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The TED website describes Kishore Mahbubani, a career diplomat from Singapore, as someone who “re-envisions global power dynamics through the lens of rising Asian economies.” This description is not just apt for Mahbubani but also for his new book, “Has the West Lost It?” The title may...
For many Americans — both Republican and Democrat — the drama of 2016 consisted of deciding not so much of for whom to cast their vote but rather against whom, and how. There were basically two ways to handle the “how.” You could abstain or vote for the candidate of the other party you...
As Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates continue their blockade of Qatar, the pair often justify their campaign by accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism. Most analysts have cast this claim as hypocritical, given Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s history of links to extremist groups from...
The impeachment narrative is going well at the moment. The Democrats in the House of Representatives are making daily headlines about both substance and process. They throw in a few Ukraine facts and witnesses that support the narrative and move on to the next process issue, resisted...
Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless US wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes his predecessors for their martial mistakes. But like the old saw about the weather, Trump talks a whole lot about endless wars but doesn’t do...
Democracy is on the decline. In 2018, the Freedom in the World report published by Freedom House recorded the 12th consecutive year of retreating global freedom. This included established democracies like the United States as well as authoritarian countries such as China and...
Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has been consumed by a destructive domestic struggle for power aggravated by the involvement of major external players. By 2014-16, two main centers of power emerged. The so-called “western bloc,” nominally led by Fayez al-Sarraj, rests on...
“Cultural Marxism” is a right-wing conspiracy theory that accuses the Frankfurt School — comprised of thinkers like Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse — of emigrating to the United States of America in the 1930s to implant the “Marxist” ideologies of political...
“The Youth in Iraq have a mad stare of despair on their faces. They have seen nothing, but Sanctions and War.” These were the words of a UN official stationed in the International Zone in Baghdad back in 2011. This month, there have been massive protests in different parts of Iraq as a result...
Since Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States in 2016, the political culture of the nation has been shattered by an unending series of disturbing cleavages. Trump has polarized the entire nation and forced the media into two camps: one condemning everything he does and the...
Donald Trump’s public appeal to China last week to help with uncovering dirt on the Biden family was both a brazen flouting of the law and (it pains me to say) an astute political tactic. “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad...
