World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI chief calls Capitol attack 'domestic terrorism' and defends US intelligence

      by

      The FBI director, Chris Wray, has condemned the 6 January riot at the US Capitol as an instance of “domestic terrorism”, while defending the bureau’s handling of intelligence indicating that violence was likely.
      “That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” Wray told the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday. He also said the bureau was pursuing about 2,000 domestic terrorism investigations, up from 1,400 at end of 2020.
      Donald Trump incited the Capitol attack, telling supporters at a rally near the White House to “fight like hell” in an attempt to overturn his electoral defeat based on the lie, repeatedly thrown out of court, that Biden won thanks to electoral fraud.
      Five people including a Capitol police officer were killed. Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting an insurrection but acquitted when only seven Republican senators voted to convict.
      Wray told senators the attack had “no place in our democracy, and tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation’s rule of law”.
      The FBI was aggressively pursuing those who carried out the attack, he said, adding that investigations were under way in 55 of 56 FBI field offices. More than 200 people have been charged.
      His comments in his first appearance before Congress since the Capitol attack amounted to the FBI’s most vigorous defense against the suggestion it did not adequately communicate to police the distinct possibility of violence as lawmakers gathered to certify presidential election results.
      Wray told lawmakers information was properly shared before the riot, even though it was raw and unverified.
      A 5 January report from the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, warned of online posts foreshadowing a “war” in Washington the following day. Capitol police leaders have said they were unaware of that report and received no intelligence from the FBI that would have led them to expect the sort of violence which ensued.
      Wray said the Norfolk report was shared though the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce, discussed at a command post and posted on an internet portal. Ideally the FBI would have had more time to try to corroborate it, he said.
      “Our folks made the judgment to get that to the relevant people as quickly as possible,” Wray said.
      He was also pressed on how the FBI is confronting a national security threat from white nationalists and domestic violent extremists and whether it has adequate resources to address those issues. Wray described white supremacist extremism as a “persistent, evolving threat” that has grown since he took over the FBI in 2017.
      White supremacists make up “the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio overall”, he said, adding that such people “have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last decade”.
      The violence at the Capitol made clear that a law enforcement agency that remade itself after the 11 September 2001, attacks to deal with international terrorism is now scrambling to address homegrown violence from white Americans. The Biden administration has asked its national intelligence director, Avril Haines, to work with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to assess the threat.
      In his opening statement, Wray said: “6 January was not an isolated event. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a number of years now, and it’s not going away any time soon.”
      The committee chairman, Dick Durbin, asked if the FBI believed the insurrection was carried out by “fake Trump protesters”. The Illinois Democrat’s question came two weeks after the Republican Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson amplified baseless claims that leftwing provocateurs carried out the Capitol attack.
      “We have not seen evidence of that at this stage,” Wray said. In answer to Patrick Leahy of Vermont, another Democrat, he said: “We have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to antifa [antifascist groups] in connection with [6 January].”
      Wray has kept a low profile since the Capitol attack. Though he has briefed lawmakers and shared information with law enforcement, Tuesday’s hearing was his first public appearance before Congress since before the election.
      He was also likely to face questions about a massive Russian hack of corporations and US government agencies, which happened when elite hackers injected malicious code into a software update. More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in World Politics

      Is the US Back Under Biden?

      by

      Caligula was by all accounts a nasty piece of work. During the nearly four years that he ruled over the Roman Empire in the first century CE, Caligula was notorious for sexual predation and extravagant spending. Never one to sell himself short, he proclaimed early on that he was a god. He held the Senate in such contempt that he forced its high-ranking members to run alongside his chariot for miles dressed in their togas. He dismissed Virgil as a hack writer and Livy as a dispenser of fake history, and he dreamed of making his favorite horse a consul.

      He was also inordinately fond of killing people, sometimes only to seize their assets. Or because he was bored, like the time at a gladiatorial contest when there were no criminals to execute during the intermission. Thinking fast, the despot ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the arena to be devoured by wild animals.

      Will Biden Overturn Sanctions on the ICC?

      READ MORE

      The world’s most powerful empire suffered four years of unbounded narcissism from a man with a reputation for sexual assaults and a fondness for cruelty who disparaged everyone in sight. Sound familiar?

      The one member of his close circle whose life Caligula spared was his uncle Claudius, primarily to make fun of the older man, who was lame and stammered. But “Sleepy Claudius,” particularly as depicted in the two historical novels of Robert Graves and portrayed by Derek Jacobi in the hit BBC series, was a crafty fellow who knew how to survive the deadly game of Roman imperial politics. When the Praetorian Guard finally had enough of Caligula and assassinated him — with the support of the political elite — Claudius was found hiding behind the curtains in the palace and proclaimed the new emperor.

      Claudius went on to rule for 13 years. Despite being absent-minded and scatter-brained, he proved to be far more capable than most Romans anticipated. The new emperor restored the rule of law throughout the empire. He stabilized the economy, embarked on an ambitious plan to improve the infrastructure of the realm, and even expanded its reach in the Balkans, North Africa and far-off Britain.

      Joe Biden, similarly underestimated because of his stammer and meandering speeches, has channeled Claudius in his first month in office. With a flurry of executive orders, the new US president has quickly reversed some of the most damaging policies of his deranged predecessor. Facing both a pandemic and an economic crisis, he is restoring confidence in government with a rapid vaccination rollout and a large-scale stimulus package. He has plans for big policy initiatives around infrastructure, energy and immigration.

