| | | | After Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal failed again in Parliament, The Economist writes that the near-term future is easy to predict, while the long term is cloudy as ever.
In votes on Wednesday and Thursday, MPs will undoubtedly reject a no-deal Brexit and support extending the March 29 Brexit deadline for less than two months. After that, we can mostly count on turmoil: "There will be calls even from within her own party for Mrs. May to resign. Others will argue that the time has come for a fresh election. And those from all sides who are campaigning for another Brexit referendum will see the successive big defeats for Mrs. May's deal as a boost for their cause."
The Guardian, no fan of Brexit to begin with, recommends an even longer delay, arguing British politics are so broken they need to heal before a different arrangement can be agreed upon: "For the UK to be in a better place politically will require a different, better politics. That will take time, and Mrs. May needs to ask Europe for it," the paper writes. | | The end is near for ISIS in Syria, as opposing forces close in on its last bit of territory, but will that "end" really signal ISIS's ultimate disappearance? Adnan Khan of Maclean's suggests it won't, writing of local "police forces struggling to identify and neutralize ISIS sleeper cells and locals worried about the shadow of ISIS ideology still looming threateningly over them."
In Iraq and Syria, many local ISIS fighters or sympathizers left the group to "melt" back into the population, according to a 2018 UN report, meaning the defeat of their cohorts could just be a precursor to insurgency. Khan suggests ISIS is, effectively, faking its collapse—that the loss of its territory is a "misdirect" that ISIS's leadership has been planning for months or years.
It's a disturbing prospect for the region, to say nothing of ISIS's expansion into places like West Africa and the Philippines. | | Why Trump's Next Trade War Is Good for China | | President Trump appears to be entering yet another trade war, this time with India, Kimberly Ann Elliott writes at the World Politics Review—and it only figures to hurt America's ability to confront China.
After Trump moved to end India's preferential trade status, Elliott warns that as China rises in power and influence, Trump's move is "another blow to any hopes of building a broad coalition" to check India's neighbor. India shares a disputed border with China, has a fraught relationship over the latter's allegiance to Pakistan, and is the seventh-largest buyer of Chinese goods—all good reasons for the US to seek out a partnership with India, when it comes to China, rather than push it away. | | An Anti-Populist Blueprint in Slovakia | | | Reformist candidate Zuzana Caputova has gained momentum in Slovakia, ahead of this week's presidential election. If she wins, it'll be a rebuke of populism in a world region—Central Europe—where liberal democracy has eroded, Dalibor Rohac writes at The American Interest.
Beyond the regional significance of her success, Caputova offers a lesson for Western liberals seeking an answer to populist nationalism as a global force. She has united the country's center-left and center-right parties, offering a glimpse of how erstwhile disputes over large vs. small government can fade away in the age of populism. She's also a good candidate, in all the traditional ways: "Articulate, charismatic, and exuding warm-heartedness," Rohac writes, her career as an organized-crime prosecutor gives her a good anti-corruption, pro-reform story to tell, allowing her to oppose the current order in a way that doesn't involve nationalist grievances.
All of which suggests a path forward in the fight against populist nationalism, even as the looming European Parliament elections are poised to feature an advance by nationalist parties. | | The Middle East's Problems Are No Longer Sectarian | | Middle East conflict is no longer about sectarianism, Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write at The New Yorker, as today's wars and power struggles are mostly pragmatic.
In Syria, Iran's support for President Bashar al-Assad is driven by convenience, not religious affinity; Yemen's war is about Houthi social grievances and the Iranian/Saudi power struggle; Turkey's campaign against the Kurds is an intra-Sunni one, as is the struggle for influence among Gulf states. It's important to recognize this, because overweighting sectarianism has led to American miscalculations—from a failure to anticipate that Russia could prop up Assad without prompting a backlash from Sunni Arab leaders, to the misconception that hardline anti-Iran rhetoric would play favorably with Sunni countries, they write.
"The embrace of simplistic theories has real consequences," they write. "It misses the real struggles shaping what the Middle East will become." | | | | | | |
