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U.S. Response: Antiterrorism Efforts to Top U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda Now that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has cooled down, the Bush administration plans to restore its foreign policy focus to combating terrorism and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to the Boston Globe. U.S. officials will again pressure rogue nations to hand over suspected terrorists and stamp out terrorist training camps, as well as press for arms nonproliferation. During the past 10 days, the Bush administration has sent pointed messages to Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon urging them to do just that, the Globe reported. “The war in Iraq has made many other countries nervous, and the administration hopes to capitalize on that in the coming weeks and months,” a State Department official said. “Maybe it will work in some cases, but in the case of North Korea, they seem to have us over a barrel as much as we do them,” the official added (see related GSN story, today). Some critics have charged the Bush administration with not using a principled approach to fighting WMD proliferation. “They are viewing proliferation selectively,” said Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyst Jon Wolfthal, “By the administration’s own words, it’s not proliferation that’s the threat, it’s proliferation with the bad guys. It’s OK if India has nuclear weapons, but not OK if North Korea has them.” On the terrorism front, aside from al-Qaeda, the administration’s main targets are Hezbollah, formed in the 1970s to combat Israel’s incursion into Lebanon, and Hamas, the Palestinian organization that has stationed some of its offices in Syria. “The administration is clearly putting the word out, ‘We’re taking down these terrorist organizations; you better step aside and not support them anymore,’” said Jay Farrar, a former senior U.S. military official. “Hezbollah has been around for 25 years. They make al-Qaeda look like a bunch of rookies in some ways. After this administration goes after Hezbollah and Hamas, then they will tell the Israelis … it’s time to accommodate the Palestinians,” he added (John Donnelly, Boston Globe, April 23).
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