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Donald Trump Featured Geopolitics Middle East Security and Conflict United States

Broader Regional Implications of Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy Move

In one of the more contentious decisions in a presidency already packed with controversy, President Trump’s announcement in December of 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S Embassy there remains one of the more diplomatically significant choices he has made so far. Yet not for the reasons most would think. While many express fear over disrupting the potential for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it is rather America’s broader goals in the Middle East that are threatened by the decision.

Despite near-unanimous passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 mandating the move of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Trump’s predecessors have continuously delayed the decision citing fears of disrupting peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of Trump’s precedent-breaking announcement, similar concerns were raised. The New York Times called the move “destabilizing,” saying that it “would make achieving peace even more difficult.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson echoed that concern by claiming that recognition would further disrupt peace talks. Moreover, other allies and editorials alike expressed fear that the decision would jeopardize American credibility as an honest peace broker between the two parties.

Although these desires for peace- and therefore the concerns about endangering its success- are genuine, the fear that recognition of Jerusalem’s status will be the decision that triggers a breakdown in the peace process are naïve. Rather, negotiations are at a standstill and have been for years. Ever since the 2000 Camp David Summit between President Bill Clinton, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ended without an agreement, there has been little to no meaningful discussion of peace between the parties. Trump’s decision will do little to change that. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have rarely met during their lengthy tenures and the leaders never developed a framework for furthering the peace process. Negotiators on both sides, such as former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, have said the peace process is “ended” and “dead”. As Israeli society continues to move to the right and the last bastion of Palestinian officials involved in genuine peace talks have aged, both sides seem to be losing the political will to make the necessary sacrifices for peace. As both peoples are increasingly tolerant of the deadliness of the status quo, peace is becoming impossible.

Thus, while recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital will have little impact on an already moribund peace process, America’s broader goals in the Middle East are seriously threatened by the decision, specifically the U.S’s objective of building a Sunni Muslim alliance to confront an budding Iranian menace. With a centuries-old religious rivalry between the two main Muslim denominations– Sunnis and Shi’ites– construction of a Sunni alliance to limit Shi’a-led Iran’s power would seem to appeal to the region’s majority-Sunni states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In the eyes of the State Department, such an alliance would ideally be led by these nations, with the goal of luring other Middle Eastern states such as Qatar, Oman, and majority-Shi’a Iraq away from Iran’s grip. The objective would be to construct a military, economic, and diplomatic coalition that isolates the Iranians by locking them out of the region’s affairs, and in the process, effectively reduces their regional power and influence.

The goal of a Sunni bloc to confront Iran is an admirable one on the part of the U.S given Tehran’s growing influence in the Middle East over the last two decades. Prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Tehran’s sole ally in the region was fellow Shi’ite Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite government in Syria. Yet after the invasion, dominoes began to fall in Iran’s favor. The first was the election of a Shi’ite-led government in Iraq in 2006 following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, once an Iranian adversary. Additionally, the political power of Hezbollah- the influential and militantly anti-Israel political party- and its Shi’a allies in Lebanon has grown since the 2008 Doha Agreement granted the Iranian-proxy veto power in the Lebanese national legislature. These two changes, while seemingly small, have left Iran with a crescent of control from Tehran, through Baghdad and Damascus, to the Mediterranean.

Furthermore, relations have warmed between the Iranians and several Sunni states as well. In April of 2017, joint-military exercises were conducted between Iran and Oman, an American and Saudi ally. Likewise, Qatar has signaled intentions to increase ties with Tehran following a falling out with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies due to its support for Islamist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Qataris announced in August of 2017 that they would be returning an ambassador to Tehran while also expressing interest in improving bilateral ties. Therefore, as Iran’s diplomatic power in the region has grown, U.S officials increasingly view a Sunni coalition as essential to curbing Tehran’s influence and protecting American allies and regional interests.

Yet as the U.S. pulls its military and economic resources from the Middle East, it is clear that many of these nations see more opportunity in aligning themselves with a regional player who’s power and influence seem to be growing– such as Iran– as opposed to waning. Additionally, the religious citizenry that makes up a vast majority of the Sunni states will undoubtedly question allying with the outwardly pro-Israel Americans to confront a fellow Muslim state.

Thus, even as construction of an alliance is already tenuous, Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem will only serve to make a difficult job more challenging. As both The Washington Post and The New York Times noted, the embassy move dealt a blow to the U.S’s credibility of being a fair mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as it outwardly showed America’s bias in the negotiations. This bias will not be lost on the Sunni allies that Trump seeks to persuade to join him in confronting Iran. For the Saudis and Emiratis, among others, actively associating and cooperating with the Americans to work against a Muslim nation is already politically risky. Doing so in the wake of American recognition of the third holiest city for Muslims as Jewish in nature however, will not only prove to be an even tougher case to sell to their respective populaces, but also damaging to their credibility within the anti-Israel Arab world.

