| | | | Fareed: The Middle East Is Still Fertile Ground for Terror Groups | | "The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a real victory in the war against terrorist groups," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. But the region is still rife with problems, and "if Baghdadi's death produces a greater US disengagement from the Middle East, then things could spiral downward even faster."
The Middle East lagged other world regions in development leading up to the millennium, and a 2002 UN report found a lack of freedom, social progress, and economic opportunity. The failures of the Arab Spring have left the Middle East still wanting advancement on those fronts.
"The Islamic State has been decapitated and is scattered for now, but the demons that have fueled such terror—stagnation, repression, despair—continue to haunt today's Arab world," Fareed writes. | | An Election Still Might Not Solve Brexit | | Prime Minister Boris Johnson's promised Brexit day of Oct. 31 came and went, and in an editorial, The Guardian breathes a sigh of relief. Britons should be happy to still be in the EU, the paper writes (Johnson's Brexit deal is worse than Theresa May's, the paper argues, given its projected up-to-4% cost to the British economy by 2029), even if the past months have seen Johnson turn the Tories into a pro-Brexit party.
As the UK gets ready for a Dec. 12 election, it's being hailed as make-or-break for Brexit. But The Economist predicts the vote may not bring any solutions . If Johnson returns as prime minister with only a small majority, he'll be "at the mercy of the hardline Brexiteers in his party, just as Mrs May was"—meaning another Brexit impasse. If Labour's Jeremy Corbyn takes the helm, he'll likely owe his majority to the support of smaller parties—giving him, too, an intractable set of Brexit factions to attempt to please. "The coming election will have profound consequences for Britain," the magazine writes. "But don't be surprised if a year from now the country is still arguing about how to 'get Brexit done.'" | | Trouble Looms in Iraqi Camps | | In a Foreign Affairs essay, Thanassis Cambanis argues compellingly for Iraq—and the world—to quickly figure out how to handle more than 10,000 "ISIS families" held in camps. Largely Sunnis who lived in ISIS-held areas, their levels of involvement with ISIS are unknown, and Iraq has struggled to vet them as potential threats. "They occupy a gray area between civilians and suspects, and properly vetting them will take effort and resources. In the absence of both, they have spent anywhere from two to five years in desert purgatory," Cambanis writes.
As with those held in Kurdish-run camps in Syria, radicalization is a risk, and pro-ISIS factions can "victimize" non-supporters. Life in these camps is bleak, Cambanis writes: Residents aren't allowed to work, and children have no access to schools. Iraq has other problems—including an anti-government protest movement—but Sunni resentment allowed ISIS to flourish in the first place, and Cambanis warns that international assistance is needed to "prevent this slow-burning crisis from exploding into a full-blown emergency." | | How Green Should Central Banks Get? | | Given the urgency of global warming, some have called for central banks to help avoid it. There are two ways in which central bankers could pursue that aim, the Financial Times writes in an editorial: By avoiding investments in "brown assets" tied to fossil fuels, slowly weaning off portfolios that could decline in value as less carbon is burned; and actively buying up corporate bonds in the green-energy sector, stimulating it with "green quantitative easing."
Central banks should stick to the former, the paper advises: Their job is to steer the economy, not reimagine it in greener form, and if central bankers get too active, they risk deviating from democratic mandates. "Politicians, not technocrats, must find a solution" to global warming, the paper concludes. | | Does Foreign Criticism Strengthen China? | | Writing at Foreign Policy, Joshua Eisenman and Devin T. Stewart argue that while China stifles dissent at home, it listens to foreigners. "China's foreign-policy makers have adjusted quite well when they have encountered challenges—especially when Americans and other foreigners point them out," they write. China has its red lines—it won't adopt foreign views on Hong Kong—but Beijing listened to accusations that its Belt and Road Initiative saddled host countries with debt; after controversially taking ownership of a Sri Lankan port, China has avoided more missteps like that one.
"In this way," Eisenman and Stewart argue, "free critiques and open discourse have inadvertently strengthened China's geopolitical competitiveness by providing its leaders the very same unvarnished appraisals that they mute at home." | | | | | | |
