I am dazed and confused: American terrorists, Islam and Peter King
I started writing this blog in an angry retort to the bombastic voice of Peter King but what I have ended up with is more confusion than insight. The Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Peter King has previously made a number of comments towards Islam and Muslims that have […]
Precautionary intervention?
There is an understandable desire in international relations, as in so many other areas of life, to be able to see into the future, to know what it is that is coming down the track towards us and whether the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed the sunlight of a better future or just an indication that the tunnel is on fire. In recent weeks, in Ivory Coast and Libya, the tunnel has been well and truly alight. This troubled engagement between humanitarian action and the precautionary principle has been discernable since the practice leapt to prominence.
The noble cause: New Labour’s legacy on Africa
It was widely regarded as a rare bright spot in New Labour’s pretentions to an ‘ethical foreign policy’. While domestic reform got bogged down in complexity, and foreign policy in recrimination, British policy in Africa stood for something pure – the ‘one noble cause’ as Blair himself put it. But what is the real legacy of New Labour’s pursuit of the ‘good state’ in Africa?
Economic Crisis, Political Repression, and Geopolitics in the Middle East
From the social uprising that toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in Tunisia on January 11, 2011, to the recent social unrest in Libya to oust the 40 year old reign of Muammar Gadhafi, many political scientists have been left puzzled as to reasons behind the North African revolutionary movement and where it could spread in the coming weeks.
Why “Humanitarian Intervention” in Libya is not Humanitarian
Why does my heart sink when I hear the current UN-mandated action in Libya described as “humanitarian intervention”? After all, over the last 20 years the term has acquired currency — not only among Western politicians but also academics — as a description of coercive, usually military, intervention ostensibly for humanitarian purposes.
Humanitarian Intervention 2.0?
The key element in shaping the Libyan intervention’s impact will be whether the operation can overcome the recurrent problems humanitarian interventions have been facing in the past two decades. The West’s reluctance toward renewed humanitarian interventions will only be revised if the operation attains its mission objective without becoming entangled in a protracted internal conflict.
Ethics, hospitality & intervention in Libya
For Jacques Derrida, hospitality is ethics entire. This may well be the case. Yet the rights and wrongs of intervening in Libya (or anywhere else for that matter) from the standpoint of the ethics of hospitality are complicated, not simple.
The Arab Uprisings: Opportunities and Challenges for Iran
The ongoing people’s uprisings in the Arab countries against autocratic rulers have provided Iran with both challenges and opportunities in the Middle East and beyond. Will these momentous events enhance Iran’s foreign policy opportunities, or will they ultimately lead to further isolation and strategic loneliness for Iran?
Did Diplomacy Succeed or Fail in Libya?
Although all wars may represent a failure of diplomacy, war is often the last resort of diplomacy. This paradox results from two competing ideas of what the supreme objective of diplomacy should be: peace at any cost, or peace by any means. This is the paradox of Libya. The international military intervention resulted from a mixture of an arguably successful strategy of coercive diplomacy at the UN, and a failure of third-party mediations.
The evolution of modern UK-Irish relations
The relations within and between the British and Irish islands are now routinely described as never having been better; a description regarded as a cliché. A cliché? Good. It was not so long ago that such a belief would have been dismissed as an attempt at humour.
