Theresa Cimino

From: Stape Roy [jsroy@kmaglobal.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 8:22 PM
To: Theresa Cimino
Subject: Re: HAK's FDP speech

Theresa, I read the draft and think it is a terrific presentation. I have
no substantive comments to make.

Stape

...... Original Message ......

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:40:40 -0400 "Theresa Cimino" <tcimino@kmaglobal.com> wrote:

>
>Dear Stape:

>
>Dr. Kissinger is currently working on a speech that he will be delivering in early May in Germany to the Congress of the Free Democratic Party. I have to fax this draft to his hotel in Chicago at the end of the day today, but he wondered if you could read it over and give him just "a quick impression of what you think." He said not to go to any great effort, but any comments would be helpful.

>
>Thank you,
>Theresa
>[FDP speech-1.doc]

2292 words

4/11/05

# The Atlantic Community's Global Strategy

by Dr. Henry Kissinger

Speech to the 2005 Congress of the Free Democratic Party
of Germany

On the Occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the End of World War II
Cologne, Germany

May 5, 2005

It is an honor for me to speak before this gathering of the Free Democratic Party. The FDP, the "Liberals," - in the old sense of the word, that is, liberalism and freedom in the economy and in society - has produced many statesmen of distinction through the course of German history. I have had the honor of working with the post-World War II generation: Foreign Minister, and later Bundespresident, Walter Scheel; his successor, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher; and Economy Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff are names that I remember not only as indispensable partners but also as personal friends.

In the United States, "Liberals" in the old FDP sense of the word, have dwindled as a political force. "Liberal" has taken on an entirely different meaning in today's American political discourse, being associated with the wing of the Democratic party that, on the whole,

2

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favors a more active role for the state in the management of the
economy.

The sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War is a
momentous and sobering occasion on which to speak. Hans-Dietrich
Genscher was a young sapper in General Wenck's 12th Army in those
final days of madness during the Battle of Berlin. I first got to know
him almost thirty years later, as Foreign Minister in Helmut Schmidt's
government. For three years we forged a close working relationship,
one that I very fondly remember. Genscher's impact on twentieth-
century German history was enormous. Genscher was a brilliant
tactician, a practical negotiator, who never let the goal of German
unity escape from his vision, yet pursued that goal with a flexibility
that made that very goal attainable. Beyond from his dexterous
leadership of German foreign policy, I shall always value Hans-Dietrich
Genscher's friendship. It was a friendship that was offered
generously, and one that has been held to loyally for thirty years.

I have described Hans-Dietrich as a tactician, but it is necessary
also to stress his permanent act of faith in Germany. A good example
is that he made all the foreign ministers with whom he dealt promise
to accompany him to Halle once Germany was reunified. Most agreed
to do so; their hearts sympathizing with Hans-Dietrich, but their heads
doubting that it would be accomplished in our lifetime. Genscher's

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faith prevailed, and I owe to it participation in a very moving
ceremony when Hans-Dietrich invited [Mikhail] Gorbachev and me to
visit Halle two years after unification.

Otto Lambsdorff is another outstanding representative of the
FDP whose friendship has meant much to me over the years, and who
indeed convinced me to speak to this party Congress. I have admired
his wisdom, valued his opinions and respected his dedication for all the
years [I have known him].

This sense of comradeship has characterized relations between
Europe and America for half a century after the end of the Second
World War, during the administration of every President in the United
States and every German Chancellor, regardless of party.

For someone of my generation, the recent disputes between the
two sides of the Atlantic are therefore especially painful. I am happy
that some progress has been made in restoring a working relationship.
But it remains true that, partly as a result of decisions and mistakes on
both sides of the Atlantic, party as a result of changed conditions, the
issue of the nature of Atlantic partnership has become more
controversial than ever before. Europeans criticize America for too
great a propensity to resort to force. Americans charge that
Europeans insist on a greater voice in decisions without being willing
to assume corresponding responsibilities.

4

Having seen the growth of German-American friendship out of
the conflicts of the Second World War, I continue to believe in the
[lasting] importance of the Atlantic partnership. To be sure, there is
no longer a clear-cut military threat as there was during the Cold War.
But the nature of the challenge is perhaps more complex [and] surely
more global. And I believe that the democracies have a common
destiny and must seek to solve these issues cooperatively. They must
not return to the competitiveness that nearly destroyed Western
civilization in two World Wars.

I will sketch some of the issues before us. I will do such as I
would to an American audience. In my view, the issue is not
unilateralism against multilateralism. It is the ability to devise a
common purpose. When it exists, the issue of unilateralism cannot
arise.

## Terrorism

The issue of terrorism has been clarified in recent years. It is
becoming clear that it must be dealt with preemptively in the sense
that, if our societies are to live in safety, the social issue is to prevent
terror attacks, not to punish [the terrorists responsible] after the
event. There is also a growing understanding that, insofar as states
sponsor the private groups that are the essence of terrorism,
preemptive action is justified. But what remains the subject of debate

[Y]

5

is how to establish the international framework for such actions. It is
not possible in the long run that each nation defines the nature of
preemption unilaterally. Some common multilateral method for doing
so must be devised. The Atlantic alliance could make a major
contribution by working out such a concept for its members.

Non-proliferation

All Cold War administrations navigated in the awful calculus of
deterrence: the certainty that the decision to use nuclear weapons
could involve tens of millions of casualties, coupled with the awareness
that a demonstrated willingness to run this risk - at least up to a point
- was essential if the world was not to be turned over to ruthless
totalitarians. Deterrence worked because there were only two major
players in the world. Each made comparable assessments of the perils
to it from the use of nuclear weapons. But as nuclear weapons spread
into more and more hands, the calculus of deterrence grows
increasingly ephemeral, and deterrence less and less reliable. It
becomes ever more difficult to decide who is deterring whom and by
what calculations. Even if it is assumed that aspirant nuclear countries
make the same calculus of survival as the established ones with
respect to initiating hostilities against each other - an extremely
dubious judgment - new nuclear weapons establishments may be used
as a shield to deter resistance, especially by the United States, to

6

terrorist assaults on the international order. Nor is it certain how
nuclear powers will react to nuclear war on their doorstep. Finally, the
experience with the "private" proliferation network of apparently
friendly Pakistan with North Korea, Libya and Iran demonstrates the
vast consequences to the international order of the spread of nuclear
weapons, even when the proliferating country does not meet the
formal criteria of a rogue state.

