The U.S. Needs a Grand Strategy for the Middle East

If Iraq is, as the Bush administration suggests, the central front in the war on terror, the United States is at risk of being outflanked on other fronts. While the violence in Iraq justifiably dominates the attention of policymakers and analysts, the war in Iraq represents only the largest challenge amidst a troubled region at risk of further destabilization. While the situation in Iraq is discouraging, the Iraq Study Group — the bipartisan group of prominent Americans tasked by Congress to present policy options — offers some hope. While the study group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker […]

HONG KONG — Mum rang the other day. It was only unusual because we had already spoken between Melbourne and Hong Kong twice that week, for her 70th birthday, and this conversation was stilted, though she assured me everything was fine. Then she blurted out: “You might think me silly but it rained last night. Oh it rained and rained from midnight until eleven in the morning and it was heavy. It’s just that,” she hesitated. “It hasn’t rained for so long.” Such is the drought afflicting Australia — the worst in living memory — that it warranted a call […]

ANKARA, Turkey — Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and several conspiracy-themed books depicting Turkey as under attack by American and European influences sell briskly in local bookstores. Turkey’s $10 million movie “Valley of Wolves,” the most expensive to date, vilifying Christians and Jews pulls in record crowds. A 28-year-old lawyer shoots a secularist judge to death inside Turkey’s High Court. The Islamic and far-right press is filled with stories of missionaries within Turkish borders converting “defenseless” Muslims to “infidels.” Masked by Turkey’s 80-year Kemalist embrace of secularism, these recent trends reflect a hard fact: Beneath the surface of the West’s most […]

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Donald Abinan, 25, ekes out his existence in this West African metropolis by energetically directing cars in and out of empty parking spaces. He earns, by his estimate, slightly more than a dollar a day. Abinan’s turf is the street in front of the downtown mosque under construction, close to a small shopping center. But when President Laurent Gbagbo’s young partisans marched in often-violent, city-congesting demonstrations in support of their champion, he said he joined in. “I am not pro-Gbagbo, but I like his politics,” Abinan said. What attracted Abinan is not a program of economic […]

There are no good options in Iraq, which means Americans — who are inclined to believe there is a solution to every problem — are ill-equipped to plot a way forward. The country lies in ruins. Bush’s policy of simply lurching from one bloodbath to the next, from one political crisis to the next, has failed. The military is considering a temporary increase in troop strength, or a longer-term plan to embed many more advisers with Iraqi forces. At this point neither of those plans is likely to succeed, but both represent a last-ditch attempt to avert an utter catastrophe […]

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki seemed set Monday on keeping his mid-week rendezvous with President Bush in Amman, Jordan, even though it could mean risking the survival of his government. The summit called by Bush is opposed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the combative Shiite cleric and a crucial prop to Maliki’s government. Al-Sadr, who is virulently against the continued U.S. presence in Iraq, has threatened to withdraw his political support if the prime minister meets Bush on Wednesday. On Saturday, Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television news service, quoted Faleh Hasan Shanshal, al-Sadr’s political aide, as saying, “We have asked al-Maliki […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — Fond of mocking George W. Bush and railing at the U.S, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called his country’s number one oil customer, otherwise known as “the empire,” the greatest threat to human existence today. On the verge of reelection, Chavez has said that his geopolitical mission is nothing less than “saving the world” from the evils of U.S-style capitalism. As part of this plan, say analysts, Chavez has reached out to China. Eager for oil to fuel its economy, China has agreed to form a “strategic alliance” with Venezuela, strengthening bilateral ties through oil agreements and […]

We can only begin to imagine the despair now coursing through the veins of Arab reformers as they watch the unfolding of the future New Middle East. In Beirut, killers eliminated yet another critic of Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad, murdering Pierre Gemayel, a Christian cabinet member and a fierce critic of Syrian interference in Lebanon. Gemayel died in a hail of bullets just as the United States prepares to abandon the collapsing experiment to bring democracy to the Middle East, aiming to replace it with a return to the old-style “realpolitik” of making friends with distasteful characters, regardless of what […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — After more than a year of exploratory talks, the Colombian government and the country’s second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), decided last month to enter a new phase of negotiations and start formal peace talks. It is hoped that further talks will push forward an eventual peace agreement between the two parties and bring an end to 42 years of fighting between government forces and ELN rebels. Last September, ELN’s commander and spokesperson, Francisco Galan, was temporarily released from a Colombian high security prison, where he is serving a 30-year sentence for rebellion and […]

