Expanding the Legacy
Rudderless Lebanon Becomes Plaything of Regional Powers
Caught in a closing pincher between Israel and Hezbollah, the people of Lebanon lack agency - and a government. Their fate rests with the Party of God, a terrorist organisation and proxy of Iran’s ayatollahs that constitutes the de facto power in Lebanon. The country has been without a president for well over two years. Twelve successive votes in parliament failed to produce a head of state. Caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, a liberal, is effectively powerless as the country sinks further into economic chaos and social despair whilst forces far beyond its control prepare for war.
UAE Holds Key to End Gaza Fighting
The two-state solution being touted as the be-all end-all of the most intractable of long-running conflicts sounds eminently sensible but is also tainted by a high degree of wishful thinking and, as it were, detached from reality. A two-state solution would be akin to having a neighbour determined to take over your home and expel you from the neighbourhood, using whatever violent means at his disposal.
Saudi Arabia Shakes Up Golf and Football
There is a name for that. Sportswashing, or the leveraging of an athletic event to embellish a reputation tainted by scandal or controversy. The term was coined in 2015 to describe attempts by the Azerbaijan government to divert attention from its human rights record with the hosting of the first-ever...
Mired in Multiple Crises, Lebanon Votes for Continuity
In a scathing indictment of the country’s political elite, Lebanon tumbled some 25 places on the annual United Nations World Happiness Index and now ranks only above Afghanistan as the most depressed (and depressing) country in the world. Severely dysfunctional states such as Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Somalia all trump the country formerly known as The Pearl of the East.
Dawn of a Kingdom Reformed?
There are changes afoot in the kingdom. They may well reshape the country to beyond recognition. For the first time in its history, women are invited to play an active role in the nation’s economy. Abuses of power for personal gain are no longer tolerated. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman...
Software as a Growth Engine
Tech-savvy governments are few and far between as civil services – usually large molochs that move at a glacial pace – struggle to adapt to the digital environment and display a reluctance to think outside the proverbial box. Addicted to paper forms, rubber stamps, seals, and protocols, civil servants almost...
Where is Woodrow when you need him?
Perhaps one of the last non-cynical world leaders, Woodrow Wilson just couldn’t be bothered with lofty philosophical musings about the nature of government – Plato and Aristotle were lost on him. The 28th US president didn’t need the classical world to tell right from wrong.
