The Nation: State of the World 2008

article | posted December 24, 2007 (web only)
State of the World 2008
Barbara Crossette


Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations' top troubleshooter and mediator for more than a decade in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Africa and Haiti and the chair of a panel that produced a landmark report on the limits of UN peacekeeping, has often been an incisive and unrelenting critic of American foreign policies. But for many around the world, he ranks as a touchstone wise man in international affairs. He was recently invited to join The Elders, a small private group of global statesmen and former government leaders.

Brahimi, now a director's visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he is framing some thoughts into a possible book, is an Algerian who began his diplomatic career in Southeast Asia, representing the country's independence movement against the French from 1956 to 1961. He went on to become ambassador of independent Algeria in London, Cairo and Khartoum, and undersecretary general of the Arab League. From 1991 to1993 he was Algeria's foreign minister, before turning to international service as a leading UN envoy and administrator in countries in crisis.

Educated in law and politics in Algeria and in France, where he now has a home, Brahimi was a major player through the late 1990s in negotiations with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and returned in 2004 as the UN representative in Baghdad responsible for helping form a transitional Iraqi government under US occupation. He is also remembered for his shepherding of Afghan factions through the Bonn agreement that restructured the country after the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.

In a conversation over several hours in Princeton, Brahimi spoke about what should come next in Iraq and how the regional powers must step up, in their own self-interests, to unite in helping the Iraqis establish stability. He assessed the evolution of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, suggested how the US miscalculated in Afghanistan and Washington's failure to address effectively the core crisis of the Palestinians. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/crossette

repeatedly -- that we need to work with not only Iraq, but also Iran and Turkey. This admin thinks the problems it causes are isolated - it fails to see the interconnectedness of it all.

Even though, as Brahami said, the US has shamed the UN, I'm hopeful that our next administration will pull from this resource and re-establish a working relationship. We need each other.

It is American arrogance, that causes it to profess that it must train a population that had a higher level of literacy, for both men and women.