WPR Blog Archive

Seen from Washington’s perspective, the current ethnic clashes in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh are yet another example of the risks of doing business in a very dangerous neighborhood. True, the U.S.-run Manas airbase, a vital supply hub for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is a long way from the current conflict. (Manas is in the north, near the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.) But with President Barack Obama’s build-up of 30,000 additional troops for Afghanistan currently pouring into Manas en route to deployment, any threat to the base would create a logistical nightmare. The ethnic clashes between Kyrgyzs and Uzbeks […]

The 32 teams battling it out on South Africa’s soccer fields for a shot at glory aren’t the only contenders in this year’s World Cup. Amnesty International is also fielding a team of human rights defenders and joining other rights groups in examining the host country’s rights progress. Stand Up United’s 11 team members include representatives from China, Cameroon, Iran, Kenya, Pakistan, Serbia and South Africa. It’s a powerful roster of rights advocates working on issues ranging from war crimes and extrajudicial killings, to indigenous and migrant community rights. South Africa is expressing understandable pride over hosting the tournament for […]

It’s easy to exagerrate the extent of Israel’s diplomatic isolation, and you can count on that to happen every time an incident like the Gaza flotilla occurs. But what is indisputable is that since at least the Lebanon War of 2006, the Israeli strategic braintrust has prioritized maintaining absolute liberty of action over massaging international opinion. The reason has to do with the logic upon which the state of Israel is based, namely that the Jewish people needed a state of its own because it could not count on the community of nations to protect it. In other words, the […]

The European Commission finalized a draft of a banking data-sharing agreement with the U.S. today. The draft will now be presented to the European Parliament and the heads of state meeting for final approval before taking effect. A similar deal was torpedoed by the EU parliament in February due to concerns over privacy infringements. In a nod to parliamentarians’ concerns, the new agreement includes conditions to limit shared data to information related to ongoing terrorist investigations and to forbid data mining. This is the first significant example of the EU parliament’s expanded powers under the Lisbon Treaty. I remain convinced […]

Earlier this month, Peruvian and Chilean leaders agreed to consider resuming confidence-building measures in order to rein in mutual defense purchases. In an e-mail interview, Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, discusses Peru-Chile relations. WPR: What is the current status of bilateral relations between Peru and Chile? Farnsworth: Both countries have a lot to gain by working together and serving as models for others in the region. Strong democratic governance, growing economies, free trade agreements with the United States and a growing relationship with Asia-Pacific nations has positioned both Peru and Chile to play an important […]

Freedom House’s annual review of the world’s most-repressive societies is a fixture among human rights advocates as a gauge of where the most work needs to be done. This year’s list features a set of countries that also represents major engagement challenges. Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all ranked as the world’s most-restrictive countries on political and civil liberties in Freedom House’s report (.pdf), “The Worst of the Worst of 2010: The World’s Most Repressive Societies.” Belarus, Chad, China, Cuba, Guinea, Laos, Saudi Arabia, and Syria fared only slightly better. “In this report, […]

Back in January, everyone expected 2010 to be a watershed year for the European Union. It certainly has been that, but not for the reasons people expected at the time. The advent of the long-awaited post-Lisbon union, with its new offices of president of the European Council and foreign policy chief, turned out to be an anti-climactic non-event. Instead, the lingering legacy of the pre-Lisbon union — cooked books and hidden debt, along with fundamental political and cultural differences on fiscal and monetary policy — has brought the EU to its knees, just when it was expected to soar. This […]

In late-May, Iraq sent its first ambassador to Kuwait since the outbreak of the First Gulf War. In an e-mail interview, Ahmed Ali, a research associate at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, discusses the historical context and current state of Iraq-Kuwait relations. WPR: What are some of the unresolved issues in Iraq-Kuwait relations? Ahmed Ali: There are two sets of unresolved issues between Iraq and Kuwait — tangible and intangible. They are closely related and are sources of continuous friction between the two countries. Additionally, they have the ability to feed off of each other and as a […]

The Obama administration has a number of reasons to be satisfied with the outcome of the U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution. To begin with, to the extent that the administration managed to successfully implement its stated plan over the past 18 months with regard to Iran, it is a political victory. Given the U.S. domestic opposition to initially engaging Tehran, and the subsequent challenges (Russia and China) to shepherding the resolution package through the Security Council, it’s even a significant political victory. And to the extent that the sanctions seem to stand up to scrutiny, it’s far from a hollow […]

