Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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The recent revival of Sino-Japanese animosity, triggered by bitter disputes over history, territory and maritime natural resources, has the potential not only to derail China’s self-proclaimed goal of a “peaceful rise” but to disrupt healthy momentum towards east Asian economic integration.
The Honorable Shyam Saran, Foreign Secretary, Government of India provided the Indian government’s assessment of the July 18 Joint Statement, including its civilian nuclear energy component, and discussed India's relations with the United States in the context of both countries' common strategic interests.
The Egyptian political system has emerged sharply bipolar from recent parliamentary elections. While the ruling National Democratic Party won its expected victory, the performance of the Muslim Brotherhood surprised the NDP and the secular opposition forces. How will the Egyptian government react to the opposition’s success?
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s demagoguery has triggered a strong European backlash that may produce the Western unity long lacking in negotiations with Iran. European leaders have denounced Ahmadinejad’s screeds against Israel and his denial of the Holocaust, linked them to deep suspicions of Iran’s nuclear program and begun talk of sanctions and other actions to force Iranian compliance with its treaty obligations. Ahmadinejad’s radical statements did not start EU-US collaboration, but will strengthen their partnership in support of Security Council referral. EU-Iranian negotiations, set to begin December 21, will be the first time since August of this year that the EU (led by Britain, France and Germany) will hold direct talks with the Iranians. On August 5, the Europeans gave Iran a “Framework for a Long-term Agreement,” but negotiations stalled 3 days later when Iran restarted its uranium conversion program at Isfahan.
Combining gross incompetence with the violation of international law, historical problems with CIA have gotten worse under George W. Bush. The intelligence reform act passed last year didn't address them; and the current director Porter Goss appears oblivious to them. These problems have for years plagued the two main functions of the agency: intelligence gathering and covert action.
Administration officials have settled on a standard answer to questions about their pre-war claims of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq: “much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.” This explanation ignores the central role senior officials had in creating, shaping and selecting the intelligence.
So much for the popularly peddled view that anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is so pervasive and deep-rooted it might take generations to alter.