-Caveat Lector- ------- Start of forwarded message ------- From: "Progressive Response" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [PR] Powell, State of the Union, Korea, CAFTA, Iran Date: 2/5/2003 4:09:16 PM
************************************************************************ Click http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume7/v7n03.html to view an HTML-formatted version of this issue of Progressive Response. ************************************************************************ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Progressive Response 5 February 2002 Vol. 7, No. 03 Editor: Tom Barry ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/, or email <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> to share your thoughts with us. John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org). He can be contacted at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. **** We Count on Your Support **** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Updates and Out-Takes *** FRONTIER JUSTICE NUMBER #17 | OF AID AND AIDS *** *** POWELL?S DUBIOUS CASE FOR WAR *** By Phyllis Bennis *** STATE OF THE UNION *** By Conn Hallinan *** AN ANNOTATED OVERVIEW OF THE FOREIGN POLICY SEGMENTS OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS *** By Stephen Zunes *** PUMP UP THE PENTAGON, HAWKS TELL BUSH *** By Jim Lobe *** THE TIME-OUT METHOD DOESN'T WORK *** By John Feffer *** U.S.-CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: LEAPING WITHOUT LOOKING? *** By Vincent McElhinny II. Outside the U.S. *** IRAN: THE NEXT TARGET? *** By Paul Rogers III. Letters And Comments *** FRUSTRATING *** *** ISRAEL?S ALTERNATIVE? *** *** TERMINATE SADDAM *** *** THANKS *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** FRONTIER JUSTICE NUMBER #17 | OF AID AND AIDS *** (Editor's Note: Frontier Justice is a weekly column written alternately by Tom Barry and John Gershman, foreign policy analysts at the Interhemispheric Resource Center, chronicling instances of U.S. unilateralism and its assault on the multilateralism framework for managing global affairs. It is part of the new Project Against the Present Danger. These columns are now indexed on the www.presentdanger.org site at: http://www.presentdanger.org/frontier/2003/index.html.) By John Gershman Of all the policy proposals in his State of the Union address, perhaps the most surprising--and the one for which President Bush has received the most kudos--was his announcement that the administration will propose $15 billion over five years to combat HIV/AIDS abroad. The proposal marks a significant departure for a Republican administration, and is widely recognized as a positive step. The initiative appears driven by a combination of pressure from activists outside the administration, support by administration officials like Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and the administration?s need be seen as promoting something that is of concern to African-American advocacy organizations in the aftermath of the Trent Lott fiasco. While generally viewing the proposal positively, many AIDS activists and experts are still waiting to see whether the administration will actually be able to wrestle the money away from a less enthusiastic Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Furthermore, they have expressed concern that even in this forward-looking proposal the Bush administration has slighted multilateral efforts to combat HIV/AIDS--particularly the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria--in favor of a renewed emphasis on bilateral initiatives. Only $1 billion of the $15 billion total is scheduled to be channeled to the Global Fund. The concern about the administration?s prioritization of bilateral over multilateral initiatives is linked to other concerns: insufficient funds, timing, consistency, and process. First, some numbers. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed at least 20 million of the more than 60 million people it has infected thus far. In Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus--including three million children under the age of 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than four million people in Africa require immediate drug treatment, yet only 50,000 AIDS victims are receiving the medicine they need. Experts from UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) have previously estimated that at least $10.5 billion annually is needed from donor countries in order to mount a credible response to HIV/AIDS worldwide, including massive prevention programs, reduction of mother to child transmission, and care for the 40 million people living with AIDS. Of the $15 billion in the Bush proposal, $10 billion represents new money that had not already been promised or planned for AIDS programs. The Global Fund is facing a cash crunch because some donors are failing to fulfill their pledges, which may make the Fund unable to supply the funds for grants already approved. To date, $2.1 billion has been pledged to the Global Fund over five years. On January 29, 2003, at the Global Fund?s recent board meeting, executive director Richard Feachem noted that the Global Fund needs $ 6.3 billion in 2003 and 2004 alone and that so far $1.2 billion has been pledged for that time period. Washington has so far committed $500 million over two years, while Feachem has urged the United States to contribute $2.5 billion to $3 billion over the next two years. The administration likes to assert that the U.S. is the greatest single donor to the Global Fund, with more than $500 million committed to date. This is a misleading claim given the size of the U.S. economy. For example, the countries of the European Union, which combined have an economy roughly the size of the U.S., have given close to twice as much, over $1.1 billion. Second, timing. AIDS activists and experts note that the Bush plan back loads a significant chunk of the $15 billion into the end of the five year period. (For example, only $2 billion is allocated for fiscal year 2004). This delay is costly in terms of lives lost and greater expenditures later to treat people who might be prevented from contracting HIV today. ?The current situation requires a substantial front-loaded capital investment to scale up existing efforts,? said Prof. