| | | | Are the US and Iran Headed for War? | | One year after President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the US still lacks a coherent posture toward its Middle East adversary, Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky write for CNN. The administration is pursuing a "quixotic and reckless" policy of regime change—though it won't say so aloud—they argue, hoping "there won't be any serious shooting" as things escalate quickly.
With the US tightening sanctions and boasting of an aircraft-carrier deployment to the Gulf (and with Iran announcing it will resume some nuclear enrichment), it seems America wants to "push Iran into a corner, paving the way toward military confrontation," concludes Dina Esfandiary of the Harvard Kennedy School, in a Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences op-ed.
The current trajectory seems even more regrettable, in light of Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Reza Nasri's essay at LobeLog, in which they point out missed opportunities for cooperation and rapprochement, particularly over Afghanistan and countering terrorism, in America's history with Iran. | | Britain's Growing Problem with Right-Wing Hate | | | Right-wing hatred is spreading in the UK, David Bond and Helen Warrell write in the Financial Times, as fringe groups have taken to online platforms to recruit young, tech-savvy supporters. White nationalism still takes a backseat to Islamic jihadist terrorism, as UK security threats go, but experts and law enforcement say it's growing—and it enjoys connections to similar fringe groups in other countries. Authorities have disrupted one prominent group, National Action, but they're now confronted with newer, and equally troubling, replacements drawing recruits on encrypted platforms. | | Selling Climate Action to the Right | | | Climate protesters like the UK's Extinction Rebellion group would be more successful if they learned how to appeal to conservatives, writes Jemma Deer of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, in the New Statesman.
As a 2017 study found, conservatives are more willing to listen to climate arguments when they're presented in conservative terms. "Extinction Rebellion" sounds too leftist and extreme to win support from the center right, Deer advises; words like "fairness," "security," "stability," and "growth" might do better to move the needle on public opinion about climate action, and climate activists would have an easier time effecting policy change if they borrowed from the Tory lexicon in making their case. | | Turkey's Autocratic Slide | | | Turkey has descended further into autocracy after its election body canceled the results in Istanbul's mayoral race, The Economist writes. Autocratic leaders like to maintain the veneer of democratic legitimacy, but Turkey shows that sometimes, they can only hold onto it for so long, writes The Atlantic's Yascha Mounk. Allowing the opposition to campaign had bolstered Erdogan's status as an elected leader, but the decision on Istanbul was a turning point, and Erdogan has made it clear Turkey is no longer a democracy, Mounk writes. | | Can the US Military Back It Up? | | | The US has a global footprint and an abundance of objectives, from deterring nuclear threats, to preempting terrorists, to shielding allies from powerful neighbors. But America's military lacks the resources for all these aims, a new report from RAND finds: The US will suffer from a "cumulative strategy-resource mismatch of more than $500 billion," from 2018-2027. (For context, the US military spent $582.3 billion in 2018, not counting money for overseas wars.) Aside from more US military spending, on things like long-range bombers and missile sensors, RAND recommends US allies in NATO and Asia beef up their capabilities to blunt any aggression in their neighborhoods. | | | | | | |
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