A US Withdrawal from Iraq is Good News for Iran

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

At the turn of the new century, the United States controversially decided to conduct an invasion of Iraq in order to depose the Saddam Huissien regime, which it alleged was harbouring weapons of mass destruction. The operation was meant to be swift, but instead US troops still remain deployed in Iraq 17 years later.

President Trump has recently announced that he would withdraw the remaining troops “soon” as he hopes to accomplish one of his campaign promises before the 2020 election. This week’s cover story by Yasmine El-Geressi focuses on the consequences of a US withdrawal and how that would lead to an increased Iranian influence on Baghdad.

Mike Pompeo has had a busy week as he toured the Middle East in an attempt to persuade other Arab countries to normalise ties with Israel. This trip comes, as the UAE became the latest Arab country last week to establish peace with Jerusalem. In his trip, Pompeo visited Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman as he discussed regional issues that concern these respective states.

Majalla explores the results of Pompeo’s trip, and what it can mean for Trump’s re-election prospects in November. This trip isn’t the only reason why Pompeo made headlines this week.

The US Secretary of State promised to trigger the snapback sanctions on Iran, which would effectively end the JCPOA. While the US has taken such a belligerent stance, the rest of the JCPOA signatories have been fighting tooth and nail to keep the agreement in tact. The UK, France and Germany have taken a diplomatic stance on the crisis, while Russia openly challenged the US’s threats stating that it does not have the mandate to take such actions. Joseph Braude writes on this latest saga in the USIranian tensions.

Barcelona’s 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich marked an end of an era for the Catalan club, as just a few weeks on from the defeat their star player Lionel Messi has announced that he wants to leave the club. Messi is one of the graduates of Barcelona’s youth academy La Masia. The youth academy proved to be a massive success during the last decade, as the majority of Barcelona’s players from 2011 to 2015 were La Masia graduates.

However, the academy would soon become a victim of its own success, as the club felt the need to maintain its success by relying on big name signings rather than youth prospects. Ali El Shamy writes on the rise and fall of La Masia and what lies ahead for the academy’s future.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

20 The Only Way Out of the Middle East Is Through It

Issue 1815- August- 28/08/2020

16 Pompeo’s Middle Eastern Tour

36 Europe’s Geopolitical Awakening

Pandemic Hurts Countries 30 The That Don’t Value Workers

52 COVID-19 or Something Else?

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Belarus Goes Its Own Way 3

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Apple vs. Epic Games is a Bigger Conflict than Any Console War

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A villager hangs strings of chillies on August 24, 2020 in Bijie, Guizhou Province of China. - Getty

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A slightly injured cow is flown by helicopter from the Klausen Pass due to its unfitness for the cattle drive to the lower Alps. - AP

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Wisconsin Unrest Flares Over Police Shooting of Black Man A Black man shot in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was left paralyzed and “fighting for his life,” his family and lawyers said on Tuesday, hours before protesters and authorities clashed for a third night of civil unrest in the lakefront town. Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets, tear gas and flash-bang rounds as they skirmished after dark with 300 to 400 demonstrators defying a dawn-to-dusk curfew outside a courthouse and adjacent park in downtown Kenosha. Blake, 29, a father of six, was struck from behind at point-blank range in a hail of bullets fired on Sunday by police who were following him with guns drawn as he walked away from officers to his car and opened a door to the

vehicle. Three of his young sons inside the automobile - aged 3, 5 and 8 . Blake, who had been attempting to break up a quarrel between two women, was struck by four of seven gunshots fired at him, all by one officer, and there was “no indication he was armed,” Crump said in an ABC News interview on Tuesday.

after Germany’s foreign minister sought to ease tensions between Turkey and Greece in their dispute over control of eastern Mediterranean waters.

Speaking at an event commemorating the 11th century military victory by Seljuk Turks over the Byzantine empire at Malazgirt, Erdogan also called on Ankara’s counterparts to avoid mistakes that he said would bring their destruction. Tensions between Turkey and Greece escalated after Ankara sent its Oruc Reis survey vessel to disputed eastern Mediterranean waters this month, a move Athens called illegal.

Turkey and Greece, NATO allies, vehemently disagree over claims to hydrocarbon resources in the area based on conflicting views on the extent of their continental shelves in waters dotted with mostly Greek islands.

Erdogan Says Turkey Won’t Compromise Over Rights at Sea Turkey is determined to do whatever is necessary to obtain its rights in the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean, President Tayyip Erdogan Coronavirus Re-infections Raise said on Wednesday. “We will not compromise Concerns About Immunity over what belongs to us ...We are determined to do whatever is necessary,” Erdogan said, a day Two European patients are confirmed to have been re-infected with COVID-19, raising concerns about people’s immunity to the coronavirus as the world struggles to tame the pandemic.

The cases, in Belgium and the Netherlands, follow a report this week by researchers in Hong Kong about a man there who had contracted a different strain of the virus four and a half months after being declared recovered - the first such second infection to be documented. That has raised fears about the efficacy of potential vaccines against the virus, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, though experts say there would need to be many more cases of re-infection for these to be justified. Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst said the Belgian case was a woman who had contracted COVID-19

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for the first time in March and then again with a different coronavirus strain in June. Further cases of re-infection were likely to surface, he said. Van Ranst told Reuters TV the woman, in her 50s, had very few antibodies after the first infection, although they might have limited the sickness. Re-infection cases were probably limited exceptions, he said, although it was too soon to tell and many were likely to surface in coming weeks.

U.N. Security Council President Dismisses U.S. Sanctions Move on Iran The president of the U.N. Security Council, Indonesia, said on Tuesday it was “not in the position to take further action” on a U.S. bid to trigger a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran because there is no consensus in the 15-member body. Thirteen council members expressed

their opposition on Friday, arguing that Washington’s move is void given it is using a process agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that it quit two years ago.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said he hoped the United States would now drop its bid to snapback Iran sanctions, “which is not only illegal, but simply will not lead to achieving the result that was envisaged by the United States.” A spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations said it “is on firm legal ground to initiate the restoration of sanctions” and “the fact that some council members expressed disagreement .... does not have any legal effect.”

the UAE on Wednesday as he called for Gulf unity on issues such as Iran’s influence in the region and the normalisation of relations with Israel. Mr Pompeo’s visit followed the announcement of a historic US-brokered peace accord between the UAE and Israel on August 13. The US is hopeful other Arab nations will follow with agreements such as the Abraham Accord, and last week UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash said more nations were on a path to normalising relations. Mr Pompeo visited Jerusalem, Sudan and Bahrain before travelling to the UAE, then flying back to Bahrain. In Bahrain, he discussed regional stability and Gulf unity with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who said he welcomed US efforts towards the IsraelUAE accord.

Alarm Over Covid Case Rates in 19 European Countries

Pompeo Urges More Arab States to Make Peace with Israel US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited

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Nineteen European countries have crossed a key threshold of new coronavirus infections, with Spain’s figures particularly worrying.

According to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the countries have recorded cumulative 14-day infection totals higher than 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, considered an early alarm level by many health experts. Luxembourg and Spain have reported more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks, the figures show, with Malta recording more than 80, Belgium more than 60, and France and the Netherlands more than 40. The UK has 20.7.

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A US Withdrawal from Iraq is Good News for Iran

Leaving Iraq Could Expose a Weak Iraq to its Powerful Neighbor’s Increasing Weight 10

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Iraq also faces a dilemma of whether it can maintain its newly improved relations with the United States while forcing it to withdraw troops from Iraq militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 3.

Critically, both airstrikes happened in Iraq, casting further doubt onto the strength of the country’s claim to sovereignty and power relative to that of Iran and the United States.

Condemnation of the killings came swiftly, with Iraq’s outgoing Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi calling it “an aggression against Iraq … a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” along with denunciations by leaders of the biggest blocs in parliament. Pro-Iranian factions, which compete for influence with the US and other powers for influence in Iraq, clamoured for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq with the pro-Iran Bina coalition immediately calling on parliament to act to restore Iraq’s sovereignty by ejecting the United States and preventing it from using Iraq’s territory and airspace to conduct such operations.

U.S. soldiers with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment patrol a new ditch they have dug to protect the base from attack on July 2011 ,19 in Iskandariya, Babil Province Iraq. (Getty)

by Yasmine El-Geressi

The parliament then voted to expel the approximately 5,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, 170 to 0. The measure was passed with mostly Shiite factions voting in favour. Kurdish and most Sunni members of parliament did not attend the session, presumably because they oppose ending the US presence in the country.

President Trump last week redoubled his plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq “shortly” during a meeting with the county’s new prime minister. “We were there, and now we’re getting out. We’ll be leaving shortly,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“We have very few soldiers in Iraq ... but we’re there to help. And the prime minister knows that. If Iran should do anything, we will be there to help the Iraqi people.”

Despite the developments, Washington responded by threatening Iraq with “sanctions like they’ve never seen before,” and affirming that it was not willing to bow to Iraqi demands to withdraw its troops with while demanding that Iraq pay for the cost of any US troop withdrawal. The US also argued that the Iraqi parliamentary vote was non-binding, and that its legitimacy was undermined by neither Iraqi Kurds or Sunnis participating.

Days later, US-led troops withdrew from a base near Iraq’s capital Baghdad that has been repeatedly targeted by Iran-backed militias this year, the coalition said.

The Taji military base has frequently been hit by rockets since the United States killed Qassem Soleimani, then the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and Iraqi

The recent U.S.-Iraqi talks cap a period in which bilateral relations have been steadily improving since Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi came into office in May. A Shia former intelligence chief who has good relations with both the US and Iran, al-Khadhimi

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been credited with working to limit the influence of pro-Iranian militias while carefully navigating the complex power dynamics within his country’s institutions in his short time in office. Addressing reporters in Baghdad in June, Kadhimi said the U.S.-Iraqi talks were about wresting back political autonomy, a veiled reference to the duel that Washington and Tehran have long fought over Iraq. “We want to safeguard our sovereignty and ensure that Iraq does not become a zone for settling scores,” he said.

Although Iraq is allied with the U.S., it has developed increasingly close ties with Iran, largely due to a combined interest in fighting against ISIS, regional proximity, and the fact that both countries have Shia Muslim majority populations. While the U.S. recognizes the cultural and religious ties that exist between Iran and Iraq, the administration wants to decrease Iran’s destabilising influence in Iraq, often exercised by proIranian militias.

Analysts predict that a US withdrawal could bring even more trouble by exposing a weak Iraq to its powerful Iranian neighbor’s increasing weight, warning that a complete withdrawal will only embolden Shia loyalists in Iraq, further alienate the Sunni community from the Iraqi government, and strengthen Iran’s expansionist agenda in Iraq as well as the rest of the Middle East.

“Iran has demonstrated its capabilities to do so by maintaining the upper hand in the Iraqi political, se-

A US withdrawal will only embolden Shia loyalists in Iraq, further alienate the Sunni community from the Iraqi government, and strengthen Iran’s expansionist agenda in Iraq as well as the rest of the Middle East.

curity, and economic sectors—even while U.S. troops remained on the ground. Additionally, Iran was able to extend its influence while acting as a shadow government throughout Shia dominated regions of Iraq.”