Additionally, a country such as Qatar, whose support is crucial for any anti-Iran coalition, will be harder pressed to align with the Americans following the Jerusalem decision. Given Qatari aversion to Israel’s very existence and its financial support for groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah which openly seek the state’s destruction, the embassy move will only hinder American attempts to win Qatar’s support. Similarly, Iraq– another nation whose backing is critical– will be further discouraged from supporting any coalition as well. Having to maintain support from a majority Shi’a population, Iraqi President Haider al-Abadi will find few reasons to challenge Iran and ally himself with the Americans as doing so would threaten political credibility with his constituency. On the contrary, abandoning an alliance with the “American imperialists” in favor of aligning with a Muslim country like Iran that strongly supports the Palestinian crusade and is increasing its military and diplomatic role in the region will be a safer bet for countries such as Qatar and Iraq.

If Trump is truly committed to an American-led alliance of Sunni states to lock Iran out of the Middle East, he must provide every incentive for these countries to align themselves with the U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital however only serves to show where America’s real interests lie, and thus the decision jeopardizes American attempts to gain the support of countries whose backing is essential for the coalition’s success. While U.S officials may debate the consequences of the embassy move on the peace process, Trump’s decision on Jerusalem unquestionably threatens the larger and fundamentally more important American objective in the region. In a Middle East fraught with civil wars, failed states, and shifting power dynamics, a unified stance against Iran is more important than a unified capital in Israel.

April 11, 2018 0 comment

Featured Freedom of Speech Globalization Immigration Interview Journalism Populism UCLA and the World United States

An interview with Fareed Zakaria

written by Andrea Zachrich

Dr. Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s show GPS, a columnist for the Washington Post, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, and a New York Times bestselling author of three books. Born in India, he immigrated to the United States to attend university and went on to receive his Bachelor’s of Arts from Yale and a PhD degree in Philosophy of Government from Harvard. Dr. Zakaria was invited to UCLA to give the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture in Journalism and International Relations. He was kind enough to sit down with members of The Generation before he gave the lecture and answer our questions about immigration, democracy, and journalism with patience, insight, and humor.

Immigration:

The Generation’s first question for Dr. Zakaria concerned the relationship between immigration and populism that he has explained in one of his past articles for the Washington Post, and why this issue is so potent at this particular moment. Zakaria noted a visible rise of “right wing populism” in countries that are both lagging behind economically and those that are succeeding. Yet regardless of their economic prospects, “the one common trait you see is immigration.” What’s to blame for the backlash? Zakaria says its the forces of globalized capitalism.

“Globalized capitalism is a very dynamic but destructive force. We always think about the upside, the new products, the new companies, but we forget about the downside, the destruction of companies and communities. Now that’s what gives [globalized capitalism] its power, its dynamism, its productivity. But there’s a real downside…. And in that, when you go through a particularly accelerated phase of it, which I think we’ve been going through ever since the end of the Cold War, I think it’s easy to accept the globalization of goods, of services, of capital, these are all abstractions. But the globalization of people, that’s very hard.”

In addition, Zakaria observes, paradoxically, that places without many immigrants have the strongest reaction to immigration.

“Where is it that you find this rhetoric about [Donald Trump’s proposed border] wall has played the best? Its in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. These are not places that have vast numbers of immigrants. The places that have immigrants- New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Bay Area – they’re fine, because it’s much easier to fear the unknown, the image, the stories, the scare tactics.”

The combination of the globalization of people and the fear of the unknown person are the causes of this current rise in populism worldwide. Furthermore, Zakaria finds political leadership to be at fault for the populism rearing its head today as opposed to in the past.

“At the end of the day, political leadership matters. You have had one party, and within one party, one person, who systematically drummed up this fear. And of course he had something to play with, there was a great deal to play with in terms of the underlying anxiety. But that’s what leadership does for better or for worse. It takes that raw material and then it can fashion it as it wishes. And it’s always easier to scare people. It’s always much easier to scare people than to give them hope.”

Dr. Zakaria is, of course, referring to President Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric. Throughout his candidacy and presidency, Trump has spewed rhetoric almost daily about building a wall on the Mexican-American border and implementing a ban on Muslim travel to the U.S. According to Zakaria these campaign promises exacerbated fears of immigration and helped lead to the rise populism in the United States.