This raises three questions for all of us: What diplomacy can
prevent the spread of nuclear weapons technology? What should be
done if diplomacy fails and the spread of nuclear weapons technology
continues? What kind of world order do we need if nuclear weapons
technology spreads, despite our best efforts or because of or failures?
Such a world will face dangers unimaginable today. Instead of
casualties in the hundreds, its citizens will face destruction in the tens
of thousands, under conditions of the breakdown of all civil
institutions. At that point, an entirely new concept of world order will
be imperative. A joint approach by the Western democracies will be
crucial.

The Palestinian Issue

Amidst the turmoil in the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli
issue, long believed to be hopelessly deadlocked, is beginning to show
signs of movement. Almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework

7

for an agreement is emerging. In Israel, the dominant Likud party is
undergoing soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical
claim may lead to a demographic time bomb as Arabs become a
majority in Palestine and demand control of the entire land. This
change of mood implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel
gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the
division of the land of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinians seem to be in the process of
learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical
reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable. An increasing number
of Arab states would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians.

To achieve a breakthrough, Middle East diplomacy must be freed
from some of its formalistic, almost doctrinaire, constraints. Our
partners in the Quartet need to view Middle East peace as something
more complex than a device for using the United States to extract
concessions from Israel for little more than the word "peace." The
Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine
acceptance of the Jewish state and a Palestinian state immediately
that marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement issue,
even if it falls short of the entire range of their aspirations. Israel
must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and

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concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the minimum terms for its security.

For both sides, a resolution will be traumatic. For many in Israel, the abandonment of settlements and the partition of Jerusalem will be perceived as a repudiation of much of the history of the Jewish state. For the Palestinians, it will be an end to the myth by which their society has lived. America's role is central: It needs to move the parties with determination toward a goal that seems, at last, conceptually within reach.

This cannot be achieved by the United States alone. It requires the cooperation of other democracies. European commentators have too often confined [themselves] to exhortations or to creating the impression that everything could be solved by American pressure on Israel. But the issues are more complex. Real progress in Palestinian diplomacy will be traumatic for all parties. American influence must play an important role in Israel. But Europe should help the Palestinians to make the indispensable concession. Common American-European policies could then encourage the moderate Arab states to ease the emotional bloc the Palestinians have to process that preserves and legitimizes an Israeli state. America and Europe should combine on a program urging both sides to make the concessions necessary to end their conflict. Israel has implied that settlements

9

beyond its new security fence are negotiable; the fence is already
being brought into a relationship to the 1967 frontiers, and some
compensatory territory from present-day Israel has been discussed in
Camp David and Tabba. At the same time, a few moderate Arab
leaders have called for new initiatives. An effort to develop a
European-US position as part of a reinvigorated peace process might
encourage reluctant parties to break the deadlock. In this process, the
Atlantic alliance could rediscover its common purpose.

I will not review the list of issues necessary to create a new
world order. I shall briefly mention two of them: democratization and
globalization.

All Western democracies are committed to spreading democratic
ideals. But how to apply this principle in support of a new world order
is a complex assignment. Western democracy developed over
centuries in homogeneous societies; minorities found majority rule
acceptable because they had a prospect of becoming majorities, and
majorities were restrained in the exercise of their power by their
temporary status and by judicially enforced minority guarantees. Such
an equation does not operate where minority status is permanently
established by religious affiliation and compounded by ethnic
differences and decades of brutal dictatorship. Majority rule in such
circumstances is perceived as an alternative version of the oppression

10

of the weak by the powerful. In multi-ethnic societies, minority rights
must be protected by structural and constitutional safeguards.
Federalism mitigates the scope for potential arbitrariness of the
numerical majority and defines autonomy on a specific range of issues.

Former Secretary of State [George] Shultz and I applied these
principles to the Iraq situation in the following four objectives: (1) to
prevent any group from using the political process to establish the kind
of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis; (2) to prevent any
areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and recruitment
centers for terrorists; (3) to keep Shia government from turning into a
theocracy, Iranian or indigenous; (4) to leave scope for regional
autonomy within the Iraqi democratic process.

Whatever Europe's view on security issues, the evolution of
democracy cannot be a solitary effort of any nation. No nation
possesses the power or the wisdom to undertake global
democratization by itself.

All this occurs at a moment when the center of gravity of world
affairs is shifting towards the Pacific. Any such change historically
involves massive adjustments that in the past have led to conflicts,
some even military.

As China and India emerge into potential superpowers, Japan
rethinks its national policies and countries like Indonesia wait their

11

turns, how will the Western democracies deal with that state of affairs?
It is the essence of an alliance that it involves some special obligations
beyond the dictates of pure national interest. That was the
distinguishing aspect of the Atlantic alliance before the collapse of
communism. Even in its heyday, the alliance faced many
controversies. But they were resolved within the framework of a
common purpose.

This is our challenge today. I belong to the generation that on
both sides of the Atlantic built a partnership of democracies. Is it still
vital? Can we revitalize it, or are we doomed to repeat the divisions
and rivalries that consumed the Western world in the first half of the
twentieth century?

To make a contribution to restoring this unity, I have agreed to
deliver a number of speeches in German. I thank you for giving me
this opportunity, and I wish you every success in your deliberations.

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detailing the final weeks of the collapse of Berlin, which is playing to critical
acclaim in the United States, has underlined for audiences again the wretched
suffering of the last weeks of the war, and the pointless futility of carrying the
struggle on to that late date. Hans-Dietrich Genscher was a young sapper in
General Wenck's 12th Army in those final days of madness during the Battle of
Berlin. I first got to know him almost 30 years later, as Foreign Minister in
Helmut Schmidt's government. For three years we forged a close working
relationship, one that I very fondly remember. Genscher's impact on 20th century
German history was enormous. He was the perfect counterpoint for the men he
worked with as Chancellor. While Schmidt and Kohl were avuncular politicians
who looked at the "big picture", Genscher was a brilliant tactician, a practical
negotiator, who never let the goal of German unity escape from his vision, yet
pursued that goal with a flexibility that made that very goal attainable. Beyond
from his dexterous leadership of German foreign policy, I shall always value
Hans-Dietrich Genscher's friendship. It was a friendship that was offered
generously, and one that has been held to loyally for thirty years

Inuit

for thirty years

Otto Lambsdorff is another outstanding representative of the FDP whose
friendship has meant much to me over the years. Although Otto's knowledge of
~~me to speak to the party leadership~~
the world of finance and his facility with money as German Finance Minister
made me ineligible to work with him on a professional basis, I have admired his
~~repeated citation~~
wisdom, valued his opinions and enjoyed his eccentric wit for many years

all to years

→ father writing
from Dec 1-8

The Washington Post
Monday, December 22, 2003

Henry A. Kissinger

# In Israel's Fence, an Opening to Accord

BY PEDRO UGARTE—AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a seminal speech last week, indicated that if Arab-Israeli negotiations do not progress in the next few months, Israel will proceed unilaterally. It would establish a security plan based on a provisional fence designed to enhance the security of Israel, ease the life of Palestinians and provide an incentive to a negotiated outcome. In that process, Sharon implied, Israel would be prepared to shutter some settlements and relocate others.

