In mid July, the international community renewed its efforts to curb the spread of small arms and light weapons (SALW). After failing to even adopt a report at their last meeting in 2006, this year’s delegates found a way through Iranian procedural objections to vote for modest next steps on a program of action to address the illicit trade of the deadly devices. Watchers of the small arms trade will now be looking to see if successful conclusion of the meeting adds momentum to a separate process examining the possibilities for a broader global arms trade treaty. In 2001, U.N. [...]
Kevin Drum’s got a smart post on the likelihood of President Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki reaching a deal on a status of forces agreement that was recently believed to be dead in the water. Here’s the key quote from the WSJ article Kevin flags: Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national-security adviser, said the recent agreement between Washington and Baghdad on a withdrawal time horizon is pushing the talks along. “That mutual understanding has been very beneficial,” he said. “Neither of us can deal with open-ended uncertainty.” The Iraqis are still pushing for a 2010 date, in line with Barack Obama’s [...]
WASHINGTON — Sky-high oil prices are keeping Iran’s government flush with revenue. But they are also contributing to Iran’s soaring inflation, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s worst economic woe. Pain at the pump for consumers of oil-importing countries usually translates into political gain for authoritarian leaders in oil-rich countries who use oil rents to buy political support. As Thomas Friedman famously put it, “the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions.” “Iran is no exception,” said Farideh Farhi, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “But high oil prices [...]
