WPR Blog Archive

Good stuff, as usual, from Yigal Schleifer on Turkey’s struggle to find a workable post-Kemalist/post-Ottoman identity, one that balances the past century of Western-oriented secularism with the emerging “central power”/republican Islamist trend represented by the AKP. It made me think of Japan, too, as another country involved in a deep examination of how well its post-War identity fits into the shifting landscape of today’s Asia. France is another one that comes to mind, and there are probably a handful of other examples, too. For me, that raises the obvious question of whether a similar process is taking place today in […]

The U.S. and EU are bitterly divided over hedge fund regulations that the U.S. calls protectionist. (It turns out the EU is bitterly divided over the regulations, too, but let’s set that aside for now, in order to facilitate my argument.) Meanwhile, the EU is bitterly protesting the U.S. Air Force tanker contract debacle, which it says illustrates U.S. hypocrisy on said protectionism. And all this is taking place in the context of longstanding EU complaints that the U.S. has deliberately allowed the dollar to slide, to the detriment of euro-zone exporters. (Again, let’s set aside the euro’s recent tumble […]

If the fuel swap proposal designed to end the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program were a cat, it would be up to its sixth life by now. But Iran has just floated yet another counteroffer: a swap of all of its low-enriched uranium for the fuel cells — fabricated from 20 percent enriched uranium — needed to power its medical reactor. The hitch is that the exchange, as formulated by the head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency, would have to be conducted on Iranian territory and simultaneoulsy. That is, Iran would hold onto its LEU, under IAEA seal and oversight, […]

I’ve written before about what happens when sporting events and international relations collide. This morning, I ran across two articles that examine what might best be described as the underbelly of the global sports-industrial complex. One, in Der Spiegel, takes a look at the mixed impact that global demand for soccer balls has on the hand-stitchers of a Pakistani village that produces 40 million of them a year. That number goes up to 60 million during World Cup years. The other, by IRIN via AllAfrica.com, discusses an Ethiopian government report that found that human traffickers are using promises of a […]

Just another quick afterthought to yesterday’s post about how the U.S. presence in Iraq has altered the strategic logic of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Setting aside all of the non-strategic aspects of the relationship, which is admittedly a huge component, Israel has historically functioned as a U.S. proxy in the region — the surest and most reliable ally in terms of the broad alignments on which U.S. interests depend, and a security firewall that has come close to resembling a forward outpost. Now notice what’s changed in the above equation. First, Israel’s current posture — obstructionist with regard to Israel-Palestine negotiations, […]

If you haven’t seen it yet, click through and take a look at Mark Perry’s Foreign Policy article on some recent shifts in the U.S. military’s strategic framing of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Although the story ran in the aftermath of Vice President Joe Biden’s disastrous trip to Israel, the events it reports took place beforehand, and give some background for where Biden’s alleged “This is getting serious for us” quote came from. Laura Rozen smartly places the “meta” narrative in the context of a pre-emptive White House defense against any Israeli efforts by way of congressional supporters to limit the […]

You’ll probably see a lot of headlines today about how French President Nicolas Sarkozy took a beating in the first round of France’s regional elections yesterday. Take it with a grain of salt. Abstention hit a record in the low 50 percent range (i.e., most voters stayed home), the election was an off-year regional affair with no national impact, and it’s hard to imagine any incumbent doing that well in the current economic climate. It’s also unclear whether the Socialists and the Green coalition that came in third nationally will be able to work together to cut the necessarily deals […]

Germany. Whether it’s the gathering meme blaming German trade imbalances and “hidden” protectionism (labor cost competition) for the current crisis, or the increasing likelihood that the monetary/debt crisis will drive further EU budgetary coordination and economic government, the Germans are looking more and more like they’ll turn out to be the big losers from the Greek debt crisis. After the Greeks, that is — and even there, I’m not so sure.

