Ahmad Faruqui: on the political storm front in Saudi Arabia Dan Smith: on getting it right in Iraq Ralph A. Cossa: on the 6-party talks trying to resolve North Korea's nuclear weapons program Catherine Cook: on Israel's wall and the international court Robert Sutter: on the chances that Congress will bail out Taiwan

New York University

U.S. State Department's
Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2002

The US State Department's Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2001

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HAITI: ADIEU ARISTIDE, NOW WHAT?

A CAPITAL WITH NO ONE REALLY IN CONTROL
A U.S. Marine standing on the steps of the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince was enough to keep rebel leader Guy Philippe from installing himself as a new dictator, but Haiti cannot function in a political vacuum for long. In exile in Central Africa, Aristide accused the U.S. of having kidnapped him. Colin Powell dismissed that as absurd, yet while President Bush's unequivocal withdrawal of support from Aristide was clearly instrumental in getting him to leave, the White House has been less clear in what it plans to do next. Up to 2,000 U.S. troops may be on their way, but the Pentagon is making it clear that their mission is not to restore order or create a functioning government for the average Haitian. In fact, much of the Caribbean is convinced that the only American interest in the country is making sure that there is not a new flood of refugees into Florida.

•The BBC reports on Guy Philippe's entry into Port-au-Prince
•Reuter's AlertNet on the White House's preoccupation with preventing a tidal wave of refugees.
•California Congresswoman Maxine Waters recounts her phone call with Aristide and his claims that he was kidnapped(Democracy Now).
•Colin Powell rebuts Aristide and provides a detailed account of the U.S. role
•Joanne Mariner notes in FindLaw that some of the rebels who now want to take over were previously accused of crimes against humanity
•The French ready to help in Haiti (Foreign Ministry briefing in English)

GOING AFTER BIN LADEN
Seymour Hersh maintains in this week's New Yorker that the U.S. offer to go easy on Abdul Qadeer Khan's proliferation was actually a quid-pro-quo agreement in exchange for a green light from Pakistan to launch a massive U.S. hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan's unruly western frontier territories. In the meantime, Iranian media reported on the hunt for Bin Laden suggesting that the pressure to track Bin Laden down is being driven by the Republican administration's determination to use his capture to create maximum impact during the next presidential elections. Over the weekend, Iranian radio reported that Bin Laden had already been captured, but was being held for a later release when it will have greater impact
•Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker
•Tehran Times report on the hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan(Feb. 26, 2004)
•Iranian Radio claims that Bin Laden has been captured

GHOST WARS
The Washington Post's managing editor, Steve Coll, recounts how a lack of clear policy objectives and a change in administrations slowed U.S. efforts to capture Bin Laden throughout the end of the 1990s. The CIA's chief ally in the fight was Afghan guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Massoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda on September 9, 2001. The attack on the World Trade Center took place two days later. (Steve Coll in the Washington Post, February 22-23, 2004)
•Part 1
•Part 2

PUTTING IRAQ INTO PERSPECTIVE
The war in Iraq had nothing to do with fighting al-Qaeda terrorists, but a lot to do with acting preemptively against future threats. It also provided an opportunity to test a number of radical new ideas about privatizing U.S. defense. PBS Front Line's latest documentary on the war, which relies heavily on interviews with Iraqi generals, is probably the best comprehensive look at the war so far. The U.S. was able to force its way into Baghdad quicker than most experts expected--partly because of Saddam's mistakes--but there were also a number of strategic surprises. The greatest weakness may have been the failure of the CIA and other intelligence agencies to understand what was really going on. Front Line's website provides fascinating interviews with key players and observers about what actually happened and the implications for the future. (PBS Front Line, February 26, 2004)

THE NEW TERRORISM
Matthew Morgan, writing in the U.S. Army War College's quarterly review, Parameters, notes that the U.S. is now dealing with an entirely new concept in worldwide terrorism. The new terrorism aims at killing the largest number of innocent people as possible, and it is driven by religious fanaticism rather than any desire to achieve concrete political goals. Osama Bin Laden may have captured the most attention, but he is far from being the only player in the field.
(Matthew Morgan, Parameters, US Army War College, Spring 2004)
•The New Terrorism
•Using new plants and species for bioterrorism (Robert J. Pratt in Parameters) The weapon of choice used to be bombs. Now it is just as likely to be a crop-destroying pest.
•Relearning counter-insurgency (Robert Tomes in Parameters) The new Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has nearly nothing to say about guerrilla operations and counterinsurgency, which is increasingly the kind of threat favored by asymmetric warfare. Like the pre-World War II French Maginot line, the Pentagon may be preparing for the wrong enemy.

