The plight of the people of the Gaza Strip has shocked world opinion. The Israelis are bombing, rocketing and shelling and have now invaded a narrow slice of land that is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. They have killed hundreds and wounded many more. Inevitably, some of the victims (perhaps 20 percent) have been civilians. The Israeli government sees them as collateral damage - a military euphemism that includes women and children who happen to be too close to an intended target. The Palestinians call them martyrs.

Who started this deplorable, lopsided battle, and why? When will it end? To understand what is happening in Gaza you have to peel away the layers of propaganda, myth, political spin, distorted history and misunderstanding that hide the brutal reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the most obvious level, it was the Palestinians of Gaza who provoked the Israelis by refusing to renew a six-month truce before Christmas and fired hundreds of crude rockets at Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip. In fact, they had been firing rockets for years, even during the truce. When Barack Obama visited one of the targeted Israeli towns in July, he quite sensibly said, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect the Israelis to do the same thing.”

The Israelis did just that last week when they unleashed their military power in a long-planned offensive to stop the rocket attacks and cripple Hamas. The fact that Israel is holding a general election next month increased the pressure for action. Even left-wing Israelis (though not Israeli Arab citizens) were demanding action.

Of course the entire 1.5 million population of the Gaza strip is not responsible for firing the rockets. They are the work of militants backed by or at least tacitly approved by Hamas, the Islamist party that currently rules Gaza. But it is safe to say that most of the population applauds attacks on Israel.

If Israeli officials actually believe (as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insists) that their military onslaught will force Hamas to stop the rockets or persuade the population of Gaza to stop supporting Hamas, they are delusional. Each Palestinian killed in this crackdown strengthens political support for Hamas.
The Palestinians, too, are facing possible elections this year, and one of the main reasons the Islamist militants of Hamas provoked Israel into launching its offensive was to weaken the moderate wing of Palestinian politics. They wanted to show that only Hamas can stand up to the Israelis - by luring the Israeli armed forces into a war it cannot win.

Why can’t Israel win? After all, in the first week of the assault, the Israelis killed roughly 100 Palestinians for every Israeli killed by the rockets. Yes, but the Palestinian militants have been able to keep firing rockets, and have even upped the ante by firing longer range missiles that have hit more distant towns, such as Be’er Sheba, which were previously out of range. The disproportionate number of Palestinians killed is a price Hamas is willing to pay in order to score political points.

It all sounds like a rerun of the disastrous Israeli aviation campaign and invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Then, it was rockets fired into Israel by another Islamist militant party, Hezbollah, that lured the Israeli army into a ground campaign. By managing to keep on firing rockets into Israel, Hezbollah shattered the myth of Israeli invincibility. It made the Israeli army look like losers.

One of the reasons Israel is now using such force against the Gaza strip is to restore the deterrent power of the Israeli Defense Forces. From a strictly strategic point of view, Israel doesn’t need to be loved by its Arab neighbors. It needs to be feared.

Of course, the Israelis (like the Bush administration) would like to see regime change in Gaza, but that seems unlikely. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party was defeated by Hamas in an election in 2006 and then driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, would look like a traitor if he returned to Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank. He has already offended his own supporters by cracking down on anti-Israeli protests in the occupied West Bank.

But once you have peeled away all the layers of this Middle East conundrum, you get to the heart of what it happening in Gaza and what it represents. I will quote what a Palestinian taxi driver said this week to a British reporter. The Palestinian was from East Jerusalem (living under Israeli control) and not from Gaza. He explained, “We have the right to fire those rockets because people (Jews) came and stole our land.”

That’s the core reality of the Middle East conundrum. Two peoples believe they have a right to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Moderate Palestinians say they are willing to settle for an independent state with the old 1948 borders, but a Palestinian state geographically divided between Gaza and the West Bank would barely be viable. And the Israelis know the 1948 borders would put Jerusalem and Tel Aviv within easy rocket range of the Palestinians.

What’s happening in Gaza now is part of that bigger, basic problem, to which there are no easy answers. This small Gaza war will go on until both sides can figure out how to end it without looking like they have lost. And the longer the war lasts, the more propaganda points Hamas will score. The fundamental problem will not be resolved. The end result will be another ceasefire after the loss of hundreds of lives.

If that’s a gloomy outlook, at least it seems realistic. History teaches us that pessimism is the default view in the Middle East.

