President Obama says "systemic failures" contributed to the Christmas Day airliner plot, but CFR’s Steven Simon says given the huge volume of intelligence analyzed daily, reforms won’t come easily.

The Boston Marathon bombings illustrate the stresses on domestic intelligence gathering and counterterrorism in a democratic system, says CFR’s Richard Falkenrath.

Gerald M. Steinberg, an Israeli-American national security expert, says the initial Israeli alarm over the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program has eased.

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework on Climate Change Convention, says “intelligent financing” for green technologies is key to a good climate change agreement.

Judith Yaphe, who served 20 years as the senior analyst on Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf issues in the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis for the Central Intelligence Agency, and was …