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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the Texas abortion ban: this is not the end | Editorial

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      OpinionAbortionThe Guardian view on the Texas abortion ban: this is not the endEditorialThe supreme court’s refusal to block the law marks a grave blow to the freedom and safety of women Thu 2 Sep 2021 13.45 EDTLast modified on Thu 2 Sep 2021 14.31 EDTThe cruel, vindictive and dangerous law that has taken effect in Texas is much more than the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the United States. To many, it understandably feels like the beginning of the end – denying women the rights enjoyed under the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, which established that abortion is legal before the foetus is viable outside the womb, at around 24 weeks. It will further embolden the religious right. Though polling suggests the majority of Americans believe that terminations should be legal in most or all cases, this is already the worst ever legislative year for restrictions.But it is better understood as the end of the beginning. The right to abortion has, in practice, been systematically dismantled through methods ranging from intimidation to cynical regulation. This moment is the culmination of the first stage in a decades-long war on the rights of women, made possible by Donald Trump’s appointment of judges known to support restricting reproductive rights. A divided supreme court refused to block the legislation while the legal battle over it plays out.This is a near-total abortion ban, with an exemption only for medical emergencies. The six-week limit in practice applies not from fertilisation, but from six weeks after a woman’s last period, used by doctors to date pregnancies – when most women will not even know they are pregnant. Up to 90% of the state’s procedures happened after that time. International evidence, and America’s own past, testifies that it will not stop abortions. It will push them underground, endangering women’s health and lives. It is an attack on the rights of all women, but above all will punish those who are poor and black, who already struggled to access services and will not be able to travel outside the state easily. It will hurt women who want to control their own bodies, including survivors of incest, rape and abuse. Many states have enacted similar laws, which have been blocked. But this one is especially egregious. It has used the architecture of the state to promote the rule of the mob. It prohibits officials from enforcing it, instead deputising ordinary citizens to sue anyone for suspected violations. While designed this way to make legal challenges harder, it is part of the broader turn of Trump Republicans towards vigilantism and away from democratic institutions. By promising a $10,000 bounty to anyone who sues successfully, it encourages the greedy as well as vindictive ex-partners and zealots to act. Not only abortion providers, but anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion is liable; it appears that even someone who drives a woman to a clinic could be targeted. There is no redress against malicious suits, even in cases where the plaintiff has a past history of similar claims. The result is that doctors and providers who comply with the law can still be put out of business by vexatious claims.Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s blistering dissent attacked the supreme court’s inaction in the face of “a breathtaking act of defiance – of the constitution, of this court’s precedents and of rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas”. But she is in the minority as the court prepares to rule on a separate case – Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks – which anti-abortion activists see as a chance to overturn Roe v Wade. If that happens, bans will automatically come into force under trigger statutes enacted by multiple states. Others would be able to enforce pre-Roe v Wade bans that remain on their books.This law, like the wider anti-abortion drive, hurts women’s freedom, their health and even their lives. It has been achieved through the relentless efforts of activists who are not merely egging on but also funding others around the world. Meeting and defeating these challenges will require an equally committed, comprehensive and ambitious campaign. The opponents of women’s freedom will not stop. Defenders cannot either. This law will galvanise them.TopicsAbortionOpinionWomenUS supreme courtHealthRepublicansUS politicsLaw (US)editorialsReuse this content More