Khairuldeen Al Makhzoomi and Minatullah Alobaidi wrote in the Washington Institute.

This view was reiterated by Sajad Jiyad, a commentator for War on the Rocks. “If the United States does leave and disengages from Iraq it will leave Iran with a more influential position in Iraqi politics. It will strengthen the Bina bloc, which campaigned on forcing U.S. troops out in the 2018 elections, and it will be a foreign policy achievement for the Iranian government, who have long called for the United States to pull its military forces out of Iraq. The Popular Mobilization Forces and the pro-Iran armed groups operating in Iraq will have a bigger role in Iraq’s security, and so the feedback loop with the Bina bloc

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Iraqi security forces and soldiers gather to inspect the site after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq, a facility jointly operated by U.S. and Iraqi forces, at Bardarash district of Erbil in Iraq on January 2020 ,08.

(Getty)

will continue,” he wrote.

Iraq also faces a dilemma of whether it can maintain its newly improved relations with the United States while forcing it to withdraw troops from Iraq. “The hawks in the Trump administration who urged the president to escalate against Iran could decide that Iraq will be treated as an enemy, thereby necessitating sanctions.

Iraq could thus become a battleground where the United States conducts airstrikes and attacks Iranian assets or pro-Iran groups, avoiding direct military confrontation with Iran and a ground war, but pursuing an aggressive strategy with little potential for American loss of life in Iraq. For Iraq that would be the epitome of loss of sovereignty and create a dangerous instability, pushing it toward a cycle of violence,” Jiyad wrote.

The American military presence has been instrumental

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in leading a coalition of Western nations in Iraq and Syria to fight (ISIS) and in rebuilding and training Iraqi forces to wage that battle on their own. Analysts say that both of those strategic U.S. goals are now as the initial American withdrawal in 2011 – after the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein and the attempts to rebuild state and military institutions – led to deeply pro-Shiite sectarian politics. Those paved the way in 2014 for the Sunni jihadist onslaught of ISIS. Regional US allies have also expressed deep concerns.

In January, Saudi Arabia issued a striking warning over the return of ISIS if the US withdraws its troops from Iraq. In an interview with CNN, the country’s Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud said the American presence in the region played a crucial role in defeating the terrorist group and was key to preventing its resurgence in the region.

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Washington Advances Toward “Snapback Sanctions” on Iran Tehran May Fight the Measure Tooth and Nail, but the Outcome is Assured: An End to the JCPOA

by Joseph Braude On Thursday, Secretary Pompeo formally initiated the mechanism known as “snapback sanctions,” a feature of the 2015 JCPOA and

its sister UN resolution, UNSCR 2231, in a bid to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran. Tehran and its allies may be expected to fight the measure tooth and nail, but the outcome seems virtually assured: an end to the JCPOA.

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DISCORD AMONG WESTERN ALLIES On August 20, Pompeo announced that “the process to re-impose sanctions on Iran begins.

“Today I hand-delivered a letter to UN Security Council President Dian Triansyah Djani to formally notify the Council of something we all know too well—Iran›s failure to meet its commitments under the terrible nuclear deal.” This comes off the heels of the Security Council’s failure to extend an arms embargo on Iran, a proposal led by Washington and supported by few of the Council’s other members. In articulating the U.S.’s rationale for moving down the path of snapback sanctions, Pompeo added, «Our message is very, very simple: The United States will never allow the world›s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons.» In the Secretary’s estimation, «this process will lead to those sanctions coming back into effect 30 days from today.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a press conference in New York on September 2018 ,26, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. (Getty)

Not all of Washington’s allies have been in lockstep, however. London, Paris, and Berlin in particular remain wedded to the JCPOA, and fear that snapback sanctions will shatter the accord permanently. In an August 20th statement, the E3- declared they could not support snapback “which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPoA.” The statement echoes earlier, legally tenuous claims that the U.S. lacks the standing to initiate snapback due to Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, noting that “that the US ceased to be a participant to the JCPoA following their withdrawal from the deal on 8 May, 2018” and that “the issue of systematic Iranian non- compliance with its JCPoA obligations” should be resolved through “dialogue between JCPoA participants,” as well as urging Iran “to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay.”

AMERICAN STANDING AND IRANIAN DEFIANCE Moscow, for its part, has seconded the E3-,

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In articulating the U.S.’s rationale for moving down the path of snapback sanctions, Pompeo added, «The United States will never allow the world›s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons.» albeit in less diplomatic tones, and resting its case entirely on the proposition that Washington lacks the legal standing to initiate the snapback process. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, dismissed the U.S. move as “nonexistent,” arguing that only current members of the JCPOA can legitimately trigger a snapback. Speaking of Secretary Pompeo, before he even arrived in New York for the Security Council deliberation, Nebenzia said, “He’s not triggering a snapback… Snapback can be triggered by a country that is a participant of the JCPOA, which the U.S. is not.”

Omri Ceren, a foreign policy adviser to Senator Ted Cruz and a close analyst of the JCPOA, notes, however, that the relevant legal text, UNSCR 2231, “was written so any of the original JCPOA participants could shred the deal. That was an early guarantee Obama officials gave Congress and a key selling point.” For his part, President Trump simply said on Wednesday, «It›s a snapback. Not uncommon.”

Iranian officialdom is putting up a brave face, despite the procedural deck being stacked against it. The chief of staff for the Iranian presidential office, Mahmoud Vaezi, predicted the U.S. effort would fail, tweeting that «The United States continues to make mistakes.

They will fail again with the same process as the recent resolution, but with strong political and legal reasoning.»

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Pompeo’s Middle Eastern Tour

Pompeo Hopes to Build More Bridges Between the Arab States and Israel

by Majalla-London This week, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, kicked off a diplomatic tour across the Middle East, as he hopes to establish further normalized relations between Israel and the Arab states. This trip came in the aftermath of the U.S., Israel and the UAE announcing the deal to establish full diplomatic relations, which

also requires Israel to freeze its plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank sought by the Palestinians as part of their future state. The announcement has been met with mixed responses across the region, as some have praised the UAE for becoming the third Arab state in history to reconcile with Israel. Some have also praised the UAE for persuading Israel to freeze its annexation of parts of the West Bank. Neverthe-

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less, many have been much more critical of the deal citing that the Netanyahu government never promised to abandon plans of annexation, and rather it is merely delaying settlement plans. Furthermore, tensions have flared up once again between Israel and the Gaza strip. Since last week, a number of rockets have been launched from Gaza along with hundreds of balloons with explosives and incendiary devices attached that have caused dozens of fires in southern Israel. Israel has responded by bombing what it says are Hamas military targets in Gaza. In spite of this tense backdrop, Mike Pompeo hopes that he can pave the way for future relations between other Arab states and Israel, as he attempts to score more foreign policy victories for the Trump administration which is up for an election in November, and has been suffering from low approval ratings due to its poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the protests and riots related to the Black Lives Matter movement.

POMPEO AND NETANYAHU DISCUSS IRAN

A handout picture released by Bahrain’s official news agency (BNA) on August ,26 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meeting with Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa (R) in the capital Manama. (AFP)

During his trip to Israel, Mike Pompeo expressed hopes that other countries in the Arab world would follow the recent example set by the UAE in establishing normalised relations with Jerusalem.

During his visit, Pompeo met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Both men would issue a joint statement in which the Secretary of State said: “I am hopeful that we will see other Arab nations join in this. The opportunity for them to work alongside, to recognize the state of Israel and to work alongside them will not only increase Middle East stability, but it will improve the lives for the people of their own countries as well.”

The Israel-UAE agreement delivered a key foreign policy victory to President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians. Netanyahu called the agreement “a boon to peace and regional stability” that “heralds a new era where we could have other nations join.”

Earlier this month, the UN would not renew a weapons embargo on Iran due to a lack of international support, particularly from European powers. Both Pompeo and Netnyahu criticised the UN for stepping back on the arms embargo. In response, the Trump administration threatened to issue snapback sanctions, which in essence would end the JCPOA once and for all. “We are determined to use every tool that we have to ensure they

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Earlier this month, the UN would not renew a weapons embargo on Iran due to a lack of international support, particularly from European powers. Both Pompeo and Netnyahu criticised the UN for stepping back on the arms embargo. can’t get access to high-end weapon systems,” Pompeo said. “The rest of the world should join us.” Pompeo would then meet Israeli Minister of Defence, Benny Gantz and both men reiterated the determination to stop Iran from acquiring any nuclear arsenal.

Pompeo wouldn’t be the only Foreign Minister to make his way to Israel, as his British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab arrived in Jerusalem on Monday for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials in an effort “to press for renewed dialogue” and a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict.

Raab and Pompeo met late Monday, discussing President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, which the Palestinians have rejected, and shared concerns about Iran, the State Department said.

POMPEO’S BARGAINING CHIP IN SUDAN In 2019, a wave of popular anti-government protests swept Sudan, as thousands of protestors flooded the streets everyday demanding for the long time autocratic rulers to resign and pave the path for democratic change. In April last year, the uprising successfully oversaw the military ouster of autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir who since 1989 ruled the country with an iron fist. Al-Bashir’s rule marked an era of economic isolation for Khartoum, which since the 1990s has been on the US’s list of terror sponsors, and this designation ultimately led to almost three decades of debilitating sanctions. The designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism happened during the time when it briefly hosted Osama bin Laden and other wanted militants.

Sudan was also believed to have served as a pipeline for Iran to supply weapons to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

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As it stands, Sudan is on a fragile path to democracy and a military-civilian government currently rules it. Elections are planned in late 2022.

The transitional authorities are desperate to lift sanctions linked to its listing by the U.S. as a terror sponsor. That would be a key step toward ending its isolation and rebuilding its battered economy, which has plunged in recent months, threatening to destabilize

The main purpose of Pompeo’s trip was to persuade Sudan to normalise relations with Israel, this has led some analysts to believe that the Secretary of State might be using the promise of removing Sudan from the list as a bargaining chip in exchange for diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.

the political transition.

The main purpose of Pompeo’s trip was to persuade Sudan to normalise relations with Israel, this has led some analysts to believe that the Secretary of State might be using the promise of removing Sudan from the list as a bargaining chip in exchange for diplomatic relations with Jerusalem. Sudanese Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, described his discussion with Pompeo as “great” and said that he and the Secretary of State had a direct discussion regarding removing Khartoum from the US’s terror sponsor list.

Speaking to AP, Information Minister Fasial Saleh said that the prime minister urged the Trump administration not to link the removal of Sudan’s name from its list of state sponsors of terrorism to the normalization of times with Israel, said “The transitional government does not have the mandate ... to decide on normalization with Israel. This matter will be decided after the completion of the transitional authority,” said Saleh. He was referring to the legislative body, which has yet to be formed.

POMPEO IN BAHRAIN AND THE UAE After his Sudan trip, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went straight to Bahrain where he held closeddoor meetings with the kingdom’s royal family.

