North Korea’s recent rocket launch received few congratulations and many condemnations, including the recent UN censure. Although Pyongyang did not manage to put a satellite into orbit, it did succeed in getting the world’s attention. It has sustained this attention by kicking out nuclear inspectors, vowing to restart its plutonium processing program, and declaring an end to its participation in the six-party talks.
In 1919, the English geographer Halford Mackinder argued that control of the “Eurasian heartland” was the key to world domination. Mackinder believed that Eastern Europe was the gateway to controlling this huge landmass stretching from his home country to the far shores of Asia. And indeed, Eastern Europe proved pivotal in the next conflagration, World War II, as well as in the US policy of containing the Soviet Union in the Cold War era.
“Right now seems to be a relatively quiet moment in East Asia regarding historical controversies,” observes Daqing Yang, a professor of Asian history at George Washington University and a participant in a Sep.15 seminar on historical dialogue and reconciliation sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and the university’s Sigur Centre. “But just a few years back, heads of state canceled their summit meetings because of a visit to a particular shrine in Tokyo or because of history textbooks.”
The United States is in a huge foreign policy muddle in the Middle East. It wants to dominate and control Iran but requires the support of the world community to accomplish its aims. Diplomacy and sanctions require only a low level of support. On the other hand, to launch a military attack or green-light one by Israel, the United States needs far more backing.
The “squeeze Iran” and “confront Iran” positions are strongly encouraged by the increasingly powerful Zionist Christian Fundamentalist community. About 5,000 people from across the United States attended the third annual Washington-Israel Summit, organized by Christians United for Israel (CUFI). There, the “Iranian threat” loomed as a pervasive theme.
China’s growing economic presence in sub-Saharan Africa is normally portrayed in one of two ways. Either it’s cast as engaging in rapacious resource extraction without local employment and financial gain, or it’s portrayed as a source of beneficent foreign investment, bringing much-needed capital and building infrastructure in the world’s poorest region. The resistance to Chinese timber exploitation in the West African republic of Mali provides a more nuanced look at the Sino-African relationship, which, under certain circumstances, could act as a catalyst for positive political change in Africa.
As the principal negotiator for the landmark market access agreement that led to China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), I have reflected on whether the agreements we negotiated really lived up to our expectations. A sober reflection has led me to conclude that those trade agreements did not.
How-to-leave-Iraq plans have proliferated over the past five years. Most of the plans proposed by Democrats have brimmed with rhetoric aimed at scoring points against President George W. Bush rather than working out the messy details of how to end the occupation and what to do in its aftermath. Ten Democratic candidates for Congress have just changed that with the announcement of a plan that sets forth a strategic vision both to bring the Iraq War to an end and to prevent future “Iraqs.”
As global supplies shrink and the Middle East remains in turmoil, the United States is not without competition in Africa. China and other emerging economies are also looking to the continent and only seeing the oil needed to feed their rapid growth. This is especially true as new discoveries of oil on the African continent seem to pop up every year. Ghana discovered oil off its shores in 2007, Mauritania in 2006, and many other countries are ramping up exploration.
Having only recently become a U.S citizen, I now join the millions of immigrants eligible to vote in this year’s presidential election. For my native Latin America, none of the candidates is offering a real alternative to the failed policies that have made the U.S. government wildly unpopular among people from Mexico to Argentina.