This is an important pronouncement. The abandonment of any settlement is a traumatic event that reverses the historical settlement policy of the Jewish state.

The United States and its allies have heretofore resisted the concept of a security fence. That attitude should be reconsidered. If properly coordinated with an overall strategy, the security fence could become a solution rather than an obstacle to progress. If it sharply reduced terrorism, it could provide an incentive to negotiations. In the event of negotiations, the fence could provide a safety net for security, a defining line beyond which settlements should be abandoned and a provisional border for the Palestinian state.

The Arab-Israeli peace process involves, above all, a confrontation of perceptions. The governing party in Israel has historically seen its country as the fulfillment of a biblical dispensation that would be denied by any dividing lines on Palestinian soil. For Palestinians, expulsion from a territory for centuries considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has thus far been beyond Palestinian emotional and psychological capacities. The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to overcome the Jewish state; one group is arguing for permanent confrontation while moderates are willing to move toward the same objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence desirable.

The most active diplomatic initiative comes from the so-called Quartet, composed of Russia, Europe, the United Nations and the United States. They have come forward with a "road map," a series of procedural proposals by which a final agreement is to be reached by 2005. They share this hopeful prospect because at least the non-U.S. members seem to believe that the most important instruments for forging a peace agreement are a sharp pencil and a map, with the result to be imposed by the United States. The United States has insisted on a verified end of terrorism and a dismantling of the terrorist apparatus on Palestinian soil as a precondition of negotiations on specifics.

Ironically, the formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement is emerging. In Israel, Sharon's speech indicates that the dominant Likud Party is undergoing soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb as Arabs become a majority in Palestine and demand control of the entire land. This change of mood implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the 1948-defeat and the division of the land of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinians may be in the process of learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable. The fence may accelerate that. An increasing number of Arab states would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians. That trend may be reflected in the recent New York Times interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad suggesting that an agreement between Syria and Israel was 75 percent complete and that the United States should assist in the completion of negotiations. This

comment has not received the attention it deserved. Does it mean that Syria is prepared to make a peace agreement with Israel even before a Palestinian settlement, with the predictable consequence of easing international pressures on Israel? Is Assad prepared to expel from Syrian and Lebanese territory the Iranian-funded terrorist group Hezbollah without whose dismantling Israel will surely never make peace? And Assad's estimate of what has been completed seems modest, since the principal issue concerns the few hundred yards difference between Syria's international frontier and the land it occupied beyond it in 1967. (The issue concerns riparian rights in the Sea of Galilee, which should be capable of solution.) Could it be, then, that the most severe psychological obstacle to agreement is on the Palestinian side? And that another obstacle is the encrusted ideology of the prevalent negotiating framework? In that context, the concept of the security fence needs to be reexamined.

In a half-century of Israel's existence, the Palestinians have been the central element in the region's refusal to accept Israel. No Palestinian leader has fully recognized Israel or renounced the right of refugees to return. Government-sponsored public assaults on the very concept of a Jewish state are unremitting. Even the Palestinian signatories of the much-ballyhooed Geneva accord went no further than to relate the return of refugees to a proportion of refugees accepted by third-party countries. The breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli negotiations took place in 1977, when President Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to Jerusalem and, among other gestures, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There has never been a similar act of grace on the part of Palestinian leaders. Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel's existence. Dismantling the terrorist apparatus might be difficult to do quickly, but ending the systematic rejection of Israeli legitimacy and incitement to terrorism in the media are within the scope of immediate Palestinian decision.

All involved in the peace process should reexamine whether what has become conventional wisdom is not itself an obstacle to progress: a return by Israel to the 1967 borders, the abandonment of the vast majority of Israeli settlements and the partition of Jerusalem in return for some sort of international guarantee and acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians. The idea of an international force for that purpose is gaining increasing acceptance.

(over)

-2-

But what precisely does an international guar-
antee mean? Against what danger does it protect
and by what means? The historical record of mul-
tilateral guarantees is dismal, especially in the
Middle East.

The real challenge is terrorism, against which
international guarantees are likely to prove emp-
ty. If Israel's armed forces, with a huge stake in
the outcome, could not prevent infiltrations, how
is an international or even an American force go-
ing to do it? It is much more likely to prove a bar-
rier against Israeli retaliation than against Pales-
tinian terrorism. The probable outcome is that
an international force would become hostages
who would either purchase their safety by turn-
ing their backs on violations or risk their lives by
serious efforts, at which point the governments
supplying the forces would be under pressure to
withdraw them.

Security should be pursued by other strategies
that take account of the special features of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

* The demarcation line between the two societies is not an international border but a cease-fire line that ended the first Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 1948. It was never accepted by the Palestinians until nearly a half-century later, and even then not as the border of a legitimate Israeli state.

* The two societies live in the closest proximity to one another; indeed, the central challenge is how to achieve coexistence when the distance be-

tween the Jordan River and the sea is 50
miles or less. There is no cushioning stra-
 tegic space as in the Sinai between Egypt
and Israel.

* In these circumstances, security can-
not be based on battle lines in a war that
ended more than a half-century ago. It
must instead be adjusted to the experi-
ence of actual security threats. (No Isra-
eli prime minister or chief of staff has ever
considered the 1967 line compatible with
Israeli security.)

* In any foreseeable agreement, the Is-
raeli concessions will be territorial and
concrete, while the Palestinian conces-
sions are largely psychological, hence re-
vocable. The pledge of abandoning vio-
lence was already part of the Oslo
agreement, with derisory results.

American opposition to the concept of
a security fence should be reconsidered.
A physical barrier difficult to penetrate
would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from
the Palestinian cities and the abandon-
ment of checkpoints that deprive so
much of Palestinian life of dignity. It
would provide a line on the other side of
which settlements would have to live un-
der Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is
the Palestinian objection primarily to the
fence, in principle, or to the ratification of
the permanence of Israel that the fence
represents? By the same token, Israel
must be serious about vacating the terri-
tories and the settlements beyond the se-
curity fence.

