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May 15, 2008 |
Getting Foreign Policy Right
Next January, the new U.S. President will be confronted with the longest list of severe challenges any president has faced in decades. Prioritizing among them will be even more important than usual. In its new series, "Foreign Policy for the Next President," the Carnegie Endowment’s experts endeavor to do just that. They separate good ideas from dead ends and go beyond widely agreed goals to describe how to achieve them.
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The Series So Far...
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In this issue...
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Lebanon: Renewed Violence Erupts in Political Vacuum
Lebanon’s prolonged political crisis erupted last week in the worst violence since the end of the civil war in 1990. Paul Salem writes from Beirut that through violence Hizbollah is seeking a larger share of power in a new unity government.
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 President Bush began his tour of the region celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary and pushing for renewed peace talks. His upcoming meetings with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia and Egypt will seek to address a host of critical challenges in the region during the President's final months in office. Carnegie experts provide analysis on the major issues:
 The May issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin features:
• Why Kuwaiti politics will keep boiling even after May 17 elections
• How blogs, Facebook, and You Tube are changing Egyptian politics
• Why the benefits of economic reform are not trickling down in Jordan and Egypt
• What Syria's new economic reform laws mean
• How educational reform initiatives in Gulf States differ
Plus developments from across the Middle East, debates in the Arab media, new publications, and much more.
 Kuwait's parliamentary election on May 17 will more likely result in continued political stalemate than much needed political and economic reforms, argues Nathan J. Brown. Kuwait's looming tensions between the ruling family and parliament may have serious implications the for broader Middle East as "other countries in the region are coming to see Kuwait as a negative model of what democracy can result in."
 Recent reports suggest that groups inside Iran are training and arming Shiite Iraqi militants fighting against U.S. forces. Karim Sadjadpour explains on the Diane Rehm Show that the Iranian leadership views U.S. efforts to spread secular democracy throughout the Middle East as an "existential threat" aimed at removing them from power.
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 The international community’s efforts to rebuild Afghanistan must be directed by the Afghan government, warned Ambassador Kai Eide, the new UN Special Representative in Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, at a special event at Carnegie. Unless international organizations seek to build the capabilities of the Afghan government and to convey the impression that Kabul is able to provide services and stability to the country, the reconstruction effort will fail, he added.
 Global military expenditures have increased nearly 40 percent in the last decade, fueled by the threat of terrorism, scarcity of natural resources, and new prominence of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China. Carnegie experts offer commentary and analysis for understanding why countries are arming themselves and whether their newly acquired weapons may help escalate conflicts in the future.
 The heated protests following the Beijing Olympic torch relay through the United States and Europe sparked passionate counter-demonstrations among young nationalist Chinese at home and abroad. Joshua Kurlantzick argues in the Los Angeles Times that urban, middle-class Chinese youth are often more nationalist than older party leaders, creating the possibility that “If China ever were to become a truly free political system, it might actually become more, not less, aggressive.”
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 Pakistan’s new coalition government is on the brink of collapse after nine ministers from the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif resigned this week. If the government survives, Ashley Tellis argues in Yale Global, the United States should support its efforts to talk with extremist groups while continuing to use force when necessary.
 Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as the Russian Federation’s third president on May 7. Serious questions about Medvedev’s ability to lead persist as Vladimir Putin is widely expected to shift the power-base of the Russian leadership to his new post as prime minister. Carnegie experts in Washington and Moscow examine the implications and issues surrounding the Russian presidential election.
 The outcome of President Bush’s recent meeting with Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, was perceived in opposite ways within the two countries. In the United States, Bush was seen as unsuccessful, while in Russia, it was Putin. Rose Gottemoeller, director of Carnegie Moscow Center, observes in the International Herald Tribune that these conflicting perceptions are a natural part of the U.S.-Russia relationship, but don’t necessarily undermine positive trends between the two countries.
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Middle East Political Reform