Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. August 4, 2021 Beirut's Political and Economic Rubble A year ago today, a massive explosion ripped through Beirut, setting of a broad, public questioning as to how 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate could have been left in a warehouse.
The city and country still have few answers. "Lebanon's political paralysis, financial crisis and stalled investigation might seem like separate problems, but they're all the result of three decades of systemic negligence and lack of accountability, since the end of a 15-year civil war in 1990," Mohamad Bazzi writes for CNN. Lebanon's prime minister, Hassan Diab, and his cabinet resigned about a week after the explosion, but Diab is still serving in a caretaker role after subsequent attempts to form a government failed, Bazzi notes; an official investigation into the explosion has faltered repeatedly over the issue of immunity held by various officials.
Meanwhile, hyperinflation has produced an "economic collapse that the World Bank has said is 'likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top 3' most severe financial crises in the world since the 1850s." Currency is unstable, and basic supplies are short. As Bazzi and others tell it, Lebanon's "confessional" system of government—which apportions power between Sunnis, Shia, and Maronite Christians—and longstanding issues with patronage and corruption have yielded total collapse.
"The country feels exhausted," The Economist writes. "Beirutis wander the streets glassy-eyed; no one is sleeping well, without even a fan to cut the heat and humidity. Everyone seems to have caught a stomach bug this summer from food spoiled by lengthy power cuts. A small, well-heeled elite is still hosting lavish weddings and expensive lunches by the sea, but the days of most Lebanese are a brew of rage and despair. Once again, it is hard to imagine things could get any worse. … The World Bank calls this a 'deliberate depression', a man-made crisis—and the men who made it are still in power, with no plan to fix it." Eyes on the UK, as Delta Dominates As the Delta variant spreads, no one is sure what the pandemic's next chapter will hold. For a preview, we should look to Britain, as it's one of the first widely vaccinated countries to proceed with lockdown-free life after a Delta-variant onslaught, Sarah Zhang writes for The Atlantic. So far, the news is encouraging: "Hospitalizations during this Delta-driven bump remained low compared with pre-vaccination waves," and "Delta cases [have] started falling earlier than expected," Zhang writes. Then again, other factors could be at play, as closed schools, summer weather, and a contact-tracing app may have limited the damage. The Euro soccer championship, which brought Britons together to watch England compete in the final, could have accelerated the spike and the subsequent improvement, Zhang suggests. Winners and Losers in the Vaccine Pageant "Vaccine nationalism" and "vaccine diplomacy" haven't made many headlines lately, since a landscape of safe and effective shots came into focus. But Ian Bremmer writes for Time that early plays for global favor have not panned out for China and Russia, as the shots they produced have been met with some skepticism.
The real hero "has been the dog everyone wants to kick: Big Pharma," Walter Russell Mead writes for The Wall Street Journal. "Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson succeeded where the internationalists failed. Scientists in free societies working with the resources that capitalism provides have given the world hope. The WHO, Covax, the Chinese and Russian vaccines, and the 'global community,' not so much." In keeping with that capitalistic celebration, Mead lambastes as "sabotage" the Biden administration's support for subsidized production of these vaccines abroad and its suggestion that US vaccine makers should share technological expertise. Has Joe Biden's presidency moved the US away from populism, or farther along its path? In a Project Syndicate op-ed, economist Nouriel Roubini proposes the latter, identifying in Biden's trade protectionism and expansionist economic policies a departure from the "neoliberal" impulses of predecessors Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
"[T]hings started to move in a more neo-populist, nationalist direction with Trump, and these changes have crystallized under Biden," Roubini writes, noting that Biden has continued some of Trump's policies, albeit in a less "heavy-handed" manner. "[A]lthough Biden has not formally followed Trump" in supporting policies that would likely weaken the US dollar or in "browbeating the Fed to finance the large budget deficits created by his policies, his administration has also enacted measures that require closer Fed cooperation. Indeed, the United States has moved into a de facto, if not de jure, state of permanent debt monetization," as Biden seeks to address inequality with big spending. "But this doctrinal shift is not surprising," Roubini writes. "Whenever inequality becomes excessive, politicians—of both right and left—become more populist. The alternative is to let unchecked inequality become a source of social strife or, in extreme cases, civil war or revolution." Can Iran and Saudi Arabia Get Along? Geopolitical archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia could succeed in defusing regional tensions if they continue on an apparent path toward rapprochement, Vali Nasr and Maria Fantappie write for Foreign Affairs.
Noting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's comment in April, after a reported meeting between Saudi and Iranian officials in Iraq, that he wants "good relations" with Tehran, Nasr and Fantappie write that Riyadh is at a disadvantage in standoffs with its rival (including in Yemen) and would do well to seek agreement. Iran, for its part, may want a normalization of ties, they suggest. As the US looks to pull back from the region, Nasr and Fantappie write, it would do well to foster Iranian–Saudi dialogue by offering security reassurances to the latter and "persuading" both sides "that their own security interests are best served by successful talks." |
