World alerts Bush: Foreign policy challenges go beyond Iraq

Published: 2004-11-05

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- While U.S. voters went to the polls Nov. 2 to elect a president, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was in a French hospital bed, his delicate health symbolizing the fragile nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations. In Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, meanwhile, Sudanese government troops were violating international law by forcibly removing from makeshift camps thousands of black Sudanese left homeless by the conflict. The removal was another indication of government complicity with Arab militias accused of genocide against black Africans. Before U.S. President George W. Bush could sleep on his victory in winning a second term, the rest of the world was serving notice that his foreign policy challenges go beyond the Iraqi conflict and the war against terrorism. "The plate is full. Just read the newspapers," said Walter Mead, a specialist on the history of U.S. foreign policy at the independent Council on Foreign Relations. Mead and other foreign policy experts said that the Iraqi situation and the war on terrorism so dominated foreign policy discussions during the campaign that there was not enough time to adequately debate other important matters.

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