Articles

President Barack Obama's 10-day tour through Asia is being deemed a disappointment in some Washington circles after the President failed to secure a free trade with South Korea, or forge a consensus on issues of currency manipulation and trade imbalances. However, the President's underwhelming performance in East Asia risks overshadowing his more commendable performance in South Asia, where President Obama announced that America now supports a permanent seat for India at the United Nations Security Council. The policy change was warmly received in New Delhi, where politicians have been lobbying the U.S. for such an endorsement for years (not even the Indophile Bush administration was willing to offer one). And while there is little likelihood that India's Security Council aspirations will be fulfilled anytime soon, President Obama's announcement at least temporarily silenced critics who had begun to question the President's commitment to the U.S.-India partnership.

For the moment, Muhammad Ibrahim Makawi is still far from a household name. Outside of a small corpus of terrorism experts and national security specialists, few people are familiar with the Egyptian-born militant who is arguably al-Qaeda’s most dangerous operative. But they should be. Mounting evidence suggests that, after years of absence, Makawi—better known by his nom de guerre, Saif al-Adel (“sword of justice” in Arabic)—is back in action and spearheading a new stage in al-Qaeda’s war with the West.

It’s a tried-and-true tenet of warfare, showcased throughout centuries of combat, that it is a great deal easier to attack than to defend. Attacking forces have the luxury of setting the time, the place and the means by which conflict is joined, while defenders are forced to anticipate the actions and objectives of their adversaries—or suffer the consequences.

In the age of modern terrorism, those consequences could mean another 9/11, or worse. And while the United States has fared better than most in thwarting these kind of attacks (the Heritage Foundation estimates that the U.S. government has successfully foiled over 30 significant terrorist plots since September 2001), talk to any counterterrorism professional and you’ll come away with the impression that America, like its allies abroad, is still very much playing defense.

Last week, Iran rolled out the red carpet for an unlikely dignitary. The visitor wasn’t Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the spiritual head of the Hezbollah Shi’ite militia Iran created in Lebanon in the early 1980s and has sustained since. Nor was it Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s newly-reconfirmed prime minister, whom—having failed to supplant in favor of a more pliable politician in recent elections—Tehran is now actively courting. Rather, the head-of-state that garnered Tehran’s most lavish diplomatic reception was none other than Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who over the past decade has emerged as one of Iran’s most dependable international allies.

There is trouble on the high seas. Few doubted China’s astonishing economic and geopolitical rise would fuel competition and rivalry with the United States and China’s Asian neighbors. Most observers, however, have been left guessing where the first serious points of conflict would emerge. We may have been given our answer this summer: in the disputed and crowded waters of the Asian Pacific, where overlapping claims of sovereignty and territorial rights among the United States, China and a handful of East Asian nations have spilled into confrontation and political brinkmanship this year.