Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
If Iran and North Korea acquire nuclear arsenals, their weapons will present obvious and direct dangers to the United States, its troops, its allies, and regional and global stability.
There should be great satisfaction that a kleptocratic and failed regime in Georgia has been thrown out of power by a popular uprising, and that this took place without bloodshed. Georgia now has a chance for a fresh start in the quest to develop a successful democracy and market economy, and the United States should continue to give strong support and help to Georgia.
The terrorist bombings in Istanbul over the past week make it all the more easy to imagine this scenario the United States. And since terrorists often want to send messages during elections, it is worth asking: how would Americans, and how should Americans, respond if terrorists strike during the presidential campaign.
The Bush and Putin administrations have misleadingly folded Chechnya into the global war on terror. Their critics have done little better by defining Chechnya as a human rights challenge. However, ignoring Chechnya or focusing primarily on human rights misses the larger issue, which is not what happens to Chechnya, but what kind of Russia emerges from that forgotten war.