The Great Debate UK
from The Great Debate:
‘Reset’ on Iran now
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili (C) arrives at the Iranian Consulate before his meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Istanbul May 15, 2013. REUTERS/Osman Orsal
On Wednesday, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, met one on one for their regularly scheduled diplomatic dance over Iran’s nuclear program – this time in Istanbul. A solution is about as likely to materialize from these discussions as a slow waltz between them. Indeed, the two sides in Istanbul are reported to remain far apart.
The fundamental reason progress is unlikely now – and perhaps also after the Iranian presidential election on June 14 – is that the West has badly mishandled the nuclear issue since the early 1980s. Iran is also at fault.
But because Iran is an adversary, the West led by the United States, has repeatedly used its influence and powerful funding stature to politicize United Nations agencies. The West has also frequently used illegal and extra-judicial processes that made a travesty of the normal non-proliferation machinery, and set a negative precedent that is poisoning the global non-proliferation regime.
Don’t just blame oil traders for the manipulation of oil prices
The oil market is about to face one of the largest probes in years, following the EU announcing that it is investigating some major players like Shell and BP for price fixing. The probe concerns the way that large oil companies submit prices to Platts, the independent oil pricing service, which publishes prices for oil benchmarks like Brent.
The concern is that oil traders have been reporting prices that are higher than what they are actually selling oil for, in order to push up the price and cream the profits. This might all sound similar to those who followed the Libor fixing scandal that saw the end of Bob Diamond’s career at Barclays and global condemnation of bankers who set benchmark interest rates at levels that suited them, rather than the consumer.
from The Great Debate:
Impressions of a Pakistan election monitor
Voters at a polling station on the outskirts of Islamabad May 11, 2013. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Pakistan’s national and regional elections Saturday marked the first peaceful transition from one civilian government to another since the country’s founding in 1947.
As expected, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) party, which held power several times in the 1990s, won a plurality of the National Assembly seats, and is likely to form a government.
from Nicholas Wapshott:
Not in the spirit of Hayek
It has been a bad couple of weeks for conservative social scientists. First a doctoral student ran the numbers on the study by Harvard’s Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff that underpins austerity and deep public spending cuts as a cure for the Great Recession and found it full of errors. Then a policy analyst, Jason Richwine, who angered Senate Republicans trying to pass immigration reform with a one-sided estimate of the cost of making undocumented workers citizens, was obliged to clear his desk at the Heritage Foundation when it became known his Harvard dissertation suggested Hispanics had lower intelligence than “the white native population.”
It makes you wonder what Friedrich Hayek would have to say about such aberrant research. Hayek has become the patron saint of conservative intellectuals – and with good reason. He went head to head with John Maynard Keynes in 1931 in an effort to stop Keynesianism in its tracks. Hayek failed, but his attempt gave him mythical status among thinkers who deplore big government and central management of the economy.
from Mark Leonard:
UK Independence Party renews culture wars
Over the past week, Britain has been shaken by a political earthquake. The previously marginal UK Independence Party (UKIP) burst onto center stage to capture almost a quarter of the votes in local elections around the country, threatening to upset the stable two-party system that has existed for the last century. Nigel Farage ‑ the Claret-quaffing, cigar-smoking former city trader who leads the party ‑ breathed life into abstract ideas of sovereignty by highlighting the inability of European Union member states to control their borders. He predicted “hordes” of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens legally migrating to the UK. The mainstream parties are struggling to respond.
UKIP is just a small part of a broader phenomenon spreading across the developed world that resembles a political backlash against globalization and interdependence.
from David Rohde:
The devil who can’t deliver
Picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad riddled with holes on the Aleppo police academy, after capture by Free Syrian Army fighters, March 4, 2013. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano
MOSCOW – After marathon meetings with Secretary of State John Kerry here Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hinted that Moscow may finally pressure Syrian President Bashir al-Assad to leave office.
from The Great Debate:
A ‘Game of Thrones’ in Damascus
In last Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones, Lord Baelish and Lord Varys, perhaps the show’s most Machiavellian characters, discuss their political philosophies. While admiring the <a "href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Iron_Throne">Iron Throne, the show’s iconic symbol of absolute power, they debate the true nature of the realm: What power, they ask, holds the seven kingdoms of Westeros together?
Lord Baelish: “Do you know what the realm is? A story we agree to tell each other over and over until we forget that it’s a lie. But what do we have left once we abandon the lie?”
from Thinking Global:
Is Europe losing faith in the EU?
A wall of photos of European Union citizens outside the EU Commission building during the celebration for the Council of Europe in Brussels May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Happy Europe Day!
If you don’t know May 9 is Europe Day, then you find yourself in good company with a majority of Europeans. Even in the most buoyant time, this holiday – marking the Schuman Declaration, presented by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950, that launched the European Coal and Steel Community – doesn’t come with the transcontinental fireworks of America’s July 4.
from The Great Debate:
Europe’s fight to save its bees
Bees hover around a flower in Lompoc, California October 1, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Last Monday, the European Union banned the most commonly used pesticide group in the world, the neonicotinoids – neonics for short. The ban is set for two years and may be extended.
from The Great Debate:
Obama can close Guantanamo
At his news conference on Tuesday, President Barack Obama for the first time in years spoke about the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which he had promised to close when he first took office.
“Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” Obama said, responding to a reporter’s question. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.” He went on to acknowledge that more than half the detainees have been officially cleared for release.
