Each April, the State Department publishes a list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Currently there are seven countries on the list.

U.S. policy has moved away from attempts to isolate so-called rogue states and toward efforts to demonstrate that better behavior will be rewarded, foreign policy experts report. They are waiting to see which states may make it off the list this year.

• At present the infamous nations are Iran, Sudan, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Iraq and Syria.

• This past summer, it appeared that Libya might be a candidate for removal -- since it has not sponsored an act of international terrorism in more than a decade and it turned over two suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988.

• Syria's chances for removal have been hurt because it acts as a conduit for supplies from Iran to Hezbollah guerrillas for use in attacks in southern Lebanon.

• North Korea is accused of harboring old terrorists, but a diplomatic decision could see it removed from the list.

Experts say that terrorism is increasingly being plotted by individuals rather than nations.

U.S. officials say the present objective is to "drain the swamps in which terrorists operate" -- which is to say Afghanistan, parts of Sudan, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and Colombia's rural valleys.

Some critics charge that the list has become mired in U.S. domestic politics. Others say it has become a geopolitical and psychological substitute for the old Soviet Union.

Source: Barbara Slavin, "Administration Eager to Reward 'Rogue' States for Good Behavior," USA Today, February 21, 2000.