Wednesday’s “No” votes by Brazil and Turkey against the U.S.-driven Iran sanctions resolution in the U.N. Security Council was a milestone in the shift to a multipolar world. A long-time friend of the U.S. and a NATO ally openly defied the Obama administration in a vital diplomatic effort to put the squeeze on Iran — perhaps the international community’s last concerted non-military effort to prevent Tehran’s ruling ayatollahs from possessing nuclear weapons. There was little doubt that one or both countries would rebel against the U.S. following Washington’s rejection of the nuclear fuel swap agreement they negotiated with Iran last […]

Late last month, Pakistani extremists staged protests along the India-Pakistan border, rallying against what they called India’s unfair use of the shared waters of the Indus River. In an e-mail interview, Harvard School of Public Health Professor and former World Bank Senior Water Advisor John Briscoe, explains the India-Pakistan water dispute. WPR: What is the background of the water dispute in Kashmir? John Briscoe: At partition in 1947, the line between India and Pakistan was drawn on religious grounds, paying no attention to hydrology. As a result, more than 85 percent of the irrigated area of the Punjab — the […]

India and Iran are discussing a new underwater pipeline project that would circumvent a stalled pipeline project involving the two countries and Pakistan. In an e-mail interview, East West Institute Vice President of Programs Dr. W. Pal Singh Sidhu explains Iran-India energy relations. WPR: What is the current energy relationship between Iran and India? Pal Sidhu: India is the world’s fifth-largest consumer of energy resources and heavily dependent on imports. Its energy consumption is estimated to rise to 27.1 quadrillion BTUs by 2025 — the largest expected increase in energy use after China. Even with new domestic oil and gas […]

In the midst of the latest Middle East crisis, not a lot of global attention was given to the outcome of Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday. The results showed that the pre-election polls were completely wrong. Instead of a neck-and-neck race, Juan Manuel Santos, the heir-apparent to outgoing President Alvaro Uribe, received more than twice as many votes as his vaunted rival, Antanas Mockus, and fell just short of wrapping it up in the first round of voting. For what it’s worth, I never believed Mockus, the philosopher/mathematician, stood a chance. He was an innovative and creative executive as mayor […]

Efforts to expand the scope of the International Criminal Court during a review conference taking place this week in Kampala enjoy broad support among rights advocates, but many governments have expressed reservations. The imbalance between the desire to protect human rights and the judicial means to do so at the international level remains one of the largest gaping holes in the global human rights effort. “Relying on national infrastructures battered by conflict or controlled by the very perpetrators of these crimes is not enough. If we expect to achieve a world without genocide, a world free of horrific war crimes […]

Late last month, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar denied rumors that the government was planning to extend Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s term as chief of army staff. In an e-mail interview, Hassan Abbas, Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society and Quaid-i-Azam Professor at Columbia University, discusses the possible candidates for one of Pakistan’s most powerful positions. WPR: As Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s honorable retirement in November 2010 draws nearer, what are the prospects of his term as Pakistan’s chief of army staff being extended? Hassan Abbas: There have been credible rumors about a possible extension in service for […]

There’s a real bitter irony to the fact that the historic visit of Massoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, to Ankara was overshadowed by the diplomatic firestorm over the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla. In many ways, Turkey’s success in 2007 in getting the Bush administration to take seriously its concerns over Kurdish PKK militants camped out in northern Iraq was a turning point in Turkey’s emergence as a diplomatic force to be reckoned with in the region. That campaign included a very loud phase of sabre-rattling that culminated in the U.S. holding Barzani back […]

After a 25-year hiatus, Brazil is resuming work on its third nuclear reactor. In an e-mail interview, Sean Burges, lecturer with the School of Politics and International Relations at Australian National University, discusses Brazil’s nuclear program. WPR: What is the current state of Brazil’s civil nuclear program, in terms of enrichment capability and IAEA inspections regimes? Sean Burges: Brazil has limited enrichment capacity and is currently pursuing the goal of self-sufficiency to meet the needs of the country’s small nuclear power sector. Brazil is resistant to any sort of IAEA inspection regime on its nuclear activities for three reasons. First, […]