THE CENTER FOR WAR, PEACE AND THE NEWS MEDIA AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OCTOBER 21-28, 2003

Jack Boureston and Charles Mahaffey: on the persistent al-Qaeda threat

Ahmad Faruqui: on the lessons of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war

Yuki Tatsumi: on the implications of Koizumi's reelection

 

New York University

 

 

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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

 

 

 

EUROPEANS' IRAN DEAL CREATES A DILEMMA FOR U.S.
Iran has agreed, following consultations with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in Tehran, to suspend its uranium enrichment program and sign an agreement accepting more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The move defuses tensions over whether Iran would comply with IAEA demands by an October 31 deadlines, or else face possible UN sanctions. The Bush administration has responded cautiously, welcoming the announcement as a step in the right direction but adopting a wait-and-see attitude on Iran's compliance. But that masks a deeper dilemma: Administration hawks are skeptical of any arms-control agreement with the regime in Tehran, and favor a policy designed to isolate and overthrow the regime. Doves [EM] and even President Bush's closest European ally, Britain [EM] support engagement with the regime, punishing bad behavior but rewarding compliance with international demands. Plainly, a deal that sees the Europeans offering access to civilian nuclear technology in exchange for Iran signing a new IAEA protocol is more than a little at odds with the hawkish view.
(BBC, October 21, 2003)

  • IAEA chief Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei explains to the BBC why he believes the Iranians are making a serious attempt at meeting the demands of the international community..
  • The Washington Post reports that although the Bush administration doesn't overtly support the European diplomatic efforts, Washington is happy to play the "bad cop" to the EU's "good cop" in dealing with Iran.

    BUSH AT APEC: IT'S SECURITY, STUPID
    The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group (APEC) was designed to discuss shared concerns of trade, finance and economics. But the leitmotif of the Bush administration's foreign policy is its war on terrorism, and President Bush sought to make security issues -- terrorism, and the threat of North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons -- the focus of the APEC summit in Thailand. Many APEC members, however, have other priorities, and even those most concerned by North Korea or al-Qaeda have often found themselves at odds with Washington over how to address those problems. Predominantly Muslim nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which have actively cooperated with the U.S. against al-Qaeda, have complained that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and the Middle East have actually strengthened the appeal of extremists in the region and made their own positions more difficult. But the differences at APEC over security issues may not be as sharp as those over economic questions, such as the value of the dollar relative to Asian currencies and the future of WTO trade negotiations.
    (The Economist, October 20, 2003)

  • Radio Netherlands reports that APEC members are unhappy with the focus on terrorism and security, which does little to shore up their domestic political standing. For the same reason, the President may come away with little by way of new commitments for Iraq reconstruction funds.
  • Council on Foreign Relations Fellows Adam Segal and Elizabeth Economy warn that the Bush administration has failed to develop an overall policy framework for Asia that takes account of the economic and political interests of the states in the region, putting a question mark over prospects for maintaining U.S. leadership in Asia. China, meanwhile, has been polishing its diplomatic pitch and winning new friends by engaging with its neighbors economic concerns.
  • World Bank analysis shows not only that the region has recovered from the currency meltdown of the late 1990s and is positioning itself for sustained growth, write Asia Times, but also that China'ssurging growth has created an important market for its neighbors rather than threatening their own prospects, as had been feared. That positions China to become the anchor of regional economic development in the long run.
  • Comments with racial overtones have clouded the atmosphere ahead of APEC. The Telegraph reports that President Bush raised Asian hackles and embarrassed Australia's government by telling reporters he regarded Australia as "the sheriff" of Asia. After all, the U.S. has a security relationship with the whole of ASEAN, of which Australia is a member, and offense was taken in a number of Asian capitals at the implication of Washington naming the region's only Anglo-Saxon nation as its security chief.
  • Far more serious, however, was the fury unleashed by Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammed's assertion that Jews dominate the world, and get others -- read the U.S. -- to fight on their behalf. The BBC's John Simpson explains the history and context of Mahathir's anti-Semitism in terms of the Malaysian leader's own populist demagoguery. France's President Jacques Chirac was forced to publicly rebuke Mahathir after facing criticism for his own role in dissuading the European Union from commenting on the issue in a key declaration. Part of the pressure on Chirac may have come from the fact that Mahathir thanked the French leader for his "understanding" at the EU, and remained unrepentant, telling the Bangkok Post that the furor over his remarks was simply proof of the Jewish dominance to which he alluded. The Financial Times reports that Mahathir's anti-Semitic slur may simply have been a warm-up for hisbattle with the U.S. over trade issues. Washington wants to revive the WTO talks that stalled at Cancun, but Mahathir is urging Asian countries to press for an overhaul of the entire trade negotiations framework to be more reflective of the concerns of the developing world.
  • The BBC notes that the dynamic in APEC over trade has shifted towards regional and bilateral agreements, and that even hopes for completing APEC-wide liberalization, let alone a new round of WTO agreements, appear to be slim.
  • The proceedings are summarized on APEC's own web site.

