Recent Realpolitik Articles

Would those opposing intervention in Libya also do so for Ivory Coast?

I have been deeply sceptical about ‘whataboutery’ when it is used an argument for consistent inaction on human rights everywhere.

Nicolas Kristof captures a central point in his last New York Times column:

Just because we allowed Rwandans or Darfuris to be massacred, does it really follow that to be consistent we should allow Libyans to be massacred as well? Isn’t it better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none?

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Unrest in the Middle East and our double-standards in intervention

contribution by David Malone

Events in Bahrain are getting less notice than they deserve. Bahrain is like Saudi, it far larger neighbour an absolute monarchy and one divided from many of its people not only by accumulated wealth and jealously hoarded power, but by religious conviction.

Like Saudi Bahrain has a deep Sunni/Shiite divide. For the last few weeks there have been pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. As there have been on and off for the last thirty years or more.
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There’s a reason why we keep selling weapons to dictators…

“That’s not an excuse, as some would argue, to claim that Arabs or Muslims can’t do democracy – the so-called Arab exception… For me, that’s a prejudice that borders on racism. It’s offensive and wrong and it’s simply not true,” said David Cameron yesterday, in answer to a question that nobody asked.

There’s been plenty of fun at Cameron’s expense, as yer internet critters gleefully pointed to Britain’s record of flogging weapons of mayhem and destruction to numerous enemies of the people, and why not do so?
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John Pilger shames himself by attacking feminists over Julian Assange

In many respects I’m rather loathed to call too much attention to John Pilger’s truly dreadful commentary on Sweden’s efforts to extradite Julian Assange from the UK.

Pilger is easily one of the greatest investigative journalists and documentary film-makers of the modern era. One cannot, therefore, be anything other than saddened by the all-too-obvious decline in his powers of observation and objectivity evident is his article this week for the New Statesman.

It amounts to little more than a stream of mendacious ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares to suggest that Assange should be required to answer the allegations laid against him in a court of law.
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Could Labour exploit the Coalition’s dangerous phase?

The Coalition government is being pulled in two distinct directions today, and there is a chance it could get real ugly.

The BBC reports that Davis Davis MP, now officially Tory rebel leader, has told of “widespread” disaffection amongst Tory MPs over the way they’re being treated by the Coalition leaders.

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said many of his colleagues thought Liberal Democrat MPs were allowed to do what they liked.

He said the “sheer degree of hostility” among Tory MPs had been “surprising”, which is probably why we saw so many of them rebel over the tuition fees vote.
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Nick Clegg is transforming into an arrogant Tony Blair

Nick Clegg appears to be descending into a world of fantasy and illusion.

Last week he delivered a seriously confused lecture on how raising university fees and slashing higher education budgets – as well as abolishing the Education Maintenance Allowance – will boost social mobility.

He also had the audacity to suggest that opponents to the Browne review haven’t understood it, because if they did they’d know supporting Browne’s proposals is unquestionably right.
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What can Libdems and Labour learn from changing polls?

23% voted for the Libdems at the election in May. Around half that number currently say that they will vote for the party again in most polls.

The latest ComRes poll shows that remaining LibDems are equally divided over whether the cuts are too quick and too harsh, with most believing the government is failing in its promise to cut fairly. Conservatives are much happier with the government’s strategy. I look at the detail of still loyal LibDem opinion in a Next Left blog-post.

This suggests it could be useful to think about three different groups when thinking about what has happened to LibDem support in the last six months, and what it means for the future.
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Should Libdems propose a ‘two-tier manifesto’ at elections?

All this chat about how the Libdems have broken their manifesto promises leaves me a little cold. Or rather, in the modern parlance, “a bit meh”.

I think my failure to become outraged or agitated stems from a sense that the Liberal Democrats have fallen into a semantic trap. ‘Manifesto commitments’ are things that you promise to enact when you have Power to do so in Government.

But the situation that the Lib Dems find themselves in does not seem to fulfill the sufficient and neccessary conditions to merit such a description.
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The danger for Labour if it supports AV reform

Jackie Ashley argues this morning that it is in Labour’s strategic interests to campaign for the Alternative Vote (AV) should a referendum be held on electoral reform next year.

She argues that if it fails to do so then the party would be putting tactics before strategy.

If only the decision the Labour party faced on whether to put their full weight behind a yes vote was so simple.
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After a decade of War on Terror, America gives up trying to win

contribution by Andrew J. Bacevich

As the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror enters its tenth year, we are entitled to pose this question: When, where, and how will the war end?

This much we know: an enterprise that began in Afghanistan but soon after focused on Iraq has now shifted back — again — to Afghanistan.  Whether the swings of this pendulum signify progress toward some final objective is anyone’s guess. 

Just over a decade ago, the now-forgotten Kosovo campaign seemingly offered a template for a new American way of war.  It was a decision gained without suffering a single American fatality.  Kosovo turned out, however, to be a one-off event. 
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