Globalaffairs

Issue 24/May-August 2011
By Guy Burton

On 19 May Barack Obama tried to reset American foreign policy towards the Middle East. This was in the wake of the uprisings that have swept the region, resulting in the overthrow of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents and the ongoing confrontations between people on the street and their regimes in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Syria (1).

The Libyan and Syrian cases have been especially prominent in the West in recent months. This is mainly because of the different approaches taken by the West towards the two countries. In Libya the West appears to be actively engaged in trying to topple Muammar Gaddafi’s leadership through NATO’s implementation of a no-fly zone and airstrikes against the regime. The British, French and American forces have been at the forefront of this movement; the Italians have also recently joined. Meanwhile, despite continuing protests and the heavy handed response of the authorities in Syria, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths and more injured, the West has avoided taking action.

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Issue 23/January - March 2011
By Mahmoud Ezzat A.Elhafez

Tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities after Tuesday 25 January 2011, but the real event started after Friday 28th pray to demand an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule focused anger on the authoritarian regime.

After a day of silence (the big mistake), President Hosni Mubarak acknowledged his citizens’ discontent and attempted to defuse the crisis in Egypt Friday night by announcing that a new government is on the way. But the embattled president gave no indication that he himself planned to step down.

Specifically, Mubarak said that the current government has been asked to resign and he would appoint a new one on Saturday. He gave no indications he himself planned to step down, despite increasing calls for him to do so.

President Hosni Mubarak said he will not run for a new term in office in September elections, but rejected demands that he step down immediately and leave the country, vowing to die on Egypt’s soil, in a television address Tuesday after a dramatic day in which a quarter-million protesters called on him to go.

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Issue 22/October-November 2010
By Guy Burton

The situation for Iran’s opposition appears especially bleak at present. Following the widely questioned presidential election result in June 2009, which resulted in Mahmud Ahmadinejad being re-elected, large numbers of people took the street in protest. The state reacted severely, with opposition activists claiming that 72 people being killed while 80 others were subsequently tried and convicted for their part in the demonstrations (1). More recently, the Iranian authorities have imposed greater restrictions on prominent opposition leaders, including the Freedom Movement’s Ebrahim Tazdi, who has been detained three times since the protests last year and most recently in October 2010.

The experience of the past year stands in stark contrast to the so-called ‘Tehran Spring’, the period between 1997 and 2004 when the Islamic Republic looked on the verge of political reform. Indeed, since last year’s presidential election it appears that there has been a return to business as usual in Iran, whereby conservatives aim to control both state and society.

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By Guy Burton
Issue 21/July - September 2010

The past decade has seen a push towards separation and unilateralism on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Following a decade of engagement under the Oslo process, the shift occurred after the outbreak of the second Intifada. It was a shift initially led by the Israelis under the premiership of Ariel Sharon (2001-06), during which construction of the Separation Wall began and an evacuation of Jewish settlements in Gaza took place.

The Palestinians’ drive for separation is more recent: August 2010 will mark the first anniversary of that official position, based on Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s programme for government. If fulfilled the plan, “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”, will see a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians by the end of next year. This marks a significant change from previous model to achieve Palestinian self-government through the Oslo process, which included Israeli involvement.

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Issue 20/April-June 2010
By Glen Ruffle

The situation in the Middle East is, as ever, moving from one crisis to another. With America annoyed at Israel, increasing tension in Gaza, and the general malaise over land, there remain few solutions to the problems that will stop the violence.

Israel and the US - a lovers tiff

There has been much fuss about a falling-out and serious breach in the relationship between America and Israel [1]. This is, of course, simply journalists trying to make a story. Whilst the announcement of new building for settlers in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to make their future capital, prompted anger and outrage from them, and the withdrawal of their delegation from US-managed peace talks [2], the truth is that Israeli-US relations remain strong.

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Issue 18/December-January 2010
By Jamsheed K. Choksy

Successes, missteps, opportunities, and prospects

Rebuilding civil society has emerged as an essential path to reversing impacts of strife. Reestablishment of infrastructure, employment, services, administration, and security - all emphasizing local responsibility - are central to stability irrespective of culture, faith, or location.

Reconstruction of civil society in the approximately 10,500 sq. mile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan is desperately needed [1]. Local populations face intimidation from armed militants [2]. Common administrative and legal norms are lacking. Constructive tribal, intellectual, and economic cooperation across the FATA’s border with Afghanistan require augmentation. So economic opportunities have declined and, consequently, less than one-third of FATA’s nearly 5 million inhabitants live above poverty-level. Literacy has fallen to a lowly 17.4 percent because access to quality education became limited too, especially for women [3]. Consequently, “fundamentalist madrasas lure hopeful people with promises of knowledge and wealth, and then turned them into lawless hate-filled thugs” lamented one local FATA leader.

