Christmas and terrorism

Being a festive time, it is natural that the Arcadian side of Christmas should normally be stressed. But this year finds people here and abroad in fear of the threat of terrorism, and the world at war against terrorism's perpetrators and supporters. In those circumstances it is perhaps more appropriate to reflect on the element of danger in the birth narratives and what Christmas offers by way of response to a world marked by division, hostility and violence.

That response is overwhelmingly one of optimism and hope.

Joy to the world and peace to men of goodwill," the angels are said to have declared on that first Christmas night.

This may seem like little more than foolishness or, at best, a sentimental distraction from the harsh realities of life as we know it. But the Christmas story, like the Christian project upon which it is based, is a work in progress. It points to what can be so that we not resign ourselves merely to what is.

What can this mean? First to the families and friends of the victims of last year's Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and, more recently, of the bombings in Bali. For them there will be little joy this Christmas and scarce goodwill toward those responsible for these atrocities. Still, those who accept the Christmas story are comforted by the knowledge that God shares their pain. -- The Sydney Morning Herald

Christmas in Bethlehem

This is a sad Christmas in the Holy Land. Bethlehem, the city that represents peace and hope for Christians around the world, is today a measure of how far the world remains from redemption. The threat of terrorism emanating from Bethlehem has forced Israel to defend the lives of its people and send its soldiers back into the city of Jesus' birth. And so instead of finding its streets aglow with joy, those pilgrims able to reach the city are confronted with symbols of war and destruction.

Israel desperately wanted to avert this crisis. In August, Israel gambled with the lives of its people and restored rule in Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority, which promised to prevent terror attacks from the area. It was supposed to be a test case of the restoration of PA rule in other West Bank cities.

In November came the results: A suicide bomber from Bethlehem detonated himself on a No. 20 bus in a Jerusalem neighborhood, killing 11 people, ages 67 to 13.

Caught in the crossfire of a seemingly endless conflict, the Palestinian Christian community is facing arguably the worst crisis in its long history in this land. No group embraced the Oslo process with as much hope as did the Palestinian Christians, who saw peace as their only chance for the survival of their community. Now, though, emigration has accelerated and an ancient community faces a tragic diminishment. -- The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem

Reform in Iran

Two-thirds of Iran's population is under the age of 30 and that generation is not satisfied with the state of things. They are not satisfied with the reforms of the current system. They want democracy. They want freedom of speech and openness.

The real optimists even draw a parallel with Poland, where national protests began to drive the first nails into what later became the coffin of the Soviet Union.

Naive? Yes, probably. The bitter truth is that the conservative forces in Iran still can crush nearly any expression of discontent whenever they want. But -- you could point out -- so could the Warsaw Pact's security services.

There is definitely something new in what we see in Iran. They (the students) believe that the problem can be found with the country's own regime, not with the "Great Satan."

The name of the solution is democracy at home, not aggression against the rest of the world. This is a mental change that will be hard to withstand in the long run. That was proven during the liberating of Eastern Europe. -- Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden

On the Iraq crisis

Tony Blair has told British troops to prepare for war. President Bush has declared that he is doubling the number of U.S. troops in the Gulf. The carefully orchestrated announcements in Washington and London heighten a growing sense that war against Iraq is inevitable. This is precisely what we need to guard against over the next few weeks: Being dragged into a conflict on the grounds of inevitability, all previous concerns brushed aside by the momentum of the military build-up. ... This debate must not end just because Bush and Blair are preparing for war. The war has not begun. There is no discernible trigger for such a conflict. A breach of the UN resolution requires that Saddam Hussein conceals information on weapons and fails to cooperate with the UN inspectors. ... Nothing is fully resolved. There is still time to reflect on the appalling dangers of the war before we find ourselves fighting it. Most immediately, the dangers are to the Iraqi civilians who have already suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of Saddam. Under the guise of coming to their rescue, the U.S. threatens to kill some of them. Of course, that is not the intention of a military attack, but it is the inevitable consequence. ... A risky venture against Saddam would be justified if there were conclusive evidence that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he was refusing to destroy them in light of the weapons inspection, and that he was planning to use them. Currently, on all three counts, there is no excuse for an attack. Instead, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the previous policy of containment and deterrence was working. -- The Independent, London

Iraq's arms declaration

As Washington determined that there was a material breach in the Iraq declaration about its weapons of mass destruction, Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, had a more equivocal point of view. Blix found the declaration incomplete. He was cautious in choosing his words and at no time did he claim that there was a material breach with regard to UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Great Britain was also circumspect in evaluating the 12,000-page Iraqi document. London as well made no claim that whatever is wrong or missing in the Iraqi submissions warrant going to war.

