Trump and Darroch: Johnson’s Hints on Leadership

Johnson is presenting himself as too keen to please the US President.

Donald Trump’s diplomacy is known for not following any traditional rules. Last week, he refused to work with British ambassador Sir Kim Darroch. This ‘expulsion’ happened after diplomatic cables were leaked that gave away Darroch’s opinion of the US President. In the cables, Darroch called Trump ‘insecure’, ‘inept’ and ‘incompetent’, and the White House as ‘uniquely dysfunctional’. Taking offence, Trump announced that he would not want to work with the British ambassador. Darroch was dis-invited from a banquet and thereafter was unable to attend an event with a minister. He was not only expelled, but also resigned from the post on July 10. In his resignation letter, Darroch wrote: “The current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.” There are several things that are not new about this situation. Kim Darroch’s opinion of Trump and how he is running the White House does not come as a surprise. Rather, diplomats have expressed solidarity with it. Secondly, such diplomatic cables and them getting leaked are not a new phenomenon.

Examples include Wikileaks, going as far back as 2010. Thirdly, Trump’s diplomacy has already adopted a different style altogether, with his opinions coming through on Twitter. This has become known as ‘twitter diplomacy’. What is interesting in this saga, however, is how Boris Johnson has responded to Trump’s decision to expel the British ambassador. Johnson is most likely to be Prime Minister in less than two weeks. He was accused by MPs for not supporting Darroch, leading to his decision to quit. Johnson appeared in a leaders’ debate on television, where he is blamed for not backing the British ambassador.

Is the UK’s self-winding foreign policy taking a nosedive in the 21st Century?

Brexit becoming paralyzed indicates for the country being steered towards danger due to the absolute challenges yet to come.    

Theresa May never envisioned for Britain to contest in the European Parliamentary elections, 2019 with it being around the corner. All political parties are fighting for it inevitably as a proxy quest for Brexit. The recent local elections have been expounded in the same imprudent way the decisions on Brexit results were interpreted. Yet it would be an extent to make-believe that for the first time in the history of Britain, the European Elections of UK are truly focused on Europe’s and Britain’s position in the contemporary world. The reality is extremely less gratifying. The elections can be comprehended with a holistic understanding of another occurrence in the state and particularly the Conservative party’s distress due to the significant deterioration of British influence as the referendum was a short-term highlight. Therefore the elections are dubious to be therapeutic and purgative. On a conflicting note, the vote of 2016 has hauled the Brits into an entrenched melodrama.

The case regarding Brexit is one that is inescapable. It is binding for leaders and political parties to engage in it. The more it persists, the further the country goes beyond any endeavor to make a thoughtful, far-sighted decision about the actualities that shape its contemporary presence. The argument concerning Brexit is so severe that we fail to perceive lucidly enough the self -injury Britain is inflicting upon itself, regardless of the temporary consequence of the clashes that presently preoccupy the activists’ of the parties. Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP who is also in favor of a soft Brexit was of the opinion that they have become dangerous in the sense; the European Union’s conventional partners are not willing to exert any burdens any longer stated by Charles Grant, who is a pro-European veteran. In past Britain was considered

Why Brexit is a vicious cycle

According to Ken Clarke, the Father of the House of Commons, “The ordinary rules of conventional politics cannot be applied to the last two-and-a-half, three years of Brexit politics.”

Winston Churchill, the legendary prime minister of the UK, took the view that every time we have to decide between Europe and open sea, it is always the open sea. The repercussions of such thoughts never dawned upon him but now it seems that the chickens have finally come home to roost with only 20 days remaining until Brexit day. The clock is ticking. The idea of Brexit, which is in fact driven by a hatred of foreigners and a false sense of superiority among the racist natives of England, is a vicious cycle. Be it a deal or no-deal, to compensate for the losses will be Gordian knot for the UK government but Theresa May is adamant that the UK can walk the walk without a deal despite the fact that Parliament is opposed to the UK crashing out of the EU. One should have an idea of the events in the decades which led to Brexit. Prior to its entry to the European Community in 1972, in the 1960s majority of the people in Britain had manual jobs and not more than one-tenth of the voters took university education.

But, in the 21^st century a large number of people in the working class plummeted by becoming financially better off and majority of those people became a part of middle class citizens. Notably, overtime more than 30 percent of the electorates possessed university degrees from the middle class. Overall, this changed the demography of the Conservative and Labour party. The Labour Party always won elections in the past due to constant support of working class. Since 1997 Tony Blair had a centre approach (a third way) and he did not take seriously the fact that working class was responsible for always bringing his party into power. Those people had issues which could have been sorted out by either Tony Blair or David Cameron. But the working class was stranded by both and divisive liars like Nigel Farage took the opportunity to divide the UK and stir up mass racism against immigrants from Europe who can enter the UK without limits because of the magical law of free movement in Europe.

The Rohingya Tragedy

We fully agree with Amal de Chickera’s analysis that Suu Kyi ‘is a failed leader who has taken a calculated and cynical decision to stand with the oppressors’ in persecuting the Rohingya.

The minority Muslim population of Myanmar, i.e. the Rohingya who were made stateless by the dreaded Burma Citizenship Law 1982, can trace their history to the eighth century but are not recognised as one of the national races of Myanmar unless they can show “conclusive evidence” of their lineage or history of residence. Consequently, shunned by mainstream society, they are ineligible for any class of citizenship. Eric Fripp explains: “To be stateless in general terms is to be without attachment to a State as a national.” Since they are “resident foreigners”, or “illegal Bengali immigrants”, the Rohingya cannot hold public office, study or travel freely. Over the past three weeks, more than 400,000 Rohingya refugees have poured into Bangladesh to escape Rakhine State’s killing fields where the Buddhist majority has been indiscriminately attacking helpless civilians whose terrified faces tell us everything. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has called these shocking events a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Reports suggest that with Suu Kyi’s help, the Myanmar military uses schools to brainwash Buddhists to “hate Muslims”.

