The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

manipulation, the issue’s importance cannot be overesti- mated. Unless the U.S. reverses its current passive and sometimes partisan policy and turns to vigorous, even- handed intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it cannot regain the respect and confidence it needs in Arab and Muslim states to reduce and contain the threat of rad- ical Islamic terrorism. Terrorism Is Not the Only National Security Challenge One final observation. Without diminishing the threat of terrorism, we must also recognize that the U.S. also confronts other dangerous national security challenges: non-proliferation, international economic growth and stability, denial of human rights and democracy, environmental degradation, HIV/AIDS and other epidemic diseases, drugs and crime also affect the well-being of Americans and the world. While less dramatic and frightening than terrorism, these problems also demand attention in our national security policy. Yet the Bush administration’s over- whelming focus on terrorism, at the cost of an estimat- ed $400 billion since 9/11, including the cost of the war in Iraq, has deprived these other critical issues of the diplomatic attention and resources they need. Perhaps our worst failing in facing the broad problems of conflict and political violence abroad is neglect of what retired Ambassador Ronald Spiers describes elsewhere in this issue (see p. 43) as the “swamp of poverty and igno- rance which spawns and sustains terrorism.” Although we are the world’s richest nation, we are dead last among developed nations in our per-capita contribu- tion to foreign aid, giving less than one-tenth of one per- cent of our GDP. By making the “war on terrorism” the defining princi- ple of U.S. policy, the Bush administration has neglected other foreign policy needs and tended to obscure the pos- itive goals that have sustained and distinguished American leadership in the past. This must change. F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35