Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Today the U.S.-Israeli relationship, long a bedrock alliance for both nations, is rancorous and tense. Americans on the political right attribute this to the weakness or even incompetence of President Barack Obama, particularly concerning Iran. Portraying the problem as one of personalities or political inclinations may keep pundits employed, but it misses the bigger and more important picture. The United States is, in fact, “pursuing a policy agenda in the Middle East that is increasingly divergent from Israeli interests,” but this reflects more than just a predilection of the Obama administration. The divergence between the two old allies reflects deep […]

Hondurans will vote Sunday, Nov. 24, in a presidential election that polls suggest is too close to call. U.S. interests are plainly at stake, but this has less to do with the individual who may end up being elected than with the legitimacy of the election itself and how the new president, once in office, chooses to govern. In what should be a clarifying and unifying election, the electorate instead is polarized, and at least three of the leading candidates are each convinced they will win. Official results may not be known for a week or more after the election; […]

Representatives of the Colombian government and the FARC guerilla group announced on Nov. 6 in Havana that they had reached an agreement that could allow FARC leaders to participate in Colombian politics. The precise details of the agreement have not been disclosed, and the two sides have agreed that it would not go into effect until a final peace settlement has been reached. Nevertheless, according to Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, the peace process is moving along reasonably well, and the two sides both may have “gotten past the point of no return” toward reaching a […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently visited Istanbul to mark the opening of the Marmaray, a mammoth tunneling project connecting Europe with Asia beneath the waters of the Bosphorus. Constructed at a cost of more than $4 billion, the project is an iconic example of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grand vision for Turkey. More ambitious still is Erdogan’s plan to build an extensive nuclear power program, virtually overnight, in a country that currently has no nuclear power plants. The prime minister hopes to have two nuclear power plants, with four reactors each, online in time for the Turkish Republic’s […]

By Sept. 10, 2001, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was increasingly slouching toward irrelevance. Although USAID Administrator Brian Atwood had instituted important reforms during his tenure at the helm during the 1990s, the agency had been badly bloodied by a contentious political battle with the Republican-controlled Congress over whether it should be folded into the State Department. Remarkably, Atwood held both the State Department and Sen. Jesse Helms at bay when Congress tried to abolish USAID and place its remains in Foggy Bottom. But Atwood and the agency paid a steep price for their resistance, and angry […]

Diplomacy in the American political system is frequently described as the exclusive province of presidents. Thomas Jefferson, America’s first secretary of state, wrote in 1790, “The transaction of business with foreign nations is executive altogether. . . . Exceptions are to be strictly construed.” A decade later, John Marshall, who would go on to become the most influential chief justice in U.S. history, declared on the floor of the House of Representatives, “The president is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.” Justice George Sutherland noted Marshall’s claim in United […]

These should be salad days for the State Department. It is on its fifth in a string of “rock star” secretaries with world-class political skills and major public followings at home and abroad. The U.S. public has just told its representatives as decisively as at any time in the past half-century to pursue diplomatic, not military, solutions to world problems. As Hillary Clinton put it at the end of her tenure as secretary of state, “In today’s world, when we can be anywhere virtually, more than ever, people want us to actually show up.” But over that same period of […]

Did the liberal international order get a little less liberal last week? Western diplomats and human rights activists faced an accumulation of challenges across the United Nations system. On Tuesday, the General Assembly elected a clutch of repressive regimes—including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam—to the Human Rights Council. On Friday, African countries forced a showdown in the Security Council over the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) pursuit of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for stirring up election-related violence in 2007, accusing the U.N. of disrespect for Africa. To pessimistic observers, these developments are symptomatic of a […]

Francois Hollande may be one of the least popular presidents of all time at home in France, but in Israel, where he was greeted yesterday with the red carpet treatment, he is certainly one of the most popular French presidents ever to visit the country. The obvious reason is France’s hard-line stance in Geneva at the latest round of talks on the Iranian nuclear issue. But contrary to how it has been portrayed, Paris’ firmness on Iran’s nuclear program is not driven by a desire to curry favor in Israel—or in the Persian Gulf—and French-Israeli relations should not be reduced […]

