Another in the Long Volley of Shots Heard 'Round the World

By Neely Tucker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007; Page C01

Benazir Bhutto's father was prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s and, before he was hanged, he would tell her to study the lives of great women as inspiration. She sometimes told reporters that story, including the names of Joan of Arc and Indira Gandhi as study subjects suggested by her dad. The French revolutionary was burned at the stake; the Indian prime minister was assassinated by her bodyguards.

Their violent ends did not deter Bhutto, nor did the murders of her father and brother. A Harvard graduate with a sharp knowledge of history, she would have known that The Assassination has been around a lot longer than the ballot and is often more influential.

The Assassination is almost universally denigrated as a "cowardly act" (as President Bush described Bhutto's killing yesterday). But the historical record shows it to be a dramatic, low-cost, highly symbolic means of communication -- and murder -- that disaffected people use to try to dramatically sway national or even international affairs.

It can work or backfire or just disappear, like a bloody drop in a bucket. Pakistan will be unstable in the coming days, as it has been in the past and will be again. Who can say if Bhutto's slaying is the pinball that leads to destruction, the painful agent of positive change, or just a killing, like most, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing more than murderous nihilism?

The descent into regional conflagration could have been triggered "by 'shock and awe' in Iraq, or the assassination of [prime minister Rafik] Hariri in Lebanon in 2005, or Israel's battles with Hezbollah," says Mustafa Aksakal, assistant professor of history at American University, who is writing a book about the Ottoman Empire's descent into World War I. "But the region has so far been able to absorb these shocks. It's just impossible to say what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

"Anyone who thinks they can predict the consequences of a political assassination is a damn fool," says Eric Rauchway, author of "Murdering McKinley: The Making of Teddy Roosevelt's America" and a history professor at the University of California, Davis. "All it provides is an opportunity. However, the opportunity it provides is often not one the assassin intended."

This has been true from the Ides of March forward.

Did Marcus Junius Brutus, when he pulled out his blade to join in the murder of his one-time friend Julius Caesar, understand that his actions would produce (a) perhaps the most famous and influential political assassinations in western history; (b) one of the immortal lines of betrayal -- "Et tu, Brute?" -- that echoes in the cultural id more than 2,000 years later; (c) his own ignominy and suicide?

On the evening of Jan. 30, 1948, a radical Hindu newspaper editor named Nathuram Godse pulled out a pistol and approached a little old man on his way to prayer service. In the instant before he pulled the trigger, he certainly intended to kill Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, at whom he was enraged for his role in the partition of India and Pakistan. But did he know that by so doing he would turn the diminutive weaver of cotton into the "Father of India" and a global icon of nonviolent resistance?

But these killings were nothing close to the most murderously effective. The dubious title goes to Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian nationalist.

Standing at a stone bridge in Sarajevo in late June 1914, Princip shot Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (and his wife) to demonstrate that he and his compatriots wanted to be freed of the constraints of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and to join neighboring Serbia. What did he know? He was scarcely 20 years old.

But his act of assassination worked; it led to Austria pulling out of Bosnia. The collateral damage was that it ignited World War I.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Countess Sophie, moments before they were shot dead in a single act that set in motion the events of World War I.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

In the next four years, some 16 nations lost more than 10 million lives, twice that many were wounded, the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Germany was humiliated in defeat (laying the groundwork for the rise of Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust) and America was launched into world prominence.

Princip's pistol also led to the creation of Yugoslavia, which led to the destruction of Yugoslavia, which led to another war involving ethnic Serbs in Bosnia, which led to mass murder of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, which led to U.S. troops landing in a place called Tuzla, which led to war crimes tribunals and the imprisonment and subsequent death of the Serbian president who had started the war on ethnic nationalism.

Moving south, if one wants the short course on why peace in the Middle East is so elusive, just look up "Nobel Peace Prize," followed by "assassination."

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat won that award in 1978, along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, for their peace agreement, the Camp David Accords. That lasted for three years, until Muslim fundamentalists stormed a parade route and shot Sadat to death.

Thirteen years later, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (and colleague Shimon Peres) shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin's mortal enemy, Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. The two men had, mostly in secret, brokered a peace agreement (the Oslo Accords) that promised to have a transformative effect on the Middle East. But it was largely an agreement between two men, not two nations. One Israeli law student thought that Rabin, a soldier who had defended Israel almost his entire adult life, was "giving our country to the Arabs." He took it upon himself to shoot and kill Rabin.

