World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

There have been a lot of questions in class about the change is Saudi Arabian foreign policy.  I will not ask any questions about this essay on the quiz because it is quite specific and long, but for those of you who are interested in the issue, you can check out this essay published by the Middle East Media Research Institute.  I hope you all do read it because the shift in policy (and the corresponding shift by the  US) is incredibly important but very difficult to assess–it is a venture into a whole new Middle East order.

Egyptian Defense Minister, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was recorded in a leaked audio saying that the Egyptian military should have immunity for all crimes in the new constitution being written.   There is a 50-person committee writing the new constitution, but there is no representation from the Muslim Brotherhood.  It is difficult to imagine how the constitution can have broad legitimacy given the exclusion of the group that had elected the previous President, Morsi.  Nor is it clear that a blanket immunity for the military is justifiable given the fact that the military launched a coup d’etat to displace Morsi.   We will have to see how the new constitution is received after it is written.

Spying by the NSA has ignited very strong criticism of the US, but The Guardian reports that European governments coordinated their own spying activities to a large degree.  Unfortunately, there is no one like Edward Snowden to leak the details of the spying so it is difficult to assess the degree to which European spying infringes on civil liberties.  One can imagine, however, that the Europeans are not likely to be far behind the US in capabilities to spy;  the real issue is to what extent European spying conforms to adequate protections of privacy.

The leader of the Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan), Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike.  His second in command has already been appointed as the new leader in the group.  It remains to be seen how the killing will affect the violence in Pakistan.  The US likely believes the death to be a setback for the militant group.  But Pakistan has been trying to initiate peace talks with the Taliban, and the killing might set back those efforts considerably.  It is hard to tell which consideration has the greater likelihood.