A significant criticism is that the secu-
rity fence will be an obstacle to the ultimate rec-
onciliation of two peoples that must learn to live
side by side. It is true that any lasting settlement
implies ultimate reconciliation, and a major in-
ternational effort should be undertaken to help
restore civilian life in the Palestinian state. Once
confidence is restored and true coexistence
evolves, the incentive to maintain the security
fence may well disappear.

The intrusion of the fence beyond the 1967
borders should be kept to a strategically neces-
sary minimum. But the principle of it is impor-
tant: It should not be discouraged by the United
States; rather, the United States should try to
shape it to contribute to what seems the best way
to a rapid breakthrough. The alternative of some
sort of imposition of conventional wisdom might
well bring peace at the price of encouraging con-
tinued irredentism and turning the agreement in-
to a prelude for another round of confrontation.

An interim agreement may be the only way to
keep the refugee issue from blocking a settle-
ment. Any agreement deserving the appellation
"final" must resolve the refugee question. No Is-
raeli government can settle for less; no Palestin-
ian leader has yet been found to unambiguously
renounce the right of return.

If that problem should prove insoluble, the se-
curity fence could provide a provisional dividing
line that makes possible a Palestinian state even
before a final settlement. The territorial ad-
justments could be balanced by returning some
portions of Israeli territory to Palestinian rule.
Particular attention should be paid to areas
where a return of Arab population would ease the
demographic problem. In that context, a provi-
sional partition of Jerusalem could be discussed.

Such an approach requires freeing Middle
East diplomacy from some of its formal-
istic, almost doctrinaire, constraints.
Our partners in the Quartet need to view
Middle East peace as something more complex
than a device for using the United States to ex-
tract concessions from Israel for little more than
the word "peace." The Palestinians must make a
choice between the requirements of genuine ac-
ceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solu-
tion that creates a Palestinian state immediately
and marks a major step toward dealing with the
settlement issue, even if it falls short of the entire
range of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a
diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts
and instead concentrate, in close coordination
with the United States, on the essentials of its re-
quirements.

For both sides a resolution will be traumatic.
For many in Israel, the abandonment of settle-
ments and partition of Jerusalem will be per-
ceived as a repudiation of much of the history of
the Jewish state. For the Palestinians, it will be
an end to the myth by which their society has
lived. America's role is central: It needs to ex-
amine whether there is a Syrian negotiating op-
ion, to abandon the illusion that America can im-
pose some paper plan and, at the same time, to
move the parties with determination toward a
goal that seems, at last, conceptually within
reach.

© 2003, Tribune Media Services International

NEWSWEEK

November 8, 2004

# America's Assignment

What will we face in the next four years? The former secretary of State on the global challenges ahead.

## Special Report

BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

AS THESE LINES are being written, the election process is still in full swing. But this week, barring another deadlocked outcome, the campaign that has mesmerized America will be over. What will remain are the challenges that gave rise to this occasionally frenzied battle and the responsibility of dealing with them. No president has faced an agenda of comparable scope. This is not hyperbole; it is the hand history has dealt this generation. Never before has it been necessary to conduct a war with neither front lines nor geographic definition and, at the same time, to rebuild fundamental principles of world order to replace the traditional ones which went up in the smoke of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The newly elected president's task is perhaps most analogous to that inherited by President Truman at the end of the Second World War. In 1945, the Soviet Union was emerging as a threat to the global equilibrium,

while the war had left a vacuum in Central Europe. But the Soviet challenge was concrete and geographically definable. Today's principal threats are abstract and mobile. Terror has no fixed address; it has attacked from Bali to Singapore, Riyadh, Istanbul, Moscow, Madrid, Tunis, New York and Washington. In the 1940s, the solution to the crisis was straightforward, albeit difficult: to construct a defensive line in the center of Europe and an economic program to close the gap between public expectation and the reality of shortages that threatened domestic stability.

The contemporary security challenge arises from two unprecedented sources: terror caused by acts until recently considered a matter for internal police forces rather than international policy, and scientific advances and proliferation that allow the survival of countries to be threatened by developments entirely within another state's territory. Truman could take the legitimacy of the international system for granted; the Atlantic alliance rallied America's West European allies from the Second World War. The newly elected president

will have to lead an effort to define and then maintain an international system that reflects the new, revolutionary circumstances.

I supported President Bush during the campaign and hope for his success. But whatever the outcome, the United States cannot tackle this agenda except in the context of a commitment by all sides to healing. All concerned with the future of the country must find ways to cooperate so that the world will again see Americans working toward a common destiny both at home and in the community of nations. It is to such an effort that this article seeks to make a contribution.

3

[LC]

Special Report

in too mechanical a manner. In Vietnam, it took far longer to make units ready for combat than simply fulfilling the requirements of a training manual. The effectiveness of Iraqi forces will depend not only on their military training but on the degree to which the emerging Iraqi institutions gain domestic legitimacy. Units without political allegiance are generally least reliable when most needed.

The first national elections scheduled for the end of January are the next step. They should be viewed not as a culmination but as the first and perhaps least complicated achievement in the quest for Iraqi self-government. Democracy in the West evolved over centuries. It required first a church independent of the state; then the Reformation, which imposed pluralism of religion; the Enlightenment, which asserted the autonomy of reason from both church and state; the Age of Discovery, which broadened horizons; and finally capitalism, with its emphasis on competition and the market. None of these conditions exists in the Islamic world. Instead there is a merging of religion and politics inimical to pluralism. A genuine democratic government has come about only in Turkey, paradoxically through the imposition of democratic forms by an autocratic leader. The emergence of democratic institutions and of the arrangements which hold them together cannot be engineered as an act of will; it requires patience and modesty.

It is particularly important to understand the obstacles to democracy in a multiethnic and multireligion society such as Iraq's. In the West, democracy evolved in homogeneous societies. There was no institutional impediment to the minority's becoming a majority. Electoral defeat was considered a temporary setback that could be reversed. But in societies with distinct ethnic or political divisions, minority status often means permanent discrimination and the constant risk of political extinction.

This is a particularly acute issue in Iraq. The country is composed of three major groups: Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, with the Shiites representing about 60 percent of the population and the other two groups about 20 percent each. For 500 years, the Sunnis have dominated by military force and, during Saddam's rule, with extraordinary brutality. Thus national elections, based on majority rule, imply a radical upheaval in the relative power and status of the three communities. The insurgency in the Sunni region is not only a national struggle against America; it is a means to restore political dominance. By the same token, the political process means little for the Kurds if it does not ensure a large measure of autonomy. The Shiites tolerate the U.S. presence—sometimes ambivalently—to achieve the goal of reversing the historic pattern of Sunni rule and as a first step to Shiite dominance. To what extent they will continue to support our role as the transfer of power progresses remains to be seen.