On a bitter cold day in Moscow, my heart pumping with excitement, I broadcast a bulletin from a window overlooking Red Square. It was Christmas, 1991:

Good day from Moscow. I’m Tom Fenton, CBS News. President Mikhail Gorbachev moments ago announced his resignation as President of the Soviet Union…

Excerpts from Gorbachev’s speech were flashed to a waiting world. He gave assurances that “the totalitarian system has been eliminated” and that “free press, freedom of worship, representative legislatures and a multi-party system have all become reality.”

I concluded the bulletin with these thoughts: And so ends one of the most remarkable careers in modern history. In almost seven years in power, Gorbachev ended the Cold War, and brought the beginnings of democracy to his country. And although it wasn't his intention, his reforms spelled the end of both the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin to pick up the pieces.

I watched as the red flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, and in the next few days, saw the Soviet Army disintegrate and civil war break out in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

On New Year’s Eve, in another broadcast from Red Square, I took stock of the state of Russia as it entered a new era. I spoke to a homeless woman begging for herself and her baby. She prayed for God’s blessing “so that people here can live like people in the West.”

I explained to the broadcast audience: Right now, Russians are living in limbo, still earning communist wages but about to be subjected to capitalist prices. No one knows how much a bag of groceries will cost on Thursday when the government ends a 70-year price freeze.

In the months and years that followed, I watched Russians hang on to their hopes for a better life as their country went through a roller coaster ride of political and economic ups and downs. Whether it was an attempted coup provoked by the Communists or a financial crash and devaluation provoked (at least partly) by bad advice from the West, the Russians learned to put up with it as they always have through centuries of turbulent history.

Although the Russian government is still riddled with corruption, cronyism and incompetence (as it was under communism) and the country’s health system is appalling (not much change there either), life has improved for most Russians, especially the urban population.

At first, it was just the delight of being able to speak freely. I recall an elderly Muscovite who stood outside an imposing building not far from the Kremlin, and watched in wonder as his fellow citizens ransacked the empty offices of the Communist Party. He told me he remembered when the Bolsheviks came to power, and said he never thought he would see them leave. I will also never forget the KGB major in a town outside Moscow who told me, “You know, President Reagan was right. It was an evil empire.”

Later, Russians tasted the pleasure of being able to travel where they wanted, or could afford to go. You see them these days in many of the best hotels, and most of the less expensive tourist resorts of the world. A growing middle class in the major cities has begun to “live like people in the West.” Someone answered the prayer of the poor woman whom I met on Red Square in 1991.

Oil and raw materials have fueled most of this boom, and the worldwide crash in the commodities and financial markets now threatens to stall Russia’s remarkable economic growth. Russians will likely learn to muddle through this setback as well. They are hardly alone in this recession.

They admire their leader, Vladimir Putin, who after nine years in power as President and now Prime Minister still enjoys popularity ratings that most other world leaders could only dream of. He has tried to impose a greater degree of law and order on a chaotic country. He has also muzzled much of the news media – especially television news – but Russians pay more attention to their rising standard of living than to the quality of their evening news.

Russians also say they like the way Mr. Putin stands up for their country. He tells them that Russia is back on the world stage, that it is once again a strong nation, and after the humiliating weakness of the 1990s, is once again respected. Russians like to hear that, whether or not it is actually true.

In fact, Russia is not yet a Western style democracy, nor does it have an efficient and competitive economy. Its system of government is still deeply flawed, but it has become a more normal country – one that looks after its own national interests and no longer tries to convert the world to a Marxist system. Most Russians just want peace and prosperity. They hope the new American administration will see their country in that light, rather than through the outdated prism of the Cold War.

President-elect Obama has a new pen pal, but seems to have doubts about how to respond to him. It may have come as a surprise when he received a letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, congratulating him on his election victory. It was certainly unprecedented. No Iranian leader has sent a congratulatory letter to an American leader since the 1979 Iranian revolution. But Mr. Obama had said during his campaign that he was ready to talk with America’s enemies without conditions. So the Iranian president took him at his word.

The President-elect may now be having second thoughts. He told reporters he is “aware the letter was sent” and he would be “reviewing it.” Mr. Obama has a lot on his mind right now. Rescuing the banks, the auto manufacturers and the families about to lose their homes tops his list. Since he doesn’t have much time to devote to foreign affairs, here are a few insights that might help him decide how to handle his new pen pal.

