Mario Tama/Getty Images

The U.S. needs the UN according to a new report by Alistair Millar and Eric Rosand, of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation titled, Building Global Alliances in the Fight Against Terrorism. Both authors spoke on Friday afternoon at the New America Foundation along with Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens. The speakers point out that if we can stress the common security interests of all nations, the UN will once again function as an effective international body. Fighting terrorism is one issue that requires nothing less than the whole world's attention, but it is also a divisive issue. The UN has so far failed to even agree on a definition of terrorism, though Eric Rosand had a good working one: "Politically motivated violence against civilians."

The main argument is that the United States is missing an opportunity to work with the United Nations in its global fight against terrorism. The speakers were careful to stress they are not suggesting the fight be handed over to the UN. Instead, the U.S. should use the platform as underlying support for its existing efforts while maintaining sovereignty over U.S. interests. They believe that many bi-lateral negotiations are perceived as American sledgehammering and may be better received through the lens of third party. Policy recommendations include the appointment of a counterterrorism czar in the White House (non-military in nature), and the formation of a global counterterrorism body.

While I agree that the U.S. cannot "go it alone" in the war on terror, the bottom line is that unilateralism is a direct result of international lack of will. The United States has gone it alone in part because of the inaction of the UN and its member states. Hezbollah is a prime example of this inaction. Under UN resolutions enacted in 2004 and 2006, Lebanese militias were to be disarmed. In April of this year, the security council adopted a presidential statement reiterating this. Instead, over the past few days Hezbollah has taken over half of Beirut.

While I like the idea of a future with international cooperation and committment to fighting terrorism, I think we need to first make sure the international community is interested in bearing the costs to achieve results. And state-sponsored terror is going to be a big obstacle in this process.

Peter Wehner, formerly the head of the White House office of strategery, blogs for Commentary on his recent trip to a conference in Europe:

I came away from the gathering (portions of which I missed) with several broad impressions. One was that multilateralism has become virtually an end in itself. What matters to many Europeans and liberal-leaning Americans is the process rather than the results. What almost never gets discussed is what happens when one's desire for multilateralism collides with achieving a worthy end (for example, trying to stop genocide in Darfur or prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb). The child-like faith in multilateralism as the solution to all that ails the world would be touchingly innocent if it weren't so terribly dangerous.

Do Europeans really have a "child-like faith in multilateralism"? Discuss.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Think your job sucks? Try walking a mile in the shoes of Christopher Hill, who has been the U.S. envoy to the six-party talks since February 2005. For more than three years, Hill has been trying to convince North Korea to shut down its nuclear program and come clean about its nuclear activities.

He's had some success at the former, with the North Koreans agreeing to the dismantling of their plutonium reactor at Yongbyon. But Kim Jong Il's irascible regime has been notoriously coy about acknowledging just what it's been up to on the uranium and proliferation fronts. So, Hill negotiated a delicate workaround: North Korea would acknowledge U.S. concerns but admit to nothing. Then, the United States would remove North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that has all kinds of other legal and financial ramifications. On balance, it seemed like a good idea to at least mothball Yongbyon and learn as much as possible about the nuclear program. Why let the perfect become the enemy of the good? And on a factual level, North Korea hasn't actually sponsored terrorism since 1987.

But now, Hill's careful game of diplomatic Jenga may be coming apart. For months, North Korea has stalled, appearing to want to wait for a better deal from the next president. Last week's allegations about North Korea's nuclear cooperation with Syria appear to have only inflamed building congressional anger against the deal. And it's not just Republicans who were upset. Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted unanimously to require that the White House certify it has gotten a "complete and correct declaration" from Pyongyang. Hill's plan was, to be frank, to fudge it.

One congressional staffer told the Financial Times the White House would go "ballistic" over the committee's move, but the Bush administration still has a chance to convince the full House and the Senate to scuttle it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed, however, that the White House has let Chris Hill run point on these negotiations for a reason. If things fall apart -- as it seems they might -- he can be hung out to dry and blamed for the failure. That would be a shame, because Hill is a real star of the diplomatic corps and somebody America needs to keep around.

MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

Almost any American who has taken Chinese in the past decade should know the phrase "Meiguo ren hen xihuan da guansi" (Americans really like to sue people). It is usually presented as a point of difference between our two cultures, and McDonald's coffee inevitably comes up.

Well, the tables sure are turning. Reuters reports that a primary schoolteacher and a beautician have filed suit against CNN for the allegedly slanderous comments against the Chinese people made by Jack Cafferty. (The crotchety CNN anchor called Chinese products "junk" and the country's leaders "goons.")

The suit asks for $1.3 billion dollars -- $1 per person in China -- for "violat[ing]the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people." Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the suit "spontaneous action" on the part of the Chinese people.

It certainly brings new meaning to the title of Cafferty's book, It's Getting Ugly Out There.

PIERRE VERDY/AFP/Getty Images

You have probably already heard about protests in China over the weekend in several cities against French supermarket chain Carrefour and alleged Western media bias. But there were also demonstrations by the Chinese community on Saturday in five Western cities: Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London and Washington. Xinhua news agency reports thousands of participants in the European cities and hundreds here in Washington. With signs like "Love our China" and "You can't find this from BBC... Stop disrupting the Olympics" there is a clear, organized international effort to get the message out that many overseas Chinese also oppose the affronts to the Olympic games and the related media coverage. The silent protest in Britain attracted 3,000 participants and was the first public demonstration on the part of the Chinese community there.

Recent fervor has demonstrated a strong, unified voice on the part of the Chinese community. And said overtures are producing results: French President Nikolas Sarkozy sent a letter to "Wheelchair Angel" Jin Jing expressing sympathy and regret for her treatment in the Paris torch relay (but no apology).

But the strife continues as yesterday, the Paris city council went over Sarkozy's head and approved the Dalai Lama for honorary citizenship, in addition to recently jailed dissident Hu Jia. While many may call it misguided for its lack of respect for human rights, the Chinese position shows sophistication in political advocacy: Adopt a unified stance and get the widest possible coverage to spread your message. Though the synergy is the result of the people and the government touting the same line, it's an impressive campaign for a country with a state-run media. It's also worth pointing out that, unlike people within China itself, these expats have access to the gamut of information on their homeland, and yet they still feel strongly that the Western view is biased.

Dog bites man. A Commentary magazine blogger slams Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders.

But there's more. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) says it turned down a meeting request from Carter, whom the terrorist group accused of "carrying an American-Israeli agenda." (Funny, most of Carter's critics would say he's carrying water for the Palestinians.) Commentary's Eric Trager says the incident "should finally shatter Carter's credibility as a peacemaker." He explains:

While PIJ shares many of Hamas' militant features–including its coordination of terrorist activities, calls for Israel's destruction, and theocratic aims–PIJ lacks Hamas' social and political significance. It does not have the social welfare network on which Hamas has built its popularity, while PIJ's refusal to participate in the 2006 parliamentary elections points to its minimal public authority among Palestinians.

There are many valid reasons to meet with Hamas, most notably because no peace process can possibly succeed if the Islamist movement is outside the tent trying to blow it up. Carter is right about that, and many Israelis know it. But if it's true that the former U.S. president wanted to meet with the odious PIJ as well, then it shows he hasn't learned a whole lot about politics in his 83 years. To say the least.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, our Web editor, Blake Hounshell, ably deflated some of the optimism surrounding the surge. The security gains are impressive, he contends, but the deadly combination of underdevelopment and overeliance on oil make Iraq's political prospects grim. Far better to cut our losses and focus on Afghanistan ("the real fight against Al Qaeda").

