The flawed belief that exposure of a number of drug cheats will destroy the credibility of the Games has been dropped. Making the Games transparently clean is the best chance for the long-term success of the Olympic movement. The very strength of US teams at the Olympics implies special responsibilities. Right now, US Olympic officials stand between the IOC and a clean Olympic future. Iraq and oil sanctions International sanctions against repressive regimes, even when initially justified, tend to be problematic.
Sanctions are sometimes ineffective and they often hurt the wrong people.
It is difficult to maintain international solidarity, or to get agreement on when to call them off. The case of Iraq illustrates all these points. A decade after stringent economic measures were launched against President Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War, the dictator remains defiantly in power. It is not he and his ruling clique who are suffering, but the ordinary people of Iraq. Divisions within the United Nations over what is to be done are widening as oil prices soar to the highest levels in 10 years.