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PARIS — When Nicolas Sarkozy took office last May, everyone expected him to be an active president. Known for his relentless pace and tireless work ethic, Sarkozy had promised to reinvigorate France’s foreign policy, which had suffered from an accumulation of failure and fatigue under his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. To that end, Sarkozy has not disappointed. In a little over eight months as president, he has visited 25 countries on four continents, strengthening historic bonds (America), nurturing new ones (China, India), and above all raising France’s profile around the world. Indeed, if there’s been a surprise in Sarkozy’s foreign policy, […]

With Pakistan’s much-anticipated Feb. 18 elections fast approaching against the backdrop of mounting jihadist activity in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), questions about the stability of the region and the strategic implications of the activity there for U.S. interests seem to be growing more urgent by the day. While Pakistan has been considered a “key ally” in the war on terror for many years now, receiving at least $10 billion since 9/11 for its support in hunting down top al-Qaida operatives, this partnership has become dramatically more complex of late, and American decision makers are now facing difficult […]

For months, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has had only limited success in generating greater contributions for NATO’s military operations in Afghanistan by appealing directly to European governments. As a result, Gates has now decided to pursue the risky strategy of appealing directly to their skeptical publics for support. The Afghan war dominated the two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania. The government of Canada had provoked a mini crisis by warning beforehand that that it would withdraw its forces from the insurgent-prone province of Kandahar next January unless other NATO countries agreed to send at least […]

WHOSE BBC? — The present author well remembers a discussion that took place in a London home in 2005. The topic was bias in the British media and whether it could not perhaps affect the British public’s perception of international matters such as the Iraq War or the Middle East conflict. The conversation had already become somewhat heated when my host — a longtime Labor Party activist and advisor to the British government — suddenly exclaimed: “We have our BBC!” The objectivity of “our” BBC being apparently beyond doubt and my interlocutor, in a similarly proprietary spirit, having only shortly […]

DAMASCUS CRACKDOWN ON DISSIDENTS CRITICIZED — Human rights groups and Western politicians have united in the past two weeks to criticize the Syrian government’s latest efforts to crack down on dissidents. Thirteen activists have been detained and allegedly tortured as part of a crackdown against individuals who participated in a Dec. 1 meeting of opposition and pro-democracy groups. They face several charges, including “weakening national sentiment,” “membership in an organization formed with the purpose of changing the structure of the state,” and “joining a secret association.” The detained include a cross-section of Syrian artists, writers, medical professionals and journalists, as […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — Patricia Kyazze sits at her desk amid the hanging oriental rugs, plush leather couches and sleek, glass-topped coffee tables of Nina Interiors, one of the Ugandan capital’s most upscale furniture outlets. Faraway from the political turmoil in neighboring Kenya, the bedroom and dining room displays bespeak calm and money — fitting for a city that’s seen two decades of political stability and economic growth. But with 90 percent of Uganda’s imports coming through Kenya’s Mombasa port, maintaining this growth and stability is becoming increasingly difficult. For about a month now, three of the furniture company’s containers, carrying […]

What looked like another bad day Feb. 7 for NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan ended with a hopeful development. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates addressed his fellow defense ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, with a request he had made many times over the past six months. He again asked allies to increase the number of troops in the country’s south in preparation for the expected spring Taliban offensive and to shore up beleaguered forces from Canada, Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Once again, it appeared NATO allies would demur. Some even had the […]

January turned out to be an eventful month for Ukraine, as the country became embroiled in a heated debate about its prospects for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While NATO has its supporters and critics in Ukrainian society, partisan divisions in the Ukrainian government have made political dialogue between these groups especially difficult. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko represents the fiercely pro-Western forces which push for the country’s speedy admission to NATO. The national parliament, Verkhovna Rada, is dominated by the Party of Regions and the Communist Party, which advocate for strengthening Ukraine’s economic and political ties with neighboring Russia. […]

Earlier this year, the Republic of the Congo became the 183rd state party to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which forbids the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical weapons (CW). In addition, the Indian media recently reported that the Indian government had eliminated over 90 percent of its chemical weapons, suggesting the country should fulfill its requirement to eliminate all its CW by April 2009. While welcome, these developments should not obscure the continuing difficulties facing the CWC as its April 2008 review conference approaches. Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of […]