We also asked Dr. Zakaria about struggles of assimilation in Europe and the United States for new immigrants. He discussed the differences between the two regions, and how he believes it to be much easier for immigrants to assimilate into American society, calling it an “assimilation machine”, and noting that “as an immigrant I can tell you the great challenge for American immigrants, for me with my kids, is to make them retain some small element of the old culture. That is the biggest challenge.” This is in contrast to Europe, where there is “a certain degree of multicultural relativism that said everyone can just live their own lives and practice their own practices even if they were very illiberal practices” and that Europeans have “tended to neglect the issue [of immigration]”. He goes on to make the point that in the U.S every immigrant is trying to assimilate, that every immigrant in the U.S wants themselves and their children to speak English as there are huge economic incentives for doing so. As opposed to the xenophobic rhetoric of President Trump, who often portrays immigrants as the “other,” and as foreigners seeking to come into the country bringing elements of the old culture here, Zakaria paints a different picture of immigrants. He describes immigrants not as people who wish to come to the U.S and retain an “other-ness” but as people who wish to become American and assimilate into the country’s culture.

Democracy:

In the face of numerous events at UCLA that have been canceled or disrupted by student protestors, The Daily Bruin reporter Megan Daley asked Dr. Zakaria about the excessive “political correctness” that is often at fault for such disruptions on university campuses across the country. These students subscribe to a type of individual identity politics that Zakaria finds detrimental to free speech. Last year, for example, Bruin Republicans had planned on hosting conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, but canceled the event amid fears of protests similar to those that occured at UC Berkeley and UC Davis that turned violent and forced the event’s cancellation.

In relation to these events on our campus and others, Zakaria spoke about how excessive political correctness can be detrimental to the university’s goal of creating an environment for discussion and academic discourse. While acknowledging that he understood the impulses of historically marginalized groups who “feel that they want to be full participants, that they want to have their voices heard, [that] they don’t want to be demeaned or marginalized again, or excluded again,” Zakaria argued that the instinct to shut out and not listen to speech they find offensive is harmful and might actually make that speech more attractive to people who see this type of inflammatory speech as “ideas that nobody wants to hear”. He argues that the problem with completely shutting down these ideas “is that the nature of an intellectual arena has to be one that allows open, unfettered conversation, discussion, and debate. And the best answer to bad ideas are good ideas, not to shut down those ideas, to not hear them”. He then broadened his explanation of what he believed to be a systematic problem with the way politics are framed on college campuses.

“People want politics to be primarily about their experience, their identity rather than a shared experience and a common identity. Because if it becomes all about your identity, first of all it becomes impossible to have a common, joint conversation that includes everybody. Secondly, if it’s all about your identity, almost by definition, nobody else can understand it as well as you, so your answers are always going to be right. And again that can’t be the basis on which you can construct a policy. So I think there’s almost a bigger problem which is that politics has become very narrowly personal and very narrowly about these kind of identity issues”.

More recently on February 26th, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin came to UCLA to give the Arnold C. Harberger Lecture. I attended the lecture that afternoon after the Generation interviewed him. During the lecture, protestors were extremely disrespectful and hissed at Mnuchin as he was speaking. He attempted to laugh off this hissing, and even addressed a protestor directly about why he was hissing, to which the protester replied “I think you’re full of shit!”. These protests made Mnuchin very hostile, flustered, and essentially prevented him from discussing what he came here to discuss, which was United States economic policy and international sanctions. This is an excellent example of Dr. Zakaria’s discussion of identity politics and how this type of politics can prevent academic discourse. These students were only reflecting on their own personal identity as people who feel as though they have been harmed by the Trump administration, and failed to allow for a productive academic discussion. You may not agree with Mnuchin’s policy or business decisions, but shutting down his ideas and not allowing them to be heard only further polarizes people and does not fight “bad ideas” with “good ideas” as Dr. Zakaria advocates academic discussion should do.

Given that that the U.S was recently downgraded from a “full-democracy” to a “flawed-democracy” by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, Zakaria also discussed the concept of an illiberal democracy as described in his book “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.” A liberal democracy is one that we find in places such as the United States, where there is protection of individual liberties from the majority and the government and popular participation in democratic processes. An illiberal democracy is one that keeps its democratic processes but loses its individual liberties and checks and balances. Dr. Zakaria finds this lose of liberal democracy in the United States problematic on “two levels”, for Americans and non-Americans alike. Using disenfranchisement of African American voters as an example to illustrate how this is a problem for citizens, Zakaria stated:

“We are the only democracy that I know of, I haven’t done an extensive study, but certainly the only advanced democracy I can think of where there are systematic efforts to disenfranchise people, to ensure that certain parts of the public don’t vote. You can see this happening today as the supreme court relaxed it’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act. A whole series of states put in place laws that had only one purpose, which was to make it harder for certain groups of people, primarily African Americans to vote. That’s a pretty big flaw to be living with in a democracy”.