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wear face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus before they make joint statements to the press, in Jerusalem, Monday, Aug. 2020 ,24. (AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stands with Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the ruling sovereign council, in Khartoum, Sudan, Tuesday, Aug. ,25 2020. (AP)

In Manama, Pompeo tweeted that he met with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and his son, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, on Wednesday morning.

“We discussed the importance of building regional peace and stability, including the importance of Gulf unity and countering Iran’s malign influence in the region,” Pompeo wrote.

Pompeo also said he discussed efforts to “advance greater unity among Gulf countries.” That’s as his plane flew over Qatar on its way to the United Arab Emirates, one of four Arab nations along with Bahrain now boycotting Doha over a years long political dispute. Typically, Bahraini and Emirati aircraft avoid Qatari airspace as they’ve closed their own airspace to Qatar Airways.

Bahrain has a historic Jewish community and the kingdom has slowly encouraged ties to Israel.

In a statement after the meeting, the Bahrain News Agency said King Hamad “stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” The king said that includes a two-state solution for an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital — a longtime Arab stance.

Bahrain is also home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and remains a close security partner of the U.S. Pompeo landed later Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. There, he met with his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the

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In a statement after the meeting, the Bahrain News Agency said King Hamad “stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” The king said that includes a two-state solution for an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. nation’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The officials discussed issues such as Iran and the “mutual support for de-escalation and a lasting ceasefire in Libya,” a later State Department statement said.

Pompeo himself on Twitter praised the deal between the UAE and Israel as “the most significant step toward peace in the Middle East in over 25 years” — even though the two countries had never been at war with each other.

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The Only Way Out of the Middle East Is Through It Patient Engagement Will Finally Allow the United States to Withdraw

by Vali Nasr The United States has long made containing Iran a focus of its efforts in the Middle East, from troop deployments to diplomatic dealmaking. But so far, containment has largely failed. Since 2018, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal and exerted maximum pressure on Iran, even moving an additional 20,000 troops into the Middle East. The Iranian threat has only grown. Iran has expanded its nuclear and missile programs and its investment in proxy forces, sophisticated drones, and cyber-capabilities. Critics of the

Iran nuclear deal claim that the agreement failed to curb these threats and insist that any new deal with Tehranmust address them.

A comprehensive settlement is unrealistic. Iran will not easily part with strategic assets in which it has invested time and great expense, and it will be reluctant to make major concessions in light of Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 agreement. The United States would do better to mount a sustained diplomatic effort-one that seeks to resolve multiple disputes and to forge key arms control deals.

Such a process can build the trust that is needed for Iran to

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The conditions are ripe for diplomacy that eases the region’s tensions and fosters stability.

The United States must take advantage of this moment or risk squandering a rare and vital opportunity. in the Middle East. Once that goal is achieved, the United States can more easily reduce its troop presence. In 2015, the United States had this sequence confused: officials saw the Iran deal as a means to expedite the departure of U.S. troops, regardless of the surrounding state of tension. To assuage anxious allies, Washington sanctioned the sale of over $30 billion in weaponry to Persian Gulf countries, a significant addition to its already sizable arms transfers to those states. Iran reacted to this military buildup by increasing its own investments in missile systems, proxy forces, and sophisticated weapons capabilities. The nuclear deal did not itself stoke regional instability, as its critics claimed-but the way the United States ignited a regional arms race did.

A staff removes the Iranian flag from the stage after a group picture with foreign ministers and representatives at Austria International Centre in Vienna, Austria on July 2015 ,14. (Getty)

reach broad agreements with the United States and with its neighbors. The current occupant of the White House may not be inclined to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, but a new administration should recognize that a different approach to the Middle East-one that relies less on military might than on diplomatic willpower and one that considers each issue soluble on its merits rather than holding out for an aggregate solution that may never come-can relax tensions, resolve disputes, and reduce threats.

IRAN’S MOTIVATIONS Regional stability should be the goal of U.S. diplomacy

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The conflicts that beset the Middle East-civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, for example, and unrest in Iraq and Lebanon-place Washington in a bind. It can remain tethered to the Middle East to protect an increasingly unpopular status quo- its expensive entanglements in conflicts that it cannot resolve and that could spiral into larger wars. Or it can leave and let the chips fall where they may, leading to further strife as countries scramble to fill the vacuum-not only would Arab states spar with Iran, but Israel and Turkey, and then China and Russia, would also get involved. Iran would find greater room to maneuver in the Persian Gulf as it presses its neighbors militarily and takes advantage of disputes between the region’s monarchies. The outcome would be what U.S. containment sought to prevent in the past four decades: growing Iranian hegemony.

To truly achieve regional stability, such that the United States might constructively withdraw from the Middle East, Washington must adopt a new approach-one that takes into account the fears and concerns of the region’s powers, including Iran. The United States can begin by recovering the tattered 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which provides the controls Washington wants on Iran’s nuclear program in return

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for sanctions relief that Tehran values and believes it has earned through its compliance. Only then can the United States push for further talks and tighter safeguards. But separately, U.S. officials should seek to dampen regional disputes, such as the war in Yemen. Doing so will require the United States to better grasp the priorities of all the region’s players.

Iran’s chief rivals-Saudi Arabia and the newly anointed allies Israel and the United Arab Emirates-see Iran’s missiles and proxy forces as evidence of an expansionist agenda. But Iran sees its capabilities as necessary checks to its rivals’ conventional military superiority. Tehran’s actions in the region reflect the deep insecurities of a Persian Shiite state surrounded by U.S.-backed Sunni powers. The memory of Iraq’s invasion and occupation of parts of southwestern Iran in the 1980s still shapes Iran’s strategic outlook. Since the bloody Iran-Iraq War, Iran has cultivated allies and clients and maintained outposts in Arab countries as part of what the Iranians call a strategy of “forward defense.”

The collapse of order in the Arab world since the U.S. invasion of Iraq encouraged Iran to pursue this strategy but also tempted it into overreach. People in Iraq and in Lebanon have protested in recent years against Iranian meddling in their countries. A dangerous escalation of tensions with Israel has resulted in an attritional shadow war as evident in the Israeli bombing of Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria, mysterious explosions in Iranian nuclear and missile facilities, and tit-for-tat cyberattacks. Israel fears that Iran’s expanding footprint in Syria will lead to its own encirclementIran already backs Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But Iran does not want to stoke anti-Iranian Arab nationalism, nor does it want war with Israel. If Iran is to roll back its forward defense strategy, it will have to try to mend fences with its regional rivals. Direct negotiations between Iran

Negotiators would make progress on one track toward settling regional conflicts and on the other toward limiting nuclear weapons development and proxy wars.

and Israel are unlikely, but negotiations between Iran and its Arab antagonists could help address some Israeli concerns. For instance, regional agreements limiting the number and range of the missiles in Iran’s arsenal will soothe fears among Iran’s Arab neighbors as well as in Israel.

BRINGING TEHRAN TO THE TABLE The United States can encourage Iran to be a more constructive force in the region if it better understands Tehran’s interests. Iran wants the United States to end the policy of containment, to withdraw many if not all U.S. troops from the region, and to recognize that Iran is a regional power with legitimate regional interests. For the past 40 years, Iran has relied on confrontation to realize these objectives.

That combativeness has failed to achieve its aims. The killing in January of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general largely responsible for executing the strategy of confrontation, brought Iran and the United States to the brink of war, making clear the limitations of Iran’s approach. Tehran’s bristling foreign policy has exacerbated both economic

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President Donald Trump displays a presidential memorandum after announcing his intent to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 2018 ,8. (Reuters)

Negotiators need to also address concerns about Iran’s missile program and its use of proxies. They should strive to build regional agreements on the permissible range and capabilities of missiles, the scale of conventional military buildups, and the deployment of new weapons technologies. Such agreements might help convince Iran, for instance, to reduce support for its proxy groups in the region.

Tehran measures its investments in these groups against the military capabilities of its foes. If it has less to fear from its rivals, then it may feel less compelled to back its proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.c Negotiators would make progress on one track toward settling regional conflicts and on the other toward limiting nuclear weapons development and proxy wars. By so doing, they would lay the groundwork for broader agreements, including one on maritime security in the Persian Gulf among Iran, the Persian Gulf states, and the United States. Ultimately, the goal should be to formulate a regional security framework: an arrangement in the Middle East akin to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the African Union.

THE RIGHT MOMENT The United States is rethinking its Middle East policy more comprehensively than at any time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Soaring domestic deficits and looming confrontation with China compel the United States to extract itself from entanglements in a region that many on both sides of the aisle increasingly agree has lost its strategic significance. hardship and political unrest at home. Iran’s leaders are more likely to reckon with these negative outcomes if the United States offered an alternative route. Yes, they are instinctively suspicious of U.S. overtures and promises of compromise. But, as was the case when Iran dealt with the Obama administration, Iran’s leaders are not impervious to a serious diplomatic effort that might get them closer to the goals that have so far eluded them.

The necessary diplomatic process will have to unfold through an intricate geometry of talks yoking together Iran, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, and the United States.

Negotiations should take two tracks. Diplomats must seek to stabilize the region by ending conflicts in Syria and Yemen and by buttressing fragile states in Iraq and Lebanon, including through establishing new power-sharing arrangements. Iran and Saudi Arabia did that once before, implementing the Taif Agreement of 1989 that ended Lebanon’s civil war. Iran and the United States achieved something similar in the 2001 Bonn Agreement that remade Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.

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The same structural forces that are compelling Washington to rebalance its global priorities are also tearing into the Middle East. The coronavirus pandemic has hit Iran hard, bringing the country’s struggling economy to the brink of collapse, and low oil prices and a prolonged global economic downturn have hurt Saudi Arabia and its allies. The sheer magnitude of the calamity will force shifts in national priorities. Iran and the Persian Gulf states will have less appetite for arms races or lavish spending on regional clients and proxies. Already, Iran and the United Arab Emirates have started talking. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia seem inclined to end the war in Yemen. Tehran has also withdrawn some of its troops from Syria and pulled back in Iraq-even supporting the election of a prime minister whom the United States favors.

The conditions are ripe for diplomacy that eases the region’s tensions and fosters stability. The United States must take advantage of this moment or risk squandering a rare and vital opportunity.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Belarus Goes Its Own Way Thanks for the Advice, but This Movement Knows What It’s Doing

by Maryia Sadouskaya-Komlach An extraordinary wave of protest has swept Belarus since its presidential election on August 9.

The incumbent president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, claimed to have won reelection with 80.1 percent of the vote. Protesters rose to demand a fair and transparent vote count: it would be the country’s first in 20 years. In the days that followed, police detained thousands of protesters

under horrible conditions that included psychological and physical torture. Hundreds more have been beaten and wounded. And yet Belarusians continue to flood the streets of their cities, demanding that the government acknowledge election fraud and begin a dialogue on transferring power.

The protesters in Belarus are not organizing riots, getting into standoffs with the police, attack-

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ing governmental buildings, or looting shops.

Rather, they build barricades in the evening, then go back to work in the morning. And yet the riot police confront the demonstrators with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, stun grenades-even, some witnesses claim, live ammunition. After days of documented brutality, the government released thousands of detained protesters the night of August 14.

