Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. April 9, 2024 | |
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Iran alarm is back. Since Oct. 7, fears of a wider Middle East war have centered on Iran and its network of proxies—including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Red Sea-menacing Yemeni Houthis. In February, the US struck Iran-linked targets across the region, after an Iran-backed Iraqi militia killed US troops on a base in Jordan. Last week, a suspected Israeli strike in Damascus killed seven Iranian military officials, including three senior commanders. Since then, fears of a wider, Iran–Israel–US war in the Middle East have returned. Iran has warned the US to "step aside" as it prepares to respond. As always, nuclear weapons are part of the broad concern when it comes to Iran. At The National Interest, Sam Raus reminds us Iran has neared nuclear capability. In strategic terms, noted Iran expert Suzanne Maloney argues in a Foreign Affair essay that the war in Gaza—and a broad US pullback from the region, in terms of military and diplomatic engagement—have generated opportunity for the clerical regime in Tehran to seize. "The truth is that the Islamic Republic is now in a better position than ever to dominate the Middle East, including by attaining the ability to disrupt shipping at multiple critical chokepoints," Maloney writes, referencing the Iran-backed Houthis' persistent harassment of international shipping in the Red Sea, which has rerouted cargo ships around Africa. "Over the decades, Iran and its proxies have developed keen instincts for calibrating risk. Now, having gauged the waning American interest in the Middle East, Iranian leaders see an advantage to be gained by gambling. With their attacks, they seek to provoke the United States to make mistakes that give Tehran and its allies an advantage—mistakes similar to the ones Washington made two decades ago, when it invaded Iraq, or in 2018, when [former President Donald] Trump withdrew from [former] President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal. A miscalculation by any of the actors involved, including Iran itself, could ignite a much wider and more intense conflict across the Middle East, causing profound damage to regional stability and the global economy." |
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On Sunday's GPS, Fareed noted a trend reporters have seen recently on the 2024 campaign trail: Trump rallies taking on somber, religious overtones. That may seem odd, but Fareed said it makes sense: In recent decades, one of the major trends in American society has been rapid secularization. As religion fades, Fareed suggested, Trump is using it for political purposes. |
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As chaos envelops Haiti, Pooja Bhatia writes for the London Review of Books, no mass exodus has come to US shores. But Haitians have indeed fled the instability and de facto gang rule, Bhatia writes, reporting from a shelter in Mexico on the danger Haitians face and the journeys some have taken. US asylum law protects people fleeing persecution, not economic migrants, but Bhatia writes: "In Haiti, it's hard to separate the political from the economic. Political leaders have armed and empowered gangs, which terrorise the population and make it impossible to engage in normal economic behaviour, such as going to work or saving money." Bhatia listens to a lawyer for a US immigration advocacy group explain the law to Haitians: "'Is anyone here not scared to return to Haiti?'" she asked. There was silence followed by laughter. 'They killed the president in his bedroom!' someone called out," a reference to the 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse in the presidential palace. |
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Will China Overtake the US? A Reexamination |
Will China's economy—currently the world's largest by purchasing power but the second largest in nominal terms—ever overtake America's? While China's rapid growth once suggested it was likely or at least possible, the idea has fallen out of favor as China's economy has lagged of late. At Foreign Affairs, Nicholas R. Lardy argues against this recent conventional wisdom, pointing out that China's lower inflation rate has masked economic growth, given how GDP figures are usually expressed. Observers worry about Chinese domestic demand, but consumption grew more than income last year. A "dismissive view of the country underestimates the resilience of its economy," Lardy writes. "Yes, China faces several well documented headwinds, including a housing market slump, restrictions imposed by the United States on access to some advanced technologies, and a shrinking working-age population. But China overcame even greater challenges when it started on the path of economic reform in the late 1970s. While its growth has slowed in recent years, China is likely to expand at twice the rate of the United States in the years ahead." Chinese leader Xi Jinping seems to think it's possible to leapfrog the US. Some analysts have criticized Xi's party-state for doubling down on investing in production, instead of stimulating consumer demand. But, The Economist writes, "[a]ccording to Mr Xi, the new productive forces"—a recent Chinese economic buzzword—"will flow from the application of science and technology to production. The phrase is a signal that China's technology push should be even more ambitious than it is today, and more tightly integrated into economic production. … In e-commerce, fintech, high-speed trains and renewable energy, China is at or near the frontier. The same is strikingly apparent in EVs, where success helped China last year to become the world's biggest exporter of cars. In a list of 64 'critical' technologies identified by the Australian Policy Research Institute, a think-tank, China leads the world in all but 11, based on its share of the most influential papers in the fields. The country is number one in 5G and 6G communications, as well as biomanufacturing, nanomanufacturing and additive manufacturing. It is also out in front in drones, radar, robotics and sonar, as well as post-quantum cryptography." The plan for technology-fueled growth might or might not pan out. Elsewhere, The Economist calls Xi's approach "misguided" in the face of stagnation that constitutes "China's gravest economic test since the most far-reaching of Deng Xiaoping's reforms began in the 1990s." |
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