Between May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over, and August 20, 131 U.S., nine UK, and one Danish military personnel have died in Iraq from all causes. That is more than one death every day. To the U.S. and UK toll must be added scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists–military, intelligence, fedayeen, non-Iraqi volunteers–and innocent civilians. And after August 20, 20 UN workers.
The streets of the capital are broad and the buildings monumental. Inside the grand state offices, a power struggle rages among the political elite, and the side that seems to have the upper hand is insulated, single-minded, and shamelessly belligerent. This clique supports a military-first policy that doesn’t shrink from the first use of nuclear weapons, a stance that strikes fear into allies and adversaries alike. Nor are these fears soothed by the
actions or rhetoric of the leader, a former playboy who owes his position to an irregular political process and the legacy of a more statesmanlike father.
Far from the spotlight and far from Baghdad, another shock and awe campaign is underway. On May 19th, Indonesia launched a military campaign to “strike and paralyze” a small band of separatist rebels in the Aceh province. In a made-for-TV photo op, 458 soldiers parachuted onto the island from six C-130 Hercules transport aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the United States’ largest defense contractor. As many as 40,000 Indonesian troops and a police force of 10,000 followed close behind, backed up by warships, fighter planes, and other high-tech military equipment, declaring war on 5,000 separatist guerillas armed with automatic weapons, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades.
Tell it to the troops on the ground, not to mention the indigenous population. They know that war can go on even after it has “ended.”
Responding to the U.S. request to send troops to occupied, post-war Iraq, India’s army is going full steam ahead with preparations for possible deployment. Meanwhile, Indian policymakers are grasping for justifications that the mobilization would be under a UN umbrella and would serve the national interest, neither of which is plausible.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush should commit itself seriously to resolving the nuclear impasse with North Korea if only to line up support from regional states if stronger measures are needed, according to a new report by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). “The United States has not persuaded its regional partners that it is serious about negotiations, making efforts to secure their approval for a significantly tougher position difficult if not impossible,” according to the blue-ribbon CFR task force that issued the report, Meeting the North Korean Nuclear Challenge. “If negotiations fail or should U.S. intelligence confirm that North Korea has reprocessed spent fuel (for building nuclear weapons), it is uncertain whether our partners would be willing to put significantly greater pressure on North Korea,” the report continued, calling the current situation a “genuine crisis.”
Roh Moo-hyun is coming to Washington with a public and a private message. Publicly, the South Korean president will affirm his government’s desire to strengthen its relationship with the United States and bring a peaceful end to the nuclear crisis with North Korea. The private message, which won’t appear in any newspaper headlines, will be: “Mr. Bush, please don’t screw things up for us.”
Neoconservative hawks have scored a new victory in the administration of President George W. Bush with the hiring by Vice President Richard Cheney of a prominent hawk on China policy. China specialist and Princeton University professor Aaron Friedberg has been named deputy national security adviser and director of policy planning on Cheney’s high-powered foreign policy staff headed by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, one of the most influential foreign policy strategists in the administration. Libby also served as the general counsel to the Cox Commission, a House Select Committee that issued a report in 1999 accusing China of large-scale espionage to advance its nuclear weapons program and was soundly criticized by many China scholars for its factual errors, unsupported allegations, and shoddy analysis.
In the wake of the Iraq War, growing tensions with Iran, and a possible confrontation with North Korea, it would be easy to miss the formation of yet another Washington think tank. But the freshly minted U.S.-India Institute for Strategic Policy is an organization to watch and one that may help reveal the next target of American power: containing China.
Close on the heels of Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra’s call for an India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance, comes the confirmation that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be visiting India in the next few weeks. Some observers in New Delhi consider Mishra’s call, made at the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee, as a curtain raiser for the Sharon visit. What they seem to ignore is that the India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance has moved beyond last call to center stage and that the plan for Sharon’s visit is some 15 months old.