The Oslo Accords withered and died.

And, of course, there is the United States, where roughly one out of every 11 presidents have been assassinated, where Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Martin Luther King followed the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and was, of course, shot in the head at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

American assassination has been of titanic import. Lincoln's changed the course of the country. His assassination spot at Ford's Theater is a national landmark, and there is the Lincoln Monument on the Mall, not to mention his likeness on the penny and the $5 bill. John F. Kennedy's assassination . . . oh. You've heard.

It's also been almost inconsequential. Just 16 years after Lincoln was killed, James Garfield was assassinated at a train station a few hundred yards from Ford's Theatre. That building, never designated anything, was torn down 99 years ago. The site eventually became the National Gallery of Art and today, not even a plaque marks the spot. The sole reminder of the event is Garfield's unobtrusive statue at the base of Capitol Hill.

In 1998, the U.S. Justice Department published something called the "Exceptional Case Study Project," as part of a threat assessment guide for law enforcement officials. The study reviewed the historical record back to 1835 and surveyed "the thinking and behavior of all 83 persons known to have attacked or approached to attack a prominent public official or figure in the United States from 1949 to 1996."

They fit no one profile, authors Robert A. Fein and Bryan Vossekuil found. Some had political beliefs, some were just nuts. The serious ones kept their mouths shut: "None of the 43 assassins and attackers communicated a direct threat to the target before their attack."

And some, perhaps like the person or people who killed Bhutto yesterday, wanted to "save the country or the world; to fix a world problem."

How seldom it works out that way.

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A Muslim belongs in the Cabinet

By Mansoor Ijaz (Tue Nov 27, 3:00 AM ET)

Mitt Romney tells good jokes. I had the chance to hear a few of them this month at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas, where the Republican presidential contender gave his audience a few good chuckles before going into his domestic and foreign policy agenda.

His platform seemed sound enough analytically – until he demonstrated an aggravating hypocrisy in his reply to my query on one of his key foreign policy positions. It's a stance that should give pause to all Americans who are considering voting for him.

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats.

I am an American-born citizen of the Islamic faith. I stand as a living symbol of all that America offers in its system of liberty, justice, and, most of all, opportunity. I am also proud of my Muslim heritage and beliefs, and, true to the American work ethic, I have worked tirelessly to raise up the voices of disaffected Muslims everywhere and help them, too, share in America's promise.

As a private American citizen, I negotiated Sudan's offer of counterterrorism assistance to the Clinton administration in 1997 when the US government had no relations with that country's leaders. I felt there was still an opportunity at that time to unravel the metastasizing terror network being organized by Osama bin Laden and his followers.

I later initiated dialogue with an Arab counterintelligence official in the summer of 2000 that could have resulted in the extradition of Mr. bin Laden to a friendly Muslim country and neutralized Al Qaeda's pre-9/11 planning. That summer, I also helped negotiate a cease fire in Kashmir, which brought peace to a region that has known constant conflict since partition between India and Pakistan.

In early 2001, I notified national security adviser Stephen Hadley that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and militant Islamists, some of whom I had worked with during the cease-fire campaign, were actively engaged in the sale and distribution of Pakistan's nuclear technology. Mr. Hadley asked me to make recommendations on how these proliferation activities could be stopped. I did so, mindful that, as an American Muslim whose father was a pioneer in Pakistan's nuclear program, I risked harming the name of my family. But for the sake of my duty as a citizen, I helped the US government expose the illicit transfers. A.Q. Khan, who headed Pakistan's nuclear program, was arrested a few years later.

The point I make in enumerating these efforts to contribute to US national interests is that Americans of the Islamic faith – even when they have no formal role in government – are committed to helping our nation defend its interests. And we have done so. Why, then, should we be excluded from holding positions that carry the highest levels of responsibility?

Imagine how a qualified American Muslim FBI director, sensitized to the genuine concerns among Arab and Muslim communities about civil rights violations, would be able to ensure that FBI actions and policies target the real bad guys, not communities as a whole. Imagine how an American Muslim CIA director or defense secretary whose understanding of cultural differences in places that breed Islamist violence would ensure that intelligence was not biased by bigotry or lack of understanding and that defense strategies were constructed on data acquired from authentic sources.