The Supreme Court Case Zakaria is referring to, Shelby County v. Holder (2013), struck down sections 4b and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which required states to get preclearance from the federal government before changing their voting practices and declared which states must obtain this preclearance based on analysis of past discrimination. Since the decision, states such as Texas and North Carolina among others have enacted Voter ID laws and gerrymandered districts to disadvantage minority voters.

Zakaria then discussed how the downgrade of American democracy is damaging on an international level:

“When you look at violations of democratic rights, of civil rights, of human rights around the world, over the last 25 years certainly, the United States has been a pretty consistent and strong voice opposing. It didn’t always do as much as it could have but this is one thing I think Americans can take a great deal of pride in that the United States was always a voice cataloging these issues and highlighting them”.

This is in stark contrast to what Zakaria sees happening now.

“Today we have a completely different atmosphere. Almost every authoritarian ruler in the world today that has in some way attacked, imprisoned, bankrupted or punished members of the media in his own country has cited Donald Trump’s use of the word ‘fake news’… So here we have our situation where the United States is becoming a role model for an illiberal democracy rather than for democracy, human rights, liberty, and the free expression of ideas. I cannot think of a time in recent memory when you have had dictators around the world using the United States as an example to justify its practices.”

Leaders in Syria, Cambodia, Libya, and China have all used Trump’s term of “fake news” to deny or downplay atrocities in their country or silence political opposition. Rhetoric from leaders of the United States has global influence, and this can either be used to promote democracy or to weaken it. As Dr. Zakaria points out, it currently appears to be doing the latter.

Journalism:

The students from Daniel Pearl Memorial High School asked Dr. Zakaria about the atmosphere when covering stories at the White House during the presidency of Donald Trump. While he does acknowledge that “it’s a great time to be a journalist because the public is fascinated by the news”, he finds covering the White House difficult for two reasons. “One of which is a lot of the interest frankly is in the circus of what is going on in Washington”. He goes on to compare now with what it was like shortly following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, people were concerned about policy and why these events were happened, but “what now we are witnessing is the fascination with the circus of the Trump administration and Trump personally”,

The second reason Zakaria finds it frustrating to cover the White House is because of the hostility towards the press coming from the White House.

“You are living, working in a circumstance where the President of the United States and the administration are systematically and actively hostile to the press, hacking it, threatening legal punishments, non legal punishments, demeaning it, and that’s a very weird atmosphere to live in.”

As discussed earlier, the term “fake news” has spread to leaders around the globe thanks to Trump’s. In January, President Trump handed out “Fake News Awards” to organizations who had given him unfavorable coverage. Dr. Zakaria says these attacks on the press can be especially dispiriting because the United States is meant to be one of the freest countries in the world and the oldest constitutional democracy. He also postulates on what this attitude may mean for the future of democracy in America:

“You think to yourself it’s fine, the institutions are strong but you know, they are only strong until they collapse, until they get weak. I’ve seen that happen in other countries. America is not somehow you know endowed by the creator with some kind of magic force field that will prevent that so that’s the worrying part about this”.

To conclude the interview, I asked Dr. Zakaria what advice he had for novice international affairs journalists such as ourselves. He emphasized that the challenge of writing about foreign places and people in the United States is making Americans care about it. Zakaria elaborates:

“I think we have a huge problem in this country in that we are a vast continent surrounded by two benign neighbors and two vast oceans and so it’s easy to think that the world doesn’t affect the United States and that you can imagine an America First or America Alone agenda, but the reality is that we are deeply interconnected with the world, as we should be.”

Yet Zakaria thinks this problem can be overcome by making the issues more salient to readers. As journalists, he believes we need to show this connection and explain why these problems are important to an American audience. While broader issues such as ethnic rivalry or sectarianism often catch people’s attention, sometimes just “telling a great human story” allows people the opportunity to relate. He concluded, “just recognizing those people out there who look different, and sound different, and worship different gods, you know, there’s often an element of common humanity that we forget.”

Dr. Zakaria was incredibly articulate and a pleasure to speak with. I was both impressed and grateful that he took the time answer all of our questions thoughtfully and thoroughly despite the fact he usually works with higher profile individuals, including presidents and prime ministers. His comments and ideas on immigration, democracy, and journalism come from years of experience as a journalist, and this experience showed. Many thanks to him for taking the time to sit down and talk with us.

