the last light of 2006 fast fading, it's time again to consult the
crystal ball and see what's on the horizon for our troubled world in
the New Year. Here are a few of the issues which will dominate the
headlines in 2007.
Terrorism: Though effective counter-terrorism has
largely been successful during the past year, one can't assume Islamic
jihadists won't hit again in the USA or Western Europe. Rationalizing
the causes of extremism will not temper the white-heat hatreds of
al-Qaida terrorists toward the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Iraq:
Clearly the USA is losing the political will to sustain military
commitments in Iraq. This is not the fault of the U.S. military which
has performed admirably but has been hampered with too many political
constraints. The Democrat party controlled Congress will press for a
quick solution which will sadly lead to a flawed outcome. It's
incumbent that the Iraqis learn to assume security functions themselves
as the U.S. will begin a phase out. Still any precipitous American
pullout will embolden the radicals and ensure even wider Mid-East
instability.
Nuclear Proliferation: The dual crises in both
nuclear North Korea and soon to be nuclear Islamic Iran has jolted the
global community into awareness and trepidation, but has paralyzed
effective counter measures save for some economic sanctions on North
Korea and on Iran.
Through the quaintly titled Democratic
People's Republic of Korea has few international allies and less global
support, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il plays the role of a
wild-eyed villain and gets plenty of "space." China's game is
duplicitous. While working with regional powers such as Japan and U.S.
to manage the Korean crisis, Beijing appears to also profit from the
fact that its erstwhile comrades in Pyongyang threaten the status quo
and thus preoccupy the attention of Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is different. Teheran is a major petroleum
producer and thus holds an energy card and trading position with much
of Europe. Though Iran is not ethnically Arab, it does have wider
support throughout the Islamic world. While the West Europeans remain
"deeply concerned" over Iran's nuclear ambitions, those concerns and
tepid sets of sanctions will not deter the atomic ayatollahs from
single mindedly pursuing the bomb, nor Teheran's president
unambiguously declaring that "Israel should be wiped off the map."
Regional: Back to the Balkans! Kosovo, the overwhelmingly Albanian
ethnic region of former Yugoslavia should finally attain its
independence from Serbia. While Russia has delayed the process over the
past months, it appears that Moscow has little to gain from close ties
to Belgrade, but will certainly use Kosovo's status as a tradeoff for
other issues. The U.N. Security Council must approve Kosovo's future --
this is not a done deal.
Equally Gaza and the Palestinian
territories remain a political tinderbox as ruling fundamentalist Hamas
forces face off with the more "moderate" Fatah factions. Lebanon too,
after the crisis of the past summer faces renewed pressures from Syrian
backed elements trying to destabilize this small democracy.
Energy: The most dangerous development I believe is Vladimir Putin's
increasingly authoritarian Russia playing its energy cards with
neighboring countries. Natural gas price hikes and cutoffs to Ukraine
and Georgia have carried crudely implicit threats to places like Poland
and Hungary. Given that West Europe has eagerly become dependent on
available Russian energy, one has to question the political price of
dependency?
Moscow's mega-supplier Gazprom is set to become
the second largest supplier of natural gas to France. Similar deals
have been done with Italy and Germany. Already Gazprom supplies 98
percent to Slovakia, 80 percent to Hungary, 70 percent to the Czech
Republic, and 60 percent to Poland. Plainly stated, Putin is using the
energy pipeline arteries to Europe to weave a web of dependency,
coercion and control.
The United States too has a dangerous
dependence on foreign petroleum, not only from the Middle East. Events
in Venezuela, a major oil exporter, clearly point to red flags as the
recently re-elected left wing regime of Hugo Chavez will inevitably
clash with Washington.
Humanitarian: Unquestionably the
continuing humanitarian crisis in Darfur merits both the most attention
and indeed the most outrage. The Sudanese regime has continued to
hinder and hamper humanitarian assistance to the troubled region. Over
the past few years, a minimum of 225,000 civilians have died and a
further two million people have been displaced. United Nations relief
efforts have been effectively blocked by a Khartoum regime flush with
oil money and secure in its political support from Beijing.
Efforts to expand upon a small and largely ineffective African Union
peacekeeping force have been in checkmated in the U.N. Security Council
where a callous combination of Arabs and the PRC continue to block a
serious intervention force. Look for face-saving steps but Darfur
appears doomed. Some people are too polite to use the word genocide.
Nevertheless with all these cautions, I still say Happy New Year!
John
J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and
defense issues. Metzler can be reached at jjmcolumn@att.net
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