tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69768372065925982592024-03-10T20:23:45.135-07:00Robin WrightAnalysis of international affairs and current crisesRobin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-63192792734702224602021-07-28T14:40:00.000-07:002021-07-28T14:40:04.235-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mandela's Dream for South Africa Is in Ruins</span></span></p><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4513j" data-offset-key="3pae1-0-0" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3pae1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3pae1-0-0" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On June 16, 1976, thousands of Black South African children poured out of their classrooms to peacefully protest the government’s decision to forcibly teach them in Afrikaans, the language of Dutch settlers. As a young foreign correspondent, I covered the chaos as police fired noxious plumes of tear gas and then live bullets at the kids in Soweto, an impoverished Black township outside Johannesburg. The children’s courage, amid poverty and political depravity embedded in national laws, was stunning. This month, South Africa witnessed the worst violence since the end of the apartheid era. Hundreds died; 40,000 business were vandalized or burned. The government eventually had to deploy 25,000 troops to contain the violence around Durban, the port, Johannesburg, the financial hub, and Pretoria, the capital. “It almost brought our country to its knees," a cabinet minister, said. Tragically, South Africa is today among the world’s most unequal countries, the World Bank reported in March. Inequality has only worsened since apartheid formally ended in 1994. Riddled with corruption, divided politically, unsettled by deadly turmoil, and overcome by the pandemic, the state is increasingly unable to address its people’s woes. South Africa teeters. Read on...</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3pae1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3pae1-0-0" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/mandelas-dream-for-south-africa-is-in-ruins">https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/mandelas-dream-for-south-africa-is-in-ruins</a><br /></span></span></div></div><p><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-61515440578302557982021-07-19T15:58:00.001-07:002021-07-19T15:58:24.579-07:00The New Yorker <p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Iran's Hollywood Kidnapping Plot Exposes Its Paranoia</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">At first, Masih Alinejad didn’t believe the F.B.I. The Iranian-born journalist and activist thought that she was safe after going into exile, in 2009, even as government propaganda continued to target her from afar. State television variously reported that she was a drug addict and accused her of being a spy for Western governments. Her parents and siblings, who remained in Iran, were harassed, threatened with loss of employment, and instructed to lure Alinejad to neighboring Turkey for a “family reunion,” so that agents could supposedly “just talk” to her. “Stalin would have been proud,” Alinejad recounted. Her brother, Alireza, warned her about a potential trap. In 2019, he was arrested, and the next year he was sentenced to eight years in prison. He remains in jail.</span></span></p><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="37l1t" data-offset-key="c0jcq-0-0" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c0jcq-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c0jcq-0-0" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yet the warning from the F.B.I., late last year, struck Alinejad—who now has five million followers on Instagram, a million on her Facebook campaign against compulsory hijab, and a show on the Voice of America’s Persian-language service—as too bizarre even for the Islamic Republic. In September, F.B.I. agents showed up at her home in Brooklyn, where she was living with her husband and stepchildren, to report that they had uncovered a plot by Iranian intelligence to kidnap or kill her. “My first reaction was laughing. I was making a joke,” she told me. “I told them, ‘I’m used to it. I received death threats daily on social media.’ ” The agents then revealed that private investigators, allegedly hired by an Iranian intelligence network, had been closely surveilling her for months. They showed her photographs that the operatives had taken of her hourly movements, and also pictures of her family, friends, visitors, home, and even the cars in her neighborhood. “When I saw my photos—they even took pictures of my stepson—I was shocked. I got goosebumps. He’s fourteen,” she said. She agreed to go to a safe house—first one, then another, then a third, over several months. It was the beginning of a series of traumas that included separation from her stepchildren, helping the F.B.I. agents create traps for the Iranian network, and the demise of her unwatered houseplants. Read on...</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c0jcq-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c0jcq-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/irans-kidnapping-plot-exposes-its-paranoia" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/irans-kidnapping-plot-exposes-its-paranoia</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505;"><br /></span></span></div></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-73672321686922804162021-04-09T11:10:00.001-07:002021-04-11T11:15:34.473-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> <b>Why It's So Hard For America to End Its Wars</b></span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For millennia, politicians, from Cicero to Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon, have opined about “peace with honor” to end military engagements; writers, from Shakespeare and Edmund Burke to A. A. Milne, have waxed eloquent on the challenges. Biden is the fourth President to try to achieve it in the Middle East and South Asia in the twenty-first century. There’s a lot of debate in Washington about what he should do—and whether the U.S. should simply pack up and pull out of the region, which is what it did in <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-withdraws-from-vietnam"}" href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-withdraws-from-vietnam" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Vietnam</a>, in 1973, and in <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/31/world/us-withdrawing-its-military-force-on-lebanon-coast.html"}" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/31/world/us-withdrawing-its-military-force-on-lebanon-coast.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Lebanon</a>, in 1984, under pressure from ragtag militias with vintage weaponry who were better strategists and willing to sacrifice more lives. With the pivot to Asia—a.k.a. China—and American energy independence, why stay longer? From a distance, it’s appealing; from the ground, it’s a more challenging call.</span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For Biden, his legacy could be either of two extremes—a President who finally extricated America from quagmires in the messy Middle East, or a leader who ceded ground to <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">isis</span> jihadis and the dictatorial Assad regime in Syria, Sunni extremists and well-armed Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not to mention Russia, which now has access to bases on the Mediterranean, in Syria, and in Libya, farther west than it’s ever been. Biden’s legacy will shape America’s legacy, too. Read on....</span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-its-so-hard-for-america-to-end-its-wars"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-its-so-hard-for-america-to-end-its-wars</span></a><br /></span></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-53957239318959129342021-03-23T23:32:00.001-07:002021-03-24T23:41:02.656-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: x-large;"> On Afghanistan, An Anguishing Choice about Withdrawing Troops</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 22px; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: white;">Five factors will influence the U.S. role and the prospects for peace after two decades of war.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="color: white;">By Robin Wright </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="color: white;">There’s a prophetic scene at the end of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the film that chronicles a flamboyant Texas congressman (played by Tom Hanks) and a rogue C.I.A. agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman) mobilizing what was then the largest U.S. covert intelligence operation in history. Operation Cyclone facilitated the training, arming, and empowering of the Afghan mujahideen—holy warriors—to fight the Soviet Union in the nineteen-eighties. America’s proxies prevailed, in the sense that the Soviets realized that their decade-long presence had become too costly—financially, politically, and militarily—and that they couldn’t achieve their goals. “What, are we going to sit there forever?” the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly told the Politburo in 1986. “Or should we be ending this war? Otherwise, we’ll disgrace ourselves in every respect.” In 1989, after losing more than fourteen thousand troops and spending at least fifty billion dollars, the Soviets withdrew. They just wanted out of an unpopular war. Afghanistan soon collapsed into a civil war that pitted rival warlords against one another, until the Taliban seized power, in 1996, imposed strict Islamic law, and welcomed other jihadis such as Al Qaeda. After Al Qaeda’s attacks in 2001, U.S. forces helped their Afghan allies to topple the Taliban. A new U.S.