March 28, 2018 0 comment

Donald Trump Europe Featured Military Russia Security and Conflict United States Vladimir Putin

The Connection Between Putin’s Chef, Global Political Interference and a Ukrainian Invasion

written by Conor McDonald

If the American dream consists of starting from scratch and, through tireless labor, building one’s assets up to formidable quantities, then it should be easy for Western capitalists to understand how certain individuals were able to take advantage of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 to attain the status that they have today. Boris Yeltsin’s oligarchs with insider connections, of course, are exceptions to this; instead, the individuals being referred to include middle class contractors, mid-tier managers, and even hot dog stand owners. One stand owner in particular, Yevgeny Prigozhin, provides a particularly dramatic case study for economic success following modest origins. Prigozhin used to rob banks and sell street snacks just to pay his bills, but today, he owns a number of bustling enterprises and can be seen driving a blue Lincoln Continental. However, all is not as picture perfect as it seems for this Gatsby-esque individual.

In 2016, the United States congress imposed economic sanctions against Prigozhin alongside several other Russian political elites in an attempt to strike back at the heart of Putin’s inner circle. Just under a month ago, Prigozhin was indicted by Robert Mueller, special counsel overseeing the alleged Russian interference in the United States’ 2016 presidential election, for playing a major role in the digital manipulation of public opinion. Similarly, the international community has expressed repeated disdain toward Prigozhin for his establishment of the Wagner Group, which today stands as Russia’s premier private military corporation acting in Syria, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. So, how exactly did a humble, bank-robbing hot dog stand owner such as Prigozhin manage to gain such prestige and controversy in Russia’s government?

As Russian political rebel Aleksei Navalny stated in a recent interview, Prigozhin “didn’t invent anything, didn’t find buried treasure, didn’t win at the Olympics. He received his prize as thanks for serving the president well.” In 1998, Prigozhin opened his most famous conventional business to date: New Island, a buoyant restaurant that lies atop an adorned ferry in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Two years later, in 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin brought the then-Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshiro Mori, to a professional dinner at New Island out of sheer interest. Coincidence or not, Putin took a liking to Prigozhin, and the very next year he brought Jacques Chirac, the former President of France, to the very same restaurant. He also brought United States President George W. Bush in 2002, and he hosted his personal birthday party there in 2003. Putin and Prigozhin rapidly formed a unique friendship, the shady personal and economic perks of which would be seen in the years to follow.

Some of these perks included contracts to provide food for Russian public schools and the Russian military — at his peak, Prigozhin was feeding 90% of Russian service-members, a job which Vox News reports earned him over a billion dollars. Perhaps it is because of Prigozhin’s humble origins as a hot dog stand owner that he is not afraid of doing President Putin’s dirty work. Perhaps he was enraptured by the economic benefits, or perhaps he was simply too afraid to say no. Regardless, with economic favors from Putin came political and social responsibility for Prigozhin to serve his leader’s interests. A decade after Putin’s birthday party, Prigozhin was presumably advised by government sources to use his funds to create the Internet Resource Agency — also known as Glavset — a Saint Petersburg-based technological company seeking to promote disinformation campaigns both domestically and abroad. Glavset’s campaigns initially sought to put down domestic protests by creating fake social media accounts advocating on behalf of President Putin and disparage the actions of his primary opponent, Aleksei Navalny, but, according to Mueller, it allegedly expanded to the point of interference in international elections, including the United States’ in 2016. The most prominent evidence citing Prigozhin’s involvement in the US election meddling pertains to his meeting with Mikhail Bystrov, the appointed head of Glavset, several times from 2015-2016 to discuss the work being done. It’s also important to note that Glavset’s Project Lakhta, a so-called “disinformation campaign,” received approximately $1.2 million in funding from Prigozhin in 2016 alone.

Following dramatic success countering protests and slandering rivals with Glasvet, Prigozhin used his immense wealth in 2014 to found and develop ChVK Wagner, a private military corporation which has, as of late, become one of President Putin’s primary sources for military operations that Russia cannot formally be involved in. Commanded by Dmitry Utkin, an ex-Russian Special Forces brigade commander, ChVK Wagner has been involved in both the conflicts in Syria and in Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Perhaps most infamously, it was recently discovered that the Wagner Group shot down the Ukrainian Air Force’s Ilyushin Il-76 in 2014, an act which was originally attributed to rogue Russian nationalists in Ukraine and killed all 49 of the plane’s passengers. ChVK Wagner has also been involved in the recent conflict in Crimea, where their innocuous green uniforms earned them the title of “little green men.” Prigozhin’s decision to fund military bases in Ukraine’s Donbas region has been a critical component of the success of Russian encroachment. In Syria, ChVK Wagner’s shady activities include serving as “shock troops” to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as seizing ISIS-held oil fields for Russian companies, including the newly made conglomerate Evro Soyuz. The Wagner Group’s economic and military influence is easily one of the most valuable assets that Prigozhin is bringing to Putin and his oligarchs’ table.