      .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      But, of course, not everyone was thrilled with Emperor Claudius, particularly those on the Roman periphery. The British, for instance, chafed under imperial rule. Their escalating anger culminated in the bloody but ultimately unsuccessful revolt of Queen Boudica in 60 CE. Not surprisingly, Biden too has faced his share of criticism, particularly among those on the receiving end of American power or those who’ve bristled at the fickleness of American leadership.

      America’s Caligula is still around, perhaps even harboring hopes of a return to power in 2024. In the meantime, what are we to make of America’s Claudius and his effort to bring stability to the American empire?

      Biden Makes Nice with the World

      The Biden administration has gone into overdrive in its efforts to rejoin the international community as a member in good standing. On February 19, the United States officially reentered the 2015 Paris climate agreement, while Special Envoy John Kerry has pledged to restore the $2 billion for the Green Climate Fund that the US promised under Barack Obama but never delivered. The administration has rejoined the World Health Organization, signed up for the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program and promised to disburse the $4 billion that Congress appropriated for COVAX at the end of 2020. Biden reversed some of former President Donald Trump’s most noxious immigration policies, shutting down construction of the wall on the southern border, ending the “Muslim travel ban” and beginning to bring the country back into compliance with international norms around refugees and asylum-seekers.

      The Biden administration has also pledged more cooperative relations with NATO allies, Pacific partners and democratic countries more generally. It rejoined the UN Human Rights Council as an observer and restored funding for the UN Population Fund. It began the process of reviving the Iran nuclear deal, restarted relations with Palestinian organizations, embarked tentatively on restoring better relations with Cuba, extended New START with Russia and stopped funding the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Not bad for one month’s work.

      President Biden’s moves have encountered inevitable challenges, both domestic and foreign. The Senate, as I explained in my last column, has been perhaps the major check in American politics on an authentic internationalism. Not surprisingly, some Republicans in the Senate are already trying to undermine US involvement in the Paris climate agreement, and they’re sharpening their knives to attack renewed engagement with Iran and with Cuba.

      Some allies, too, are not fully on board with Biden’s great reset. France would prefer to invest more in an independent European security system and rely less on NATO. Germany is not interested in a full-court press on Russia and hopes to strike a compromise with the Biden administration that would allow it to stay on schedule with its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline deal with the Kremlin. Japan and South Korea are squeamish about the trilateral coordination that the United States is (again) promoting, relations with Turkey are tense and Israel is unhappy with Biden’s restoring US ties with Palestine.

      But the real problem with the president’s new approach to the world lies not in the resistance it has engendered at home or the ambivalence it has fostered abroad. It lies with the very nature of Biden’s foreign policy.

      The Stick

      The amount of damage that Trump did to the world was limited to a certain extent by his incompetence. He could have blundered into another war if his advisers had let the presidential id run wild. If he’d had a Stephen Miller to do to foreign policy what this savvy operator did to immigration, Trump might well have permanently damaged the global system.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Biden, meanwhile, has assembled a thoroughly competent team of professionals — from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to climate czar John Kerry and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. That competence is a godsend when it comes to navigating the intricacies of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate negotiations.

      But when it comes to the less pleasant aspects of US foreign policy, that competence might prove deadly. Claudius, it turned out, was not a feeble dotard. He knew exactly how to deploy Rome’s imperial might to finish the job Caligula had started in conquering Mauritania and to extend the empire’s dominion to the westernmost reaches of Europe. If the Biden administration decides to ramp up confrontation with China in the South China Sea, for instance, his team might very competently — and disastrously — marshal US allies in the region to implement the plan.

      Pax Romana was largely an enforced peace rather than a negotiated one, and Pax Americana has always relied on the overwhelming predominance of US military power. Already, the Biden team has stated its desire to focus on great power rivalry with China and Russia rather than losing propositions like the war in Afghanistan. That preference will translate into a continuation of bloated military budgets, large arms deals with allies and sort-of allies on the periphery of China and Russia, and the deployment of various economic strategies like sanctions to influence the behavior of these perennial competitors.

      In his early days in office, Biden has been quick to emphasize the role of diplomacy, promising that force will be the “tool of last resort.” A dramatic example of that approach has been the absence of any drone strikes during the first month of the administration. This is in marked contrast to the strikes that Obama and Trump ordered almost immediately upon taking office as well as the escalation in attacks that took place in Trump’s final months. Only one airstrike has been reported, in Iraq on February 9 against the Islamic State. (Editor’s note: This article was written prior to the US airstrike in eastern Syria on February 25.) In addition to initiating a review of drone strikes, the administration has launched a probe into Special Forces operations to ascertain whether they have adhered to the Pentagon’s “law of war” requirements. This is all very promising. But will it last?

      Claudius was content to be successful within the Roman imperial framework. Guilty of his own excesses of violence, he never tried to turn the empire back into a republic or negotiate a new set of relations with Rome’s far-flung possessions. He knew only to expand. Biden, too, operates within the existing system of American dominance. It remains to be seen whether he will dramatically reduce the US military footprint and work with other major powers to redefine international relations at a time of multiple global crises.

      If he doesn’t, America will risk the same fate that befell Rome after the death of Claudius. In 54 CE, a new emperor took power who made Caligula look like a cub scout. This latest Caesar made sure that the good that Claudius did during his 13-year reign was indeed interred with his bones. “Nero practiced every kind of obscenity,” writes the gossipy chronicler Suetonius, adding that the new emperor “annulled many of Claudius’ decrees and edicts, on the grounds that he’d been a doddering old idiot.”

