Wars usually end with talking. With the blood still fresh on the battlefield, politicians sit down at a negotiating table for peace talks. Words, after all, are their currency.
The Dancing Cure
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Ahmadinejad’s Coup D’Etat
Three days after the presidential elections in Iran and over 48 hours after violent clashes between crowds and security forces across Tehran, it’s evident that what happened was a coup d’état. The military-security establishment and certain elements in Iran’s clerical nomenclature carefully planned a large-scale manipulation of the election. They were evidently prepared for the riots and protest that followed. Anticipating a high voter turnout and victory for reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, security forces blatantly took control of the entire election process and virtually declared martial law in Tehran.
‘Palestinians’ without ‘Palestine’
"Obama welcomes Netanyahu acceptance of Palestinian state," the headlines blared. Well, at least that’s settled. With the U.S. president having shown the Israeli prime minister who is boss, both are headed toward the same long-term goal of a two-state solution — or so it seems.
Siding with the Barbarians
EU Green Card Lottery: Registration Office, installation view, exhibition “The Embassy / Apocalypse Now”, Paris, 2007
Dance and Child Soldiers
Children in Sierra Leone. Photo Credit: David Alan Harris.
Outsourcing North Korea Policy
The United States has basically thrown up its hands in the current crisis with North Korea. Washington has mounted an aggressive campaign at the UN to further isolate the world’s noisiest nuclear aspirant. But no one thinks that UN actions will have much effort.
America’s Sorry Policy
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a mea culpa from the 43rd president. Instead, it’s left to Barack Obama to come to terms with the Bush legacy.
How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems.
Improving U.S.-Muslim Relations: Obama’s Other Audience
No doubt, commentators around the globe will be assessing how President Barack Obama’s historic speech on strengthening U.S.-Muslim relations played around the globe for a long time. While people across the Arab and Islamic world comprised the president’s target audience, ultimately the U.S. public is pivotal for making that outreach succeed. Despite the promise of a new beginning, American prejudice against Arabs and Muslims has the potential to undermine the effectiveness of U.S. public diplomacy and Obama’s bold outstretched hand.
Twenty Years Later
On June 4, 1989, history forked.