If Romney wins the White House, he will probably rely on those who know Mormonism best to help him explain it to those who distrust it most. It is time for him to reconsider his views on who should help America craft the right policies that attack the scourge on civilization that Islamic extremism has become.

He, and other candidates for the presidency from both political parties, should actively begin searching for American Muslims and Arab Americans who can serve in primary decisionmaking cabinet level posts. To do otherwise is to risk promulgating policies that once again put the US straight in the sights of the terrorists who seek to bring America down.

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The U.S. blacklisted me. Let's talk.

By Tariq Ramadan (Wed Oct 31, 4:00 AM ET)

Living in a democratic society that grants an individual's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the cherished privilege and pride of Western citizenry and the dream longed for by the rest of the world.

Countless have fought and died to secure these rights in the West, and millions the world over are dying for them today – dying to be free to worship, free to associate, free to speak, free to participate in the governance of their own countries.

But the struggle for the protection of rights and civil liberties in the West is not a finished chapter in our history. The constitutions of Western democracies and the rights they enshrine do not protect themselves. The preservation of these liberties requires a vigilant, critical, and courageous citizenry that can be neither complacent in times of security nor compromising in times of fear and insecurity – citizens who understand that the violation of the basic rights of one is a violation of the rights of all. Loyalty to country and constitution demands that we speak up against injustice, uphold our ideals, and hold our leaders accountable.

For years, I worked tirelessly in academic and public circles to dismantle the barriers erected by those who see Islam and the West as mutually exclusive, to build bridges of mutual understanding and respect. Since 2001, I have also intensified my work to remind my fellow Western citizens of the fragility of our societies and the precariousness of our civil liberties as we are thrust into this so-called war on terrorism. Since the end of 2004, I have done this primarily in Europe through my academic work, debates, and public lectures and by working closely with European politicians, governmental agencies, and civic institutions. But I have been prevented from doing this work on American soil.

In the summer of 2004, I was poised to start a dual professorship at Notre Dame University and eager for a more concentrated academic and public engagement than was previously allowed by my numerous but brief visits to the United States.

But that was not to happen. My visa was canceled at the last minute at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, supposedly under a provision of the Patriot Act. This revocation not only cost me my academic post, it deprived me and Americans of a much needed mutually enriching dialogue and debate. It also fueled fantastical allegations of terrorism support and of shadowy associations that tarnished my reputation and cast a cloud of suspicion over my character and work.

After American organizations sued, the government abandoned its initial reason for excluding me but came up with a new one – that, between 1998 and 2002, I had contributed small amounts of money to a Swiss charity supporting humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories. The government is relying on a "material support" law that didn't exist until 2005 – long after I made the donations – and it is holding me accountable for donating to a charity that still operates lawfully in Europe today. And while the US government has blacklisted the charity, it didn't do so until 2003 – a year after I made my last donation. Many US organizations believe that I am being barred from the country not because of my actions but because of my ideas. The conclusion seems inescapable.

The US government's shifting arguments in my case might be absurd – even comical – if the stakes were not so high. But, in the name of defending the country against terrorism, the government seems to be trampling over the rights that make democracies worth defending. In a time when we are inundated with the daily rhetoric of ideologues, exclusivists, and merchants of fear, we are in dire need of engaged academics and public intellectuals who can write and speak authoritatively on the topics of the day and who also provide visible public models for ethics of citizenship. Yet, publicized as my case might be, it is not the only example of this administration's exclusion of academics critical of its domestic and foreign policies.

Bleak as this picture might seem at times, I remain hopeful. I am encouraged by the unwavering support I have received from ordinary Americans, civic groups, and particularly from scholars, academic organizations, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued my case in federal court last week. I am heartened by the emerging debate in the US about what has been happening to our countries and ideals in the past six years.

I am hopeful that justice will prevail and I will be allowed to enter this country so that I may contribute to the debate and be enriched by dialogue. It is much more important than a personal vindication for me; it is a matter of protecting of collective ideals and academic freedom, a cornerstone of democracy.