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Issue 17/October-November 2009
By Glen Ruffle

Obama’s recent announcement that he will abandon George Bush’s missile defence shield and the positioning of missiles in Eastern Europe, along Russia’s borders, supposedly aimed at Iran, has been welcomed in Moscow, and secretly, will have been welcomed by the US Treasury.

At a time of financial crisis, and with an enormous deficit and debt, the US cannot really afford to press ahead with such an expensive, unproven and destabilizing programme [1]. There is no proof the missiles will work, and Russia, with a large stabilization fund full of money to spend, would launch an arms race the US could ill-afford. Obama knows that it is far better to have Putin and Medvedev on side in dealing with the real problem of Iran, because of their influence [2].

Elections

The recent elections in Iran have seen Ahmadinejab retain his grip on power, with the blessing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Together, they have reversed the slow trend to modernisation and openness begun under President Rafsanjani and continued under Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, President Khatami.

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Issue 16/August-September 2009
By Tannaz Bandukwalla

Summers have traditionally been the most lethal fighting months in Afghanistan because most Taliban fighters and other guerrillas limit their activities during the long and severe winters but this July has proved to be the deadliest month for U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan since they arrived there at the end of 2001, with 70 foreign troops - including 42 Americans - killed. Six more U.S. soldiers were killed on the first two days of August.

Three factors that have made this summer especially deadly. One was President Obama’s decision to send 21,000 additional troops to the country, including a Marine expeditionary brigade now conducting operations in Helmand Province, one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan. The second reason is that the guerrillas’ increasing skill at using improvised explosive devices and the third factor is the upcoming Presidential elections on 20th of August.

The Presidential election has stirred into action and once again brought Afghanistan in fore-front news. The Taliban in Afghanistan warned that they would attempt to derail the presidential election, calling on Afghans to boycott the poll and urging them to “join the trenches of jihad”. A statement issued by the Taliban’s leadership council and posted on a website it uses (www.alemarah1.net), said the election was a U.S. “invention” and urged voters to join them instead of taking part in a poll labelled as a farce. The statement was the first of its kind issued by the Taliban urging the direct disruption of the election.

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Issue 16/August-September 2009
by Arif Shiri

The recent official birth of democracy in Afghanistan has introduced a few questions regarding the democratic government of Afghanistan and the way in which government has handled the presidential election. Most commentators and scholars has never theorised and analysed in a way to give a broader picture of the contemporary political situation in Afghanistan. Simply, the situation has been viewed from individual’s perspectives and political ideologies were simply ignored. In other words, most scholars has been adopted a historical description position rather a social scientific explanations. However, this article would rather offer a third-way explanation to the current situation in Afghanistan. This explanation based on different approaches of political theories and, also it theorises and analyses the role of actors in contemporary Afghan affairs such as media, newspapers, journalist’s reports and individuals’ speech. Also this article aims to engage with other commentators and scholars on Afghan domestic politics.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
by Enrico Labriola

“If you interpret reform as a movement within the government, I think yes, this is the end. But if you regard it as a social phenomenon, then it is still very much alive.”
-Reza Yousefian, former Majlis member after Ahmadinejad election

The horizon of Iranian politics is, as always, far to be clear. Surprisingly, the complexity of this society is the mirror of the background over the curtain of this Islamic Republic. But walking in the streets of Tehran the political debate is one of the most vivid in Middle East: everyone has a way to solve Iran’s problems. The rule for public speech is to accept everything but the nature of the Republic, that has to remain Islamic (and ruled by clerics). The 12th June the 46,7 million of voters will be called to express a preference for one of the 8 presidential hopefuls. The main actors in this long run are the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the last Prime Minister of Iran (in 1989 the post was abolished), Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It is a struggle of two different views about the prospects of this 66 million citizen-country. Ahmadinejad won the 2005 elections with the 61% (after a pale 19% in the first round), against the former president Rafsanjani in a run-off that cut off all the reformist candidates, with the two main candidates, Karroubi and Moeen stopped to the 3rd and the 4th places. Ahmadinejad, former major of Tehran and considered an outsider in the 2005 elections, become the first president in 24 years who is not an Islamic cleric.

Ahmadinejad is believed to have won mainly because of his populist views, especially those regarding the poor and their economic status. But despite the propaganda the economic situation is not so good, and the progress (the GDP grew of 7.8% in 2007 and 6.5% in 2008) was not seen by the poor. Iran is a strange country: appalling conditions in the countryside for the rural population coexist with big cities with an open-minded middle-class, influenced by the Great-Devil cultural models. Even though a woman witness count half of a man’s one, and women are penalized in the marriage and inheritance, women are an active part of Iran: they are judges in the tribunals, teachers in universities, the 70% of the students enrolled in the universities, they are MPs and have a woman as UN vice-representative and one as Presidential candidate. Although, they have big problems to divorce (but man can repudiate one of the wives just with a statement) and they can’t travel without a man’s permission and wear appropriately the scarf, without showing any hair.

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