The January elections in Iraq, therefore, must be regarded as the beginning of an extended contest among the various groups, involving the constant risk of civil war, or of a national struggle against the U.S., or both. All factions maintain militias for precisely such eventualities. It will be necessary to augment the national electoral process with a significant element of federalism and to establish clear-cut constitutional protections for those who might

find themselves in the permanent minority. Democracy must not be seen as a suicide pact by the Sunnis and the Kurds. Federalist structures and the assurance that free speech, freedom of conscience, and due process of law are constitutionally beyond the reach of any majority might provide some guarantee for the concerns of the various groups and a safety net if national reconciliation proves impossible.

In the potential cauldron after the January elections, some degree of internationalization is the only realistic path toward stability inside Iraq and sustained domestic support in America. The survival of the political process depends in the first instance on security—for which the United States retains the major responsibility—but ultimately on international acceptance to enable the Iraqi government to be perceived as representing indigenous aspirations.

During the political campaign there has been much talk of beginning this process with an effort to induce our European allies to increase their military participation and to lure recalcitrant allies into joining the security effort. Such a course cannot succeed in a time frame relevant to the immediate necessities. Germany and France—the two most difficult allies on Iraq—will not reverse their stand in sending troops to Iraq at the beginning of a process of reconciliation. (The German Foreign Minister has said so explicitly.) And countries that have sent troops have enough domestic difficulties maintaining their participation and little, if any, scope for increasing it.

Meaningful internationalization requires a focus other than security and the participation of countries other than—or in addition to—NATO. After the January elections, an international contact group, under U.N. auspices, to advise on Iraq's political evolution is therefore desirable. Logical members would be countries that have experience with militant Islam and much to lose by the radicalization of Iraq—countries such as India, Turkey, Russia, Algeria, in addition to the United States and Britain. This is not an abdication to consensus. The United States, by virtue of its military presence and financial role, would retain the leading position. The issue of military contribution by other nations, including

NATO, can be raised again at a later stage in a more favorable political environment as a means to protect the governmental process.

## Pre-emption

IN ITS FIRST MONTHS IN OFFICE, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION challenged conventional wisdom when it proclaimed the concept of pre-emption as if it were an American invention. In fact, pre-emption is inherent in the structure of the new international order, regardless of who serves in the White House. The international system of the 20th century was established by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Seeking to avoid a repetition of the Thirty Years' War, during which nearly 30 percent of the population of Central Europe was killed in a conflict nominally over religious belief, the rulers based the new system on the principle of sovereignty within state borders and noninterference across them. Threats to international order were defined as movements of military units across established frontiers. Because weapons were relatively small and technology moved slowly, national security

> If a radical government emerges in Baghdad, the entire Islamic world will find itself in chaos

JIM MACMILLAN—AP

**On a mission:** In Iraq in late October, U.S. Marines charge a building

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could generally be protected by awaiting the actual aggression.

September 11 marked the end of that option. Threats, it taught, were no longer identical with state action; they could be organized by private groups operating from the territory of sovereign states for goals transcending the purposes of the host countries. Cold War strategies ceased to apply, since deterrence cannot work against an adversary with no territory to defend; and diplomacy does not work when the adversary rejects any limitation of objective and seeks the overthrow of societies. In the Westphalian system, the balance of power could generally be upset only by conquest. In the world of privatized terror and proliferating weapons of mass destruction, the balance can be upset and survival threatened by developments entirely within the borders of a sovereign state.

Inevitably the concept of pre-emption leads to a clash between new realities and traditional notions of order.

Countries used to established patterns find it difficult to accept the new necessities, and all nations will seek some rules of conduct that do not leave decisions on pre-emption to the unilateral, unconstrained determination of a single state. When implemented by a power with the overwhelming military preponderance of the United States, the doctrine prompts claims of hegemony by some on the American side and increasing resistance by others, particularly members of traditional alliances.

The new president will want to make a distinction between power and the claims made on its behalf. No nation, no matter how powerful, can organize the international system by itself; over an historical period it is beyond the psychological and political capacity of even the most dominant state. The goal of U.S. foreign policy must be to turn dominant power into shared responsibility—to conduct policy, as the Australian scholar Coral Bell has written, as if the international order were composed of many centers of power, even while we are aware of our strategic pre-eminence. It implies the need for a style of consultation less focused on imposing immediate policy prescriptions than achieving a common definition of long-range purposes.

It is not in America's interest to encourage every state to define pre-emption in purely national terms. The response to 9/11 was im-

posed by requirements of an emergency. The newly elected president could contribute greatly to a new global order by indicating a willingness to discuss international principles of pre-emption—even while reserving the right to defend national security alone as a last resort.

Nuclear Proliferation

W

HILE MILITANT ISLAM IS THE MOST immediate and obvious challenge to international order, nuclear proliferation is the most long-range and insidious threat to global survival. Heretofore nuclear weapons have spread relatively slowly and remained in the possession of countries with everything to lose and nothing to gain from assaulting the international order. But the international system is now confronted by the imminent spread of nuclear weapons into the hands of two countries with a worrisome agenda: the odd, isolated regime in North Korea, which is responsible for multiple assassinations and kidnappings and meets every defini-

tion of a rogue regime; and Iran, whose current regime started by holding American diplomats as hostages and has since supported a variety of terrorist groups in the Middle East and continues to declare America its principal enemy.

The possession of nuclear weapons by these countries would constitute a momentous step towards stripping the international order of the remaining restraints of the Westphalian system. Deterrence will lose its traditional meaning even with respect to state-to-state relations. With such a variety of nuclear powers, it will no longer be clear who is responsible for deterring whom and by what means. Second-order issues can escalate into nuclear conflict. The possibilities of miscalculation grow. Even if the new nuclear countries do not use their weapons, they can become a shield behind which to step up terrorist challenges. Finally, the experience with the so-called "private"

distribution of Pakistan's nuclear technology to other countries shows that this may be the last moment to keep proliferation from spinning out of control. North Korea is so short of foreign exchange that its diplomats often revert to counterfeit currency; it might find the temptation to trade nuclear material for foreign exchange irresistible. In Iran, extremist elements have frequently demonstrated their ability to find specious Islamic justification for unconscionable acts in support of terrorism.