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      in UK Politics

      NHS fears ‘mass exodus’ of staff as mental health absences soar in 2021

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      NHS leaders and experts have warned that the health service is facing a “mass exodus” of staff in the year ahead unless exhausted doctors and nurses struggle are given more support.It comes as the latest figures show that mental health absences among NHS staff have soared during the spring and early summer – as a growing number suffer from burnout.There were 13,000 NHS staff off work because of mental health issues in May – a 55 per cent increase on the previous year, according to FirstCare, which monitors absences in the health service. There were another 13,000 absences mental health absences in June – up 42 per cent on last year.“From April onwards we’ve seen a significant rise in mental health cases, and it shows no sign of stopping,” Steve Carter, director of consulting services at FirstCare, told a panel of MPs and peers on Tuesday. “We need to address the mental health issue quickly if we are to get through the winter.”Professor Stephanie Snow – co-author of the NHS Voices of Covid-19 project, which asks staff how they are coping during the pandemic – said many were struggling under the strain of ongoing Covid cases and the backlog of treatments for other illnesses.Prof Snow told MPs and peers on the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus that many doctors and nurses are worried about their colleagues quitting in the months ahead.“They’re worried about losing more colleagues,” she said. “There is a real sense of fear about a mass exodus of health professionals leaving because of their own ill health – many say they simply can’t face working in the health service anymore.”Prof Snow said staff were under huge pressure to help get the health service back to normal, while dealing with the “trauma” they experienced the Covid and underlying problems with workforce shortages.“We’re seeing high levels of burnout, high levels of stress, and it’s starting to manifest into physical symptoms,” said Dr Rachel Sumner, co-author of the Covid-19 Heroes study on the impact of the pandemic on frontline workers.Dr Sumner added: “Many [NHS staff] are considering leaving – and that would be a true tragedy. Most of them won’t leave during the pandemic because they feel it’s their duty. But this is only going to get worse unless there’s significant work done to sort out the problems. If we don’t look after them, disaster will come.”A survey of Royal College of Nursing members last month revealed that 36 per cent were thinking of leaving the profession – up from 27 per cent last year.Factors cited include the way nursing staff have been treated during the Covid pandemic (44 per cent), low staffing levels (43 per cent), and lack of management support (42 per cent).A British Medical Association survey in May found just over a fifth (21 per cent) of doctors working in the health service said they might leave within the next year.Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told MPs and peers she was worried the most experienced staff in the NHS will leave “sooner than they should” because of current pressures and lack of support.“Older staff are going to bail out and retire early unless the things they’ve been banging on about are actually addressed. There needs to be a serious look at retention … I’m genuinely not confident there is a plan.”Rising patient numbers are placing further strain on the NHS, with major hospitals issuing a “black alert” – an emergency warning they are under sever pressure – over bed shortages in recent weeks.Two major London hospitals told The Independent earlier this month that they had declared “black alert” incidents due to bed shortages, as well as rising numbers of people turning up in A&E.Hospitals across England have seen record levels of non-Covid patients turning up at A&E, with a lack of intensive care beds meaning routine surgeries, including for some cancer patients, have been cancelled across England. More

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      in US Politics

      'Get it today': Biden urges Americans to get Pfizer vaccine after FDA approval – video

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      President Biden urged Americans to come forward to receive the Pfizer vaccine after it received FDA approval. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to finish its licensing process for the drug as soon as Monday.
      The president spoke directly to Americans who have said they would wait to get vaccinated until one of the vaccines received full FDA approval. ‘It has now happened,’ Biden said. ‘The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. It’s time for you to go get your vaccination – and get it today’

      Full FDA approval of Pfizer Covid shot will enable vaccine requirements More

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      in UK Politics

      Covid: ‘Harrowing’ rise in child deaths since coronavirus lockdowns

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      Councils across England have called for more support after a “harrowing” rise in child deaths and serious cases of harm linked to abuse or neglect of children since the first Covid lockdown.The number of serious incidents involving children that were reported by authorities have risen by almost a fifth over the past year, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).There were 536 serious incident notifications in England between April 2020 and March 2021 – an increase of 19 per cent on the previous year.The LGA said the rise is a “huge cause for concern” and it is extremely concerned about children’s safety – with families under increased pressure during the past 18 months of the pandemic.Children’s services regulator Ofsted has previously warned that a “toxic mix” of poverty, isolation and mental illness had led to an alarming rise in infants being harmed during lockdown.Local authorities must notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel of the death or serious harm of a child in their area, if they know or suspect they have been abused or neglected.Councils are also required to inform the education secretary and Ofsted if a looked-after child dies, regardless of whether they suspect abuse or neglect.Local authorities reported 223 deaths and 284 instances of serious harm in the past year, while 29 incidents were categorised as “other”. More than a third (36 per cent) of the notifications related to children under one.Council leaders said there was an urgent need for more investment in children’s social care in the government’s forthcoming spending review.Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “Supporting and protecting vulnerable children is one of the most important roles played by councils … so this rise in serious incident notifications is particularly harrowing and a huge cause for concern.”The Labour councillor added: “The pandemic has put extra pressure on families, particularly those living in difficult circumstances, which can fuel harmful acts of abuse or neglect on children.”“Councils have been working hard with their partners to identify this and provide the help children need, but it is vital that children’s social care services are funded to meet this need.”Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned last November that vulnerable infants were at greater risk of harm during the pandemic amid increased tension in families.She said a “toxic mix” of poverty, isolation and mental illness were behind the alarming rise in incidents disturbing 20 per cent rise in babies being killed or harmed in the months after the first lockdown.The LGA is calling for a new strategy across government departments to protect children’s safety. “It is only by working together that we can effectively safeguard our most vulnerable young people,” said Ms Bramble. More