DO WE REALLY NEED SAUDI OIL?
The world will soon have nearly a billion automobiles with less fuel to run them. The world's two greatest oil suppliers after Saudi Arabia are Russia and the U.S., but it takes Russia nearly 120,000 wells to produce less oil than Saudi Arabia does with 5,000. The U.S. needs 700,000 wells to produce only a fraction of its needs. Iraq could eventually surpass Saudi Arabia as a producer, but don't expect that to happen in this decade. A group of experts discussed the future of Saudi oil at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The full transcript is available in pdf format. (CSIS, February 24, 2004-49 pages)

SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON ON IMMIGRATION-INDUCED SCHIZOPHRENIA IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Writing in the March-April issue of Foreign Policy, Samuel Huntingdon notes that the Americans have always tended to talk about immigration in positive terms. But the enormous wave of migration from Latin America now threatens to radically alter American culture. As Huntingdon sees it the growth in Hispanic influence is likely to change both American values and the sense of who we really are. (Samuel Huntingdon, Foreign Policy, March-April 2004)

NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION THREAT
North Korea's main objective in developing nuclear weapons may be to extort money from the West. That does not keep it from being dangerous, and upcoming multilateral talks will be essential to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states. The Nautilus Institute provides the most comprehensive interactive briefing book available on all aspects of the North Korean nuclear program.
•Nautilus Briefing Book
•Learning from the 1994 Korean crisis (CSIS)
•The Economist on the danger from proliferation
•Uranium to Iran traveled through Russia (NYT)

RUSSIA'S ECONOMY
There has been a tendency to see Russia's recent history as an economic disaster, but Andrei Schleifer and Daniel Treisman argue in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that the Russians have made a lot more progress than is generally realized.
(Andrei Schleifer and Daniel Treisman, Foreign Affairs, March-April 2004)

THE NEW AMERICAN EMPIRE: OVEREXTENDED BEFORE IT STARTED?
John Ikenberry, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs notes that both neo-conservatives at home and paranoid critics of the U.S. abroad share delusions about America's capacity to control the world. We may be the only super power at the moment, but as the Soviets learned, overreaching can lead to bankruptcy. (John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs, March-April 2004)

MEL GIBSON'S FILM ON THE PASSION: GETTING HISTORY WRONG AS WELL AS MISSING THE POINT
The New Yorker's David Remnick points out that religious historian Elaine Pagels finds a number of misleading interpretations of history in Mel Gibson's film about the last hours of Jesus Christ. The Gospels, which were written more than half a century after Christ's death, placed a major emphasis on the internal dispute within Judaism between those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah and those who did not. Pagels points out that independent historians at the time placed much greater responsibility on the Romans who tend to be portrayed in Gibson's film as somewhat uninvolved bystanders. In fact, the Romans, who had suppressed a Jewish rebellion and destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem, were running a brutal counterinsurgency intended to crush both factions within the Jewish population. The Christian faction, which had all but lost the battle with the Romans, managed to extended its influence by welcoming converts who were outside the Jewish community. Tony Karon points out in a review in the South African Sunday Times that one reason the Gospels deemphasized the role of the Romans was that the major Christian objective at the time was to expand the fledgling Christian community to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire. Highlighting earlier Roman perfidiousness would have been counterproductive to winning Roman converts to the church. Regardless of historical accuracy, the film's emphasis on brutality seems likely to spark anger, hatred, and a desire for revenge, just as medieval versions of the Passion Play stirred support for the Crusades--the closest thing the Christians had to Jihad. It is the precise opposite of the message that Jesus tried to communicate.
•David Remnick on Elaine Pagels in the New Yorker
•Tony Karon adds historical insight in the Sunday Times
•Nicholas Kristoff comments on the historical accuracy in the New York Times

Coordinated bombs in Karbala

Iraqi Shiites Under Attack
At least two million people had crowded into Iraq's holy shrines in Karbala for the celebration of Ashura,which commemorates the death of the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, the son of Ali--one of the most emotional events in Shia Islam. A series of four coordinated bombs killed more than 270 people. Another attack in Quetta, Pakistan, also targeted Shiites. The attacks in Iraq demonstrated a growing sophistication in the command capability of the resistance to the U.S. occupation, and it seemed partly intended to demonstrate the inability of the U.S. to provide credible protection to Iraqis. But it is also increasingly clear that the Shiites themselves are becoming a primary target. The latest attack follows the capture of a message from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi ,a key Al Qaeda aide to Osama Bin Laden, whose goal appears to be to launch a civil war that pits Iraqi Shiites against Sunni Muslims. Al-Zarqawi does not mince words in describing the Iraqi Shiites:"[They are] the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom..." he writes. As Jim Lobe writes in Foreign Policy in Focus, the al-Zarqawi document, intercepted in early February indicates that there was probably no connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda before 9/11. That may be changing dramatically now. The CIA has put out a $10 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture.
•BBC on bombings
•The full text of the al-Zarqawi letter [This is provided by the U.S.-led coalition authority in Iraq. Once you get past the standard extremist verbiage, al-Zarqawi sketches an al-Qaeda blueprint for countering American interests in Iraq.]
•Juan Cole on the significance of the bombing and potential fallout
•Al Jazeera on the importance of Karbala to the Shia
•Foreign Policy in Focus's Jim Lobe on what the al-Zarqawi letter implies about the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

The Security Policy Working Group