The international community has been torn between premonition of nuclear catastrophe and the escapism of treating warnings about proliferation as an example of American bellicosity. In some quarters on both sides of the Atlantic, the issue is presented as a case for testing whether pressure or diplomacy should serve as a principal tool. There is a debate as well about appropriate mechanisms for diplomacy. With respect to the North Korean nuclear program, the issue is whether negotiations should be conducted bilaterally between the United States and North Korea or in the existing six-party forum in Beijing, comprised of North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

If progress is to be made, the newly elected president will have to cut through these disputes to impose a unified policy. In practice, the distinction between diplomacy and pressure is academic since diplomacy is never

abstract; it inevitably involves an amalgam of both. The challenge is to determine the proper mix.

Invariably, proliferating countries claim that they are seeking merely to participate in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy or to enhance electricity production or both. Countries determined to prevent proliferation are therefore tempted to provide incentives in the form of guaranteed alternative sources of energy or of nuclear fuel for power plants. Yet this approach generally fails, because the ultimate objectives of the proliferating country are political and strategic, not economic. Iran, an oil-producing country, has no economic need for nuclear power plants. What it seeks, as does North Korea, is a shield behind which it can conduct the revolutionary aspects of its foreign policy while reducing the risk of intervention by great powers.

A policy of offering material incentives in return for denuclearization is likely to fail, however appealing it may be in the abstract. For the incentives in one way or another increase the dependence of the proliferating country on the states against which the proliferation is really directed. Progress is unlikely unless it involves, at

Iran's regime,
which has long
seen America
as its principal
foe, is a
problem which
we must face

Complex threat: An Iranian missile on parade in Tehran

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the least, the implication of pressure and a goal that addresses the security concerns of all interested parties. Multilateral talks, including the proliferating country, are essential.

With respect to North Korea, each of the parties in the six-party talks has special political and strategic objectives in the back of its mind: China, concern about nuclear weapons in all of Korea and the deployment of forces in North Korea in case of unification; Japan, its position as a non-nuclear country in an increasingly nuclear environment; South Korea, its aspirations to unification and the balance it seeks between China and the United States. Thus the technicalities of nonproliferation pale compared with the objective of elaborating a security system for Northeast Asia. A similar analysis could be made in the case of Iran, for which a forum does not yet exist.

Care must also be taken lest the fact of dialogue becomes its only substance, enhancing the prestige of the proliferating country without ensuring its cooperation. In any event, the solution cannot be left to bilateral U.S. talks with the proliferators. The insistence on U.S.-North Korea bilateralism would leave America as the sole enforcer of any agreement at the borders of China. And it would invite Pyongyang to use the new agreement for future blackmail—the pattern it followed after the bilateral agreement of 1994. The same applies in a different context to relations with Iran.

All of this is an academic exercise, meanwhile, if the concerned nations do not recognize that time is short, that the stately process of arms control negotiations is on the verge of being overwhelmed by events. To impart a sense of urgency, an answer must be found to these four questions: How much time do we actually have before the process of proliferation in North Korea and Iran has become irreversible? What incentives and assurances are we prepared to offer? What pressures are we prepared to undertake if incentives do not work? And how do we prevent negotiation and implementation from becoming a means to legitimize proliferation rather than avert it?

Reality therefore imposes a time limit on these negotiations—or else the newly elected president is likely to leave a fearsome legacy by the end of his term. The all-consuming queries then will be: How does a society react to a nuclear explosion of undetermined origin? How should the world react to a nuclear war between emerging nuclear countries or

the use of nuclear weapons by emerging nuclear countries against non-nuclear adversaries? At what point do the existing nuclear powers decide that a world of unrestrained nuclear proliferation is too dangerous and that they must impose nonproliferation for the survival of humanity?

The Long Challenge

FOR ALL THEIR IMPORTANCE, THE REGIONALcrises—Iraq, North Korea—are dwarfed by the fundamental transfer of power within the international system. Historians agree that the emergence of a unified Germany over a century ago unbalanced the European system by introducing a state stronger than each of its neighbors. Disraeli called the event of greater significance than the French Revolution, because he sensed that the emerging structure would either imply German hegemony or that

equilibrium could be restored only by an increasingly rigid alliance system depriving diplomacy of maneuvering room.

In our age, the rise of China as a potential superpower is of even greater historical significance, marking as it does a shift in the center of gravity of world affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific. To be sure, China is unlikely to rely on military power as its principal instrument to achieve international status. For one thing, China's leaders are (or at least have been) more careful, more deliberate, more prone to accumulate advantages by nuance than the impetuous German leaders after Bismarck's retirement. More importantly, with modern technology war between major powers is an absolutely last resort, not a political option. America should maintain its traditional opposition to hegemonial aspirations over Asia. But the long-term relationship with China should not be driven by expectations of a strategic showdown. China will not conduct as imprudent a policy as the Soviet Union, which threatened all its neighbors simultaneously and challenged the United States to a contest of survival. The special case of Taiwan aside, it will seek influence commensurate with its growth by diplomatic and political means.

An interesting recent article compared the difference in the diplomatic style of China and the United States to their intellectual games—the West's chess and Chinese neiji, better known by the Japanese name of go. Chess has only two outcomes: draw and checkmate. The objective of the game is absolute advantage—that is to say, its outcome is total victory or defeat—and the battle is conducted head-on, in the center of the board. The aim of go is relative advantage; the game is played all over the board, and the objective is to increase one's options and reduce those of the adversary. The goal is less victory than persistent strategic progress.

No one can predict what judgment leaders will make decades from now. But leaders in both Beijing and Washington have a responsibility to help shape the judgments of emerging generations. With respect to China, the priority should be to keep the nationalism that is replacing Communism from taking a confrontational turn. In America, it is to transcend the temptation to view history through the prism of the most recent experience rather than of the long-range view.

China and the United States require a permanent strategic dialogue at a high level seeking a common definition of long-range purposes—to make them compatible where possible, and to reduce the dangers of confrontation when that effort fails. They need to keep the Taiwan issue from undermining the relationship while remembering the importance of solving it by peaceful means. In Sino-American relations, the future of Korea will play an increasingly prominent role. It is not simply a nonproliferation issue but a challenge for a security system for all of Northeast Asia.