First, when it comes to the matter of whether to speak to the enemy, both President Ahmadinejad and President-elect Obama have been getting conflicting advice. On the Iranian side, some of the hardliners think it makes no sense to talk with the United States because it will never recognize the Islamic Republic. Others, including Iran’s top official Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are ready to put everything on the negotiating table, including Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. And some officials prefer to wait and see what Mr. Obama has to offer after he gets into office.

There are similar divisions of opinion in Washington. The hawks want to squeeze Iran harder by tightening economic sanctions and pre-positioning more aircraft carriers and other military forces within striking distance. They prefer threats and ultimatums to diplomacy. On the other hand, some foreign policy experts recommend offering Iran security guarantees and economic cooperation if it stops its nuclear program. They prefer top-level, unconditional talks. Obama’s own advisors seem to prefer starting talks at a lower level and seeing how things go.

Much of this advice is confusing and not particularly helpful, but there is one suggestion Mr. Obama is likely to follow. The Bush Administration floated the idea last summer of opening diplomatic relations at a low level by sending consular officials to Tehran. That’s the kind of card Obama should play for openers. Here’s why. The idea of the United States government reopening a consulate in Tehran makes the Iranian government distinctly uneasy. One Iranian official recently remarked to a French foreign correspondent, “It would be a public relations catastrophe to see hundreds of Iranians lining up to apply for American visas.”

Most Iranians are fascinated by our way of life and culture. As the editor of the Iranian magazine “Dialogue” explained to the French reporter, “Iranian society is the most pro-American in the Middle East.” Any American who visits Iran can confirm that. Pirate DVDs of American films sell like hotcakes on the streets of Tehran. Current favorites include not only Oliver Stones’ “W” and Leonard DiCaprio’s “Body of Lies,” but also such un-Islamic hits as Antonio Banderas in “My Mom’s New Boyfriend.” Of course they are sold under the counter. Officially, American culture is considered a threat to the Islamic Revolution, but in fact it is tolerated. Many Iranians watch the Persian language television broadcasts of the Voice of America. They also love to buy U.S. Army uniforms, or copies of them, in back street shops. It’s seen as cheap chic.

Few Iranians pay attention nowadays to the fading “Down with America” posters on public buildings. They are more interested in signs posted in the windows of the city’s internet cafes that advertise “APPLY FOR AMERICAN VISAS INSIDE.” Almost 2,000 Iranians recently won green cards in the annual worldwide lottery conducted by the U.S. government. In addition, the United States gives a number of the brightest Iranian science students scholarships to top American universities including MIT and Stanford. Few go back to Iran after they graduate. More than two million Iranians now live in the United States. And by the way, half of the officials in the last Iranian government (headed by President Mohammad Khatemi from 1997 to 2005) had studied in the U.S. Iranians formed the biggest contingent of foreign students in America before the Islamic Revolution.

I could go on, but you get the point. Tearing down trade walls and removing barriers to cultural and personal contacts could be a powerful move for Mr. Obama to make than sending in the gunboats. An American offer to renew consular relations would be hugely popular with the Iranian public, so it could be hard for the Iranian government to refuse. Perhaps that’s why the Iranian president wants to be nice to Mr. Obama and hopes that the new American president will reciprocate. President Ahmadinejad may be a notorious hardliner, but he is also a savvy politician and is running for re-election next June.

The United States and Iran have a number of critical issues to settle. The most important of course is Iran’s uranium enrichment program which could, theoretically, give it enough material to produce a primitive bomb by 2010. Mr. Obama said in his first post-election press conference, “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable.”

He could of course threaten to use military force against Iran, as some hawks and Israelis would like to do. But it might be more effective to bomb Iran with visas.

As President-elect Obama prepares to carry out his promise to pull the troops out of Iraq, Iraqis are worrying about how their country will manage once the Americans go home. Will Iraq be plunged into another round of bloody civil war? Will it break up into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states? Will it survive as a Middle Eastern-style dictatorship, or emerge from the nightmare of foreign occupation as a truly democratic country?

No one can be sure at this point, but some well informed and thoughtful Iraqis fear that the last option – the American-style democracy that the Bush administration wanted to impose on them and for which so many American soldiers gave their lives – is the least likely.