    A CONCESSION TO NORTH KOREA?
    The Bush administration's internal divisions over how to deal with North Korea have, for months now, prevented Washington from taking an initiative to break the impasse. Administration hawks want to isolate and confront North Korea, and have rejected the idea of offering any incentives for Pyongyang to disarm. That approach has little support among the four key U.S. partners in the conflict -- China, South Korea, Russia and Japan. They have implored both sides to make concessions, and asked the U.S. to provide the security guarantees North Korea is demanding as the price for disarmament. And administration doves such as Secretary of State Colin Powell have advocated providing such assurances, although not the formal non-aggression pact demanded by Pyongyang. President Bush's announcement last weekend that the U.S. is now ready to offer written security guarantees in the framework of a multilateral agreement suggests that, at least for now, the doves have prevailed in Washington and the active pursuit of regime-change in Pyongyang has been taken off the table.
    (New York Times, October 20, 2003)

  • The Washington Post reports that U.S. allies in the region responded cautiously to the U.S. proposal, in the absence of details of how such an agreement could be structured and verified. The North Koreans, for their part, responded by test firing an anti-ship missile.
  • The subtle shift in the Bush administration's approach may not stop North Korea going nuclear. Newsweek reports that North Korea may be months away from a test-detonation of a nuclear device.

    BIN LADEN MESSAGE WOOS AMERICANS.
    In an unprecedented propaganda blitz, the fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last weekend simultaneously released two audio tapes whose messages suggested they had been recorded recently, at the same time as Web sites sympathetic to his movement began carrying a new series of videotaped threats to the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies. While the tapes contain the by-now familiar messages to followers to take up the cause of the Iraqi insurgency as well as to punish all member-states of President Bush's "coalition of the willing," there's also a message from Bin Laden to the American people urging them to end their government's "foolishness" in the Middle East. Security analysts believe the new messages may signal that a wave of attacks is imminent.
    (The Observer, October 19, 2003)

  • Although bin Laden's broadcasts are typically ignored in public comments by U.S. officials, President Bush seized on the latest release to bolster his case for security support from Asian nations. "The bin Laden tape should say to everybody the war on terror goes on, that there's still a danger to free nations," Bush told reporters.

  • Rather than strike a blow at al-Qaeda, the Iraq war has actually boosted bin Laden's movement, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Institute's annual study, Military Balance, finds that not only has Iraq inflamed anti-American passions and increased the pool of recruits available to al-Qaeda, the chaos of postwar Iraq has also greatly increased the organization's prospects for acquiring shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and other sophisticated weaponry.
  • Newsweek reports that one of the most serious impediments to the U.S. gathering intelligence on al-Qaeda is a dire shortage of Arabic translators. The magazine reports, for example, that a message in Arabic sent and intercepted on September 10, 2001, warning that "tomorrow is zero hour" went untranslated until after the fact.
  • As anathema as it is among liberal democracies, torture remains an essential weapon for those charged with fighting terrorism, 'Black Hawk Down' author Mark Bowden suggests. He provides a harrowing account, based on interviews with veteran security personnel, of the dark art of extracting potentially life-saving information from those determined to withhold it.
  • One scarcely noted news item that may further raise bin Laden's spirits this week was the Sudanese government's release from prison of his old friend Hassan al-Turabi. Turabi's reemergence on the political scene in Sudan may complicate U.S. efforts to broker a cease-fire in that country's long-running civil war.

    RUMSFELD'S MORALE PROBLEM
    The Defense Secretary and other Pentagon civilians can easily brush off national media reports about the state of troop morale in Iraq, but it's a lot more difficult to ignore such reports in the Army's own newspaper, Stars and Stripes. In a remarkable exercise of its editorial independence, the paper has conducted an extensive seven-part series on the mood of the troops on the ground, titled "Ground Truths." Its findings indicate that low morale is widespread, and as many as half the soldiers currently stationed in Iraq do not plan to reenlist.
    (Stars and Stripes, October, 2003)

