Articles

Back in 2007, commentators were sounding the alarm that Pakistan was approaching a precipice. A lot has changed in two years. Pakistan’s problems then—protesters clogging the streets of Islamabad demanding President Musharraf’s resignation, and sporadic Taliban raids on coalition forces in Afghanistan—were but a glimpse of the danger ahead. No one could have imagined the speed and intensity with which the Taliban and their allies have since spread east from their sanctuary in the Hindu Kush mountains to threaten an invasion of the Pakistani capital.

China's leaders are betting big in the Middle East. In the high stakes game of geopolitical poker now being played between the West and Iran over the latter's nuclear program, Beijing has clearly placed its wager on Tehran. If China's leaders are right, and Iran does succeed in going nuclear, it will drastically alter regional politics, and quite possibly the global energy picture as well. If they are wrong, and the Islamic Republic is stopped from doing so, the Chinese economy could end up being one of the biggest casualties of the resulting fallout.

During the 1990s, the Clinton administration funneled millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority and its gangster-in-chief, Yasser Arafat, in the vain hope that the Palestinian leadership would focus on development and reconcile itself to the existence of the state of Israel. The funds, however, ended up doing no such thing. Fueled in part by American dollars, Arafat and his cronies preserved and strengthened their anti–Israeli animus, all the while entrenching a culture of corruption and cronyism that has crippled progress toward a Palestinian state. Yet today, the Obama administration is poised to make much the same mistake in post-Arafat "Palestine."

In February, the Obama administration sent a secret letter to Moscow in which it reportedly offered up its predecessor's plans for missile defenses in Europe in exchange for a more constructive Russian role on dealing with Iran's nuclear program. The Kremlin happily pocketed that proposal, but made no firm commitments as to its cooperation in squeezing Tehran. So what does Russia really think of Iran and its nuclear ambitions?

Several myths lie at the core of the arguments in favor of resuming the Syrian-Israeli peace process. The first is that the two parties were close to completing a peace deal in 2000, but diplomacy faltered over final borders—and that it would be relatively simple to solve this territorial dispute. The second is that the return of the Golan Heights is a priority for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is not only capable of making peace with Israel, but could deliver the warm relations that Jerusalem seeks in return. Lastly, there is the myth that if the West sufficiently sweetened a Syrian-Israeli peace deal, Damascus could undergo a strategic shift and even reorient itself toward the West.

Last month, as part of his plans to "push the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations, the new president sent a secret letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. The missive reportedly contained a simple offer: America would move to scrap Bush administration-era plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe in return for the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's persistent nuclear ambitions.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has repeatedly called for more emphasis on this country's nonmilitary instruments of international influence, and especially for a greater role, resources and capabilities for American diplomacy. Adm. Mullen and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs ironically represent a critical weakness in this country's diplomatic establishment - institutional leadership.

The Obama administration appears to have set its sights on Syria as part of its efforts to turn over a new leaf on Middle East policy. Recent days have seen a spate of diplomatic overtures by Washington to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. These overtures represent a major shift in American policy.

The subject of diplomacy with Iran has been on Barack Obama's mind for some time. Back in October 2007, while on the campaign trail, the then-Democratic presidential contender famously announced that he would hold "direct diplomacy, without preconditions" with Iran as a counterpoint to the Bush administration's more hawkish approach to the Islamic Republic. Little has changed in Obama's outlook since. The new president has wasted no time since being inaugurated in making clear that he still seeks diplomatic engagement with the Iranian regime. He has selected a seasoned diplomat, former Israeli-Palestinian negotiator Dennis Ross, as his special envoy on the Iranian issue, and his administration is said to be moving forward with plans to set up an American interests section in Tehran.

President Obama has issued an executive order making good on his promise to close down America’s detainee facility at Guantánamo Bay, though not as rapidly as his supporters wanted. While activists will hail this as a major step towards dismantling the Bush administration’s wartime policies, the Guantánamo they object to exists more as reputation than reality. To many, the name Guantánamo screams “No Due Process!” “Torture!” and “War Crimes!” But Camp Delta is the most humane facility of its type in the history of warfare.

What should the United States do about the war in Gaza? That's the question plaguing policy-makers in Washington these days as they watch the unfolding conflict between Israel and Hamas. The cause for the current fighting – and its morality – is exceedingly clear. Since its bloody ouster of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party from the Gaza Strip 18 months ago, Hamas has established a virtual terrorist enclave there.

Is Iran seeking nuclear weapons? For some, despite the mounting evidence, this is still very much an open question. Not, however, for Delpech, director of strategic affairs at the French Atomic Energy Commission and senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies in Paris. "[T]he quest for an atomic weapon is the only credible explanation" for the pattern of delay, secrecy, and obfuscation exhibited by Iran's ayatollahs over their nuclear effort, she writes.

As the conflict in Iraq winds down, the “forgotten front” of the War on Terror, Afghanistan, has moved back into the forefront of the national security debate. Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (hereafter OEF) is aptly named, since the conflict will endure long into the next administration. Whoever takes the oath of office in January of 2009 will face the same types of challenges in Afghanistan that have bedeviled the current administration since 2001, and to an extent have been characteristic of Afghan politics for decades.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has three phobias," according to Iranian expatriate journalist Amir Taheri. "Women, Jews and America." Forget bombs. Maybe we should send in Barbra Streisand.

As the president-elect begins to weigh the carrots and sticks he can employ when dealing with the Middle East, he will run into the question of how to handle Syria. Bashar Assad was the first to reach out with a telegram to Barack Obama on November 7 that "expressed hope for constructive dialogue so that the difficulties can be overcome which have hampered the advance of peace, stability and progress in the Middle East."

What should the next administration do about Iran? During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama advocated the need for direct negotiations as a way of addressing the Iranian regime's persistent nuclear ambitions. And since his electoral victory, the president-elect has given every indication that he intends to initiate a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran after he assumes office on Jan. 20.

During the presidential campaign Vice President-elect Joe Biden predicted, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy." This wasn't just another gratuitous allusion to the impending Camelot 2.0, but an apt comparison. A new, young president is a standing temptation to foreign powers seeking to find his limits.

November 7 marks the first anniversary of the Georgian government's use of force to break up peaceful opposition demonstrations in the heart of Tbilisi. Opposition groups have announced renewed public action against President Mikheil Saakashvili on that date, with the added objective of bringing him to account for his disastrous military confrontation with Russia in August. Georgia's image in the West as a developing democracy will be influenced by the ability of the government and the opposition to mark this anniversary in a peaceful manner.

Give the Kremlin credit for ambition. Just weeks after its invasion of Georgia ignited a major conflict in the Caucasus and dramatically altered the status quo in the 'post-Soviet space', the Russian government appears to have set its sights on another strategic prize.

These must be heady days for Iran’s ayatollahs. Just a year ago, American efforts to contain and isolate the Islamic Republic seemed to be gathering steam. A third UN Security Council resolution censuring Iran for its nuclear advances was on the horizon, and the Bush administration could claim headway on the creation of a regional coalition of Sunni Arab states to counteract Iran’s growing clout. Today, however, things are very different. Western efforts to control and contain the Islamic Republic have clearly faltered, while Iran’s march toward the bomb gives every indication of having accelerated.