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund. ?The programs are ready. Any delay now will be measured by millions of lives lost and billions of dollars of additional cost to later respond to the expanded epidemics.? Third, many activists and experts, such as the U.S.-based group HealthGAP, contrast the administration?s proposal with its attempts to derail the negotiation of an agreement under the World Trade Organization (WTO) that would strengthen developing countries? abilities to gain access to essential medicines. Although all WTO members, including the U.S., signed a WTO declaration at Doha in 2001 permitting countries to prioritize public health and access to medicines for all over the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies, the Bush administration has worked to reverse this agreement and undermine its implementation. A full year of negotiations revolved around one aspect of the Doha Declaration: how to revise restrictions in WTO rules to permit countries without the ability to make generic drugs to obtain needed medicines from exporting countries. The U.S.--along with the European Union, Japan, and the pharmaceutical industry--lobbied stubbornly for strict limitations and conditions, leading to an impasse as negotiations ended in December 2002 without an agreement. Finally, the process of decisionmaking in the Global Fund is markedly different from that of bilateral initiatives--most notably, the participation of affected communities and the balance of power between donors and recipients. The Global Fund represents a major innovation in multilateral aid programs. It includes communities affected by AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria at every level of the decisionmaking process and is governed by a board composed of an equal number of donor and recipient countries. In its short lifetime (the fund is just over a year old) the Global Fund has created an innovative, demand-driven model where country-level grant applications are created and submitted by consortia of public and private sector NGOs, government officials, and organizations representing people with AIDS, TB, and Malaria. All of this is not to say that there isn?t room for bilateral initiatives, but the Global Fund has already demonstrated capacity, is scaling up existing effective programs, and has brought together governments, civil society organizations, and the private sector. Unfortunately even when it wants to do a good thing, the Bush administration appears unwilling to surrender its unilateralist impulses. (John Gershman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is a senior analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Asia/Pacific editor for Foreign Policy in Focus.) For More Background See: Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria http://www.globalfundatm.org/background.html Global AIDS and State of the Union Backgrounder: The Bush Administration and AIDS Funding http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.org/content/press_releases/03/013003 _HGAP_BP_GWB_plan.pdf SAVING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES: A Proposal for a US Presidential Global AIDS Initiative http://www.healthgap.org/PAI.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** POWELL?S DUBIOUS CASE FOR WAR *** By Phyllis Bennis (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0302powell.html .) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5 wasn't likely to win over anyone not already on his side. He ignored the crucial fact that in the past several days (in Sunday's New York Times and in his February 4th briefing of UN journalists) Hans Blix denied key components of Powell's claims. Blix, who directs the UN inspection team in Iraq, said the UNMOVIC inspectors have seen "no evidence" of mobile biological weapons labs, has "no persuasive indications" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, and no evidence of Iraq hiding and moving material used for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) either outside or inside Iraq. Dr. Blix also said there was no evidence of Iraq sending scientists out of the country, of Iraqi intelligence agents posing as scientists, of UNMOVIC conversations being monitored, or of UNMOVIC being penetrated. Further, CIA and FBI officials still believe the Bush administration is "exaggerating" information to make their political case for war. Regarding the alleged Iraqi link with al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence officials told the New York Times, "we just don't think it's there." The most compelling part of Powell's presentation was his brief ending section on the purported al Qaeda link with Iraq and on the dangers posed by the al Zarqawi network. However, he segued disingenuously from the accurate and frightening information about what the al Zarqawi network could actually do with biochemical materials to the not-so-accurate claim about its link with Iraq--which is tenuous and unproven at best. A key component of the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link is based on what Powell said "detainees tell us?". That claim must be rejected. On December 27 the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had acknowledged detainees being beaten, roughed up, threatened with torture by being turned over to officials of countries known to practice even more severe torture. In such circumstances, nothing "a detainee" says can be taken as evidence of truth given that people being beaten or tortured will say anything to stop the pain. Similarly, the stories of defectors cannot be relied on alone, as they have a self-interest