International Herald Tribune

Three Strikes And We're Out

Ron Tang — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:21:00 -0400

A scientific and political consensus now exists on the threat posed to our civilization by climate change. The problem is generating the political will to take the steps necessary to radically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.

The present oil shock provides the answer to that problem -- if our leaders have the courage to use it.

The price of oil is now at a level where it is having a seriously adverse effect on the world economy. Moreover, to fears of Middle Eastern stability are now added concerns over Russia using oil and gas supplies for geopolitical leverage.

As a result we… more

Road Map To Nowhere

Ron Tang — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:55:00 -0400

This is one of those times of maximum mismatch between the optimistic rhetoric of peace process declarations and expectations and the gloomy reality of daily experience and prospects on the ground.

The Annapolis architect, President George W. Bush, is back in the Middle East, still declaring the worthy goal of peace in '08. But the fundamentally flawed logic of the process initiated last year is increasingly transparent.

The economic, social and health conditions of Gazans collapse further as the siege continues; rockets fall on southern Israel; settlements keep growing, and, not surprisingly, Palestinians and Israelis scoff at the peace merry-go-round.

The centerpiece of… more

Rice's Next Challenge

adminn — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:40:00 -0500

With the Annapolis conference and the Paris fund-raising effort to aid the Palestinians behind us, the Middle East peace process is now in need of constant vigilance. President George W. Bush will visit the region in January, but it is Condoleezza Rice who will be looked upon to provide a guiding hand.

The new peace effort is very much her baby. A look at the war in Lebanon last summer, and Rice's management of it, provides some clues to the challenges ahead.

In his recently released study of Secretary Rice, ''The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy,'' Glenn… more

Western Myths and Pakistani Realities

Articles — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:12:00 -0500

In the storm over President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan, a number of critically important things have been overlooked -- important not only in themselves, but in what they say about the ways in which Pakistan works and doesn't work.

The first is that as coups go, this has been a pretty genteel kind . The comparisons being made between this and events in Burma or Uzbekistan are false. At the time of this writing, no one has been killed. Most of those arrested have not been sent to prison but placed under house arrest; and… more

How About a Peace Lobby?

Articles — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:20:00 -0400

After seven lean years, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are back on the agenda for a planned summit meeting next month in Annapolis, Maryland. Intriguingly, the return of the peace process coincides with an unusual public debate taking place in America regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship following the attention received by a book about the Israel lobby.

The debate triggered by the authors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, has understandably touched on raw emotions and too often degenerated into name-calling. But it has also aired a rather important question: Is the special relationship, as currently pursued, actually healthy for either Israel or America?

Addressing that… more

The Red Mosque Falls

Articles — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:09:00 -0400

WASHINGTON -- The storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad was a Pakistani action, undertaken for Pakistani reasons. Critical actions of future Pakistani governments, civilian or military, will be taken for the same basic reasons -- and not at the desire of Washington. American presidents can of course bring great pressure to bear on Pakistan, but for obvious reasons, they are unlikely ever to get a Pakistani government to commit suicide on their behalf.

It is important to point this out because so much American commentary seems based on the unconscious assumption that a Pakistani government’s first moral duty is to… more

Defusing EU-Russia Tensions; Baltic Crisis

Articles — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:56:00 -0400

The present crisis in relations between the European Union and Russia is being exaggerated on both sides. Part of the problem is that too many Western commentators still set as their standard for good relations the utterly Western ambition of the early 1990s -- a ‘‘democratic’’ Russia that would be completely subservient to the West.

Russians too are often still reacting to their experience of humiliation and exploitation in the 1990s with a counterproductive prickliness, arrogance and suspicion. Both sides need to ratchet down their rhetoric and seek pragmatic solutions to the concrete problems dividing them.

They also need to remember that… more

It's Time to Trade with Cuba

Articles — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:06:00 -0400

Two things should be clear concerning America’s Cuba policy: Everything the United States has tried over the past five decades has failed, and it is high time that Washington does something to help transform the country’s Communist system.

The impending transition of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl gives Washington the chance to adopt a new strategy. But if the United States sticks to the current approach it will help consolidate Communist rule for many years to come.

A changed stance is crucial for many reasons, not least because it offers the chance to cut the link between Cuba’s professional… more

Pakistan is the Priority; Mission Creep in Afghanistan

Articles — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:41:00 -0500

A classic mistake in military strategy is to become so obsessed with a secondary objective that it comes to dominate your entire campaign, not only sucking away essential resources from other, more important goals, but actually working against them.

This process can often be self-reinforcing. Once a particular issue has been publicly proclaimed as vital, then your prestige demands that you must sacrifice more and more to achieve it and the more you sacrifice, the less possible it becomes to admit that the sacrifice has been in vain. A particularly disastrous example of this syndrome was Hitler’s obsession with the capture… more

The End of the West As We Know It?

Articles — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:11:00 -0500

Every political, social and economic system ever created has sooner or later encountered a challenge that its very nature has made it incapable of meeting. The Confucian ruling system of imperial China, which lasted for more than 2,000 years, has some claim still to be the most successful in history, but because it was founded on values of stability and continuity, rather than dynamism and inventiveness, it eventually proved unable to survive in the face of Western imperial capitalism.

For market economies, and the Western model of democracy with which they have been associated, the existential challenge for the foreseeable future… more