Joseph Nye, Project Syn.
Faced with a rising China, a declining but risk-inclined Russia, and the prospect of prolonged turmoil in the Middle East, close transatlantic cooperation will be crucial to maintaining a liberal international order over the long term. Recognizing that Brexit, by weakening both Europe and Britain, would make a disorderly international system more likely, should tip the balance in favor of maintaining the status quo.
Rovner & Talmadge, Lawfare
Washington has been sending mixed signals about its own commitment to the battle. On the one hand, the Obama administration is careful to stress that it must be and will be an Iraqi-led effort. The president has repeatedly declared that he does not want U.S. forces in a large ground war resulting in an open-ended occupation of Iraq.
Roger Cohen, New York Times
Sleepy Brussels: goodbye to that image. Yet even today theres something soporific about this French-speaking city marooned within Flemish-speaking Flanders, beset by administrative and linguistic divisions and the lethargy that stems from them, home to a poorly integrated immigrant population of mainly Moroccan and Turkish descent (41 percent of the population of Molenbeek is Muslim), and housing the major institutions of a fraying European Union.
Robert Samuelson, Washington Post
No one knows where this mix of economic disappointment and political disillusion is leading. One hopeful possibility is that Brazil’s casual tolerance of graft may be fading, speculates Paulo Sotero, a veteran Brazilian journalist who now heads the Brazil Institute in Washington. He cites one poll in which nine of 10 Brazilians want the Petrobras prosecutions to continue even if they hurt the economy.
Ray Takeyh, CFR
The lesson that Khamenei has taken from the nuclear issue is that Irans excessive reliance on oil sales and international financial institutions made it vulnerable to pressure from America. To be truly independent, he believes, Iran must be isolated from the West and estranged from global markets. Only then can the Islamic Republic sustain its revolutionary values and stand up to the United States. National poverty may be a price that Iran has to pay for such autonomy.
Siobhan O'Grady, Foreign Policy
Over the past seven years, Gabon has quietly solidified its role as an easy diplomatic ally to the United States in a region rocked by instability. Its relationship with the Obama administration was strengthened when Gabon rotated into a temporary role on the United Nations Security Council from 2010 to 2011. During that time, the Obama administration was desperate for UNSC members to support an intervention in Libya to oust dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi from power.
Heather MacDonald, CJ
The hierarchy of left-wing pieties thus seems clear: narcissistic feminism may be important, but its even more important to inundate the West with Third World peoples. If that means that the Lefts favorite pastimes, such as the denunciation of rape culture, are increasingly confined to shrinking enclaves of self-flagellating Westerners, so be it.
Josh Rogin, Bloomberg
President Barack Obama said Sunday that his biggest mistake as president was failing to plan for the day after the fall of the Qaddafi regime in Libya. But as bad as Libya looks today, Syria is faring far worse, in part because of the Obama administration’s failings -- which the president has not yet acknowledged.
Eerik Niiles Kross, Politico EU
We are sleepwalking through the end of our era of peace. It is time to wake up.
Boris Johnson, Telegraph
OK, fingers on buzzers, folks. Here’s a question about 20th-century world affairs. A Labour councillor from Luton was recently discovered to have tweeted that Adolf Hitler was “the greatest man in history”. What was going through her mind?
Lara Friedman, NY Times
WASHINGTON — With the Obama administration in its final year, several officials have said that the president has grown so frustrated with trying to revive Middle East peace talks that he may lay down his own outline for an Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace agreement, in the form of a resolution in the United Nations Security Council.
Anthony Cordesman, CSIS
The war in Iraq sometimes seems distant and abstract. The expansion of ISIS terrorist attacks in Europe, the Syrian refugee issue, and Russian intervention in Syria get the bulk of media and public attention. The slow Iraqi gains in Anbar, and the city-by-city fighting that never quite seems to end is only dealt with in passing. The core of the U.S. military effort against ISIS is, however, centered in Iraq. Defeating ISIS depends on U.S. success in rebuilding the Iraq Army and its ability to drive ISIS out of Iraq.
