The World Health Organization has issued a report on the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. The situation is dire and continues to deteriorate. Nigeria has just recorded its tenth confirmed case of Ebola, and there are efforts to seal the borders among the West African states. But all of these countries lack to the means to mount an effective response, and the international community has to step in and help.
Russian President Putin is apparently playing a game of “chicken” with the Western powers in Ukraine. Russia announced that it is sending a “humanitarian” mission into Ukraine. Both the US and the European Union had warned that any intervention in Ukraine without the consent of the government in Kyiv would be considered a hostile act. The Kremlin said that the mission would be conducted in conjunction with the Red Cross, but the Red Cross said that it would not intervene without the consent of all parties. There is some inkling of Ukrainian consent (the UN estimates that 1,700 people have died in recent fighting), but the terms are unclear. If Russia does send in a force, it is doubtful that the West would respond in kind, but the pressure for some sort of response would be intense.
The Obama Administration has made the decision to arm Kurdish forces directly in their effort to contain the threat from the Islamic State. The US and the Kurds have a long-standing relationship and are close allies. But the decision undermines Iraqi authority and complicates US relations with Iran which fears that an independent Kurdistan would serve as a US base for anti-Iranian activities. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Parliament has installed a new Prime Minister, but there is no indication that Nouri al-Maliki will step down voluntarily.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been elected to another term as Turkey’s President, making him the longest running leader of Turkey since Ataturk. He is a controversial figure: there were large protests against his rule a few months ago and charges of corruption against some of his close associates. But he has moved Turkey into a position of leadership in Muslim and Middle Eastern affairs, and has repaired Turkish relations with the Kurdish minority in the country. His election assures that Turkey will continue to be a central state in the region. But he has moved Turkey away from its former close relationship with Israel and is a sharp critic of Israeli policy.
Ukrainian troops have surrounded the rebel-held city of Donetsk and the leader of the Russian separatists has called for a cease-fire. The possible surrender of the city will pose a serious concern for Russian President Putin as Russian nationalists strongly support the separatist movement in Ukraine. But, even though Russia has massed troops around eastern Ukraine, Putin would risk a great deal by coming to the aid of the separatists. NATO has shipped substantial amounts of military assistance to Kyiv, buttressing the ability of Ukraine to regain control of its territory.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki indicated today that he would run for a third term as Prime Minister, and deployed special military forces loyal to him at key locations in Baghdad. The decision is a serious blow to those, including the US, who wished for a less partisan candidate. al-Maliki has ruled along fairly strict sectarian lines, placing his favorites in key positions, including military command positions, without regard for competence or fair-mindedness. His strategy has profoundly alienated the minority Sunni and Kurdish populations, and is partially responsible for the dramatic rise of the Islamic State in Sunni areas of Iraq.
The Institute for the Study of War has published a fascinating graphic on the situation in Iraq as of 8 August. As one can see, the situation is far more complicated that the media is communicating. As we think about the consequences of American intervention in the war, it is useful to keep this complexity in mind.
Vice News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks with the Islamic State and has published two videos on his experience.
Guinea has closed its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia in an effort to somewhat contain the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. The total number of Ebola cases currently stand at 1, 779, and there does not seem to be any progress in stemming the spread of the disease. New cases have been reported in Nigeria, but since the incubation period can be up to 21 days, there is really no way to know whether it is being spread widely. The Whorld Health Organization has declared an international health emergency, for only the third time in WHO history.
Stephen Walt is one of the most compelling analysts in the world today. He is a realist, but hardly an ideologue: his thoughts are consistent without being knee-jerk. He has written a blog entry that recommends that the US almost completely disengage from the Middle East. The policy sounds impossible given the commitments the US has to a large number of nations in the region, not to mention US interests. The essay is highly provocative, but there was a point in the essay that was particularly persuasive:
“To be sure, the course of action I’m sketching here is likely to leave the Middle East in a pretty messy condition for some time to come. But that is going to be the case no matter what Washington decides to do.”
I could not effectively respond to this point. It is difficult to figure out a better path.
On the other hand, it is impossible to turn away from the plight of the Yazidis who are trapped in Sinjar. Iraqi Kurdish MP from the Yazidi faith, Vian Dakhil, gave a powerful speech to the Iraqi Parliament, begging for aid for her people. It is astonishing to witness the impassive faces of the mostly male MPs as this powerful speech is being delivered.