The Bush administration boasts that the Iraqis have held several free elections since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and will vote again on January 31st in provincial elections. But real democracy is more than the process of electing officials. It’s a cultural norm that determines how citizens and their leaders behave after elections. By that standard, Iraq’s elected leader, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, falls far short of the mark.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, an Iraqi journalist who is currently studying at a London think tank, says “Maliki is not Saddam yet, but he is half-way there.” He points out that Maliki hands out cash to people on the streets like some medieval monarch and blacklists journalists who fail to grovel and feed his personality cult. In short, he says, the prime minister is guilty of “autocratic behavior that should have been purged from democratic, post-Saddam Iraq.” Saddam may be history, he says, “but not so the language once used to praise him, or the behavior of his successors.”

Another disillusioned Iraqi, Dr. Ali Allawi - a distinguished intellectual who held high posts in several post-Saddam governments - says Iraq is now a “semi-authoritarian, semi-democratic” state that is “very unstable.” He says his country went through a “vicious civil war” last year – a power struggle between Sunni and Shia Iraqis that the Shias clearly won – and that now the Maliki government is “entirely dysfunctional.” It has a number of anti-corruption commissions that are “entirely corrupt’” and electoral commissions that are “totally partisan.”

Allawi says the current government is kept in power by oil revenues and what he describes as the aggressive American effort to control the country. He believes that a sustained drop in the price of oil to around $40 as barrel would have a “catastrophic effect” on the government, and warns that although Al Qaeda in Iraq has been weakened, it has not disappeared. Although he is pessimistic, he does not believe the most likely end result will be another civil war, or that the country will fall apart. Instead, he believes the post-occupation Iraq may end up as a semi-democracy dominated by powerful Iraqi families, with Iran playing a large role in its affairs.

That would be better than the brutal Saddam dictatorship President Bush crushed. But it would not be a brilliant outcome, considering the huge Iraqi death toll and the trillion or so dollars and more than 4,000 American lives the Iraq campaign has cost the United States. Future historians will judge whether it was worth the cost.

When Barack Hussein Obama places his hand on a Bible next month, most of the world will see his inauguration as a defining moment in history, the beginning of a new era. The non-white majority of mankind will feel a thrill of recognition and a common bond of humanity with the youthful, charismatic, dark-skinned newcomer on the world stage as he swears to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. Europeans will breathe a sigh of relief at the end of an era in which American leadership was sadly discredited.

There will be some who will be less than thrilled of course. Russians have bad memories of their national humiliation during the Clinton years, and are not happy that Hillary Clinton will be the next Secretary of State. Arabs who view the United States through the prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict see the selection of Rahm Emanuel to be the next White House Chief of Staff as a bad omen because of his close ties with Israel.

South Americans question whether the new administration will change Washington’s tendency to patronize and neglect its southern neighbors. But all in all, most of the world will be expecting President Obama to lead the United States in a new direction.

Change was the platform on which Mr. Obama ran, and won. But if we can judge from what he has done so far in preparing to take office, change is not what he will deliver. There will be a big change in style of course. President Obama will lead by example and inspire by the power of his persuasive rhetoric. He will make people feel good about themselves and about America. But he is not likely to make radical changes in American policy. Change was his campaign slogan. Continuity is likely to be his presidential policy.

American presidents are elected by American voters, not by the world. Mr. Obama did not receive a huge mandate. As he himself points out, he won by 53 to 47 percent of the popular vote. He will need the backing of a larger majority of the American public. That means he will need to reach out to Republicans and independents who supported Senator McCain. He will need to strengthen the right wing of his coalition. Therefore, he will conduct a centrist foreign policy.

A successful president needs to be flexible and change policies when facts change. President Bush governed as if he had a huge mandate to pursue a right-wing, hawkish foreign policy. And when that proved to be a mistake, he remained inflexible until the latter part of his second term, when he began to adjust his strategy in Iraq and became less confrontational in relations with America’s friends and enemies. But by then, he had lost the support of the American public and the Congress. He lost the ability to govern. President Obama seems to be too good a politician to make that mistake.

Of course, the Obama administration will make some important changes in the way the United States government does business. President-elect Obama will close the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison as soon as he can manage, and that will please world opinion. He has promised to end some of the other abuses that were committed in the pursuit of Mr. Bush’s war on terror, especially the use of coercive interrogation techniques that amount to torture. But the Obama new look will be more a change in style rather than a radical reorientation of America’s long term goals and interests.