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent “reassurance tour” of America’s Middle East partners was not a resounding success. Kerry’s attempts to convince skeptical allies that the United States remains committed to their security and well-being, interrupted in part by the secretary’s decision to travel to Geneva to attend the second round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program, were confronted with concerns that the United States lacks both strategic focus and staying power. Writing in Gulf News, Linda S. Heard opined, “The U.S. is currently bleeding trust with many of its regional allies.” On Egypt, Syria, Israel-Palestine and Iran, U.S. […]

A new political alliance was announced in Europe this week. Meeting in The Hague, the leaders of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders, and France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, announced they would campaign together for the approaching European Parliament elections in 2014. Both parties oppose immigration, Islam and the European Union, and hope to rally a pan-European insurgency to their banner. The meeting was focused on May 2014, when voters across Europe will head to the ballot box to elect their representatives in the European Parliament. European elections are held every five years to determine the composition of […]

China is moving to ease restrictions on its one-child policy, Chinese policymakers announced Friday. The new rules will allow parents who are themselves only children to have two children. Therese Hesketh told WPR in August that changes to the policy were seen in China as inevitable: The policy has achieved its original goal of reducing population growth and lifting many out of poverty. It has also become an anachronism as freedoms have increased in many areas of life; as growing wealth means many can afford the fines; and as China becomes a key player in the global community and can […]

A few days after sitting across from an Iranian delegation in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is facing another daunting interlocutor as he buys time for the administration’s diplomatic approach: the U.S. Congress. Kerry made the case for a pause in additional sanctions at an off-the-record Senate Banking Committee briefing on Wednesday. Although the exact details have not been publicly disclosed of last week’s negotiations between Iran and the U.S.—in coordination with the other members of the Security Council and Germany—the proposed agreement reportedly contains some form of sanctions relief for Iran and other inducements in return for […]

The debate over whether America is the world’s indispensable nation will continue, but when it comes to the Middle East nobody is waiting for the answer. Washington’s gradual but steady retreat from its once-unabashed exercise of influence in the region has sparked a rush by second-tier powers to fill the vacuum that has resulted. As the U.S. holds back, other nations are raising their profile, hoping to gain from Washington’s reluctance to play a larger role. The more passive the U.S. becomes, the more assertive others grow. To be sure, the U.S. remains far and away the most influential outside […]

While Michele Bachelet is all but certain to win a second, nonconsecutive term over Evelyn Matthei in Chile’s Nov. 17 presidential election, the long-term implications of Bachelet’s victory are still to be written. The election will be a watershed in Chile’s 23-year-old democracy, and not just because it will be the country’s first presidential election held without mandatory voting. A realignment of political forces and the emergence of a new generation of young politicians have pushed a new reform agenda, which Bachelet has tried to capture in a series of constitutional and tax reform proposals. The shifts are certain to […]

In the wake of reports that the U.S. engaged in extensive spying on allies, Brazil and Germany this month introduced a draft U.N. resolution aimed at limiting such surveillance. In an email interview, Craig Forcese, vice dean and associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, explained the norms governing international spying. WPR: What are the existing treaty requirements concerning whether and how states can spy on one another? Forcese: Put simply, there aren’t any. States have never had much incentive to regulate peacetime spying through treaties. All states spy, and all want to be free to condemn […]

Prior to the end of 2012, the Sahel, the region comprising Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad, did not receive much attention in Europe outside Paris. However, since the French-led intervention in early 2013 to combat the violent Islamist takeover in northern Mali, the Sahel has become a regular subject for discussion among European foreign and security policymakers. Suddenly, as Bamako was faced with a coup, it hit home to Europeans how close the region is and how closely intertwined with European interests it has become. As we near the end of 2013, the strategic importance of this region, and […]