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Iran Chosen As Official Poster of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

by Azadeh Ensha (Fri Oct 12, 4:56 PM ET)

The far right is taking its favorite catchphrase on tour. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is coming to a campus near you.

According to FrontPage magazine's David Horowitz, the event was designed to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the 'war on terror' and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than global jihad and Islamic supremacism." The week's events will include "awareness" speeches by Michael Ledeen, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter as well as Horowitz himself. With such a fair and balanced list, Islamo-Fascism Week will be the perfect environment to proselytize anti-Islamic propaganda to the under 30 crowd.

The official poster of Islamo-Fascism week shows a photo of a teenage girl being stoned to death in Iran (disclosure: my country of birth) and will also feature speeches from Iranians who were victims of persecution. As an Iranian-American, I appreciate that they're spreading the word about human rights abuses in my native country. Unfortunately, I think their goal has less to do with spreading awareness than it does with fostering fear, suspicion and bigotry.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness week is about telling you that Islam is evil and that Muslims are out to get you. When in fact, some crazy and violent people have hijacked the religion of billions of peaceful people.

As part of the festivities, the event will feature a series of one-sided films including Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which extols the worldview of good (Christianity) versus evil (Islam). According to FrontPage, the movie is designed to reveal the "violent, expansionary ideology of the so called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government."

The event will also include a petition drive designed to force "students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies." Students will be instructed to urge their classmates to sign and to call attention to those who don't -- reminiscent of the same public pressure to side with "us" or "them" that defined the McCarthy era. The program notably encourages confronting groups "who might be least likely to sign" the petition. Examples include school administrators and the Muslim Students Association.

So much for higher education.

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Islamic Spain: history's refrain

By Alexander Kronemer (Wed Aug 22, 4:00 AM ET)

The past sometimes provides examples of glory and success that serve as models. Other times, as the philosopher George Santayana said, it warns of impending calamity for those who do not learn from it.

For the past several years, I've been immersed in a history that does both. As one of the producers for an upcoming PBS documentary on the rise and fall of Islamic Spain, I've witnessed its amazing ascent and tragic fall countless times in the editing room, only to go home and watch some of the same themes playing out on the nightly news.

Islamic Spain lasted longer than the Roman Empire. It marked a period and a place where for hundreds of years a relative religious tolerance prevailed in medieval Europe.

A model for religious toleranceAt its peak, it lit the Dark Ages with science and philosophy, poetry, art, and architecture. It was the period remembered as a golden age for European Jews. Breakthroughs in medicine, the introduction of the number zero, the lost philosophy of Aristotle, even the prototype for the guitar all came to Europe through Islamic Spain.

Not until the Renaissance was so much culture produced in the West. And not until relatively recent times has there been the level of pluralism and religious tolerance that existed in Islamic Spain at its peak. Just as the vibrancy and creativity of America is rooted in the acceptance of diversity, so was it then.

Because Islam's prophet Muhammad founded his mission as a continuation of the Abrahamic tradition, Islamic theology gave special consideration to Jews and Christians. To be sure, there were limits to these accommodations, such as special taxes levied on religious minorities. But in the early Middle Ages, official tolerance of one religion by another was an amazingly liberal point of view. This acceptance became the basis for Islamic Spain's genius. Indeed, it was an important reason Islam took hold there in the first place.

When the first Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar into Spain, the large Jewish population there was enduring a period of oppression by the Roman Catholic Visigoths. The Jewish minorities rallied to aid the Arab Muslims as liberators, and the divided Visigoths fell.

The conquering Arab Muslims remained a minority for many years, but they were able to govern their Catholic and Jewish citizens by a policy of inclusiveness. Even as Islam slowly grew over the centuries to be the majority religion in Spain, this spirit was largely, if not always perfectly, maintained.

Pluralistic though it was, Islamic Spain was no democracy. After years of enlightened leadership, a succession of bad leaders caused the unified Muslim kingdom to fragment among many smaller petty kingdoms and fiefdoms.

Though they competed and fought, the spirit of pluralism continued. Indeed, it thrived as rival kings sought the best minds in the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish worlds for their courts. This was just as true in the Christian petty kingdoms, as the Muslim ones. Christian and Muslim armies even fought alongside each other against mutual rivals of both faiths.