  • Perhaps feeling the heat of domestic concerns over the long-term commitment of troops in Iraq, the Pentagon has begun planning to cut its troop strength in Iraq next year. But the plan is conditional on an improvement in the security situation in Iraq, and right now that requires a healthy measure of optimism.
  • The U.S. had hoped to relieve its own military burden by bringing in Turkish troops to police the Sunni Triangle, but the BBC reports that Ankara has cooled on the question of sending troops to Iraq following strong opposition from the Iraqi Governing Council. The Turks say they won't go where they're not wanted, and the U.S.-appointed IGC has differed sharply from its patron by vigorously opposing the deployment of any troops from neighboring countries in Iraq, and winning Arab support for that position.
  • The IGC's own remedy to the problems faced by U.S. troops is to re-mobilize the Iraqi army dissolved by U.S. viceroy Paul Bremer, the Washington Post reports. But there's little enthusiasm on Bremer's side for such a move.
  • David Isenberg reports that despite the technological advances put in place since Gulf War I, the rate of 'friendly fire' casualties in Iraq remain unacceptably high.

    PROGRESS AND CHAOS COEXIST IN IRAQ
    The Bush administration has mounted a vigorous campaign to accentuate the positive in Iraq, charging that the national media in the U.S. is telling only the bad news and providing a distorted picture of a society making great strides to rebuild itself. The problem, say LA Times correspondents Tyler Marshall and John Daniszewski is that progress and chaos coexist in today's Iraq, and the fact that markets humming and local government is being rebuilt doesn't diminish the significance of the daily dose of bombs and ambushes. But the reconstruction may face a more immediate problem than the insurgency: unemployment. Getting Iraqis working may be the most important means of isolating the insurgents, but that's a Herculean economic task which won't be taken care of simply by market forces.
    (LA Times, October 19, 2003)

  • The New York Times reports that many of the problems currently plaguing the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq were anticipated in the State Department's planning for the postwar. But President Bush put the Pentagon in charge of postwar Iraq, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld simply trashed the year-long study undertaken by the State Department, leaving Bremer to come and in play cleanup by improvisation.
  • Brookings Institution fellow Susan B. Rice argues that Bremer's reconstruction plan is no Marshall Plan, charging that it includes no structure for empowering the Iraqi Governing Council or holding it accountable.
  • In light of the recurring comparison, by the Bush administration, of its Iraq operation with postwar Germany, the Council on Foreign Relations has republished a 1945 briefing from Allan Dulles on the situation in Germany to invite comparisons.

  • In light of the recurring comparison, by the Bush administration, of its Iraq operation with postwar Germany, the Council on Foreign Relations has republished a 1945 briefing from Allan Dulles on the situation in Germany to invite comparisons.

    LOOKING FOR HELP IN IRAQ
    As donor nations head for Madrid this week to discuss reconstruction funds for Iraq, the Bush administration was given an important boost by the unanimous adoption last week of a UN Security Council resolution urging nations to send troops and money to help the U.S.-led transition effort. But that vote may be more reflective of the political expediency of council members avoiding another damaging confrontation with the U.S. than with any intent to deliver troops or funds to the mission, which a number of them said immediately after the vote remained defined on unacceptable terms. Despite the formal UN endorsement, the U.S. will continue to shoulder the lion's share of the burden in Iraq, writes Todd S. Purdum.
    (New York Times, October 17, 2003)

  • France backed the UN resolution primarily out of concern to maintain the unity of the Security Council in the face of rising tensions in the Middle East, reports the New York Times.
  • Brookings associate Shibley Telhami argues that the U.S. will bear the burden in Iraq as long as it declines to share responsibility.

    EXPLORING THE IRAQ INTELLIGENCE FAILURES
    Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh moves the Iraq intelligence story beyond the failure of Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction to materialize, by asking how it was that the intelligence used by the administration could have been so wide of the mark. Beyond the by-now familiar tale of intelligence manipulated to reinforce the argument for war, Hersh finds evidence that the Niger uranium documents that turned out to have been forgeries may, in fact, have been planted by disgruntled former CIA personnel looking to trip up the Bush administration.
    (New Yorker, October 27, 2003)

  • The scale of the Bush administration's credibility problem over its prewar allegations on Iraq is clear from the systematic comparison by Joseph Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadhyay of claims made in a speech by President Bush last October with the realities revealed by the ouster of Saddam's regime.

    BOLIVIA: THE INDIANS STRIKE BACK
    The mass uprising that forced the resignation of Bolivia's president last week was the sharpest assertion of the political claims of the region's indigenous peoples since the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Mexico, says Hector Tobar in the LA Times. And in it lie the seeds of a region-wide challenge to the economics of globalization.
    (LA Times, October 19, 2003)

  • The Economist explores the implications of the Bolivian political earthquake for the troubled Andes region.

