Most communities actively seek out programs to engage their youth, keep them out of trouble, and entice them to stay in school. However, many communities run into two problems when designing these programs. One, communities face difficulty in finding funding for youth programs. Two, communities have difficulty engaging youth in the programs, so that the programs even have a chance of achieving some of the positive goals they’re intended to produce.

The JROTC program has reportedly had the effect of engaging youth, keeping them out of trouble, and enticing them to stay in school. On top of that, the program is partially funded by the federal government. In other words, high school age teenagers voluntarily sign up for for a program that requires them to wear a military uniform at least once a week, work in teams, respect authority, and march in formations. On top of that, most participants show enthusiasm for the program. What could possibly be the downside of it?

Well, according to the San Francisco Board of Education, JROTC’s connection to the military makes the program incompatible with the public education system. Tuesday night, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to remove the JROTC program from San Francisco’s public high schools.

I can’t help but see some disturbing parallels between San Francisco giving JROTC the boot and the attempts to remove evolution from science textbooks in some other parts of the country. In both instances, we have a group of people deciding to remove a program from the schools based on their own moral beliefs, rather than on the actual merits or demerits of the programs.

Yesterday, the news broke that a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported that increasing Islamic radicalism and terrorism is directly related to the war in Iraq (read the reports from the New York Times here and here). In today’s Times article, Arlen Specter is reported as commenting that “that’s a problem that nobody seems to have an answer to.” Confronted with this new evidence, the United States still has few options in Iraq and none “good.”

On one hand, the U.S. can pull all American personnel out of Iraq. If the U.S. were to withdraw from Iraq tomorrow, the country would be left in chaos. Iraq will likely spiral into a civil war, and another (or several, depending on the outcome of a civil war) despotic regime will likely gain power over the country. This could radicalize much of the moderate majority against the U.S. for removing the original Ba’ath regime in the beginning. Islamic fundamentalists could then use Iraq as an example of the U.S. destroying an Islamic society and leaving it without assistance. In sum, if the U.S. were to remove all American personnel from Iraq today, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism directed towards the U.S. will likely increase in the long term.

On the other hand, the U.S. can “stay the course” in Iraq. In the long term, though, Americans can count on more of the same with this tactic. Americans are killed in Iraq on a daily basis, and the American presence in Iraq angers many Muslims around the world. This anger is resulting in the increasing Islamic extremism and terrorism, as the NIE reported.

American foreign policymakers need to find the middle ground between these two options. A realignment of foreign policy values may be necessary to find this middle ground. First, policymakers need to determine a gradual Iraq withdrawal plan that is amenable to both the U.S. and Iraq. Second, the U.S. needs to evaluate and reinvest in its public diplomacy program. Typically, a person who has had contact with someone from an “out” group is much less likely to perpetrate violence against that group than someone who has not had exposure to the “out” group. Public diplomacy can bring Americans and American culture to people who might otherwise never have exposure to an American. Finally, the U.S. should invest in more generous aid programs. Aid programs are a way to show that we mean what we say. The U.S. has to prove to Muslims around the world that it does not want to establish an empire and that Americans do see them as our fellow and equal human beings. These last two measures will be costly, but this might be the price of addressing the causes of hatred and violence directed towards the U.S.

The Middle East crisis has erupted into violence once again. It began on Wednesday when Hezbollah took two Israeli soldiers prisoner. Israel began a bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, and within a few days had expanded it throughout most of the country. Hezbollah has promised “open war” against Israel, and has launched rockets as far as Haifa and at Israel’s fleet in the Mediterranean Sea (click here for full summary). The quickly escalating violence has highlighted policy dilemmas facing both the Bush Administration and the global community at large.

For the Bush Administration, this conflict has put its two signature foreign policies at odds with each other. On one hand, the Administration has tried to “spread democracy” around the globe; thus, it applauded Lebanon’s democratic elections earlier this year. On the other hand, the Administration has declared a global “war on terrorism,” calling on all countries to join in eliminating terrorist organizations. Israel’s most recent military action in Lebanon is intended to disarm a globally-recognized terrorist organization. Currently, the Administration has extended its moral support to Israel, stating that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” while stipulating that Israel should try to respect the fragile democratic government in Lebanon. The Administration must confront the question of what happens when a democracy is too weak to control international terrorist groups operating within its own borders.

Previously, the two policies have not clashed in such a dramatic way, and the Administration may have even been operating under the assumption that violent terrorist organizations could not flourish and survive in democracies. However, the current crisis presents a direct trade-off for the Administration, in which it must decide how to balance the two policies in a situation where they conflict with each other. For the time being, at least, Bush has appeared to favor combating global terrorism.

It may, however, be wrong to frame this as a question that only the Bush Administration is facing. The global community has, with a few notable exceptions, agreed with combating global terrorism as a policy objective worthy of pursuing. This is not to say that various countries and even people within the same country have not disagreed on how to pursue that aim. However, international law is a state-based system. How, then, should Israel deal with a non-state actor launching attacks on its territory, if this actor launches the attacks from a sovereign nation? Much of the international community has criticized Israel for the sheer force of its attacks on Hezbollah, attacks which are devastating much of Lebanon. The international community must settle on how to balance the need to combat terrorism with the need to retain state sovereignty. For both the Bush Administration and the global community at large then, the question is not one of if Israel should deal with Hezbollah terrorists, but rather one of how it should do so.