Transnational Issues

In an effort to help the United States counter al-Qaida after the 9/11 attack, Iran rounded up hundreds of Arabs who had crossed the border from Afghanistan, expelled many of them and made copies of nearly 300 of their passports, a former Bush administration official said Tuesday.

The copies were sent to Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, who passed them on to the… more

Washington, DC - The next U.S. president, whether Republican or Democrat, will face serious questions about American policy toward the threat of Islamist extremism, one of the most important security challenges of the 21st century.

On October 10, six panels of leading policymakers, journalists, law enforcement officials, and scholars will explore and debate what steps the next administration should take in combating al… more

Washington, DC -- The next U.S. president, whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama, should reorient American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon transformed American policy toward the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s.  This is the argument put forth by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett in "Time for a U.S.-Iranian… more

...The implications from denying Turkey an avenue to the European Union are not limited to damaging Turkey, however, but also diminish Europe itself. As Parag Khanna affirmed, “Europe increasingly needs Turkey,” which he defines as representing a “geopolitical asset (that) Europe cannot do without...” LINK

Full article . . . Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said the military buildings that make up Plant 821 were probably unusually strong compared with civilian structures. “I’d rather have been in the reactor building than a grade school” on Monday when the quake struck, he said. The site’s various plants “were built as military facilities, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if,… more

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. . . "This is more and more becoming a Sunni-Shi'a conflict. It really does feel like Iraq," said journalist Nir Rosen in a conference call with analysts and reporters at the New American Foundation.

"Sunni militias, backed by the Future Movement, formed over the last year, and have been a complete failure, perhaps because they were fighting for money. They just disappeared and caused a great sense of betrayal and shock among Sunnis," said Rosen,… more

Financial Express | India Doesn’t Count Yet

US — a second world nation? The thought may be radical to most, but that’s exactly what Parag Khanna, fellow at New America Foundation argues in The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, saying the 21st century will be dominated by three first-world superpowers: the United States, China and the European Union. And they will compete for resources in nations in east Europe, Latin America and… more

NPR | Syria Revelation Could Affect N. Korea Nuclear Talks

. . . But it remains to be seen whether Thursday's intelligence briefing in Congress will help or hinder the negotiations.

Jeffrey Lewis, who runs the Web site armscontrolwonk.com, says it's clear that the briefing is meant to undermine the negotiations.

"Members of Congress who have been pushing hardest to have this information declassified — or at least put out into the public domain in some form or another… more

NPR | America's Waning Influence in 'The Second World'

Parag Khanna believes that America's dominant moment is over. In his new book, "The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order," he argues that the 21st centruy will be dominated by three first-world superpowers: the United States, China and the European Union. . .

The prominence of transnational issues in the first part of the 21st century cannot be understated. Energy politics, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the substantial shift of power from the West to Asia--all are changing the parameters in which policy and investment decisions… more