Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Traveling through Afghanistan, one is struck by stark contrasts and divisions. With different factions and militias ruling in different regions, the prospects for a prolonged peace seem dim--or at least would require a serious international effort. But the Bush Administration's attention has already passed to its plans for a war in Iraq, and it seems ready to forget Afghanistan once again.
NOT SINCE Secretary of State Warren Christopher returned from Europe with egg on his face in May 1993 has a high-ranking American official had such a bad week abroad as Vice President Dick Cheney just spent in the Middle East. At least that's the way it looks from the outside.
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.
A continuation of the current White House policy risks a resumption of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, but this time with a North Korea that may have the capability to carry war to U.S. territory.
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.
The number one problem in Iraq is not Saddam Hussein but his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Without them he is dangerous and despicable but not a threat remotely worthy of American intervention. This truth has a huge bearing on policy that has been largely ignored.
There's a war in the Democratic Party, a struggle for its foreign policy soul. The latest round began when Sens. Daschle and Byrd started calling for an Afghanistan "exit strategy". On the other end, Sen. Lieberman criticizes the administration for doing too little, not too much. Lieberman’s brand of internationalist, hawkish liberalism is good for America - it will check bad Republican impulses.
U.S.-Russia relations lack substance, which has a negative effect on Russia’s political ego, amplifying nostalgia for the past and fears of irrelevance and neglect. The key to more substantial relations is to achieve one high-profile example of cooperative success to catalyze faith in the rewards of cooperation.