International politics

Similar attacks in recent years include the beheading of a Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, on a street in Amsterdam in 2004 and the killing of French soldiers by Mohammed Merah in Toulouse. Over recent years, those who have warned that such attacks would come here have been attacked as ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and — most commonly — ‘Islamophobes’. A refusal to recognise the actual threat (a growingly radicalised Islam) has dominated most of our media and nearly all our political class. Watching this roll out has made me — and most other ordinary people — feel sick. It should always have been obvious where such idiocy and denial would lead.

In the course of a long career as a polemical journalist I have got thoroughly used to being insulted, libelled and attacked in a multitude of different ways. It comes with the territory, and is probably good for the soul. As a general rule the best policy is to allow these assaults to pass by outside the off-stump without playing a stroke. Disputes between journalists tend to be fruitless, self-important and (worst of all) tedious. However, two weeks ago I published a book, co-authored with David Morrison, A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran. Since then my co-author and I have been subject to a series

Could life in Bangladesh be better? Of course it could. Is life in Bangladesh getting better? Of course it is. The horrific death toll after a factory building collapsed in Dhaka last week encourages us to forget this second point. But we should still try and remember it. Sensible advocates for reform and improvement know that globalisation has made an enormous difference to Bangladesh just as it has in many other poor countries. That more could be done to provide safer working conditions is scarcely in doubt. Similarly, you can be in favour of globalisation and still think Bangladeshi textile workers should be able to organise themselves in Trade Unions.

The Prime Minister is giving a speech about immigration on Monday.  I am sure we can all guess the content.  If anybody is interested in a break from this — or indeed if the PM’s speech-writers are curious — perhaps I could humbly recommend this debate I took part in a couple of weeks ago in Athens. The motion was ‘Europe should shut the door on immigration’.  I used my speech and time in Q&A to explain why although we should not slam the door, let alone lock it, Europe urgently needs to wean ourselves off the habit of mass immigration and, at the very least, to give the door

At the (rejuvenated) New Republic, Ben Birnbaum has a comprehensive and comprehensively-depressing survey of the last-gasp prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East ‘peace process’. If the two-state solution (TSS) is not yet on life-support it is hardly a picture of health. The prognosis is not good and time is running out. According to Birnbaum, Mahmoud Abbas and Bibi Netanyahu are, in their different ways, the last remaining men who could make it work. Yet neither man, as he also demonstrates, has much room for manoeuver. The sketched outlines of a deal remain in place (a divided Jerusalem, land-swaps, a symbolic ‘right of return’ for a few thousand

As would-be dictators go, Hugo Chavez was on the clownish end of the repressive spectrum. By the end, however, the joke was wearing thin. He was, as Rory Carroll aptly describes him, an “elected autocrat”. But if you judge a man by the company he keeps, Chavez’s legacy takes a darker turn. In the name of sticking-it-to-the-man (that is, the United States) Chavez chummed himself to most of the world’s ghastliest leaders. And, of course, his hero and father-figure was Fidel Castro, governor of the world’s sunniest island gulag. Meanwhile, in Britain and Ireland, his death has been mourned by George Galloway (who deems Chavez a “modern day Spartacus”), Ken

A Saudi court has sentenced Khaled al-Johani to 18 months in prison for protesting against the regime. His troubles started two years ago when Saudi activists inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt had planned a ‘Day of Rage’. Fearing a popular revolt, the government instructed mosques across the country to warn their congregations against protesting. They also exploited Saudi’s still powerful tribal structure to ensure the incipient rebel movement was undermined. On the day, as police, Special Forces, and intelligence officers swarmed the area no one turned up – except Johani. Johani then launched a one man protest and denounced the government to an assembled scrum of journalists.

Today’s Question To Which the Answer Is No is asked by Will Inboden over at Foreign Policy. To wit: Has Syria Become Obama’s Rwanda? There are many reasons why it has not, not the least of them being that the question rests upon an utterly false premise. According to Inboden, however: In the crucible of policymaking, officials should ask themselves more often how they will look back on the decisions they made while in power. Former President Bill Clinton has repeatedly said that one of his biggest regrets was not intervening in Rwanda. As Obama and the senior members of his national security team consider the memoirs they will inevitably write and