Cracking down on terrorist financing demands an all-encompassing approach, targeting not only the full array of terrorist groups, but also the individuals, businesses, banks, criminal enterprises, and charitable and humanitarian organizations that finance terrorism.
"On January 29, the President in his State of the Union address laid the foundation for the policy we are pursuing today for Iran. It's a dual track policy based on moral clarity: tell the world specifically what is destructive and unacceptable about Iran's behavior – sponsorship of terror, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and repression of the clearly expressed desires of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy – while laying out a positive vision of partnership and support for the Iranian people. This dual track approach reflects two fundamental principles and beliefs of the President more broadly: first, that September 11 taught us that we need to deal with threats before they manifest [themselves], and, second, that there is an essential truth that must be emphasized: when given the choice, people will choose freedom. . . ."
Turkey's attitude will be critical in the event the United States seeks to remove Saddam Husayn through use of force. Simple geography demands that any military option include Turkey. What do Turks think about the prospect of direct U.S. military action to topple Saddam? The short answer is: they hate the idea. But sitting it out is not an option.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia
King Abdullah of Jordan's visit to Washington tomorrow offers the Bush administration an opportunity to clarify the relationship between regime change in Baghdad and progress in the Israel-Palestinian arena. Last Monday, the king told British prime minister Tony Blair that in light of the failure to move the peace process forward, military action against Iraq would open a Pandora's box.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Washington, Turkey, Middle East, Palestine, and Arabia
Hizballah has not yet been made a clear target of America's war on terrorism. Recently, the organization has been taking advantage of the political space granted to it by this fact in order to frustrate both the war on terrorism and any plans for a campaign against Iraq.
Just short of four years since Crown Prince Abdullah, while on a trip to Washington, met leaders of U.S. energy companies to discuss cooperation efforts, negotiations to secure $25 billion of investment for Saudi gas projects have broken down. A policy that should have cemented the energy-supply facet of Washington's sixty-year friendship with Riyadh is in tatters, alongside the diplomatic and military relationships, themselves frayed by a purported lack of Saudi cooperation since the September 11 attacks.
On July 19 — less than a month after President George W. Bush's call for Palestinian reform and just two days after the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' latest terrorist attack — the State Department released its latest Palestine Liberation Organization Commitments Compliance Act (PLOCCA) report. This new report is a mixture of increased truth telling (the good), old formulations (the bad), and irrelevant standards for what constitutes supporting terrorism (the ugly). In total, despite the improvement over past PLOCCA reports, the current report undercuts the Bush administration's nascent policy of pushing the peace process forward by demanding the establishment of consequences for noncompliance with peace commitments.
The speech delivered by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) in Istanbul on July 14 was a detailed, comprehensive statement of U.S. policy on Turkey. In the clearest expression of U.S. policy on Turkish-Iraqi relations to date, Wolfowitz observed that "it is vital to Turkey for the people of Iraq to govern themselves democratically, with full respect for the rights of minorities, including the Turcomans, and to maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq." Yet, how will current Turkish crises affect the prospects for U.S.-Turkish cooperation on Iraq?
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia
Following preparatory meetings on Palestinian reform between Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Cheney and European officials, the Quartet (the United States, the European Union [EU], the UN, and Russia) met this week in New York. The Quartet established an International Task Force on Palestinian Reform with seven subcommittees, which are to meet quarterly. As talks about Palestinian political reform progress, the donors intend to find an acceptable means enabling the group to begin disbursing $1.2 billion in donor funds to the Palestinians.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published the Arab Human Development Report 2002, a critical look at development in the Arab world. Written by Arab scholars, it attempts to explain why Arab societies lag behind much of the rest of the world in key areas of economic, political, and social progress. The report has been hailed for the honesty of its conclusions, which assert that the Arab world has deficits in three areas: freedom, knowledge, and the participation of women in economic, professional, and political activities. Moreover, the details and methodology of the study itself offer further, perhaps unintended insights.