New York Times
The world got a chilling demonstration Thursday of why Afghanistan urgently needs an expanded international peacekeeping force. The country's aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, was beaten to death at the Kabul airport, allegedly by rivals within the government. Yesterday rioting erupted outside Kabul's main soccer stadium when disappointed fans could not get into a goodwill match between peacekeepers and a local team.
Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, has a deft political and diplomatic touch. Yet as he well understands, there is little realistic hope of establishing peace and stability in his war-ravaged country without significantly enlarging the small international force and expanding it to other major cities. Afghanistan is still rife with warlords and combat veterans prepared to take the law into their own hands. Until a new national army and police force can be recruited and trained, a process that will take many months, an expanded international force must hold the line. ...
For now, the international force needs to be bolstered, its initial six-month term extended and its mission widened to other major cities, as Mr. Karzai and the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, have urged. Washington should strongly support this proposal. Many of the additional peacekeepers are likely to come from poorer countries, which means that richer nations, including the United States, will have to contribute to their expenses. Winning the war in Afghanistan requires keeping the peace.
Washington Times
International crises involving China, planes and spying have become quite familiar to the American people. But what about incidents that involve all these elements, minus the international crisis? Surely, these are less familiar. But such an incident was disclosed last month and, according to an article yesterday in The Washington Times, it exposes the underbelly of Chinese political intrigue.
Last fall, the Chinese government discovered 27 listening devices onboard a presidential jet outfitted by U.S. firms at the San Antonio International Airport, shortly before Chinese President Jiang Zemin was to set off on his maiden voyage aboard the craft. These state-of-the-art devices were sure to pick up some interesting dialogue, since some were placed in the headboard of the president's bed and in his bathroom. According to Beijing, the Chinese were alerted to the presence of these devices after one of them emitted some static noise.
Yesterday's article in The Times disclosed that Mr. Jiang believes a fellow Communist Party Politburo member, Li Peng, is behind the bugs, according to a classified State Department intelligence report. The disclosure of the classified report is quite timely, since President Bush leaves today for a trip to China, Japan and South Korea. Bill Gertz reported in The Times that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Mr. Jiang appears convinced that Mr. Li ordered the bugging to listen in on the president's potential discussions of financial corruption linked to Mr. Li's wife and children. ...
So this spy-plane incident doesn't seem to have the potential to roil U.S.-Chinese relations. Back in April, when a U.S. surveillance plane was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island after a mid-air collision, Beijing was less conciliatory. This time, Washington can take a back seat and watch the political manuevering in China, which is sure to get increasingly interesting.
Washington Post
President Bush left for Asia today with a regional agenda that has not so much changed as pivoted since Sept. 11. China, the focus of administration security concerns a year ago, has been at least temporarily supplanted by North Korea, the freshly designated member of Mr. Bush's "evil axis." Beijing, in turn, has become a partner in the war on terrorism as well as a "strategic competitor." Japan, too, is now not just a source of economic worry, but of valuable political and economic support for the ongoing war effort. The new orientation is consistent with Mr. Bush's remaking of U.S. international policy after Sept. 11, and appropriately so. But as he travels through Japan, South Korea and China this week, the president would do well to clarify how he intends to pursue his new priorities in practical terms -- and to make sure that the vital U.S. interests that existed in Asia before Sept. 11 are not forgotten.
Nowhere is clarity more needed than in Korea. Ever since the State of the Union speech, Mr. Bush's foreign policy team has been seeking to weave a logical connection between the designation of the North Korean regime as evil and the administration's standing policy, which is to support South Korea's "sunshine" initiative toward the North by offering Pyongyang negotiations and engagement. "We believe that you can have a policy that speaks the truth, speaks clearly about the North Korean regime, and yet leaves open the possibility of dialogue," says national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
In theory, that's true; President Reagan successfully executed such a straddle with the former Soviet Union. But the administration's Korea policy looks less like a careful balance than an unhappy marriage of warring inclinations. ...
China and Japan, too, would benefit from some straight talk from Mr. Bush. ...
If the Bush administration can speak the truth about North Korea while offering a way forward, it can do the same with China.
Chicago Tribune
In dealing with his Soviet rivals, President Ronald Reagan was guided by three words: "Trust, but verify." A handshake agreement was all well and good when negotiating on nuclear arms reductions, but specific commitments were essential to protect the U.S.
Reagan wanted it in writing.
Now comes President Bush, a rightful heir to Reagan's conservative legacy. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are poised to make deep, mutual cuts in strategic nuclear arms.
The Bush administration has signaled that it prefers a nonbinding agreement. Russia wants a binding, written commitment.
What to do? Give the Russians what they want in the spirit of building confidence between two former enemies who have become friends.
Bush and Putin agreed in November at Bush's Texas ranch to trim their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
The U.S. wants the arsenals slashed to the range of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads apiece, the Russians aim for 1,500 to 2,200 each. Whatever the final number, it would be a dramatic reduction from today's stockpiles. The U.S. has some 7,200 warheads, the Russians have some 6,000.
The Bush administration now appears to be rethinking its initial reluctance to commit on verification. Secretary of State Colin Powell sent that message earlier this month when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration would, after all, be ready to sign a legally binding agreement on nuclear arms cuts. ...
That is the sensible thing to do. ...
Russia has responded favorably to the announcement. ...
This shift by Bush could be an important incentive for Putin, who still has objections to some key Bush policies. ...
Bush has often called for a "new strategic framework" with Russia, and now he is on the verge of making that a reality. Much remains to be negotiated. But it's clear that both sides are genuinely intent on making deep reductions in their nuclear arsenals.
Boston Globe
This week both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke of the administration's readiness to abandon the failed Iraq policy in place since the spring of 1991 - the self-deluding fantasy that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq could be ''contained'' by means of weapons inspectors, sanctions that hurt only Saddam's civilian victims, and illusory diplomatic isolation.
The decision to seek what Powell called a ''regime change'' in Baghdad can, if properly implemented, liberate Iraqis from one of the world's most vicious tyrants. Saddam's removal also has the potential to usher in a positive transformation that may spread through the Gulf region and the Middle East. But if the administration thinks only in terms of a military operation to remove an immediate security threat, there is a danger that Iraqis will end up exchanging one form of despotism for another - and the Gulf region will end up with one kind of instability succeeding another.
To prevent such an outcome, Bush and his advisers will have to give at least as much attention to the political aspects of Saddam's removal as to military questions. This means, first of all, undoing the damage done to America's credibility as a result of earlier American betrayals of Iraqis who rebelled against Saddam in the spring of 1991 and in 1995 and 1996. ...
The administration will need to demonstrate not only that it is serious about finally freeing Iraqis from the dictator America left in power but also that Washington is no longer wedded to cynical schemes of sponsoring a military coup by disgruntled Iraqi generals. ...
The umbrella opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, has produced a broad consensus for representative, accountable government in a post-Saddam era as well as plans for a federal structure that would allow Kurdish participation in a unified Iraq. The congress does need to be enlarged or combined with other anti-Saddam strands in Iraqi society. But the prospects for good governance, prosperity, and self-sufficiency in Iraq are much less problematic than in Afghanistan. And a democratic, secular, pluralist Iraq could have a powerful appeal to neighboring peoples living in their various police states.
(Compiled by United Press International)