      The trick, then, is not just to reverse the evils of one’s predecessor but to make those reversals stick. That, in turn, will require not just quick fixes but turning the United States into a truly cooperative world power.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

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

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      The COVID-19 Crisis Has Catalyzed Vision 2030

      by

      A look back at history shows that desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. After all, it was not until Saudi officials watched in horror as oil prices plummeted by 70% that, in 2016, Vision 2030 was born. While other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members presented their own initiatives, true to form, Saudi Arabia’s economic reform agenda is the most ambitious yet. 2020 was set to mark the agenda’s first benchmark achievement. Instead, an oil price war, a disastrous bombing campaign against Yemen and a 5.4% contraction in GDP set a different tone than the kingdom may have intended.

      The Line: Mohammed bin Salman’s Green Blockbuster

      READ MORE

      The disruption ensued by the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on economies and markets worldwide, but none saw the eye-watering lows experienced by the oil industry. This was exacerbated by Saudi Arabia and Russia going head-to-head in a price war that brought about further carnage. Despite production cuts being eventually agreed upon, the global downturn and persistent oversupply of oil reached its crescendo with US oil dropping spectacularly into negative for the first time in history.

      Progress Overview

      As the dust began to settle, a sense of urgency set in among leaders as they were faced with the aftermath of the crisis. Not only did COVID-19 highlight the risk of oil dependency, but it has further exposed oil-exporting economies to fiscal vulnerabilities. With growth contractions across the MENA region, the current price of oil is far below the break-even level required to balance the budgets. With the exception of the UAE, oil represents over 50% of GCC budgets, highlighting the urgency to diversify in order to pay off the fiscal bill. While the impact of COVID-19 on Vision 2030 is unclear, an analysis of existing achievements and overall aims can paint a clearer picture of how Saudi Arabia should reassess its grand plan in light of the pandemic.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Only a year after the announcement, it seemed that Vision 2030 was not enough to satiate the Saudi appetite for grandiose ideas. So, in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the construction of a $500-billion smart city of NEOM. Aside from talk of a fake moon and flying cars, the Saudis managed to hit a more palpable note with investors with the city’s $5-billion green hydrogen plant. By 2025, the facility will supposedly produce 650 tons of hydrogen daily and 1.2 million tons of green ammonia for export.

      Despite the challenges hydrogen fuel presents, this project offers Saudi Arabia an unparalleled opportunity to pioneer a market gaining “unprecedented political and business momentum,” according to the International Energy Agency. Beyond this, while there is little publicly available information on the kingdom’s key performance indictor achievements, visible progress has been made in the one thing it does best — state-managed tasks. Notable regulatory reforms in 2018-19 earned Saudi Arabia a spot in the World Bank’s top 10 global business-climate improvers.

      Strong development has also been observed in capital markets and the banking system, whereby the growth of Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange, has been the standout achievement. Such praiseworthy steps have also been accompanied by progress in the realm of digitization and social reforms. Yet this is not enough.

      While the kingdom is certainly achieving its goal of being an ambitious nation, less can be said for its key pillar — a thriving economy. Job creation, foreign direct investment (FDI), entrepreneurship and private sector growth are all core areas where Saudi Arabia has fallen short. A recent string of PR disasters, like the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and the 2017 high-profile purge that included the arrest of 11 senior princes, have further tainted the kingdom’s image, harming investor confidence. At mere 0.57% of GDP, current FDI levels are simply not enough to fund the diversification plan.

      Needless to say, the economic challenges spurred by the pandemic will require a tightening of the Saudi purse strings to rein in the growing budget deficit. Such fiscal prudence will inevitably impact the ever-more necessary reform agenda, indicating that a stringent revaluation of the Vision 2030 objectives will be needed to deliver on its promises.

      The To-Do List

      To lay the foundations of their revised plan, the kingdom must first reprioritize spending and maximize income from existing revenue streams while attracting and retaining investor funding. This will require boosting FDI through greater transparency, accountability and generally better self-conduct on the international stage. In the longer term, focusing on strategically sound, high-impact projects while delaying those with little real-time value will be an integral step in the agenda’s revaluation.

      Much to Saudi Arabia’s dismay, this will mean moving away from the likes of NEOM to the less glamourous task of actual economic reform. Yet if NEOM were not enough, within it there is now The Line — a linear, AI-run city free of carbon, cars and any sense of realism. Regardless of its supposed economic benefits, the fact of the matter remains that problems are not solved through procrastination, even if it costs billions.

      Arguably the hardest yet most important step for Saudi Arabia will be to cede state control to make room for a diverse, competitive and independent private sector. The kingdom’s strategy of spreading itself thin across all sectors is not only inefficient, but unattractive. A more market-based approach will stimulate entrepreneurship, competition and, most importantly, draw in foreign investment.

      This ties into the second key step: optimizing the business environment. This means pushing for greater access to capital, greater ease of doing business and greater stringency and transparency in the legal system, encouraging entrepreneurship both at home and from abroad. The third and most important step is human capital development. In a country where 67% of the population is below the age of 34, disregarding the youth would mean neglecting Saudi’s greatest asset.

      .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      Quality of education and upskilling the youth must be prioritized alongside creating jobs suited to the existing workforce. The importance of human capital cannot be overstated: In order to create a successful economy that best serves the people, investing in its citizens must be the crux of Vision 2030.

      Finally, to reinvent itself as the business hub of the Middle East, the kingdom must rein in its regional military interventions, a massive burden on both its budget and international image. In order to truly convince investors, Saudi must actively channel its efforts away from conflict and toward long-term economic reform.