-backed government was ensconced in Kabul.</span></span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Two decades later, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/joe-biden" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Joe Biden</a> now faces an anguishing choice over whether to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/last-exit-from-afghanistan" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">withdraw</a> the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1st. The deadline is part of an agreement brokered by the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/trump-administration" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Trump Administration</a> with the Taliban a year ago. Like Gorbachev, Biden clearly wants to go—and has, for more than a decade. In 2010, when he was Vice-President, he promised a pullout. “We’re starting it in July of 2011, and we’re going to be totally out of there—come hell or high water—by 2014,” Biden vowed, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Last year, in an <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again"}" href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">article</a> in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Foreign Affair</em>s, he wrote, “It is past time to end the forever wars.” <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/19/americans-are-not-unanimously-war-weary-on-afghanistan/"}" href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/19/americans-are-not-unanimously-war-weary-on-afghanistan/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Recent polls</a> indicate that Americans are largely ambivalent about or uninterested in Afghanistan; twenty to thirty per cent of respondents in recent surveys didn’t even bother to answer about a pullout. The national fury spurred by the trauma of the 9/11 attacks has evaporated.</span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Yet walking away isn’t so easy. Even after an investment of more than a trillion dollars, the U.S. hasn’t fully achieved the goals of its longest war, either. Navigating a way out—especially securing a comprehensive peace agreement—is proving to be messy and potentially deadly, too. In an interview with ABC News last week, Biden conceded that it may be “tough” to withdraw. He has no good choices; neither does the U.S. military, which has reduced troop levels from fifteen thousand when the U.S.-Taliban pact was signed a year ago to around three thousand today. If American troops withdraw, almost <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/2/pdf/2021-02-RSM-Placemat.pdf"}" href="https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/2/pdf/2021-02-RSM-Placemat.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">ten thousand <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">nato</span> troops</a> from thirty-six nations and more than <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.businessinsider.com/more-us-contractors-have-died-in-afghanistan-than-us-troops-2019-12"}" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/more-us-contractors-have-died-in-afghanistan-than-us-troops-2019-12" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">twenty-four thousand contractors</a> who support the Afghan state and military are almost certain to <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-taliban-peace-deal-agreement-afghanistan-war"}" href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-taliban-peace-deal-agreement-afghanistan-war" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">leave</a>, too.</span></p><div class="ad ad--in-content" style="-webkit-box-align: center; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--in-content" data-node-id="gqyfwe" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 575px; width: 575px;"></div></div><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">On a rainy day in Kabul last week, the military headquarters of U.S. and <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">nato</span> troops in Afghanistan was a spooky place. You have to take a military helicopter from the airport to the nearby compound because driving is unsafe. The complex is surrounded by layers of concrete blast walls topped with barbed wire. Haunting murals adorn the barricades. One features a giant painting of a woman in uniform captioned, in black stencilled letters, “<span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">afghan female police a force for good</span>.” Another advertises the Invictus Games, for wounded warriors. More than a hundred thousand Afghans, twenty-three hundred Americans, and hundreds of soldiers from <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">nato</span> countries have died in the twenty-year conflict; another twenty thousand Americans have been injured.</span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Biden’s decision will be influenced by five factors, according to current and former U.S. officials whom I interviewed in Afghanistan and the United States. The first is whether frantic last-ditch diplomacy will salvage peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. As the U.S. deadline to withdraw approaches, the Administration is throwing spaghetti at the diplomatic wall to see if anything will stick. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/blinken-warns-afghanistans-ghani-dire-consequences-without-urgent-changes"}" href="https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/blinken-warns-afghanistans-ghani-dire-consequences-without-urgent-changes" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">wrote</a> a blunt letter to the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, demanding that he “understand the urgency of my tone,” and calling for his “urgent leadership.” The peace talks, hosted by Qatar, have deadlocked since they started in September of last year as a sequel to the U.S. deal with the Taliban that February. In a new set of proposals, Blinken recommended creating an interim government in which the Taliban and current Afghan leaders share power. It sounded more like an ultimatum than a proposal.</span></p><p class="paywall" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Read on....History is at stake!</span></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-28256029500366293412021-02-05T09:22:00.001-08:002021-02-05T09:22:53.822-08:00The New Yorker <p><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b style="background-color: #073763;">The World Likes Biden But Doubts the U.S. Can Reclaim Global Leadership</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"> <span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe Biden’s “first love,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, mused this week, “is foreign policy.” His lifelong interest showed on Thursday when the President, just two weeks in office, addressed the world from the State Department, on his first foray to a federal agency. President Trump only ventured the five blocks to the State Department once, in 2018, sixteen months after taking office, and only for the ceremonial swearing-in of Mike Pompeo, his second Secretary of State. Biden’s speech marked the beginning of his long schlep to repair America’s place in the world after Trump. “America is back,” Biden vowed. “We are a country that does big things. American diplomacy makes it happen. And our Administration is ready to take up the mantle and lead once again.” </span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"> But noble goals and principled intentions alone won’t solve the problem of America’s depleted international standing. The world likes Joe Biden but doubts whether America can reclaim its global leadership role. Read on....</span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-world-likes-biden-but-doubts-the-us-can-reclaim-global-leadership"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-world-likes-biden-but-doubts-the-us-can-reclaim-global-leadership</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-4492868537606460232021-01-22T08:57:00.001-08:002021-01-22T08:57:17.984-08:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> The Awe and Anguish of Being an American Today</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"><b><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", serif; font-size: 28pt;">T</span></b><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", serif; font-size: 16pt;">he lofty language and political togetherness of
Joe Biden’s Inauguration made for a day to believe, again, in America and the
idea of sharing power, even among people who disagree about almost everything.
