The Egyptian president has responded to the US escalation with a speech in Cairo Stadium.
The ongoing protests have only emphasised the gap between the Turkish government and the EU, and between Turkey and Arab leaders whose fear of revolt doesn’t necessarily translate into political solidarity with Ankara.
Expecting new global powers to promote human rights abroad via the United Nations assumes that they will play by the old rules and - if such pressure is to be effective - that human rights factors will condition their bilateral relationships; neither is likely. A contribution to the openGlobalRigh
Rather than giving the opposition a decisive means to victory, arms to Syria will only prolong the violence and suggest a grander agenda: rebalancing regional power.
Syria’s agony has been a critical factor in the surprise outcome of Iran’s presidential election. Iran’s Supreme Leader has risked a second opening to the west by allowing Dr Hassan Rouhani’s election to stand. The west must respond urgently in kind.
All the opposition groups, almost without exception, had called for the boycott of the elections. Had Iranian voters listened, a worse candidate would now have won the presidency.
Rouhani’s positive reputation among western powers when he led Iran’s nuclear negotiations provides Khamenei, if he wants, with the pretext for greater flexibility at this critical point.
Given the track record of failed attempts at diplomacy, it is questionable whether some tacit agreement can bring a long-term resolution to this new Cold War. There is no less at stake than a fundamental rethinking of the way we approach international relations.
Chapter seven of ‘A Dangerous Delusion: why the west is wrong about nuclear Iran’ by Peter Oborne and David Morrison, takes up the basic facts in the public domain regarding Iranian possession and planning for nuclear weapons which mainstream media ignore, and asks why they do this.
Which candidate will be in a better position to weaken the Supreme Leader? Which will be less detrimental in terms of economic mismanagement? And which candidate less dangerous than the others in terms of brazen violations of human rights and civil liberties?
With two weeks left before the presidential election, is there any hope for systemic change in Iran?
Today’s Sunni/Shiite regional war is the direct product of the Bush/Blair war on Iraq. The divide is all the more dangerous because of the Levant’s confessional mosaic. These events are changing the very nature of the states in the region, and the peoples that lie within them. Where do Palestine’s