in exaggerating their stories and their own involvement to guarantee access to protection and asylum. Finally, the "even if" rule applies. "Even if" everything Powell said was true, there is simply not enough evidence for war. There is no evidence of Iraq posing an imminent threat, no evidence of containment not working. Powell is asking us to go to war--risking the lives of 100,000 Iraqis in the first weeks, hundreds or thousands of U.S. and other troops, and political and economic chaos--because he thinks MAYBE in the future Iraq might rebuild its weapons systems and MIGHT decide to deploy weapons or MIGHT give those weapons to someone else who MIGHT use them against someone we like or give them to someone else who we don't like, and other such speculation. Nothing that Powell said should alter the position that we should reject a war on spec. (Phyllis Bennis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is a Middle East analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a senior analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** STATE OF THE UNION *** By Conn Hallinan (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301souresp.html .) There were no surprises in President Bush's address to Congress, except maybe the firm statement that within a month our country will be at war. The State of the Union is less a blueprint for the future than a series of metaphors and symbols, be they words like "resolve" or the empty chair in the President's box representing the dead of September 11, 2001. Sitting in that box was a firefighter hero from the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, as well as an Afghanistan veteran. But absence can be a powerful symbol as well, and there were numerous metaphorical blank spots in the tier of seats that surrounded the President's family. There were not many allies in that box: no France, no Germany, no Canada, no Russia, no China. There were no representatives of the 160,000 veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. There were none of the 13 million Iraqi children that, according to Eric Hoskins, leader of the Independent Study Team, "are at a grave risk of starvation, disease, death and psychological trauma." The Team is in Iraq examining the possible impact of war. There were no governors, whose states are going bankrupt while the White House cuts domestic spending, jacks up the deficit to $315 billion, and gets ready to spend $100 billion plus on a new war. There was no one representing the 42 million Americans without health care, or college students, whose average educational debt is now $27,600. Some would have showed up if they could have. Also notably missing from the box were the majority of economists who think the administration's $674 billion tax cut for the wealthy is seriously loopy and will have virtually no effect on stimulating the economy. While growth is up slightly (just over 2%) so is joblessness, and if unemployment doesn't start coming down from its present 6%, consumers may stop using their plastic. Watch out then. "The American consumer has been the last gasp for the U.S. economy, "says Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, "If the consumer weakens further, there is not a whole lot left." If the war goes wrong (and with war, one can never tell), the Center for Strategic and International Studies projects that the jobless rate could jump to 7.5% and the price of gasoline to $3 a gallon. That would tank the economy. As the $10 trillion American economy goes, so goes most the world. Europe's financial situation is delicate; Japan is recession-bound; Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore are in trouble; and Latin America is still on life support. "This is not a good time for the world to be able to absorb the cost of war," says Brian Fabbri, an economist with the French bank BNP Paribas. And yet we go to war regardless of the domestic and international consequences and without even a dim idea of what of lies at the other end. "War destroys any conception of goals, including any conception of the goals of war," the writer/philosopher Simone Weil once noted, "It even destroys the idea of putting an end to war." (Conn Hallinan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** AN ANNOTATED OVERVIEW OF THE FOREIGN POLICY SEGMENTS OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS *** By Stephen Zunes (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301souann.html .) "This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America?. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility." The attempt to put Baathist Iraq on par with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia is ludicrous. Hitler's Germany was the most powerful industrialized nation in the world when it began its conquests in the late 1930s and Soviet Russia at its height had the world's largest armed forces and enough nuclear weapons to destroy humankind. Iraq, by contrast, is a poor Third World country that has been under the strictest military and economic embargo in world history for more than a dozen years after having had much of its civilian and military infrastructure destroyed in the heaviest bombing in world history. Virtually all that remained of its offensive military capability was subsequently dismantled under the strictest unilateral disarmament initiative ever, an inspection and verification process that has been resumed under an even more rigorous mandate. It is true that the inspector's have reported that Iraq can not account for large amounts of biological and chemical agents that can be used as weapons of mass destruction, yet that does not necessarily justify going to war. By contrast, back in the 1980s, when Iraq really was a major regional power and had advanced programs in weapons of mass destruction, the United States did not consider Iraq a threat at all; in fact, the U.S. provided extensive military, economic, and technological support to Saddam Hussein's regime. "Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers." The character and resoluteness of the American people is worthy of praise. Unfortunately, the United States government has frequently used its military and economic power to suppress liberty, such as supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in countries like Guatemala and Chile while backing scores of dictatorial regimes throughout the world. The United States has also used powerful international financial institutions to force poor countries to weaken environmental and labor laws to enhance the profits of U.S.