The reactions of German politicians and media commentators to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s request for troop support in southern Afghanistan are striking not only for the virtual unanimity with which the request has been rejected, but above all for their virulence. The reactions were sparked by two reports that appeared on the same day (Jan. 31) in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and in the Spiegel. The reports referred to a letter from Gates to German Minister of Defense Franz Josef Jung. Whereas the Sueddeutsche Zeitung described the tone of Gates’s letter as “unusually sharp,” unnamed “Ministry of Defense circles” […]

WASHINGTON – Despite little evidence that a massive program of aerial coca crop fumigation has worked in Colombia, and despite serious reservations by the Pentagon and by Afghan president Hamid Karzai, the U.S. State Department, backed by the White House, is quietly pushing the expansion of aerial poppy eradication into Afghanistan as a way to fight the Taliban. Soon Afghanistan, which produces 92 percent of the world’s opium and 80 percent of the world’s heroin, may be the target of a program of Plan Colombia-style aerial crop eradication. With the Afghan war entering a tenuous new phase, the stakes are […]

Many of us can recall when it was hazardous for tourists to drink tap water in much of Europe. Although times have changed and most Europeans (and tourists) now take clean drinking water for granted, an estimated 120 million people — one person in seven — on the continent do not have access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, according to a recent analysis by the United Nations Economic Commission on Europe (UNECE). This makes them vulnerable to water-related infections, such as cholera, dysentery, E. coli, viral hepatitis A and typhoid. To remedy this situation, UNECE produced the 1999 […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Oscar Morales never imagined that his idea a month ago to mobilize a protest march on Facebook against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would turn into the biggest protest march against an illegal armed group in Colombia’s history. On Monday, from Colombia’s border jungle towns to the capital, an estimated 4.8 million Colombians took to the streets in protest against leftist guerrillas. They were joined by thousands of other Colombians in some 130 cities across the world, with the biggest rallies taking place in Latin American capitals, Madrid and Washington. Public schools closed for the […]

If you believe the claims of conspiracy theorists, you probably think supporters of Israel have already held their secret meeting — picture a dark room and flickering candlelight — to decide who they will anoint as the next president of the United States. Chances are you also think the “Israel lobby” all but hand-delivered George W. Bush to the White House. Sorry to disappoint — on both counts. Supporters of Israel are as torn as the rest of the country during this election, and they were not exactly in control the last time around. First, the last elections: Bush received […]

The disintegration of historic American alliances, particularly U.S.-Europe relations in the wake of the Iraq war, has been much analyzed in recent years. But the untold story of U.S. alliance disintegration is the Asia-Pacific region, where America’s strategic preoccupation in Iraq and China’s rapid ascension are gradually altering and degrading America’s influence. Unfortunately, the U.S.-South Korea (ROK) alliance has followed this trend. Over the past five years, President Bush and South Korea President Roh Moo-hyun have together undermined bilateral cooperation. To be fair, the Bush administration has made major overtures to South Korea, including transferring control of wartime operations from […]

WOMEN’S RIGHTS DRIVE CONTINUES IN SAUDI ARABIA — A royal decree on Jan. 21 allowing women to check in to hotels or rent apartments without male guardians has raised hopes among Saudi women’s rights campaigners that another key restriction on Saudi women — the ability to drive a car — may soon be removed. Campaigners have submitted two petitions to King Abdullah since September and are collecting signatures for a third. Meanwhile, a number of Saudi royals have issued fairly pointed statements saying they support women’s desire to drive. Since coming to power in 2005, the king has staked out […]

Valery Loshchinin, Russia’s ambassador to the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, recently revealed that on Feb. 12, Russia and China will present a joint draft treaty to restrict the deployment of weapons in outer space. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to address the 65-member, U.N.-affiliated forum on that day. Neither Russian nor Chinese government representatives have publicly indicated what provisions are included in the draft treaty. Nevertheless, both governments have long been concerned by U.S. military programs in this realm. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits countries from basing weapons of mass destruction in space, but its application to […]