Listening to the enchanting young poet <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/amanda-gormans-inaugural-poem-is-a-stunning-vision-of-democracy">Amanda Gorman</a>, I got a little weepy as she told
us, “While democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently
defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust.” Lady Gaga’s powerful
rendition of our <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/key-pens-star-spangled-banner" target="_blank">anthem</a>—pounding home the
line “Our flag was still there”—was as relevant to the treasonous challenge to
Congress this month as it was when British warships bombarded Fort McHenry, in
1814. On the very site of an insurrection that, two weeks earlier, threatened
our union and resulted in five deaths, Joe Biden, our new President, promised
that “democracy has prevailed.” His optimistic energy was infectious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: white;">The problem, after any Inauguration, is all those other days. We
need to be honest with ourselves about the health of our democracy. America has
made gradual progress, no doubt. We are evolving, albeit with millions still
denying the election results. On Wednesday, a woman born to Black and South
Asian parents took the oath of office for the Vice-Presidency from a Latina
Supreme Court Justice, another woman. “We dream. We shoot for the moon,” Kamala
Harris said on Wednesday night. “We are undaunted in our belief that we will
overcome.” Others will surely feel the same way. Biden has appointed the most
diverse staff in history—men and a record number of women; Blacks, whites, and
a Native American; a gay man and a transgender woman—who finally represent the
splendid diversity of our land.</span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: white;">Yet we are still vulnerable to the selfish and voracious demands
by many for more rights than others who are legally their equals. And to the
belief in an alternative truth untethered to reality. During
this sacred transition, some twenty-five thousand troops were deployed in my
beloved Washington, D.C., in concentric circles, in an area of only five square
miles—four times as many personnel as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria combined.
On Inauguration Day, there was still <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/19/958472409/klobuchar-on-inauguration-day-security" target="_blank">spray paint</a> on the
Capitol’s marble columns—“A chilling reminder of what happened there just two
weeks ago,” Senator Amy Klobuchar told NPR. Amid the calls to mend fences, the
most striking images of the day were new fences, topped with prickly barbed
wire, which prevented the public from participating in the celebration of their
votes. Read on.... <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-awe-and-anguish-of-being-an-american-today"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-awe-and-anguish-of-being-an-american-today</span></a><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-15924473527899605752021-01-18T07:26:00.001-08:002021-01-19T07:32:16.401-08:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Biden Faces More Aggressive Rivals and a Fraying World Order</span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-size: medium;">n a recent conversation, Sir John Scarlett, the elegant former spymaster of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, or M.I.6, pondered the foreign-policy challenges facing Joe Biden when he enters the White House—and the jarring differences since he left it four years ago. The bottom line, Scarlett told me, is that America’s adversaries are now “more assertive, aggressive, and self-confident.” Many of the threats were building in 2017, but they have escalated exponentially. As Biden returns to power in 2021, the variety and depth of hazards facing the United States—from nations and non-state militias, jihadi terrorists, drug lords, criminal syndicates, and hackers—are greater than at any time since the U.S. became a superpower after the Second World War.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">From the beginning of the republic, not one of America’s forty-five previous Presidents has had it easy when he took office. Poor George Washington had to create the Presidency in a war-ravaged nation that was little more than a political experiment with limited financial resources, raging feuds among the Founding Fathers, and no international presence. America was so polarized when Abraham Lincoln took office that South Carolina had already seceded, and Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee soon followed. Woodrow Wilson simultaneously faced the First World War and the influenza pandemic, which killed more than a half million Americans and almost felled him, too. Franklin Roosevelt inherited the Great Depression and was then confronted by the Second World War.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Biden inherits a mess on both the domestic and international fronts, compounded by a pandemic that has produced mass death, rampant unemployment, and a global economic crisis. Read on....</span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/biden-faces-more-aggressive-rivals-and-a-fraying-world-order"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/biden-faces-more-aggressive-rivals-and-a-fraying-world-order</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-35900900855402983202021-01-08T08:23:00.000-08:002021-01-08T08:23:01.406-08:00The New Yorker <p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"> <span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">The World Shook as America Raged</span></span></p><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="20t8p-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="20t8p-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="20t8p-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">One of the darkest days in American history played out in a barely two-square-mile area, but it rippled across the globe. Authoritarian leaders were gleeful about the chaos in the world’s most powerful democracy. As armed insurrectionists, white supremacists, and rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the Foreign Minister of Venezuela—a failing state with rival claims to the Presidency, and shortages of power, food, and medicine—tweeted a warning about political polarization in the United States. With more than a whiff of Schadenfreude, Jorge Arreaza wished Americans well in finding “a new path towards stability and social justice.”</span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="boraf-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="boraf-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="boraf-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="enlh0-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="enlh0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="enlh0-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">Officials in Turkey, which has witnessed a dramatic erosion of democracy amid arrests of dissidents and journalists, called on all parties in Washington “to maintain restraint and prudence”—and then warned its own citizens in the United States to avoid crowded places. Iranian state television ran live coverage of the chaos at the Capitol, with a running ticker underneath, as Hossein Dehghan, a former Revolutionary Guard and a Presidential candidate in the upcoming June election, tweeted, “The world is watching the American dream.” The Russian deputy U.N. Ambassador compared the turmoil in Washington, D.C., to the 2014 protests in Kyiv that toppled the Ukrainian government. On social media platforms like Telegram, supporters of isis and Al Qaeda celebrated the turmoil in the United States. An isis publication predicted that America would be consumed with turmoil for the next four years.</span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="4go8c-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4go8c-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4go8c-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="5gnrb-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5gnrb-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5gnrb-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">America’s allies were also appalled—and posted their own undiplomatic admonitions on social media. Boris Johnson, a long-standing ally and personal friend of Donald Trump’s, chastised the President. “I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol,” he said. The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, insisted that “the American people’s will and vote must be respected.” In a tweet, the Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, condemned the “shocking” scenes out of Washington. “We must call this out for what it is: a deliberate assault on Democracy by a sitting President & his supporters, attempting to overturn a free & fair election! The world is watching!” Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, appealed directly to the President. “Dear Donald Trump, recognise Joe Biden as the next president today.”</span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="6m7tc-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6m7tc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6m7tc-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4rqsk" data-offset-key="2d44g-0-0" style="font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2d44g-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2d44g-0-0" style="background-color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">Worldwide, the broader question was about the impact on the credibility of liberal democracy if it could produce such turmoil in a country known for its strong institutions, laws, and checks and balances. Read on....