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. August 16, 2024 |
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Fareed: The US Has No Iran Policy. The Middle East Is Paying the Price |
"The Middle East is today as close to a broad regional war as it has been in decades," Fareed writes in his latest Washington post column. "There are many explanations for this tense reality but one force casts a shadow over all of them: Iran. Iran has decided that it has more to gain than to lose by pursuing an aggressive policy directed against Washington and its allies in the region. This new and dangerous reality results from one factor above all: the collapse of any coherent U.S. policy toward Iran."
The 2015 nuclear deal implemented under President Barack Obama applied heavy sanctions on Iran while offering a way out if Tehran rolled back its nuclear program and kept within measurable limits. Most experts agree that Iran did so. But former President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal and replaced it with "maximum pressure"—even more sanctions, but without the off-ramp. President Joe Biden has continued that policy, which lacks a coherent goal besides a vague hope that Iran's regime will collapse.
"But hope is not a strategy," Fareed writes. "The United States and its allies need to devise a policy toward Iran that recognizes the reality that the Islamic republic exists — and then put in place threats and punishments to deter it, but also incentives so that it has a reason to relax tensions. This will not lead to a détente, let alone cooperation with Tehran. But it could reduce the many frictions that might tip this volatile region into a long and bloody war." |
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A Delicate Balance and the Risk of All-Out War |
After a series of assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders this summer, the world is still watching and waiting to see how Iran and its heavily armed ally Hezbollah might retaliate against Israel.
On the topic of a potential full-scale war with Israel, one since-"retired" Hezbollah co-founder tells Der Spiegel's Christoph Reuter, "We can't avoid it this time. … If we continue to just take it in silence, it will encourage Israel to kill our people everywhere at will. We must stop that. Now." Reuter notes that this is "the flip side of the logic of deterrence that can be heard from Israel. And that's how wars get started. … For a decade and a half, until last October, mutual deterrence kept the two sides from fighting each other. And the eagerness to avoid confrontation produced some rather odd incidents. In 2020, for example, the New York Times revealed that, before planned attacks, Israel had warned Hezbollah members by telephone to immediately seek safety. A surveillance video showed an Israeli missile hitting the road in front of a Hezbollah Jeep Cherokee, the occupants running outside, and then one of them coming back to the vehicle to recover some bags and rucksacks. Moments later, a second missile turned the SUV into a fireball."
That delicate balance of deterrence and intentional risk mitigation is now in danger of being upset, with disastrous consequences. If Hezbollah attacks, Reuter points out, Israel will likely respond, "and then Iran could give Hezbollah and the other loyal militias in Iraq, Yemen and Syria the green light to attack Israel. The restraint that the United States has struggled to preserve would end as soon as American forces intervened in Israel's favor."
It doesn't have to go that way: At The American Conservative, Daniel R. DePetris writes that all sides have strong incentives to avoid a war that would be damaging to those involved. "Preventing an Israel–Iran or Israel–Hezbollah war that could engulf the entire Middle East won't be a smooth process," DePetris writes. "But if rationality prevails over emotionalism, there are good reasons to believe the region and the roughly 50,000 U.S. troops stationed there can escape a conflagration." |
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A Different Problem in Lebanon |
If you thought immigration politics were strained in the US and Europe, consider the situation in Lebanon.
The country was riven by civil war for much of the late 20th century and since has been plagued by the sharp political divisions between Shi'ite Hezbollah and Lebanon's Christian and Sunni-Muslim factions. When a massive explosion rocked Beirut's port in 2020 amid a broader economic collapse, it seemed things couldn't get worse. As the risk of war with Israel rises, Lebanon faces misfortune yet again.
Against the backdrop of those problems, Lebanon has also struggled to integrate some 1.5 million Syrian refugees from a civil war that has raged and simmered for more than a decade next door. Natasha Hall and Will Todamn of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in June that Lebanon "wants to get rid of most of them. … A recent government scheme to deport Syrians in Lebanon who were not registered as refugees with the United Nations—nearly half of the 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon—may be a first step, and it is a potentially dangerous one."
At Le Monde Diplomatique, Charles Lawrie writes that Lebanon "now has the most refugees per capita in the world: a fifth of the population are Syrian refugees. Barely tolerated by the Lebanese, they face unprecedented intimidation, violence and deportation. Lebanese—themselves recovering from one of the worst economic crises since the mid-19th century—blame Syrians for rising crime rates, power cuts, water shortages and unfair distribution of relief aid. The murder of a local politician in April, in which Syrians citizens were implicated, was the final straw. In its aftermath, Christian vigilantes set up roadblocks in eastern Beirut to check for Syrian number plates and identity papers and beat up Syrians unable to provide them on the spot. Syrians now fear for their safety in certain parts of Beirut, particularly the Christian areas to the east." |
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How to Become a 'Supercommunicator' |
Think of a person who clicks well with colleagues, handles difficult conversations deftly, and is a hit at dinner parties. How do they do it? On Sunday's GPS, Fareed spoke with Pulitzer-winning journalist Charles Duhigg, author of "Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection," hearing valuable advice on communication relevant to the person, professional, and political aspects of our lives. |
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Harris Elbows Trump out of the Spotlight |
It's almost too obvious to say, but: Some people are tired of Donald Trump. Not necessarily his policies, but his lies, his rambling, his personal insults—the whole package. However it's the way in which people are growing tired of him, The Atlantic's David Frum argues, that seems novel. Some of the instinctive rubber-necking at Trump's oddity, which allowed him to fill the national spotlight for years, is giving way to boredom. After Trump's X interview with Elon Musk this week—during which the former president aired well-worn grievances about the 2020 vote and made at least 20 false statements, as CNN's Kristen Holmes and Steve Contorno write—The Atlantic's Frum suggests Trump "is fast arriving at the 'Will you please shut up?' phase of his political descent."
That may have something to do with a new-ish dynamic in the presidential race, one that has emerged since Joe Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democrats' presumptive standard-bearer. As does Frum, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein observes that Harris is taking a very different tack than Biden in her run against Trump and is bringing a different set of skills to the task. It seems to be working, as Klein writes: "Harris has been able to do what Biden could or would not: fight—and win—the battle for attention. She had help, to be sure. Online meme-makers who found viral gold in an anecdote about coconuts. Charli XCX's 'kamala IS brat.' But much of it is strategy and talent. Harris holds the camera like no politician since Barack Obama. … Gone is the grave, stentorian tone of Biden's news releases. Harris's communications are playful, mocking, confident, even mean. … Biden's communications strategy was designed to make Trump bigger. Harris's strategy is to make him smaller." |
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