Michele Kelemen

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is expected to tap a veteran U.N. troubleshooter to take over from international envoy Kofi Annan. At the same time, U.N. military observers are wrapping up their mission. By next week, all of the unarmed U.N. military observers will be out of Syria.

One way Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney could bolster his foreign policy standing is by choosing an expert as his running mate. One name that's been circulating in the rumor mill is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rice, who served under George W. Bush both as secretary of state and as national security adviser, says she's not interested in the job. Still, she created a lot of buzz in June when she spoke to Romney donors in Utah.

An Exceptional Career

International Envoy Kofi Annan is quitting and his peace plan for Syria in tatters. So, what will the U.S. and others do now? President Obama has quietly allowed a group to raise money to give to the Free Syrian Army and U.S. diplomats have been trying to get a better sense of the opposition on the ground, offering non-lethal support. Syrian opposition figures complain that these are only small adjustments that won't make a difference amid a rapidly changing situation on the ground.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says America's national security priority should be preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and he was talking tough about this in his recent stop in Jerusalem.

"History teaches with force and clarity that when the world's most despotic regimes secure the world's most destructive weapons, peace often gives way to oppression, to violence, or to devastating war," Romney said. "We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option."

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