In everywhere but Putin’s Russia, it is positively bizarre for one to imagine a world in which a hot dog stand owner with a vast criminal record can rise to a point of such prominence in one of the world’s most powerful political and military systems. Prigozhin himself once said that “Vladimir Putin saw how I built up my business from nothing,” but the roots of his success lie not in his hard work — they instead lie in the fact that Putin was a personal witness and catalyst to it. This is precisely how modern Russia has operated since Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar’s disastrous economic reforms in the early 1990s. Regardless, President Putin’s crony-infested inner circle will continue to thrive on loyalty and trust above all else, proving that even the bank robber putting mustard on a hot dog has a valid chance at fulfilling his wildest dreams.

March 24, 2018 0 comment

#MeToo Europe Featured United States Women's Rights

#MeToo Movement: A Comparison of French and American Gender Equality and Secularism

written by Andrea Zachrich

When film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by dozens of women last November of sexual assault and predatory behavior, an outpouring of comparable claims and allegations arose against other high-profile men, subsequently launching the #MeToo movement. American social activist Tarana Burke, who is credited with the original hashtag, states that the goal of the movement is to let victims of sexual assault and harassment know that their experiences are not uncommon and thus they should not be shamed into remaining silent about them. After My Name is Earl actress Alyssa Milano tweeted the hashtag, the movement gained popularity and female movie stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Viola Davis all expressed sympathy or shared stories of sexual exploitation. Even Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Claire McCaskill of Missouri joined in and tweeted about the movement. Women and men of all backgrounds in America have expressed support.

Conversely, the #MeToo movement has recently experienced backlash from across the Atlantic in France, where a public letter signed by over 100 prominent French women, including actress Catherine Deneuve, have criticized the movement’s “puritanism” and its claim to “promote the liberation and protection of women” when actually “enslave[ing] them to…eternal victim[hood] and reduc[ing] them to defenseless preys.” While criticism from other women, who appear as though they should be natural allies, may shock at first glance, the disagreement over proper sexual norms between French women and their American counterparts comes as no surprise when accounting for the cultural differences regarding sex and gender between the two nations. Given France’s more progressive history of gender equality as well as a proud tradition of secularism amongst its citizens, the more accepting attitude of sexual advances and unwanted intimacy expressed by Deneuve and others is, upon closer inspection, not so unexpected after all. One of the letter’s chief criticisms of #MeToo was that although the movement claims to empower women by shielding them from unwanted sexual advances, by “demand[ing]” protection, its supporters are instead suggesting that women lack the individual agency and ability to speak up for–and defend–themselves without help. This distinction between American supporters and French doubters regarding the rights and abilities of women can be traced to the countries’ differing histories on the subject.

By multiple metrics and measurements, France has achieved higher levels of gender equality than the United States. For instance, the French parliament is currently 38.6% female, with women holding 233 out of a total of 577 seats. In contrast, 21% of U.S Senators and only 19.1% of U.S Representatives are female, with women holding 106 out of 535 total seats. Additionally, while France appointed a female Prime Minister in 1991, the U.S has yet to elect a woman to its highest office, and only in the most recent 2016 election was Hillary Clinton named the first female major party presidential nominee in American history. This seemingly trivial discrepancy among representation in government should not be dismissed out of hand. Women in France may very well feel as if they have more political power because their representation in Parliament is significantly higher and because they have seen women occupy the highest offices of government.

In addition to political representation, women in France also retain a number of cultural and workplace advantages that their American counterparts lack. First, France permits up to four months of paid maternity leave, while the U.S. only allows for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Furthermore, French women are allowed unrestricted access to abortion throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. In contrast, in the U.S., states are allowed to make their own decisions on abortion access so long as the regulations do not cause “undue interference.” This wording has been interpreted broadly and many states have implemented mandatory waiting periods, state-mandated counseling, and numerous other roadblocks to delay and impede access to abortion. Women’s rights have also been one of the central focuses of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign and presidency. The French government even pressures the media to refrain from posting sexist or demeaning images of women. Finally, the Global Gender Gap Index which measures gender inequality across economic, political, educational, and health-based criteria ranked France 12th in the world in 2018 while the U.S ranked 49th–between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

