Middle East & North Africa

Winning Round Two of American Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds

According to a poll released early last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (http://people-press.org/), America’s image has become “dangerously” negative throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Ironically, this follows an intensive public diplomacy initiative aimed specifically at the region. How did America’s battle for the hearts and minds of the Arabs and Muslims wind up alienating the very people Washington was trying to reach?

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The Need for UN Police

The aftermath of the Iraq War has shown us that good soldiers are not always good cops. They cannot replace a professional international police force able to rapidly deploy and reestablish the rule of law in post-conflict hot spots. Most Iraqis would tell you the world needs such a force right now. The United Nations should be tasked with making this a reality.

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Credibility Gap over Iraq WMD Looms Larger

When all three major U.S. newsweeklies–Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report–run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal. And when the two most important outlets of neoconservative opinion–The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal–come out on the same day with lead editorials spluttering outrage about suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.

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Iraq: The Challenge of Humanitarian Response

The new world order on display in Iraq places new demands on the U.S. humanitarian community. The Wolfowitz-Perle doctrine of pre-emptive action against perceived external threats preserves a role for humanitarian intervention. In fact, it may make humanitarian response a growth industry. The role of relief organizations in Iraq raises many questions, however, and these questions deserve the continuing attention of the movement that sought to avoid this war in the first place.

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Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire

Between May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over, and June 26, 57 U.S. and eight UK military personnel have died in Iraq. That is more than one death every day. To the U.S. and UK toll must be added the sometimes tens or scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists–military, intelligence, fedayeen, non-Iraqi volunteers–and innocent civilians.

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India May Send Troops to Iraq

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.

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Resolution 1483: Legalizing an Occupation

If you assume that the United States is unstoppable, then resolution 1483 makes a certain kind of sense in that it oozes oleaginously into the hole that the Iraq invasion made in the UN Charter, and gives it at least the surface appearance of integrity. But by bowing down so quickly, the Security Council actually relinquished one of its last opportunities to get serious concessions.

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Is Tehran Back in the Crosshairs of the Neocon Crusade?

Reports that top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush met Tuesday, May 27th to discuss U.S. policy toward Iran, including possible efforts to overthrow its government, mark a major advance in what has been an 18-month-old campaign by neoconservatives in and out of the administration. Overshadowed until last month by their much louder drum-beating for war against Iraq, the neocons’ efforts to now focus U.S. attention on “regime change” in Iran has become much more intense since early May and has already borne substantial fruit.

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The New Global Peace Movement vs. the Bush Juggernaut

The Bush administration is presenting itself to the world as a juggernaut–a “massive, inexorable force that advances irresistibly, crushing whatever is in its path.” Bush’s National Security Strategy portrays his “war against terrorism” as “a global enterprise of uncertain duration.” It says the U.S. will act against “emerging threats before they are fully formed.” The Bush administration envisions the coming decades as a continuation of recent U.S. demands, threats, and wars. It intends to continue the aggressive behavior already illustrated by war on Afghanistan and Iraq, armed intervention in the Philippines and Colombia, and threats against Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The Bush administration and its successors are likely to continue this juggernaut until they are made to stop.

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