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      Labour attacks Javid over lack of clarity on NHS budget with just weeks to go

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      Labour has written to ministers urging them to keep funding in place to help free up hospital beds and help the NHS cope with a crisis in patient demand.Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told health secretary Sajid Javid that the NHS needed urgent clarity on the money available to it from beyond the end of September.Specifically, his letter warned money was needed to keep in place an initiative started before the first Covid wave which saw patients discharged back into the community with the NHS paying for up to six weeks of care.This has been credited with releasing 30,000 NHS beds that were the available for Covid patients or for hospitals to use for patients waiting for surgery and other treatment.The government has only agreed a budget for the NHS until the end of September with negotiations between the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Treasury ongoing.In his letter to Sajid Javid, Jonathan Ashworth said the health service needed “immediate certainty” adding: “The service is in a summer crisis, with huge numbers of people in need of urgent and emergency care, record calls to ambulance services, and a soaring waiting list.“With only 16 days to the beginning of September, it is incredible that the service still does not have the budgetary clarity it needs to make major decisions about service planning.”“In the first few days of your tenure as secretary of state, you said that you wanted to give the NHS what it needs to recover from the pandemic. The NHS will now be wondering why you have not made a decision on this budget. Patients and NHS staff will consider this a test of whether you are true to your word to them.”He said the discharge to assess programme had been praised by the new NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard as well as NHS England’s director of strategy Ian Dodge.Mr Ashworth added: “Given the lack of any decision on extension of the funding, it is not clear whether your department or this Government are listening. NHS Providers and NHS Confederation had called for a decision to be made on this by mid-August. Regrettably, that deadline has now passed. This indecision and lack of clarity cannot be allowed to continue further.”His comments come as the latest NHS data shows a total waiting list of 5.5 million people, with 304,000 waiting over a year for treatment. More than one million 999 calls were made to ambulance trusts in July – the highest ever number ever recorded.Mr Ashworth challenged the health secretary over what assessment the DHSC had made of the impact of the discharge to assess funding and whether the government accepted the view of NHS England’s Ian Dodge that continuing the scheme would be vital to the NHS recovering its backlog of operations.While negotiations over NHS England’s budget continue, the Health Service Journal, has reported NHS trusts have been told to plan on the basis of needing to make 1.5 per cent cost savings for the rest of the year.Before the coronavirus crisis NHS England had signed hospitals up to a target of 1.1 per cent savings.Sally Gainsbury, senior policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust, told the HSJ: “We would warn the NHS against agreeing to what would be yet another settlement which assumes huge and unachievable levels of efficiency.“There’s covid, but you also just have to look at the NHS financial performance in recent years to see this is an unrealistic target.”The Department of Health and Social Care were approached for comment. More

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      in US Politics

      Are you in denial? Because it’s not just anti-vaxxers and climate sceptics | Jonathan Freedland