      On the whole, despite some notable achievements, progress is slow, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a long journey ahead. However, COVID-19 has prompted a much-needed agenda revaluation, revealing some shortcuts and pushing Saudi leaders to move with a greater sense of urgency. The Word Bank itself warns that “higher than expected oil and gas revenues could reduce the pressure for [GCC] governments to reform,” exemplified in Vision 2030 itself being the result of such a price shock. However, with the eye-watering oil price drops of 2020, COVID-19 may have been the rude awakening Saudi leaders needed.

      The challenge now lies in both pioneering change while stimulating an economy in a world experiencing the greatest recession since the Second World War. This, of course, is no easy feat, but the key to success will lie in focusing on projects that truly add value. This will mean ceding control to facilitate private sector growth, optimizing the business environment and committing to its citizens by investing in the youth. Only then can Saudi Arabia unlock its potential and become, as it envisions, the “epicenter of trade and the gateway to the world.”

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

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

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in World Politics

      What an Afghan Peace Deal Could Look Like

      by

      In a recent interview with the BBC, President Ashraf Ghani insisted that the condition for peace in Afghanistan depends on the condition of the war. First, according to him, Afghan security forces need international support due to intensifying violence by armed groups, including the Taliban. Second, without addressing Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, the situation with the conflict will not change. “My message is those who provide sanctuaries to the Taliban should be talked very straight,” he said. “There’s so many fears of collapse into civil war.”

      Will Iran Take Over the Ottoman Mantle in the Middle East?

      READ MORE

      His message is for the Biden administration to have serious talks with officials in Pakistan, the Taliban’s main supporter. Ghani added that the only way he would leave the office to compromise for peace is via an election, while the Taliban does not yet recognize elections as a legitimate political mechanism. The Taliban want Ghani to resign and for Afghanistan’s political system to change back to their Islamic emirate of the 1990s or something similar to it.

      The Doha Deal

      Since the first round of the intra-Afghan peace talks in September 2020, violence in Afghanistan has intensified, while the negotiations resumed just last week after a six-month delay. The Doha deal, signed by the Taliban and the Trump administration early last year in Qatar, has failed to stop the violence in the country. Shortly after his inauguration in January 2021, US President Joe Biden launched a review of the Doha deal to determine whether the Taliban have upheld their commitments to cut ties with other militant groups and engage in meaningful peace talks with the Afghan government.

      Pakistan has urged the Biden administration to “persevere” with the Doha agreement and not attempt to amend it. The deal gave the Taliban the upper hand and undermined the Afghan government. The agreement excluded the Afghan government and allowed the Taliban to gain legitimacy, while also mandating that US and NATO troops leave the country within 14 months if militants uphold their end of the bargain. For Pakistan, while this is a step in the “right direction” for peace talks, as per Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, it also enhanced the Taliban’s position and made regime change in Kabul a real possibility.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      Although the war has a complicated domestic dimension, it is effectively a proxy conflict that Pakistan has waged against the Afghan government amidst perceived Indian influence in Afghanistan. From Pakistan’s point of view, Afghanistan has changed into an Indian playground and the Taliban are the only force that can secure Pakistani interests. As a result, the Afghan peace process also has a complicated regional dimension.  

      At the same time, the Taliban’s ideological system has proved to be inflexible for a democratic process that upholds citizens’ rights, leading to concerns about the Taliban seeking to build a new regime based on discrimination. Considering the strategic nature of proxy war, the history of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Taliban’s ideology, the following four scenarios are conceivable if the Biden administration underestimates the situation.

      Scenario 1: A Civil War Without the Government

      The Taliban insurgency has reduced the government’s territorial control, limiting it to urban cities and district centers. This has increased the likelihood of Taliban attacks on large cities.

      In the first scenario, the Taliban would seek to conquer and control through violence, leading to the collapse of the government and a descent into all-out civil war. In such a situation, the ground is prepared for mass atrocities due to ethnic tension, poverty and the presence of other militias, such as the Islamic State-Khorasan, an affiliate of ISIS. Just imagine the war affecting cities like the capital Kabul with millions of people. Political crises are rife in Afghanistan, which would be exacerbated by the early withdrawal of NATO forces. Therefore, the pullout of foreign troops according to the Doha agreement’s timetable is a cause for alarm. Under the deal, all US and NATO troops are scheduled to leave the country by May 1.

      This scenario is more likely to happen if the government is dismantled in the absence of a comprehensive peace agreement between the Afghan officials and the Taliban. There are growing calls for Ghani to step down to pave the way for an interim government that includes the Taliban. However, an interim administration without the presence of a peace deal — one that includes mechanisms to ensure it is upheld — is risky. Such a scenario makes it hard to keep the Afghan security forces united if another round of violence erupts under an interim administration. This would be especially the case if the international community does not have a strategy for securing such a fragile peace arrangement.

      Scenario 2: A Civil War Despite the Government

      Another danger is that the withdrawal of US and NATO forces will take place without a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. In this scenario, the government would not completely collapse if it mobilizes anti-Taliban forces and receives foreign support, but violence would spread from rural areas to populated cities.

      As a result, government officials would retreat to an area outside Kabul and continue their fight against militants as long as they have international recognition and receive support from foreign powers — possibly India, Russia and Iran. This situation is similar to what President Burhanuddin Rabbani’s government faced in the 1990s amidst an insurgency by Taliban militants. That administration withdrew from Kabul but continued its role in the conflict and retained international backing.

