Places Other Than Iraq

Sometimes it is hard to remember that there is policy other than that regarding terrorism, and countries other than Iraq. And yes, the U.S. needs diplomacy that goes beyond Syria, North Korea and the occasional poke at France. Fortunately, Secretary of State Powell maintains a broader agenda on behalf of American interests. This week Nicaragua and Taiwan were on his plate.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that there is policy other than that regarding terrorism, and countries other than Iraq. And yes, the U.S. needs diplomacy that goes beyond Syria, North Korea and the occasional poke at France. Fortunately, Secretary of State Powell maintains a broader agenda on behalf of American interests. This week Nicaragua and Taiwan were on his plate.

Taiwan, a small-d democratic island with one of the world’s largest economies, is like Israel in that a large, powerful, non-democratic country (or grouping of countries) calls its existence illegitimate and temporary. President Carter terminated relations with Taiwan in 1979, setting it adrift in a world eager to trade with communist China and willing to support its demand for boycotting Taiwan – rather like oil politics.

But the Bush Administration has been quietly righting the scales–permitting Taiwanese officials to visit the US and upgrading defense relations, including the establishment of a military-to-military hotline last year. And Secretary Powell made a public show of meeting Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian in Panama. Bravo.

And, while in Central America, Mr. Powell visited Nicaragua – a small, poor country that suffered mightily from a Soviet proxy war in our hemisphere in the 1970s and 80s. Support for the indigenous anti-communist fighters was hugely divisive in Washington, but in 1990, President Carter himself monitored the elections that brought the pro-American “Contras” to the power they have maintained through elections ever since.

Mr. Powell, according to news reports, was pleased that “the dictatorial Sandinista regime … isn’t in power … and we hope to keep them out of power and to help the Nicaraguan people have power.” Nicaragua “had 11 straight years of the worst kind of leadership under the Sandinistas, with a totally communist-oriented, state-controlled environment where the leaders thought all they had to do was keep printing money. They created a society of dependence in the government and the government funded it by debt and money.” He said he had a “flashback to 1987” as he listened to the Star Spangled Banner played by an army band on the tarmac at Nicaragua’s airport. He said he recalled going to Congress when he was deputy national security adviser “and fighting all night long with opponents of contra aid, to keep these guys alive and going with food and ammunition. And there was enormous opposition: How dare we do something like this! It was a difficult period, but we got through it.”

Actually, Nicaragua is still getting through it, still poor, still underdeveloped, and still needy. The Secretary’s visit underscores that the chief priority for some countries may be just to survive and only then, perhaps, to prosper. He reminds us that as we fight the war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them, we can’t forget that there are countries other than Iraq out there that need our attention. Taiwan and Nicaragua are not an integral part of the big war, but their security and prosperity are essential to the free world we are striving for.