These significant differences in gender equality between France and the U.S. demonstrate two fundamentally unique female experiences which can help explain the backlash to the #MeToo movement expressed by Deneuve and others. In a country where women are nearly equally represented in their government, that has laws and regulations seeking to level the playing-field in the workplace, and that maintains high female educational and economic achievement, women may feel as though there is less of a disparity of power when men make unwanted sexual advances. French women would thus perceive an advance as flirtation between equals and therefore feel as though they have the agency to either continue or put a stop to such actions. In comparison, American women may feel uncomfortable with similar types of advances due to a greater power imbalance between men and women in society. Such imbalance would likely lead to women feeling as though they lack the ability to speak up about how they feel, especially if sexual advances are unwelcome. The French letter’s critique of American women seeking to be “protected” and maintain “eternal” victim status may stem from these cultural divide. Understandably, French women–coming from a culture that consistently affirms their belief of themselves as equals to men–will have a different perspective from their American counterparts, who have grown up under a political, economic, and educational imbalance that undoubtedly seeps into their sexual and romantic lives.

In addition to a demonstrable difference in gender equality between France and the United States, the variation of the role and importance of religion also helps shape distinct sexual attitudes amongst citizens of these respective nations. For instance, a Pew Research study from 2015 found that 53% of Americans say that religion is “very important” in their lives. In contrast, only 14% of French adults said the same. Moreover, the U.S is an outlier among wealthy, Western countries when it comes to the importance of religion. 21% of the populations of both Germany and the United Kingdom say that religion is “very important” in their lives, and other developed nations such as Australia and Canada also came in well below the U.S. at 18% and 27% respectively. This disparity unquestionably creates divergent societal understandings of sex.

One manifestation of this discrepancy in religious attitudes can be found in the differences between French and American sexual education programs in schools. In an analysis of sex-ed programs in the U.S., France, and several other Western nations, author Kelly Bell noted that as a result of its religious citizenry, the U.S. views sex in more “puritanical” and “moral” terms as opposed to the “open, matter-of-fact attitudes” found in the other countries studied. This perspective naturally has led to lobbying by churches and religious groups across the U.S. on behalf of abstinence-only programs, fearing that a more comprehensive education in schools will lead to promiscuity (although this fear has been proven to be false). The result is that the American school system is failing to give teens an understanding that sex and sexuality are a “normal and positive part of human development,” an understanding that sex-ed programs in Western Europe reaffirm. Again, the connection between these differences and the views expressed in the letter is clear. When there is a tendency to see sexual advances and activity as taboo due to poor sexual education, the reaction to such experiences when unwanted will unquestionably be harsher than if they were viewed as a normal and natural experience.

Another cultural difference between the two countries can be found in interpretations of flirting. Alex Giami–co-author of a study on sexuality in France and the U.S–found that French women on the whole do not view “‘flirtation and seduction and romance as a direct sexual approach, and that flirtation does not necessarily lead to sexual intercourse.” In other words, “the language of seduction is not an explicit language of sex.” This understanding differs dramatically from American attitudes which tend to view flirtation and seduction almost exclusively as sexual advances. When flirting is recognized as separate from sex, the notion that men should be “disciplined” for such actions and placed in the “same category as sex offenders” would seem troubling and puritanical.

If the disagreement between French and American women over the #MeToo movement surprised some, it shouldn’t have. As a result of a more progressive history of gender equality, the female experience in Nice is fundamentally different from that of New York. Furthermore, the variation of the importance of religion between these countries creates two profoundly different understandings of sexual activity and flirtation. Yet cultural disagreement is not unique to France and America. Instead, the French letter and the American reaction to it represent a failure of cultural relativism: The idea that one’s actions and opinions should be judged by their own culture standards rather than someone else’s. Such instances are not unique. Supporters of the movement in both countries are failing to recognize that there are clear cultural differences that led to this disagreement. They are thus making judgements and assumptions based on their own morals and standards. This misunderstanding serves as an important reminder that, given the array of cultural variation found in every corner of the globe, social movements are not always exportable, however beneficial they may be to their country of origin.

March 6, 2018 0 comment

Iranian protesters chant slogans at a rally in Tehran, Iran, Dec. 30, 2017.

Featured Middle East Religion United States

Foreign Policy in Iran: Silence Is Worth A Thousand Lives

written by Jeremiah Barnett

A few weeks ago, something terrible and yet necessary began. Iranians took to the streets in several cities to protest a corrupt and tyrannical regime. This is the largest public show of discontent in Iran since the 2009 Green Movement in which thousands of people risked their lives to protest the outcome of their presidential elections. Now, as the protests grow and tensions in Tehran continue to build, it is of the utmost importance that the U.S. adopt a policy that simultaneously benefits American interests in the Middle East while seeking to further the success of the protest movement and assure that lives already lost not be lost in vain.

