In the coming weeks as the Libya drama comes to a climax and as the debate on Afghanistan sharpens on what happens next, the European nations will have to make a decision on what kind of transatlantic relationship they want, or need, or value. The option of grumbling dependency is over, an era of shared responsibility and mutual contribution is about to dawn.
The recent royal wedding was marketed as a charming British romance. Next year will be the diamond jubilee when citizens of the Commonwealth will be asked to ‘celebrate’ the fact that the Queen has been an unelected Head of State for 60 years. Republicans should seize this chance to challenge the dominant narrative of the monarchy.
Modern Iran represents one of the biggest waiting games of the world today. A beautiful, civilised, and hospitable country containing one of the nicer peoples on earth, and with a distinguished history to boast, has become one of the world’s most rejected nations ruled by those with standards and practices more suitable to the middle ages than the 21st Century.
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.
In today’s world the prosperity, security, liberty and civil liberties of those at home cannot be separated from events beyond our borders. The era of a global recession and the global threat of terrorism prove that to any residual doubters. A belief that you have responsibility beyond your borders is not, as some would have it, ideological, but, a necessary response to the world in which we live.
The existing perception and enforcement of multiculturalism is hindering social integration in Britain. The slow process of social integration, which is caused by some multicultural policies, is intensifying the fragmentation of British society, thereby jeopardising the future of diversity in Britain. Multiculturalism promised to bring social inclusion, but has failed and is becoming a justification for exclusion
Mosaddeq’s preoccupation with the nationalization of Iran’s oil sector derived from his belief that such a venture, once realized, could bring economic prosperity, national autonomy and political sovereignty in its wake. The loss of Abadan Oil Refinery dealt Britain’s prestige a stinging blow at a time when it was struggling to adapt itself to the disintegration of empire and come to terms with the ascendance of the US
Three recent publications provide a fresh perspective of the developments which resulted in the decline of British influence in the Gulf, and the subsequent rise of the US.
British strategy in the Middle East consolidated around a sustained effort to prevent any adversarial penetration into the Persian Gulf, defending its position athwart the principal lines of communication and supply between Northern Europe and British India, and to protect the newly discovered Persian oil that was used to power the Royal Navy
The historical experience of Imperial Britain as a dishonest and detrimental interference in Iran’s domestic politics and economy has fostered a lingering sense of suspicion in the collective memory of Iranians. Whether this image is gradually fading away and giving way to equally negative images of other foreign powers remains to be seen
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