Editorials
22 December 2017
Jerusalem: Between Trump’s Theatre And Haley’s Threats
In this tumultuous era of tweets, it's not always easy to discern policy from theatre. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a case in point, and in the end, may be much-ado-about nothing, or close to it. In true Trumpian fashion, he boasted on 6 December that “while previous [US] presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.” This triggered a vivid worldwide reaction, and a showdown at the United Nations. Read full piece here
18 September 2017
Macron and Trump: the Globalist and the Isolationist Go to the UN
As the UN launches its annual high-level week, the organization’s quintessential gathering of ‘world leaders’, new and old political players will have their moment under the spotlight at the green-marbled rostrum of the General Assembly hall.
Outside the 38-floor glass building, popular movements of global citizens will be seeking to countervail today’s de facto norm of international relations, otherwise known as globalization, which they often view as another imperialistic effort. Read full piece here.
13 September 2017
Global citizens call for global leaders?
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the nominal end of the Cold War, a new term has entered the political and journalistic lexicons: globalization, a new norm of international relations, heralding a modern, post-national era.. Read the full report here
14 June 2017
Trump of Arabia: Into the Hornet’s Nest
By Ghida Fakhry
President Trump has put his finger into a hornet’s nest. With a couple of early morning tweets last week, he drew a new line in the sand by endorsing Saudi Arabia’s move to ostracize its small neighbor Qatar, and lead an unprecedented campaign against it. Worse, he even boasted about his role in engineering it. Trump has waded into the region’s monarchial and tribal rivalries, and tensions. His vagaries have added a layer of complexity to an already troubled region. Read more here..
14 April 2017
Trump's (mis)guided missile policy
By Ghida Fakhry
It was a predictable act. When a leader is embroiled in intractable domestic problems, with sliding approval ratings and a federal investigation into members of his administration, launching guided missiles may be the best cop-out. But beyond the question of motives and legality --as important as they are-- Trump's decision last week to launch $90 million worth of missiles on the small Shayrat Syrian Air Force base, from which fixed-wing aircraft took off hours later, is likely to have unintended but dangerous consequences. Read more here..
21 March 2017
Why Starving the UN is Not a Safe US Investment: President Trump and the Cost of Isolationism
By Ghida Fakhry
It was a rare lesson in the art of diplomacy: the visit of Angela Merkel to the White House on 17 March was somehow ironic. Simply put, the German Chancellor lectured the US President in a language he might not decode. In clear text, she warned him of the perils of political and economic isolationism. In a way, she contrasted Trump’s regressive Weltanschauung with the visionary path of the Roosevelt Administration, which allowed for the defeat of fascism.. Read more here..
7 March 2017
As Trump Tweets, the Planet Overheats; and China Leaps
By Ghida Fakhry
To his critics, Trump is the ‘deflector-in-chief’. His latest volley of wild accusatory tweets fired around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday 4 March to shift attention away from his campaign’s undisclosed contacts with Russian officials is all too obvious – but it works. After the downfall of his National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn, his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was compelled to recuse himself from an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election; another resignation cannot be excluded. But for now, Trump’s tweets have moved the focus away from the Russian connection. Read more here..
31 January 2017
The Apprentice President
By Ghida Fakhry
Petitions, protests and injunctions. It only took ten days for President Trump to unite much of the world against him and, possibly, plunge the United States into a constitutional crisis. With the executive order signed on 27 January 2017 which prohibits the entry into the US of citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the American President made good on his electoral pledge; partially. With the stroke of a pen, and reportedly without following standard interagency review protocols, Trump took the unprecedented step of targeting over 130 million people across the Middle East and Africa.. Read more...
8 December 2016
Human Rights Day: the UN vs the ‘Demagogues’
By Ghida Fakhry
The United Nations likes ritualistic celebrations. On 10 December, it will celebrate the quintessential Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by the UN Human Rights Commission under the chairmanship of the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. It was proclaimed by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948 in Paris, four years after Nazi Germany surrendered the city. Paris became anew the capital of France. Symbols matter, and this one is powerful.
Almost seventy years on, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, is feeling anxious about the way the world is heading. Read more..
5 November 2016
On Election Day, The Middle East Is Watching — And Praying
By Ghida Fakhry
'Wow'. Trump himself was lost for words when he tweeted this a few days ago. Even he, was taken aback by the FBI's decision to inform the US Congress that it was reviewing another batch of Clinton-related emails. Suddenly, with this unexpected late rebound, Trump believes in opinion polls -- again. Why wouldn't he? In the homestretch before election day, he is leading nationally in some polls, in others he is tied with Hillary Clinton. Read More..
18 October 2016
Is the US Media Electing the Next President? Yes, but not on (Foreign) Policy
By Ghida Fakhry
A disaster! This is how US republican nominee Donald Trump describes everything his opponent Hillary Clinton has done. From healthcare to trade and immigration, it is all one big ‘disaster’. Foreign policy doesn’t fare any better. He reminded everyone again at the last presidential debate that Clinton has been a disaster on virtually every major US foreign policy decision taken over the last 12 years: Iraq, Libya, Syria — all foreign adventures she supported as New York Senator, or advocated as Secretary of State. And of course, there is her ‘criminal’ mishandling of classified information on email which would get Clinton ‘in jail’ should he become President. Read more..