Word: westernizes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Iran: This week’s controversial missile tests didn’t even help the fundamentalist dictatorship assert itself on the international stage—the nation capitulated to Western demands for inspections a few days later. The recent complaisance has us wondering: Is all this uranium enrichment just part of Iran’s dark-horse bid to beat out Chicago for the 2016 Olympic Games...
...whose senior representative to Afghanistan, Norwegian Kai Eide, was accused by his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, of tacitly favoring a Karzai victory following the election debacle (Galbraith was fired this week) - will now be forced to work with an Afghan leader that has not only distanced himself from Western tutelage but also lacks legitimacy in the eyes of his people. (See the top 10 U.N. General Assembly moments...
...Relations between Karzai and his Western backers deteriorated significantly over the past couple of years, particularly after the onset of the Obama Administration. Instead of stinging Karzai into cleaning up his act, public criticism from Washington enabled him to set himself up as a leader at odds with the U.S., boosting his support in some sections of the population. He sought to strengthen his position through alliances with regional power brokers, including warlords accused of major human-rights abuses and known drug traffickers - people he will be beholden to as he enters a second term...
...little choice but to work with the leader they have, even if he's not the leader they wish they had. Karzai believed that Washington was trying to get rid of him ahead of the election, and he'll see his victory as a triumph also over those in Western capitals who had sought his ouster. Having secured another term of office, and with the West desperate to save its mission in Afghanistan from collapse, Karzai has the upper hand - and that will make it all the more difficult to cajole him into fighting corruption and delivering the good governance...
...what should be the end result [for Afghanistan] but not always on how to get there. We are a very different government now than we were eight years ago, so we can be more partners than beneficiaries." Perhaps. But the reforms in governance and the fight against corruption that Western powers are demanding would involve tough choices for the incumbent, many of whose key supporters are part of the problem...