But what is it that Blake would have us do in Afghanistan? If Iraq's political prospects are poor, Afghanistan's must be considered even worse. Afghanistan doesn't have oil (yet), but it is one of the world's least developed countries, with infrastructure decimated by a quarter century of war and no history of effective governance. Why then spend billions and risk hundreds of lives propping up a doomed democratic government?

On Blake's logic, it's hard to see the rationale. Commandos and Predator drones can wage the "real fight" against the al Qaeda luminaries in the Pakistani hinterlands with or without an effective central government. Is Blake then willing to jettison the doomed Afghan nation-building project? And, if not, why not?

Blake also believes that cutting Iraq loose will free up America's taxed diplomats to concentrate on managing the rise of China. This has become something of a mantra on the left recently (indeed, it's almost "drearily familiar"). And it's not implausible -- Iraq is consuming vast quanities of senior executive time and energy. But I've never understood what precisely the United States could be doing vis-à-vis China that the Iraq mission now renders impossible. The U.S. has been engaging China economically, tamping down Taiwanese separatism, and working with Beijing diplomatically on North Korea. In sum, an accomodationist stance designed to guide China toward responsible great- power status. What vast benefit would our China policy enjoy once we've cast off the nettlesome Maliki and millions of ordinary Iraqis with him?

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images

Representative Howard Berman of California has proposed legislation to clear the name of the South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) in the United States government record books. Nelson Mandela, and other former members, need approval to enter the United States as the ANC was once labelled a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and South Africa during apartheid.  The ANC has evolved quite a bit over the years, but did carry out numerous attacks on institutions of South Africa's apartheid regime from the 1960s through the 1980s. The New York Times explains the U.S. stance:

Until recently, State Department officials preferred to grant ANC members waivers for travel to the United States on a case-by-case basis. They feared a more permanent exemption would open the floodgates to similar requests by other former terrorist groups. But that objection apparently now has been wisely dropped."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice found it an "embarrassing matter" to waive travel restrictions on her South African counterparts, let alone the "great leader" himself.  The bill would update entries on the ruling party's members in U.S. government databases. Just in case you missed the neon sign, Hamas and al Qaeda need not apply.

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

It's been one of the recurring themes of the Bush administration: a rejection of the traditional concept of diplomacy as a game of give-and-take in which trading away concessions allows you to get what you want on your top priorities.

Nowhere is this more evident than in U.S. policy toward Russia. Allow me to explain what I mean. The United States and Russia differ starkly on a few discrete issues: NATO enlargement in former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia, the ABM Treaty and the proposed U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) Treaty, Kosovo, the Nabucco trans-Caspian pipeline, and democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, the United States has sought cooperation from Russia on Iraq, Iran's nuclear program, the six-party talks with North Korea, and a host of other issues large and small.

Normally, you might think that the United States would prioritize these issues and make tradeoffs to achieve its most important objectives. But, as President Bush made clear in Ukraine last week, when he said, "There's no tradeoffs, period," U.S. officials don't believe they have to make any concessions. Each issue should be viewed separately and on its merits, they argue, rather than linked. Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to NATO because it's the right thing to do. Russia should not feel threatened by U.S.-backed "color revolutions" in former Soviet republics or by American defense installations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. Russia should accept Kosovo's independence. Russia should cooperate in preventing Iran from going nuclear because a nuclear Iran is not in Russia's interests. And so on.

The only problem is, the Russians have a vastly different view of their own interests. They see U.S. moves, such as trying to convince Turkmenistan to sell its gas to Europe or pushing to bring Georgia into NATO, as extremely hostile acts reminiscent of the cold war. It makes them less willing to cooperate on other issues; it heightens their paranoia and feeling of besiegement, and it strengthens the elements within the Russian strategic class who see geopolitics as a zero-sum game with the United States as their chief adversary. (By the way, these are the same guys who aren't so into the whole democracy thing.) For many years, a failure to take Russian interests into account wasn't an obvious problem because the Russians were weak and took their lumps. But as we're seeing nowadays, they are willing to make provocative moves such as pulling out of the CFE treaty or threatening to split Ukraine when they don't get their way.

