Diplomacy & Politics Archive

BLAIR’S OPTIMISM — Thetrouble with Tony Blair is that he’s so good with words that you tendto forget the message and just sit back and enjoy the music. Thinkingback on it, though, his report on the state of play in theIsraeli-Palestinian impasse, delivered in Washington to members of theCouncil on Foreign Relations, seemed to offer little concrete evidenceof progress. The former British prime minister has spent thepast year as the Middle East Quartet’s point man in the region. Hisfour-point plan for jump-starting the peace process was clearlyaddressed to the Obama administration. (What isn’t, these days?) But toborrow a current Afghan […]

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Listless saleswomen loiter against stacked shelves at this most exclusive of department stores. An entire section is filled with sleek white washing machines, driers and flat-screen panel TVs produced by Haier, a low-cost Chinese appliance company. But the saleswomen outnumber customers in the echoing mall and there is little sign of commercial activity. Two taxis wait at the main gate, but neither their drivers nor any customers are to be seen. The iconic image of NorthKorean soldiers standing guard at the 36th Parallel, the line that has separatedNorth from South Korea for over half a century […]

The exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, has managed to keep his fragmented flock united by averting a split by those in the movement seeking more autonomy for Tibet from China. Some 600 participants — who gathered in late November at Dharmasala in India, the capital of the Tibetan government-in-exile and the headquarters of the Dalai Lama — unanimously endorsed the “middle path” followed by their leader for the past 30 years in his struggle against China’s occupation of Tibet. Addressing the historical gathering, the ever-smiling spiritual and political head of the government-in-exile cautioned the delegates […]

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Calm descended on Thailand Tuesday, following a decision by its Constitution Court to dissolve the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) and two of its coalition partners for electoral fraud. Protesters calling themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had initially called for the PPP to step down, calling it a proxy party for ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his dissolved Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party. They also called on the PPP to stop its attempts to amend the constitution to remove a clause banning 111 former TRT leaders for electoral fraud. The billionaire telecom tycoon was […]

When formulating a practical and forward looking policy towards Iran, which marks the 30th anniversary of its Islamic revolution this February, the Obama administration would do well to heed certain realities. Thirty years of muscular posturing by five successive administrations have not afforded the White House a handle on the Islamic Republic. Neither have they ushered in a new dawn of Middle Eastern stability or, for that matter, Israeli security. Instead, the United States must lead the way in establishing a strategic partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the context of a more engaged foreign policy. Iran is […]

Most Americans realize that President-elect Barack Obama will inherit the most disastrous economic and foreign policy legacy since FDR took charge of the Great Depression or Abraham Lincoln inherited a country on the brink of Civil War. America’s standing in the world is at a low ebb, even among our friends and allies. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the U.S. military stretched to the breaking point. North Korea has tested nuclear weapons and proliferated nuclear technologies to Syria and other nations. Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear weapons state. Even if they were not occurring […]

FORMER CHILD SOLDIERS FIGHT DIFFERENT BATTLE — A group of six former African child soldiers have come together to launch a United Nations-backed advocacy group, the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW), which will help other children escape from war and create a worldwide network of survivors seeking to achieve rehabilitation. “We are determined to help children whose fate has been similar to ours regain their confidence and their lives. We also hope to remind the world of how resilient children are, when given the right support,” the founders said in a statement released Nov. 20. The founders […]

Pakistan’s Perpetual Precariousness On Nov. 26, 2008, terrorists laid siege to Mumbai, making the poshest area of India’s commercial capital a war zone for several days. The attacks once again raised the specter of an Indo-Pak war. Yet, earlier in the day, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had arrived in New Delhi to continue recently renewed peace talks with his Indian counterpart. The two South Asian states, playing to a script performed before, had in a short period of time taken two steps forward toward peace and 10 steps back. Relations between India and Pakistan are clearly fragile and […]

With the security situation in Iraq improved to the point that analysts no longer shrink from using the word “endgame,” Washington has increasingly turned its attention to the alarming situation in Afghanistan, where the insurgency has taken full advantage of safe havens on the Pakistani side of a border that exists largely in name only. Attempts to address the problem of how to intervene militarily without in turn destabilizing an already fragile Pakistan have led to an emerging consensus regarding a “regional approach,” one that includes the India-Pakistan rivalry as a key to stabilizing the South Asian subcontinent. But lurking […]

Last week’s attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai focused the world’s attention on what some are already calling the latest front in the War on Terror. Many questions remain as to the attackers’ origins as well as what, if any, ties they had to Pakistani terror groups previously operating in Kashmir, global terrorist networks like al-Qaida and the Pakistani military intelligence service. Two WPR articles put the attacks in their regional context:Mumbai Attacks Complicate U.S. Regional Policy, by M.K. BhadrakumarMumbai Attacks Put Scrutiny on ISI, by Jayshree Bajoria.