“The Obama Doctrine”
The U.S. president talks through his hardest decisions about America’s role in the world. In a nutshell, says the author, Obama favors foreign-policy realism and “generally does not believe a president should place American soldiers at great risk in order to prevent humanitarian disasters, unless those disasters pose a direct security threat to the United States.”
By Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic. Goldberg is a national correspondent for the Atlantic.Previously, he was a Middle East correspondent and the Washington correspondent for the New Yorker as well as a correspondent for the New York Times Magazine and New York magazine.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
“Election Fallout: What Iran’s Vote Means for Hope and Change (and Washington)”
The recent elections in Iran suggest the possibility of a new force in Iranian politics, a durable coalition of moderates that can claim both popular support and traction among the system’s power brokers. That would not be a ticket to overnight improvements in Iran’s most problematic policies, but it could curb some of the regime’s ideological excesses.
By Suzanne Maloney, Brookings Blogs. Maloney is deputy director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and the Energy and Security Initiative, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/03/04-iran-post-election-analysis-maloney?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content= 26967998&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8JIh22gAe57AwZtI1SsWrZCr9C8vHGos3v0XVjCUryeU_BeuRPgwwFagzuq3oTyYifjbzt-P1ysUa6CAxnYZV2xK7uug&_hsmi=26967998
“Where the Iran-Saudi Showdown Will Erupt Next”
From Syria to Bahrain, the Tehran-Riyadh rivalry has plenty of flashpoints,
By Matt Purple, the National Interest. Purple is the deputy editor for Rare Politics. Previously, he was the assistant managing editor of the American Spectator.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/where-the-iran-saudi-showdown-will-erupt-next-14830
“Europe: The Far Left and the Far Right Take Us on a Joy Ride back to the Future”
What was once the oppositional language of fringe parties in Europe has combined into a toxic new politics that is making its way to the center of Western democratic discourse. That should frighten us.
By Harold James, Tablet. James, professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University, is a professor in European studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public affairs and director of the program in Contemporary European Politics and Society.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/198156/far-left-far-right?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=b9e2e95f0b-Monday_March_7_20163_7_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-b9e2e95f0b-185245729
“The Case for Europe: An Interview with Donald Tusk”
As president of the European Council, Polish politician Donald Tusk has been at the center of one of the most challenging years in the history of the European Union. He has faced an economic crisis in Greece, the conflict in Ukraine and growing Russian aggression in the East, and, since last summer, the largest influx of migrants and refugees Europe has dealt with since World War II. Now he is struggling to reach a compromise with the British government to avert a possible withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
By Michal Matlack, the New York Review of Books. . A founder of Poland’s liberal Civic Platform party, Tusk was prime minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014. Matlak is a PhD student in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and a regular contributor to the Polish magazine Liberal Culture.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/02/18/the-case-for-europe-an-interview-with-donald-tusk/
“Open Letter on Donald Trump from GOP National Leaders”
One hundred seventeen Republican foreign-policy experts give their reasons for opposing a Donald Trump presidency. A sample of their objections: “His vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle. He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence.”
War on the Rocks. War on the Rocks is a Web platform for analysis, commentary, debate, and multimedia content on foreign- policy and national-security issues through a realist lens.
http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/
“Millions of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump. Here’s Why”
When he isn’t spewing insults, the Republican frontrunner is hammering home a powerful message about free trade and its victims.
By Thomas Frank, the Guardian. Frank is the author of the book What’s the Matter with Kansas? and, most recently, of Listen, Liberal, or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
“Donald Trump Should Shut up About China and Start Railing Against Robots”
When Trump says he wants to force Apple to make its products in America, what he’s really unintentionally saying is that he wants American robots to do the work of Chinese robots. President Trump can raise all the tariff walls he wants—manufacturing jobs lost to Asia aren’t coming back. Going forward, it’s automation, not globalization, that poses the bigger risk to the economic security of the American labor force.
By James Pethokoukis, AEI Ideas. Pethokoukis is a columnist and blogger at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he was the Washington columnist for Reuters Breakingviews.
http://theweek.com/articles/611118/donald-trump-should-shut-about-china-start-railing-against-robots
“Donald Trump Is Turning Me Liberal”
The real reason Jewish conservatives hate Trump. Hint: it has nothing to do with Iraq.
By James Kirchik, Tablet. Kirchik, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Initiative, is a columnist at Tablet magazine. He is a former writer at large for Radio Free Europe based in Prague.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/198487/donald-trump-is-turning-me-liberal?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=d8aaf41f7f-Tuesday_March_15_20163_15_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-d8aaf41f7f-207334713
“Is the Islamic State Hurting? The President’s Point Man on ISIS Speaks Out”
For the first time since its blitz across Syria and Iraq, in 2014, the Islamic State is on the defensive in both countries. Yet ISIS has become a global phenomenon in the course of the past year. It remains the world’s wealthiest terrorist organization, and the first to create its own state. Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk explains the White House’s current assessment of ISIS.
By Robin Wright, the New Yorker. Wright, a contributing writer for the New Yorker, is a former correspondent for the Washington Post, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Sunday Times of London. She is currently a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-the-islamic-state-hurting-the-presidents-point-man-on-isis-speaks-out?mbid=nl_160303_Daily&CNDID=26744763&spMailingID=8617941&spUserID= MTA5MjQwNDk0MDMyS0&spJobID=880364587&spReportId=ODgwMzY0NTg3S0
“Countering the Islamic State’s Message”
A former State Department coordinator for combating ISIS online offers a comprehensive analysis of the would-be caliphate’s ideology and historical roots along with some ideas for creating counter-narratives. As the author puts it, “the astonishing rise of ISIS occurs mostly in the ungoverned spaces created on the ground by fateful political decisions and in the virtual ungoverned spaces we have created online and allowed in political-religious discourse.”
By Alberto M. Fernandez, the Journal of International Security Affairs. Amb. Fernandez is the vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute. He previously served as the State Department’s Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication. http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/number-30/countering-islamic-states-message
“U.S. Looks to Facebook, Private Groups to Battle Online Extremism”
The U.S. government has changed its strategy in combating Islamic extremist messaging by recruiting tech companies, community organizations, and educational groups to take the lead in disrupting online radicalization.
By Julia Hart and Dustin Volz, Reuters. Harte and Volz are Washington-based reporters for the British news service Reuters. Harte covers the Justice Department, and Volz covers cyber and surveillance policy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-internet-militants-countermessaging-idUSKCN0VY01O
“Five Years After the Arab Spring, How Does the Middle East Use Social Media?”
Social media was much hyped as the engine of the Arab Spring in 2011. A new study finds surprising changes in social-media usage these days in the Middle East and North Africa. For example, Facebook, not Twitter, is dominant, and the region is a big on viewing photos and videos online.
By Damian Radcliffe, the Conversation. Radcliffe is a journalism professor at the University of Oregon.
http://theconversation.com/five-years-after-the-arab-spring-how-does-the-middle-east-use-social-media-54940?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_campaign=120b29238f-dailylabemail3&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d68264fd5e-120b29238f-395993885