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      OpinionCoronavirusAre you in denial? Because it’s not just anti-vaxxers and climate scepticsJonathan FreedlandTo accept the facts about climate science without changing the way we live is also to deny reality Fri 13 Aug 2021 11.55 EDTLast modified on Fri 13 Aug 2021 15.04 EDTIt’s easy to laugh at the anti-vaccine movement, and this week they made it easier still. Hundreds of protesters tried to storm Television Centre in west London, apparently unaware that they were not at the headquarters of the BBC or its news operation – which they blame for brainwashing the British public – but at a building vacated by the corporation eight years ago and which now consists of luxury flats and daytime TV studios. If only they’d done their own research.Anti-vax firebreather Piers Corbyn was there, of course, unabashed by the recent undercover sting that showed him happy to take £10,000 in cash from what he thought was an AstraZeneca shareholder, while agreeing that he would exempt their product from his rhetorical fire. (Corbyn has since said that the published video is misleading.) “We’ve got to take over these bastards,” he said during this week’s protest, while inside Loose Women were discussing the menopause.In Britain, the temptation is to snigger at the anti-vaxxers, but in the US it’s becoming ever clearer that the outright Covid deniers, vaccine opponents and anti-maskers – and the hold they have over the Republican party – are no joke. The Covid culture wars have escalated to such an extent that the Republican governors of two states, Florida and Texas, are now actively barring schools, colleges and local authorities from taking basic, common-sense measures against the disease.They are no longer allowed to require vaccines, proof of vaccination, a Covid test or masks. Any Florida school administrator who demands the wearing of masks could lose their pay. Texas is dropping the requirement that schools even notify parents when there’s a coronavirus case in class. Naturally, the Covid numbers in both states are through the roof. For all Joe Biden’s early success with vaccination, this level of resistance is posing a grave threat to the US’s ability to manage, let alone defeat, the pandemic.What explains this level of Covid denialism? In the US, the roots of a “don’t tread on me” libertarianism that regards any instruction from government as a step towards tyranny run deep. In the Trump era, it has become a matter of political identity: a refusal to believe Covid is real or that the measures against it are legitimate are increasingly conditions of membership of the right and of good standing as a true devotee of the former president. They are conditions of membership. Besides, Covid denialism offers the lure of all conspiracy theories: the promise of secret knowledge, the chance to see what the sheeple cannot see.For everyone else, it’s tempting to take pride in being untainted by such thinking. To dismiss the Covid deniers, whether in Florida or west London, as a group apart, irrational, if not downright stupid – refusing to take the steps that will provably protect them, their families and those around them. And yet, the distance between them and everyone else might not be as great as you think.Contempt for the unvaccinated is a temptation to be resisted | Dan BrooksRead moreOn the same day that Piers and the placard wavers were out in force in White City, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered its report on the state of our planet. It was its starkest warning yet. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called it a “code red for humanity”, adding that the “alarm bells are deafening”. The IPCC found that sea level is rising, the polar ice is melting, there are floods, droughts and heatwaves and that human activity is “unequivocally” the cause.Now, there are some who still deny this plain truth, the same way that some insist coronavirus is a “plandemic” hatched by Bill Gates or caused by 5G phone masts or aliens. Both those groups are guilty of cognitive denial, failing to update their beliefs in the light of the evidence.But there is another form of denial, what the philosopher Quassim Cassam calls “behavioural or practical denialism”. This is the mindset that accepts the science marshalled by the IPCC – it hears the alarm bell ringing – but still does not change its behaviour. It can operate at the level of governments: note the White House official who on Wednesday urged global oil producers to open up the taps and increase production, so that hard-pressed US motorists can buy gasoline more cheaply. And it lives in individuals, too, in the fatalism that says one person can do nothing to halt a planetary emergency, so you might as well shrug and move on. Which is “to act in the same way as if you were a climate change denier,” says Cassam. “The practical upshot is the same.”Whether it’s Covid or climate, there is a common defect at work here. It is wilful blindness, a deliberate closing of the eyes to a reality that is too hard to bear – and it afflicts far more than a hardcore of noisy sceptics and protesters. A US poll this week found that a summer of heatwaves, flooding and wildfires – evidence that the planet is both burning and drowning – has barely shifted attitudes to the climate issue. Many, even most, are looking the other way.Perhaps all this is worth bearing in mind as policymakers grappling with the twin crises try to cajole the wary towards action for both their own and the collective good. In both cases, it pays to peel the committed deniers away from those who are merely hesitant or apathetic, and therefore more persuadable. And, again in both cases, it’s wise to remember that the recalcitrant are driven by an impulse that is all too human: namely, fear.TopicsCoronavirusOpinionVaccines and immunisationHealthClimate changeUS politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      The Delta Variant of Global Stupidity

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      You’d think that the whole world could unite against a deadly virus. COVID-19 has already sickened over 200 million people around the world and killed over 4 million. It has now mutated into more contagious forms that threaten to plunge the globe into another spin cycle of lockdown.