      In the second scenario, the war takes on a local context, with violence in pockets around the country. In order to survive, the government would ally with local forces. The government would not have the ability to mount a viable challenge against the Taliban and other armed groups, and its role would largely be reduced to a symbolic one. At the same time, it would be extremely hard for the Taliban to conquer the whole country. Anti-Taliban forces — from the constituency of the old Northern Alliance — would still fight them.

      Scenario 3: Parallel Balance With the Government

      In the third scenario, the Taliban challenge the government through greater territorial control and contestation, but the government would not completely collapse. Instead, it would retain control of large cities and many other areas.

      An example of a parallel balance is Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the Shia organization has both political and military wings. In practice, however, the Taliban have already achieved this by controlling 75 of 405 districts in Afghanistan and contested another 189. As soon as a ceasefire is reached, as per this scenario, the political landscape of some districts under Taliban control and others under government authority would be officially recognized.

      Interestingly, both the government and the Taliban are not in favor of such a situation. The Taliban want complete control of Afghanistan, while the government wants the Taliban to be integrated into the current political system. Under this scenario, international assistance to the Afghan government could continue, but without Pakistan’s cooperation, nothing would change and the Taliban would push on with their insurgency. This scenario is likely if the US and other NATO members continue their support for the government.  

      Scenario 4: Maximum Balance From Within, But Without the Government

      In the final scenario, military and political pressure is exerted on the government to accept a fragile peace agreement that meets the Taliban’s demands. The Taliban impose their type of political system, which gives them religious legitimacy and allows them to influence other political and social forces. A peace deal under the Taliban’s terms would enable them to eventually take over — or have the upper hand in — the legislature and the judiciary system. Besides, the Taliban are estimated to have tens of thousands of fighters and, under such a peace deal, they would either join the security forces or remain armed as parallel forces ready to take action, if necessary.

      This scenario may seem like a soft conquest, but it could easily turn violent. The international community’s departure from Afghanistan and the unrealistic optimism about the Taliban’s ideological position and proxy relations may contribute to such a situation. Pakistan supports this version of a peace agreement to place the Taliban in Afghanistan’s polity to have a dominating position. This scenario is not acceptable for many people in Afghanistan and could create a fragile situation that would likely lead to violence at some point.

      Moving Forward for a Durable Peace

      A durable peace arrangement is only likely when both sides consider several key factors. These include what a possible peace agreement would look like, its implementation, what the future political system would involve and how citizens’ rights are ensured.

      First, there is a need to put pressure on Pakistan to take action against Taliban sanctuaries inside that country. At the very least, Pakistan must ensure there is a reduction in violence and that the Taliban are flexible when it negotiates with the Afghan government. Otherwise, it is hard to imagine a sustainable peace in the context of a proxy war. At the same time, Afghanistan should be neutral when it comes to regional politics, and its future should not depend on the rivalry between India and Pakistan.

      Second, a power-sharing process with the Taliban should be based on transparency. A peace agreement must be mutually agreed and include multiple stages of implementation and international monitoring. However, a power-sharing arrangement should be part of the peace agreement, not the other way around. The implementation of power-sharing before a peace agreement is highly risky and could lead to the collapse of the political order.

      Third, citizens’ and women’s rights and democratic legitimacy should be the basis of the future political system. Otherwise, in a country as diverse as Afghanistan, sustainable peace is not possible.

      Fourth, a political system that focuses on the separation of powers is necessary. Ensuring that political power is not concentrated in one party’s hands, such as the Taliban’s, would protect Afghanistan from the misuse of power.

      Therefore, to ensure peace in Afghanistan and the responsible withdrawal of foreign troops, it is crucial for the Biden administration to consider the implication of the war’s proxy dynamics on peacemaking efforts. When it comes to the domestic context, without considering the country’s sociopolitical diversity and citizens’ rights, it would be extremely hard to think about lasting peace.

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

    • 213 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      McDonald's spies on union activists – that's how scared they are of workers' rights | Indigo Olivier