-based multinational corporations. "Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." What would God think of a government that supplies more weapons, training, and logistical support to more dictatorships and other human rights abusers than any other? If freedom and liberty are indeed the will of God, the foreign policy of the Bush administration is nothing short of blasphemy. (Stephen Zunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of the recently released book Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism <www.commoncouragepress.com>.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** PUMP UP THE PENTAGON, HAWKS TELL BUSH *** By Jim Lobe (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301pnac.html .) While public opinion polls show that most of the U.S. public is concerned about the economy, hawks in the Bush administration see another problem as more urgent: the Pentagon is poor. Last week a group of influential right-wing figures close to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney complained that the current military budget of almost $400 billion--already greater than the world's 15 next-biggest military establishments combined--is not enough to sustain U.S. strategy abroad. In a letter to the president released on the eve of his State of the Union Address, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), whose alumni include both Rumsfeld and Cheney, as well as most of their top aides, called for increasing the defense budget by as much as $100 billion next year. "Today's military is simply too small for the missions it must perform," said the letter whose signatories included mainly key neoconservatives, former Reagan administration officials, and a number of individuals close to big defense manufacturers like Lockheed Martin. "By every measure, current defense spending is inadequate for a military with global responsibilities." The letter, which also suggested that Washington should prepare for confrontations with North Korea, Iran, and China, was published Monday in the Weekly Standard, the Rupert Murdoch-financed neoconservative journal edited by William Kristol, PNAC's cofounder and chairman. Publication of the letter comes as public confidence in Bush's leadership, and particularly his apparent eagerness to invade Iraq, has slipped substantially, according to recent polls. The same surveys show increasing concern as well about his management of the economy, including the return of $300 billion budget deficits fueled mostly by military and security-related spending and tax cuts. It also comes as veteran foreign policy analysts here and abroad are warning that anti-American sentiment is rising sharply in both the Islamic world and among U.S. allies in both Europe and Northeast Asia due to the perception that the Bush administration is insensitive to their views and seeks permanent military domination of Eurasia. In his State of the Union Address Bush will lay out his budget and other priorities for the coming year. In the following days, the administration will make specific budget requests. If the administration asks for the increases urged by PNAC, public concerns about Bush's intentions both here and abroad are likely to rise steeply. On the other hand, PNAC's past letters, particularly its recommendations on its anti-terrorist campaign and policy in the Middle East, have anticipated to a remarkable degree the administration's policy evolution. Just nine days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, for example, PNAC issued an open letter that called on Bush to take his anti-terrorist war beyond Afghanistan by ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq, severing ties with the Palestinian Authority, and preparing for action against Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The administration, which already won an $80 billion increase in the defense budget for fiscal 2003, has called for further increases up to $442 billion by 2007. But hawks have warned that this will not match what is needed if Bush's global ambitions are to be realized. "A year into this activist foreign policy," wrote Frederick Kagan, a military historian and Robert Kagan's brother, late last year, "the defense agencies that will prosecute the war on terrorism remained starved of resources. Increases of some 100 billion dollars annually or more--over and above the increases already called for--will be necessary to provide for a defense establishment able to fulfill the president's national security strategy." The hawks insist this is realistic, because an increase of 100 billion dollars will bring the defense budget's percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to only four percent, still lower in percentage terms than what the Pentagon received in the mid-1980s. "Less than a nickel on the dollar for American security in the 21st century is cheap at the price," according to the letter. (Jim Lobe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is a political analyst Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** THE TIME-OUT METHOD DOESN'T WORK *** By John Feffer (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301timeout.html .) For the past two years, the Bush administration has treated North Korea like a child throwing a tantrum. Rather than charm a crying child with a piece of cake or apply a switch to its backside, the current