The New Yorker

 A Dubious Pompeo Speech 
for an Empty Trump Foreign Policy

By Robin Wright

On the second night of the Republican National Convention, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is widely known in Washington to have his own Presidential ambitions, broke with long-standing diplomatic tradition and delivered a glowing speech about Donald Trump’s “bold initiatives” in “nearly every corner of the world.” Speaking from the rooftop of a Jerusalem hotel, while on a taxpayer-funded trip through the Middle East, Pompeo praised the President for exposing China’s “predatory aggression,” getting North Korea to the negotiating table, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, and the recent diplomatic opening between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Yet what was most striking about the surprisingly stiff and skimpy speech was how much Trump hasn’t done in four years—and even that at a cost. He’s devastated America’s reputation globally. He’s done little to confront dictators or counter competing powers. And his policies on the defining issues of our time are too often empty, even illusory. In 2020, America is a shell of the nation it once was on the global stage.

As Trump seeks reëlection, some of the toughest criticism on his foreign policy is from other Republicans, including a scathing joint condemnation last week by seventy-five senior Republican officials from four Administrations. “Without question, Trump has denigrated our standing with friends and with foes. They all think less of us,” Richard Armitage, one of the signatories, and the Deputy Secretary of State during the George W. Bush Administration and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration, told me. “Our standing globally has not been this low since the end of the Cold War and probably not since before World War Two. . . . People don’t really care about us. They’re so over us because of this guy.” Read on.... 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/at-the-republican-national-convention-a-vacuous-pompeo-speech-for-an-empty-trump-foreign-policy

The New Yorker

The Miracle of Breeding a Panda Cub During a Pandemic

By Robin Wright

In a year of tortured politics, nationwide protests, and a highly contagious pandemic, our troubled republic finally has something to celebrate. Washington, D.C., has a panda cub. Mei Xiang, a mellow matriarch who weighs in at two hundred and thirty pounds, gave birth to a tiny, hairless pink cub weighing just ounces, at 6:35 p.m. Friday, at the National Zoo. The wee panda, the size of a butter stick, introduced itself with a howling squawk. The birth defied the zoological odds—Mei’s advanced age, the life-long failure of her partner panda, Tian Tian, to figure out how to mate, the zoo’s inability to extract fresh sperm from him fast, and, especially, the many complications from the covid-19 pandemic. A week after the pandemic forced the National Zoo to close, on March 14th, Mei began to ovulate. Most of the zoo’s staff were ordered to stay at home or reduce hours. In a race against time, a small team of reproduction specialists—all willing to risk the rules of social distancing—thawed eight hundred million sperm to artificially inseminate Mei, knowing that it probably wouldn’t work. “It’s overcoming the odds, and if there was ever a need for a sense of overcoming the odds, it’s now,” Brandie Smith, the zoo’s deputy director, told me. “People need this. It’s the story of hope, and the story of success, and the story of joy.” Read on....

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-miracle-of-breeding-a-panda-cub-in-a-pandemic

The New Yorker

Israel's New Peace Deal Transforms the Middle East 

By Robin Wright

In 1982, a Palestinian fighter told me a dark joke on the day that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon forced six thousand P.L.O. guerrillas to retreat on ships for distant lands. The story began with God telling President Ronald Reagan, the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, and the P.L.O. chief, Yasir Arafat, that he would answer one question from each of them. Reagan went first. “How long will it be before capitalism rules the world?” he asked. God replied, “A hundred years.” Reagan began to cry. “Why?” God said. “Because it won’t happen in my lifetime,” the President responded. Brezhnev then asked, “How long will it be before the whole world is Communist?” God replied, “Two hundred years.” Brezhnev began to cry because that, too, wouldn’t happen in his lifetime. Then Arafat asked, “God, how long will it be before there is a state for my people in Palestine?” And God cried.

On Thursday, the White House announced a historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich sheikhdom and long-time ally of the Palestinians, to normalize diplomatic relations. The surprise deal—expected to be signed at a White House ceremony in the coming weeks—will include opening embassies, trade and technology exchanges, direct flights and tourism, and coöperation on energy, security, and intelligence. In Tel Aviv, the city hall lit up with side-by-side flags of Israel and the U.A.E. The Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, invited the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, to visit. Read on...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/israel-peace-deal-united-arab-emirates-transforms-the-middle-east

The New Yorker

 After Twin Explosions, 
an “Apocalypse” in Lebanon

By Robin Wright

Pity Lebanon. The charming Mediterranean nation, smaller than Connecticut, survived a fifteen-year civil war, from 1975 to 1990, that became a battlefield for the entire Middle East—sucking in arms, armies, and issues from around the world. It has endured bombings, hostage-takings, and mass killings by dozens of militias, including the powerful P.L.O. and Hezbollah, both of which used Lebanese soil in order to fight Israel. It has navigated the labyrinthine politics of eighteen religious sects, each officially recognized and allocated proportionate shares of government jobs. It picked up the pieces after the assassinations of Presidents and Prime Ministers, Cabinet members, and Members of Parliament and occupations by Syrian and Israeli troops. It’s been rocked by a series of national protests—from the Cedar Revolution, in 2005, that ousted one government, to the October, 2019, uprising that forced out another Prime Minister. For decades, Lebanon has defied the odds. During an interview on his old Comedy Central show, Stephen Colbert asked me which of the dozen wars that I’ve covered was my favorite. No question: Lebanon and its strife, for my wonderment of that country’s creative, resilient people and its physical beauty as well as the epic political stakes for the country, the region, and the world.

No longer. Lebanon is now on the verge of collapse. It was already a failing state before twin explosions ripped through Beirut’s scenic port, shortly after rush hour began, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The second blast set off a billowing mushroom cloud, reminiscent of a nuclear bomb, and registered seismic waves equivalent to a 3.3-magnitude earthquake. The explosion was heard as far away as Cyprus, an island more than a hundred and twenty miles to the northwest. The Lebanese government appealed to every ambulance in the country to head for Beirut. Read on...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/after-twin-blasts-an-apocalypse-in-lebanon

The New Yorker

 Is America Becoming a Banana Republic?

By Robin Wright

In the early nineteen-hundreds, the American writer O. Henry coined the term “banana republic” in a series of short stories, most famously in one about the fictional country of Anchuria. It was based on his experience in Honduras, where he had fled for a few months, to avoid prosecution in Texas, for embezzling money from the bank where he worked. The term—which originally referred to a politically unstable country run by a dictator and his cronies, with an economy dependent on a single product—took on a life of its own. Over the past century, “banana republic” has evolved to mean any country (with or without bananas) that has a ruthless, corrupt, or just plain loopy leader who relies on the military and destroys state institutions in an egomaniacal quest for prolonged power. I’ve covered plenty of them, including Idi Amin’s Uganda, in the nineteen-seventies, Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya, in the nineteen-eighties, and Carlos Menem’s Argentina, in the nineteen-nineties.

During the heated Presidential campaign of 2016, the term made its way into mainstream American politics, often glibly. President Trump invoked it in October, 2016. “This election will determine whether we remain a free country in the truest sense of the word or we become a corrupt banana republic controlled by large donors and foreign governments,” he told a cheering crowd in Florida. After the second Presidential debate, in October, Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, countered, “Donald Trump thinks that the Presidency is like some banana republic dictatorship where you can lock up your political opponents.” The phrase has become an undercurrent in the national political debate ever since.

Over the past week, however, the President’s response to the escalating protests over the killing of George Floyd has deepened the debate about what is happening to America. Read on....

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-becoming-a-banana-republic