| | | | The Two Failures of Trump's Speech: Tharoor | | In emphasizing sovereignty while arguing that the United States should be "guided by outcomes, not ideologies," President Trump's maiden UN General Assembly speech tried to strike a balance between principle and pragmatism, argues Ishaan Tharoor in the Washington Post. But he failed on both counts.
"The irony is that Trump's international agenda is neither principled nor pragmatic, and has always been guided by ideology first. Both Trump and [adviser Stephen] Miller care chiefly about the narrow domestic base that catapulted Trump to power," Tharoor writes. "So, in the most august chamber of international diplomacy, Trump stuck to his ultranationalist guns, extolling the 'nation-state' as 'the best vehicle for elevating the human condition,' while saying little about democracy, human rights and the rule of law elsewhere. Trump raised the issue of refugees only to insist that they remain close to the lands from which they fled. The crisis facing the Rohinyga of Burma -- the subject of now-fitful European and Asian diplomatic efforts -- went wholly unaddressed.
"In that sense, he sounded more like the leader of countries such as Russia and China than an American president."
| | Why Mexico's Earthquake Could Have Been Even Worse | | The loss of life in Mexico's latest earthquake would have been even worse if not for a revolutionary early warning system that gives residents precious seconds to prepare for a major quake.
"It was the first system of its kind in the world, up and running just six years after the 1985 earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in the capital," wrote Lizzie Wade in Wired earlier this month following another strong quake that struck the country.
"Mexico City has a built-in geological advantage when it comes to early warning: The subduction zones that produce the quakes are along the Pacific coast, more than 200 miles away from the city. While seismic waves normally would peter out over that distance, here they are amplified by the pile of mud upon which Mexico City is built, the remnants of a large lake drained during the colonial period. That can make for some particularly deadly earthquakes. But it also gives us time to learn that one is on the way." "A seismic warning system for the West Coast has been under development for years by the U.S. Geological Survey, the nation's lead earthquake monitoring agency. President Trump's budget would have ended the system before it launched," they write.
"But the proposal to end the funding raised bipartisan complaints up and down the coast…In July, a congressional committee voted to keep funding. The funding proposal awaits further votes by both houses in Congress."
| | What Russia Gets About Kim | | With "workable relations" with all countries involved in the North Korea crisis, Russia has an opportunity to expand its diplomatic influence, argues Fyodor Lukyanov in the Financial Times. If Vladimir Putin plays his hand skillfully, "it will strengthen its position in Asia-Pacific and mark another step away from U.S. hegemony in international affairs."
"The Kremlin understands the North Korean psychology, since Russia's leaders have historically also felt besieged. For North Korea, it is not about bargaining, but survival -- Kim Jong Un knows the fate of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammer Gaddafi and sees nuclear missiles as his life insurance," Lukyanov writes.
"For years North Korea was not a priority for Moscow, but that has changed domestically and internationally. Moscow hopes to use the political pivot to Asia, which was accelerated by the Ukraine crisis, as a socio-economic driver of Russia's under-populated and under-developed far east. The country's traditional way of boosting development is not to stimulate the investment climate, but to create geopolitical dynamism and make itself an important strategic player — as happened in Syria in the wake of military advances."
| | Why Netanyahu Has Found His Swagger | | Benjamin Netanyahu has always been a good speaker at the United Nations. But his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday demonstrated a new swagger, writes David Horovitz for the Times of Israel. Thank his growing confidence that the Trump administration has his back.
"Netanyahu spoke not as the embittered outsider protesting the world body's history of anti-Israel bias, not as the friendless target of our region's aggressors, and not as the exasperated lone voice despairing at his peers' refusal to interpret current affairs with his wisdom. Netanyahu spoke, rather, with the ultra-confident mien of a national leader who believes the tide of history is turning toward him and his country," Horowitz writes.
"One key factor in that dramatically elevated level of confidence, of course, is the change of U.S. presidency since the last such gathering. Where president Barack Obama championed the Iranian nuclear accord, pushed a reluctant Netanyahu relentlessly for compromise with the Palestinians, and voted an extremely discomfiting resolution through the United Nations Security Council, President Donald Trump shares his horror at the nuclear deal, has made no public demands of Netanyahu regarding the Palestinians, and is determined to reform the UN's anti-Israel obsessions."
| | No, the Iran Deal Wasn't Meant to "Fix" Tehran's Behavior | | | President Trump may have described the Iran nuclear deal as an embarrassment in his UN speech on Tuesday, but critics of the agreement miss the point. On its own, it was never going to magically change Tehran's behavior. But it wasn't expected to, suggests Ana Palacio for Project Syndicate. "Iran has always been a tough nut to crack in international negotiations. With power distributed among a seemingly endless array of forces and figures, which often contradict or even compete with one another, the negotiating environment is difficult to understand, much less navigate," Palacio argues. "In this context, reaching a 'grand bargain" that would address the full range of Iran's bad behavior -- not just its nuclear and missile programs, but also its support for international terrorism, regional destabilization, and human-rights violations -- is unrealistic." "[The agreement] was not supposed to cover everything. Instead, it was meant to take the existential threat of Iran's nuclear program off the table long enough to build a foundation for more constructive engagement that could bring progress on other fronts." | | Ignore Team Trump's Climate Smoke and Mirrors | | Don't be distracted by the Trump administration's diplomatic smoke and mirrors in floating the possibility that the United States might not abandon the Paris climate agreement. Trying to appear open to negotiations is a well-worn tactic by the president, suggests Heather Hurlburt in New York Magazine. But Trump's early actions should speak much louder than his words.
"[H]ere's a simple way to understand where Trump really stands on climate: Look at the discrete, domestic policies that would make the U.S. economy cleaner and greener -- there, the administration's position is deeply at odds with Paris," Hurlburt writes. "Though slowed by lawsuits, the White House insists it is moving ahead to replace or repeal entirely the power-plant standards that would have provided a major proportion of the emissions cuts the U.S. promised at Paris. Another major chunk of U.S. cuts were to come from higher requirements for auto mileage, which the administration is also reviewing -- while Britain and France have outlawed gasoline-powered cars as of 2040, and China is moving to become the Detroit of the electric car."
"If those policy choices stick, whether we keep our name on Paris is irrelevant." | | | | | | |
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