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Before attention is lost in the controversies over the war itself and in the challenges of its aftermath, the UN must capture, clarify, and publicize the record of international inspections in Iraq: for itself, for member governments, and for the public.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has become everything he once crusaded against — racist, despotic, unjust and incompetent. South Africa, the only African nation with significant leverage over Zimbabwe, must pressure Mugabe to reverse the spiral of cronyism and corruption.
There are currently widespread concerns regarding the "one country, two systems." Recent steps taken by Beijing and pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong show their strong interest in developing constructive dialogue. Such dialogue would help develop mutual trust, which is crucial for democratic development in Hong Kong and the successful implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle.
The adoption of the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative by the Group of Eight Industrialized Nations (G-8) at their June 8-10 summit in Sea Island, Georgia represents a diplomatic victory for the United States. The initiative, however, is extremely unlikely to have a noticeable impact on political reform in the Middle East.
In most emerging-market economies in East Asia, domestic economic, political, and social pressures push governments in the direction of a relatively inflexible exchange rate and freer capital inflows. This is a bad combination. Exchange rate stability and predictability would be a boon to commerce and finance. But achieving it is easier said than done.
Many in the U.S. who supported the Iraq war are now backing away from it. They blame the debacle on unforeseeable mistakes by the Bush administration. But the failure in Iraq also reflects deeper flaws in US political culture - the belief in the possibility of successful adoption of democracy by all the peoples of the world and simultaneous contempt for the cultures and opinions of those peoples.
If America engages in any more imperial military adventures like the one in Iraq, the long-term consequence may be the collapse of Western democracy, or of the globalized economic system on which American imperial power rests, or both. Patriots and democrats should be doing everything in their power to devise new strategies that will avoid such devastating outcomes.