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The strident tone of Osama bin Laden's latest videotape masks an ideological crisis for Al-Qaeda. Arab politics have transcended the legacy of Al-Qaeda. Today gradualism, participation, and democratic reform, rather than radical violence and jihad, set the agenda.
<IMG style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; DISPLAY: block; FLOAT: left; PADDING-TOP: 4px" src="http://carnegieendowment.org/images/article_images/cambodia_labor602.jpg" align=right>In an article in the leading journal World Development, Carnegie's Sandra Polaski analyzes the success and broader implications of an innovative policy experiment in Cambodia that links economic growth and increased trade with improvement of workers’ rights in the country’s garment factories.
The present era may be shaping up as yet another round in the conflict between liberalism and autocracy. The main protagonists on the side of autocracy will not be the petty dictatorships of the Middle East theoretically targeted by the Bush doctrine. They will be the two great autocratic powers, China and Russia, which pose an old challenge not envisioned within the new "war on terror" paradigm.
What the 1996 Moscow nuclear summit did was begin to meld a highly effective focus on proliferation threats within the G8. By 2002, this produced a brand new Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, launched at the Kananaskis G8 meeting in Canada.
The US can ease or even end our dependency on oil, but it won't be easy. A program of drastic conservation is not a winning political program in a country built around cars, suburbs, and highways. That leaves another, even more unsavory alternative: The US can seek privileged access to the world oil supplies and prevent other countries from gaining similar access. That can lead to war.
Ten years ago, Burma lacked the personality cult of totalitarian states such as North Korea and Turkmenistan. At the time, Than Shwe was one of three generals heading the junta and was considered the most dimwitted of the three. In the past five years, Than Shwe, 73, has turned himself into an object of Dear Leader-like adoration by pushing out rivals, consolidating power and using mass media.
Haqqani argues that it is clearly in India’s interest to help Pakistan gain sufficient confidence as a nation to overcome the need for conflict or regional rivalry for nation building. Simultaneously, it is important for Pakistani civil society to acknowledge that normal relations with India are the key to normalization of politics and policy in Pakistan as well.
Russia is not a democracy. The international community should stop pretending that Russia's deteriorating domestic politics are unrelated to Russia's increasingly antagonistic and anti-American foreign policies. The same autocratic regime is responsible for both.
Some in the U.S. administration have already made up their minds that they would like to launch a military strike against Iran, if the UN Security Council does not impose sanctions on Iran. This is a counterproductive move to the goal of enabling the Iranian people to choose their own government.
The nascent Chinese-Russian entente is not news since the relationship has been steadily broadening and deepening for more than a decade. But there is increasing evidence suggesting this relationship is part of a growing global ideological conflict between consolidating democracies and dictatorships.