| | | | Has the Netanyahu Era Ended? | | Election results were inconclusive, but Israel has nonetheless undergone an important shift, Natan Sachs writes for The Atlantic. In denying Prime Minister Netanyahu a clear victory, Israel has stepped back from two dangerous precipices, Sachs writes: annexing the Jordan Valley, and allowing Netanyahu to grant himself immunity from prosecution—which would have sparked conflict and undermined Israeli democracy.
What's more, it may be the end of a political era: "Netanyahu is not out of office yet, but his free rein is over," Sachs writes. The rest of Israeli policy might not change much, Shlomo Ben-Ami writes for Project Syndicate, but Israelis have at least "stopped the country's slide toward xenophobic theocracy (one hopes not just temporarily)." | | The End of America's Gulf Security Umbrella? | | | The crisis over attacks on Saudi oil facilities has demonstrated an important truth, Robert F. Worth writes in a New York Times op-ed: America no longer maintains a "security umbrella" over its allies in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states may have believed President Trump would offer them strong protection, but the US simply isn't willing to engage in another Middle East war, Worth writes; the lesson is that Gulf countries "must learn to manage Iran without American help." | | The Geographic Inequality Driving Populism | | | Populism has widely been linked to inequality, and two new essays explore its dimensions. In Foreign Policy, Roberto Stefan Foa and Jonathan Wilmot examine geographic inequality, as "changes in the global economy have spatially sorted voters." From Eastern Europe to the US, GDP per capita has grown much faster in cities than in rural areas, which has fed resentment, they write, even as countries' economies have improved on the whole—and as traditional rural-urban political divides, over things like social values, haven't gotten any worse. It's geographically uneven economics, then, that have made election maps in the US, UK, and France look eerily similar.
In Foreign Affairs, Jason Furman writes that the economic recovery has benefited some more than others, with employment still low among American men aged 25-54, including a huge gap between those with college degrees and those without. Taking into account those who've stopped looking for work, that group still hasn't recovered to its pre-recession employment levels. | | Now that peace talks have fallen apart, Susanne Schmeidle and Astri Suhrke make some dismal predictions for Afghanistan's near future at the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog. The Taliban, US, and Afghan forces are likely to intensify efforts on the ground; the country will struggle to hold its next presidential election this month, due to Taliban interference; and as a result, the winner's legitimacy will be diminished, they predict.
"None of the scenarios for the immediate future of Afghanistan are good. All seem to entail more violence, more suffering, and more refugees," they conclude—making the resumption of talks all the more important. | | The Other Middle East Security Threat: Cyber | | The Saudi oil attacks have heightened fears of physical war in the Middle East, but in a recent episode of the Middle East Institute's podcast Middle East Focus, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell (experts in that group's cybersecurity program) remind us that cyber could factor into Middle East conflicts to come.
Cyber has already played a role in attacks on states (from the Stuxnet virus deployed against Iran, to a more recent attack on a Saudi petrochemical facility); spy tools are reportedly being deployed by governments in the region, to track political activists; cybersecurity underlies geopolitical tensions, including between the US and Iran; and broader technological changes, like job automation, could lead to further instability in the region. "When we're looking to the future and thinking about the next 100 years of the Middle East, I think this is the direction that we need to be focusing on," Campbell says. | | | | | | |
