Home to the region’s biggest economies, largest middle classes, and most educated populations, Iran and Turkey represent vibrant societies with huge reservoir of both soft and hard power. Growing cooperation between the two may signal the opening of a new chapter in the Middle Eastern affairs.
This is the story of a text, which was briefly posted at The Asia Pacific Journal on 6 February, and almost immediately (within hours) withdrawn. The author was Kim Man-bok, who from November 2006 to January 2008 was Director of the South Korean National Intelligence Service (Korean CIA) under the Government of President Roh Moo-hyun. His text was entitled “Let Us Turn Korea’s West Sea (the Sea of Dispute) into a Sea of Peace and Prosperity.”
Like “wipe Israel off the map,” “another Chernobyl” is pushing buttons for an attack on Iran.
From carving up Switzerland to initiating a multilateral pirate peace process, Gaddafi doesn’t lack for opinions.
This escalating rhetoric of military intervention from pundits and the administration toward Libya is not surprising. Libya has oil, and the West needs it. But we should not repeat the mistake of Iraq. The United States – or Europe – should not send troops to Libya except as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
Arun Kundnani is a British writer and human rights activist. He is the former editor of Race and Class, published by the Institute of Race Relations in London, and is currently an Open Society Institute fellow. In 2009, he wrote Spooked: How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism, which explored the effects of the Prevent program, the British counter-radicalism policy aimed at Muslim communities. Here he talks to John Feffer of Foreign Policy In Focus about the debate on multiculturalism in the United Kingdom, the dichotomy between “good” and “bad” Muslims, and the status of the Preventing Violent Extremism program.
Okinawans are at the vanguard of attempts to block the deployment of a controversial U.S. aircraft.
The political revolts in the Middle East, which have produced the overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia and the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, have also generated a flawed debate about the region. In this discourse repeated ad nauseum in the mainstream press and the policy world, the United States has to balance its views on democracy promotion and stability in the Middle East.
The Mubarak dictatorship is over! The military dictatorship lives on! The events in Tunisia and Egypt make it clear that change is coming to the Arab world. But is this change we can believe in? Unfortunately, it is increasingly evident that, although the demonstrators have won some concessions, authoritarianism remains in place.
On the surface, the antagonism between China and the United States resembles the imperial competition between Britain and Germany at end of the 19th century. But the world of 2011 is very different than in 1914. It is far more connected, far more interdependent, with the consequences from rivalries far more dangerous. Now every time either side brings in its military, tensions increase and solutions turn elusive.