WPR Blog Archive

The Italian national television network’s news channel, TG3, has removed its Vatican reporter from his beat for making a mild joke about Pope Benedict XVI´s shortcomings as a public speaker. On Sunday, Roberto Balducci mentioned in a report that two cats awaited the pope at his summer vacation venue in the Aosta Valley, in northern Italy. Cats happen to be Pope Benedict´s favorite pets, Balducci said, before adding that only quattro gatti (or four cats, a rather disparaging Italian expression used to describe a very small group of people) had “the courage and the patience” to listen to the pontiff’s […]

Marc Lynch has unleashed a blog phenomenon with a foreign policy exegesis of the Game’s challenge to rap “hegemon” Jay-Z. The original post is here, and Lynch followed up with a roundup of replies here. The question facing Jay-Z of whether and how to respond to the attack, according to Lynch, illustrates the dilemma before any hegemonic power in the face of a weaker, but potentially threatening, upstart. Lynch uses Jay-Z’s now-reconciled feud with Nas as an example of the unintended and unexpected consequences of escalation. But my immediate thought on reading the piece was to an incident from the […]

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, the first African head of state to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, stepped up to the podium today at The Hague to begin his defense testimony. Like Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic before him, Taylor struck a defiant posture, painting himself as a leader besieged by jealous countrymen and vindictive foreigners determined to control his country. “This whole case has been ‘Let’s Get Taylor!’ . . . People have me eating human beings,” the 61-year-old raged during an emotional appearance. Taylor faces charges — including murder, rape, sexual slavery and conscription of child […]

It’s pretty tough to argue with conventional wisdom, but Richard Weitz does a good job of it in his WPR column today when it comes to the G-8. Weitz points out that the arguments for enlarging the G-8 to a G-14 or a G-20 are mainly based on economic and demographic shifts. That overlooks the significant security component to the G-8 format, an area in which the eight member nations do, in fact, represent the principle global leaders. I wish I’d had Richard’s column to rely on last Friday, during the France 24 program, The World This Week, because I […]

Friend of the blog Matt Stone sends word that respected scholar and American citizen Kian Tajbakhsh was detained by Iranian authorities on Thursday. This Robin Wright piece in Time magazine gives some background on Tajbakhsh, whose academic work has won him an international reputation as a brilliant scholar. The State Department has condemned his arrest, and a Web site has been established to organize efforts toward his release.

I wish I could claim “the Erdogan Factor” as my own invention, but Yigal Schleifer coined the term to explain what just put the kibosh on Turkey’s moderate response to the Xinjiang riots: Speaking to reporters live on NTV television last Friday, Turkish PrimeMinister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who has a habit of doing away withdiplomatic niceties — said: “The incidents in China are, simply put,tantamount to genocide. There’s no point in interpreting thisotherwise.” So much for a moderate response. I personally find Erdogan’s inability to bury his emotional reactions with “diplomatic niceties” compelling, and would almost argue for a […]

I’m going to offer a cranky, contrarian take on President Barack Obama’s speech in Accra on Saturday. This is the fourth “Speech” (cue the angelic choirs) from the Orator-in-Chief, and if you can’t tell from this post’s title and the preceeding sarcasm, I’ve admittedly got a case of speech fatigue. Part of it has to do with the fact that the speeches, taken together, reveal a certain Mad Libs formulaic construction, that goes something like this: In an interconnected world, what happens in [Insert: Host City] will impact the planet. [Insert: Demographic Constituency symbolized by Host City] has already contributed […]

World Politics Review managing editor Judah Grunstein appeared on France 24’s panel discussion program, The World This Week, on Friday to discuss the riots in Xinjiang, the G-8 summit and Obama’s visit to Kenya, along with Anthony Bellanger of Courrier International, Billie O’Kadameri of Radio France International, and Elie Masbounji of l’Orient le Jour. Part One can be seen here. Part Two can be seen here.

