Selig S. Harrison and John H. Cushman
12/13/2010

The North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island was just the latest act in a long series of naval clashes between the two Koreas resulting from a dispute over the Yellow Sea boundary imposed by the United Nations forces. The authors say to end the dispute the United States should redraw the sea boundary, called the Northern Limit Line, moving it slightly to the south. They show how President Obama has this authority as a result of a 1950 United Nations Security Council resolution. This would help defuse tensions and keep the peace and can help lead to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Harrison, the author of “Korean Endgame,” is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy. Cushman, a retired Army lieutenant general, commanded the United States-South Korean First Corps Group from 1976 to 1978.

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Peter M. Beck
11/24/2010

North Korea’s attack on the South yesterday is a sign of internal pressures on the regime in Pyongyang and a warning that America’s current approach isn’t working. Beck considers realistic goals the international community can pursue to maintain stability on the Korean peninsula. He says the problem posed by Pyongyang will only resolve itself permanently once the Kim regime no longer rules. Until then–and despite efforts to destabilize the regime with sanctions, we can’t necessarily assume that day will come soon–the rest of the world needs to adapt to the reality of a North Korean regime in flux and, on yesterday’s evidence, prone to violent outbursts.

Beck is the Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi research fellow at Keio University in Tokyo.

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Maureen Dowd
11/24/2010

Dowd looks at the recent news that the US and Britain had been negotiating for months with a fake Taliban commander. She says this illustrates the futility of the war there because this illustrates the extent of the cluelessness we have about the Afghan culture. The Russians’ failure there should have been a warning to us about the odds of winning a war in Afghanistan because they were far more vicious than we are and were culturally much closer to the region.

Dowd is a New York Times columnist.

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Zalmay Khalilzad
10/20/2010

Although Pakistan has and continues to do a lot of good in the war on terror, it continues to give only sanctuary and support to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani terrorist network. This hampers American military efforts while contributing to American and Afghan deaths and has helped to sour relations between the two countries. Current American policy with Pakistan is not working. Washington must offer Pakistan a stark choice between positive incentives and negative consequences. Khalilzad offers a number of examples.

Khalilzad, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the president of a consulting firm, was the ambassador to Afghanistan, Ira, and the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration.

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Yossi Klein Halevi
10/14/2010

Halevi considers Israeli Defense Minister Barak’s attempt to persuade the Netanyahu government to extend a freeze on settlement building. For all the ambivalence toward the settlements, Halevi says there is good reason why the Israeli government should heed Defense Minister Barak’s advice and extend a settlement freeze. A freeze would prove that the obstacle to Middle East agreement isn’t the settlements–blueprints exist for resolving the settlement issue in a comprehensive peace agreement–but eather the more basic refusal of the Palestinian leadership to accept the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty over any part of the land.

Halevi is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a contributing editor of the New Republic.

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Robert Wright
9/29/2010

Wright says the route to peace in the Middle East may be pursuing a one-state solution, which could lead to a two-state solution. Palestine could force peace by giving up on violence as a tool of persuasion, giving up on the current round of negotiations, and holding demonstrations in which people ask for only the right to vote, stating that if they live under Israeli rule, and Israel is a democracy, they should be part of it. Such a peaceful approach would gain international support and would force Israel’s hand. Leaving the problem unresolved is only keeping Israel on the path to catastrophe.

Wright is a New York Times columnist.

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Rufus Phillips
9/27/2010

The administration should be in no doubt that unless corruption in Afghanistan is curbed at the national and local level, we are going to lose the war. Association with the CIA has given some Afghan officials a sense of impunity, which threatens Gen. Petraeus’s hearts-and-minds effort. Fighting corruption doesn’t mean publicly shaming Karzai or dramatically arresting his top officials. Backroom persuasion and pressure by Gen. Petraeus and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, would be more effective.

Phillips is the author of “Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned” (Naval Institute Press, 2008).

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Charles Krauthammer
9/10/2010

The Obama administration has wisely designed upcoming talks with Palestine and Israel to deal directly with the real issues in the region. Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is prepared to give up the West Bank, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is prepared to give up his home in exchange for a real offer of peace from the Palestinians. The problem is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state. Abbas will refuse to participate in the talks at all unless the settlement freeze, imposed by Obama, is not renewed on September 26. A reason not to participate in the negotiations would actually work in Abbas’ favor. If he is not present, he can not agree to any concessions. Abbas knows how to undermine even the most well-designed negotiations.

Krauthammer is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign and domestic policy and politics.

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Thomas L. Friedman
5/26/2010

Friedman says it is wrong for Brazil and Turkey–democracies who have overcome military rule in their past–to embrace Iran because Iran crushes democratic freedom. The nuclear deal these countries struck with Iran weakens the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its facilities to UN inspectors and legitimizes Ahmadinejad on the one-year anniversary of crushing the Iranian democracy movement that had demanded a recount of Iran’s tainted elections.

Friedman is a New York Times columnist.

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