According to the pro-government news media, the protests are the work of foreign powers. But the narrative is hard to sustain when state-employed workers denounce police violence and demand a fair vote count. Prominent national figures, including actors, doctors, the Olympic biathlon champion Darya Domracheva, and the former tennis champion Victoria Azarenka, have recorded videos and signed petitions calling for an end to the violence and respect for the demands of the demonstrators. Police have reportedly singled out men for abuse: in response, women have organized all-female protests, at which women of all ages and social backgrounds dress in white, hold flowers, and talk to the police, asking them to stop fulfilling criminal orders. A Facebook and PayPal campaign called BY_Help has raised more than $2.5 million to help protesters pay medical bills, legal bills, and fines.

Opposition activists sing in Independence Avenue. Since the announcement of Belarusian 2020 the presidential election ,9 results on August mass protests against the election results have been hitting major cities across Belarus. Natalia Fedosenko/TASS Photo by Natalia Fedosenko\TASS via Getty Images

The protest movement has coalesced around three clear demands. The government should release all prisoners whose arrests were politically motivated-including former presidential candidates Viktar Babaryka and Siarhei Tsikhanouski. Authorities should investigate police violence and bring those responsible to justice.

And then they must either recognize Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as the election’s winner or organize new elections, registering all candidates and allowing the news media and independent observers free access.

UNSOUGHT ADVICE To read the coverage of the demonstrations in the major Western, Russian, and Ukrainian media outlets is to understand little about the upheaval in Belarus. These sources are instead busy

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The protesters in Belarus are not organizing riots, getting into standoffs with the police, attacking governmental buildings, or looting shops. Rather, they build barricades in the evening, then go back to work in the morning. comparing the events in Belarus with peaceful revolutions or failed coups in an endless chain of other countries. When Internet access was restored after three days of little to no connectivity, a high-ranking European diplomat posted sarcastically on Facebook: “I am surprised to find among my international friends so many experts on Belarus protests.” He later deleted the post and adopted a more official tone, but many Belarusians share the frustration he expressed.

Advice-and invidious comparisons-has poured in from all sides. Well-meaning pro-democratic Russians and Ukrainians offer Belarusians lessons on how to act more strategically. Not-sowell-meaning actors, such as the official social media account of the Russian president’s press pool, mock their indecisiveness. “If Fidel Castro fought for Cuba only in the evening after work, he would never gain it,” representatives of the official Kremlin pool of journalists wrote on August 11 on Telegram. Americans, absorbed in their own drama, project domestic narratives onto Belarus. The New York Times concludes that President Aleksandr Lukashenko “has lost the aura of an invincible popular leader”-without ever having critically analyzed whether such an aura has even existed in the last ten years. CNN describes street protests as “riots,” giving them a connotation of violence. “Who let Bill Barr and Donald Trump into Belarus?” demands the anti-Trump Lincoln Project on Twitter, posting a video of brutal Belarusian police actions and adding that “police thuggery” is “America’s latest export.”

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Back in June, Vitali Shkliarov, a Washingtonbased political analyst, described the Belarus protests as “the most unusual . . . in the world.”

No one could have predicted that the average Belarusian would take to the streets, he wrote in Foreign Policy, but as it turned out, “there has been unrest simmering all this time, so deep and low that it didn’t register with most people; it just took a destabilizing event as big as a global pandemic to uncover it.” Shkliarov was arrested in Belarus in July and accused of disturbing the social order.

There is in fact nothing sui generis about Belarus’s nonviolent protests, nor are they rooted in the pandemic. And as much as Belarus shares with its neighbours to the south and east, it has absorbed its experience differently. The country has a long history of civic cooperation and peaceful expression, and it is one that has unfolded against a backdrop of breath taking state violence. Nearly every third Belarusian perished in World War II at the hands of either Nazis or communists. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin decimated the country’s intellectual elite, killing its brightest minds by the hundreds. The trauma of the twentieth century is still present in every Belarusian family. Today’s authorities have skilfully manipulated that memory by promising Belarusians the peace and stability that elude their volatile post-Soviet neighbours.

In Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia, the path to democracy has been littered with obstacles: corruption, economic hardship, even military conflict.

When Ukrainians on social media tried to compare the current protests in Belarus with those in Ukraine, many Belarusians replied with anger: even Ukraine’s 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” struck them as too violent. Belarusians fear the comparison with Ukraine for many reasons.

Kremlin-sponsored television, widely accessible in Belarus, depicted Ukraine’s revolutionaries as “Nazis” burning down houses. But even many of those who don’t believe such propaganda flinch from the possibility of any violence whatever on the side of protesters. Ukraine’s bitter experience of losing control over parts of its territory stands as a cautionary tale-one that pro-Lukashenko forces continue to invoke as the reason for him to stay.

Advice from Russian opposition activists strikes many in Belarus as even more problematic. For decades, under Soviet rule, Russia was presented to the other republics as an “older sister” and a supposedly more advanced society. Then, when

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A participant in an opposition rally in Independence Avenue. Since the announcement of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election results on August 9, mass protests against the election results have been hitting major cities across Belarus. Natalia Fedosenko/TASS - Photo by Natalia Fedosenko\TASS via Getty Images

ning protests in Khabarovsk also illustrate the gulf between the two countries. In Belarus, no local official could be elected from the nonruling elite-such officials are not elected at all-and the police would pacify any one-city protest quickly and efficiently. Advice from Russia can therefore seem out of touch with Belarusian experience.

A BROKEN CONTRACT The current regime has ruled Belarus for 26 years. Back in 1994, Lukashenko won a free and fair election with an impressive 80.6 percent of the vote. Two years later, he proposed changes to the constitution that would grant him nearly unlimited powers. Parliament resisted, and Lukashenko dissolved it, appointing new deputies.

Since that time, he has removed presidential term limits by referendum. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has not recognized any Belarus election since 1994 as either free or fair.

the Soviet Union fell, Russia inherited most of the energy resources, wealth, and political power in the region. It has used these to demand concessions from Belarus, with Russian President Vladimir Putin making no secret that he aims for “deeper integration” between the two countries, or even incorporation. Russia’s opposition has given Belarusians little reason to trust that it would stand in the way of such a future: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has not openly questioned his government’s position on Crimea, for example.

Under Lukashenko, Belarus’s government has shut down or censored independent news outlets and jailed hundreds of political opponents. In 1999, two opposition politicians and a businessman mysteriously disappeared-the cases remain open. All the while, Belarus has grown exponentially more dependent on Russia. The Belarusian language is formally an equal counterpart to Russian, but it is marginalized and often disparaged as the “language of opposition.” Quality of life is poor in much of the country. And yet for all the limitations of this life, Belarusians are well educated and well traveled. Before the pandemic, Belarus led the world in the number of EU Schengen visas issued per capita.

When COVID-19 hit Belarus in March, Lukashenko publicly dismissed its seriousness, Moreover, activists in Belarus are aware of few much in the manner of Brazilian President Jair instances of local civic activism in Russia, and Bolsonaro. But the nation self-organized to prothose they do know of seem far removed from vide hospitals and clinics with personal protecBelarusian circumstances. Residents of the tive equipment, whether by 3D-printing protecRussian city of Khabarovsk, for instance, have tive shields or by reorienting factories to sew risen to demand the release from prison and re- full-body protection suits. These actions were instatement of their elected governor. Activists particularly remarkable because Belarus’s govin Brest, Belarus, have expressed solidarity with ernment discourages state-owned enterprises those protests and vice versa. But the long-run- from working with nonprofits, which it distrusts

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as potentially political or connected to the West.

The spirit of mutual support awakened by the pandemic continues to animate these volatile days. Volunteers provide protesters access to their homes and Wi-Fi connections, supply them with food and drinks, and form long lines to meet released detainees and bring them home. Until very recently, most citizens would fear doing such things.

Belarusians have seen enough to know that a swift change will not necessarily improve their lives. In Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia, the path to democracy has been littered with obstacles: corruption, economic hardship, even military conflict. Still, Belarusians who came out to protest before the election told reporters that they wanted greater freedom of expression and to have the government respect the constitution.

Almost none said that they were there to demand better pay or that they hated the regime. This restraint may signify that the protesters want their government to leave peacefully rather than being forced to flee in the manner of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych or Kyrgyzstan’s Kurmanbek Bakiyev (incidentally, the latter has been hiding from the new Kyrgyz authorities in Belarus, where he was granted citizenship).

Nonetheless, the authorities have responded by instigating fear and treating citizens with inhumanity. In so doing, Belarus’s government has

When Ukrainians on social media tried to compare the current protests in Belarus with those in Ukraine, many Belarusians replied with anger: even Ukraine’s 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” struck them as too violent.

broken its quarter-century-long contract with the society to shield it from conflict.

The people of Belarus are giving their government a last chance to listen to the voices of those who silently agreed to its policies before, as well as to the regime’s more vocal opponents. For the first time since the early 1990s, workers from the major state-controlled factories and plants have halted production and come out to protest.

Even Minsk underground station workers visibly joined the protests in the city center. Belarus’s prime minister, Roman Golovchenko, presumably shaken by the presence of what was normally considered the regime’s loyal base, came to talk to the workers in an attempt to prevent a national strike. On state television, the minister of internal affairs apologized for the “accidental” injuries and trauma that innocent people have suffered.

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Law enforcement officers detain a man during a rally of opposition supporters to protest against disputed presidential elections results in Minsk on August 24, 2020. - Getty

tests began, they did not meet open police brutality. Nor did citizens engage in violence, despite the fact that the government brought some 5,000, according to Reuters-65,000, by the official estimate of the Belarus police-Lukashenko voters from all over the country to meet with the president in the center of Minsk. If the second part of Tsikhanouskaya’s plan is as successful as the first, Belarus can affirm to the world that it is truly a nonviolent society-one that lives up to a national anthem that begins with the words “We, Belarusians, are peaceful people.�

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

A woman holds flowers during an opposition demonstration to protest against presidential election results at the Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus August 23, 2020

The opposition candidate for president, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, currently in Lithuania, recently broke her silence. Tsikhanouskaya believes that she won the majority of votes on August 9. In a YouTube video, she demanded that local authorities allow demonstrations in all Belarusian cities on August 16 and then afterward enter a dialogue to organize a peaceful transfer of power. More than 200,000 people marched in the streets of Minsk on the appointed day, as did tens of thousands in other cities. Some protesters disappeared after being pulled onto buses without license plates. But for the first time since the pro-

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The Pandemic Hurts Countries That Don’t Value Workers Weak Labour Protections Make the United States More Vulnerable to COVID-19

by Jacob Leibenluft In recent years, academics and policymakers in the United States have struggled with an economic mystery.

Why, even as the U.S. economy has grown in the past few decades, have wages remained relatively stagnant?

Many scholars have landed on one reason in particular:

the decline in the bargaining power of U.S. workers due to shrinking union membership and the rise of subcontracting. Workers have benefited less from economic growth as their ability to bargain for higher wages has withered. Instead, major gains have gone to investors and managers, and inequality in the United States has soared.