</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2d44g-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2d44g-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-world-shook-as-america-raged"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-world-shook-as-america-raged</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505;"><br /></span></span></div></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-51900898104390586112021-01-04T14:57:00.001-08:002021-01-05T15:02:42.497-08:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-large;">Biden Faces a Minefield in New Diplomacy with Iran</span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">By Robin Wright</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 21px;">Joe Biden knows Iran better than any American President since its 1979 revolution. He has personally dealt with its top officials—a few of them for decades. “When I was Iran’s representative to the U.N., I had several meetings with Biden,” the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/irans-foreign-minister-invited-to-meet-trump-in-the-oval-office" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Mohammad Javad Zarif</a><span style="font-size: 21px;">, </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://ifpnews.com/zarif-says-his-relationship-with-biden-based-on-mutual-respect"}" href="https://ifpnews.com/zarif-says-his-relationship-with-biden-based-on-mutual-respect" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">acknowledged</a><span style="font-size: 21px;"> after the U.S. election, in an interview with Entekhab, a Tehran publication. The two aren’t exactly friends. Their meetings “can be described as professional relations based on mutual respect,” Zarif said. But Biden does have the Iranian’s personal e-mail address, as well as his cell-phone number.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 21px;">As one of his first acts on foreign policy, Biden wants to renew diplomacy with the Islamic Republic—and reёnter the </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/tehrans-promise" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">nuclear accord</a><span style="font-size: 21px;"> that President </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-will-a-vengeful-president-do-to-the-world-in-his-final-weeks" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Donald Trump</a><span style="font-size: 21px;"> abandoned in 2018. “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations,” Biden </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/smarter-way-to-be-tough-on-iran-joe-biden/index.html"}" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/smarter-way-to-be-tough-on-iran-joe-biden/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">wrote</a><span style="font-size: 21px;">, in an essay for CNN, in September. Yet the President-elect already faces a minefield over basic issues—such as, what exactly is “compliance”? Who moves first? And how? And what about all those other flash points not in the 2015 accord—Iran’s growing array of missiles, its proxy militias and political meddling, which have extended Tehran’s influence across the Middle East, and the regime’s flagrant human-rights abuses?</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; font-size: 21px;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">After Biden is inaugurated, he will have only a sliver of time—six to eight weeks—to jump-start the process before the political calendar in Iran threatens to derail potential diplomacy over the nuclear deal, Read on....</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 21px;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/biden-faces-a-minefield-in-new-diplomacy-with-iran"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/biden-faces-a-minefield-in-new-diplomacy-with-iran</span></a><br /></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-77636116464249892642020-11-30T15:03:00.001-08:002021-01-05T15:07:21.160-08:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-large;">Why the Assassination of a Scientist Will Have No Impact on Iran’s Nuclear Program</span></span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">By Robin Wright</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The roadside assassination, last week, of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was an elaborate intelligence operation that <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-scientist-killed.html"}" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-scientist-killed.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">played out</a> like a blockbuster thriller, according to unusually candid accounts by the Iranian media. Fakhrizadeh, who was around sixty and had a graying beard, and also a bit of a paunch, has often been compared to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of America’s atomic bomb, and <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://carnegieendowment.org/2005/09/07/a.-q.-khan-nuclear-chronology-pub-17420"}" href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2005/09/07/a.-q.-khan-nuclear-chronology-pub-17420" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">A. Q. Khan</a>, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Fakhrizadeh had enough secrets in his head that he was followed around by a team of bodyguards; he also held the title of <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2018/05/23/Mohsen-Fakrizadeh-The-Father-of-Iranian-regime-s-nuclear-bomb"}" href="https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2018/05/23/Mohsen-Fakrizadeh-The-Father-of-Iranian-regime-s-nuclear-bomb" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">brigadier general</a>.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The attack provoked fury in Iran, breathless headlines around the world, and a lot of speculation about retaliation, which could, in turn, spark a mini-war. No one claimed responsibility. But the hit, which required detailed intelligence about a secretive official’s weekend plans, his timing, and his route, mirrored four previous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Carried out between 2010 and 2012, the previous operations were widely associated with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The glaring irony of the sensational operation is that it will probably have a negligible impact on Iran’s nuclear program. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 21px;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-assassination-of-a-scientist-will-have-no-impact-on-irans-nuclear-program"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-assassination-of-a-scientist-will-have-no-impact-on-irans-nuclear-program</span></a><br /></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-49848020434323304252020-11-25T22:55:00.001-08:002020-12-16T23:06:19.194-08:00The New Yorker<h1 class="content-header__row content-header__hed" data-testid="ContentHeaderHed" style="--type-token-name: consumptionEditorial.hed-standard; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; grid-column: 1 / span 8; line-height: 1.13009em; margin: 20px 0px 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Our Brains Explain the Season’s Sadness</span></h1><p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’ve been consumed this fall with a melancholy sadness. It’s different from the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-loneliness-from-coronavirus-isolation-takes-its-own-toll" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">loneliness</a> that I felt in the early stage of the pandemic, during the lockdown, when I took a picture of my shadow after a neighborhood walk failed to jumpstart exercise endorphins. Eleven months after <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">covid</span>-19 spread globally, and during what would otherwise be a joyous Thanksgiving, my sorrow, and surely the emotion of many others, is more complicated. Studies by health-care professionals show that our emotional challenges, from anxiety and depression to anger and fear, have been deepened by the pandemic. In June, just three months into a historic health crisis, a <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://healthcrisisalert.com/news/21848-cdc-40-percent-of-american-adults-report-struggling-with-mental-health-issues-or-substance-use/"}" href="https://healthcrisisalert.com/news/21848-cdc-40-percent-of-american-adults-report-struggling-with-mental-health-issues-or-substance-use/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">survey</a> by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm"}" href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">forty per cent</a> of Americans were already struggling with at least one mental-health issue. Among young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, one in four had thought about committing suicide during the previous thirty days. By July, more than half of Americans over the age of eighteen said their mental health had been negatively affected by emotions evoked during the pandemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/one-in-four-older-adults-report-anxiety-or-depression-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic/"}" href="https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/one-in-four-older-adults-report-anxiety-or-depression-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">found</a>. In October, A.A.R.P. reported that two-thirds of Americans felt increased anxiety.