Now, maybe Russia is still a paper tiger and its bluster shouldn't dissuade the United States from strongly backing pro-Western governments in Ukraine and Georgia or trying to cut Gazprom off at the knees in Central Asia. Maybe some degree of democratic backsliding was inevitable after the chaos of the 1990s. I tend to think, though, that the United States underestimates how these issues interrelate at its peril. In the real world, there are tradeoffs, and we can't wish them away.

Blake Hounshell is Web Editor of ForeignPolicy.com. He has been blogging this week from the Salzburg Global Seminar session on Russia: The 2020 Perspective.

VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images

It’s official: Macedonians are real, at least according to the U.S. State Department. 

At a NATO Summit Foreign Press Center briefing yesterday, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried was asked by a journalist if his use of the phrase “ethnic Macedonian” during the briefing meant that the U.S. Government has recognized “the so-called ‘Macedonian ethnicity and language."' (briefing video here, skip to 37:15)

As if Macedonia didn't have enough identity issues already, "so-called” comes in reference to the Bulgarian assertian that Macedonian, the language, is nothing more than a Bulgarian dialect written in a Serbian script. 

But Fried would hear none of it:

I don't think it is so-called. Macedonian language exists. Macedonian people exist. We teach Macedonian at the Foreign Service Institute… There is also the historic Macedonian province, which is different from the country. And it's important. It's quite clear that the government in Skopje, what we Americans call the Government of Macedonia, has no claims. We recognize the difference between the historic territory of Macedonia, which is, of course, much larger than the current country.

By refusing to back down on his use of “Macedonia,” Assistant Secretary Fried has just gone where Dustin the Turkey refused to go. 

ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images

As expected, NATO has decided not to extend an invitation to the Republic of Macedonia -- excuse me, I mean "the Former Yugoslav Constitutional Republic of Upper Northwestern Macedonia, Skopje." That's right, Greece stuck to its nationalistic guns on the name issue today, carrying out its threat to block NATO membership if Macedonia didn't agree (and it didn't) to call itself the "Republic of Upper Macedonia," the "Republic of Macedonia, Skopje," or some comparably wordy derivative.

Macedonians didn't take the rejection well. After Greece blocked accession talks, Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski and his delegation walked out of the meeting. Antonio Milososki, Foreign Minister, told reporters:

We are [in Bucharest] today to announce that we are leaving the summit. We feel it necessary to be with our people today.”

Not a bad idea. Their people needed all the comforting they could get. Back at home, Macedonian stocks suffered a record blow, with the Macedonian Bourse Index losing 10.4 percent of its total value after it became clear that the country would not get an invite.

Acceptance into NATO carries great weight for these small, former communist countries. Neighboring President Bamir Topi of Albania, whose country did receive a coveted NATO invitation, proclaimed, "This is the most important decision in the history of Albanian people… With this decision we are definitely separated from Yalta," referring to the 1945 conference of the "Big Three" at which Stalin claimed Albania for the communist bloc. 

But NATO membership is more than symbolic for Macedonia, which narrowly missed a Kosovo-style ethnic war in 2001 thanks to an EU/NATO-brokered peace agreement. The country may now decide to pull out of U.N.-led name negotiations entirely, in which case Greece will repeat its power play on the EU front. If Macedonia is knocked off its current EU accession path because of a Macedonian identity issue, the state's large, pro-EU Albanian minority will not be happy. And all we need in the Balkans is one more unhappy ethnic minority.

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

President Bush's bid to win NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia turned out to be a non-starter. Member states opposed admitting the countries to a "Membership Action Plan," choosing instead to merely issue a non-binding pledge to admit them some day and review their application again in December. (Albania and Croatia did get the green light, continuing the alliance's expansion into the Balkans.) Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rozogin, was quick to declare that the review would alter nothing:

I doubt very much that in less than a year Georgia can solve its territorial problems and Ukraine can change the current proportion of NATO sympathizers," he said.