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Other industrialized countries have also seen rising inequality, but the decline in worker power is particularly acute in the United States. From the 1980s to the late 2010s, the labor share of income in the United Statesessentially, the percentage of overall income that ends up going to workers-fell by four percentage points, in effect a decline of hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Over the same period, U.S. workers lost key protections: collective-bargaining agreements cover less than 12 percent of workers (and only seven percent of private-sector workers) in the United States, compared with 98 percent in France, 80 percent in Italy, and 56 percent in Germany.

In recent years, academics and policymakers in the United States have struggled with an economic mystery. Why, even as the U.S. economy has grown in the past few decades, have wages remained relatively stagnant?

The diminished place of the worker in the United States helps explain the country’s poor management of the coronavirus pandemic compared with its peers. No other industrialized country has handled the pandemic so disastrously. To be sure, many factors have contributed to the weak U.S. response to the crisis-first and foremost, the ineffective and often counterproductive leadership from the White House, but also missteps at the state level and structural racism. And countries in Europe and elsewhere that boast strong worker protections are still seeing sporadic upticks in novel coronavirus infections that could lead to greater spread. But the path of the coronavirus to date suggests that a country whose workers lack economic and political power cannot respond to the crisis nearly as quickly or completely as its counterparts.

sick leave-and temporary measures enacted to address the consequences of COVID-19 have major holes-forcing many sick and at-risk workers to choose between coming in sick or losing their paycheck. The 88 percent of U.S. workers who lack union representation are employed “at will,” meaning that employers have wide latitude to fire them without cause. Workers in hospitals and on construction sites have faced retaliation for raising health concerns, and as a result, many workers may fear speaking out when they feel unsafe.

WORKER HEALTH IS PUBLIC HEALTH Maritza Silva-Farrell, Executive Director of Alliance In Greater New York (ALIGN) speaks at a rally for workplace safety protections outside Bellevue Hospital to demand legally enforceable standards as the coronavirus (COVID19-) continues on August 2020 ,19 in New York. (Getty)

Since its outset, COVID-19 has particularly imperiled workplaces. A Harvard University study of the initial spread in Asian countries estimated that work-related transmission accounted for up to 47.7 percent of early cases. From the beginning, the virus has spread easily in U.S. workplaces, including among health-care workers, bar and restaurant employees, transit operators, meatprocessing plant workers, and others. Now, nearly half a year into the pandemic, the United States government has still exercised little oversight over the conditions employers impose on their employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for instance, declined to issue emergency safety standards after the outbreak began. Influential corporate donors and federal indifference to the demands of unions have ensured that OSHA mounted a passive response to the crisis. Understaffed owing to years of defunding, the agency issued its first coronavirus-related citation only in late May. A lack of legal protections that are common in other countries has further endangered worker safety. The United States does not have federal legislation guaranteeing paid

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European governments, by contrast, moved more quickly to set new workplace standards after the outbreak. Even before the pandemic, workers in Europe operated in an environment where they had greater say over the conditions of their labor. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work issued guidance on COVID-19 that states: “The participation of workers and their representatives in [occupational safety and health] management is a key to success and a legal obligation.” Businesses and labor unions have jointly recommended safety protocols in industries such as food and beverage manufacturing. In Germany, for example, councils that represent both employer and employee interests are responsible for maintaining proper workplace standards. The practice is so entrenched that when the pandemic hit, Germans didn’t worry about whether workers had a right to participate in determining workplace conditions so much as whether that right was sufficiently protected if the necessary meetings were held by videoconference.

When employees have little say in determining workplace conditions, the results can be appalling. The U.S. meatpacking industry offers a cautionary tale. COVID-19 tore through slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, where workers were stuck side by side on assembly lines.

Federal and state regulators and the owners of meatpacking plants ignored complaints from workers and unions.

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Instead, firms allegedly offered employees “responsibility bonuses” for continuing to show up at work and disciplined workers for missing scheduled shifts. According to a July report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nine percent of all meat-processing workers in states for which data were available had contracted COVID-19, and of those diagnosed, 87 percent came from racial or ethnic minority groups.

The meatpacking industry in Europe has suffered its own outbreaks-thanks in large part to weaker protections for migrant laborers-but through early June, it had documented one-ninth as many cases as its U.S. counterpart, despite employing about two-thirds as many people. And while hot spots remain, the European response to these outbreaks has been significantly more aggressive: the governments of the two countries with the largest meat-processing industries, Germany and Spain, have extended new rights to contract workers who had previously been excluded from labor protections and were most vulnerable to COVID-19.

A similar story has unfolded in other industries, including in retail, construction, cleaning services, and health care: the pandemic exposed a lack of protections for U.S. workers while it encouraged European workers to push for and win better standards and new rights. In both the United States and Europe, for instance, Amazon employees engaged in work stoppages and protested workplace conditions. Amazon fired leaders of protests in the United States (claiming they had violated certain company policies), but a court in France helped Amazon’s French employees force the company to negotiate new safety standards.

The United States does not have federal legislation guaranteeing paid sick leaveand temporary measures enacted to address the consequences of COVID19have major holes-forcing many sick and at-risk workers to choose between coming in sick or losing their paycheck.

Safer workplaces make the whole society safer. Improved standards in industries where workers have contact with the general public reduce the risk of transmission to the broader community. In the United States, the virus spread disproportionately in neighborhoods that were home to many “essential workers,” in the communities where meatprocessing plants were located, and in places where opening bars and restaurants created spikes of infections among staff. To fail to ensure the safety of workers is to fail to keep the virus in check.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY DEPENDS ON WORKERS The relative lack of worker power in the United States also risks hurting the country’s overall economic recovery. The pandemic has dampened economic activity everywhereGDP fell by 9.5 percent in the United States and 12.1 percent in the euro area during the second quarter of 2020.

But the weaker position of U.S. workers means the United States will probably be slower to regain its economic footing than will its European counterparts.

The United States has channeled most relief for workers through unemployment insurance payments to those who

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A protest banner demanding US President Trump stop denying the science behind the COVID pandemic and Climate is carried to the Republican National Convention Headquarters on August 2020 ,24 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

affirmed that states can rescind the benefits of people who refuse to return to work during the pandemic-even those who fear that doing so is unsafe.

The expanded unemployment benefits were allowed to expire at the end of July, as conservative lawmakers insisted that they were too generous. Millions of unemployed Americans saw their income suddenly drop by $600 a week right as any momentum toward a recovery slowed. U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to provide a smaller boost to unemployment through a presidential memorandum, but this effort is likely to provide insufficient, short-term relief. It has also stalled the necessary legislative process for extending the payments that were at the heart of the initial U.S. response to the pandemic, even though the unemployment rate is still above ten percent.

lost their jobs. In March, Congress passed a historic expansion of the program, increasing benefit amounts and loosening eligibility requirements. In June, unemployment insurance benefits represented 15.6 percent of total U.S. wage and salary income, more than six times the pre-crisis high of 2.5 percent.

Unemployment insurance has been a crucial lifeline for the U.S. economy and millions of workers. But many Americans struggled for weeks and even months to receive these payments thanks to dilapidated public infrastructure-the computers that process unemployment insurance in many states still rely on programming from the 1960s-and the fact that the system often makes it difficult for people to get benefits in the first place. Since the creation of unemployment insurance during the New Deal-when segregationist legislators intentionally excluded agricultural and domestic workers from the program-various provisions have made it harder for Black and Hispanic workers to obtain benefits. Moreover, the system incentivizes employers to contest workers’ claims for benefits (by linking employer taxes to the number of employees who file for benefits) and otherwise restricts workers from getting assistance where receiving it might increase their bargaining power. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor has

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Other industrialized countries, by contrast, have established-with greater worker involvement-systems that are more resilient. European countries already have more functional unemployment insurance systems than that of the United States. Many of these nations, including Belgium and Denmark that use the “Ghent system” in which unions are responsible for administering jobless benefits, have built programs based on the imperative of including rather than excluding workers. European countries have also established or boosted programs that sent money to workers while they remained on payrolls, often through so-called work-sharing or short-time compensation arrangements. The German government looks likely to extend from 12 to 24 months its expansion of the Kurzarbeit (“short work”) program, which allows companies to furlough workers-instead of laying them off-by helping make up for their lost earnings from reduced hours. Such measures helped minimize the disruption to the economy during the unprecedented shutdowns, creating a clearer path from crisis back to recovery.

These programs help explain why official unemployment rates rose by less this spring in Europe than in the United States, despite similar declines in GDP. Moreover, these work-sharing approaches-typically negotiated jointly by employers and unions-reflect the joint commitment of the government and the private sector to maintain the incomes of workers during the crisis. What distinguishes these programs from their U.S. counterparts is not that their benefits are necessarily more generous-at least this spring, unemployed U.S. workers were often receiving slightly more in benefits as a share of their prior income than were unemployed Europeans-but how they ensure that, on a firmby-firm basis, workers both remain better connected to the labor force and actually get the payments they are due.

The role of worker power in making these programs function is evident in a little-appreciated fact: the basic

mechanics of European-like schemes are available in the United States, but they haven’t been actually used in a way that benefits workers. Prior to the crisis, 27 states had enacted work-sharing arrangements, in which workers can receive unemployment benefits to compensate for reduced hours; and the Paycheck Protection Program, as the U.S. small-business support program is called, has made $660 billion available to firms in an approach designed to prevent layoffs. But according to the U.S. Department of Labor, only about 450,000 workers out of 28 million workers claiming unemployment benefits in the United States are enrolled in work-sharing schemes, and little evidence supports the notion that PPP and other business assistance programs have actually encouraged employers to retain workers. The airlines were one of very few industries to which government support came with an insistence on firm rules around employee retention. Unsurprisingly, flight attendant unions and other

In the United States, the virus spread disproportionately in neighborhoods that were home to many “essential workers”.

airline worker groups played an important role in negotiations over the aid.

Restarting a weakened economy will require the government both to control the virus and to provide real support to workers, families, and small businesses. A robust program to maintain workers’ incomes is necessary to allow workers to stay home when social distancing is in effect and to restart activity when it is not.

Without bringing workers to the table, the United States will struggle to make these programs as effective as they can be.

And failing to provide strong and reliable support to workers will have economic consequences that go far beyond the unemployed themselves. Aid to idled workers not only helps them and their families but also serves an important “countercyclical” function during an economic downturn.

These workers are likely to quickly spend the money they receive, helping to boost consumer activity that can in turn drive a wider recovery. But if the unemployed aren’t actually able to access benefits-or if those benefits expire too early in the downturn-then people will be less likely to spend and support the economy. The United States has neither managed to keep workers on payrolls nor provided sufficiently comprehensive and long-lasting financial support to workers. As a result, the country risks greater damage to small businesses and local communities and a deepening economic downturn.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. hold a news conference in the Capitol to call for an extension of eviction protections in the next coronavirus bill on Wednesday, July 2020 ,22. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

People protest working conditions outside of an Amazon warehouse fulfillment center on May 2020 ,1 in the Staten Island borough of New York City. (Getty)

BRINGING WORKERS TO THE TABLE As many economists have repeatedly insisted, protecting public health and supporting the economy in a pandemic are not mutually exclusive goals. The United States’ inability to marshal a comprehensive response encompassing both is a failure of leadership that has been exacerbated by the absence of workers from decision-making.

