Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
The Yorker politics team knows that university is filled with a lot of opinionated people.
So many in fact that those less interested in the political world can find yourselves stuck in a pub in a heated discussion amongst your friends wishing you’d paid more attention in those “citizenship” classes. As they spiel out phrases such as “Marxism”, “full employment” and “neo-liberalist structures” you’re struggling to keep up.
But fear not, The Yorker’s Rosie Hazell presents a (somewhat whimsical) guide to Politics, so you have the basic facts at your disposal to hold your own with that flag-waving hippie who keeps visiting your kitchen…
Oh, Iran- the mischievous little brother who’s been put up for adoption. It all started with a report home from school (in other words the UN’s nuclear watchdog - the IAEA), stating Iran’s been carrying out tests “relevant to the development of nuclear weapons”. Of course, Iran claimed it was ‘solely for peaceful purposes’. God knows why, but the US, Canada and the UK didn’t fully believe Iran’s story and so decided to impose further sanctions on Iran including restricting the activities of the Iranian central bank (stopping it’s pocket money).
Iran retaliated. The British embassy in Tehran was stormed. William Hague was not happy, saying “if any country makes it impossible for us to operate on their soil they cannot expect to have a functioning embassy here.” And so, we ended up here, the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy and all staff being ordered to leave within 48 hours. Tough parenting.
Does this tough approach work? Does Hague really think severing ties with Iran will stop them producing nuclear weapons? The solution to a problem is never just to ignore it, and definitely not immediate deportation of the people most likely to help you solve the problem. Hague needs to realise imperialism is long-gone and Britain can’t act as a ‘parent’ to other countries and ‘punishing’ them is patronising, illogical and unhelpful.
There also seems to be a confusion between the Iranian people and the Iranian government. The government dabbled with nuclear weapons so we punish the people by restricting the Iranian central bank. Then the people storm the embassy and we punish the government by closing their embassy and deporting their diplomats. The government and the people want entirely different things and so we cannot treat them as one. We should be working with Iran and the Iranian people, not against or above them.
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