Satellite imagery obtained by Amnesty International shows widespread torching of hundreds of Rohingya villages and the application of scorched-earth tactics by the Myanmar military. The UN secretary general António Guterres has described the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” and is demanding “an effective action plan” to ease the suffering of Rohingya refugees. Guterres is calling for an immediate end to the “tragedy”. But the Myanmar authorities are mining the border to prevent the Rohingya from returning home or even escaping to Bangladesh in the first place. Notably, Guterres used his opening speech during the recent UN general assembly session to highlight the plight of the Rohingya.

Adviser Sartaj Aziz: The Role of Russia and China is Vital for Regional Changes

Nawaz Sharif’s first contact with Donald Trump was a very pleasant one. India is trying to isolate Pakistan. Islamabad will give a befitting reply to New Delhi on every front. Ties with Afghanistan remain complicated.

Sartaj Aziz is a renowned figure in politics. He used to be a senator and also served as the finance minister and foreign minister under past administrations. He spoke to the members of The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on 11 February 2017. These days he is the foreign affairs adviser to the prime minister, who is also the present foreign minister. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the architect of Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution, was prime minister and foreign minister simultaneously from December 1971-March 1977. Mimicking the slain premier, who was judicially murdered during the Zia years, the present prime minister, Nawaz Sharif has held the office prime minister and foreign minister since 2013; a trait he is at times vehemently criticised for. We have a tormented constitutional history indeed. The fall of Ayub Khan and the martial law of Yahya Khan meant that the judiciary’s role was tried and tested beyond what one may consider “normal”.

Pakistan’s 1962 Constitution provided that the speaker of the National Assembly should become the acting president until a new president was elected but Abdul Jabbar Khan did not become acting president because the dictator Yahya Khan disgracefully usurped power. In A History of the Judiciary in Pakistan, Hamid Khan describes the period from 1968 to 1975 as “turbulent times”. According to him, Hamoodur Rahman CJ tried to steer the ship as best he could but he was unable save the judiciary from adversity. “During those seven years, the judiciary lived through the political movement against Ayub Khan, the martial law of Yahya Khan, the civilian martial law of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

‘The Legacy of Barack Obama’: A Talk by Ambassador Karamatullah Ghori

Obama was a man of consensus … Trump is Obama’s antithesis and is like a bull in a China shop – watch video

His blackness and Muhammad Ali antics and punchy talk endeared him to poor non-white folks everywhere. Many whites loved him equally. But the black president who set out to do so much achieved alarmingly little. His administration conducted more drone attacks than his predecessor George Bush and he deported more immigrants than any other president. He was spineless on Syria and failed to close down Guantánamo Bay. A very ugly aspect of Obama’s legacy is that his failing administration ultimately came to be replaced by Trump’s extremists who are determined to erase all signs of his blackness from the White House. But at least he did not make personal attacks on journalists. For historian Simon Schama, Trump’s America points to Kennedy’s nation of migrants being afflicted by a “split personality”. Yet Schama also stresses “the moral stench of xenophobia is nothing new in US history.” Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Refugees and the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Sympathizer, says “the refugee embodies fear, failure and flight”. Despite opposing Trump, he argues with some vehemence “it is un-American to be a refugee”.

Margaret Thatcher’s biographer Charles Moore, a leading proponent of Brexit and an influential right-wing pundit, called Trump a “cruel jester” not long ago. More recently he wrote: “Trump’s style makes other politicians feel that he is almost as dangerous a friend as an enemy”. Moore said May was “embarrassed in Ankara” while meeting Erdoğan as she knew nothing of the Muslim ban affecting dual British nationals but weirdly claimed a “special relationship” with America. But now John Bercow, the speaker of the House of Commons, has embarrassed her by stating that Trump is “unfit” to address MPs.

Pakistan’s Seventieth Anniversary and International Relations in 2017

Pakistan must not pay the price for the adventurism of other countries

Immigration crackdowns are a commonly used political ploy in western countries but president Trump has infamously institutionalised Islamophobia by banning Muslims from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US. Sir Mo Farah, the Somali born British super-athlete denounced the American president by saying that the “Queen made me a knight, Donald Trump made me an alien”. Kim Kardashian highlighted that more Americans die falling out of bed annually (737) rather than those killed by jihadists (2). Theresa May “does not agree” with the Muslim ban. The vicar’s daughter also claims that the UK will not sleepwalk into America’s dirty wars. But the tough talking prime minister, decked out in her trendy clothes and bright red nail polish, could not resist his charms and held hands with him as they walked down a tricky slope in the White House to show off their “special relationship”. But since he wants to make a fantastic success of Brexit – which he calls a “wonderful thing” – how could she resist?

The recent UK Supreme Court decision that she cannot unilaterally trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and bypass Parliament has not gotten her off to a flying start. Her new best friend’s Muslim ban has also suffered a blow at the hands of a federal judge in New York. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson branded the ban “divisive and wrong” and there is public pressure to cancel Trump’s state visit to the UK later this year. According to the New York Times, “it would take massive effort to create a trade deal if even minimal effect” and of course no deal is legal until the UK remains in the EU.