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">For Americans, the pandemic’s spring scourge intersected with appalling human tragedies and unprecedented political rancor over the summer: the racial tension and unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd, in the Midwest; soaring unemployment, business shutdowns, and hunger nationwide; the raging wildfires in the West and record-setting tropical storms in the South; and a bizarre and bitter Presidential campaign. Each calamity intensified our emotional state. Now, our anxieties are further compounded by holidays without loved ones—at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah, then the New Year—and by the numbing rate of coronavirus infections and the darkening hours of winter. </span></p><div class="ad ad--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px; max-width: 575px; width: 575px;"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Cheer up. Just understanding the phenomenon—and the science of the brain that copes with crisis—helps a lot. In an excellent and timely new book, “<a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.amazon.com/Apollos-Arrow-Profound-Enduring-Coronavirus/dp/0316628212"}" href="https://www.amazon.com/Apollos-Arrow-Profound-Enduring-Coronavirus/dp/0316628212?ots=1&slotNum=0&imprToken=babb37bd-410b-9fb1-805&tag=thneyo0f-20&linkCode=w50" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live</a>,” Nicholas Christakis writes that epidemics also produce fear and grief that “can themselves be contagious, forming a kind of parallel epidemic.” Christakis, a sociologist and physician who directs the Human Nature Lab, at Yale, described a phenomenon called “the cascades of grief.” He told me, “If the plague is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, then grief is its squire.” Christakis quoted the Greek general and historian Thucydides, who noted during a plague in the fifth century B.C. that “the most terrible feature in the malady” was public despair.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">This year’s simultaneous health, social, natural, and political crises have produced psychological phases, almost like seasons, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, told me. “Early on, I saw a lot of solidarity,” she said. It was visible when people took to their balconies or streets during the first phase of the pandemic to bang pots in support of medical workers and first responders. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">But over the summer, fatigue and denial set in. Holt-Lunstad explained, “Initially, we all hoped that the pandemic was a short-term pause in life, but it lasted much longer than many anticipated.” Social distancing and other restrictions exhausted patience and increased frustration; some got tired of complying, and others took them as an affront to personal freedoms. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">The way our feelings bounce biologically off social networks is primitive and ancient, Christakis told me. “Our emotions have a collective existence. They depend not only on your own genes and experiences. They also depend on the biochemistry, genetics, physiology, thoughts, feelings, and actions of the people to whom we are directly—or even indirectly—connected.” Our emotional state depends on what’s happening around us. “It’s the same with the germ and the same with emotions,” he said. And it’s not limited to humans. Other species experience it as well. “If you map the social networks of elephants, you find that they are structurally the same as among humans—and our last common ancestor is from eighty-five million years ago,” he said. Read on...</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/our-brains-explain-the-seasons-sadness ">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/our-brains-explain-the-seasons-sadness </a><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-45146299127059070922020-11-19T09:40:00.002-08:002020-11-20T09:44:43.376-08:00The New Yorker <p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="font-family: georgia;">What Will A Vengeful President </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">Do to The World in His Final Weeks?</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-offset-key="bkq7e-0-0"><span data-text="true">Donald</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="bkq7e-1-0" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"> Trump, whose mood in his final weeks varies from sulking to spiteful, seems to be plotting to rescue his own image by derailing the Presidency of the man who defeated him. Joe Biden was already going to inherit a world far more dangerous than it was four years ago, but Trump’s final acts on foreign policy threaten to slow, complicate, or stymie Biden’s attempts to stabilize the country and the world.</span></span></span></p><p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-will-a-vengeful-president-do-to-the-world-in-his-final-weeks"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-will-a-vengeful-president-do-to-the-world-in-his-final-weeks</span></a><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-85139774625509779462020-11-11T09:45:00.001-08:002020-11-20T09:50:15.660-08:00<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">The Seven Pillars of Biden’s Foreign Policy</span></span></p><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Anne Hidalgo, the first female mayor of Paris, succinctly framed the global reaction to<span> </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/joe-biden" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Joe Biden</a>’s election. “Welcome back America,” she<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1325115998966607873"}" href="https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1325115998966607873" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">tweeted</a>. For all the past resentment, envy, or fear of American power, most long-standing allies, and even many adversaries, have yearned for an end to the unnerving pettiness, whimsy, and personality-driven policies of<span> </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">Donald Trump</a>. “Almost all countries are happier with Biden than Trump, even those that made it look like they were close to him, like Japan,” Robin Niblett, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, or Chatham House, in London, told me. “Trump’s unpredictability and reliance on bilateral bullying to get his way built up deep resentment.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The President-elect may prove more popular abroad than he is at home, partly because of his global experience. Between his first election to the Senate, in 1972, and becoming Vice-President, in 2009, Biden did two stints as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, travelled for decades to conflict hot spots and disaster zones, and met with nearly a hundred and fifty foreign leaders from almost five dozen countries. The President-elect is a well-known commodity. So are his views.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><inline-embed childtypes="" name="dropcap" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></inline-embed></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“Certainly Biden is the most well-versed American President in the sausage-making process of foreign policy, and in terms of learning about every country and how each functions,” Douglas Brinkley, a scholar of the Presidency at Rice University, told me. “Nobody’s had the experience on foreign policy that Biden has had.” </span></p><p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-seven-pillars-of-bidens-foreign-policy"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-seven-pillars-of-bidens-foreign-policy</span></a><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-50358497912740382632020-10-07T14:42:00.001-07:002020-10-07T14:42:35.276-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> America, the Infected and Vulnerable</span></p><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Just as the White House became an epicenter of the<span> </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/coronavirus" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;">pandemic</a><span> </span>and congressional negotiations on the ailing economy collapsed, the Pentagon made its own startling announcement on Tuesday. The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and other services—went into quarantine for two weeks. These are not only commanders who control the world’s mightiest military, run wars, order bombings, and authorize special-operations raids; they are part of the most consistent and sane wing of the American government right now.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Joint Chiefs are the highest-ranking members of the military to be impacted by the pandemic, but far from the only ones. As of Wednesday morning, almost seventy thousand members or employees of the military—who put their lives at risk daily to protect the country—have been infected, the Pentagon <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.defense.gov/explore/spotlight/coronavirus/"}" href="https://www.defense.gov/explore/spotlight/coronavirus/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">reported</a> on a special Web site about <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">covid</span>-19. Almost <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://secure-web.cisco.com/1aULC-IX52_zCDvjOCJvcljT7qivJFCXoFEArJ1CxUVMR0UlBDIyg7bAcux2AKtlqfFSdOqVJk0PXXRCDh4-ccWpwkDAxygcv8syiZSXDwpdC-uyV0Fb2mBeiobGqgWPTRe4O7F5x_qWQWc87P6iT07whumXCFFV-awKdyZvn4ShrwbNr7Hoz2HulDokUesAoq-LmjN-ZIe67ldKVOwX2J93xxs_cdiFOSLs2or1mEuT97yzDVwQwJOoGxKAuU1bcOp-tL7dpf_mCOXxqh7yEEwo9JUmgMd9yv42bIsrN18Pj6iaWVR1n-CSYt77pSS42C5mN28-Msw8C-jZqRxF4VK8ghftLYOim49wC1adn1Ig/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.defense.gov%2F2020%2FOct%2F07%2F2002513023%2F-1%2F-1%2F0%2FCOVID_19_TRAVEL_RESTRICTIONS_INSTALLATION_STATUS_UPDATE_OCT_7_2020.PDF%3Fsource%3DGovDelivery"}" href="https://secure-web.cisco.com/1aULC-IX52_zCDvjOCJvcljT7qivJFCXoFEArJ1CxUVMR0UlBDIyg7bAcux2AKtlqfFSdOqVJk0PXXRCDh4-ccWpwkDAxygcv8syiZSXDwpdC-uyV0Fb2mBeiobGqgWPTRe4O7F5x_qWQWc87P6iT07whumXCFFV-awKdyZvn4ShrwbNr7Hoz2HulDokUesAoq-LmjN-ZIe67ldKVOwX2J93xxs_cdiFOSLs2or1mEuT97yzDVwQwJOoGxKAuU1bcOp-tL7dpf_mCOXxqh7yEEwo9JUmgMd9yv42bIsrN18Pj6iaWVR1n-CSYt77pSS42C5mN28-Msw8C-jZqRxF4VK8ghftLYOim49wC1adn1Ig/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.defense.gov%2F2020%2FOct%2F07%2F2002513023%2F-1%2F-1%2F0%2FCOVID_19_TRAVEL_RESTRICTIONS_INSTALLATION_STATUS_UPDATE_OCT_7_2020.PDF%3Fsource%3DGovDelivery" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">forty per cent</a> of the two hundred and thirty-one U.S. military installations around the world still face travel restrictions because of the pandemic. From multiple angles, including the fact that President Trump is also Commander-in-Chief, the coronavirus is now a genuine national-security threat for the United States. And the rest of the world knows it. The potential dangers abound. Read on....