It’s reassuring to see my biggest concern about a nuclear Iran — the dangers of a regional nuclear arms race — articulated by Brent Scowcroft at the very end of this NY Times article on the potential shift in CW on the issue. The Times piece pivots off a much longer Foreign Affairs article by Ray Tayekh and James Lindsay, which I haven’t had a chance to read in its entirety. Their three containment red lines, which the Times summarizes, seem well thought out: They urge Mr. Obama to prescribe three explicit no-go zones for the Iranians: “no initiation of […]

I just got through reading a few unrelated blog posts that combine to make for an interesting discussion of the U.S. response to shifting regional dynamics in Asia and the Middle East. Hugh White sketches how he thinks the U.S. should adapt its Asia strategy to accomodate China’s rise, while Tobias Harris exposes the limitations of the “losing Japan” narrative. Meanwhile, Elias Muhanna argues that the U.S. narrative of a moderate vs. militant divide in the Middle East fails to take into account how the landscape has shifted there, quoting this from a Washington Post op-ed by Rob Malley and […]

Governments and international sports bodies routinely fail to protect area residents from forced evictions ahead of large sporting events, independent United Nations investigator Raquel Rolnik told journalists this week. While the International Olympic Committee has initiated a plan to respond to housing concerns, the soccer governing body FIFA has failed to respond to repeated requests to make guaranteed respect for housing rights a part of the bidding process, the Associated Press reported. As of 2016, any country vying to host an Olympic Games will have to make a clear commitment on housing issues. But in a report to the U.N. […]

If you’ve been following the saga of the EU’s foreign policy wars, you know that: 1) EU “foreign minister” Catherine Ashton has taken some heavy fire for what critics consider an underwhelming start to leading the union’s common foreign policy in the post-Lisbon era; and, 2) there’s been a barroom brawl going on behind the scenes for influence in the powers and staffing of the future European diplomatic corps, known as the EAS. So with regard to the first point, it’s interesting to read this EU Observer account of Ashton’s visibly more-assured appearance before the European Parliament to give her […]

The big news on Monday regarding the Greek debt crisis was the momentum gathered over the weekend by a proposal for a European Monetary Fund for the euro zone. Initially proposed by the German finance minister, the proposal was immediately embraced by the EU commissioner for monetary affairs. Now comes the inevitable backlash, which is necessary if only to get an idea of the realistic contours such a plan might assume. The major question concerns whether such an institution would require amendments to existing treaties, with that depending on what kind of linkage it would have to actual monetary policy. […]

“Israel makes provocatively timed inflammatory announcement” seems to be a headline with plenty of mileage these days. While the settlement announcement during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit is getting the spotlight, I’d say the news out of Paris — where Israel’s infrastructure minister announced its intentions to build a civilian nuclear reactor — is even more significant, for muddying the waters on so many different high-stakes fronts at once. To bullet-point them in no particular order: – It puts France and the U.S. on the spot regarding a potential non-NPT “India exception” for Israel, at the very moment when both […]

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou speaks in calm, measured tones, but he is clearly determined to do what it takes to pull the debt-crushed remnants of his country’s economy out of the fire. This week he is in Washington campaigning for a unified front against the “unprincipled” financial speculators who are betting that his crisis-hit country will default on its loans. At the Brookings Institution on Monday, he called for joint a U.S.-EU “initiative in dealing with speculators.” His government has introduced draconian reforms, but progress was being undermined, he said, by “the global power of poorly regulated markets . […]

Women’s rights advocates, governments, NGOs and women around the world marked International Women’s Day yesterday, with cheers for progress achieved and calls for even more global efforts to ensure protection for the rights of women and girls. “Most girls now receive an education, particularly at primary level, and more women are now more likely to run businesses or participate in government. A growing number of countries have legislation that supports sexual and reproductive health and promotes gender equality,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his International Women’s Day 2010 message. “Nonetheless, much work remains. Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high, […]

If our European allies want to capture Barack Obama’s full attention, they could certainly do so by announcing en masse their intention to withdraw from Afghanistan by the coming July. Europe would suddenly loom large on Obama’s radar screen, triggering a flurry of diplomatic activity by the White House in a bid to prevent or at least whittle down the extent of the exodus. Obama would be in Madrid like a shot for this month’s EU-U.S. summit — from which he had previously begged off, citing commitments at home — and again for the NATO summit in April. The Europeans’ […]