Federal and state efforts to “reopen” the economy have rarely included more than superficial consultations with workers.

The debate over whether and how to reopen schools in the United States offers a useful counterexample. Teachers are unionized at relatively high rates compared with other sectors of the U.S. economy (about 70 percent of public school teachers, for instance, belong to unions).

In some districts, teachers have protested rushed plans and won protections for both staff and pupils alike. But teachers have struggled to secure such measures in states where their unions have less power. That teachers have any opportunity at all to participate in such decisions stands in marked contrast to almost every other part of the U.S. economy.

U.S. policies in the wake of the pandemic treat most workers as dispensable and, in so doing, put the public at risk. State governments were slow to mandate or even encourage mask wearing, leaving retail workers

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to enforce their use. And Republican legislators have tried to exclude corporations from liability even if workers, consumers, or their families contract the virus in a workplace or a place of business, thereby prioritizing the protection of business owners over tackling the threat of COVID-19.

Many European countries, by contrast, maintain a longstanding “social dialogue” model in decision-making about major social and economic issues, in which labor and employer organizations are involved in negotiations around major policies. This approach is embedded in institutions and political norms. And it reflects how union membership can, in the words of the political scientists John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi, encourage people to take actions that are “in the interest of others” outside their own group by expanding their sense of whose fate is tied to their own. Reforming labor laws to make it easier for workers to organize and join unions is a crucial step to not only increasing wages or reducing inequality but building a society more resilient to crises.

Recent decades have shown that societies become more unequal when workers have less power. The travails of this year suggest that empowering workers will also strengthen a country’s ability to weather the ravages of a pandemic.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Europe’s Geopolitical Awakening The Pandemic Rouses a Sleeping Giant

by Max Bergmann Europe has been a geopolitical nonentity since the 1990s. With the largest economy in the world, 450 million people, and defense spending comparable to Russia’s, the continent could be a colossus. Yet Europe has never come close to equaling the combined clout of its constituent countries. Beset by chronic economic, political, and institutional limitations and crises, the European Union has for the last three decades exerted remarkably little influence on global affairs. Europe’s most powerful member states, meanwhile, have either seen their sway diminish, as France

has, or, like Germany, resisted taking up the mantle of international leadership.

U.S. analysts have come to see European fecklessness as a given. In 2011, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that in the twenty-first century “Europe’s influence on affairs beyond its borders will be sharply limited.” Not only has Brussels disappointed Washington by refusing to share more of the burden of collective security but it has punched well below its diplomatic weight on matters of global import.

Now, suddenly, Europe is stirring. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have awakened the continent

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from its decades-long economic and political slumber and reinvigorated the EU integration project in ways that were unimaginable just six months ago.

Jean Monnet, one of the founding architects of the European Union, famously said that “Europe will be forged in crises.” This crisis may forge a Europe that is more confident and more assertive on the world stage-one that will help strengthen and define the twenty-first-century global order.

BRUSSELS UNBOUND

Fireworks light up the sky during the ceremony to mark the entry into force of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, on December 2009 ,1 in Lisbon. (Getty)

COVID-19 initially devastated Europe, as it did much of the world. But by implementing aggressive lockdowns, following scientists’ recommendations, and supporting wage workers, the EU and its member states were able to bring the pandemic under relative control and stave off an economic collapse. In turn, Europe gained global prestige-and confidence. In recent months, European leaders have made a series of uncharacteristically assertive moves. After China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong in June, the EU condemned China and called the law “deplorable.” The EU further agreed to limit exports to Hong Kong of sensitive equipment such as technology that could be used for surveillance. In July, for the first time, the EU imposed cyber-sanctions on China, Russia, and North Korea. And this month, European leaders condemned the fraudulent election in Belarus and have opened a dialogue with the Kremlin aimed at forestalling Russian intervention.

But by far the most significant step European leaders have taken since the beginning of the pandemic was to pass a $2 trillion economic recovery package. In one fell swoop, the EU closed the book on a decade of crushing economic austerity, which had contributed to the rise of populism, reduced support for the EU, and put the euro perpetually on the verge of economic crisis. Combined with the enormous stimulus spending of individual European states, the rescue package puts Europe on course for a strong economic recovery.

It also opens the door to a significant expansion of the EU’s federal powers. The deal may enable the EU to borrow, tax, and spend like an actual state. Should another crisis emerge-a pandemic, a debt or migration crisis, or something else-the EU will have the ability to generate the resources to respond.

The EU has never before enjoyed such powers. The process of integrating Europe and creating a stronger federal structure has occurred in fits and starts since World War II, with major advances followed by long periods of stasis. Since the Lisbon Treaty, which set the rules for the EU, came into force in 2009, Europe had been stuck with a hybrid political system-part fed-

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Since the Lisbon Treaty, which set the rules for the EU, came into force in 2009, Europe had been stuck with a hybrid political system-part federal state, part multilateral organization. eral state, part multilateral organization. Where the EU was empowered, Brussels emerged as a global playerfor instance, in the regulation of global markets. As Columbia Law School’s Anu Bradford has argued, the EU’s enormous economy and consumer base give it the power to set standards for markets around the world. But where the EU must seek consensus from its member states, including on foreign policy, it has been consistently hobbled.

The agreement on the recovery package has opened up a new set of possibilities. Faced with an economic crisis of epic proportions, European leaders suddenly appear willing to push the boundaries of Brussels’s powers, perhaps through the reinterpretation of EU rules. Some EU policymakers are calling to drop the requirement for unanimity in foreign policy decisions in favor of a “qualified majority.” As Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, explained, “It would be better to adopt a strong and substantial position by a majority rather than unanimously adopting a weak position with little substance.” Such a change would require the unanimous agreement of EU member states-an unlikely outcome at the moment. But the COVID-19 pandemic has breathed new life into the Franco-German alliance, which has historically advocated for a stronger EU. If the EU, hampered by its hybrid system, can’t forge a stronger and more cohesive approach to foreign policy, EU leaders-especially the French and Germans-will call for reform more loudly than ever before.

EUROPEANS LOOK TO EUROPE Europe’s geopolitical awakening has not come completely out of the blue. As the U.S.-Chinese rivalry intensified during Donald Trump’s presidency, Europe began to gingerly adjust its approach to a world increasingly defined by great-power competition.

The European Union began debating the notion of “strategic autonomy,” which calls for Europe to de-

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fend its sovereignty and advance its interests independently from the United States. But in the midst of a pandemic, strategic autonomy looks less like a concept for EU leaders to debate and more like an urgent policy to enact. Instead of looking to an American ally that has grown abusive under Trump or to an increasingly aggressive China for global leadership, European leaders are finding they have to look to Europe.

Part of this change has been driven by the United States’ catastrophic response to COVID-19 and by the simultaneous spilling of racial tensions out onto its streets. European support for the transatlantic alliance had already slipped as a result of the excesses of the U.S. “war on terror,” the bungled invasion of Iraq, and the 2008 financial crisis. But the Trump administration’s recent failures raise deeper questions about the United States’ basic ability to govern itself. European policymakers worry that even if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the White House in November, the United States will be so preoccupied by internal challenges that Europe may not be able to depend on U.S. global leadership.

But the shift in Europe’s outlook is also a response to China. Europe had long seen China primarily through an economic lens. It hoped that openness and trade would lead to political liberalization and even to democratization in China. But as China’s economy blossomed, its politics constricted further. Openness proved to be a one-way street, causing frustration with China’s unfair trade practices to mount in Europe, just as it did in the United States. The pandemic turned European public opinion decisively against China.

Beijing sought to obscure the origins of the virus, and once it had gotten the disease under control at home, it embarked on an aggressive campaign of “wolf warrior” diplomacy that alarmed and alienated Europeans.

The EU won’t turn into a superpower overnight, and it may never do so. The grand project of building a federal union may remain a perpetual work in progress.

If changing perceptions of the United States and China have factored into Europe’s sudden assertiveness in foreign policy, so have Europe’s perceptions of itself. COVID-19 has convinced large majorities of Europeans of the need for greater EU cooperation.

Sensing the shift in popular sentiment, European leaders took dramatic economic action. Europe is entering this new decade more confident in its union and less confident in others.

A EUROPEAN CENTURY The EU won’t turn into a superpower overnight, and it may never do so. The grand project of building a fed-

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Prime Minister of Austria Sebastian Kurz arrives attend the fourth day of an EU summit in Brussels, Belgium on July 2020 ,20. (Getty)

eral union may remain a perpetual work in progress.

The EU still faces tremendous internal challengesfrom populist politicians and the continued strength of the nation-state, from economic divergence between north and south, and from an internal democratic deficit that invites justified skepticism of Brussels. But there can be little doubt that Europe will emerge from this crisis a stronger, more unified global player.

That is good news for the United States. Europe can be an important U.S. partner, especially as the United States’ rivalry with China intensifies. Washington should encourage Europe’s rise where it can. It should also stop obsessing about what Europe lacks, such as capable militaries. Instead, it should focus on what

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Europe has been a geopolitical nonentity since the 1990s.

Europe has: an effective diplomatic corps, the world’s largest economy, and growing global prestige. The twenty-first century may not be a European century, but for it to be a liberal century, Europe will have to play a leading role.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The Exceptional American Relationship to Public Health

Why the United States Has Failed So Spectacularly to Control COVID-19

by Joshua M. Sharfstein In October 2019, a global study found the United States to be the best-prepared nation in the world for ÂŤhigh-consequence and globally catastrophic biological events.Âť Less than a year later, however, the

United States leads the world in both infections and deaths from COVID-19, with close to 300,000 people projected to die by the end of 2020.

The failures of the U.S. pandemic response are by now well known. The country was slow to initiate diagnostic testing. It lacked testing materials, per-

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sonal protective gear, drugs, and devices. Americans resisted wearing masks and taking other protective measures, and public health authorities were able to muster only anemic efforts to track and trace infections.

To understand these problems as independent of one another-each with its own origin, story line, and cast of characters-is easy and tempting. But to understand the true source of American «exceptionalism» in regard to the pandemic requires recognizing their common cause: a profound failure of the nation›s leadership to value public health tools and expertise, even amid a historic public health crisis.

DIVISION AND DISTRUST

The streets of Manhattan stand nearly empty due to the coronavirus epidemic on April ,10 2020 in New York City. (Getty)

Any U.S. administration would have struggled to succeed against COVID-19, given the legacy of a weak public health infrastructure and the polarization of the nation›s politics. Public health, defined as «what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy,» has long been in tension with American individualism and contrary to the incentives of the lucrative health-care system.

Just three percent of the national resources spent on health care go to state and local public health efforts, with underfunded agencies suffering enormous losses of staff and expertise in recent years. The fact that Americans have difficulty finding common ground on any issue-at the start of the pandemic, record numbers identified partisan divides as strong-compounded these deficits. Under such conditions, any response would likely be seen, as with climate change, as an opportunity for political posturing rather than as a scientific necessity.

