Towards an international reconciliation assistance program in Afghanistan
Summary:As elusive as consensus on Afghanistan is, on one key issue there is by now wide agreement – namely, that the insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan will not be defeated on the battlefield.
The Harper Government’s June 10 report to Parliament makes that very point succinctly and unambiguously: “Afghanistan cannot secure peace or realize its governance and development objectives by military means alone.”[i]
So if the UN-sanctioned and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is not fighting to win in Afghanistan, what then?
The hope that has not yet completely faded is that foreign and Afghan forces will provide enough local security to enable enough development [...]Getting to “Yes” on Iran
Summary:While Iran continues to reject Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, it has signaled some willingness to open its program to international controls. So far the Bush Administration has shown little interest in taking “yes” for an answer.
Ritual denunciations of Iran and its uranium enrichment activity were a central theme of President George Bush’s farewell tour of Europe,[i] and of course the Iranians did not fail in offering antiphonal insistence that they have no intention of ending a peaceful program[ii] that they point out is Iran’s right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[iii]
The West preaches enrichment abstinence (not for all, of course, but for Iran) and warns of more sanctions as the wages of Iranian sin. [...]
Facing Nuclear Danger – with, wait for it, A New Study
Summary:Serious analysts increasingly insist that the forthcoming 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will mark a key, make or break, moment in the pursuit of disarmament and the Treaty’s formal objective – namely, a world free of nuclear weapons. So, how to avert yet another failure?
If the 2010 Review simply extends the current global stalemate – with non-nuclear weapon states becoming increasingly restive about their non-proliferation obligations in the face of nuclear weapon states which continue to modernize their arsenals (even while allowing reductions in total warheads) and to treat nuclear weapons as a global security trump available only to them – the Treaty will most assuredly begin to unravel.
That is not the first time such a claim has been made about a disarmament [...]
One Afghan academic’s formula for peace
Summary:A recent visit to Kabul afforded ten days of discussions with Afghan academics, students, civil society organizations, former Mujahideen, community Elders, politicians, and Government officials, as well as international NGOs, UN officials, and diplomats. One academic, one of several interviewed with strong links to Pashtun-based anti-government forces, offered a succinct and interesting prescription for stabilizing Afghanistan and setting the stage for more effective progress in reconstruction.
The Relevance of R2P in Burma
Summary:French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner unleashed a major, and largely helpful, international debate when he called for coercive humanitarian action in Burma in the name of the “responsibility to protect.”
