ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA
La Nacion, Buenos Aires, June 30: Since May of 2003, Al-Qaida and its numerous offshoots have unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks inside Saudi Arabia. Their objective is twofold: On the one hand their intent is to destabilize markets, forcing the world to pay elevated prices for oil ... on the other hand, Al-Qaida is bent on undermining and toppling the Saudi monarchy, a regime considered an ally of the United States.
Oil reserves
If they achieve such aims, Islamic fundamentalists would obtain a political triumph and, furthermore, gain control of the international crude oil market, given the fact that Saudi Arabia has the largest reserves in the world.
Saudi authorities are alert to the risks and have redoubled their efforts to neutralize the actions of Islamic fundamentalists in their territory. The recent beheading of the American engineer Paul Johnson in Riyadh ... makes clear that terrorists will not flinch at committing heinous crimes.
GERMANY
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, June 29: The fact that, for fear of attacks, a ceremony under massive security could not go ahead as planned, amounts to an admission of failure.
The handover, moved up two days by the United States, thus gives the impression of an escape from responsibility.
What was hastily completed evidently was not the transfer of power but the transfer of chaos.
Despite all their victorious rhetoric, the American diplomats under governor Paul Bremer are leaving Iraq as losers.
Impossible job
They leave behind them some 150,000 soldiers with an impossible job.
Because of the weakness of Iraqi security forces, they must stay in the country. But it is precisely their presence as supposed peacekeepers that attracts troublemakers.
BRITAIN
The Guardian, London, June 28: The Bush administration came into office with a skeptical view of the European members of NATO, believing that what they could offer militarily was hardly worth the political trouble they caused trying to modify American policies. Times have changed. The unexpected and frightening scale of the conflict in Iraq and the strain of the continuing operations in Afghanistan has had the American government looking for help in every direction.
Disturbed public opinion
What the Americans will seek in Istanbul is the legitimacy that a NATO connection will confer on the Iraq project. Such a connection would have the function of locking in those NATO countries, such as Poland and Italy, that already have contingents in Iraq, but that, facing a disturbed public opinion at home, might be tempted to withdraw in the future. It would also help the Bush administration rebut accusations in the presidential campaign that it has persistently failed to consult its allies.
The device contemplated is a NATO response to a request from the new Iraqi government for help in training and equipping its forces. The true requirement is not for training but for NATO visibility.
INDIA
The Hindu, Madras, June 24: While the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan will require painstaking effort, the smoothness with which the dialogue was resumed after the change of government in New Delhi is most reassuring.
While the two neighbours decided to persist with the moratorium on nuclear weapon tests, they made no more than modest progress towards establishing procedures that will help reduce the risk of nuclear war. They decided to set up a hotline between the Foreign Secretaries and to upgrade the existing communication links between the Directors General of Military Operations. But much more will need to be done before the two countries can live up to the claim of being responsible nuclear weapon powers.
Security doctrine
Pakistan has shown interest in India's proposal jointly to evolve a common nuclear security doctrine.
An interesting aspect is the joint acknowledgement that both countries are on the same, disadvantaged side of the discriminatory global nuclear bargain.