Michael Cunningham, RCWorld
Former U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill was referring to American politics when he quipped that "all politics is local." However, his famous observation also applies to China.
Nelly Lahoud, Foreign Affairs
In 2010, the ISI had come under the leadership of a formerly obscure Iraqi who called himself Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Iraqi government's sectarianism and corruption offered fertile ground for the ISI to rebuild and grow. In 2010-11, Baghdadi unleashed a wave of terrorist assaults on Iraqi Christians and Shiites. This campaign enraged al Qaeda's leaders. "I do not understand," Zawahiri chafed in a letter he wrote to bin Laden a few months before the Abbottabad raid. Читать дальше...
Mazal Mualem, Al Monitor
Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid flew to Morocco Aug. 11 to attend the reopening of Israel's mission there. Since then, he has posted an almost endless stream of touching photos and texts to mark the historic occasion. He seems to have captured everything, from boarding the plane to landing in Rabat, and from the official reception that he received to the signing of new cooperation agreements between the two countries. Lapid ended his...
Jon Sopel, BBC
If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what's not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 - exactly 20 years on from 9/11?
Andrew Small with Janka Oertel, ECFR
The security situation in Afghanistan has been worsening since the United States and its European allies decided to withdraw from the decades-long mission in the country. Following conversations between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Taliban leaders, many observers see an opportunity for China to enhance its influence in the region. ECFR's Janka Oertel and Andrew Small discuss whether this assessment is correct, what China wants, and what all this means for Europe. Читать дальше...
Antonia Colibasanu, GPF
In July, the leaders of Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania announced a new cooperation initiative for the region. Officially named the Open Balkans project, and unofficially dubbed a mini-Schengen (named for the European Union's much larger borderless travel area), it aims to lift restrictions to travel and trade between the three countries by 2023. The economic benefits will depend on how the project is implemented, but they'll be less important than its symbolic value. Читать дальше...
Hollie McKay, National Interest
Which is the lesser of two evils? A potentially fractured country drawn along ethnic lines? Or an Islamic Emirate domineered by the Taliban with close ties to terrorist groups?