Just a single sentence among the many tens of thousands uttered in Hanoi this past week by 14,000 delegates and their retinues sums up the futility of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum: “One of the major outcomes that is anticipated from the leaders’ meeting will be the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan roadmap to achieve the Bogor goals,” said Vietnam’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Le Cong Phung, at the start of the week-long jamboree. Busan was the South Koreans’ turn at staging the event last year. Bogor was Indonesia’s contribution back in 1994. The political and business […]

There is Hope For Ending Police Corruption in Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — In a step toward solving one of Latin America’s most unrelenting problems, five Latin American countries sent delegates from police and civil society last week to a conference in Brazil to discuss police reform. The delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico met in Rio de Janeiro at a seminar sponsored by non-governmental organizations, including the Open Society Institute. Next year, they plan to invite five more countries in an attempt to create a permanent forum on the issue. The problems are well known: violence, corruption and a lack of respect for the common […]

The U.S. military has recently acknowledged that the U.S. and Chinese navies nearly engaged in a direct military clash at the end of last month near the Japanese island of Okinawa. Although the Chinese government has denied knowledge of the incident, U.S. government sources have provided some details of the encounter, which occurred in the international waters of the East China Sea. On Oct. 26, a Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine unexpectedly surfaced within five miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The submarine was apparently rehearsing how to sink the carrier with its torpedoes and cruise missiles — a […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia — When in May 1998 thousands of Indonesian students converged in the streets of the capital, Jakarta, demanding a democratic country and a law system equal for all, the air was filled with tension. Then, when their Reformasi (renovation) movement managed to end the 32-year rule of Dictator Suharto, tension gave way to expectation. Yet, the winds of change have lately turned into just a light breeze, and recent events have shown that in this archipelago nation the law remains lopsided, with the Suhartos and the armed forces still largely outside the reach of justice. The latest slap […]

DAMASCUS, Syria — On Monday, top Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk announced from Damascus that Hamas supports Mohammad Shabir as the new prime minister of Palestine, a candidate also supported by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. This brings an end to the political deadlock that has crippled Palestinian life since Hamas came to power in January 2006. The outgoing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, age 43, came to power with big dreams and promises for Palestinians. Among these were improving the livelihood of average citizens, combating corruption, and punishing those responsible for misuse of public office under Fatah, which reigned […]

LONDON — British officials believe an American exit from Iraq will be the goal of a new Bush strategy in the war, and defense sources in London were quoted in the British press Sunday as saying Britain will be doing the same with its 7,500 troops currently in southern Iraq. According to a report in the London Sunday Times, “senior sources” have been saying for some time that British Prime Minister Tony Blair postponed a phased drawdown of his country’s Iraq contingent because “he was reluctant to embarrass Bush before last week’s elections.” Now, however, reports say the British pullout […]

Diplomatic activities and discourse in Southeast Asia are popularly described as the “ASEAN Way.” What this amounts to is an informal, loose, and non-legalistic process of conducting regional relations among the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That the bilateral conflicts among ASEAN members have not spilled over and affected regional relations serves as a significant testament to the diplomatic maturity of member states in ASEAN. In the words of former Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN, Mokhtar Selat: “What is bilateral should be kept bilateral. What is regional should be regional. ASEAN works on this basis. And […]

The news last week that six Arab states are beginning efforts to acquire nuclear technology — although the technology is ostensibly for civil power generation — is stark evidence that non-proliferation efforts around the world must not be neglected. The world has been focused on the Oct. 9 North Korean nuclear test and the Iranian nuclear program and its regional consequences. But the threat of nuclear proliferation is not limited to Asia and the Middle East. South America also poses a threat. South American allies Argentina and Brazil abandoned their relatively advanced nuclear weapons programs, signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) […]

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