The U.S. involvement in Iraq is having a detrimental impact on America's foreign policy objectives and more attention needs to be paid to keeping order in America's other foreign endeavors.
Six-party talks with North Korea ended without agreement yesterday. On the agenda for the five powers talking to North Korea this Friday is whether to continue the six-party negotiating format, or to go over to something else. They're waiting to find out what impact last month's U.S. elections will have on America's foreign policy.
Sudan has until December 31st to accept a U.S.-brokered deadline to admit United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur or else face "consequences." But we don't have an ambassador at the U.N. right now to keep up the pressure. Stronger resolutions were opposed by some of the other veto-wielding nations on the Security Council.
Iran faces a weak U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to their nuclear enrichment program, or other (undefined) steps will be taken, leaving Iran free to do what it wants. The same powers (Russia and China) also threatened to veto the entire resolution if it wasn't watered down.
Political mistakes and manipulations by the Bush Administration in the Iraq War are backfiring big time right now. When January comes around President Bush needs to have a master plan to deal with all of these critical foreign policy situations. And this should not include unilateral military approaches to dealing with the issues.
For instance, when December 31st comes and goes, the U.S. shouldn't announce that it alone is imposing a no-fly zone over Darfur to force compliance with the U.N.'s wishes when the Sudan tells the international body what to go do with itself. And Sudan is going to do exactly that.
It also shouldn't abandon the talks in favor of unilateral miliary action against Iran or North Korea. We have one major war going on, one smaller war, and not enough available ground troops to handle much more. At this stage of the game, we won't be able to help South Korea with sizable U.S. ground forces if North Korea decides on one final gamble to settle the score with South Korea. All of our heavy divisions are tied up elsewhere.
And if Washington chooses to settle the Iran question with force of arms, it's likely that U.S. forces in the region will be fighting the Revolutionary Guards in Iraqi and Afghan cities as well as the insurgency, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
America's enemies are taking full advantage of the fact that the Iraq War is a tar baby and the U.S. military's strongest arm is already stuck. This perceived weakness is what is driving Iran and North Korea to be sure.
All of these problems can be dealt with if we have a cohesive strategy for Iraq, followed by a withdrawal and retooling of the U.S. military to put Iran and North Korea in their places.
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