</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/america-the-infected-and-vulnerable"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/america-the-infected-and-vulnerable</span></a><br /></span></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-22174691119357297762020-10-04T14:43:00.001-07:002020-10-07T14:51:38.810-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-size: x-large;">Presidential Illnesses Have Change the Course of World History</span></span></p><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-size: medium;">he world might be a different place if American Presidents had not been felled by disease or hidden debilitating conditions. In February, 1945, just two months before his death, President<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-d-roosevelt/"}" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-d-roosevelt/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Franklin Roosevelt</a>—paralyzed by polio, weakened by congestive heart failure, and with his blood pressure hitting 260/150—travelled all the way to Yalta, a resort on the Crimean coast, to<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/yalta-conference"}" href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/yalta-conference" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">meet</a><span> </span>the Soviet Premier, Joseph Stalin, and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. F.D.R. was by then a shell of a man, with skin hanging from his bones, raccoon rings around his eyes, and hands that often shook. But he agreed to the six-thousand-mile journey because the final phase of the Second World War and its aftermath were at stake. He wanted Stalin’s coöperation on a new international organization to foster peace, principles for governing countries liberated from Nazi rule in Europe, and military help in the Pacific theatre against Japan.</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: medium;">In the<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116176.pdf?v=66b99cbbf4a1b8de10c56b38cf4fc50d"}" href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116176.pdf?v=66b99cbbf4a1b8de10c56b38cf4fc50d" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">Yalta Declaration</a>, the three leaders set the stage—or so Roosevelt thought—for the postwar world. They agreed to Stalin’s request to divvy up Germany, Roosevelt’s dream of the United Nations, and to ceding chunks of Asia to the Soviet sphere. The most sensitive point was the fate of Eastern Europe after liberation from the Nazis. The three leaders<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-yalta-conference-at-seventy-five-lessons-from-history/"}" href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-yalta-conference-at-seventy-five-lessons-from-history/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">pledged</a><span> </span>to allow those countries to form governments “representative of all democratic elements” and to facilitate imminent and free elections. Stalin specifically agreed to early elections in strategic Poland, which had been liberated by Soviet troops, and to allow non-Communist members to participate. Upon his return home, Roosevelt gave a<span> </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-1-1945-address-congress-yalta"}" href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-1-1945-address-congress-yalta" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: underline; transition: color 200ms ease 0s;" target="_blank">speech</a><span> </span>to Congress extolling the “unanimous” agreements with Moscow. “Never before have the major Allies been more closely united—not only in their war aims but also in their peace aims,” he boasted. More important than the agreement, he said, “We achieved a unity of thought and a way of getting along together.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: medium;">Except that Stalin reneged on his commitments, as well as on the spirit of Yalta, in ways that shaped the next half century. Read on....</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/presidential-illnesses-have-changed-the-course-of-world-history">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/presidential-illnesses-have-changed-the-course-of-world-history</a><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-53524087382910074082020-09-08T08:01:00.006-07:002020-09-18T11:49:20.804-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; font-size: x-large;"><b> Is America a Myth?</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763;">By Robin Wright</span></p><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The United States feels like it is unraveling. It’s not just because of a toxic election season, a national crisis over race, unemployment and hunger in the land of opportunity, or a pandemic that’s killing tens of thousands every month. The foundation of our nation has deepening cracks—possibly too many to repair anytime soon, or, perhaps, at all. The ideas and imagery of America face existential challenges—some with reason, some without—that no longer come only from the fringes. Rage consumes many in America. And it may only get worse after the election, and for the next four years, no matter who wins. Our political and cultural fissures have generated growing doubt about the stability of a country that long considered itself an anchor, a model, and an exception to the rest of the world. Scholars, political scientists, and historians even posit that trying to unite disparate states, cultures, ethnic groups, and religions was always illusory.</span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“The idea that America has a shared past going back into the colonial period is a myth,” Colin Woodard, the author of "Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood," told me. “We are very different Americas, each with different origin stories and value sets, many of which are incompatible. They led to a Civil War in the past and are a potentially incendiary force in the future.” Read on..<span style="color: #f1c232;">.. </span></span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-a-myth" style="font-size: 21px;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-a-myth</span></a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-31561501227003020372020-08-26T09:47:00.001-07:002020-09-18T10:00:14.485-07:00The New Yorker<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">A Dubious Pompeo Speech <br /></span></span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">for an Empty Trump Foreign Policy</span></span></h1><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span><span style="font-size: medium;">n 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.</span></span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As Trump seeks reëlection, some of the toughest criticism on his foreign policy is from other Republicans, including a scathing joint <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/"}" href="https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">condemnation</a> 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,” <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.csis.org/people/richard-l-armitage"}" href="https://www.csis.org/people/richard-l-armitage" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Richard Armitage</a>, 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.... </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/at-the-republican-national-convention-a-vacuous-pompeo-speech-for-an-empty-trump-foreign-policy" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/at-the-republican-national-convention-a-vacuous-pompeo-speech-for-an-empty-trump-foreign-policy</span></a><br /></span></p></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-37062234390533308852020-08-22T10:00:00.002-07:002020-09-18T11:48:42.664-07:00The New Yorker<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Miracle of Breeding a Panda Cub During a Pandemic</b></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n 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 <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">p.m.</span> 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 <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">covid</span>-19 pandemic. A week after the pandemic forced the National Zoo to <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-museums-and-national-zoo-close-march-14"}" href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-museums-and-national-zoo-close-march-14" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">close</a></span><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;">, 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....