child psychology approach is the "time out"--separate the child from the group until it calms down. Similarly, the Bush administration has hoped that isolating and ignoring North Korea will make it "come to its senses" and stop bothering the other kids in the playroom. But North Korea is still putting up a fuss. In recent weeks, it threatened to restart reactors that make bomb-grade plutonium and to end a unilateral moratorium on missile testing. It withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is also likely continuing with an alternative uranium enrichment program. In response, the United States has cut off fuel shipments and delayed food aid, but has so far ruled out a military option. The multilateralism-averse Bush administration even wants to bring the problem to the United Nations. In the degraded political atmosphere in Washington, with a war pending in Iraq and unilateralism run amok, this non-apocalyptic approach to North Korea passes for diplomacy. Diplomacy it is not. Diplomacy resolved the last nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula after Jimmy Carter's intervention in 1994 preempted the Pentagon's planned preemptive strike. Thereafter, the Clinton administration treated North Korea like a donkey that could be prodded along the path of appropriate international behavior by an alternation of carrots and sticks. The Bush administration decisively rejected Clinton's carrot-and-stick approach. It threw additional burrs (troop concentrations, conventional weaponry) into the negotiations with North Korea that doomed the talks. It snubbed Kim Dae Jung and his engagement policy. It further isolated the already isolated country by lumping North Korea with Iran and Iraq in an "axis of evil." It looked for ways to unravel the Agreed Framework. The "time-out" strategy is really a form of preemption without intervention. Hardliners in Congress expected the Agreed Framework to be rendered irrelevant by regime collapse in Pyongyang. More recently, hawks in the Bush administration pushed for a military option when the current crisis broke. But the State Department is mindful of how countries in the region feel about war with North Korea. South Korea doesn't want to suffer the lion's share of the casualties resulting from such a conflict. Japan remains hesitant, and China outright opposes the military option. Meanwhile the North Korean government soldiers on, following the Cuban example by shifting the blame for its problems onto U.S. intransigence. North Korea has signaled its willingness to negotiate a way out of the current crisis. It would consider rejoining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the United States resumes heavy fuel oil shipments as mandated under the 1994 Agreed Framework. It would suspend its nuclear program if the United States provided an assurance of non-aggression. "We have no intention of invading North Korea," President Bush has said several times. But Pyongyang wants more--a pledge of non-intervention that would extend beyond simply invasion--and wants it in writing. Isolating and ignoring North Korea brought us to the current crisis. It's time to throw away the "time-out" strategy and invite North Korea back to the table to hammer out an alternative to Korean War II. (John Feffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is the author of Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions, the editor of the forthcoming Power Trip: U.S. Foreign Policy After September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003), and has recently returned from three years based in Tokyo working on East Asian issues. Feffer is also an FPIF advisory committee member (online at www.fpif.org).) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** U.S.-CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: LEAPING WITHOUT LOOKING? *** By Vincent McElhinny (Editor?s Note: This excerpt from a commentary comes to FPIF courtesy of the Americas Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center and is available online at http://www.fpif.org/americas/commentary/2003/0301cafta.html .) The potential benefits of trade can be an important engine for economic growth and poverty reduction. However, only when trade is built upon solid institutional foundations are these benefits typically realized. There is a widely shared frustration by many working in Central America that these conditions may be lacking. The region remains critically vulnerable to recurrent economic and ecological shocks. After a decade of post-civil war and economic reforms that have already lowered trade barriers, eliminated state subsidies for many producers in the region, and increased trade, broad-based development in the region remains elusive. Poverty has not been reduced, and income inequality has increased--as have unemployment and underemployment--and the World Food Program reports that 8.6 million Central Americans (1 in 4) continue to suffer from hunger or food insecurity. Meanwhile, social violence has reached epidemic proportions, now approximating the worst political violence of the civil wars years in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In desperation, more Central Americans set out every day to attempt the dangerous entry into the United States. Given this panorama, one wonders at the rush by U.S. and Central American negotiators to conclude a U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in just twelve short months--especially given the lack of any empirical assessment of the potential social, economic, or environmental impacts that the agreement would have in the region. The U.S. trade agenda should be grounded by more intensive investigation of the links between trade liberalization and sustainable-equitable development. Research on trade liberalization has failed to persuasively demonstrate that countries that trade more also achieve lower levels of poverty and inequality. The evidence is mixed. The case of Mexico is particularly