International politics

A week ago, that would have seemed a foolish question. But after thousands of Egyptians have taken to the streets for two consecutive days of protest, even Hosni Mubarak is beginning to look vulnerable. It has placed the West in a dilemma, in a way that Ben Ali’s fall did not. For years, the fear has been that President Mubarak is the lesser of two evils. Though authoritarian, Mubarak’s Egypt is a pro-Western state willing to live with Israel and combat Islamist terrorism. On the hand, the Muslim Brotherhood opposition, which shares an ideological wellspring with Al Qaeda, is a grave threat to Western security. Unsurprisingly, Hillary Clinton’s first statement

A suicide bomber has killed more than thirty people at Moscow airport. This is the third major terrorist attack on Russian soil in the last year. Islamist groups were responsible for the previous two attacks and, I imagine, will claim proprietorship this one also. It is a telling reminder that the domestic threat faced by Russia and NATO are becoming more aligned, which should lead to greater co-operation between the two in the coming decade. Already, NATO Secretary General, Anders-Fogh Rasmussen (not a man to cower before the pernicious Islamist menace) has said that his organisation will stand together against terrorism.     

William Hague has been visiting Australia in the last couple of days, alongside half of the National Security Council. But you would not know it. Except for a few comments in the blogosphere, there has been little write-up of the visit in the newspapers. In many ways this encapsulates one of the government’s key foreign policy dilemmas. Many of the world¹s problems require cooperation with the US, Europe and the BRICs ­ but especially the BRICs, who, for all their flaws and faults, are the fast-growing countries on the planet. If you want to force an end to Iran¹s illegal nuclear enrichment programme, then you need China. If you have

Since the Iraq War, there has been a protracted silence about whether or not the West should promote democracy and human rights in the Middle East. Predominantly, we have looked away as venal but seemingly stable regimes abuse their citizens, but events in Tunisia have reignited the debate. Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Roger Cohen argues that the West’s support for stability in the Middle East proved in the end a recipe for radicalisation:   “Arab regimes, many of them U.S. allies, have lost touch with young populations. Their ossified, repressive, nepotistic, corrupt systems have proved blind to the awakening stirred by satellite TV networks, Facebook posts, tweets, Web

USO is not what it once was. The days of Bob Hope’s wisecracking have receded into the past, and ogled Playmates no longer sex their way across stages. The Pentagon has commissioned British theatrical talent to educate its troops about Afghanistan’s political culture and history. Performed by the Kilburn Tricycle Theatre, The Great Game is a 7 hour show about Afghanistan’s cycles of invasion, struggle and victory. Presumably if the grunts can withstand that, they can withstand anything. As Ben Macintyre notes in the Times (£), there is neither greatness nor beauty in the games that Western powers have played in Afghanistan. But, unencumbered by imperial guilt and hubristic in

Today, voters in the southern part of Sudan head to the polls in a referendum which will determine whether they should form their own state or remain part of Sudan, Africa’s largest country. Secession – the most likely outcome of the referendum, and called for in the 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between the country’s north and south – would mean that the government in Khartoum could lose not only territory, but also over 80 percent of the revenues it receives from oil exportation, as most of the oil is located in the would-be state of South Sudan. As a result, many fear that bloodshed

As if to illustrate Pete’s post about the rise of China and India, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang has just finished a visit to Spain during which agreements worth 5.7 billion euros were signed. The Chinese delegation is said to have committed itself to buying six billion euros of Spanish debt, which helped calm markets and provided some relief for Spain’s recession-hit economy. Around the time that the Soviet Union collapsed, the Chinese used to say only they could save communism. Twenty years on, it seems only they can save capitalism. The Spanish are certainly in no doubt about the importance of their newfound Chinese friends. The left-leaning Spanish newspaper

Sarah Ellison has profiled Julian Assange and his relationship with the Guardian for Vanity Fair. Read the whole piece for each petulant tantrum, sordid disclosure and twist of hypocrisy, but here are the opening paragraphs to get you started. ‘On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based