</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"> </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-miracle-of-breeding-a-panda-cub-in-a-pandemic"><span style="color: #f1c232;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-miracle-of-breeding-a-panda-cub-in-a-pandemic</span></a></span></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-23576121210916368372020-08-14T11:07:00.000-07:002020-09-18T11:12:38.025-07:00The New Yorker<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white;">Israel's New Peace Deal Transforms the Middle East </span></span></h1><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">n 1982, a Palestinian fighter <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0122/orob.html"}" href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0122/orob.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">told</a> 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.</span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">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...</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/israel-peace-deal-united-arab-emirates-transforms-the-middle-east"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: medium;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/israel-peace-deal-united-arab-emirates-transforms-the-middle-east</span></a><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 21px;"><br /></p></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-12182464917979539122020-08-05T11:14:00.001-07:002020-09-18T11:46:57.170-07:00The New Yorker<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> After Twin Explosions, <br /></span></span><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">an “Apocalypse” in Lebanon</span></span></b></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">P</span><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ity 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 <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://tavaana.org/en/en/content/cedar-revolution-lebanon-0"}" href="https://tavaana.org/en/en/content/cedar-revolution-lebanon-0" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Cedar Revolution</a>, in 2005, that ousted one government, to the October, 2019, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-making-of-lebanons-october-revolution" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">uprising</a> 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.</span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">No longer. Lebanon is now on the verge of collapse. It was already a failing state before twin explosions <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast/toll-expected-to-rise-in-blast-that-shook-beirut-killing-78-and-injuring-thousands-idUSKCN25107B"}" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast/toll-expected-to-rise-in-blast-that-shook-beirut-killing-78-and-injuring-thousands-idUSKCN25107B" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">ripped through</a> Beirut’s scenic port, shortly after rush hour began, at 6 <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">p.m.</span> 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...</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 21px;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/after-twin-blasts-an-apocalypse-in-lebanon" style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/after-twin-blasts-an-apocalypse-in-lebanon</span></a><br /></p></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-6728893403990477012020-08-04T11:49:00.000-07:002020-09-18T11:56:13.218-07:00The New Yorker <p><b style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> Is America Becoming a Banana Republic?</span></b></p><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></span></div><div><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n the early nineteen-hundreds, the American writer O. Henry coined the term “banana republic” in a series of <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/the-admiral"}" href="https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/the-admiral" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">short stories</a>, most famously in one about the fictional country of Anchuria. It was based on his <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/where-we-got-term-banana-republic-180961813/"}" href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/where-we-got-term-banana-republic-180961813/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">experience</a> 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.</span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">During the heated Presidential campaign of 2016, the term made its way into mainstream American politics, often glibly. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">President Trump</a> <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://news.wjct.org/post/trump-paints-election-apocalyptic-choice"}" href="https://news.wjct.org/post/trump-paints-election-apocalyptic-choice" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">invoked</a> 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.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white; font-family: georgia;">Over the past week, however, the President’s response to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/how-the-protests-have-changed-the-pandemic" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">escalating protests</a> over the killing of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/george-floyd" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">George Floyd</a> has deepened the debate about what is happening to America. Read on....</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-becoming-a-banana-republic"><span style="color: #f1c232;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-america-becoming-a-banana-republic</span></a><br /></span></span></p></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-42981734364233361102020-07-29T11:19:00.001-07:002020-09-18T11:46:40.337-07:00The New Yorker<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> Why Trump Will Never Win <br /></span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">His New Cold War with China</span></b></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">L</span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ast week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the Nixon Presidential Library, a <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/visit/visit-museum#:~:text=The%20Richard%20Nixon%20Presidential%20Library%20and%20Museum%20is%20located%20on,public%20on%20October%2014%2C%202016."}" href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/visit/visit-museum#:~:text=The%20Richard%20Nixon%20Presidential%20Library%20and%20Museum%20is%20located%20on,public%20on%20October%2014%2C%202016." rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">nine-acre compound</a> in Yorba Linda, California, which was partially reopened, amid the pandemic, just for the occasion. Pompeo placed a <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://wbt.radio.com/articles/ap-news/at-nixon-library-pompeo-declares-china-engagement-a-failure"}" href="https://wbt.radio.com/articles/ap-news/at-nixon-library-pompeo-declares-china-engagement-a-failure" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">wreath</a> of red, white, and blue flowers at Richard Nixon’s grave. He toured the museum, where he was photographed at an exhibit featuring life-size statues of Nixon reaching out to shake the hand of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, during that historic first visit by an American President to China, in 1972. After his tour, Pompeo walked to a <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/50146787288"}" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/50146787288" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">dais</a> overlooking the parking lot—where folding chairs for a small audience were set up six feet apart, in spaces normally reserved for tourist buses—and angrily declared that Nixon’s outreach to China a half century ago had utterly failed. He called on allies to create a new <span class="small" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: inherit; text-transform: lowercase;">nato</span>-like coalition to confront the People’s Republic and stopped just short of calling for regime change. Basically, he declared a new Cold War. Read on....