While it's easy to attack the Russians' motives, he's actually quite right. Half of Ukrainians oppose joining NATO and Georgia is still grappling with decades-old territorial conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both countries believe that NATO membership can help them resolve their internal divisions. European governments were skeptical of this approach from the beginning. Estonian President Toomas Ilves had this advice, based on his own country's experience with NATO membership:

Don't be a Marxist" he said, "and by that I mean Groucho Marx-ist". He reminded the audience of the scene where Groucho Marx walks into a bank with a gun to his head claiming that he'll take his life unless they give him all their money.

But if Georgia and Ukraine's leaders' understandable desire to join NATO makes them Marx brothers, Bush comes out looking like a stooge. It's fairly clear that the primary U.S. goals in Bucharest were gaining support for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and cajoling the Europeans into a greater commitment in Afghanistan. Why Bush would want to distract from these goals with an initiative that was bound to fail from the start is beyond me.

ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the first formal working session on the second day of the NATO summit at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. NATO leaders begin negotiations in earnest over Afghanistan after the opening day of their three-day summit saw a successful French offer of more troops, but a public disagreement over the alliance's enlargement.

As Pakistan's new government settles in, press reports are saying that Husain Haqqani, an FP contributor and a former Carnegie Endowment analyst, will be made Pakistan's next ambassador to Washington. He would replace Mahmud Ali Durrani, a retired general who would become national security advisor. For now, Haqqani has been made "ambassador at large" and the change in Washington isn't expected until June, when Durrani's term expires.

If the reports are true, it's an interesting development. Haqqani has written extensively for FP, most recently in a debate with Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the author of "Think Again: Islamist Terrorism" (along with Christine Fair), "Islam's Weakened Moderates," "The American Mongols," and "Islam's Medieval Outposts." A theme of his writing is a staunch defense of democracy and a plea to do more to help Islamic moderates weaken extremists. He has a lot of friends in Washington and in the media.

When we last interviewed Ambassador Durrani in November, I thought I detected some hedging on his part. He didn't seem entirely confident that Pervez Musharraf would remain the president, nor was he willing to take the usual shots against Benazir Bhutto. Perhaps he was just being characteristically polite. In any case, Durrani appears to be landing on his feet in the new order, so he must have played it smart.

Ireland's decision to send Dustin the Turkey -- a crass puppet who rides around in a shopping cart -- as its representative to the Eurovision Song Contest was met with mixed reviews by audience members last month. But the Irish aren't the only ones calling this turkey "fowl." Once again, because of the Macedonia name issue, the Greeks are up in arms.

At one point in the turkey's song "Irelande Douze Pointe" ("Ireland Twelve Points," in reference to the maximum points each country can give a contestant), Dustin sings, "Eastern Europe we love you, do you like Irish stew, or goulash as it is to you?" then proceeds to list countries in Eastern Europe one by one, including Macedonia (check here for clearer audio -- the lyrics are pretty great).

Ever since Macedonia's independence in 1991, Athens has argued that the name "Macedonia" is a part of Hellenic cultural heritage and that the former Yugoslav republic expresses territorial claims on northern Greece by using it. Now, thanks to Greek paranoia, rumor has it that Dustin the Turkey will have to join the U.N. in calling the country FRY Macedonia ("The Former Yugoslav Republic of...") in his lyrics.

But the name issue gets far more serious on the security front. Macedonia hopes to be invited to join NATO at the Bucharest Summit this coming Wednesday, but an invitation requires the unanimous support of existing NATO members, including Greece. Despite months of U.N.-supervised negotiations, neither Athens nor Skopje seem capable of coming to an agreement any time soon, spelling trouble for Macedonia's NATO aspirations.

Greece may have Macedonia in a NATO bind, but come May we'll see who gets the last Eurovision laugh. With acts like this as the winning standard, it's really anyone's game.

