In The News

Pew Survey Finds America’s Global Stature Diminished

December 4, 2002
The globalization of media and the information technology revolution have made American actions visible to the entire world. In a wide-sweeping survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries – a feat accomplished in large part thanks to globalization – the Pew Foundation finds a gloomy image of the US overseas. From the state of American democracy to America's unilateralist stance in the...

PM's gaffe leaves a hostile Asian audience

Tom Allard December 3, 2002
The American enunciation of a doctrine of preemption brought muted criticism , perhaps because American power is unchallenged. A similar claim to the right to launch preemptive attack on neighbors if they harbored terrorists planning to attack Australia brought howls of criticism from Asian neighbors. There is a danger that Australia’s tough talk may harm its relations with neighbors without...

PM: We Will Act Against Those Who Intrude into Our Country

Sim Leoi Leoi December 3, 2002
In the wake of the recent Bali bombing, the US-initiated global war on terrorism has taken unexpected turns in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is coming under fire from his Asian neighbors for following the lead of the US and asserting the right to unilateral action against terrorists anywhere. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is fuming at the...

Startling His Neighbors, Australian Leader Favors First Strikes

John Shaw December 2, 2002
Close on the heels of President George W.Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive attack to deter terrorist strike against the US, a close ally, Australia has adopted the same principle. In a television interview Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would be willing to strike at terrorists in another country if there were evidence of a plan to attack Australia. . He said that it was necessary...

Whither Arab Independence?

Basheer M Nafi November 27, 2002
What does America's effort to clamp down on Iraq mean for the Middle East as a whole? According to historian and Islamic scholar Basheer M Nafi, the US-led, UN-sanctioned weapons inspection project is simply another attack on the already brittle sovereignty of Arab nation-states. Writing in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, Nafi argues that "Western imperialism has made a comeback in the...

The Axis of Irony

Strobe Talbott November 26, 2002
The Iraq crisis could have the ironic but salutary effect of reinvigorating the United Nations, revealing George W. Bush to be more of a multilateralist than the rest of the world thought (and feared), and establishing a welcome degree of continuity in American foreign policy. - YaleGlobal

Bin Laden Material Found at Alleged Bali Mastermind's House

November 25, 2002
The interrogation of the prime suspect of the Bali blast in October and forensic evidence have raised the tantalizing possibility that the attack was a suicide bombing. If this turns out to be true this would be the first suicide attack by a Muslim in Indonesia, perhaps in Southeast Asia. While suicide attacks by Tamil Tiger guerillas in Sri Lanka has been a common phenomenon and in recent years...