While some may call for firm and explicit action from Washington—such as sanctions or intervention—I hold that such an undertaking would be harmful to the movement’s potential for success. Rather, due to a history of backfiring rhetoric between the U.S. and Tehran, an existing regional power struggle in the Middle East, and the ease by which American actions could be misinterpreted and skewed for the benefit of the current Iranian regime, the United States must instead take advantage of the protests by adopting an approach of extreme caution.

Precedent

For decades Washington and Tehran have shared a bombastic rhetorical relationship with one another. One such example was President Bush’s 2002 declaration placing the Islamic Republic in an “Axis of Evil” alongside Iraq and North Korea. The aftermath of the statement was thousands of Iranians taking to the streets belting out, “Death to America”. This included many Iranians who indicated that they rarely engaged in such celebrations, but spoke of having joined the protests in order to show solidarity against the Great Satan—America. This single statement by a U.S. President is credited not only with having strengthened the anti-Western rhetoric of Iranian hardliners, but also with causing Iranian citizens of all stripes to rally around a common enemy: the U.S. Just as foreign attacks on U.S. soil cause an outpouring of patriotism no matter domestic approval of the current government, American accusations against Iranian transgressions are bound to have a similar effect. Therefore, just as in 2002, statements of support for the protests by the U.S. will be seen by Iranian nationals as unwanted, and perhaps abhorrent, meddling by a country that has nothing but its own interests in mind.

The Larger Context

In addition to historical tensions with Iran, the U.S. is also currently engaged in a geopolitical proxy war with Russia in the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War being the most significant manifestation of this Cold War-era clash. Saudi Arabia, backed by Washington, and Iran, with support from Moscow, struggle for dominance in the region while their superpower puppeteers pull strings behind the scenes. Thus, if the U.S. takes a strong and hawkish stance in Iran, Russia will feel it necessary to do the same. In fact, evidence of such a reaction from Moscow has already surfaced. In a recent United Nations Security Council discussion, the U.S. initiated a dialogue concerning the protests in Iran to which Russia immediately responded with objections and a call to halt the discussion on the grounds that “it would represent an inappropriate interference in Iran’s internal affairs.” As if Moscow’s protests were not enough, François Delattre, the French representative to the UN and typically an American ally, also explicitly diverged from the U.S.’s stance by stating, “However worrying the events of the last few days in Iran may be, they do not constitute per se a threat to international peace and security. We must be wary of any attempts to exploit this crisis for personal ends.” The United States’ official motive in bringing up the protests was unclear but, as is evident from the French representative’s statement, the international community—including both our European allies and Russia—is wary of the Trump administration’s current treatment of the protests and will react negatively to too much American interference.

Chess

The fact that the U.S. will use the opportunity presented by the protests to act exclusively for its own benefit is quite clear. Washington is playing a game of chess and Iran is another piece on the board. Combine this imperialistic image with our invasive history in the region as well as American support for the Saudis—whom Iranian state media is blaming for the protests—and a very sensitive situation emerges. It is easy to imagine an Iranian citizen still unsure of his resolve to put his life in danger by protesting a regime he does not support. It would not take much for him to believe that the U.S. is simply interfering to promote its interests, and not his own, thus deterring him from acting. It is therefore not difficult to understand the benefits Washington would reap from not taking an overt stance on the protests and instead letting them play out. President Trump would do well to learn from statements such as that of Emily Thornberry, a U.K. Labor Party politician, “Our approach now is one of extreme caution when it comes to Iran and a recognition that the society in Iran is an immensely complex one, and seemingly contradictory… For example, with these current riots, sometimes they are calling to reinstate the monarchy, sometimes they are calling out against [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, sometimes they are calling for Khamenei, sometimes they are calling for the price of eggs…”

Conclusion

Given the historically tenuous rhetorical relationship between the U.S. and Iran, the current proxy war between the American-backed Saudis and Russian-backed Iranians, as well as the aversion to protests that Iranian citizens will feel from any direct American support, the U.S. should not take a formal stance on the protests in Iran. Rather, Washington should allow the state media to continue to condemn and threaten the protestors, driving them away from the regime. Any American action or presence will only serve to drive the protesters under Khamenei’s protective, anti-Western wing. As things stand, the people of Iran are becoming increasingly bold in their opposition to the repressive acts of Iran’s leadership. If Washington’s desired outcome is regime change, the existing divide between reformers and hardline traditionalists must widen significantly. To help make that happen, the U.S. must do what it is not used to doing in the Middle East: Stay out.

January 22, 2018 2 comments

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