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America's Election Marvel
A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections helps process an absentee ballot at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center on November 4, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Getty Images)
When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mocked last week’s U.S. elections, a Twitter user quipped, “Dictatorships are less messy—but more bloody.” Writing in Providence Magazine [[link removed]], Rebeccah Heinrichs makes the case that the American democratic republic is working as designed, and it is a marvel. While the election is incredibly close and ballot counting continues, Americans will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that each eligible vote is registered. The U.S. will always take the tedious “mess” required to peacefully determine its elected officials, even when the stakes are high.
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Israel Revisited
A member of an Israeli high-tech delegation meets with his Emirati counterpart at the headquarters of the Government Accelerators in Dubai on October 27, 2020. (Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images)
The peace agreements forged between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan mark the beginning of a major change in Arab discourse, write Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby in Mosaic Magazine [[link removed]]. Beyond naming Israel as a present ally, these pragmatic countries have gone so far as to examine the last 70 years of anti-Israel discourse and to question whether Israel was ever the principal enemy of the Arabs. The distinguished UAE cleric Wassem Yousef even declared, remarkably, that “Israel did not destroy Syria; Israel did not burn Libya; Israel did not displace the people of Egypt; Israel did not tear up Lebanon. Before you Arabs blame Israel, take a look at yourselves in the mirror.”
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Ethiopia on the Brink
An Ethiopian soldier at an observation post in the northern town of Zala Anbessa in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, November 19 2005. (Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)
Civil war is erupting in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous state. The question now is whether a ceasefire can quickly be brokered, or whether the situation will devolve into a conflict that draws in neighboring states and destabilizes one of the world’s most fragile regions. In a new policy memo [[link removed]], James Barnett examines the four scenarios that might play out in Ethiopia, and why the stakes are high for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government to reach a ceasefire with the politically powerful Tigray regional state.
READ NOW [[link removed]] Will Biden Soften on China?
Chairman Xi Jinping is welcomed by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Sept. 24, 2015. (Getty Images)
Joe Biden’s traditional approach to diplomacy may pose a problem where China is concerned, writes John Lee in The Australian [[link removed]]. If Biden enters the White House, he must eliminate doubts that his softer and risk-averse temperament will mean reduced cover for Australia, Japan, and other forward-leaning allies of the U.S. who are countering the worst aspects of Chinese behavior across the world. Biden must learn from Obama’s mistake, which was to assume that U.S. leadership in a contested world was largely about being liked or admired.
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Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and guests attend Friday prayers at Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque during the buildings first official prayers after being reconverted into a mosque on July, 24, 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Turkish Presidential Press Office/Getty Images)
Turkey and France’s diplomatic standoff over the latest cartoon controversy highlights the dramatic changes in the Middle East that the incoming Biden administration will have to address, writes Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal [[link removed]]. Since the Democrats were last in office, Saudi Arabia has begun to disengage from the business of supporting radical Islamism, and Turkey and Qatar have picked up the fallen banner. When Europeans these days talk about foreign funding for radical preachers, Turkey is often the source. And when Gulf Arabs like the Emiratis talk about the danger of radical Islamist regimes, they worry more about Turkey even than Iran.
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BEFORE YOU GO...
In California, which already has a $15 minimum hourly wage, the legislature decided that the gig economy is inadequate for workers, so it extended employment regulations to cover contracted labor. With the passage of recent legislation that selectively strips gig workers of those protections, California hasn't reduced inequality, but has embedded it, writes Mike Watson in the National Review [[link removed]].
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