A look at the foreign policy challenges awaiting the Obama Administration, from the Washington Post:

In the Middle East last year, Bush began what is known as the Annapolis process, which seeks to encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to agree on the parameters of a peace accord. Rice has taken on the task of shepherding the effort, making almost monthly trips to the region to try to persuade the two sides to reach an agreement. Any progress that has been made has remained secret; both sides say the talks have been productive and far-reaching.

But the White House this week formally gave up any hope of achieving a peace accord between the Israelis and Palestinians before Bush leaves office. Analysts have criticized the Annapolis process for not finding a way to accommodate the interests of Hamas, which has been labeled a terrorist group by the State Department but which controls the Gaza Strip with nearly half of the Palestinian population. Rice has also been faulted for investing so much in the effort, to the detriment of other issues, that her clout has been diminished.

Obama has not indicated that he will offer any fresh thinking on how to deal with Hamas; at one point during the campaign, he accepted the resignation of an outside adviser who met with Hamas officials as part of his job for an international mediation group. But, during a visit to Israel in July, Obama said he would not wait "until a few years into my term or my second term" to seek a peace deal. This suggests that he may appoint a high-level Middle East peace envoy, freeing his secretary of state to concentrate on other issues.

Good to see Obama recognizes that some good things have been done under Bush's foreign policy that need continuing. The only funny thing is their claim that Clinton left Bush a better situation in North Korea than Bush will leave for Obama, which is laughable when you consider that Clinton gave nuclear technology to North Korea in exchange for a peace deal, and then had them spurn inspections and announce that they had developed nuclear weapons. Bush's team is at least talking to them and the situation hasn't gotten any worse.