The administration of President Donald Trump did not just fail to tackle these obstacles: it exploited them, prioritizing the search for political advantage over the people and principles of public health. Many local and state health officials, not to mention mayors, county executives, and governors, have responded forcefully and responsibly to the pandemic. But the national megaphone is louder; the national authority is greater; and the national resources are deeper. The U.S. experience with COVID-19 has been a master class in the importance of leadership from the top during a crisis, demonstrated by its absence.

To understand the new disease emerging in early 2020, the leaders of many other nations turned to senior public health experts or to the World Health Organization and then raced to strengthen their diseasecontrol measures and data-reporting systems. The

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Any U.S. administration would have struggled to succeed against COVID19-, given the legacy of a weak public health infrastructure and the polarization of the nation›s politics.

White House instead heard from political appointees jockeying for the president›s approval and reluctant to be the bearers of bad news. What followed in the critical early weeks was a stunning refusal to acknowledge the potential severity of the crisis. Trump said on January 22, «We have it totally under control,» and on February 10, «Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.» On February 27, he said, «It›s going to disappear,» and on March 10, «Just stay calm. It will go away.»

This wishful and uninformed thinking had consequences. Early in the pandemic, officials from the Department of Health and Human Services had the opportunity to purchase millions of masks from U.S. manufacturers but declined to do so. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner reportedly considered reaching out to large diagnostic companies about testing capacity but was advised not to.

Had federal agencies begun to purchase large quantities of protective equipment or sounded an alarm about the urgent need to scale up testing, they would have been contradicting the sunny messaging from the White House.

In mid-March, with cases rising quickly in New York City and elsewhere, scientists persuaded the White House to take the pandemic seriously and support state and local shutdowns to reduce transmission. The White House now had a second chance to exercise national leadership. For a crisis of this magnitude, the federal government could have set up a unified command structure with an empowered Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at its center.

Agency experts could have created national standards for data collection, reporting, testing methods, contact tracing, and other response steps. The Department of Defense or the Federal Emergency Management Agencycould have coordinated the supply chain for testing and medications, and the White House could

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have called on trusted figures from across the political spectrum to reinforce key messages and quickly counter misinformation.

Instead, the White House sidelined the CDC. The administration kept the agency from briefing the public, took away its responsibilities related to data, and watered down its recommendations. The president announced that the federal government was «not a shipping clerk,» leaving hospitals, clinics, and state governments competing against one another for scarce protective equipment.

Rather than seeking to bring the country together, the administration moved to exploit the moment for political gain. News reports suggested that political considerations drove White Housedecisions on where to send essential federal resources. As the initial shutdown period came to an end, the president positioned public health and the economy as competing with one another, tweeting at supporters to «LIBERATE» states run by Democratic governors who had put strong restrictions in place.

By April, what emerged was exactly the situation to be avoided: tension between loyalty to the president and following public health recommendations. Protests, many of them armed, spread across the country.

Effective crisis communication requires consistent messaging across information sources: the opposite took hold in the United States, where partisan sources of information minimized the threat of the pandemic and conspiracy theories (amplified by social media) fueled opposition to disease-control measures. The

confusion left many unprepared to protect themselves and their families. Only in the United States are citizens divided over wearing masks based on their political affiliation.

A positive ending to the U.S. story of COVID19- is still possible: one in which principled and unified national leadership helps the country to conquer the pandemic and sets the stage for a healthier future

State and local health officials-responsible for tracking infections, devising testing strategies, and both drawing up and communicating policy-were left exposed to strong political headwinds from elected officials and angry constituents. Dozens of public health officials have been threatened, harassed, fired, or forced from their jobs during the pandemic. The White House and political appointees did not even support leading federal health officials, such as Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, but instead criticized them. The president himself shared a tweet that read, «Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust.»

Ending the pandemic will require that scientists devel-

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Luis Mora stands in front of the closed offices of the New York State Department of Labor on May 2020 ,7 in the Brooklyn borough in New York City.

(Getty)

It can set meaningful expectations for state and local responses while providing essential resources, and it can enlist political and cultural figures from across the political spectrum in a unified messaging campaign.

But for these steps to be effective, the United States will need to overcome two long-standing impediments that the Trump administration has inflamed: the minimization of public health and the polarization of politics. To address these issues in tandem, leaders should devise new language that relates public health to other American values. Public health is not just about administering vaccines, encouraging people not to smoke, and promoting healthy diets. It›s about helping families, friends, and neighbors stay healthy longer so that they can live the lives they want to live. Those who are dying of COVID-19 or other preventable diseases have lost their chance to realize the American dream.

A plan to end the crisis should envision a recovery phase as well. Rather than return to their baseline state after COVID-19, public health agencies should be prepared to manage other pressing concerns. State and local governments can repurpose the contact-tracing workforce to help teenagers succeed in school or find jobs, young men and women at risk from violence stay out of harm›s way, people with diabetes and heart disease stay healthy and out of the hospital, and older adults live longer in their own homes. These efforts can focus on supporting long-neglected communities, addressing inequity as well as illness. op safe and effective vaccines, and then public health agencies will need to provide regulatory approval and promote public acceptance. The stakes of the moment could not be higher. Prioritizing divisive politics over public health could lead to the widespread use of ineffective or unsafe products, or it could lead millions of Americans to distrust the review process and refuse to be vaccinated-or both.

LESSONS FROM THE MASTER CLASS If the U.S. experience with COVID-19 is indeed a master class in failed national leadership, then the only question on the final exam is what can and must be done differently. In the short term, this administration or the next one can rebalance the scales between public health and politics by empowering scientific experts and the CDC to devise a national response plan and implement it. The federal government can, as part of such an effort, better manage the supply chain.

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As citizens see these agencies improving the country›s quality of life, they will come to understand that public health investments really matter. Such an understanding will help undergird a long-term investment in public health infrastructure, including personnel and agencies dedicated to protecting communities from dangerous diseases and environmental emergencies. Public health departments need at least $4.5 billion in annual appropriations to bring their function to a basic level. Such investments will save lives in areas both red and blue; supporters from across the political spectrum should mobilize in support.

The United States needs to reset its relationship to public health-and, accordingly, the field and its practitioners need to prepare for a renaissance. A positive ending to the U.S. story of COVID-19 is still possible: one in which principled and unified national leadership helps the country to conquer the pandemic and sets the stage for a healthier future.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1815- August- 28/08/2020

Mohamed Abdu: From Poor Sailor’s Son to Renowned Singer www.majalla.com

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The Rise and Fall of Barcelona’s La Masia Academy How the Catalan Academy Became a Victim of its Own Success

by Ali El Shamy

as youth coach in 1972, he wanted to promote the idea of a quick play style that favoured fast passing In November 2012 ,25, Barcelona FC was playing and touches, as well as increased position of the away against Levante. On the 14th minute of the ball. Ruiz also wanted to promote smaller and match, right-back Dani Alves picked up an injury technically gifted players who were better suited for and had to be replaced with Martin Montoya. This this style of play. While Ruiz wanted to impose this marked the first time in which Barcelona’s XI line- new philosophy into La Masia, upper management up was composed exclusively of academy graduates still favoured more traditional styles that prioritized as Victor Valdes, Montoya, Pique, Carlos Puyol, taller and more physically imposing attacking Jordi Alba, Xavi, Sergio Busquets, Cesc Fabregas, players. Barcelona’s gradual identity shift wouldn’t Pedro, Ineista and Lionel Messi led Blaugrana to fully take place until 1988 when Dutch coach and a comfortable 0-4 victory. More importantly, this former Barca player Johan Cruyff became the victory became a symbol of La Masia’s successful Catalans’ head coach. Under his influence, Cruyff youth promotion model, which contrasted, with would start to use a possession based play style Real Madrid’s Galacticos strategy of buying all similar to that of the Dutch national team of the 1970s, and more importantly he would transfer ready established star players from other clubs. these tactics and quick passing and distribution LA MASIA AND BARCELONA’S IDENTITY into the youth set up. Cruyff would also take it upon himself to promote players from Barcelona B La Masia is Barcelona’s youth academy, which into the first team as soon as he thought they were in the 1970s and 1980s started implementing the ready. Under his reign, 32 La Masia graduates philosophies of youth coach Laureano Ruiz and made their debut into the first team. In spite of this head coach Johan Cruyff. When Ruiz was appointed large number, only two graduates would become frequent first team starters, Albert Ferrer and Pep

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FC Barcelona fans gather outside the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on August 2020 ,26 after Barcelona›s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi announced his desire to leave the club. (Getty)

Guardiola. Guardiola retired from football in 2006, but that wasn’t the end of his journey as in 2007 he was appointed Barcelona B’s head coach, where he would start to perfect the legacy which Cruyff left behind. Under his management, Pep’s Barcelona B team would be mostly comprised of youth academy players who were accompanied with by a group of older players who were bought in as “foundational players”.

The purpose of foundational players was to instil a winning spirit within Barcelona B team and to act as guides for the younger players. When Pep became the first team’s coach in 2008, he utilised La Masia to perfection as he would promote academy players such as Sergio Busquets to the first team and would buy back former La Masia players such as Gerard Pique and Cesc Fabregas who had been sold to Manchester United and Arsenal, respectively, under previous manager Frank Rijkaard. The Barcelona first teams that won the 2009 and 2011 Champions Leagues were composed of seven La Masia players, which greatly contrasted with the first teams that won the competition in 1992 and 2006, as both of those respective Barcelona teams only had two academy players each. Furthermore, these new players were

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Barcelona’s gradual identity shift wouldn’t fully take place until 1988 when Dutch coach and former Barca player Johan Cruyff became the Catalans’ head coach. Under his influence, Cruyff would start to use a possession based play style similar to that of the Dutch national team of the 1970s. perfect for Pep’s play style of keeping possesion and quick short passes, which would become known as “tiki-taka”. La Masia graduates would also go on to become instrumental in the Spanish national team’s successes from 2008 to 2012, as the Spain squad that won the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 had the likes of Puyol, Pique, Sergio Busquets, Xavi, Ineista and Fabregas. Moreover,

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the Spain team of that era would use the “tiki taka” play style made famous by FC Barcelona.

HOW LA MASIA BECAME A VICTIM OF ITS OWN SUCCESS When Pep left Barcelona in 2012, he left behind

The Barcelona first teams that won the 2009 and 2011 Champions Leagues were composed of seven La Masia players, which greatly contrasted with the first teams that won the competition in 1992 and 2006, as both of those respective Barcelona teams only had two academy players each.

a foundation for future success and further youth promotion. However, the “tiki-taka” era would also elevate Barcelona to become one of the biggest and most lucrative football brands in the world, as for the first time in its history the Catalans would become a more globally supported club than their arch rivals Real Madrid. To maintain the brand’s success and popularity, Barcelona had to maintain its success on the pitch. As a result, the board could not afford to allow the team to lag behind in order to promote youth prospects that may or may not become successful first teamers. As a result, Barcelona started to rely more on established players bought over from other clubs rather than La Masia graduates. Thus began the rampant decline of what was just 10 years ago considered the greatest youth academy in world football. A similar phenomenon would happen at Manchester United, which in the 1990s and early 2000s had a first team based around the “Class of 92” academy graduates which consisted of the likes of Gary Neville and David Beckham. Manchester United success ultimately led to reliance on transfer rather than youth promotion and to this day fans

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Ibrahim Affelay,Andre Iniesta,Xavi Hernandez,Lionel Messi,Daniel Alves,Pique Celebrate with the trophy after the UEFA Champions League final between FC Barcelona and Manchester United FC at Wembley Stadium on May 28, 2011 in London, )England. (Getty

Frenkie De Jong poses with players of La Masia at Camp Nou during his unveiling on July 05, 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.