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View
This powerful, well-trained force will operate outside the ministry under the command of Viktor Zolotov, a long-time Putin associate, whom the president appointed head of his personal bodyguard immediately after moving into the Kremlin in 2000. Like many Putin friends in government service, he is far wealthier than his official income could ever allow, and he is far more personally loyal to the president than Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Zolotov will report directly to Putin.
Miriam Massone, Worldcrunch
At the futuristic Enosis wine lab, the Genesis robot brings wine into the 21st century.
Matthew Pennekamp, Nat'l Interest
With today’s Britain on the verge of embracing Brexit (the latest polls show the “Leave” camp rapidly closing the gap with the previously unassailable “Remainers”), there are some in the Euroskeptic wing of David Cameron’s government yearning for exactly what Acheson said was inadvisable—greater ties between Anglophone nations worldwide in lieu of formalized empire. Party grandees such as Boris Johnson, Daniel Hannan and David Willetts see this “Anglosphere” as... Читать дальше...
Simon Heffer, New Statesman
Things promise to become far nastier, dirtier and ever more internecine for the Tories, not just before 23 June but for a long time afterwards: and with the party in power for at least four more years, one can only guess what that means for the governance of Britain.
Xuan Loc Doan, AT
An immediate and practical reason for the acceleration of the leadership handover is that, in May, Vietnam will receive President Barack Obama on his first trip to the country. The visit will also be the first by a sitting American president to its former war enemy since 2006, when President George W. Bush made a four-day visit to Vietnam. The leaders will welcome and hold talks with the US president at a time when both Washington and Hanoi have sought closer ties due to Beijing’s... Читать дальше...
A. Kao, China File
As Batman v Superman attempts to barnstorm cinema box offices worldwide, including in China—now the world’s No. 2 movie marketplace—I’ve been watching a different kind of hero movie: Jian Bing Man. This 2015 Chinese blockbuster isn’t exactly a superhero film. It’s a superhero parody film whose protagonist isn’t a billionaire playboy, but rather a comedian plagued with debt and scandal. To rescue his career, he shoots and stars in a movie about a superhero named for a Chinese... Читать дальше...
Hamid Dabashi, Al Jazeera
Balian's wonderful and engaging novel could not be timelier, when the resurgence of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh is yet again a reminder of the horrors of ethnic nationalism wreaking havoc in the region. For millennia, Armenians have been integral to the vast spectrum of territories extended from the Mughal to Russian, Safavid and Ottoman empires. ALSO READ: Hath not a Palestinian eyes? The presence of these Armenian communities - proud, robust, self-conscious, industrious... Читать дальше...
Seth Frantzman, J-Post
Listening to the way some Israeli politicians talk about Sanders one gets the sense they have an outsized view of Israel's importance in the US political landscape. That view is fed by events like recent AIPAC conference in Washington where 18,000 pro-Israel supporters turned out and all the candidates except Sanders wooed them. While it's easy to listen to the kind words of Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump and John Kasich, the reality is that Israelis and pro-Israel... Читать дальше...
Raviv Drucker, Haaretz
Our doomsayers, it turns out, will never change their tune. There’s always some “long term” in which their prophecy will come true.
Hassan Hassan, The National
The high-level killings over the past month may not have a significant impact on the battlefield. They might, however, leave a dent on the changing ideological outlook, particularly because the targets included religious giants in this field.
R. Faghihi, Al-Monitor
After having been struck by cancer, blacklisted Iranian classical singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian may soon be back on the air in the Islamic Republic.
Murat Yetkin, Hurriyet
The PYD seems to be the soft belly of U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, like a number of European Union governments. Neither the U.S. nor the EU countries want to send ground troops to Syria, perhaps drawing the correct lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq. They are more or less left with the PYD-led forces as the most effective ground troops in their air campaign against ISIL in both Syria and Iraq.
Mark Harrison, Conversation
The Soviet Union was one of the world’s more durable police states – and it is now one of the best documented. From Stalin’s bloody terror to the less violent but still rigidly authoritarian rule of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the Soviet police state underwent many changes. From this history emerge seven underlying habits that communist rulers cultivated in order to safeguard their rule.