After the drama of Laurent Gbagbo’s capture in Abidjan, international attention has swung away from Cote d’Ivoire. At the precise moment when external voices for justice are most necessary, the cameras and critics seem to have moved on. Reducing Cote d’Ivoire’s political struggle to the recent presidential contest is a profound misunderstanding of the complexity of the Ivorian conflict and a sure way to miss the path toward peace.
Done properly, the U.N.’s Responsibility to Protect entails deployment of peacekeepers, provision of food and shelter, and democratic elections.
Despite Africa’s intention to empower its continental and regional organisations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States have failed to propose a determined solution for the post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. Instead the prospect of a new civil war looms on the Ivoirian horizon.
As revolutions and reforms sweep the Arab world, Saudi women continue to push for their rights. Inspired by their sisters in Egypt and Tunisia, a national women’s movement called Saudi Women Revolution has coalesced with clear and wide-ranging demands. Chief among them is the ability to participate in the political process, including voting and running for election.
More than 90 international environment, development, human rights, and anti-debt organizations from around the world want the World Bank excluded from Green Climate Fund for helping poor nations address climate change.
The United States and its allies launched the war against Libya on the eighth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. President Barack Obama says the U.S. will transfer command authority very soon, that military action should be over in “days, not weeks,” and that he wants no boots on the ground. But the parallels with other U.S. wars in the Middle East don’t bode well.
Following the vote at the UN Security Council, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States have embarked on military action against Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. They have been careful to include a few Arab states in this new coalition of the willing. But these three countries are the driving force behind the imposition of a no-fly zone and the attacks on the government’s military positions and forces. Yet among the permanent and non-permanent member of the Council who were asked to authorize “all necessary measures” to protect civilians rebelling against the regime, the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India, and China were conspicuously absent.
The recent U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israel’s settlement policy is a tragicomic way for the Obama administration to abandon its claim to global leadership. But that is what Ambassador Susan Rice’s “nay” vote on February 18 signifies. The battle for a rational foreign policy in Washington has been over for some time. This veto represents surrender.
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.
The UN’s mythical black helicopters are back. The triumphant, reality-challenged new Republican majority in the House of Representatives imagine that they are flying in formation up the Potomac in a bid to take over the United States.