| | | | Fareed: The Truth About Immigration? There IS Sensible Middle Ground | | Immigration has become one of the most polarizing issues in US politics. But it doesn't need to be that way, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. There's actually some sensible middle ground, if only Democrats and Republicans would seize it.
"Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was one of the most liberal senators in the country. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a staunch conservative. And yet they were able to agree on a set of compromises in the mid-2000s that would have largely resolved America's immigration deadlock and the rage surrounding it. Canada used to have strong nativist forces within it. But ever since its immigration system moved to a skills-based one — coupled with strong efforts at celebrating diversity, multiculturalism and assimilation — it has had few such voices. And this despite the fact that Canada now has a substantially higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the United States," Fareed argues.
"The scale and speed of immigration over the past few decades is a real issue. Just since 1990, the share of foreign-born people in America has gone from 9 percent to 15 percent. It has nearly doubled in Germany and the Netherlands and nearly tripled in Denmark. Most of the new immigrants do come from cultures that are distant and different. Societies can only take so much change in a generation. If mainstream politicians do not recognize these realities and insist that those who speak of them are racists, they will only push the public in its desperation to embrace the real racists — of which there are many."
| | Why the World Does – and Doesn't – Miss American Leadership | | A year into the Trump presidency, and the administration's "abrogation" of international leadership has underscored one thing: Just how important America remains to the rest of the world, argues Fred Kaplan for Slate.
"[R]ather than shrug, adjust, and move along, most of the world's leaders—at least those aligned with the global order that the United States helped create—have reacted to Trump's hostile insularity with dismay and alarm," Kaplan writes.
"For better or worse, there is no country or set of countries, other than the United States, that has the resources, breadth of interests, or experience necessary to preserve and protect the global order. By squandering those resources, disavowing those interests, and decimating the ranks of diplomats and bureaucrats who have built up that experience, Trump threatens to implode that order."
"Throughout our history, even advocates of realpolitik—a foreign policy built strictly on the pursuit of vital interests and a balance of power—have acknowledged that, in the competition for influence, America gains an advantage from the appeal of its ideals. George Kennan, the architect of our Cold War containment policy, scorned those who wanted to chase demons around the globe, but he wrote that we would ultimately triumph over the Soviet Union if we stayed true to our ideals domestically, as they would long outlast the Soviets' ideals." "Especially after Brexit, Europe is refocused on pooling its economic and strategic assets and is parting ways with the U.S. on how to move forward with Russia, Iran and China. In these critical cases, Europe favors engagement to the American approach of containment. Europeans aren't focused on building ties with Asia because of Trump but because their annual trade with Asia's major economies is nearly $500 billion more than their trade with America — a trend that long predates Trump," Khanna writes.
"[E]ven if America recovers its economic dynamism and social cohesion, why would this stop Europeans and Asians, Arabs and Africans, from aggressively pursuing their own visions for their future? Should they suddenly follow the next American president's lead just because he or she isn't Donald Trump?"
| | Why an African Giant Is in Trouble | | | Democratic Republic of the Congo President Joseph Kabila's term in office was supposed to have ended more than a year ago. His refusal so far to hold another election has many in sub-Saharan Africa's biggest country worried, Gabriele Steinhauser and Nicholas Bariyo report for the Wall Street Journal. That has big implications for the country, the continent -- and beyond. "At stake is the stability of one of the world's most resource-rich countries, which furnishes minerals vital to the batteries powering mobile phones, electric cars and other 21st-century industries, and the potential repeat of a conflict that left more than five million people dead in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a war to oust longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko drew in neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Angola," they write. "The protracted standoff now has battered Congo's currency and pushed annual inflation to 50%. United Nations agencies on Wednesday warned that more than 400,000 children under the age of 5 face the risk of starvation in the conflict-ridden central Kasai region." | | Pence in the Middle East? Wrong Man, Wrong Time: Goldenberg | | Vice President Mike Pence's trip to the Middle East is coming at a bad moment. He's the wrong man and this is the wrong time for such a visit, suggests Ilan Goldenberg in Foreign Policy.
"Pence is the official most associated with Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, because the move was largely viewed as a nod to Trump's evangelical base, which cares deeply about this issue. Pence is very close to this community and is often seen as its chief advocate in the Trump administration. Indeed, Pence was the only other official on screen when Trump announced the Jerusalem move, standing quietly behind the president. It is not surprising that Palestinians are refusing to meet with him," argues Goldenberg.
"To make matters worse, Pence is planning to go to the Western Wall — the holiest site in Judaism, but also one that is very important to Muslims and highly contested. Choosing to go to the single most sensitive spot in Jerusalem, little more than a month after Trump ignited a firestorm over the city's status, is unnecessarily provocative."
| | The Good – and the Worrying – News About Terrorism | | | The number of militant attacks around the world last year fell, while the number of fatalities tumbled by around a third, a new report finds. Thank major battlefield losses for ISIS. "Attacks worldwide decreased slightly from 2016 to fewer than 23,000 in 2017, while resultant fatalities decreased by one-third to just over 18,000," according to the latest edition of the annual Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC) Global Attack Index. Still, the report notes that June's soccer World Cup, taking place in Russia, "likely presents a particularly attractive target for the Islamic State, given Russia's role in the group's territorial defeat in addition to the participation of the Saudi and Iranian national teams." "A successful attack would provide a tremendous propaganda boost for the Islamic State and its fighters and supporters, underlining the ongoing international threat posed by the group despite its territorial defeat," says JTIC Associate Director Matthew Henman. "While security will be extremely high across the course of the tournament, low-capability attacks by lone actors with no evident markers of radicalization remain extremely difficult to identify preemptively and there remains a substantial risk of an attack successfully being conducted." | | | | | | |
