| | | | If Donald Trump is no longer president in 2021, reentering the Iran nuclear deal should be a no-brainer for his successor, Ilan Goldenberg and Eric Brewer write in Foreign Policy the trickier question is how to go about it.
The keys, for President Trump's challengers, will be signaling interest early in the 2020 campaign—to keep Iran abiding by the deal—and using leverage gained by Trump's withdrawal to negotiate better terms when rejoining the pact, even if that sounds like anathema to Democratic critics of Trump's rationale for leaving it in the first place.
The nuclear deal continues to divide the US and European allies, and even as problems like NATO, trade, and Trump's commitment to NATO worry Europe, the nuclear deal is "one of the most difficult issues" dividing the US and Europe, writes Michal Baranowski of the German Marshall Fund. | | ISIS and al Qaeda have been beaten back from previous strongholds, but the global movement of Salafi jihad is actually winning, writes Katherine Zimmerman at RealClear World: It has adapted, decentralizing its leadership structures, insinuating itself into local communities, focusing on local grievances rather than a global clash with the West, deemphasizing terrorism, and infiltrating governance structures. The West's strategy can't keep pace.
The upshot: "America's counterterrorism strategy will not defeat al Qaeda, the Islamic State, or even terrorism, no matter how many successive presidents promise that it will. It might not even keep Americans safe," Zimmerman writes. | | | The world has grown weary of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, David Gardner writes in the Financial Times: After the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, traditional Saudi allies in the US Congress and UK parliament have turned against him.
As Congress seeks answers and sanctions in response to Khashoggi's death, President Trump has shielded MBS by rebuffing those demands, writes Ishaan Tharoor at The Washington Post—but if Trump remains one of MBS's most important backers, that alliance could falter, the FT's Gardner suggests. It's partly built on the hope that MBS's support can help usher in a US-led Israeli/Palestinian peace deal, but with MBS weakened, he may not be able to deliver, and Trump's always-mercurial affinity could wane. | | Nationalism Is Here to Stay | | Nationalism has gotten a bad name, but it's had its positive effects, writes Anreas Wimmer in Foreign Affairs: the defeat of Nazi Germany, the rise of welfare, and the nation-state system in which we live. It's a fixture of the world, and Wimmer argues it's "here to stay." The question, then, is how to make the best of it: While nationalism has led to populism and division, the key to overcoming those elements is to build inclusive ruling coalitions that represent and give voice to all dimensions of national identity, Wimmer argues.
Making a similar point in the same magazine, Yael Tamir sees liberals fighting a losing war against nationalism; the least well off have suffered from globalization, and if political leaders are to deliver a satisfying response, they need to develop a new kind of nationalism that reassures citizens they're being protected in a globalized world and makes them feel connected to a community. | | Who's Pushing No-Deal Brexit? | | A no-deal Brexit is still on the table, and after the original Brexit vote was rife with unidentified campaign funding, that same phenomenon is emerging again, with unknown financial backers running Facebook ads in support of leaving without a deal, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot.
Anti-Brexit groups aren't completely transparent, either, but one opaque, hard-Brexit group in particular is using Facebook ads to target constituents of key MPs, urging them to oppose the so-called Irish backstop.
It's another instance in which Facebook, its ad-transparency requirements, and national campaign-finance laws could all intersect to influence an important outcome for global politics and economics. | | | | | | |
