Foreign policy seemed to go on hiatus during the U.S. presidential election. Economic issues dominated the race, and Americans waited to see which candidate's vision would prevail. But the world kept turning, and in President Barack Obama's second term he will face a number of legacy issues from his previous four years and several emerging strategic challenges.
You might not be familiar with Sergei Magnitsky, the 37-year-old Russian lawyer who died of medical complications while languishing in a Moscow prison back in 2009. You should be — Magnitsky’s case is worth knowing, both because of what it says about the nature of the Russian state and because it could soon prompt a substantial shake-up in U.S.-Russian relations.
The security of many countries is being endangered by the United Arab Emirates, a confederation of seven small states located in the Arabian Peninsula. Usually considered a Western ally, this false friend also serves as a regional financial hub for mob figures, arms dealers, drug traffickers, jihadis, and rogue regimes. The White House and the Financial Action Task Force—set up by the G7 to combat money laundering and terrorism financing—have so far failed to take action to stop this emerging threat.
The next president must discard two longstanding but problematic pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East and chart a new course that reflects both regional realities and the dynamic changes that are underway there.
For decades, presidents have sought to maintain regional stability by propping up pro-Western autocrats and to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the first step toward addressing broader regional issues.
The outrage seen on Pakistan's streets over the recent shooting of 14 year-old Malala Yousefzai is a welcome contrast to the silence that greets so many acts of violence there. The liberal lawmaker Salman Taseer, assassinated by his bodyguard in 2010 for daring to speak out against Pakistan's arcane blasphemy laws, received no such outpouring of sympathy. There was no public outcry earlier this year when a Pakistani cabinet minister personally offered a $100,000 reward to any man who killed the filmmaker behind an incendiary anti-Islam video.