China's renaissance, the rapid growth in India and the globalization in every corner of the world, beneficent as these conditions are for individuals, at the same time bring about massive issues of policy that can be postponed only at peril to the world economy. The equitable management of access to energy and raw materials is beyond the capacity of the international system as

Nuclear proliferation may soon become irreversible in North Korea—and elsewhere

Odd and isolated: Kim Jong Il's regime has nuclear ambitions

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presently constituted. If nothing is done, there is the real risk of a return to the rivalries of the colonial era—the contest over the direction of pipelines replacing the contest over territory—and a commodity pricing crisis that could drive the world into general recession. These issues must be addressed with great urgency by the newly elected president—in concert with directly affected trading and financial partners.

All this will bring us back to Atlantic relations. The political campaign has cast Atlantic disagreements in terms of American short-term tactical errors. This is a misreading of reality. Tact has not always distinguished every U.S. pronouncement. But the problem goes deeper than personalities. The impasse is partly due to the fact that the generation that formed the Atlantic relationship has passed from the scene. In the United States, the new leadership group is preoccupied with the challenge of radical Islam; our European allies either do not share America's assessment of that threat or, to the extent that they do, believe themselves capable of dealing with it outside the Atlantic framework. In the United States, the political center of gravity has shifted to parts of the country whose representatives have fewer personal connections with Europe and less experience with its internal challenges than their predecessors who created the postwar structure.

Across the Atlantic, leaders have been concentrating on transferring national sovereignty to new European institutions. This involves a host of technicalities and legal issues which are both arcane and elusive for most Americans. More fundamentally, the United States conducts its policies as the sovereign states of Europe did in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The European nations having invented the concept of the nation-state are now in the process of seeking to abandon their sovereignty to a European Union not yet possessing the traditional attributes of the state. They find themselves in a halfway house between their history and a future still in the process of evolving.

All this has generated a witches' brew of mutual misunderstandings. In America, critics describe European attitudes as faint-hearted, querulous and, on occasion,

duplicitous. In Europe the media (and too many political figures) revel in descriptions of America's racial tension, the death penalty, differences over the environment and mistreatment of prisoners as if aberrations reflected the ultimate meaning of the United States. Shifting their priority from the Atlantic alliance to the U.N. Security Council, Europeans feel no special obligation to support U.S. policy, on occasion actively opposing it.

These conditions cannot be removed by consultation on any one individual issue, and require a fundamental change of attitude on both sides of the Atlantic. The nations bordering the North Atlantic need to ask themselves the fundamental question that has always underpinned the alliance—that is, what will the allies do for the relationship beyond the international consensus reflected at the United Nations? Much of European debate today implies that the answer is “very little.” To subject common

military action to prior approval of the Security Council is incompatible with the very concept of alliance, which implies a special set of obligations. It spells the ultimate disintegration of a world order with the Atlantic partnership as its centerpiece. The Atlantic relationship, to be meaningful, needs to have a special character. The United States and Europe should be prepared to do things for each other in the sphere beyond the immediate dictates of national interest and without insisting on universal consensus.

A deepening of the dialogue between the two sides of the Atlantic is imperative. In a world of jihad, transformation of the balance of power, demographic change, mass migration and economic globalization, the ultimate challenge to the alliance will be the quest for some common purpose. The dialogue over Iraq and Iran described earlier should be supplemented by a new approach to the Palestine-Israeli problem.

For decades the diplomatic stalemate has been deepened because Europe was perceived to champion the Palestinian claims and America the goals of Israel. But new circumstances permit envisaging how the two positions can be brought closer. Israel has implied that settlements beyond its new security fence are negotiable; the fence is already being brought into a relationship to the 1967 frontiers and some compensatory territory from present-day Israel has been discussed in Camp David and Tabba. At the same time, a few moderate Arab leaders have called for new initiatives. An effort to develop a European-U.S. position as part of a reinvigorated peace process might encourage reluctant parties to break the deadlock. In this process, the Atlantic alliance could rediscover its common purpose.

The debate between unilateralism and multilateralism must be transcended with this perspective in mind. Unilateralism for its own sake is self-defeating. But so is abstract multilateralism. The former absorbs purpose into a sense of special national mission; the latter waters down purpose in a quest for a formal consensus. The challenge for America is to reconcile consultation with vast power. The question for Europe is whether it

views Atlantic relations as a partnership or as part of an international system of multipolarity very similar to pre-World War I Europe, in which major power centers engaged in shifting coalitions to maximize their advantage from case to case. That system broke down in the early 20th century; its 21st-century version is likely to be even less successful.

Opportunity for world order presents itself to each generation disguised as a set of problems. The dilemma of our age was perhaps best summed up by the philosopher Immanuel Kant over two hundred years ago. In his essay “Perpetual Peace,” he wrote that the world was destined for perpetual peace. It would come about either by human foresight or by a series of catastrophes that leave no other choice. Which it will be is the ultimate question the newly elected president will have to face.

The rebirth of
China raises
massive global
economic
challenges
that cannot
be ignored

On the rise: China's growth signals a shift in gravity from West to East

# Results, Not Timetables, Matter in Iraq

by Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz

The Washington Post

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The debate on Iraq is taking a new turn. The Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30, only recently viewed as a culmination, are described as inaugurating a civil war. The timing and the voting arrangements have become controversial. All this is a way of foreshadowing a demand for an exit strategy, by which many critics mean some sort of explicit time limit on the U.S. effort.

We reject this counsel. The implications of the term "exit strategy" must be clearly understood; there can be no fudging of consequences. The essential prerequisite for an acceptable exit strategy is a sustainable outcome, not an arbitrary time limit. For the outcome in Iraq will shape the next decade of American foreign policy. A debacle would usher in a series of convulsions in the region as radicals and fundamentalists moved for dominance, with the wind seemingly at their backs. Wherever there are significant Muslim populations, radical elements would be emboldened. As the rest of the world related to this reality, its sense of direction would be impaired by the demonstration of American confusion in Iraq. A precipitate American withdrawal would be almost certain to cause a civil war that would dwarf Yugoslavia's, and it would be compounded as neighbors escalated their current involvement into full-scale intervention.

We owe it to ourselves to become clear about what post-election outcome is compatible with our values and global security. And we owe it to the Iraqis to strive for an outcome that can further their capacity to shape their future.

The mechanical part of success is relatively easy to define: establishment of a government considered sufficiently legitimate by the Iraqi people to permit recruitment of an army able and willing to defend its institutions. That goal cannot be expedited by an arbitrary deadline that would be, above all, likely to confuse both ally and adversary. The political and military efforts cannot be separated. Training an army in a political vacuum has proved insufficient. If we cannot carry out both the political and military tasks, we will not be able to accomplish either.