The biggest change in foreign policy is likely to be a change of emphasis from hard power to soft power – from an inclination to use guns to a greater willingness to use diplomacy. Mr. Obama has promised to open up consulates in the toughest parts of the world and to double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012 (although he has begun to lengthen that timetable as a result of the financial crisis). Defense Secretary Gates has even suggested taking money from the Pentagon budget and giving it to the State Department to pay for increased diplomacy and aid.

That would not change the world, but it may be as much as a new President can do when he faces trillion dollar problems at home.

You could feel the power shifting from the 43rd to the 44th President as Barack Obama stepped onto the stage in Chicago to announce his new economic team and reiterate his priorities for America. Even though the transfer of power will not occur officially until January 20th in Washington, the United States now has two Presidents.

Arthur Levin, former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, commented afterward: We have a shadow administration in power, in play, acting in a constructive and cooperative way with the Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson. We cannot afford a lost two-month period where public confidence would disappear.

This wasn’t the way Mr. Obama had originally intended to manage his accession to the most powerful job in the world. The mantra of his transition was “America has only one president at a time.” He wanted to remain on the sidelines until he had all his ducks in order. He would name his national security team first, to prepare for what was thought to be the most dangerous threat during this period of transition. Then he would roll out his economic team. But events made him scrap his well-ordered plan.

As Mr. Levin bluntly put it: We have an administration that is virtually powerless, certainly a President whom nobody listens to. So, with hundreds of billions of stock market dollars vanishing into thin air and more big banks threatening to collapse, the next president decided he couldn’t wait any longer. Two months before his official inauguration, Mr. Obama grabbed the reins from the feeble hands of Mr. Bush.

In effect, it is Mr. Bush who has become the shadow president. From now on, Mr. Obama will be setting the national priorities and making the big decisions. He consulted with Secretary Paulson on the new bailout of Citigroup, when the huge bank was about to collapse. And he gave the next Congress its marching orders: put Americans to work and create 2.5 million new jobs. He intends to hit the ground running.

The rest of the world is anxiously watching to see how this transition will play out. The foreign leaders who gathered in Washington earlier this month for the economic crisis summit were deeply disappointed when Mr. Obama refused to meet with them. They knew where the power really lies. It’s on the shoulders of a 47-year-old ex-first term Senator who is about to be tested as no other American president has been tested since World War Two.

They also know that all their talk about the failure of American-style capitalism and the downfall of the world’s leading economy is mostly just talk, aimed at electorates who are seeking a scapegoat for the pernicious recession that is dragging down the world economy and trashing most countries’ economic plans. Despite the recent prediction of the U.S. National Intelligence Council that the United States will no longer be the sole superpower by 2025, it is still the world’s biggest, most inventive and robust economy. The United States may have led the world into recession, but it will also lead it out.

And the wishful thinking by other nations’ central bankers about the dollar losing its position as the world’s leading reserve currency is also premature, to say the least. Just ask all those Russians and French and Brits who have been selling their national currencies to buy dollars. Even the Chinese, who manufacture most of our goodies and whose economy is predicted to surpass America’s some day, put more faith in the dollar than in their renminbi.

To get back to Arthur Levin - who seems to be a no-nonsense, blunt-spoken man who knows what he is talking about - his reaction to Mr. Obama’s seizing the initiative this week was unequivocal. He called it a smart move. Let’s hope he is right.

The last time I visited Afghanistan, four years ago, Kabul was a town where you had to be streetwise and careful not to wander around alone in certain neighborhoods, but it was hardly more dangerous than some of America’s rougher inner cities. Today, foreign visitors find the Afghan capital more problematic and an increasingly difficult place to work. A Western aid worker was recently shot dead by terrorists while walking to her office. The Taliban have cut off three of the four major routes linking Kabul to the rest of the country. The city is edgy, expecting the worst.

What has gone wrong since President Bush toppled the Taliban?

The popular view is that the Bush administration launched another – unnecessary – war in Iraq that drained resources from the campaign in Afghanistan. That’s partly true. But the basic problem is that the United States never put enough men and money into the campaign in the first place. President Bush tried to pacify, stabilize, and rebuild Afghanistan on the cheap. The Russians could not do it in the 1980s with three times as many men. The British could not do it at the height of their imperial power in the 19th century. President Bush ignored the obvious lessons of history and never made the required effort, which would have strained America’s military resources even without a second war.