(Photo by Quality Sport )Images/Getty Images

of the Red Devils are still waiting for the new “Class of 92”.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 2020: A SYMBOL OF A DECLINING EMPIRE By 2020, Barcelona was a shadow of its former self. A team that was once composed of exciting young players was now composed of aging players. Key players such as Messi, Pique, Vidal and Suarez are all 33 years of age, while Busquets and Rakitic are 32. Recent purchases have been underwhelming as both Antoine Greizmann and the young Ousmanne Dembele (who was touted as the future star of the team), have failed to live up to hype and expectations. Barcelona’s 2-8 thrashing at the hands of Bayern Munich served as a massive statement that Barcelona had been severely mismanaged for the past five years or so under current president Josep Bartomeu, and that massive changes needed to be made. If Messi does leave the club during this current transfer window, then it would be the end of the team’s

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Victor Font stated that he aims to rebuild a new Barcelona team around La Masia youth players and he hopes to appoint ex Bara player Xavi as the head coach of this new project. greatest ever era. If Barcelona undergoes a rebuild, then it would have to endure years with little to no silverware. The upcoming election for Barcelona’s presidency slated for next year might be the start of a new La Masia based era for Barcelona, as one of the candidates, Victor Font stated that he aims to rebuild a new Barcelona team around La Masia youth players and he hopes to appoint ex Bara player Xavi as the head coach of this new project.

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Apple vs. Epic Games is a Bigger Conflict than Any Console War

Fortnite Maker Sues Tech Giants Apple and Google

by Gieson Cacho Everyone expected the PlayStation 5 vs. the Xbox Series X to be the big video game battle of 2020, but

it looks like that console war is taking a backseat to a bigger conflict. Epic Games, the makers of “Fortnite,� has filed an antitrust suit against Apple and begun a series of salvos that got the popular battle royale game

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kicked off the App Store.

It began with Epic Games bypassing Apple’s payment service by allowing direct payments to the Cary, North Carolina,-based, company. The way the App Store works is that Apple takes a %30 cut from every sale on the platform. By skirting that with its “mega drop” discount, Epic violated Apple’s terms of service.

“Fortnite” was removed from the Apple App Store.

Players who have already downloaded the game can still play and spend money, according to the Washington Post, but they will not be able to get the seasonal updates that keep “Fortnite” fresh year after year.

Epic Games, the makers of “Fortnite,” has filed an antitrust suit against Apple and begun a series of salvos that got the popular battle royale game kicked off the App Store.

Meanwhile, “Fortnite” for Android has been removed from Google’s Play Store for similar reasons.

This isn’t the first time Epic Games has created waves on the financial side of the video games industry. Nearly two years ago, it created the Epic Games Store as a rival to Valve’s Steam service. Both are essentially app stores for PC gamers, which is how a majority of players buy games. Whereas Steam takes a %30 cut from a game’s revenue, Epic takes a %12 cut, giving more money to developers.

This “App Store war” as VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi puts it could have a larger impact on gaming than what goes on in consoles. If cloud gaming is the future, the challenge to open up iOS devices is going to have big ramifications. It could also rewrite how much platform holders take from developers who want to sell their games on the virtual stores.

This illustration picture shows a person logging into Epic Games› Fortnite on their smartphone in Los Angeles on August 2020 ,14.

(AFP)

In response, Epic Games filed the lawsuit and created a stinging ad and a hashtag. #FreeFortnite began trending on Twitter soon after Epic launched an advertisement that echoed Apple’s legendary “1984” Mac commercial during the Super Bowl. Epic’s argument was clear. Apple with its dominance of the mobile market has become the very thing it criticized so effectively in the past.

To its credit, Apple is the company that popularized the smartphone. It created and invested in its walled garden and it has enforced rules equally across all apps with some exceptions. It’s the %30 cut that’s the issue, and something the company considers onerous. There’s also the issue with companies such as Google and Microsoft trying to put their Stadia and xCloud streaming services on iOS devices. Apple rejected both apps. Its argument is that they can’t regulate the content streamed on either service.

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In the bigger picture, it shows that video games are a bigger business than ever. While Hollywood and music festivals are suffering during the coronavirus pandemic, gaming has thrived and showed its resilience. While movie box office numbers have plummeted, gaming has posted record sales, according to a Yahoo Finance report.

The coronavirus is changing behavior and it could do so permanently as a generation of kids and young adults turn to video games instead of movies and live entertainment.

It happens to be — pardon the pun — one of the few games in town.

With so much money on the line, Epic Game is aiming to upend how business will be done in the future as more games move over to these virtual store fronts.

Originally published in The Mercury News

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COVID-19 or Something Else ?

Learn How COVID19- Symptoms Compare to Other Illnesses, and When You Should Call the Doctor

by Harvard Health Letter Before 2020, you might not have worried much about a tickle in your throat or a little tightness in your chest. But that’s changed.

Now even slight signs of a respiratory bug might make you wonder if it’s the start of COVID-19, the illness that has become a pandemic.

How do you distinguish one illness from another? It’s complicated.

“Many of the symptoms overlap. For example, it’s very hard

for me clinically, as a physician, to be able to look at someone and say it’s COVID-19 or it’s influenza,” says Dr. Ashish Jha, former director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and now dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

Don’t jump to conclusions if you start to feel sick. Learn the hallmarks of common illnesses and how they differ from COVID-19, so you can take the appropriate action.

COVID-19

COVID-19 is an extremely contagious respiratory illness caused

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by a type of virus (a coronavirus) called SARS-CoV-2. It’s a cousin of the common cold, but its potential consequences are far more serious: hospitalization, lasting complications, and death.

Hallmarks: Loss of taste and smell (in the absence of nasal congestion), fever, cough, shortness of breath, and muscle aches.

Other potential symptoms: Sore throat, diarrhoea, congestion, runny nose, chills, shivering, headache, fatigue, and loss of appetite.

Note: Some infected people don’t have any symptoms of COVID-19, but they’re still contagious.

INFLUENZA

Influenza (flu) is a highly contagious respiratory infection caused by the influenza A, B, or C virus. The U.S. flu season typically lasts from October to March, but flu is present yearround.

Hallmarks: Fever, muscle aches, and cough.

Other potential symptoms: Sore throat, diarrhea, congestion, runny nose, chills, shivering, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite.

Different from COVID-19: Flu usually does not cause shortness of breath.

Don’t be a hero and try to tough out an illness. Call your doctor to report any concerning symptoms, especially those of COVID19or flu; you may need a test and treatment.

SEASONAL ALLERGIES

A seasonal allergy isn’t a virus; it’s caused when the immune system responds to a harmless non-human substance, like tree pollen, as if it were a dangerous threat. Allergies are typically seasonal, lasting for weeks or months, depending on the allergen in the air (mold is the common allergen in the fall and winter).

Hallmarks: Runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing, congestion.

Other potential symptoms: Loss of smell from congestion.

Different from COVID-19: Allergies do not cause fevers, coughing, shortness of breath, muscle aches, sore throat, diarrhea, chills, headaches, fatigue, or loss of appetite.

ASTHMA

Asthma is a chronic lung condition caused by inflammation in the air passages. Airways narrow and make it harder to breathe, which can cause concern that it might be COVID-19. “Asthma can be triggered by a cold or influenza, but it’s a separate condition,” Dr. Jha says.

Hallmarks: Wheezing (a whistling sound as air is forcibly expelled), difficulty breathing, chest tightness, and a persistent cough.

Other potential symptoms: A severe asthma attack can cause sudden, extreme shortness of breath; chest tightness; a rapid pulse; sweating; and bluish discoloration of the lips and fingernails.

Different from COVID-19: Asthma does not cause a fever, muscle aches, sore throat, diarrhea, congestion, loss of taste or smell, runny nose, chills, shivering, headache, fatigue, or loss of appetite.

COMMON COLD

The common cold (viral rhinitis) is an upper respiratory infection that can be caused by any of hundreds of different viruses (including coronaviruses or rhinoviruses). It’s usually mild and resolves within a week.

Hallmarks: Congestion, runny nose, cough, and sore throat.

Other potential symptoms: Fever, muscle aches, and fatigue.

Different from COVID-19: A cold does not cause shortness of breath, body aches, chills, or loss of appetite, and it usually doesn’t cause fever.

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WHAT YOU SHOULD DO

Don’t be a hero and try to tough out an illness. Call your doctor to report any concerning symptoms, especially those of COVID-19 or flu; you may need a test and treatment.

“It’s a different era from when you didn’t want to bother your doctor,” Dr. Jha says. “Don’t deny yourself care. Your doctor would never want that. And the earlier you call, the sooner you can be treated if you need it.”

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Mohamed Abdu: From Poor Sailor’s Son to Renowned Singer Early Tribulations

become a sailor like his father. He was able to enter an Institute specializing Muhammad Abdu was born on June in industrial and shipbuilding in a bid 1949 ,13 in Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom’s to achieve his dream of becoming a Asir province. He was born to Abdou sailor, but he also was fond of art Othman Al-A›asiri, a fisherman and and singing. Going into performing sailor and Salma Nasrallah. He was arts was always a risky decision, and named after his late older brother, as such Abdu initially stuck to his who died before he was born due to original plan of becoming a sailor, the smallpox epidemic at the time. he would nevertheless sometimes Muhammad’s father would die when sing in radio shows as a hobby. In he was just three years old, and as a 1960, Abdu was singing in the radio result, he, his siblings and his mother show (Baba Abbas) in 1960 and would move to an orphanage centre that’s when Abbas Faiq Ghazzawi where families, including the Abdous, discovered his talents and helped were sponsored by then Crown Prince him become a music star in Saudi Faisal bin Abdulaziz. After sixth Arabia. grade, Abdou would take on a number of menial jobs in order to help out Music Style his family, and from a young age he Abdu has been labeled as the “Artist discovered his love for singing. of the Arabs” as he has worked to preserve the classical music styles A Career Shift that had started to wane due to At first Mohamed Abdu vied to the prevalence of new artists who

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blended Western and European melodies with Arabic ones. In keeping with traditionalism, Abdu is one of the world’s finest players of Oud, and his talents in playing the instrument has been compared to that of Farid Al-Atrash, Baligh Hamdi and Talal Maddah. He would take a brief break from singing in 1989 after his mother’s death, which greatly saddened him. He would return to the stage in 1997, , he sang in a National Day celebration for Saudi audiences who were amazed at how his voice became more mature. He would then make a big comeback when he appeared in a concert with Warda Al-Jazaira three times and he would release a whopping eight albums through 1997 and 1998. Abdu has since established himself as one of the most renowned Arabic music composers as he holds concerts every year throughout the Middle East and Europe.