The United States is poised to invade Iraq to check its development of weapons of mass destruction and Asia's regional security is challenged by a North Korean regime whose nuclear weapons program is out of the closet. The US and its allies also are trying to root out the remnants of an international terrorist network that has metastasized throughout the Islamic world. Despite years of progress toward settlement, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is at its most deadly level in decades, the peace process in Northern Ireland is at an impasse, and the longsimmering rivalry between the South Asian giants India and Pakistan has only recently edged back from the brink of a potentially nuclear war.