And that brings us to the present situation in that barren and unmanageable country. Fly over Afghanistan and you will see that it is mostly desert wilderness and bare mountains with isolated communities that lack the communications and cohesion to make a unified state. Try to travel over it by land and you will find that even the new highways that are being built with Western aid are usually too dangerous to drive on without extreme precautions. The much vaunted schools that have been built with Western aid often lack basic supplies, and in the more dangerous areas of the country, lack students as well because of threats and attacks from the Taliban. Even the supply lines for U.S. troops in Afghanistan are now under attack by insurgents based in the Pakistan border areas. Last week, militants linked to Al Qaeda hijacked a convoy and stole Humvees and other American military vehicles. This has been the worst year for Taliban attacks and American casualties since the war began.

Most Afghans see President Hamid Karzai as a weak and incompetent puppet of the Americans and his administration as corrupt. Afghanistan in reality is, and has always been, a patchwork of independent tribal fiefdoms that are not controlled by the central government. Bribery is a way of life. You can buy an Afghan tribal leader - but only until someone else comes along with a better offer.

That’s what General David Petraeus, the new head of the U.S. Central Command, is thinking of doing. He would like to do deals with the more “reconcilable” elements of the Taliban, and recruit them to work on the government’s side, just as he did with Sunni insurgents in Iraq. That has worked in Iraq (at least for the moment) but may not work in Afghanistan. The Taliban leadership insists it will not talk to President Karzai until foreign troops leave the country.

The military effort to stop the insurgency clearly has not worked. When the American-led coalition attacked Afghanistan, it never really defeated the Taliban on the ground. They simply slipped back into their villages when U.S. warplanes pounded them from the air while northern Afghan tribesmen pushed south into the capital. In the years that followed, the Taliban have adopted the classic guerrilla tactics that made the Russians give up and go home. Without enough troops to defeat the Taliban on the ground, the United States again turned to air power as a cheaper solution, but that has backfired. The civilian casualties caused by these air strikes have turned clans and tribes against the Americans and helped the Taliban recruit more insurgents.

So where does America go from here? For one thing, it’s Mr. Obama’s war now – or will be on January 20th. He has promised to put more troops into Afghanistan, but that alone will not “win” the war. Many observers believe a decisive military victory is not possible with the limited manpower the Pentagon now has at its disposal. America’s coalition allies may be more willing to help Mr. Obama than they were President Bush, but they are unable to commit enough troops to make a difference.
That leaves a negotiated settlement as the only alternative: talking with those Taliban who are willing to listen, bribing and co-opting as many tribesmen as possible, and enlisting the cooperation of Iran and Pakistan. Iran is no friend of the Taliban and may be ready to help the United States find a way out of its predicament as part of a larger settlement of other issues including Iran’s nuclear program. Pakistan may be a tougher problem because it has become a sanctuary for both the Taliban and al Qaeda (apparently including Osama bin Laden).

In the end, the Obama administration may have to abandon the ambitious Bush goal of turning Afghanistan into a Western-style democracy. That was always unrealistic, given the archaic nature of Afghan society. The United States may have to settle for something like a loose federation ruled by a strongman elected by an assembly of local warlords. That’s not the most desirable solution, but if such a government can control the Taliban, it’s not the worst solution - which would be a lawless Afghanistan that harbors al Qaeda and threatens America’s interests.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may be asked to stay on in the next administration, seems to favor negotiation and reconciliation with America’s enemies in Afghanistan. “At the end of the day, that’s how most wars end,” he says. “That’s ultimately the exit strategy for all of us.”

What is the most urgent foreign policy challenge facing President-elect Obama as he prepares to take over the reins of power? How to stop Iran from building an atomic bomb? How to withdraw from Iraq? How to defeat the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan? How to respond to threats from a resurgent Russia?

Answer: It is all of these, because they are all linked in one way or another, except perhaps for Afghanistan, which may be a war America cannot win and eventually will abandon (more about that at a later date). If the new president puts a foot wrong in any one of these foreign policy crises – say, Iran or Russia – that could have devastating consequences in other areas – Iraq, for example.