As for the rest of the Security Council members, including Russia, France and china, it was clear to them that Iraq has not yet committed the kind of breach that would justify military action. Against this backdrop, the outcome of the ongoing debate and confusion about the next steps to be taken by the international community will depend on how Baghdad cooperates in having its scientists questioned outside the country. This very point could end up being the straw that breaks the camel's back. -- The Jordan Times, Amman

On U.S.-Mideast peace

U.S. President George W. Bush's renewed commitment to Mideast peacemaking, which he made during a meeting of mediators in Washington on Friday, is bound to make little, if any impact on the ground. The focus of the meeting of the quartet of mediators was to mull a long-touted plan for defusing more than two years of Palestinian-Israeli tensions and revitalizing peace talks.

The blueprint, marketed by its authors as a "roadmap to Mideast peace," was set to be declared during the Washington gathering. But for no good reason, the U.S. chose to shelve it, much to the dislike of the other partners. Washington is widely believed to have opted for postponement under Israeli pressure. The Jewish state is primed to go to the polls Jan. 28. So, the incumbent government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is unwilling to have its agenda put to the test before the world. The U.S., it seems, has succumbed to Sharon's wish, despite the mounting turbulence in the region.

This attitude shows time and again where the U.S. stands as far as the Middle East problem is concerned. The American tilt toward Israel is partly blamed for the grave proportion the situation has assumed. -- The Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, Egypt

U.S. and North Korea

By ridding itself of controls put in place by the International Atomic Agency, the Pyongyang regime, member of the "Axis of Evil" denounced by the White House, will have done Washington a favor by default. Since even the powerful Americans are forced to treat prudently a rogue state that posses the atomic bomb, Pyongyang's provocation confirms that it is urgent to stop any Iraqi contamination. Preventive action, Washington's new doctrine, represents the ideal remedy because the cure precedes the illness.

Preventing Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction is thus but an adaptation of the old adage, "When one wants peace one prepares for war." Punishing Baghdad in January or February 2003 means to avoid, in ten years, the explosion of an uncontrollable conflict.

North Korea sees in its bomb nothing but a weapon of deterrence.

On the contrary, Saddam wants the bomb to impose his will upon Iraq's neighbors. Like he tried two times before by invading Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. -- Le Figaro, Paris

North Korea's moves toward restarting a nuclear power plant

North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-il, is playing a dangerous game.

He is trying to provoke the United States with nuclear threats until it is prepared to renew negotiations. Step by step, he has deliberately escalated the crisis over recent months.

With every headline in the international media, the pressure grows on the United States and its allies to deal with the near- bankrupt communist regime.

Pyongyang sees here a chance to squeeze economic or political concessions out of the United States.

This is a dangerous game of poker, because Washington, for lack of other ideas, could fall back on bombing plans from Bill Clinton's time.

So far, George Bush has said he does not want a military solution to the crisis in North Korea -- unlike that in Iraq.

But with every new act of defiance by Pyongyang, Washington's argument that diplomacy can achieve something in the case of North Korea is weakened. -- Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, Germany

On the freedom to criticize American foreign policy

There is a danger ... that people will become afraid to criticize any aspect of American foreign policy, lest they be branded "anti-American." That, at any rate, is the conclusion many will reach after reading of Sen. Patty Murray's experience.

Sen. Murray's (D-Wash.) crime, it seems, was to make an ill- worded and rather silly speech last week to a high school in Vancouver, Washington, that was then excerpted by the Colombian, a newspaper in Vancouver, Canada. By the weekend, the chairman of the Republican Party in Washington state had publicly questioned Sen. Murray's patriotism.

According to the Colombian, she said that Osama bin Laden has "been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

Sen. Murray got a few things very wrong.

Nevertheless, there is a deeper point that Sen. Murray, with extraordinary ineptitude, seemed to be trying to make -- a point that is worth preserving: At the very least, it ought to be possible to discuss America's image in the Islamic world, and the kinds of mistakes the United States has made there.

This is a point worth debating, and no one should be called "unpatriotic" for bringing it up. -- The Washington Post