instructive. Export volume has tripled under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and economic growth averaged a robust 6% from 1996-2000. But research by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has shown that the top 20% of the income strata captured the investment benefits of NAFTA, while over 60% of Mexicans remain trapped in poverty. Additionally, many of the competitiveness and productivity gains that NAFTA promised for Mexico have been slow in coming. Clearly the trade-development relationship depends upon other factors (good government, low inequality, adequate human & physical capital investment, substantive adjustment assistance). To date, little is known about the possible impact of CAFTA. Impact assessments on the employment and poverty effects of the proposed agreement are necessary to clearly identify the winners and losers from trade liberalization in Central America. The involvement of civil society in helping to chart out a course for development in Central America is also necessary. Such participation is the bedrock of political legitimacy that many observers say is lacking with respect to economic policy in Central America. In order to make informed decisions about the potential risks and opportunities involved in the proposed CAFTA, all parties involved should have as much information about--and input into--the negotiating process as possible. Impact assessments should be made available to civil society groups in order to provide for their informed input into the negotiation process. Public hearings sponsored by a joint United States Trade Representative (USTR)-government team should be held regularly, not only in Washington but in each of the five Central American countries, prior to the beginning of negotiations and as a periodic mechanism to disclose information relevant to the negotiation process. (Vincent McElhinny <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is program manager of the Inter-American Development Bank-Civil Society Initiative at the InterAction in Washington, DC.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Outside the U.S. (Editor's Note: FPIF's "Outside the U.S." component aims to bring non-U.S. voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog between Northern and Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside the U.S. page for other non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for information about submissions at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html. If you're interested in submitting commentaries for our use, please send your solicitation to John Gershman at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.) *** IRAN: THE NEXT TARGET? *** By Paul Rogers (Editor?s Note: Excerpted from a new Outside the U.S. Commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0301iran.html .) President Bush?s State of the Union address comes as near to a declaration of war on Iraq as is possible without the guns beginning to fire. It rehearsed all of the reasons for an attack relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, made no mention of oil, and made it clear that the U.S. was prepared to go to war with minimal international support if need be. The speech was significant for two other reasons, involving the ?war on terror? and Iran, respectively. First is George Bush?s affirmation that there are direct and compelling links between the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaeda, with evidence on this promised in the next few days. The connection between terminating the Iraqi regime and fighting the war on terror is crucial in obtaining domestic support for war on Iraq, even if it is likely to cut little ice across much of the rest of the world. Within Iraq there is a small paramilitary group called Ansar al-Islam, loosely linked to al Qaeda, which is active in the north of the country. This group has the tacit support of the regime but it is marginal in Iraq as a whole. More generally, al Qaeda has shown virtually no interest in Iraq until very recently, for the obvious reason that Saddam Hussein?s Ba?ath party runs a secular regime of a kind that is anathema to al Qaeda?s aims for the region. This makes it highly implausible that substantial links exist between the regime and al Qaeda. In turn this suggests that the equivalent of the ?Gulf of Tonkin? incident of 1964, which enabled the U.S. to engage more forcibly in Vietnam, may provide a suitable pretext for U.S. onslaught on Iraq. The second point about the State of the Union address has been largely neglected in immediate commentary but tells us a lot about the longer- term U.S. plans for the region. It concerns President Bush?s extensive mention of Iran, which almost went as far as to imply that Iran would become an immediate focus of attention once Iraq was made safe. The war with Iraq will certainly be intended to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime, but its much more significant purpose is to consolidate power in a fractious yet strategically crucial region. If the regime is terminated by U.S. military force in the coming months, then there will be an immediate military occupation while some degree of stability is ensured, leading to a regime in Baghdad that is a client of Washington. At that stage, many of the U.S. occupying forces may well be withdrawn, but we should also expect the rapid development of an extensive and permanent U.S. military presence. A consolidated and substantial military presence in Iraq has, in Washington?s eyes, several major advantages. It ensures the security of Iraqi oil for the long term, it limits dependence on a potentially unstable Saudi Arabia and it increases the security of America?s closest ally in the region, Israel. Moreover, it makes it abundantly clear to Iran that the United States is the controlling power in the region. This is important because of Iran?s remarkable combination of oil reserves, massive gas reserves (second only to Russia), potential