| | | | Is the World Siding with Iran? | | President Trump has aimed some of his toughest rhetoric at Iran and the nuclear deal with the country. But while he has yet to announce whether he will recertify the deal, most of the world appears to have already made up its mind who it is siding with on the issue, writes Robin Wright in the New Yorker.
"This week, Trump has taunted the press and tantalized other heads of state with hints about his intentions. On Wednesday, he told reporters (three times), 'I have decided.' Asked for details, he said (twice), 'I'll let you know.' Not even the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, could get him to share his decision, the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, told reporters," Wright says.
"Trump's tough talk and sophomoric antics may have had the opposite effect of what he intended, however. Across the board, the world's other major powers, most of America's closest allies, and the vast majority of governments at the United Nations this week made clear that they favor the deal. They are siding with Iran this time."
| | The Danger of "Dark Posts" | | Reports that President Trump is deploying targeted Facebook ads to reassure some supporters that his administration will follow through with plans to build a border wall raise some troubling questions about government transparency in the digital age, argues Issie Lapowsky in Wired.
"[W]hen the president sends one subset of the population a message that the rest of the population can't see -- especially one that's at odds with reality -- it feels like a fundamental failure of government transparency," Lapowsky writes.
"Sure, politicians have always pandered to private parties, sent different mailers to different voters, and aired different television ads in different parts of the country. But on social media, infinite combinations of possible audiences are only ever a click away, and campaigns can develop thousands of highly specific messages for all of them. That makes tracking the messages within those ads nearly impossible."
| | Why Syrians Are Starting to Accept Assad's Rule -- for Now | | | Syrians might be far from enthusiastic about Bashar al-Assad. But after six years of fighting, a war-weary populace is increasingly beginning to believe that the regime "represents the only chance of restoring a semblance of normalcy to their lives," Anchal Vohra reports from Aleppo.
"The sense that there is no alternative to Assad is, of course, not just restricted to Syria itself," Vohra writes in Foreign Policy. "In the last few weeks, a chorus of the opposition's former backers has urged it to come to terms with Assad's continued rule. Saudi Arabia, a prominent backer of the armed opposition, summoned rebel negotiators to tell them to find a new strategy, and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson finally admitted that forcing Assad to quit as a precursor to peace talks was unrealistic.
"But growing acceptance that Assad will remain does not mean that the Syrian president has won over his people or his country. A section of Syrians is making a quiet pact with themselves to wait for another day to assert their political beliefs. For now, the priority is peace." | | Could this Unlikely Duo Save Venezuela? | | An unlikely duo might be best placed to help bring an end to the ongoing chaos in Venezuela, and prevent it sliding into dictatorship: President Trump and Raúl Castro, argues Jorge G. Castañeda in the New York Times.
"Given Mr. Trump's animosity toward the Cuban regime in his United Nations speech on Tuesday, when he said Washington will not lift sanctions on Havana until it makes reforms, it may seem an unlikely partnership. But both countries have real incentives to work together: Only the Cubans can ease Mr. Maduro and his henchmen from power, and only United States' investment, tourism, trade and good will can allow Cuba to solve its serious economic problems. If Raúl Castro joins in, a deal could be struck, now or when the crisis takes another bad turn," Castañeda writes.
"Why would Cubans push Mr. Maduro to leave? They know that though he has weathered the latest crisis, there are many more to come: debt default, slipping oil production and prices, unrest in the armed forces. Cuba has bet the store on other countries in the past and knows well that the results have not been great."
| | Why Myanmar's Crackdown Could Be Good for China | | Western supporters have "soured" on democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi over her failure to speak out forcefully against Myanmar's crackdown against its Rohingya minority. That leaves an opening for Beijing to exploit, suggests Sean Keeley in the American Interest.
"[W]hat might China want in return? Continued energy cooperation, for one, including the oil links that allow Chinese imports to bypass the Malacca Strait, as well as a favorable foothold in the country's hydropower sector, where planned Chinese projects have so far struggled to get off the ground," Keeley writes.
"Beijing would also like to see a pliant Myanmar that will do its bidding in multilateral forums like ASEAN, while causing unease with neighboring India. And in the short term, Xi Jinping might appreciate the chance to play international peacemaker on the world stage. Earlier this year, Myanmar rebuffed China's offer to play mediator in the Rohingya dispute with Bangladesh; if Suu Kyi responds more favorably to such overtures now, it would be a good indicator that China's charm offensive is working."
| | Don't Be Fooled By Prince's Lofty Rhetoric: WaPo | | Recently installed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pledged to reform Saudi Arabia. But his "lofty rhetoric" masks a crackdown on dissent that makes the new kingdom look a lot like the old one, the Washington Post editorializes.
"The latest evidence is a wide-ranging crackdown on influential clerics, activists, journalists and writers who have been jailed with hardly any public explanation," the Post says. "A Sept. 12 statement by the government's new security agency, set up in July by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, hinted darkly that the arrests were caused by 'foreign parties' that were trying to hurt 'the security of the kingdom and its interests, methodology, capabilities and social peace in order to stir up sedition and prejudice national unity. They were neutralized.'
"This vague language masks the fact that many of those arrested were relatively outspoken online, not secret agents plotting against the kingdom." | | | | | | |
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