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During the past 20 years, the author has watch China move from being a developing country into an industrial superpower
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Get Four
|  | DECEMBER 29, 2003
By Stan Crock America's Many Challenges Abroad The coming year poses serious foreign policy dilemmas for the Bush Administration, starting with Iraq -- but hardly ending there Looking back on my picks and pans of U.S. foreign policy in 2003, I came to a curious conclusion. The highlights and lowlights cover the same ground: Iraq, Iran, Russia, and China. The Bush Administration likes to trumpet its penchant for clarity and candor on the world stage. Unfortunately, the fact that the same country can be such a mixed bag means national-security policy is far too complex to be expressed with the kind of black-and-white bumper-sticker statements the Administration likes. What's ahead in 2004? Let's take a look around the globe: Iraq The U.S. invasion in March, 2003, went extremely well, with Baghdad taken in a matter of weeks. As I wrote at the time (see "Two Myths of the Iraq War"), Iraq's arms imports had declined by 87% over the decade of sanctions, and its army had lost 40% of its capability during Desert Storm. What's more, no-fly zones meant its air force had no flight training. The Iraqi Army was a shadow of its already incompetent self, a force defeated in the 1991 Gulf War. And American forces had technology, including smart bombs, that was much superior to what they had a decade earlier. The occupation, as we all know, has been a far different story. The yearend capture of Saddam Hussein is a big psychological boost, and it indicates that intelligence, the key to success, is improving. Unfortunately, the troops who now have knowledge of Iraq and the network of contacts critical to ferreting out the resistance are about to come home. Over the next couple of months, a wholesale rotation of units will occur, involving reservists, National Guardsmen, and active-duty troops. The Yankee rookies who come to Iraq will have none of the expertise, contacts, and trust that the seasoned soldiers now deployed have accumulated over many months. Making matters worse, the newcomers are likely to be more jittery. The result could be more civilian casualties and retaliatory violence without the intelligence network needed to track down the culprits. With this influx of fresh U.S. troops, spring could be a messy time in Iraq once again, just as the country heads toward a transition to more self-rule. Iran Nuclear nonproliferation got another a terrific boost on Dec. 18 when Iran agreed to intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Under pressure from European countries, which were on the same side as the U.S. for a change, Tehran earlier had pledged to suspend its fuel-enrichment and reprocessing operations. Iran, unlike North Korea, seems to care deeply about not being labeled a pariah state and wants improved relations with Europe. Given the euphoric reaction in Tehran to Saddam's capture -- a more effusive outpouring than in any other Islamic country -- some common ground may even exist for the U.S. and Iran if they're inclined to test the diplomatic waters. The Administration should seize the moment. Libya's decision, announced on Dec. 19, to give up all its weapons of mass destruction would seem to indicate even more momentum for the nonproliferation campaign. But because of Tripoli's involvement in the Pan Am 103 bombing and its subsequent isolation from the international community, Libya may be a unique situation with minimal ripple effects. What's the downside to all this? Iran and Libya revealed deep flaws in the global nonproliferation scheme, which allows a country to develop nuclear expertise and buy equipment that would be useful both for generating power and making weapons as long the government agrees to IAEA inspections. CHEAP AND EASY NUKES. That was O.K. when it was too expensive and hard to develop one's own nukes -- and unnecessary because everyone was under the nuclear umbrella of either the former Soviet Union or the U.S. Now, it's easy and cheap. A country can cheat, like Iran did for 18 years, or simply kick the IAEA out, as North Korea has. Most experts agree that the way to fix this is to prevent countries that desire nuclear weapons from enriching or reprocessing fuel, the critical operations for producing weapons-grade fissile material. Little consensus exists on how to do that, though. Should the fuel be under the control of an international body? Should the private sector do it? What additional safeguards are needed? If Iran and North Korea were to give up their capabilities, would Japan or Israel? What the success in Iran so far has done is put a focus on one of the toughest challenges world leaders face in the years ahead. Russia When Washington pulled out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the sky didn't fall, as arms-control advocates had feared. With the treaty dead, the Bush Administration will deploy what's little more than a Potemkin missile-defense shield in 2004. While Moscow wanted the treaty to stay in force, its resentment didn't prevent it from signing a simple agreement with Washington intended to reduce both sides' nuclear arsenals. No real enforcement mechanism exists beyond both countries' internal budget constraints, which make further reductions likely. The downside? It's a subtle point. The Bush team's decision to pull out of the treaty over the objections of Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by the invasion of Iraq and a raft of other imperious U.S. actions, has sent pro-Western political forces in Russia packing. They got shellacked in the recent elections for the Duma. Result: Putin has been emboldened to use flimsy pretexts to throw powerful political rivals in jail. And he can be as dismissive of U.S. protests as Washington was of his. If this is just the start of turmoil in Russia's domestic and political affairs, the long-term costs of pulling out of the ABM Treaty could be significant -- an expensive but porous missile shield and a far less agreeable or malleable Russia.
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