But what is such a government? Optimists and idealists posit that a full panoply of Western democratic institutions can be created in a time frame the American political process will sustain. Reality is likely to disappoint these expectations. Iraq is a society

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riven by centuries of religious and ethnic conflicts; it has little or no experience with representative institutions. The challenge is to define political objectives that, even when falling short of the maximum goal, nevertheless represent significant progress and enlist support across the various ethnic groups. The elections of Jan. 30 should therefore be interpreted as the indispensable first phase of a political evolution from military occupation to political legitimacy.

Optimists also argue that, since the Shiites make up about 60 percent of the population and the Kurds 15 to 20 percent, and since neither wants Sunni domination, a democratic majority exists almost automatically. In that view, the Iraqi Shiite leaders have come to appreciate the benefits of democratization and the secular state by witnessing the consequences of their absence under the Shiite theocracy in neighboring Iran.

A pluralistic, Shiite-led society would indeed be a happy outcome. But we must take care not to base policy on the wish becoming father to the thought. If a democratic process is to unify Iraq peacefully, a great deal depends on how the Shiite majority defines majority rule.

So far the subtle Shiite leaders, hardened by having survived decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, have been ambiguous about their goals. They have insisted on early elections -- indeed, the date of Jan. 30 was established on the basis of a near-ultimatum by the most eminent Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The Shiites have also urged voting procedures based on national candidate lists, which work against federal and regional political institutions. Recent Shiite pronouncements have affirmed the goal of a secular state but have left open the interpretation of majority rule. An absolutist application of majority rule would make it difficult to achieve political legitimacy. The Kurdish minority and the Sunni portion of the country would be in permanent opposition.

Western democracy developed in homogeneous societies; minorities found majority rule acceptable because they had a prospect of becoming majorities, and majorities were restrained in the exercise of their power by their temporary status and by judicially enforced minority guarantees. Such an equation does not operate where minority status is permanently established by religious affiliation and compounded by ethnic differences and decades of brutal dictatorship. Majority rule in such circumstances is perceived as an alternative version of the oppression of the weak by the powerful. In multiethnic societies, minority rights must be protected by structural and constitutional safeguards. Federalism mitigates the scope for potential arbitrariness of the numerical majority and defines autonomy on a specific range of issues.

The reaction to intransigent Sunni brutality and the relative Shiite quiet must not tempt us into identifying Iraqi legitimacy with unchecked Shiite rule. The American experience with Shiite theocracy in Iran since 1979 does not inspire confidence in our ability to

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forecast Shiite evolution or the prospects of a Shiite-dominated bloc extending to the Mediterranean. A thoughtful American policy will not mortgage itself to one side in a religious conflict fervently conducted for 1,000 years.

The Constituent Assembly emerging from the elections will be sovereign to some extent. But the United States' continuing leverage should be focused on four key objectives: (1) to prevent any group from using the political process to establish the kind of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis; (2) to prevent any areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and recruitment centers for terrorists; (3) to keep Shiite government from turning into a theocracy, Iranian or indigenous; (4) to leave scope for regional autonomy within the Iraqi democratic process.

The United States has every interest in conducting a dialogue with all parties to encourage the emergence of a secular leadership of nationalists and regional representatives. The outcome of constitution-building should be a federation, with an emphasis on regional autonomy. Any group pushing its claims beyond these limits should be brought to understand the consequences of a breakup of the Iraqi state into its constituent elements, including an Iranian-dominated south, an Islamist-Hussein Sunni center and invasion of the Kurdish region by its neighbors.

A calibrated American policy would seek to split that part of the Sunni community eager to conduct a normal life from the part that is fighting to reestablish Sunni control. The United States needs to continue building an Iraqi army, which, under conditions of Sunni insurrection, will be increasingly composed of Shiite recruits -- producing an unwinnable situation for the Sunni rejectionists. But it should not cross the line into replacing Sunni dictatorship with Shiite theocracy. It is a fine line, but the success of Iraq policy may depend on the ability to walk it.

The legitimacy of the political institutions emerging in Iraq depends significantly on international acceptance of the new government. An international contact group should be formed to advise on the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq. Such a step would be a gesture of confident leadership, especially as America's security and financial contributions will remain pivotal. Our European allies must not shame themselves and the traditional alliance by continuing to stand aloof from even a political process that, whatever their view of recent history, will affect their future even more than ours. Nor should we treat countries such as India and Russia, with their large Muslim populations, as spectators to outcomes on which their domestic stability may well depend.

Desirable political objectives will remain theoretical until adequate security is established in Iraq. In an atmosphere of political assassination, wholesale murder and brigandage, when the road from Baghdad to its international airport is the scene of daily terrorist or criminal incidents, no government will long be able to sustain public confidence.

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Training, equipping and motivating effective Iraqi armed forces is a precondition to all the other efforts. Yet no matter how well trained and equipped, that army will not fight except for a government in which it has confidence. This vicious circle needs to be broken.

It is axiomatic that guerrillas win if they do not lose. And in Iraq the guerrillas are not losing, at least not in the Sunni region, at least not visibly. A successful strategy needs to answer these questions: Are we waging "one war" in which military and political efforts are mutually reinforcing? Are the institutions guiding and monitoring these tasks sufficiently coordinated? Is our strategic goal to achieve complete security in at least some key towns and major communication routes (defined as reducing violence to historical criminal levels)? This would be in accordance with the maxim that complete security in 70 percent of the country is better than 70 percent security in 100 percent of the country -- because fully secure areas can be models and magnets for those who are suffering in insecure places. Do we have a policy for eliminating the sanctuaries in Syria and Iran from which the enemy can be instructed, supplied, and given refuge and time to regroup? Are we designing a policy that can produce results for the people and prevent civil strife for control of the state and its oil revenue? Are we maintaining American public support so that staged surges of extreme violence do not break domestic public confidence at a time when the enemy may, in fact, be on the verge of failure? And are we gaining international understanding and willingness to play a constructive role in what is a global threat to peace and security?

An exit strategy based on performance, not artificial time limits, will judge progress by the ability to produce positive answers to these questions. In the immediate future, a significant portion of the anti-insurrection effort will have to be carried out by the United States. A premature shift from combat operations to training missions might create a gap that permits the insurrection to rally its potential. But as Iraqi forces increase in number and capability, and as the political construction proceeds after the election, a realistic exit strategy will emerge.

There is no magic formula for a quick, non-catastrophic exit. But there is an obligation to do our utmost to bring about an outcome that will mark a major step forward in the war against terrorism, in the transformation of the Middle East and toward a more peaceful and democratic world order.

Henry A. Kissinger, chairman of Kissinger Associates, was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. George P. Shultz, Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company