Column Archive

When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Tehran last week, his Iranian hosts made no mention of the domestic troubles facing him back home. That contrasts sharply with the kinds of criticism the notoriously touchy Erdogan regularly hears these days when traveling in the West. In particular, the problems facing Erdogan’s AKP government are placing a major burden on Turkey-U.S. relations. His authoritarian tendencies and proclivity to blame everyone, including Washington, for his domestic challenges have become increasingly difficult for the administration of President Barack Obama to ignore, despite the warm personal relationship between the two leaders. These challenges […]

What do you see when you look at the Central African Republic (CAR)? The crisis in the previously largely unknown former French colony is becoming a Rorschach test for international policymakers. Few would deny that the CAR has endured a hellish breakdown of basic order that has claimed at least 2,000 lives and forced a quarter of the country’s 4 million citizens from their homes. But is this simply a humanitarian disaster that needs to be stopped through rapid military action? Or is it a case of a failed state that demands a long-term effort to rebuild the government’s capacity […]