It is at this point that the darker parallels to our time begin. Into the competition for land, resources, and power, some leaders on both sides began to appeal to religion to rally support for their cause. Wars became increasingly religious in nature. Into this tinderbox a match was thrown: the Crusades – the same term that many Arabs use today when referring to America's adventure in Iraq.

The Crusades deepened Spain's religious divide. Minorities in both Christian and Muslim kingdoms become increasingly suspect. Persecutions, expulsions, and further warfare ensued. Nothing could stop it, not even the black plague.

Ultimately, Christian kingdoms gained the upper hand as the Muslim kingdoms of Islamic Spain fell. Spain's Muslims and Jews were forced to either leave or convert. This led to the rise of the Inquisition, whose purpose was to verify the loyalty of suspect converts. The expulsions and inquisitions racked Spain economically, culturally, and morally. Its power was severely compromised. The fall of pluralism in Spain was the fall of Spain itself.

Dark parallels with todayThis fall directly links to events today and raises many of the same stakes. Though few Americans note it, one of Osama bin Laden's justifications for the 9/11 attacks was to avenge the "tragedy" of Islamic Spain.

So far, the post-9/11 world and the policies it has spawned seem to be heading in the same dangerous direction as witnessed before. The religious intolerance that engulfed and overwhelmed medieval Spain threatens the increasingly beleaguered pluralism of our own time.

At its best, the history of Islamic Spain is a model for interfaith cooperation that inspires those who seek an easier relationship among the three Abrahamic faiths. At its worst, it's a warning of what can occur when political and religious leaders divide the world. It reminds us what really happens when civilizations clash.

• Alexander Kronemer is a writer, lecturer, and documentary producer focusing on religious diversity, Islam, and cross-cultural understanding. His film "Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain" premieres on PBS Aug. 22.

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The social responsibility revolution

By Bruce Piasecki (Thu Aug 9, 4:00 AM ET)

Business educators may be in for a surprise. Something extraordinary is happening in the global marketplace that defies classic principles taught at virtually every business school.

Superior product quality and competitive pricing may no longer stand above all others as the most critical variables in the equation for business success. In the evolving global marketplace that I call World Inc., a third strategic factor is coming into play: social responsibility. By that, I mean making products and delivering services that generate profits but also help society address challenges such as climate change, energy security, healthcare, and poverty.

This business trinity of quality, price, and social response is emerging even as multinational corporations acquire unprecedented economic power. Consider these eye-opening facts about their clout at the dawn of the 21st century:

•Of the world's 100 largest economies, 29 were corporations, not nations.

•The combined sales of the top 200 global corporations were the equivalent of 28 percent of world gross domestic product.

•Roughly a third of all world trade took place among multinational corporations.

A growing number of multinational business leaders is already demonstrating that tomorrow's most successful enterprises will be those willing to devote unprecedented time and effort to incorporate social responsibility into their business models. If the trend continues, it will change the way giant enterprises do business.

At first glance, social response initiatives may appear to be superficial public relations stunts. A closer look at the 300 largest firms in this new century reveals that most are really all about business opportunities, profit gains, and expanding market share.

Take, for example, the culture shift occurring at General Electric. GE's "Ecomagination" campaign features a lovable dancing rain-forest elephant that projects a friendly corporate face for CEO Jeffrey Immelt that is very different from the hard-edged, calculating one offered by his legendary predecessor, Jack Welch.

Actually, the change in strategy reflects GE's recognition of advances in markets for environmentally friendlier technologies such as wind power – one of the fastest-growing power sources in the world. It sees green technology for what it is: a great business opportunity. By 2010, GE plans to double its investment in such green solutions to $1.5 billion and double revenue from products included in the campaign from $10 billion to $20 billion annually. These green solutions, GE claims, can reduce energy consumption by roughly 30 percent.

Then there's Toyota. Its efficient hybrid power train that reduces emissions of traditional pollutants and greenhouse gases, once seen as a risky venture, is today selling like hotcakes. It's now a feature on more than 1 million vehicles sold, making it no coincidence that Toyota has surpassed General Motors as the world's largest automaker.

But it's the actions of Wal-Mart, the world's largest – and perhaps most controversial – overall retailer (serving 176 million customers each week), that signals the true significance of this trend. In February, delivering the keynote lecture at the Prince of Wales's Business and Environment Program in London, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott unveiled "Sustainability 360," which he described as a company-wide commitment to sustainability going beyond its direct environmental footprint to engage everyone the company touches: associates, suppliers, communities, and customers.