The 3-day cease-fire in Gaza is over, but violence broke out before the deadline. Israel is demanding the demilitarization of Gaza before it will talk about ending the blockade; Hamas is demanding the end of the blockade before it lays down its arms. Neither side appears to be interested in peace right now, and there is virtually no likelihood that any agreement can be reached without further violence. The selection of Egypt as the sponsor of the negotiations was a serious mistake. Hamas has no confidence in the good offices of the Egyptian government. It is as if the negotiations were held in Iran–the Israelis would hardly be comfortable.
Income and wealth inequality is emerging as the most significant economic problem of our time. However, we have a very difficult time actually measuring income and wealth inequality because there are many ways to disguise income and wealth from official statistics. Research conducted by European Central Bank economist Philip Vermeulen and London School of Economics’ Gabriel Zucman demonstrates that the actual wealth of the very rich is significantly undercounted by official statistics. The chart below shows the extent of the errors. The significance of the data is that this money is not taxed in a way that treats all citizens fairly.
The US-Africa Summit ended yesterday, as the US tries to play catch-up to Chinese inroads to African economies. A serious point of contention was the issue of climate change and its effects on the continent as a whole. Africa currently contributes a negligible amount of greenhouse gases, yet it is likely to be hard-hit by climate change. Right now, there are few genuine energy alternatives to carbon fuels that could fuel economic growth in Africa. Hydropower is a real option because Africa has a large number of rivers that could be harnessed. Yet the deleterious effects of building dams on the environment and indigenous peoples are well known. Should Africans sacrifice their economic growth prospects (which are considerable) in order to avert climate change? Or should the growth be deferred until non-carbon energy sources are available? Who should make such a decision?
Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in Europe since the economic effects of the Great Recession in 2008-09 began to take hold. But the conflict in Gaza has unleashed the worst episodes of anti-Semitism since the days of Nazi power. Synagogues have been attacked and burned and Jewish establishments have been assaulted as well. Political leaders in Germany and France have condemned the hatred, but their efforts do not seem to be affecting the outbreaks so far. The world needs to be united, adamant, and unrelenting in its rejection of this development. No matter where one stands on the issue of Israel and the Occupied Territories, one should remember that the issue is one of power, not religion.
Today is the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima in 1945, The attack effectively ended the World War II in the Pacific Theater. At the time, the sentiment was that it was an appropriate end to a horrific war; in retrospect, it was a war crime that eventually transformed the conduct of world politics. The world still struggles with the presence of nuclear weapons, but it is unlikely that we will ever see a completely nuclear-disarmed world. It is amazing to see how the short-term exigencies of war can lead to such dramatic long-run changes.
About 30,000 members of a minority group called the Yazidi are being besieged at the top of Mount Sinjar in Iraq by the Islamic State. The Yazidi are are one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world, but are considered devil-worshippers by the Sunni-inspired Islamic State. The prospect of the group being completely wiped out are not trivial. Kurdish forces from Kurdistan are trying to help, and American and British forces are trying to air-drop supplies to the besieged people. But many are dying of starvation and dehydration.
Another conflict has broken out in some of the former Republics of the USSR. Armenia, primarily a Christian nation, and Azerbaijan, primarily a Muslim nation, had renewed fighting over the status of Nagorno-Karabagh, an Armenian enclave completely within the state of Azerbaijan. A truce was concluded between the two states in 1994, but it has been an uneasy peace. The fighting was renewed principally because global attention has been fixated more on the dispute between Russia and Ukraine.
The Ebola virus has created quite a stir in the US–quite unnecessarily, since it is not a highly contagious disease. But the US Defense Department has long worried about people transforming the virus into a weapon, and it has sponsored research into a vaccine and treatment for a number of years. Indeed, the serum that has been used by the two Americans who were infected was developed partially through public funds. The future development of biological weaponry is a true nightmare for world politics since there is no way for such a weapon to be used for specific tactical purposes other than to kill people. Killing people is not a useful political objective.
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has had a very difficult few months. To his credit, he has not given up despite all the setbacks, but American foreign policy as a whole lacks clarity and focus. In large part, this malaise is due to the fact that many countries are trying to take advantage of what they perceive to be a vacuum in the world order. But the problem is that the US does not really know what to do with its power, nor does it have a vision of how the world order should be shaped. This problem is not one simply for the US; it is, indeed, a problem for the whole world.
We will be assessing the Gaza War for some time, and it would be a serious mistake to come to any conclusions too soon. The Economist has long been one of the staunchest supporters of the state of Israel and it is well known for its substantive analysis of contemporary events. It offers a tentative assessment of the effects of the war on global attitudes toward Israel. American attitudes toward Israel are hardly representative of other views in the world.
