Twelve months ago, the UN community heaved a collective sigh of relief, as the major powers appeared to reach a compromise on how to manage Iraq. But Washington’s determination to act on its own information yet to be supported by findings on the ground cut short the role of UN weapons inspectors and challenged the very notion that the UN has a role to play in major issues of peace and security. Today, the international scene is much altered. With the US bogged down militarily in Iraq, Washington is relying on multilateral processes to address nuclear proliferation threats in North Korea and Iran. It has backed down on protectionist tariffs on steel imports.|Full Story
A sobering thought as 2003 draws to a close: For the first time since the end of the Cold War, defense spending is rising in several countries, quite acutely. The US defense budget, which accounts for roughly half of the world’s defense spending, has grown from $300 billion when President George W. Bush took office to $487 billion today in response not to any conventional military threat, but to terrorism. In 2002, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the US was responsible for almost 75 percent of worldwide growth in military spending. Further increases substantial increases are planned up to 2009. |Full Story
The plight of Iraqi Kurds dates back to times much earlier than the era of the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein although his reign initiated some of the harshest episodes for the Kurds. But Saddam Hussein was not the only perpetrator. Boxed into a very critical geopolitical zone, the Kurds in Iraq have always fallen victim to brutal international relations games beyond their own concerns. These were games of interests and tradeoffs between the regional powers on the one hand, and the superpowers on the other. When the victors of World War I carved out from the Ottoman Empire the areas that make up the modern Middle East, they did not grant the Kurds a country they could call Kurdistan. Hence, the Kurds found their native area divided among many countries: Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Recognizing the Kurds’ yearning for independence, the governments of these countries became aware of the potential political and territorial threat they represented to each state. This led to harsh policies that ranged from forms of cultural warfare to blatant genocide. |Full Story
Looking back on this turbulent year, how should Americans make sense of the war in Iraq and the foreign-policy traumas that surrounded it? What went right, what went wrong and why? Historians will be pondering these questions for years. One can already imagine a long queue of books that will dissect this year of Iraq in the way David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest helped us understand the people and ideas that produced Vietnam. Some early, tentative answers to these big questions can be found in a remarkable essay by Dimtri K. Simes that appears in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs. Titled “America’s Imperial Dilemma,” it’s the best brief analysis I’ve yet seen on where we are at the end of 2003 and how we got here. |Full Story
The very sense of isolation and alienation felt by Arab-Americans in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has turned that diverse series of communities into a political force to be reckoned with. “9/11 is a wakeup call for all Arab-Americans to vote and take part in the American system,” said Nafa Khalaf, a Detroit businessman. “Unity has become more important for us to show that we have weight in the political arena.” That feeling of empowerment was, for example, thick in the air last October at the national conference of the Arab American Institute (AAI), the main Arab-American political lobby. It was evident in the back-to-back interviews AAI president James Zogby then gave to everyone from local Detroit television stations to the New York Times. And it was most vividly reflected in the lineup of Democratic presidential contenders crowding the conference agenda. |Full Story
Apart from suppressing the insurgency in Iraq, one of the more challenging tasks faced by the US is creating a new Iraq in its own secular democratic image an image promoted as a prototype for the rest of the Arab world, friend and foe alike, and possibly Iran. This democratic prototype is also expected to halt Islamic fundamentalism in its tracks and eventually to suffocate it. There are good reasons why the US chose Iraq in its fight against Islamic militancy. Although not a breeding ground for militant Islam, Iraq is near several such places, making the US presence there ideal. Besides, the Iraqi regime was both isolated and notoriously brutal, so few would shed a tear for it once it crumbled. |Full Story