What a difference a year makes. That’s the gist of this Journal du Dimanche article by Pierre Servent regarding the morale of the French military this Bastille Day compared to the 2008 vintage: Last year, the army’s morale was as low as its socks: the announcement of drastic manpower cuts, the drama of Carcassonne, the resignation/firing of the army chief of staff, the controversial presence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. [. . .] But what, then, happened between July 14, 2008 and July 14, 2009 to explain this change? One word: Uzbin. (Translated from the French.) Uzbin is the valley […]

The United Nations has issued a blunt assessment of the dismal state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, criticizing families, local communities and government officials for complicity in failing to address a social system that continues to set women up as victims. “Afghan women have limited freedom to escape the norms and traditions that dictate a subservient status for females. Women in Afghanistan are also subjected to the violence inherent in armed conflict that has intensified in recent years and is exacting an increasingly heavy toll on Afghan civilians,” the report says. Intimidation, direct psychological and physical attacks, and high profile […]

In the end, the Italians’ legendary talent for snatching success out of impending disaster won the day, and the G-8 summit in the quake stricken town of l’Aquila this week was “a tour de force of last-minute organization,” as the New York Times called it. There was no major breakthrough on any of the main problems confronting world leaders. But there was a useful clearing of the air on such issues as global warming, as well as a burst of generosity by “have” nations towards struggling economies in the developing world and welcome help for agricultural development. Above all, the […]

Robert Farley thinks I’m holding onto the past in my defense of piloted fighter planes, and he’s probably right: The question isn’t really one of the relevance of air superiority, orthe likelihood of war with China. Rather, we’re talking about theimminent reality that drones (with human controllers) will, in theforeseeable future, be better able to handle air superiority missionsthan aircraft with human pilots. He goes on to explain why, before adding this: Finally, I’m singularly unconvinced by the notion that we need tomaintain industrial and training capacity into the indefinite futurefor weapon systems that we’ve identified as obsolete. Right or […]

In a WPR Briefing yesterday, Joshua Kucera mentioned in passing Turkey’s response to the Xinjiang riots. Yigal Schleifer has more today. The keywords for Turkey are Turkic Uighurs, leading to both public outpourings of sympathy, but also official declarations of concern and a promise to bring the matter before the UNSC, where Turkey is currently a non-permanent member. But the other keywords are ethnic separatists, leading to a bit of sheepish self-consciousness, given Turkey’s stance towards separatists among its own Kurdish minority. All this at a time when Turkey is actively courting China. President Abdullah Gul recently paid a state […]

According to McClatchy (via Friday Lunch Club), no quid and no quo regarding yesterday’s release of the five Iranian detainees in Iraq. In fact, U.S. forces handed them over to Iraqi authorities despite misgivings. This is a case where Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is flexing some muscle in his newly “autonomous” relationship with the U.S. That, of course, is to be expected, and to the extent that it hastens realistic expectations Stateside for U.S.-Iraq relations moving forward, it is a good thing. Michael Wahid Hanna’s WPR Briefing was especially insightful on that subject. But those who will point to […]

The New York Times reports that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb “has carried out a string of killings, bombings and other lethal attacks against Westerners and African security forces in recent weeks that have raised fears that the terrorist group may be taking a deadlier turn.” For some great background on AQIM, see Joseph Kirschke’s October 2008 feature article for WPR, “AQIM: The North African Franchise.” To read it in full online, or as part of the January-February 2009 issue of our digital journal (which can also be downloaded as a .pdf file) you can sign up for a free […]

As someone who grew up devouring books on WWI-era fighter aces, and spent countless hours building model WWI and WWII fighter planes (I could probably put together a Spitfire with my eyes closed), I’m probably not a very objective judge of the idea making the rounds that the F-35 might be that last generation of U.S. piloted fighter/fighter-bomber planes. David Axe kicked things off, based on a comment by Adm. Mike Mullen in Senate testimony. Matthew Yglesias and Robert Farley make the case based on the relative expense compared to drones, with drones obviously coming in far cheaper. And Abu […]

I’d thought of the five Iranians detained in Iraq a few weeks back, in the aftermath of the Iranian elections. It occurred to me then that liberating them would be a way to offer a concrete goodwill gesture to Tehran, thereby providing a bit more liberty of action in terms of offering moral support to the Iranian opposition. According to the Washington Post and the Times of London, they were released today as part of the detainee-release agreement with Baghdad. Kevin Sullivan wonders if it’s the quid for Iran’s quo of releasing some of the protestors who had been detained […]