Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, September 14, 2018
The Weekly Brief - September 14, 2018
Syria endgame in Idlib
After a less than helpful meeting between Russia, Turkey and Iran over what many to be the final phase of the Syrian civil war, the world turns its attention to the northwestern city of Idlib.
In what some believe could be the last major battle of the civil war, concerns are high of a fresh wave of refugees amid what Providence Magazine is dubbing a “humanitarian disaster” in the making. Turkey’s desire for a ceasefire underscores the concerns regarding refugees as the country can ill afford any major influx of people fleeing the fighting.
However, the breakdown of talks in Tehran underscores the cross purposes at which Russia, Turkey and Iran are working in Syria. As a test of an opposition power bloc to the US in the Middle East, Idlib might represent a signal failure.
Iranian agitation
Beyond Syira, most reportage of Iranian foreign policy focuses on Iranian activity in Yemen and Lebanon. But with electoral upheaval closer to home, Iran is playing for influence in a larger pool.
Long War Journal reports on Tehran’s ongoing efforts to build a base of support in Iraq, and Al-Monitor reports that with a new president in place in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran are making that country the new front in their ongoing Cold War.
Palestine + 2?
Some interesting movement on the Israeli-Palestinian front this last week was the apparent acceptance by Palestinian Authority President Abbas of a demilitarized Palestinian State.
This has long been a major Israeli precondition on future negotiations and Abbas’ acceptance could be a major shift. It also could just be the boss desperately grasping for straws as he ages and nears the end of his presidency.
Al-Monitor also reports on Abbas’ willingness to consider even a confederation with Jordan and Israel as a potential solution to the conflict. This is not meant to undercut or to cast doubt on the man's desire to broker peace which is a noble aspiration.
However, Abbas is finding his Palestinian Authority increasingly isolated from some main players in any type of future settlement as President Trump's moved to close the Palestinian mission in Washington this week.
Sweden: The un-hacked election of nationalists
The big election news from last week are the major gains made by Sweden's nationalist party in parliamentary elections. The gains make them one of the largest parties in the parliament.
This is the latest of a series of electoral victories by populist nationalist parties in major European countries over the last year. Pew Research reports that the Sweden election highlights the decline of center-left parties across the continent.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes as well that Sweden was taking active steps to prevent any kind of election interference from nearby Russia. The active defense of the election infrastructure coupled with the results from Pew Research presents some of the most concerning evidence yet for center-left parties on both sides of the Atlantic that this populist-nationalist surge is more organic than originally believed.
Conservative sites in America watching the election results note the parallels to the US suggesting that popular discontent with the governing leftist coalition in Stockholm should signal the left-wing Democrats in the US not to push their agenda too far in the coming midterms.
US democracy
And perhaps some of that concern is filtering through to America's center-left and left movements. Ahead of the midterm elections, The Atlantic ran a series of stories this last week on the future of American democracy.
Notably, the stories were almost universally expressing concern or using words like “crisis” and “autocracy” to describe America's current political moment. However, American democracy may not totally be in crisis given higher levels of civic engagement in some places (though, that may just be making up lost ground), and the country continues to do well economically, particularly in and around smaller, redder districts as Brookings indicates.
But the Democrats are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to retake the House and place a major check on the Trump Administration. Former President Barack Obama has even come out on the campaign trail once more to assist the party he formerly led.
FiveThirtyEight asks whether or not Obama will be effective for Democrats, or might have the opposite effect in driving up Republican turnout? The presence of Obama on the campaign Trail according to AEI actually underscores the decline of democratic norms in the American political system, as AEI blames both Trump and Obama for playing key roles in the decline of those norms.
17 years later
On the college campus where I teach, we were reminded this year that the incoming freshman class had no memory of September 11, 2001. Crazy.
Even crazier when we consider that we’re still fighting wars stemming from that moment, which means that many soldiers and Marines deploying to Afghanistan in the near future will have no memory of 9/11 either.
At the same time, Lawfare points out that terrorism and counterterrorism are no longer at the front of the public mind, and AEI discusses major discrepancies between public perception of veterans and reality.