control of the Straits of Hormuz, a burgeoning population and a geographical location at the heart of south-west Asia. >From the Bush administration?s point of view, dominating Iran in this way is therefore a perfect answer to controlling an unstable yet crucially important region. The dominant view from Tehran is likely to be that U.S. forces pose a threat extending right through the Persian Gulf in the shape of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and, even more significantly, right up Iran?s long western land border with Iraq. It is more or less guaranteed that this new proximity of U.S. forces will cause serious concern in Tehran, with three probable effects. First, it will bolster support for the more conservative elements, particularly among the clerics. Secondly, it will allow an opening for Russia to expand its influence in the country. Thirdly, and perhaps most significant of all, it will almost inevitably increase Iran?s desire to develop its own strategic deterrent, based largely on missiles and chemical and biological weapons. This will be seen as an absolute necessity in the face of U.S. power in the region, even if it risks a further confrontation. There is one further factor in all of this--the role of European states. France, Germany and other western European countries have worked quietly and persistently to improve relations with Iran. Moreover, their connection with the country is free of the embittered historical memories that remain from the U.S. role in the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1952 and the embassy siege of 1979?80. The possibility that regime termination in Iraq could then lead on to a confrontation with another part of the ?axis of evil?, Iran, is something that would cause real concern in Europe. It may well be that the real crisis in European?American relations will eventually come not over Iraq, but over Iran. The gravest long-term consequence of the strategy outlined in the President?s State of the Union address is, therefore, that war with Iraq is not the end of U.S. ambitions in the region, but only the beginning. (This article was first published in its entirety on the global issues website www.opendemocracy.net as part of an ongoing debate about Global Security. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University and is openDemocracy's international security correspondent. He is a consultant to the Oxford Research Group. The second edition of his book Losing Control has just been published by Pluto Press.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. Letters and Comments *** FRUSTRATING *** Re: Invasion Can Be Stopped (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301activists.html) The writer of this article is under a number of illusions: that the Bush administration cares what the ?peace movement? says or does, for example. Or what the government of France says or does, for that matter. The war will begin when the troops and weapons are in place. This was obvious as early as early as last spring, when the buildup and the accelerated weapons production schedules were announced. Nothing you, or anyone else, says or does will affect the schedule in the least. Frustrating, isn't it? - S.M. Stirling, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** ISRAEL?S ALTERNATIVE *** Re: Israel What would be the alternative policy for a country, such as Israel, that is surrounded by hostile countries? Anti-semitism seems to have united the Arab nations and most of Europe. The situation with Israel and Palastine is bleak. Extreme members of BOTH sides have committed atrocities. My support leans toward Isreal, most importantly because Israel did not desire to displace Muslim people, the Muslim leaders decided to target the Jews as the Arab enemy. The Arab people, as a people not individuals, will not stop the hatred they feel toward the people of Israel. Europe has backed them up due to a general feeling of anti-semitism and their own financial dealings with Iraq. The international media has decided to ignore the actions of Arabs for the majority of Israel?s existence. Now they focus their sympathy toward the ?poor? Palestinians being harassed by Israel?s military. - A. Sapharas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** TERMINATE SADDAM *** Re: The Coming War With Iraq: Deciphering the Bush Administration's Motives (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301warreasons.html) Michael Klare lists 3 motives announced by the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq: (1) Eliminating weapons of mass destruction, (2) Combating terrorism, (3) The promotion of democracy. However there is another most important reason in most reasonable people's minds: putting a stop to Saddam's career of murder. He has already attacked his own Kurds, his own Shiites, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi, and Israel, using weapons of mass destruction. Add to that, his routine assassination of all who oppose or even comment on his regime. Murder is simply in his nature; a leopard can't change its spots. He will continue to the full extent of his abilities. The UN has had 12 years but has failed to do the job, and in this time thousands more innocent men have been murdered and women suppressed or mutilated and children deprived of a fair upbringing. In the name of humanity, we need to terminate him once and for all. - Ian Bryce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** THANKS *** Re: The Coming War With Iraq: Deciphering the Bush Administration's Motives (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301warreasons.html) Great article. I appreciate the systematic approach to analyzing the Bush's supposed motives as well as the economic and historical context that explains his truer motivations. While I was aware that oil was at the heart of this war, this was the first article that I have come across that really explained why. 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