Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Jason Miks.

August 13, 2018

Fareed: Why Iran Sanctions Will Haunt America's Future

The US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could have unexpected consequences, Fareed argues in his Take from Sunday's show. America can make sanctions bite because of the dollar's status as a global currency. But the high-handed use of that power could ultimately be its undoing.

"European countries and companies are seething at the Trump administration's moves. They have begun to discuss ways to respond," Fareed says. "China will eagerly step in to take on more and more of the trade and economic relations with Iran, since it can conduct its dealings without recourse to the dollar. Iran will search for ways to free itself of its dependence on America's currency.

"[T]he long-term cost of the Trump administration's reneging on the Iran deal might prove far more consequential and negative than we now realize."

Watch the full Take here.

With Friends Like These…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan struck a defiant note in a speech Sunday as his country's economic turmoil deepened, warning the United States that it "is sacrificing its 81-million-strong ally Turkey for a pastor with links with terrorists." The National editorializes that while Erdogan only has himself to blame for Turkey's economic woes, the deteriorating relationship with Washington could have dangerous repercussions.

"As NATO's second largest army, Turkey polices the bloc's eastern flank. It has absorbed millions of Syrian refugees and is a power broker in the Syrian conflict after involving itself in Afrin and Idlib.

"Ultimately, Mr Erdogan's courting of Iran and Russia, who have stood by Ankara in this dispute, mark Turkey's transformation from a sympathetic NATO partner and EU hopeful to an unpredictable adversary. That sets a worrying precedent for the rest of the region."

Wishful thinking? Turkey may turn to three key countries for economic and political support, write The Financial Times' Laura Pitel and Andrew England: China, Qatar and Russia. Good luck with that, one analyst they quote suggests.

"Russia, [the analyst] said, 'has got its own problems' with US sanctions, while China would be wary of upsetting the Americans, and Qatar would not be able to provide enough support on its own."

Not Blackbeard, Still a Growing Menace

The deteriorating economic conditions in Venezuela are helping revive a regional scourge many may have forgotten about, suggests Anthony Faiola in The Washington Post: Piracy.

"Political and economic crises are exploding from Venezuela to Nicaragua to Haiti, sparking anarchy and criminality. As the rule of law breaks down, certain spots in the Caribbean, experts say, are becoming more dangerous than they've been in years," Faiola writes.

"Comprehensive data on piracy is largely lacking for Latin America and the Caribbean. But a two-year study by the nonprofit Oceans Beyond Piracy recorded 71 major incidents in the region in 2017 — including robberies of merchant vessels and attacks on yachts — up 163 percent from the previous year."

"Often, observers say, the acts of villainy appear to be happening with the complicity or direct involvement of corrupt officials — particularly in the waters off collapsing Venezuela."

How to Wave Goodbye to a Strongman

President Joseph Kabila's announcement that he won't run for re-election in Democratic Republic of Congo is a big step forward for the war-torn nation. The question now is whether Western governments will squander this golden opportunity to see the back of a strongman, writes Stuart Reid for Foreign Policy.

"If the pressure that Western governments and international organizations put on Kabila turns out to have worked, the strategy will have succeeded because it held out the promise of a viable off-ramp for him. Yet if that off-ramp turns out to be a dead end, then future attempts at persuading dictatorial leaders to step down will suffer," Reid writes.

"Consider the bad precedent that the United States set in Libya: After convincing Muammar al-Qaddafi to eliminate his nuclear weapons program in 2003, Washington helped topple him eight years later…If we want dictators to make concessions, then we will have to prove not just that they will be punished for defiance but also that they will be rewarded for compliance."

Fareed: How Populism Got Supercharged

No government handled the financial crisis "better than that of the United States, which acted in a surprisingly bipartisan fashion in late 2008 and almost seamlessly coordinated policy between the outgoing Bush and incoming Obama administrations. And yet, the backlash to the bailouts has produced the most consequential result in the United States," Fareed writes in his New York Times review of "Crashed," Adam Tooze's book on the response to the financial crisis and its aftermath.

"The crash brought together many forces that were around anyway — stagnant wages, widening inequality, anger about immigration and, above all, a deep distrust of elites and government — and supercharged them. The result has been a wave of nationalism, protectionism and populism in the West today. A confirmation of this can be found in the one major Western country that did not have a financial crisis and has little populism in its wake — Canada."

What to Watch This Week

US Defense Secretary James Mattis visits Colombia this week as part of trip that is also taking in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Mac Margolis writes for Bloomberg that there was no honeymoon for newly-installed President Ivan Duque. "The economy is weak, corruption runs deep and although Colombia may no longer be a country at war, it is hardly at peace. As Duque was sworn in Tuesday, guerrilla holdout groups staged four separate attacks in the countryside…"

Imran Khan is expected to be sworn in as Pakistan's prime minister on Saturday, the Express Tribune reports. But with the Trump administration signaling opposition to an IMF bailout for his country's economy, Pakistan might find itself, in effect, an economic colony of China, argues Adnan Aamir in the South China Morning Post. "This will certainly not help the US in increasing its influence in South Asia and Indochina, but will rather immensely increase the influence of China in South Asia."

Forward

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