      by

      On 24 February, Vice reported that McDonald’s has, for years, spied on activists and employees engaged in labor organizing and the Fight for $15 campaign. Internal McDonald’s corporate documents obtained by Vice confirmed that the company has been concerned with gathering “strategic intelligence” on workers involved in efforts to secure higher wages, better working conditions and a union. This includes using data collection software to monitor employees and their networks through social media and “a team of intelligence analysts in the Chicago and London offices”.
      This comes after years of reporting on similar efforts by Amazon to prevent the unionization of their own employees. Job postings for intelligence analysts to monitor and report on “labor organizing threats”; social media monitoring; interactive “heat mapping” tools to anticipate and pre-empt strikes or union drives; Pinkerton operatives; and, most recently, coordinated efforts with county officials to change the traffic lights outside Amazon’s facility in Bessemer, Alabama to prevent organizers from speaking to workers during shift changes – all have been deployed to secure the company’s bottom line.
      As Vice points out, surveillance against labor organizers is nothing new. What’s new is the use of technology to aid in these efforts, which may also be in violation of federal labor law.
      The surveillance and intimidation of workers is a feature, not a bug, and one that has come to define American capitalism at home and abroad. As Vox noted last June, “the creation of urban police forces was largely spurred by a desire to contain union activism and protest.” While police in southern cities are largely a vestigial outgrowth of slave patrols, in northern cities like Chicago, elite businessmen pushed for the development of municipal police forces to suppress labor organizing around demands like an eight-hour workday. The concept of policing as “public safety” came later.
      There is no evidence to suggest government involvement in the surveillance of workers at either Amazon or McDonald’s. Yet the failure on the part of past administrations to condemn these egregious labor violations – or condemn the yawning wealth gap between megacorporations and the underpaid workers whose labor they depend on – amount to tacit approval of business-as-usual by any means necessary.
      This Sunday, Biden broke this awful trend by releasing a surprisingly strong statement in support of unions. While he stopped short of calling out Amazon by name, his video address was directed at “workers in Alabama” and represents the strongest pro-union statement of any president in modern US history.
      “You should remember that the National Labor Relations Act didn’t just say that unions are allowed to exist, it said we should encourage unions,” Biden said. “There should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda. Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice.”
      Under an economic system that enriches CEOs by underpaying workers for the value of their time and pocketing the profits, there is a direct connection between the dystopian anti-labor tactics used by the likes of McDonald’s and Amazon and the $1.3tn transfer of wealth to the country’s 664 billionaires over the course of the pandemic. Bezos’s path to becoming the world’s first trillionaire is precisely because of his successful efforts at preventing unions from taking hold in his private empire.
      As Marx put it: capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
      Biden now has a choice to make: Amazon or unions. He can’t fight for both.
      On the campaign trail, Biden sent conflicting messages by cultivating the image of a blue-collar union man and simultaneously promising a room full of corporate donors that under his presidency “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing will fundamentally change.”
      Biden adopted a $15 minimum wage as one of his few concessions to the left, in an effort to win over Bernie Sanders supporters, and later changed his tone by saying he didn’t believe the provision would last in the most recent Covid-19 stimulus package. The statement amounted to a shrugging off of one among a number of campaign promises that look less likely to be fulfilled by the day. Democrats are now dishonestly pointing the blame at a single and little-known Senate parliamentarian, though Kamala Harris could easily overrule the decision and lift nearly a million people out of poverty.
      We can and should give credit to Biden for his recent statement on unions while also recognizing that words alone are not enough. Biden has the power to immediately pass a federal $15 minimum wage, raise corporate taxes, call on the National Labor Relations Board to investigate companies like McDonald’s and Amazon which unlawfully spy on their employees, and take a trip to Bessemer to show support for the facility’s 5,800 workers.
      This is a David-versus-Goliath fight and the stakes are simply too high to stop short of executive action. Until he proves otherwise, we need to remember Biden’s message to corporate America: nothing will fundamentally change.
      Indigo Olivier is a 2020-2021 Leonard C Goodman investigative reporting fellow at In These Times magazine More

    • 213 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans want to make it harder to pass ballot initiatives. That should alarm us | David Daley

      by

      They walked through Michigan college football games dressed as gerrymandered districts. They crisscrossed Idaho in a decades-old RV dubbed the Medicaid Express. In Florida, they united black and white, left and right, Trump-loving “deplorables” and radical criminal justice reformers into a mighty moral movement to end an ugly vestige of Jim Crow.Volunteers and regular citizens, determined to have a say despite gerrymandered legislatures or solidly one-party states, forced initiatives on to the ballot by collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures at highway rest areas, tailgates and small-town cheeseburger festivals. They door-knocked neighborhoods on mornings so bitter that the ink in their pens froze solid.Then, on election day in 2018 and 2020, these citizens scored overwhelming victories for popular proposals that had gone nowhere in intransigent legislatures: independent redistricting in Michigan and Missouri, Medicaid expansion in Idaho, ranked choice voting in Maine, felony reinfranchisement and a higher minimum wage in Florida, marijuana legalization and higher teacher salaries in Arizona.Now legislators are striking back with bills that would aggressively consolidate their power and make it decidedly more difficult for citizens to take action when their own representatives won’t.In Idaho, Missouri, Florida and Arizona – all states where citizens have successfully used ballot initiatives to pass popular reforms – Republican-dominated legislatures have advanced proposals that would place multiple new roadblocks before initiatives at nearly every point in the process. In total, Republican lawmakers in 24 states have introduced bills that would make it tougher for citizens to push initiatives to the ballot, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.The more than 165 Republican-sponsored bills in Georgia, Florida, Texas and elsewhere that would leverage baseless “voter fraud” claims from the 2020 election and establish new limits on mail-in voting, early voting and ballot drop boxes, among other new barriers, have rightly made national headlines. These quieter yet growing assaults on initiative rights, however, could be equally important in shutting down one of the last remaining paths for change in red and purple states.The Republican bills tend to take two general approaches. First, they increase the number of signatures necessary to qualify an initiative, or the number of counties or congressional districts in which names must be gathered. Then, they require majorities greater than 60%, even two-thirds, to pass – and even after that, sometimes require final approval by the legislature.Of course, if the legislature had been inclined to take that action, citizens would not have been required to undertake such an arduous procedure in the first place.In Idaho, where one rural hospital might serve a county the size of a New England state, an estimated 70,000 people were stuck uncovered between the Obamacare and state exchanges. Nevertheless, legislators for six consecutive years refused to accept Affordable Care Act monies from Washington to expand Medicaid and make health care more accessible.These are pure power plays by legislatures who want to rule without consent of the governedVoters, however, demanded change. In 2018, a statewide movement organized by Reclaim Idaho met the demanding requirements for a ballot initiative in this large but scarcely populated state: signatures from 6% of registered voters in 18 of the state’s 35 senate districts. It then passed, resoundingly, with more than 62% of the vote.Initiatives are uncommon in Idaho; Medicare expansion was the first statewide initiative to win there since 2013. Yet last week, a new bill advanced in the state senate that would require any initiative first receive signatures from 6% of registered voters in all 35 of Idaho’s districts. There isn’t another state that currently requires a minimum number of signatures in every district. Under this proposal, Idaho would have the most restrictive initiative laws in America.Lawmakers in Florida – who have made sport out of undermining citizen-led amendments to the state constitution that have aimed to end partisan gerrymandering, restore voting rights after the completion of a felony sentence, and raise the minimum wage – are now trying to raise the state’s already high bar for passage. Right now, a 60% supermajority is necessary to win, no easy feat in this state of 50/50 nail-biters. Republican legislators, however, have fast-tracked an effort to increase that number to 67%.Arizona Republicans want to increase the approval threshold from a simple majority up to a 60% supermajority, as do Republican lawmakers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Arkansas. Similar efforts are under way in Missouri, where citizens won victories for independent redistricting and medical marijuana in 2018, and expanded Medicaid in 2020. Right now, citizens need to collect signatures from 8% of voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts. Bills pushed by House Republicans would increase that threshold to either 10 or 15%, and in all of the eight congressional districts. Missouri initiatives currently win with a simple majority. Various proposals would change that to either 60 or 67% approval to pass, or mandate a number equal to 50% of all registered voters, rather than a majority of voters who cast ballots.These are pure power plays by legislatures who want to rule without consent of the governed. California, certainly, offers a cautionary note of what can happen when initiatives run amok. Yet lawmakers who claim it is too easy for initiatives to reach the ballot should spend some time with the citizens who devoted months of volunteer time to knocking on doors. In all of these states, citizens have been forced into extraordinary efforts simply to win approval of popular policies because legislatures refused to act themselves.President Theodore Roosevelt, who helped expand the initiative at the beginning of the last century, said: “I believe in the initiative and referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.” In wildly gerrymandered states like Michigan and Florida, the initiative is a crucial counter-measure against legislators who have drawn themselves districts where they can’t lose. And in Republican trifecta states like Missouri, Arizona and Idaho, where the most competitive legislative elections are Republican primaries, initiatives are a check on government lurching further to the right than the citizenry. This war on the initiative is nothing less than the latest front in the Republican war to cement long-term minority rule by the most radical reaches of the right.In too many states, voters face shrinking options for being heard at all. This is by design. Perhaps most disturbing: it’s their own representatives who seem most determined to silence them. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      CDC chief warns of 'potential fourth surge' and urges US to keep Covid rules

