In world's hot spots, forward steps

The dawning new year has been witness to good news from a number of the world's most protracted conflicts and dangerous trouble spots.

Promising developments are suddenly marking the global landscape: between nuclear powers India and Pakistan; in Sudan, where rebels this week reached an agreement with southern rebels that could end Africa's longest civil war; in Libya, which recently announced it would give up its unconventional weapons programs to reenter the community of nations; in US-Iranian relations, with Iran agreeing to international inspection of nuclear sites; and even in North Korea, which this week offered to freeze its nuclear programs.

While foreign-policy experts generally remain cautious about linking these events too closely or about assigning them a common catalyst, they do see some common threads:

• Economic imperatives. Libya and Sudan, both hobbled by US economic sanctions for promotion of international terrorism, are anxious to clear the way for foreign investment, particularly of US companies in their oil sectors. Iran, which bowed to European Union pressure for inspections, wished to avoid prospective international sanctions. And Pakistan is desperate for improved economic relations with both India and the US.

• Religious terrorism. Many of the countries that are party to one of the "good news" developments have either sponsored or tolerated ambiguous relationships with Islamic extremists, but are now reassessing those ties. Just as Saudi Arabia considers last year's bombings in Riyadh "our 9/11" - a wakeup call that has prompted measures against home-grown terrorists - Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf is seen as motivated in part by two recent attempts on his life by Islamic extremists. And Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, who knows something about international terrorism, appears to prefer the company of the international community to that of religious terrorists who could threaten his own regime.

• The WMD factor. The focus that the US and the world community has put on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction since Sept. 11 has, at the least, forced countries with nuclear programs and unconventional weapons goals to weigh the costs of those pursuits.

Beyond this, foreign-affairs analysts say that the confluence of forward steps will feed Washington's ongoing brouhaha over diplomatic versus military power.

"The debate in Washington is over whether all of this is a product of tough Bush administration policies and the war in Iraq, or whether it's more the result of multilateral diplomatic pressures and things like economic sanctions having an impact," says Charles Kupchan, a foreign-policy expert at Georgetown University.

Page: 1 | 2