Let me explain. Mr. Obama needs to find a way to honor his campaign pledge to pull combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months. He has already given himself some wiggle room by stating that he will consult with the Iraqi government and U.S. commanders on the ground before making any decisions. But we can assume he wants the troops out as soon as possible. The only way to do that without simply handing over Iraq to Iran on a platter is to make a deal with Iran. His administration needs to talk with Iranian decision makers, and he has indicated a willingness to do so. The Iranians are also ready to talk. Hard-line Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly congratulated the president-elect on his victory. The Iranians haven’t done that since the United States broke relations with them 30 years ago.

What kind of a deal could the United States make with Iran? Both sides could agree to political arrangements that neither side would prefer, but which would leave Iraq with a government that is neither pro-American nor pro-Iranian.

What could the US offer Iran to induce it to give up its goal of becoming the hegemon of the Persian Gulf? Any deal would have to include guarantees that Iraq will no longer threaten Iranian security (as it did in the 1980s) and that the U.S. will abandon its goal of regime change in Iran.

What could Iran offer in return? Most importantly, it could agree to international controls to reduce the likelihood that its nuclear power program would be used to produce nuclear weapons. Some experts believe the Iranian regime has intended all along to use its nuclear program as a bargaining chip.

Could something like this be in the works? Possibly. The Israelis have dialed back their rhetoric. They now say that Iran is two to five years away from producing a nuclear weapon, reducing the immediate threat of an Israeli air strike on Iran’s facilities. And the Bush administration, after employing threats, bluffs and sanctions to get Iran to budge on the nuclear issue, has recently gone quiet on Iran. There are even rumors that Washington is thinking again about establishing low-level diplomatic relations with Tehran, an idea that administration officials floated last summer but that went away after the Russians fought with the Georgians in South Ossetia.

That brings us to Russia, another player in this multi-dimensional game.

Since the brief war in South Ossetia, tension has increased sharply between the U.S. and Russia. Both have been playing tit for tat. Washington is provocatively pushing ahead with plans to install American anti-missile bases on Russia’s borders. Russia has responded by announcing it will install short range missiles in Kaliningrad on NATO’s borders. But what must worry Washington most are Russian hints that it might sell weapons to Iran. One way to defuse that threat would be to seek a compromise with Russia on the issue of the American bases, perhaps offering to include them in a joint Russian-NATO anti-missile system. It would be easier for the United States to reach a deal with Iran over the future of Iraq, if Russia is cooperating rather than playing games.

Mr. Obama will face extraordinary and highly complex challenges abroad from the day he takes office.
One way President Bush could ease the way for a smooth transition would be to go ahead and establish some form of diplomatic relations with Iran before he leaves office. That would take the political curse off the move and help a new and unproven president who will be under fire from the Republican right if he appears weak when faced with foreign threats. Lord knows, Mr. Obama will need all the help he can get.

Foreigners love to criticize the American system for electing a president. They point to the length of the campaign, its absurd cost, the buying of favors with campaign contributions, the relatively low voter turnout, and the complicated and flawed election machinery (with hanging chads and armies of lawyers disputing the results) that produced the unloved Bush administration. And yet when America needs an exceptional leader, the system works. In this election, it worked brilliantly.

America’s president-elect is not just a black politician who happens to be a charismatic speaker. He is an exceptional leader – the kind that may appear once in a generation – who happens to be black. Nations sometimes produce great leaders in their hour of need. Think of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Barack Obama has the potential to attain that status.

It is unlikely that he would have made it to the presidency under the systems prevalent in most Western, democratic countries. He began the long race to the White House with no backing, no money and a single speech at the 2004 Democratic convention that marked him as exceptional. If America chose its presidents like France does, for example, the Democratic party grandees would have presented Hillary Clinton to the voters as a take it or leave it choice. Here in Britain, the cradle of parliamentary democracy, the system for electing leaders is even less democratic. Prime Minister Gordon Brown got his job through a deal made with his Labor party colleague, Tony Blair, at a London restaurant more than a decade ago. The two of them simply decided who would take office first.

As it happened, Hillary Clinton was the Democratic party favorite, the anointed candidate, but she ran a shambolic primary campaign that produced a muddled message and endless bickering among her staff.
Senator John McCain – a war hero and a highly likable person with a reputation as a Republican party maverick – made it to the top of the Republican party ticket by refusing to quit in the face of daunting odds. But he also kept changing tactics as he looked for the right message to click with voters. He showed flawed judgement when he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate, and he lost his cool when the stock market crashed.