      The Politics of American Protest: A North Korean Twist

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      Avoiding global catastrophe from the more infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 doesn’t require a huge commitment from people and governments. Richer countries just have to ensure more widespread availability of vaccines, and individuals have to get vaccinated. COVID-19 is not an asteroid on a collision course with the planet. It’s not an imminent nuclear war. It’s an invisible enemy that humanity has demonstrated it can beat. It just requires a bit of cooperation. So, what’s the problem?

      Three Problems

      Actually, there are three problems. The first has to do with supply, since the richest nations have cornered the vaccine market and have been criminally slow to get doses to poorer countries. On the entire continent of Africa, for instance, less than 2% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

      The second problem, on the demand side, is the commonplace resistance to the newfangled, in this case a vaccine that was developed very quickly, hasn’t yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and has some side effects that are harmful for a very small number of people. Hesitation is understandable. But not when placed against the obvious lethality of COVID-19 and the clear benefits of herd immunity.

      The third problem is political. The far right has jumped on the anti-vaccination bandwagon, seized control of the wheel and is driving the vehicle, al-Qaeda-style, straight into oncoming traffic.

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      Both in the United States and globally, the far right has long been infected by various harmful delusions — the superiority of white people, the fiction of climate change, the evils of government. As the far right has spread, thanks to vectors like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro and Viktor Orbán and Narendra Modi, those delusions have mutated.

      Now, with its anti-vaccine opportunism, the far right is circulating a new Delta variant of global stupidity: virally through social media, in a shower of spit and invective on the street and through top-down lunacy from politicians and political parties. COVID-19 and all of its variants will eventually burn themselves out, though at who knows what cost. The latest versions of global stupidity promoted by the far right, however, are proving far more resistant to science, reason and just plain common sense.

      Hijacking the Anti-Vax Movement

      The Brothers of Italy is a neo-fascist formation that is now polling the highest of any political party in the country today. With 21% support, this pro-Mussolini throwback is just ahead of the far-right Lega party. Throw in Silvio Berlusconi’s Forward Italy party at 7% and the hard right looks as if it could form the next government in Italy whenever the next elections are held.

      How did the Brothers of Italy grow in several months from a few percent to the leading party in the polls? Led by Giorgia Meloni, a woman who predictably decries Islam and immigrants, the Brothers of Italy started out as a booster of vaccines, which seemed like a pretty safe position in a country that has suffered so much at the hands of COVID-19.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But Meloni abruptly shifted the party’s stance when the Italian government, currently led by technocrat Mario Draghi, introduced a “green pass” that allows the vaccinated to eat in restaurants, go to bars and enter various public places like museums. Meloni called the pass “the final step on the road to the creation of an Orwellian society,” which “limits the freedom of citizens, further devastates the economy and de facto introduces a vaccine mandate.”

      Limits the freedom of citizens? The freedom to infect other people with a deadly virus? Effectively, Meloni wants to grant all citizens the same right that James Bond famously possessed: the license to kill. Unfortunately, such nonsense has support outside Italy as well.

      Batting for a Pathogen

      In France, the government of Emmanuel Macron has instituted a similar health pass as well as mandating that all medical professionals get vaccinated. The response has been ferocious, with several demonstrations of over 100,000 people mobilizing around the country.

      It might seem at first glance that the French protestors are just ordinary folks who are sick and tired of government intrusions in their lives, similar to the yellow vests protestors from 2018. But the organizers of these anti-vax protests are the usual suspects from the far right like Florian Philippot, a former top aide of the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen. National Rally and the equally rabid Stand Up France have come out against Macron’s policies. Unfortunately, some leading members of the left-wing France Unbowed party have also endorsed the rallies. As in the United States, French anti-vaxxers are resorting to anti-system conspiracy theories up to and including QAnon.

