Washington may have cut an unlovable deal to avert a default on its debts, but U.S. and global stock markets are tanking anyway. That’s because the measures agreed Tuesday can’t reverse the slide of the U.S. economy — its fundamentals, to use a phrase beloved by politicians, are less than sound. So, what the world sees in America’s …
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Mired in Libya and Fearful of Consequences, West Holds Back From Syria Intervention
“Liberal Interventionists” in Washington had hoped, last March, that the decision by the U.S., Britain and France to launch U.N.authorized military action in Libya represented a new Western willingness to protect civilians under threat by their own regimes. The paralysis of the same governments and the wider international community …
A ‘Dramatic Turnabout’ by Netanyahu on Peace Terms? Not Quite
With tens of thousands of young protestors on his streets in a social justice movement sparked by a housing crisis, some Israeli commentators have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s best hope for quelling a domestic “rebellion” lies in changing the subject to the question of peace with the Palestinians. But …
Disarray on Gaddafi’s Fate, Top Rebel’s Killing Highlight Struggling Libya War Effort
(Update: The mysterious circumstances of Thursday’s killing of General Abdul Fattah Younes, military chief of staff of the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, suggest the rebel war effort is teetering in crisis. The Independent reports that Younes had been in rebel custody at the time of his killing, having been arrested …
Reluctant Revolutionary Abbas Urges Palestinian Street Protests to Back U.N. Statehood Bid
The biggest problem on the desk of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a protest movement — not of Palestinians, but of young Israelis, who have poured onto the streets in their tens of thousands demanding that their government resolve a growing housing crisis. Sure, the Obama Administration has failed in its effort on …
New Developments On Libya Bring New Confusion About An Outcome
Another day in Europe, more mixed messages on just how Western allies in the NATO-led Libyan air intervention plan to end a campaign that has now officially attained “slog” status. Just hours after comments Tuesday from British officials saying they’d accept embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi remaining free in post-war Libya so long …
Why A Fresh Face Isn’t Enough to Move India and Pakistan Closer to Peace
The new Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, landed in India yesterday for bilateral talks and, not surprisingly, the Indian media have heralded her arrival with intense interest. From a land-owning family with a long history in politics, Khar is decidedly younger and more glamorous than the usual diplomats making the …
The West Slowly Backing Away From the Libyan Military Operation
It’s getting harder and harder to believe there’ll eventually be a resolution to Libya’s civil war that will allow anyone to claim Muammar Gaddafi lost to rebel forces—or was humbled by members of the NATO-led coalition waging air strikes against him. Indeed, it’s becoming increasingly clear as the weeks rush by that …
Famine in Somalia: When Does the World Decide to Use the ‘F’ Word?
The word ‘famine’ may be a familiar one, but it is not thrown around lightly by the people who decide when there is one. The fact that most of us today probably associate the term with the 1984 crisis in Ethiopia is testament to its exceedingly careful dispensation; to use it too often would dilute its power to command the …
Who Will Chip in to Help Six Million Hungry North Koreans?
It’s safe to say that prioritizing — at least in a way the rest of the world can relate to — has never been one of the hallmarks of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. While the nation’s International Olympic Committee was lobbying last week to co-host the 2018 Winter Olympics with the South, North Korean citizens were scouring the …
What Comes After the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process?
An Italian philosopher once remarked that moments when “the old is dying and the new cannot be born” are marked by a “great variety of morbid symptoms”. Watching the machinations of the Obama Administration and its allies, the Palestinian leadership and its rivals, and the Israeli government ahead of a planned U.N. vote on …
Memo to Mideast Quartet: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Train Derailed Ages Ago
The Obama Administration and its European allies meet Monday in Washington, under the auspices of the Middle East Quartet, in search of a formula to head off a Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood by the U.N. in September. A U.N. vote would be a “train wreck”, U.S. officials like to say, setting up renewed confrontation; …
Lessons from East Timor for South Sudan: Three Things Nation #193 Can Learn from #191
The verdict, it seems, is already in. Many are already calling South Sudan, which will become the world’s 193rd nation on July 9, a soon-to-be failed state. Indeed, the prognosis is grim: as its secession from Sudan has drawn near, nearly 2000 people in the south have been killed in inter-militia fighting. Hundreds more are dead …