home prices in Kabul are declining, capital flight is increasing, and there is growing talk of emigration among the country's elites.

Will the signing of a U.S.-Afghan security partnership agreement, announced Sunday, dispel those doubts? Not likely. To be sure, it is good step forward. That the American and Afghan governments were able to overcome their differences, especially on the controversial issues of "night raids" and detentions of Afghan suspects by U.S. authorities, is certainly positive. That the United States is promising to remain committed in Afghanistan to some degree at least until 2024 is another vote of confidence in the country's future. But much remains unknown about the American commitment. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Taliban fighters launched multiple raids on government installations across Afghanistan, including strikes on the diplomatic quarter and parliament in Kabul (BBC). Analysts say the audacious, complex operation was designed to send a bloody message to NATO forces and its domestic allies. The assorted attacks commenced simultaneously at about 1:45 p.m.—several in Kabul, and others in Nangarhar, Logar, and Paktia provinces.

Officials say thirty-six gunmen were killed along with three civilians and eight members of Afghan security. They also report they have arrested two would-be suicide bombers who were targeting the second vice president, Mohammad Karim Khalili. There were also reports that members of the Haqqani network participated in the violence. As NATO forces prepare to draw down by the end of 2014, the attacks have raised concerns about the handover of security responsibilities to Afghan forces. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael O’Hanlon is coauthor with Martin Indyk and Kenneth Lieberthal of the new book, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

Today I had the honor of interviewing General John Allen, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution in Washington. We had a half hour of direct discussion before taking questions from the audience. The general was, as usual, impressive and inspiring. Of course, the mission he leads in Afghanistan remains challenging.

After a week of testimony and media appearances, much of what General Allen now believes about the current state and future trajectory of the Afghanistan effort had already surfaced. Today’s conversation focused largely on the campaign as it is unfolding in Afghanistan, in somewhat greater depth than many of his other recent appearances have permitted. It highlighted several key realities about the war effort.

A major theme of General Allen’s public discussions this month in Washington have focused on improvements in the Afghan security forces. Last week in Congressional testimony he called them “better than we thought.” Today he went a bit further - not breaking huge news, perhaps - but explaining a few key things: FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with seventeen counts of murder (NYT) today over an attack on Afghan civilians in southern Kandahar province on March 11, U.S. officials said. The attack came on the heels of public protests and killings over the burning of Qurans at a U.S.-run NATO air base, further compounding a troubled U.S-Afghan partnership and U.S. efforts to negotiate an exit from the decade-old war. Bales's attorney has claimed his client suffers from "mental problems" and does not remember many of the details of the March 11 incident.

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Editor's Note: Dr. James M. Lindsay is a Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Visit his blog here and follow him on Twitter.

By James M. Lindsay, CFR.org

The tragic news that a U.S. Army sergeant slaughtered sixteen Afghans this week has scrambled the debate over the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States agree to pull back its troops to bases in Afghanistan by next year. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have discovered doubts about the wisdom of staying the course in Afghanistan.The public’s dissatisfaction with the war has hardened. A Gallup poll out this week found that 50 percent of Americans want Washington to speed up its withdrawal from Afghanistan; only 21 percent say stay the course.

The White House says it intends to stick by its plan to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops by 2014. Gen. John Allen, who commands U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan opposes “any form of accelerated drawdown,” so much so that he apparently wants to slow down the pace of President Obama’s proposed withdrawal once the so-called surge troops depart the country next fall. You can still find plenty of independent military experts who think that General Allen has it exactly right. Their impassioned defense of current policy in the face of tragic news touches that chord in all of us that resonates with Winston Churchill’s immortal words from 1941: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in.” FULL POST