Domestic Politics Archive

Gaza is close to exploding into war. The only major issue appears to be which will come first — a new war with Israel or a Hamas-Fatah civil war. With crushing domestic pressure on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of foreign aid cuts — the result of Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist — Hamas and other terrorist groups have been smuggling an unprecedented level of weaponry into Gaza from Egypt. But any move by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led PA and set up an emergency government — thereby defusing the growing […]

The closer the mid-term elections get, the less responsible the debate over Iraq is likely to become. Inversely, post-election political dynamics will favor arguments and options more grounded in reality than rhetoric. The national debate over the way forward in Iraq will become much more consequential the evening the votes are counted. Regardless of which party finds itself in control of Congress on Nov. 8, the new political constellation will favor a reduction in partisanship and some unusual political bedfellows. If the Republicans retain control of Congress, they will give increasingly less fealty to a lame-duck White House. Regardless of […]

Nicaragua’s former left-wing dictator Daniel Ortega appears set to win his fourth attempt to be the democratically elected president of his country, which is still trying to recover from the ravages of a long civil war. The latest opinion polls show he could win election on the first ballot, on Nov. 5. A poll published Oct. 18 by the daily El Nuevo Diario showed the former Sandinista rebel commander has 37.5 percent support against 20.1 percent for his closest rival, former Vice President Jose Rizo, of the Liberal Party. Under Nicaraguan election law, the leader of the first-round ballot is […]

BAMAKO, Mali — One three-letter acronym, ATT, encapsulates Mali’s most powerful political brand. Across West Africa’s largest country, it is the universal code for President Amadou Toumani Touré. Elected to a five-year term of office in 2002, Touré can boast of a genuine popularity amongst his citizens. “Because ATT is good. Because he works,” Sekou Camara, a security guard, said. “If people say something, then he listens.” Such praise extends beyond those on the economic margins. Amadou Konta, the general manager of Loulo mine, owned by offshore Randgold Resources and listed on the NASDAQ, proved equally effusive about Touré. “He’s […]

After emerging from decades of single-party rule in 1998, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has become a symbol of freedom in a region that recently has been slowly sliding away from democracy. Today, Indonesia’s story is that of reformasi, or a spirit of reform. After enduring a troubled, violent separation, the culturally distinct province of East Timor is now free. The insurgent Free Aceh Movement has signed a cease-fire with the central government. And, in 2004, the country’s first direct presidential election brought Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into office. This year, Freedom House upgraded Indonesia from “Partly Free” to […]

In the aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war, the Lebanese are divided like no time since the civil war of the late 1970s and 1980s. One is either with Hezbollah or with the Lebanese government. Gray areas are evaporating and being replaced by tribalism and patron-client loyalties, for which the Middle East is particularly famous. In a recent trip to Beirut, I witnessed this rising tension firsthand. The pan-Arabic weekly magazine al-Mushahid al-Siyasi (The Arab Viewer) recently wrote that the next three months in Lebanon will be characterized “either by permanent stability, or frightening deterioration.” One side is represented by the […]

In the latest human rights blow to a Central Asian nation dominated by Soviet-style oppression, Uzbek officials are proposing tougher measures against Uzbek citizens practicing their religion. Under a proposal revealed by the Uzbek government’s Religious Affairs Committee in August, massive fines and imprisonment will await anyone who shares religious convictions with another person outside of an officially sanctioned house of worship. Under the new plan, through which officials say individual religious leaders will be held accountable for the actions of those in their congregations, a first offense would earn the guilty party a fine between 200 and 600 times […]

BUSAN, South Korea — The Korea Earthquake Research Center recorded a tremor in North Korea at 10:36 a.m. on Monday. It measured 3.6 on the Richter scale and was not a natural event. Shortly after the seismic activity, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced they had successfully completed a nuclear test, calling it a “historic event,” and a “great leap forward.” North Korea became the ninth member of the elite club of nations that possess the nuclear bomb. The test was conducted in a tunnel dug into a small mountainside near the village of Hwadae on the northeastern coast […]

TEL AVIV, Israel — You don’t have to understand Hebrew to read the worried faces of Israelis glancing at this week’s newspapers. The picture under yesterday’s bold headlines shows the familiar round face of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. Looking at him from a Tel Aviv sidewalk near the beach, Israeli readers show a familiar expression: one of profound worry. “Now Iran will feel it can do whatever it wants,” said Nili Orvin, a local businesswoman. North Korea, on Asia’s Pacific rim, lies thousands of miles from the Mediterranean Sea that laps gently upon Tel Aviv’s shore. Still, Israelis know […]

BUDAPEST, Hungary — In parts, the May 26 speech Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany gave to his Socialist party was something of a grand mea culpa. “I almost died when I had to pretend for one and a half years as if we were governing,” he said on tape. “I am through with this. We either do it and then you’ve got your man, or you pick someone else.” At other times, the speech seemed a sweeping political treatise delivered in the belligerent incoherence of a taxi driver stuck in traffic. “Since they know my mother’s name . . . […]

As a joke, he once called the Saudi Arabian soccer team “terrorists,” something Arab states found not so funny. And as a jab at an older politician he was replacing, he said “every man whose wife grows old has earned a younger woman,” something women found not so funny. And last month an audio tape surfaced that was not a jab and not a joke, but an admission of lies, lies, lies about the economy, something the people of Hungary found not funny at all. Hungary’s hip Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurscany has never been in hotter water, but he has […]

JERUSALEM — The usually ferocious Jerusalem traffic moves a little more slowly these days. According to the lunar calendars followed by Muslims and Jews, the holy Muslim month of Ramadan this year coincides with Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, making this a time when both Muslims and Jews, separately but simultaneously, are engaging in reflection and prayer. Their prayers this year ought to include requests for new leaders, brave and creative, for both sides of this conflict. Palestinians and Israelis are giving pollsters mind-bogglingly inconsistent views of what they want. That means they are ready for […]

EU Justice and Interior Ministers have just met in Tampere, Finland, to devise a common immigration and asylum policy by 2010. As contentious as the issue proved, it is ultimately no match for the other issue on the agenda, which set alarm bells ringing in a number of European capitals: changing the EU’s system of qualified majority voting (QMV) on criminal justice and home affairs matters. The changes proposed would mean ending national vetoes on highly sensitive issues — and thus a further significant loss of sovereign control to Brussels. Though the two-day conference broke up with little achieved, EU […]