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. July 31, 2024 |
|
|
The Middle East has moved significantly closer to a larger, potentially region-engulfing war.
The sequence in recent days has been dizzying. A quick recap: Since Oct. 8, Israel has engaged in relatively low-grade tit-for-tat strikes with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Hamas at the Gaza war's outset. (Both Hezbollah and Hamas are Islamist groups backed by Iran as components of its so-called "axis of resistance.") Israel responded by striking Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon. On Saturday, the conflict between the two parties escalated sharply when a rocket killed children on a soccer field in the Golan Heights—an Israeli-controlled area between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Israel responded by killing a Hezbollah commander deep inside Lebanon, in the southern part of its capital Beirut.
Yesterday brought another turn. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran where he had attended the inauguration of Iran's new reformist president this week. "We are on the verge of a large, large-scale escalation," Danni Citrinowicz of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies tells The Wall Street Journal's Summer Said and Rory Jones. "Iran is leading the axis, and they cannot protect one of the leaders of the axis coming for [incoming President Masoud] Pezeshkian's inauguration."
At the Financial Times, Andrew England reminds readers that a war between Israel and Hezbollah could draw in Iran and its other proxies in Gaza and Yemen—and the US, as Israel's strongest defender. "It is the nightmare scenario the regional powers have been warning of for the duration of Israel's war in Gaza," England writes. Cautioning that the "Middle East must step back from the brink," The Economist urges Israel to reach a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza and lower the regional temperature.
Analysts have noted thoroughly the destruction a larger war could cause and the strong incentives for all parties to avoid one. "Iran will find it hard not to retaliate for an assassination on its soil," writes Haaretz columnist Amos Harel. "Until now, however, it seemed both Iran and Hezbollah sought to contain the conflict with Israel and prevent it from turning into an all-out war."
At The Atlantic, Graeme Wood argues counterintuitively that these assassinations will help avoid disaster by raising the stakes and communicating with Tehran and its proxies differently. "Sometimes the one who is willing to bargain with you is not the one who has the authority to make a deal," Wood writes. "Israel can attack the Houthis [in Yemen] and Hezbollah. But Iran is their backer … It seems in this case that Israel found a middle way, by attacking an Iranian ally, on Iranian soil, in such a way as to prove to the other allies that Iran cannot protect them. It implies that the link between the backer and the backed might not be as reliable as either assumed. If that message is received as intended, Haniyeh's assassination will have de-escalated regional tensions rather than ratcheted them up." |
|
|
Examining Harris' Immigration Assignment |
Republicans have tagged Vice President Kamala Harris as a failed "border czar," noting that she received immigration as part of her Biden-administration portfolio—and that the issue remains contentious, despite Harris having been on the case. At The New Yorker, Jonathan Blitzer—whose recent book "Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here," published in January, examined immigration from Central America to the US—critiques that attack line. For one thing, Blitzer writes, illegal border crossings have declined this summer. Customs and Border Patrol data show a drop since December.
Perhaps more importantly, Blitzer writes that Harris wasn't tasked with securing the border but rather with addressing drivers of immigration in Central America, where some fraught relations with the US (or with the Biden administration) made for challenges in negotiating with leaders there. As time went on, Blitzer writes, the immigration landscape changed, and Harris' Central American interlocutors were no longer quite as relevant. "The number of migrants arriving from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua increased, eventually eclipsing the number of arrivals from the Northern Triangle of Central America," Blitzer writes. "The population coming to the border is now more global than it has ever been, the result of international conflicts, continued fallout from COVID, political repression, and increasing immigration crackdowns in Europe."
Exploring Harris' immigration record in the L.A. Times, Kate Linthicum, Andrea Castillo, Patrick J. McDonnell and Kevin Rector write: "It was an unwinnable assignment that Harris never wanted. And while she claimed some accomplishments—including coaxing private companies to pledge billions of dollars of investment in Central America—she was criticized as showing tepid interest in the issue and for visiting Latin America just twice." |
|
|
The stereotypical dictator used to be a "tinpot" military man, as Fareed discussed on Sunday's GPS with The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum, author of the new book "Autocracy, Inc."
Not anymore. The old model has given way to an autocracy refresh, as Applebaum details: Today's dictators are political operators who command wealth and technology to control their countries—and those leaders are cooperating with each other more deeply these days. |
|
|
France—and Its Problems—in the Spotlight |
At the center of the world stage, France stands in the spotlight, hosting the Olympics at iconic sites in Paris while managing to showcase the far-reaching legacy of its once-dominant empire (the Olympic surfing competition is being held on an iconic beach in Tahiti).
At the same time, France's politics are messy. Snap elections this summer saw the far right rise in the first round, then fall to third place in the runoff. A "republican front" emerged to block it, with the center and left coordinating candidate dropouts to solidify the anti-far-right vote. A leftist coalition secured the most seats but not a majority, and France's legislature is now deadlocked and unable to form a government. The emergent strength of the National Rally (RN), the far-right party led by former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and 28-year-old party president Jordan Bardella, has shaken France's political system. As Le Monde's Camiolle Bordenet detailed recently, France's rural mayors have nervously and helplessly watched their constituents turn to the RN.
In The New York Review of Books, Harrison Stelter observes that "Macronism," the centrist politics and neoliberal economic reforms of President Emmanuel Macron, who has sought to break down France's old left–right divide, is in marked decline. Stelter writes: "The far right's growing strength … remains the defining story in French politics. Its preoccupations—from the fetishization of state authority over civil liberties to the restriction of immigration—are now mainstream. If the 'republican front' wants to do more than delay Le Pen's ascendance, it's going to have to credibly break with Macronism's marriage of pro-business economics and nationalist culture war. But for that, centrists would need to seriously reengage with the left. At present, that prospect seems nearly unthinkable." |
|
|
| You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up for Fareed's Global Briefing.
To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or sign up to manage your CNN account | |
® © 2024 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario