International politics

Even before we were a month in, 2011 was an historic year. Principally because in a region of the world where governments shift through military coup or foreign intervention, dictators fell — and others tottered — thanks to local popular uprisings. Whatever the outcome of those events (and I have expressed my fears elsewhere, here) they remain a landmark worth observing. Whether or not the coming years are any good at all for them, 2011 was a great year for democrats in the Middle East. In the older democracies of the West, however, 2011 was more disconcerting.   If anyone doubts this, consider the following experiment. It is the beginning of

Last week, Time Magazine named ‘The Protestor’ as its Person of the Year. Myself, I’d be tempted to bestow the honorific upon ‘The Islamist’. For, in the spirit of the Time award, it is the Islamists, rather than the revolutionaries, who are now in the ascendancy in the Middle East. Governments in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are all now partly ruled by democratically-elected, if relatively moderate, Islamists. Next year will be about how they manage their newfound power. It will be not about ‘political Islam’, but ‘governmental Islam’. Many wonder if there is such a thing as moderate Islam, and whether all Islamist governments tend towards theocratic rule. Now

William Hague has transformed the Foreign Office in his 18 months in charge. He inherited a system hardwired with the dynsfunctionality of the Labour years, and it’s almost fixed. But not quite. It has not yet woken up to the wave of what can only be called ‘religious cleansing’ in the Middle East, which I look at in my Telegraph column today. Here’s a rundown of my main points. 1) The killing has begun, and could get worse. In Iraq, about two thirds of its 1.4 million Christians have now fled — being firebombed by the jihadis. Last year, gunmen entered a Baghdad church and killed 58 parishioners. To go

The playwright who became a protestor who became a president, Vaclav Havel, has died today. There is already much on the blogosphere about this Czech great, and there will be more in tomorrow’s papers. But if you only read one thing connected with him, then I’d advise you make it the address he delivered to the Czechoslovakian people on 1 January 1990, which I’ve copied below. It was only a few days after his election as president, yet triumphalism and celebration is there little. Instead, Havel dwells on the horrors his country endured in the Twentieth Century, and — crucially — how they were permitted to come about. It is

Will Durban break the cycle of climate change meetings that repeatedly disappoint those hoping to replace Kyoto with an upgraded model? With so much else on, most people seem to be ignoring the latest summit entirely. Scanning the major newspaper websites, only the Guardian and the Independent mention “Durban” on their homepages.    First Copenhagen failed to live up to the massive hype. Then Cancun continued the stalemate on the big picture and negotiators contented themselves with addressing some relatively minor points. But Kyoto’s commitment period ends at the end of 2012, so those hoping for new mandatory targets can’t content themselves with stalling forever.   Despite the scale of

When David Cameron sits down for lunch with Nicolas Sarkozy today, he is bound to ask his host how the presidential election is going. In response, President Sarkozy is likely to break into one his wide-faced smiles, and begin moving about energetically, as he tends to do when he is excited. Forget the polls that put Francois Hollande ahead in a two-way race. It is too early to tell what people really think and, crucially, it won’t be a two-person race. It is a five-person, two-round election. And so far, Sarkozy is doing very well. Besides Sarkozy and Hollande, four other candidates could make a difference to the outcome: Marine