The Arabists never again came so close to implementing their vision of an American foreign policy sympathetic to Arab countries. Which isn’t to say they lost their influence in all ways. In what seems like a contradiction, Kermit Roosevelt was instrumental in the CIA-backed coup d’état that ousted the democratically elected leader of Iran, Muhammad […]
Conflicts in Africa are not new, but they have never been more linked than they are today. In most cases, criminal networks or neighboring governments have empowered armed groups to seek control of some of the world’s weakest states. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
As US Vice President Joe Biden just discovered on his tour of Japan, China, and South Korea, the American novelist William Faulkner’s observation – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – could not be more apt, writes Jaswant Singh Read Here – Project Syndicate
f one were to ask people on the streets of any African capital to name a union of states that readily comes to mind, they are likely to mention the United Nations, the US and possibly the European Union. And the African Union? Oh yes, yes, I have heard of it, a few might say. […]
Whichever party takes power in Islamabad will almost certainly have to cobble together a coalition to rule. The new government will inherit a looming foreign-exchange crisis, hours-long blackouts that have provoked street riots, and overlapping insurgencies and sectarian wars that have claimed thousands of lives. Though army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has resisted the temptation to […]
Wars in Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) pushed the number of people internally displaced by armed conflict, violence and human rights violations to 28.8 million last year, the highest figure recorded by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) in Geneva. More than 6.5 million people were newly displaced within their own countries in 2012, almost twice as many […]
In the days of the Ottoman Empire, British diplomats referred to the Arabic-speaking territories of the empire as “Turkish Arabia.” It was these Arabic-speaking lands that Britain and France, in the aftermath of the First World War, divided into the modern Arab states we know today: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. Those arbitrary colonial boundaries […]
One of President Obama’s strongest applause lines on the campaign trail was his oft-repeated pledge to do “nation-building at home” during his second-term. This is the stated goal of many presidents facing reelection but, more often than not, unanticipated world events get in the way. In the Middle East, Syria‘s chemical weapons stockpile is in […]
Three major forces will be looming behind the headlines, driving events in 2013: the crisis of the Western democratic model, rising sectarian strife in the Middle East, and worries about American withdrawal from the world. The Obama administration must realize that no “foreign policy” issue will matter as much to global economic, political, and ultimately […]
In the eight hundred years since his death, people have sought in vain for the grave of Genhis Khan, the 13th-century conqueror and imperial ruler who, at the time of his death, occupied the largest contiguous empire, stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific. In capturing most of central Asia and China, his armies […]
looking beyond borders 