John McCain, FT
The potential threats China will pose in the South China Sea in the coming months demand a change of course that can reassure the region of Americas commitment and demonstrate to Beijing that its pursuit of maritime hegemony will be met with a determined response.
Anna Nemtsova, Daily Beast
Does the Russian president really think the Americans are trying to overthrow him? Can he be this paranoid? And where will that lead?
Barry Andrews, Irish Times
Why hasn’t the Turkish economy collapsed with an additional approximately 3.5m Syrians within its borders over the last few years? In fact, according to the OECD, the Turkish economy will expand by 4% this year and by more than 5% in 2017. There is a cost to hosting so many people but the Turkish economy is worth 0b while they are spending about .5b per year on refugees - about 0.2% of GDP.
Alex Massie, FP
The furor over Cameron’s perfectly legal tax haven isn’t about his family money. It’s about his six years spent handing Britain over to the 1 percent.
Margaret Wente, Globe&Mail
I had always thought that most of the people who died from overdoses were inner-city junkies with needles in their arms. That’s not true any more. Many are middle-class suburban kids and adults who swallow or snort their poison.
Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor
With the Likud veering toward the radical right, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon might be tempted to leave in favor of a moderate-right party.
Ali Gharib, New Republic
Though she barely arrives at Rouhani’s 2013 election in her epilogue, this delicate push-and-pull is similar to many situations described in Laura Secor’s new book on the Iranian reform movement, Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran. Secor, a magazine writer with intense experience and interest in Iran, reviews the history—namely, the origins of and tensions between the Islamic left and Islamic right—but the volume does so much more. The facts, of course... Читать дальше...
Leonardo Avritzer, Boston Review
For Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, the past few weeks have been nothing if not challenging. On March 4, the former president of Brazil was taken from his home by police and questioned as part of Lava Jato (“car wash”), an investigation into a massive corruption scandal involving Petrobras, the state oil company and the country’s largest firm. Officials from several political parties—among them the leftist Worker’s Party (PT), founded by Lula and his compatriots and... Читать дальше...
Matthew Bryza, Wash Post
Putin is exploiting the situation through intensive diplomacy that Obama shows no interest in matching. The White House has failed even to issue an official statement. Meanwhile, the State Department’s reaction has been muted, consisting of a news statement by Secretary of State John Kerry that does not reflect the unprecedented nature of current circumstances, plus Kerry’s routine phone discussions with Lavrov. Putin, by contrast, has consulted repeatedly with Aliyev and Sarkisian... Читать дальше...
Juan Cole, Nation
Even members of the usually supine elite are horrified; the dictator’s move could provoke much more widespread opposition.
Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal
The political orthodoxy of the left is the gateway drug to jihad.
Aaron David Miller, RealClearWorld
Is Israel doomed? Will bad demography, bad neighbors, and bad Israeli behavior turn the once hopeful and idealistic notion of a thriving Jewish democratic state into a veritable Middle Eastern Sparta -- isolated in the international community and struggling to survive in a hostile region even as it occupies a restless and growing Palestinian majority? Having worked the Israel issue for half a dozen secretaries of state, I certainly wouldn’t want to minimize the challenges Israelis face at home and abroad.
Chas Freeman, War on the Rocks
These American conceits are, of course, delusional. They are all the more unpersuasive to foreigners because everyone can see that America is now in a schizophrenic muddle — able to open fire at perceived enemies, but delusional, distracted, and internally divided to the point of political paralysis. The ongoing “sequester” is a national decision not to make decisions about national priorities or how to pay for them. Congress has walked off the job, leaving decisions... Читать дальше...
Mikhail Minakov, Carnegie Europe
In the two years since Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, or Euromaidan, Ukrainian politics has revealed its worst side: former corruption fighters have established their own financial-political clans; former democrats have created a superpresidential system, hunted the media, and deprived the opposition from having a say; and former reformers have sought to leave the drowning government as soon as possible. The political crisis that started in February 2016 has... Читать дальше...
John Ivison, National Post
The Liberals are aware that Trudeau will have to perform a delicate balancing act on the file — he has established credibility on the environment and polls suggest he is trusted to make the right decision by a majority of Canadians (unlike his predecessor). He has made much of openness, evidence-based policy and acting as a referee, not a cheerleader, on the pipeline process.
Gideon Rachman, FT
It is the morning of June 24th. Britain has just voted narrowly to leave the EU. Jubilant pro-Brexit campaigners wave Union Jacks in Trafalgar Square. A shattered-looking David Cameron appears outside 10 Downing Street to say that he respects the verdict of the British people and that he intends to carry on as prime minister. The atmosphere of crisis is compounded by a stock market plunge across Europe. The French and German governments issue a joint statement saying that it... Читать дальше...
Maciej Kisilowski, Project Syndicate
Poland’s abortion bill may be just the beginning of a frightening stream of policy proposals aimed at dismantling basic human rights and rule-of-law protections in Poland. For Europe and the US, contesting such laws one by one represents a nearly impossible task, which is why both must redouble their efforts in support of full independence for the Constitutional Court. With that assured, and its decisions respected, the Court will be able to address real threats... Читать дальше...
Parag Khanna, National Interest
The long-standing mantra of the de jure world is "This land is my land." The new motto of the de facto, supply chain world is "Use it or lose it."
Zack Beauchamp, Vox
The city is facing a severe food shortage. Some residents have seen a 50-kilogram bag of flour go for as high as ,166 (it costs about .50 in the US). Human Rights Watch, along with Iraq Oil Reports, reports incidents of children and adults starving to death or dying of complications from malnutrition.
David Rothkopf, FP
And a President Hillary Rodham Clinton, for all the historic newness associated with America having its first and long-overdue female president, is likely to embrace a foreign policy that is the most traditional of any president in this century. (Indeed, her presidency may in fact be even more traditional than that of her husband given that he was navigating the unique, confusing environment of the immediate post-Cold War world.) Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and as... Читать дальше...
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View
For all its outward displays of democracy, Poroshenko's Ukraine is increasingly just another post-Soviet state defined by the greed and ambition of its rulers.
Saleh Mohamed, NYT
This week, United Nations talks meant to chart a path toward a peaceful, democratic future for Syria are set to resume in Geneva. But, in an absurd twist, the legitimate representatives of a large, democratically governed area in the country will not be invited to attend.
P. Smith, Fis. Times
Chinese purchases of U.S. corporations are setting records, and this isn’t a passing phenomenon. Private companies, state-owned enterprises, and individuals aren’t into trophy acquisitions, as many of the Japanese were. The Chinese are after “the commanding heights,” as President Xi Jinping put it a couple of years ago, in industries they identify as key 21st century drivers.
Hassan Mneimneh, RCWorld
Sen. Ted Cruz, when asked at last month's CNN town hall meeting to defend his controversial proposal to target Muslim neighborhoods in the United States, made a valuable distinction between Islam and Islamism.