Like GE and others competing in World Inc., Wal-Mart is quick to recognize the opportunities that spring from sustainability. By requiring suppliers to reduce product packaging by 5 percent by 2013, it expects to realize savings equal to removing 213,000 trucks from the road and saving approximately 324,000 tons of coal and 67 million gallons of diesel fuel per year. They'll save millions more by making stores 30 percent more efficient by 2012, increasing fleet efficiency by 25 percent by 2010 and reducing solid waste from its US stores and Sam's Clubs by 25 percent by 2008.

Perhaps the most telling fact in all this is that these giant companies are acting voluntarily. They are responding to market forces and recognized opportunities, not mandates from Congress and government regulators.

We may be on the verge of historic change in the business world. Entrepreneurs, business leaders, and educators will all be watching to see how these companies, and others that follow them, build new profit centers by bringing socially responsible products and processes to the marketplace.

Each will be a model for future decisionmakers. Whether they will be models for success or failure remains to be seen, but the initial signs are encouraging. Welcome to World Inc.

• Bruce Piasecki, president and founder of the management consulting firm AHC Group, is the author of six books on corporate strategy. His latest book is "World Inc." ( www.worldincbook.com ).

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America, stop waving the nuclear threat at potential adversaries

By Jack Mendelsohn (Fri Aug 10, 4:00 AM ET)

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were asked in a recent presidential debate whether they would meet with such controversial foreign leaders as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Despite the sparring between the two over the timing and pre-conditions for such a meeting, they both essentially said they would engage international reprobates – something this administration has repeatedly balked at doing. Remember, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "We don't negotiate with evil. We destroy it."

A tougher question is whether the next president would threaten to use nuclear weapons against a foreign enemy. Four Republican candidates – Mitt Romney, Duncan Hunter, Jim Gilmore, and Rudy Giuliani – have already expressed their willingness to use "tactical" nuclear weapons against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. Again, this tracks with the vice president who is reportedly urging an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure by next year at the latest.

Mr. Obama recently told the Associated Press that he would not use nuclear weapons "in any circumstance" involving civilians. Mrs. Clinton once again criticized his foreign policy position saying that she didn't believe that "any president should make any blanket statements."

If the Democrat candidates want to distinguish themselves from their opponents, and if the Republicans want to recover from the disastrous foreign policy of this administration, the candidates should commit to delegitimizing – not stressing – nuclear weapons. Every time the United States threatens a potential adversary with nuclear weapons it tells the world that these weapons are acceptable instruments of modern warfare and that there are no political or moral constraints on US behavior.

It is overwhelmingly in the US national interest to preserve the "taboo" on nuclear weapons use and to seek to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in US security policy. To achieve this, the candidates should address four issues:

First, announce that they reject nuclear intimidation and the current policy of preventive war. In the future, and under their leadership, the United States will retain its nuclear arsenal for deterrence only and will not employ nuclear weapons except in retaliation for a nuclear attack.

Second, commit to the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Even President Reagan sought a nuclear-free world and a number of senior US statesmen, from the late Paul Nitze (Democrat) to George Schultz and Henry Kissinger (both Republicans), agree that the US would be much safer in a world without nuclear weapons.

Third, declare that they plan to withdraw all US nuclear weapons from Europe during their term in office. These weapons are relics of the cold war: There is no strategic requirement for them, and no military mission that cannot be carried out by conventional weapons.

Finally, make it clear that the United States will not resume nuclear testing. A reaffirmation of the decade-old moratorium on nuclear tests (or ratification by the next Congress of the treaty banning such tests) would strengthen US efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons to other nations.

In the run-up to the presidential election, the candidates of both parties have a chance to indicate to the world that the next administration will forgo the policy of nuclear intimidation and actively strive to delegitimize nuclear weapons. This nation cannot become more secure by reserving for itself the right to use nuclear weapons while preaching nuclear abstinence for the rest of world.

• Jack Mendelsohn was a US State Department official, a member of the US SALT and START delegations and deputy director of the Arms Control Association. He is presently an adjunct professor at George Washington University and American University.

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