Intoxicated by the devastating display of America’s military juggernaut in Afghanistan, senior US officials have been issuing bellicose statements about Iraq. President George W Bush joined the chorus on November 26 when he warned Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to readmit UN arms-inspectors or face unspecified consequences.
Despite Washington’s recent diplomatic scramble to get support for its “war on terrorism,” getting key Arab countries on board remains an unfinished task. This became clear during US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s tour earlier this month of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Rumsfeld’s efforts were received tepidly by Washington’s Arab allies.
The beleaguered Mahathir regime in Malaysia appears to have a knack for finding strategies that have unintended effects. In its latest campaign to silence the opposition, ten more people, including Nik Adli Nik Abdul Aziz, the son of PAS chief Nik Abdul Aziz, were abducted in the first week of August under the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA)...
Palestinian and Israeli negotiators opened separate talks with US officials in Washington on November 19, the first stage of a new effort to restart the ‘peace process’ that was stalled by the launching of the Al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September.
It was Lawrence Eagleburger, the former US secretary of State, who had predicted that once the ‘cold war’ was over, it would be sorely missed. Astonishing as this admission from a senior official of one of the leading members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)...
