Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America’s international behavior. Really,…
Many have dismissed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Asia tour to Pakistan, India, and China as nothing more than a post-Khashoggi photo-op to shore up international support, but it’s actually about much more than that because of its religious, economic, and geopolitical dimensions. There’s little doubt that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s (MbS)…
In many countries, the gap between social media rhetoric and mainstream media rhetoric is often quite vast. In India however, on both mainstream and social media, there is a race to the bottom in terms of how absurdly hyper-nationalistic one can be when it comes to scapegoating internal strife on India’s neighbours Pakistan and China….
For the last few weeks, the Turkish Press has been talking about the fate of the Uyghurs, the Turkish-speaking Muslim population of China. The political parties of the opposition, including the Kemalists, have been outdoing one another to condemn the Han repression of this minority and its religion. This effervescence follows: The report by the…
Singapore, aiming high for the status of Asia’s unofficial capital, seems like the ideal venue for a conference to discuss how the Middle East could learn a few lessons from ASEAN’s multi-layered relations with China, especially involving partnership in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But first, let’s get things straight….
Showing that he is adopting the neoconservative playbook every day he remains in office, Donald Trump handed the neocons a major win when he appointed Iran-contra scandal felon Elliott Abrams as his special envoy on Venezuela. Abrams pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information on the secret sale of US weapons for…