Professor Lars Osberg of Dalhousie University has written a paper under the auspices of the OECD which takes current trends of income inequality in the US and extrapolates them to the year 2032. The results are quite sobering:
The important message of Professor Osberg’s paper is intuitively obvious:
The ‘new normal’ of the United States, Canada and Australia is ‘unbalanced’ growth – specifically, over the last thirty years the incomes of the top 1% have grown significantly more rapidly than those of everyone else. The paper asks if auto-equilibrating market mechanisms will spontaneously equalise income growth rates and stabilise inequality. It concludes that the more likely scenario is continued unbalanced income growth. This, in turn, implies, on the economic side, consumption and savings flows which accumulate to changed stocks of indebtedness, financial fragility, and periodic macroeconomic crises; and, on the social side, to increasing inequality of opportunity and political influence. Greater economic and socio-political instabilities are therefore the most likely consequence of increasing income inequality over time.
Growing inequality is both economically and politically unstable. And there is no market mechanism to reduce growing inequality–only political intervention can redress the imbalance.
The Lebanese army has moved against the Islamic State which has taken over the town of Arsal. The battle represents yet another spillover from the Syrian civil war. The article from the Tehran Times has some interesting points to note. It makes sure that the Lebanese army commander is a Sunni Muslim (since the Islamic State is a Sunni Muslim organization and Iran is ruled as a Shia Islamic Republic), and the article identifies the Islamic State as ruled by “hardline takfiri militants.” Takfiri is a term to denote those who follow an apostate version of Islam. Iran wants to make sure that the enemy is properly identified. Meanwhile, Kurdish forces are also battling the Islamic State in Iraq. Although they share the same enemy, it is unlikely that Iran and the Kurds will ally–Iran fears the creation of a Kurdish state since it believes that such a state would be used by Israel and the US in their conflicts with Iran.
The Guardian has run an article asking the question of how biased Western media reports have been in their coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. The newspaper asked several analysts to ponder the question, and their answers are quite diverse. There is little question that the Russian side of the story has not been covered by the Western press–the real question is to what extent this omission is deliberate or based upon clear reasons to discount the interpretation.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared that an Israeli attack on a UN-run school constituted a “gross violation of international law”. The United States said it was “appalled” by the “disgraceful”shelling. The harsh language is unusual in diplomacy and an index of the extent to which Israeli actions have alienated many in the world. There was also a large demonstration in Washington, DC in which protesters assailed Israeli policy in front of the White House, as well as protesting the coverage of the Washington Post and the activities of Caterpillar in selling equipment to the Israeli Defense Forces. In response to this criticism, Israel announced a unilateral seven-hour humanitarian truce.
The situation in eastern Ukraine remains volatile, but there are indications that the Ukrainian government is making progress in regaining control of the area (albeit at a very high cost–there are reports of a large number of deaths). But it also seems as if Russian President Putin might be looking for a way out of the stalemate. His current situation is quite difficult: Western sanctions have begun to alienate some of his strongest supporters in Russia, but he has also ignited a strong nationalist sentiment within the country that he might not be able to control. It seems as if Putin might be prepared, however, to jettison his support for the separatists in Ukraine if the evidence proves that they were responsible for the downing of the Malaysian airliner.
Another front has been opened in the conflict in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been deployed to fight the Islamic State that has seized control of Iraqi and Syrian territory. The struggle now reflects the regionalization of the struggle between Sunni and Shia governments. Interestingly, the US finds itself allied with the interests of Iran. Whether the US or Iran will try to solidify that alliance of interests remains to be seen.
More information is being brought to bear on the question of which side broke the 72-hour cease-fire proposed by the UN and the US. The accepted view is that Hamas broke the cease-fire in a tunnel-searching activity that resulted in the killing of two (and, more likely, three) Israeli soldiers. Virtually all the information about the event came from the Israeli military. There are some interesting questions about that narrative. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that we will ever know the actual facts behind the event.
The same problem affects our understanding of the shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine. All the information we have access to is provided by the US, and it is difficult to get any consistent information from the Russian-speaking separatists about how and why the plane was shot down. Again, however, there are some questions that remain unresolved at this point.
In contrast to the usual disinformation that pervades world politics, US President Obama openly admitted what many of us have suspected for a long time: that the US tortured individuals in the so-called “war on terror” in the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001. Obama’s admission was hardly voluntary–the US Senate is scheduled to release the results of its investigations on US interrogation techniques. We still do not know how much of that report will be edited for public consumption, but the report apparently does not mince words when talking about the abhorrent tactics used during the Administration of President George W. Bush.
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