      Despite the size of these rallies whipped up by the far right, a majority of French support the health pass and nearly 70% of the population has gotten at least one shot, compared to only 58% in the United States. But the far right sees the anti-vaccine movement as an opportunity to worm its way into the mainstream in France and elsewhere, such as the Querdenken movement in Germany, the anti-Semitic far right in Poland and evangelical Christian organizations in the Philippines.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Toward this end, the far right has eagerly employed the services of such “useful idiots” as Robert Kennedy, Jr., perhaps the most famous face of the anti-vaccine movement. The Polish far-right party Confederation invited Kennedy to speak on-ine to a Polish parliamentary group on vaccines. Kennedy also put his social media power behind a global day against vaccines that took place last October in 15 countries from Europe to Latin America, which a number of far-right parties helped to organize.

      Originally in the United States, vaccine skepticism circulated mainly on the left, where suspicions of chemicals and corporations created a resistance to having just any substance injected into one’s arm. But then along came Donald Trump, the dark conspiracy theories of the alt-right and ultimately QAnon, which focused latent anti-government sentiments against the medical establishment and its COVID-19 vaccines. Suddenly, videos like “Plandemic” were zipping around cyberspace, and prominent anti-vaxxers like “healthy lifestyle advocate” Larry D. Cook fell under the sway of QAnon.

      Today, in a tired repeat of 2020, US anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are again protesting in front of governors’ mansions, bringing their message to Disneyland and shutting down school board meetings. If COVID-19 were a wealthy corporation that underwrote such disruptions, these actions would make at least some economic sense. If COVID-19 were a wildly popular musical group or a subversively attractive religious cult that governments were trying to suppress, the frenzy of crowds would be somewhat understandable. But COVID-19 is a deadly virus. Why on earth would anyone go to bat for a pathogen?

      The Far Right Has Its Reasons

      Conservatives have traditionally supported the powerful pillars of society: the police, the army, the state. Today’s far right is not conservative. It detests the state. It prefers vigilante justice — everyone standing their ground with gun in hand — to the police and the army, since these latter are representatives of the state.

      Effectively, the far right embraces the old Hobbesian concept of a “war of all against all,” which was the status quo before the emergence of the state. To achieve this “golden age” of general mayhem, the far right pursues any means necessary. It supports homeschooling to destroy public education, privatization of state assets to weaken the government, and deregulation to tilt the playing field in favor of corporations.

      And now, in the age of COVID-19, the far right is even willing to support germ warfare. For that’s what the anti-mask and anti-vaccine ideology amounts to: siding with the novel coronavirus against the sensible policies of the state. One wonders: If the state issued a mandate that required people not to jump off cliffs, would the far right suddenly launch a Lemming Crusade simply to spite the state?

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      I can well imagine the segment on Newsmax.

      Reporter: I’m here with patriot James Q. Public. He and his family are standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Tell me, James, why are you about to take a big step into the unknown?

      James Q. Public: The government can’t tell me what to do. I believe in choice. And this is my choice.

      Reporter: Do you think of yourself as a pioneer?

      James Q. Public: Absolutely. This socialist government with its Five Year Plans sickens me. I take it one day at a time. One minute at a time.

      Reporter: Your youngest child doesn’t look happy about your choice.

      James Q. Public: Oh, he’s just a crybaby. He’ll get used to it.

      Reporter: Get used to falling off a cliff?

      James Q. Public: What makes you think we’ll fall?

      Reporter: Well, uh, gravity —

      James Q. Public: Come on, man, you believe in all that nonsense those scientists are trying to force down our throats? Vaccines? Climate change? Gravity? Okay, everyone, let’s go. One small step for the Public family, one large step for arrgghhh….!

      It would all be grimly amusing, like some pandemic version of the Darwin Awards, if the far right’s Lemming Crusade wasn’t threatening to drag the rest of us off the cliff with it.

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More