    CEO STYLE HAS IMPERILED BUSH FOREIGN POLICY
    Former Al Gore national security adviser Leon Fuerth believes there's a structural explanation for the malaise in Bush administration foreign policy, ranging from the Rice-Rumsfeld ructions over who is in charge of Iraq to the contradictory signals it sends out on North Korea. In order to compensate for his own weaknesses in foreign policy, the incoming President Bush opted for a contemporary corporate model of organization, delegating much of the responsibility to a those running specific units of the overall operation. While that may prove effective in a corporate setting, it has been a disastrous way of organizing decision-making in the always contentious sphere of national security policy.
    (Washington Post, October 19, 2003)

    EGYPT AFTER MUBARAK
    In a pattern familiar throughout the region, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, now 75, has been grooming his son, Gamal, age 40, to take the reins of power. But the strongest contender within the military establishment that has been the source of Mubarak's own power (and that of Anwar Sadat before him) is General Omar Suleiman. And, Mary Anne Weaver suggests, General Suleiman is more inclined to offer the Islamists a place in the political system than his predecessors have been.
    (The Atlantic, October, 2003)

  • The International Crisis Group, in a broad survey of the current Egyptian political landscape, suggests that the fault-line has shifted from Islamist vs. secular to pro-American vs. anti-American, and that the demand for sovereignty (and independence from U.S. influence) is becoming a rallying cry across a wide spectrum of opposition groups, from Islamists to liberal reformers.
  • The Carnegie Endowment's "Arab Reform Bulletin", in its October edition, includes commentary on the forthcoming conference of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party. It also examines the new reform initiatives in Saudi Arabia, and local governance in Iraq.

    GAZA FIRE BURNS AMERICANS
    For the first time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an American delegation was targeted last week for attack by Palestinian militants -- three U.S. security men were killed by a roadside bomb. It's not yet clear which group was responsible or why the attack was carried out, but it signals a potentially fateful aligning of the Palestinian uprising with the wider jihad against American interests in the Arab world.
    (Al Ahram, October 19, 2003)

  • The Gaza bombing, and this week's intense Israeli air attacks, find the Palestinian leadership in a state of crisis. New prime minister-designate Ahmed Qurei has encountered some of the same problems in wresting control of the security forces from the hands of Yasser Arafat as did his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas. Qurei has already indicated he plans to resign.
  • Haaretz has published the full text of the Geneva agreement agreed by delegations of Israelis and Palestinians, as a draft for a final-status settlement between the two peoples. Although the document has no status, it is intended to show leaders on both sides that a peace agreement is possible, and its emergence has so chagrined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he's considered outlawing private diplomacy.


    • China comes of age

    CHINA TAKES OFF

    China's first manned space flight last week read like a coming-of-age celebration by the rising giant of Asia, and, indeed, of the world economy. Even as President Bush toured Asia focusing primarily on terrorism and North Korea, many of the countries of Asia are increasingly recognizing that their medium term economic prospects are best served by hitching their wagons to the engine of China's soaring growth. And Beijing's growing economic centrality on the global stage is underlined by the fact that U.S. politicians have identified the value of China's currency as a primary factor influencing the future of the American manufacturing industry. Nor is it simply on economic matters that Washington is forced, these days, to seek Beijing's help -- it is generally accepted inside the Bush administration, for example, that the key to resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis is Chinese intervention. In light of its growing centrality to the international economic and political picture of our young century, the Council on Foreign Relations conducted an extensive conference on 'China's Transition at a Turning Point,' the transcripts of which offer thoughtful insights on the politics, economics and diplomacy of the maturing of a superpower.
    (Council on Foreign Relations, October, 2003)

  • The Carnegie Endowment's Minxi Pei argues that President Hu Jintao has made the idea of democratic reform part of his populist political platform in Beijing. That risks raising popular expectations and also alienating entrenched bureaucrats.
  • Former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay argues that despite U.S. pressure, Beijing is unlikely to adopt a flexible exchange rate because it lacks the political and economic confidence to support such a move. (PDF download)
  • Despite his emphasis on security during his Asia trip, President Bush has skirted what his administration initially had deemed the single most important strategic challenge in Asia -- China's military capability. Hawks in Washington still insist that the war on terrorism not withstanding, China remains a more profound medium-term challenge to the U.S. ability to project its influence.
  • Dan Plesch argues that China's space program extends Beijing's challenge to U.S. dominance from terrestrial Asia to outer space.
  • Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel suggest that China has begun to assume the diplomatic responsibilities that come with its growing economic status.


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