</span></div><div><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-trump-will-never-win-his-new-cold-war-with-china"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-trump-will-never-win-his-new-cold-war-with-china</span></a><br /></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-91210168641632094002020-07-09T11:24:00.003-07:002020-09-18T11:48:12.222-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></span><span face="IrvinHeadingWeb, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #073763; color: white;"><b>Trump’s Impeachment Revenge: Vindman Is Bullied Into Retiring</b></span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;">By Robin Wright </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, in full-dress Army uniform and with a </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/29/purple-heart-ranger-tab-fao-meet-the-army-officer-testifying-about-trumps-ukraine-call/"}" href="https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/29/purple-heart-ranger-tab-fao-meet-the-army-officer-testifying-about-trumps-ukraine-call/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Purple Heart</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> pinned to his chest, ended </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/attacked-by-republicans-alexander-vindman-testifies-to-the-power-of-truth" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">his opening statement</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> during the impeachment hearings on </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">President Trump</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> last fall by addressing his father. “Dad, my sitting here today in the U.S. Capitol, talking to our elected officials, is proof that you made the right decision, forty years ago, to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America, in search of a better life for our family,” he said. “Do not worry—I will be fine for telling the truth.” It was one of the most memorable moments in the historic hearings. With only the family’s suitcases and seven hundred and fifty dollars to his name, Vindman’s father had brought his three young sons and their grandmother to the United States in 1979, shortly after his wife died. All three Vindman boys ended up serving in the U.S. military, out of a “deep sense of gratitude,” as Vindman testified. Over the next four decades, Vindman amassed impeccable credentials: a Harvard degree, a dozen medals for military valor, diplomatic posts at the U.S. Embassies in Russia and Ukraine, and positions as a Russia specialist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the National Security Council. Vindman and his twin brother, Yevgeny, were even featured in a PBS documentary by Ken Burns.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;">Read on....</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-impeachment-revenge-alexander-vindman-is-bullied-into-retiring">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-impeachment-revenge-alexander-vindman-is-bullied-into-retiring</a><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-43551186262423879812020-07-03T11:30:00.001-07:002020-09-18T11:46:13.481-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b> To the World, We’re Now America the Racist and Pitiful</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;">By Robin Wright</span></p><p class="has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-size: medium;">he real saga of the Statue of Liberty—the symbolic face of America around the world, and the backdrop of New York’s dazzling Fourth of July fireworks show—is an obscure piece of U.S. history. It had nothing to do with immigration. The telltale clue is the chain under Lady Liberty’s feet: she is stomping on it. “In the early sketches, she was also holding chains in her hand,” <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/edward-g-berenson.html"}" href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/edward-g-berenson.html" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Edward Berenson</a>, a professor of history at New York University, told me last week. The shackles were later replaced with a tablet noting the date of America’s independence. But the shattered chain under her feet remained.</span></span></p><div aria-hidden="true" class="consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box;" tabindex="0"><div class="consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="journey-unit" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The statue was the brainchild of <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/edouard-de-laboulaye.htm"}" href="https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/edouard-de-laboulaye.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Edouard de Laboulaye</a>, a prominent French expert on the U.S. Constitution who also headed the <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.nps.gov/people/edouard-rene-de-laboulaye.htm"}" href="https://www.nps.gov/people/edouard-rene-de-laboulaye.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">French Anti-Slavery Society</a>. After the Civil War, in 1865, he wanted to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S., enshrined in the new Thirteenth Amendment, which, in theory, reaffirmed the ideals of freedom—this time for all people—first embodied in the Declaration of Independence. </span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One has to wonder what Laboulaye would think of America today, amid one of the country’s gravest periods of racial turmoil since the Civil War. </span></p><div class="ad ad--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--in-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On the eve of America’s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist, battered, and bruised. “Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities,” <a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/dr-robin-niblett-cmg"}" href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/dr-robin-niblett-cmg" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Robin Niblett</a>, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, in London, told me. “When you take the Acela and pass through the poorest areas of Baltimore, you can’t believe you’re looking at part of the United States. There’s always been this sense of an underlying flaw in the U.S. system that it was getting away with—that somehow America was keeping just one step ahead of the Grim Reaper.” Read on...</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 21px;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/to-the-world-were-now-america-the-racist-and-pitiful"><span style="background-color: #073763; color: #f1c232; font-family: georgia;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/to-the-world-were-now-america-the-racist-and-pitiful</span></a><br /></p>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6976837206592598259.post-38048188011565294192020-06-15T11:35:00.001-07:002020-09-18T11:45:25.314-07:00The New Yorker<p><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: x-large;"><span face="IrvinHeadingWeb, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><b>Trump’s Vacuous West Point Address and the Revolt Against It</b></span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: #073763;"><span style="color: white;">By Robin Wright</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: x-large;">P</span><span style="background-color: #073763; color: white; font-size: medium;">resident Trump<span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> has enraged the U.S. military—from top to bottom. On June 11th, an angry and mournful letter signed by hundreds of graduates of West Point—spanning from the Class of 1948 to the Class of 2019—was </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://medium.com/@concernedwestpointgrads/a-letter-to-the-west-point-class-of-2020-from-fellow-members-of-the-long-gray-line-f8b4862babda"}" href="https://medium.com/@concernedwestpointgrads/a-letter-to-the-west-point-class-of-2020-from-fellow-members-of-the-long-gray-line-f8b4862babda" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">posted</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> on Medium. It addressed the Class of 2020. It cited the current “tumultuous time” in America: more than a hundred thousand deaths from a new disease with no known cure, forty million newly unemployed people, and a nation “hurting from racial, social and human injustice” after the murder of </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/george-floyd" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">George Floyd</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">. “Desperation, fear, anxiety, anger and helplessness are the daily existence for too many Americans,” the signatories wrote. They warned bluntly of leaders who “betray public faith through deceitful rhetoric, quibbling, or the appearance of unethical behavior.” They reminded students of the cadet honor code, which dictates not to “lie, cheat, or steal,” and not to tolerate those who do. Without naming names, they cited their fellow-graduates who are now in senior government positions and failing to uphold their oath of office. (The Defense Secretary, </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.defense.gov/Our-Story/Biographies/Biography/Article/1378166/dr-mark-t-esper/"}" href="https://www.defense.gov/Our-Story/Biographies/Biography/Article/1378166/dr-mark-t-esper/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Mark Esper</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">, and the Secretary of State, </span><a class="external-link" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.state.gov/biographies/michael-r-pompeo/"}" href="https://www.state.gov/biographies/michael-r-pompeo/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; line-height: inherit; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Mike Pompeo</a><span style="font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">, both graduated in the West Point Class of 1986.) They wrote that their appeal “is not about party; it is about principle.” And, after welcoming the newest class to the Army tradition of the “Long Gray Line,” they concluded, “Our lifetime commitment is to the enduring responsibility expressed in the Cadet Prayer: ‘to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.’ ” Read on...</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #073763; font-family: TNYAdobeCaslonPro, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-vacuous-west-point-address-and-the-revolt-against-it"><span style="color: #f1c232;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-vacuous-west-point-address-and-the-revolt-against-it</span></a><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div>Robin Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11768038936007351828noreply@blogger.com3