| | | | Fareed: How the Saudis Played Trump | | President Trump's visit to the Middle East last week was yet another example of how Saudi Arabia has managed to evade and deflect responsibility for its role in stoking radical Islamist terrorism, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. Indeed, "Trump has given Saudi Arabia a free pass and a free hand in the region."
"The United States has now signed up for Saudi Arabia's foreign policy -- a relentless series of battles against Shiites and their allies throughout the Middle East. That will enmesh Washington in a never-ending sectarian struggle, fuel regional instability and complicate its ties with countries such as Iraq that want good relations with both sides. But most important, it will do nothing to address the direct and ongoing threat to Americans -- jihadist terrorism. I thought that Trump's foreign policy was going to put America first, not Saudi Arabia."
| | Iran's Hardliners Turn to "Shadow Government" | | Thwarted at the ballot box earlier this month, hardliners in Iran are trying a new approach to block President Hassan Rouhani's agenda: Forming a "shadow government," writes Ariane Tabatabai in Foreign Affairs.
The plan, as outlined by former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, "will involve a number of expert working groups designed to tackle key challenges and issues before the country. These range from foreign policy to social issues, as well as industry, economics, corruption, transparency, and public health," Tabatabai writes.
"This move builds on calls by principalists to make use of the large bloc of votes cast for Raisi. Jalili is a fringe figure in Iranian politics. But the move is consequential and can affect Rouhani's second term and his overtures to the international community."
| | Fareed: What Trump Doesn't Get About NATO | | Fareed says that the viral video of President Trump appearing to push past Montenegro's prime minister at the NATO meeting was "a symbol of what was awkward about the whole trip."
"Last week you had the president of the United States -- the leader of the free world -- going to Saudi Arabia, which is essentially a medieval monarchy, and talking about how wonderful the country is," Fareed says. "But then he goes to Europe to meet America's traditional, democratic allies and he's brusque, he's rude and he pushes them aside."
"I think the president is missing something very profound about NATO. Foreign policy doesn't operate at just one level – there are multiple layers. NATO is a very powerful deterrent to Russia and its aggression, and has been assisting in Afghanistan for 15 years.
"Meanwhile, Trump is acting almost as if he thinks he's at a bazaar, trying to haggle for the best price. He seems to believe that if he just shames other leaders publicly, that he will get a better deal for America. But in doing so, he is undermining the core element of NATO – deterrence. That's how the organization works.
"If you were to construct a Russian plan for what you would like the American president to do to undermine NATO, it would look something like this: He would go to NATO headquarters and publicly highlight divisions. He would berate other members. And he would refuse to very clearly affirm America's commitment to Article V [on collective defense]. Well, Trump did all of that." - It's time to put the brakes on NATO expansion, argues Charles A. Kupchan in the New York Times. Offering membership to new democracies may have seemed like a good way of tying them to the Atlantic community, but "the policy has backfired."
"To be sure, publicly declaring the prospective closing of NATO's open door would resign Georgia, Ukraine and the other states located between NATO's eastern frontier and Russia to a strategic gray zone," Kupchan says. "But the prospect of NATO membership only fuels false hopes and encourages Russian intervention to forestall their westward course. Clarifying that NATO membership is not in the cards would trigger needed consideration of alternative strategic options and may well encourage Russia to back off."
| | Jihadists in Libya Down, But Not Out: The Economist | | Jihadists fighting in Libya may be down, but they aren't out. And the potential of the threat may have been underscored by the attack in Manchester this week, The Economist argues.
"British police are probing links between Salman Abedi, the suicide-bomber who murdered 22 people at a concert in Manchester on May 22nd, and IS, which claimed responsibility for the attack," it says. "Mr Abedi was in Libya recently; his brother and father were arrested in Tripoli on May 24th. The militia holding them says the brother is a member of IS and was planning an attack on Tripoli."
Meanwhile, the rest of Europe "is eyeing the situation with concern. The chaos has made Libya the main point of entry to Europe for African migrants. Despite more patrols, some 50,000 migrants are thought to have reached Italy by boat so far this year, over 40% more than in the same period last year. Some believe the smuggling business helps to finance terrorism -- and that jihadists may be among those making the trip."
| | Maduro Is Bad. But He Doesn't Matter: Naím | | For all his autocratic behavior, the truth is that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro doesn't really matter, argues Moisés Naím in The Atlantic.
"He is simply a useful idiot, the puppet of those who really control Venezuela: the Cubans, the drug traffickers, and Hugo Chavez's political heirs. Those three groups effectively function as criminal cartels, and have co-opted the armed forces into their service; this is how it is possible that every day we see men in uniform willing to massacre their own people in order to keep Venezuela's criminal oligarchy in power."
| | Mexico "Deadliest" Country in Western Hemisphere for Journalists | | Mexico is now the deadliest place in the Western hemisphere to be a journalist, writes Mac Margolis for Bloomberg View.
"Attacks on journalists have increased 29 percent since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in 2012, and 163 percent since 2010, at the height of his predecessor Felipe Calderon's heavy-handed campaign against drug cartels," Margolis writes.
"…Pena Nieto hoped to bolster transparency and public safety. In one important early initiative, he sponsored enabling laws to empower the prosecution of crimes against journalists…Critics say that the government's efforts to keep journalists from harm have been hampered by underfunding and mission drift." | | | | | | |
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