I think the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon is overselling this story of increasing criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's alleged "radical departure from standard U.S. doctrine" regarding negotiating with rogue leaders, but Karim Sadjadpour makes a good point here:

If Obama comes into office in January 2009, I wouldn't advise him" to hold talks with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad quickly, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who said he is generally supportive of Sen. Obama's agenda. "Only two things can rehabilitate Ahmadinejad politically: bombing Iran or major efforts to engage" him ahead of the vote.

My hope is that Obama doesn't literally mean he will sit across the table from Ahmadinejad, but rather that he won't be afraid to negotiate with Iran and will drop preconditions that only ensure that talks will go nowhere. But it's worth pointing out that the United States has tried in the past to ignore Iran's power dynamics and negotiate with its preferred interlocutors. That approach simply doesn't work, because the hardliners will work to torpedo any deal that doesn't include them. Plus, they've got Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on their side, and he's the big boss. There will be no deal without his approval.

State Department officials John Negroponte and Richard Boucher are in Islamabad for what sounds like an extremely uncomfortable meeting with Pakistan's new government. Pakistan People's Party advisor and FP contributor Husain Haqqani made it clear that things ain't what they used to be for the Americans in Pakistan:

If I can use an American expression, there is a new sheriff in town," Mr. Haqqani said. "Americans have realized that they have perhaps talked with one man for too long."

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

Whether Dmitry Medvedev's presidency will resemble Vladimir Putin's is an open question, but according to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the two men resemble each other physically as well.

At a meeting at Putin's official residence on the outskirts of Moscow on Tuesday, 79-year-old Mubarak told Putin that the physical similarities with Medvedev were almost uncanny.

"Your appearances are very much alike," Mubarak said before heading in for talks with Putin.

"When going to meet Medvedev, I saw you on the television and felt at a loss as to who is who."

We should, perhaps, cut one of the world's oldest leaders some slack, but Putin and Medvedev obviously look nothing alike. Besides, there's a handy trick for telling your Russian leaders apart: Ever since Lenin, the country's rulers have alternated between bald men and those with hair.

(Hat tip: Johnson's Russia List)

China has announced that around 100 countries have voiced moral support for its recent actions against Tibetan protestors (Tibet's exile government claims 130 protestors have died). Xinhua, China's state news agency, ran a list of some of the said 100 countries (more here) -- and oh, what a list it is.

Highlights include:

• North Korea and Turkmenistan: both of whom actually managed to do worse than China in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index last year.
• Côte d'Ivoire: the number six Failed State (2007), dubbed "one of Africa's most dangerous countries for both local and foreign media" by Reporters Without Borders.
• Syria and Belarus: both recently proclaimed as among the worst human rights offenders by the U.S. State Department -- again, outdoing China.

In a list like this, the inclusion of Serbia actually seems to improve legitimacy levels.

Though the list may seem unsavory, Xinhua explains in a story today that German, British, and American media are actually full of lies. Through a series of "truth" and "lies" stills taken of Western media coverage of the recent riots, Xinhua makes a good case for why support from an up-and-coming superpower like Lesotho is far more valuable than say, a vote of confident from Nancy Pelosi.

(Thanks to Passport reader AS for the tip.)

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the United States' pitiful efforts at public diplomacy. Maybe the State Department just isn't being creative enough:

Japan has created an unusual government post to promote animation, and named a perfect figure Wednesday to the position: a popular cartoon robot cat named Doraemon.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura appointed the cat an "anime ambassador," handing a human-sized Doraemon doll an official certificate at an inauguration ceremony, along with dozens of "dorayaki" red bean pancakes — his favorite dessert — piled on a huge plate.

Komura told the doll, with an unidentified person inside, that he hoped he would widely promote Japanese animated cartoons, or "anime."

"Doraemon, I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to deepen people's understanding of Japan so they will become friends with Japan," Komura told the blue-and-white cat.