These are excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers from around the world:

The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Rumsfeld resignation:

President Bush's first response to the Democrats conquering Capitol Hill was an interesting one — he dumped his right-hand warrior, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who will be replaced by Robert Gates, a former CIA director and career intelligence and national security official. We can't see how this, of itself, will turn around the president's political fortunes or a war that has become an albatross around his neck.

Although he made plenty of mistakes and had an abrasive style that sometimes rubbed people the wrong way, Rumsfeld shouldn't be made a scapegoat for the foreign policy misadventures of the Bush administration.

And unless the president and his advisers come up with a war strategy more creative and decisive than "staying the course," little will change, even under Gates.

In Gates, the president again made a cautious Cabinet choice. ... Gates has experience working with a Democratic Congress and seems adept at Washington politics, and that will certainly come in handy working for a lame-duck president. But that may not be enough to overcome the formidable challenges he faces.

The Detroit Free Press, on the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will break yet another racial barrier today when ground is broken for a monument in his honour on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. King will be the first African American to have a place in the mall, which includes the Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt memorials and the Washington Monument.

This is a fitting exclamation point for the King legacy. And the location could not be more perfect — about a half-mile from the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his legendary "I Have Dream" speech in August 1963. ...

The hallmark feature of the memorial will be a sculpture of a giant, divided rock, meant to symbolise America's racial division. But the very creation of the memorial in many ways demonstrates how far America has moved away from its racially polarised past.

Blacks, whites and many others were willing to invest their time and money to make the monument possible. Dr. King would surely take note of the mosaic of faces working to keep his legacy alive. He might even go as far as to deem it a richer reward than the designation of his birthday as a national holiday.

The Independent, London, on the war in Iraq:

The midterm elections have left America's policy on Iraq in a state of confusion. The Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has been sacked, and President Bush seems to have outsourced strategic thinking on the subject to James Baker's Iraq Survey Group, which is not expected to report until next year.

But if Washington's senators, congressmen and policymakers have any sense of responsibility they will divert their attention from matters of domestic advantage, and concentrate on the interests of the Iraqi people.

To grapple with this question it is necessary to recognise the scale of the horror facing Iraq. The prospect of the break-up of the country into separate Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocks looks increasingly unavoidable. But history shows that the abrupt withdrawal of foreign forces in collapsing states generally intensifies the slaughter.

If our troops remain, we will see the country crumble gradually and more British and American soldiers die at the hands of an increasingly sophisticated insurgency. If our troops go, they will leave Iraq to cataclysm, tarnishing the reputation of the US and the UK abroad still further.

Some are recommending a third option. Baker, a former secretary of state, has hinted that his report may recommend an appeal to neighbouring Iran to help stabilise the Shia south of the country.

The dreadful truth is that, no matter what strategy our leaders now settle upon, the fate of Iraq is slipping inexorably out of their hands.