The signs of new construction are visible everywhere in Khartoum. Libya recently erected a giant, almost-oval hotel not far from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, bestowing downtown Khartoum with an oddly distinctive landmark that the locals call “Gaddafi’s egg.” The priciest rooms run at $4,000 per night. Just across the street is the massive and appropriately named Friendship Hall, built by China.
Editor’s Note: This op-ed originally appeared in the Boston Globe on 4/5)
When North Korea declared that it was planning to launch a satellite, the United States should have shrugged and gone about its business. Instead, the Obama administration has exaggerated the importance of the launch by treating it as a national security threat.
Institutions almost never vote themselves out of existence. They just plug along, inventing new missions if the old ones disappear.
The war that ended 20 years ago has lived on in a menu of weapons systems we have continued to develop, modify, and build at ever increasing cost, if not utility, since then. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement of significant cuts in several of those systems signals that in a new administration and a severe fiscal crisis, this Cold War legacy may finally be winding down.
Yugoslavia, though you cannot find it any longer on maps, is still very much with us. The wars and political turmoil that convulsed this multiethnic country in the 1990s continue to reverberate today. These aftershocks can be felt in the standoff around Kosovo’s independence, the political fragmentation in Bosnia, the conflict between Macedonia and Greece, and the failure of European integration to encompass most of what was once Eastern Europe’s most Western-leaning country.
When North Korea declared that it was planning to launch a satellite, the United States should have shrugged and gone about its business. Instead, the Obama administration has exaggerated the importance of the launch by treating it as a national security threat.
Barack Obama’s rise to the U.S. presidency has left most Latin Americans suspended between skepticism and hope. That’s bound to make the V Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, to be held on April 18 and 19, especially interesting.
The elderly gentleman had a remarkable history. He’d worked in the State Department in Latin America and Afghanistan. And, 60 years ago, he served as a translator in Tokyo in connection with the war crimes trial that resulted in 25 guilty verdicts and seven executions of Japanese war criminals just after World War II. Given his background, I was surprised at his viewpoint.
It’s official. President Barack Obama now fully owns the war in Afghanistan. Standing alongside his military advisors and in front of the Washington press corps, he outlined a plan with “a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” While the goal and the five objectives to meet this goal are clear, they’re also unattainable and will likely result in the U.S. (and NATO) being trapped in the region for decades to come.
Following decades of conflict, Libya and the United States took major steps to improve their bilateral relationship in the closing months of the Bush administration. In September 2008, Condoleezza Rice visited Libya, the first secretary of State to do so since John Foster Dulles in 1953. In November, two weeks after Libya contributed $1.5 billion to a newly created Humanitarian Settlement Fund intended to resolve outstanding lawsuits by American victims of Libyan terrorism, President George W. Bush telephoned the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and voiced his satisfaction with the settlement. In December 2008, Gene A. Cretz took up his position as U.S. ambassador to Libya, the first since 1972.