Senator Obama, on the other hand, ran the best organized campaign I ever saw. He raised phenomenal amounts of money – lots of it from small donors – through highly efficient use of the internet. His message of hope was consistent from start to finish, and when he was confronted with the worst American financial crisis since the Great Depression, he showed a steady and unflappable temperament. He made it to the top through the relentless public scrutiny of a two-year campaign that tested all his rivals and exposed their strengths and weaknesses. Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” I am tempted to say the same thing about America’s electoral system. The longest and most expensive presidential campaign in American history produced the best president-elect.

His racial background will make him a role model and a healer at home. That, and his charm and grace will make him an instantly popular American president abroad, after the troubled years of an administration that has made America an international symbol of arrogance and double standards. As a Middle Eastern ambassador told me this week, these past eight years have been “very difficult for America’s friends.”

Now the question will be whether this unusual 47-year-old can meet the high hopes and expectations he has raised at home and abroad. The short answer is no. It will simply not be possible to resolve in the next few years all the problems left by the Bush administration. Moreover, America’s fundamental national interests will not change. There will be inevitable conflicts of interests with both friends and enemies. But America will present a new face to the world, and a new style. That will be a welcome change.

Most Americans may not have noticed that Africa is on the verge of another bloodbath. The American media have been concentrating their news coverage on the U.S. election and pay little attention to the unfolding tragedy in eastern Congo. Voters are naturally more focused on the possibility they might lose their jobs or homes than on the likelihood that thousands of Africans will be raped and murdered. Too bad for the innocent Congolese who are fleeing a rebel army. The world has turned its back on them.

Congolese government troops are no match for the better armed and trained rebels. There are even reports that the Congolese Army is looting and raping as it pulls back from the rebel assault. That leaves only UN peacekeepers to stop the violence, and when push comes to shove, the UN troops have proved to be spineless.

The UN Security Council sent peacekeeping troops to Congo after the main fighting in the Congo War ended in 2003. They number 17,000 - the UN’s largest peacekeeping force - and helped contain and reduce the level of violence until recently. Now they are retreating from the rebel assault along with the Congolese Army, and seem more concerned for their own safety than for the civilians they were sent to protect. Hapless Africans who are fleeing for their lives have been throwing rocks at the UN tanks and armored vehicles that clog the roads in a mass retreat from the rebel onslaught. One can understand their frustration.

UN officials in Congo are appealing to the Security Council for more troops, but few countries seem willing to send volunteers. France suggested sending a European Union force of a few hundred men, but several other European countries oppose the idea. No one seems to be listening to the small voice of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who warns the rebel offensive is “creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions that threatens dire consequences on a regional scale.”

He cannot be accused of exaggerating the danger. If anything, his warning is an understatement. Tens of thousands of villagers are now fleeing in panic, and humanitarian agencies in the city of Goma - the UN’s principal base in the country - say there is a risk that more than a million refugees who have been displaced from their homes in the past two years could be cut off from aid.

The 1998-2003 war in Congo – which some call the “African World War” – is estimated to have cost more lives than any other conflict since World War Two. Eight other African nations were sucked into the fighting, and up to five million Africans died from violence, hunger and preventable diseases. The war was a deadly mixture of ethnic tensions and greed, fuelled by a lust for Congo’s diamonds and other mineral riches.

The Congolese rebels who are now advancing on Goma are Tutsis – members of the same ethnic group who were slaughtered by their rivals, the Hutus, in the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Rwanda is now run by a Tutsi-dominated government and is accused of providing military support for the rebels. The rebels are threatening to continue their offensive all the way to Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, and take over the country.

The rebel push threatens once again to draw in other African countries. The government of Congo is appealing to Angola to intervene and come to its aid. The bloody history of Congo seems to be repeating itself.

This is a complex conflict. It is hard to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys, but there is no question that there will be another explosion of violence in Congo if other African countries become directly involved. Something could be done to stop it. Western media could shine a brighter light on this dark corner of Africa. Western countries that provide aid to the region could use their influence to try to prevent a wider war, even if they refuse to send peacekeepers. But the rest of the world is preoccupied with its own problems. No one seems to care enough to stop another bloodbath.