      by

      Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on Monday that a recent increase in coronavirus cases indicated a “fourth surge” could occur before a majority of the US is vaccinated.“At this level of cases, with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” Walensky said, during a White House briefing.“Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of Covid-19 in our communities, not when we are so close. We have the ability to stop a potential fourth surge of cases in this country.”According to Johns Hopkins University, the US has recorded more than 28.5m Covid-19 cases and nearly 513,000 deaths. Daily case numbers fell steeply after a peak in January but have started to increase again.Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response team, said the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine which was approved for use on Saturday would start to be delivered “as early as tomorrow”.According to Zients, Johnson & Johnson is ready to distribute 3.9m doses over the coming days, adding to a vaccine stockpile already supplied by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which both developed two-shot vaccines.But he added: “J&J has indicated that the supply will be limited for the next couple of weeks.”Johnson & Johnson is expected to deliver 16m additional doses by the end of March, but the White House coronavirus response team has warned governors that those deliveries will occur “predominantly in the back half of the month”.Zients assured Americans that the federal government is ready to deliver the vaccine as soon as doses become available, saying: “We’ve done the planning. We have the distribution channels in place.”He also announced that the US distributed an average of 1.7m doses a day over the past week. Vaccine distribution had rebounded after a winter storm affected deliveries across the central US, he said.According to Bloomberg, about 2.4m vaccine doses were administered in the US on Sunday.Also on Monday, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, said some people who have Covid “may not be on a path to get better in a few months and this could be something that becomes a chronic illness”.“When you consider we know 28 million people in the United States have had Covid,” Collins told NBC Nightly News, “if even 1% of them have chronic, long-term consequences, that’s a whole lot of people. And we need to find out everything we can about how to help them.”Collins also said scientists had not expected Covid-19 to lead to long-term illness.“There’s really no precedent I know of,” he said. More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Serious Politics Is Not About Recalibration

      by

      Donald Trump’s brand of hyperreality over the past four years relied heavily on melodramatic plotting to keep the audience invested in the performance. To reestablish the more sober style of hyperreality the Democratic Party as an ideological force has come to represent, US President Joe Biden has cultivated the Democrats’ artificial style of neo-realism in its approach to political conflict. The Biden administration’s rhetorical creativity offers some insight into how this hyperreality is intended to play out.

      Trump, the former US president, typically chose an easy media strategy. He would disregard all existing standards, preferring to bully and shock. He relied on the public’s acceptance of the notion that — as he once said about himself — he could get away with murder in the middle of Fifth Avenue. (This paralleled his boast about women, whom he would grab in their private parts when he tired of shooting men in broad daylight.)

      Will Biden Overturn Sanctions on the ICC?

      READ MORE

      Biden has inherited a different, more “presidential” role. Independently of the policies he adopts, he finds himself having to exaggerate the contrast with Trump by at least seeming to reflect on complex issues, weighing the pros and cons and engaging in thoughtful deliberation on the same topics that Trump typically bulldozed his way through. After all that deliberation, the result tends to differ more in style than in substance.

