Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The neoconservatives of the Bush administration have remained surprisingly determined on going to war with Iraq, despite the British insistence on UN involvement and Saddam Hussein's agreement to weapons inspections. Anatol Lieven considers what they hope to gain.
Presentation by Georgia's Ambassador to the US and a panel discussion.
We must continue to focus on the control and reduction of nuclear weapons. This issue is not the highest agenda item in U.S.-Russian relations any more, however, we need continued high-level interactions that result in policy tools to effect control and reductions, in the first instance legally-binding treaties and agreements like the Moscow Treaty.
Talk in Europe of a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq has been shifting lately. The panicked incredulity of a few months ago is turning into nervous resignation. Europeans increasingly consider an American invasion all but inevitable, and if the United States stubbornly insists on going forward, European officials privately acknowledge, their governments probably won't protest much.
If Putin and Bush are able to drive forward on the agenda that they have set for themselves, then we will truly enter a new period of U.S.-Russian partnership. If they do not, then the relationship will drift, and we'll be left with the worst of all worlds -- informality without progress, casual friendship without results.
As Bush criticized Israel's recent anti-terrorism operations, some people see this as the beginning of a shift toward a less aggressive foreign policy. By turning Bush into a Middle East mediator, these people think they can shunt him off the road that leads to real security and peace--the road that runs through Baghdad. We trust the president will see and avoid this trap.
After the September 11 attacks, the global threat of radical Islamist terrorism gave the United States an opportunity to rally much of the world behind it. But by mixing up the struggle against terrorism with a very different effort at preventing nuclear proliferation, and by refusing to take the interests of other states into account, the US risks endangering itself and its closest allies.
One should not minimize how difficult it would be to sharply cut back drug protection in Afghanistan. The network of drug dealers is fully intertwined with the traditional local elite in many parts of Afghanistan, as it is in parts of Central Asia.
In almost all realms of international politics, the United States faces a new, more complex set of political, economic, and security, challenges after September 11th. U.S.-Russian relations offer one bright counter to this otherwise gloomier international picture.
What next in the war on terrorism? The mission in Afghanistan is not over and al Qaeda is not finished. But this does not preclude dealing with Iraq. How we act will decisively affect our future security and will shape the emerging world order. Either it will be conducive to our liberal democratic principles or will be one where tyrants can hold democracy and international security hostage.