New Year, New Lists: the State Department's List of State Sponsors of Terrorism

The new year is meant to be ushered in with a celebratory ringing, but my own seem more typically accompanied by a rustle: the crumpling sound of last year's resolution lists, and the fresh composition of new ones.

The State Department keeps lists too, of naughty states and nice ones. The annually renewed list of the naughty ones is called the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and, as of January 2007, there are five states on it: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Libya, one of the original members of the list when it was first created in 1979, was erased from the rogue state column in 2006. In exchange for its new place on the list of nice states, Libya took responsibility for the 1988 destruction of a Pan Am flight that killed nearly 300 people, gave up its missile production, and promised to cooperate in the U.S.-led global war on terrorism.

As we enter the sixth year of the U.S. led war on terror, it should be interesting to see whether there is any more movement on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.