      The Daily Devil’s Dictionary recently considered the case of Trump’s sanctions against Fatou Bensouda and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Biden has found himself in the awkward position of having to reaffirm the nation’s traditional refusal to be judged for war crimes while, at the same time, recognizing the legitimacy of the actions of the ICC so impudently denied by Trump. Now, Biden has a similar juggling act to carry out with Saudi Arabia after his director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, followed the prescribed democratic logic of obeying a command made by Congress that Trump had simply refused to acknowledge. It concerned the release of the CIA’s assessment of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist working for The Washington Post.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Trump chose to shield the perpetrators from any form of judgment. After all, Saudi Arabia spends hundreds of millions on American weapons. After showing such virtue, what crime could they possibly be accused of? Biden had to find a way of countering Trump while reaffirming America’s commitment to the ideal of even-handed justice. It is all in the name of preserving “American interests” (which everyone by now should know means simply money and geopolitical influence).

      The Washington Post explains how Biden has accomplished that mission: “The Biden administration will impose no direct punishment on Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite the conclusion of a long-awaited intelligence report released Friday that he ‘approved’ the operation, administration officials said.”

      When the press corps confronted Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, questioning her over whether MBS could be “sanctioned personally,” she responded that something would be done, though without any indication of what that might be. She nevertheless offered this explanation, while insisting twice on the word “clear.” She said, “the president has been clear, and we’ve been clear by our actions that we’re going to recalibrate the relationship.” What could be clearer than the totally objective, scientific notion of recalibration?

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Recalibrate:

      Redefine a policy or relationship in such a way as to make the undermining of any existing moral principles appear justified in the pursuit of selfish interests

      Contextual Note

      Most Americans consider cold-blooded murder a moral fault as well as a criminal act. The idea of dealing with it by recalibrating a relationship might sound to some like a sick joke. How many people on death row in the US wouldn’t welcome the idea of recalibrating their relationship with the justice system? Considering that most of them — a majority of blacks, some of them later proven innocent — have not have benefited from the kind of rigorous investigation the Turkish government and the CIA carried out concerning the Khashoggi murder, the leniency of recalibration would certainly interest them.   

      The Guardian notes a slight contradiction with the moral stance Biden took concerning the Khashoggi murder during the campaign: “The decision to release the report and expected move to issue further actions represents the first major foreign policy decision of Joe Biden’s presidency, months after he vowed on the presidential campaign trail to make a ‘pariah’ out of the kingdom.” 

      This recalibration of attitude illustrates an interesting phenomenon in politics: the freedom opposition politicians have to invoke what resembles the truth followed by their tendency to equivocate as soon as they have their hands on the reins of power. “Recalibrate” deserves to be voted the Orwellian Newspeak word of the year.

      Historical Note

      To put things in perspective, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained: “The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual.” A lot of Americans, from Henry Ford to Joseph Kennedy and some of the most prominent US companies — IBM, Coca-Cola, Chase Manhattan, General Electric, Kodak, Standard Oil and Random House among others — felt exactly the same way about Nazi Germany. Why compromise a productive relationship simply because one man spouts heterodox ideas and has a tendency to kill people in the name of those ideas?

      The Washington Post quotes Blinken invoking Jen Psaki’s “recalibration” trope. In his press conference, he praised Joe Biden for moving “toward a promised ‘recalibration’ of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.” Oddly, the secretary of state seems to have forgotten that it wasn’t “one individual” who carried out the assassination, but a team of 15 who flew in and out of Istanbul for this specific effort.

      The Guardian realistically described how Mohammed bin Salman’s team culture works: “Prince Mohammed had ‘probably’ fostered an environment in which aides were afraid that they might be fired or arrested if they failed to complete assigned tasks, suggesting they were ‘unlikely to question’ the prince’s orders or undertake sensitive tasks without his approval.” As Hamlet once said of Denmark, “something is rotten in the state.” Like Biden and Blinken, Hamlet was reacting to a high-profile murder. Part of his quandary was that it wasn’t just about “one individual,” even though the Danish prince was focused on the man — his uncle — who had killed his father. 

      .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      As a political metaphor, the idea of recalibration may appear reassuring to some people thanks to its scientific ring, expressing an engineer’s objectivity in seeking to work with the most accurate measurements. But does it make any sense when what is at stake is a moral question, in this case literally of life and death? Or should we conclude that, for those who practice it, there are no moral questions in politics, only pragmatic ones, only questions that can be decided according to the unique criterion of “national interest?”

      The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the limits of purely “national” reasoning. The awareness of those limits will inevitably be challenged again over the next decade by the impending drama of climate change, possibly other pandemics and another global economic crash. The question of supply chains that the US encountered at the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 and now concerning semiconductors demonstrates the absurdity of a world that has made sacrosanct the status of the nation-state. 

      Some kind of global system of cooperation — not just between nations and regions but between all manner of human groupings as well — must emerge if an economy now defined by the unique principle of technological exploitation of the earth’s resources is to persist. The ideal of growth that guides every national government is little more than a strategy of accelerated depletion of the world’s common patrimony. The very idea of national interest in a world of competitive nation-states has become a weapon of mass obliteration.

      The more technologically developed the world becomes, the more it needs to adopt some form of moral compass capable of constraining the decision-making of nations. Growth and job creation have become the only public values today’s nations are capable of putting forward. Their political imagination withers and dies as soon as they attempt to reason beyond these goals. These “public” goals are nothing more than the veneer on the surface of a powerful system dedicated to private gain.

      Such a system needs something more than simple recalibration if it is to survive.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

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