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| Author: | Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations |
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July 22, 2007
Miami Herald
Many people around the world are indulging in what the Germans call ‘‘schadenfreude:’’ pleasure at the suffering of others. The pleasure appears to be derived from the suffering the United States is enduring after four years of efforts to stabilize Iraq.
On one level, that reaction is predictable. Resentment of the wealthy and powerful is hardly new. But the United States in the last few years has compounded this reaction by what it has done and how it has done it.
For some, it was the decision to go to war in Iraq; for others, it was Guantánamo and the perceived double standards of American justice. For still others, it was the lack of sustained effort to bring about peace between Israelis and Palestinians or U.S. opposition to the International Criminal Court and to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The result is that anti-Americanism has grown in both reach and intensity.
Roadside bombs
Still, any satisfaction at the problems the United States is undergoing in Iraq is shortsighted and sure to be short-lived.
Every government in the world has a stake in the future of Iraq and the stability of the Middle East. Terrorism bred in Iraq will not stay there. Those men and women who learn to make and detonate roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad will ply their trade elsewhere in the region and beyond.
Even without a wider conflict, what happens in Iraq will affect the price of oil. Iraq is producing oil at levels below what it produced under Saddam Hussein, and has the potential to double or even triple output.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
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