International Affairs
From Freedom to Justice
The idea that the United States is fighting for “freedom” in Iraq, and in the greater Middle East, is the last reed the Bush administration seems to be clinging to as the turbulent waters of sectarian civil war rise higher. Unfortunately, it is a weakly rooted reed, and clinging to it has about as much promise as adhering to a strategy of clear-hold-and-build, or clinging to the fragile, suspect Iraqi regime.
The desire to advance human liberty is certainly laudable, but the problem is that the administration has emphasized freedom as a policy goal at the expense of clearly articulating another social value, justice, which is much more deeply rooted in Arab culture. The result has been to cloud our understanding of the conflict, to limit our options for dealing with it, and to distort badly our entire foreign policy in the Middle East.
Back to the G-7!
For the past year, Russia has held the presidency of the “Group of Eight,” or G-8, the exclusive club of powerful nations which together account for about two-thirds of the world’s economic productivity. What a strange turn of affairs! For the G-8 is supposed to represent the interests of economically modern liberal democracies, and Russia is neither economically modern nor a liberal democracy. Moreover, in its foreign policy it is increasingly acting against the interests of the other member states. The time has come, therefore, to reevaluate Russia’s membership in the G-8
LET’S LOOK SERIOUSLY AT A LIMITED NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE ZONE FOR NORTHEAST ASIA
The world welcomed the latest news out of Pyongyang that it will rejoin the 6-Party Talks during the week of 25 July 2005. The news came after a meeting between our new Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, Chris Hill, and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan. The U.S. in the last several months has obviously reversed course and is willing to talk to DPRK diplomatic representatives at the United Nations, tone down the rhetoric about the nature of that regime, and make arrangements necessary to get North Korea to the table. This is good news and is a strong indication that recent personnel changes at State have come with positive results.
In the three sessions the 6-Party Talks have had to date, they came to some very significant agreements. For example, all six agreed on four key points:
