Simon Tisdall (Continuación)

Rising tensions in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.

The Bush administration welcomed the recent release of 38 opposition politicians detained after violent protests over the conduct of elections in 2005. But it has kept quiet over Ethiopia's subsequent expulsion of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers from Ogaden's Somali regional state, following claims they were aiding Ogaden National Liberation Front separatists (ONLF).
The ICRC condemned Ethiopia's action, warning it would have "an inevitable, negative impact" on an already impoverished, largely nomadic population.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraq's politics, as opposed to Iraq's grim daily ground-floor reality, increasingly resembles a game of illusions which those involved conspire to maintain or prolong. It is an Alice in Wonderland world - except there are no white rabbits disappearing down holes, let alone being pulled from hats.

In Washington, or at least in the White House, the official illusion, stoutly maintained, is that things are moving (if not surging) forward, that a process of achieving stability and benchmarks is in place, and that a military progress report - nothing more dramatic or cathartic - will be delivered to Congress next month.…  Seguir leyendo »

Shinzo Abe's rapid fall from grace reflects a modern democratic phenomenon - the accelerating pace at which initially enthusiastic voters become impatient and disillusioned with new leaders. Angela Merkel in Germany is following a similar if less dramatic trajectory. Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy may travel the same road. Tony Blair had six years before things really began to go pear-shaped. Japan's prime minister had little more than six months.

Mr Abe's public approval ratings plunged from nearly 70% last September, when he was appointed by the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), to 40% in February. Now he is down to 30% or less, about the same as the historically unpopular George Bush.…  Seguir leyendo »

US military spokesmen, officials and analysts are gradually adding flesh to the bones of earlier allegations of official Iranian collaboration with Shia and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, including elements linked to al-Qaida.

The development comes amid reports that the White House is leaning towards military action against Iran over its suspect nuclear activities and supposed meddling in Iraq - and growing domestic pressure on George Bush to show the Baghdad military "surge" is working.

A senior US official in Baghdad told the Guardian in May that Iran was fighting a proxy war in Iraq. He accused Tehran of "committing daily acts of war against US and British forces".…  Seguir leyendo »

Exactly how far Russia will go in defence of Serbia's rights in Kosovo is a question of pressing importance, now UN security council negotiations to grant consensual, conditional independence to the breakaway province have ground to an ignominious halt.

Western countries including Britain and France - prime movers in the 1999 Nato intervention - have consistently underestimated Russian resolve on this issue. By tabling a UN resolution, they tried to call Moscow's bluff. But President Vladimir Putin icily stared them down. On Friday, they blinked first.

Previous miscalculations over Kosovo nearly caused a physical collision in June 1999, when Russian paratroopers made an overland dash to occupy Pristina airport, thereby pre-empting Nato's peacekeepers.…  Seguir leyendo »

Even as the US struggles to stop relations with Russia plunging into deep freeze, a distinct chill has descended over its dealings with Beijing following a new Pentagon report on China's military build-up. Richard Nixon knew better than to antagonise both superpower rivals at once. No such wisdom troubles George Bush.

Noting China's "rapid rise as a regional political and economic power with global aspirations", the Pentagon complained of uncertainty surrounding its expanding military might and how it may be used. Beijing's short-term focus was "military contingencies in the Taiwan Strait", it said. But it was also planning to project military power further afield in the Asia-Pacific region, in preparation for possible conflicts over resources or territory.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hopes of replacing violence with dialogue in Somalia are focusing on a much-delayed national reconciliation congress now scheduled to take place in Mogadishu next week. But diplomats and officials admit the nascent peace process could be stillborn if what Lord Triesman, Britain's minister for Africa, describes as "wreckers and spoilers" inside and outside the country prevail.

Speaking after a meeting in London this week of the international contact group for Somalia, Jendayi Frazer, the assistant US secretary of state for African affairs, said Eritrea was leading the pack of outsider ne'er-do-wells, harbouring "extremist elements" linked to violent Islamist groups inside Somalia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nicolas Sarkozy makes his presidential debut on the world stage today, buoyed by a post-victory surge in public support and the prospect of a thumping majority for his UMP party in Sunday's parliamentary elections. But his political honeymoon may prove short-lived as the passionate pledges of the campaign trail come hard up against the ambiguities and limitations of power.

France's little big man is determined to make his mark. His "mandate for change" has raised expectations to levels akin to those that accompanied Tony Blair into Downing Street in 1997. As for Mr Blair then, there is a moment of opportunity for Mr Sarkozy now to take the lead internationally as well as at home.…  Seguir leyendo »

Since marching unexpectedly on to the world stage in 2000, Vladimir Putin has by turns baffled, encouraged and outraged Russia's international interlocutors. But in one key respect, the former KGB officer with a smile like broken ice has been remarkably consistent. After the humiliations of the Yeltsin years, he set out to re-establish Russia as a force to be reckoned with. And now he has achieved it.

His aim could have been achieved in collaboration with the west; instead Russia's reassertive power is now defined in opposition to it. It might have been different. Ignoring Chechnya and other raw nerves, Tony Blair tried hard to befriend Mr Putin in 2000, regaling him with shirt-sleeve bonhomie in a Moscow bierkeller.…  Seguir leyendo »

European Union efforts to loosen Russia's energy grip by seeking alternative supplies from central Asia via the Caucasus suffered a stunning setback this week. But even before President Putin agreed deals expanding his control of the gas and oil exports of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Europe's drive to diversify was running on empty.

Russia supplies about 25% of Europe's gas and a rising proportion of its oil. That is increasingly seen as a strategic weakness that could leave the continent vulnerable to politically motivated energy blackmail. This is the fate that allegedly befell Ukraine and Belarus last year. Lithuania is currently under similar pressure after Moscow cut oil deliveries.…  Seguir leyendo »

Shadow-boxing over Iran, pitting hard-right American neo-cons against European liberal progressives, is obscuring a reality neither camp cares to acknowledge: the threat of a US or Israeli military attack on Iran this year has receded to the point of invisibility.

Those in Europe who believe otherwise fail to understand the extent of the political paralysis now gripping the Bush administration in Washington. This is mostly but not entirely a consequence of the Iraq quagmire. Although technically George Bush still gives the orders, nobody - especially in Baghdad - is really listening any more.

The question that matters, for Congress, for the 2008 presidential candidates, and for a vast majority of the American public, is when will the troop drawdown/withdrawal/retreat in Iraq begin?…  Seguir leyendo »

American accusations that European countries have ganged up against the Bush administration in the Paul Wolfowitz row hide a deeper worry: that the rapidly declining power at home of the most unpopular, least respected president since Richard Nixon is encouraging multiple challenges to US authority and interests around the world.

Washington's insecurity is rooted in the collapse in George Bush's domestic support and an apparent accompanying failure of national confidence. The president's approval rating hit a new low of 28% earlier this month, according to a Newsweek poll. His aggregate figures have been stuck at 35% or less since last autumn - far below the norm for an incumbent half way through a second term.…  Seguir leyendo »

Weekend bloodshed in Karachi, nationwide political turmoil, and border clashes between Pakistani and Afghan troops have heightened the sense that a potentially unstoppable, many-fronted crisis is about to engulf Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf.

After almost eight years of smartly pressed, barely legitimate uniformed rule from his colonial era residence in Rawalpindi, Gen Musharraf is fast shedding friends at home and abroad. This is not wholly surprising. In Pakistan, it is often said, military strongmen rarely depart the scene happily or even alive.

"The battle lines are now drawn. There is Musharraf and the ruling political party and the MQM (the Karachi-based Mohajir movement) on one side and the rest of Pakistan on the other," said Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cohabitation is a perilous proposition in a strictly Muslim society but Pakistan may be heading that way as Pervez Musharraf's domestic troubles intensify and two sets of contentious autumn elections draw close.

Most likely to join the president-general in unblessed political union is Benazir Bhutto, a twice-spurned prime minister, whose return from exile is widely anticipated. But numerous obstacles may yet rupture the mooted alliance, not least that this odd couple has been at daggers drawn for almost a decade.

Accident-prone Gen Musharraf is no great prospect these days and Ms Bhutto may yet feel she can do better. His pro-Washington, anti-Taliban U-turn after 9/11 has not been forgiven by Islamists in a country where anti-American sentiments runs deep.…  Seguir leyendo »

Tomorrow's military parade in Red Square marking Russia's 1945 victory in the great patriotic war may carry more than a whiff of Soviet-era domineering. General Vladimir Bakin, the commander of Moscow region, says missiles, tanks and other symbols of Russian power, mostly absent from the celebrations since the collapse of communism, could go on display again.

No offence intended, of course - but the point is made. Such a show of might is wholly consistent with President Vladimir Putin's relentless, multi-faceted drive to re-establish Russia, in proud word and deed, as a global player whose interests are a key factor in every strategic equation.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Turkish generals' implicit midnight warning that, as the "absolute defender of secularism", the army would not tolerate Islamist meddling with the constitutional legacy of Kemal Ataturk carried a dark echo of previous military coups.

It is only 10 years since tanks were sent on to the streets to help topple Necmettin Erbakan, a prime minister who, the army believed, had confused his politics with religion. Earlier interventions were even less subtle and left lasting scars

Turkey's historically uncertain embrace of democratic governance is one reason why its fitness to join the EU has been questioned. Proponents of Ankara's membership say this is exactly why Turkey should be locked into the European community without more ado.…  Seguir leyendo »

The demonstrators had worked themselves up into a fine pitch of fury. Marching past Tehran University towards Revolution Square, they chanted slogans, waved the green and yellow banners of Imam Hussein and Hizbullah, and brandished clenched fists in the sunlit air.

In total the protesters numbered only perhaps three or four thousand. But if the authorities of the Islamic Republic are to be believed, they reflect the true feelings of tens of millions of Muslim men. For the demonstration was an almost exclusively male affair. It was officially approved. And its target was women.

Unchaste, licentious and un-godly women, that is, as very broadly defined by the guardians of Iran's social and religious mores.…  Seguir leyendo »

Gordon Brown's strong condemnation of repression in Burma has raised hopes that Britain will take a tougher stance towards the country's military junta if and when he becomes prime minister. New initiatives are certainly needed. After a UN security council resolution demanding a restoration of democracy was vetoed by China and Russia in January, the generals are growing more confident - and aggressive.

In his new book, Courage: Eight Portraits, Mr Brown lauds the detained National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as a fearless prisoner of conscience battling a state "with one of the worst human rights records in the world, with 1,000 political prisoners and 500,000 political refugees" where "children as young as four are in prison" and "poets and journalists tortured just for speaking out".…  Seguir leyendo »

Predictions that the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia last Christmas would hasten rather than halt the country's political disintegration are proving grimly accurate. In the league of failed states, Somalia is runaway leader. With international attention focused on Zimbabwe and Darfur, it is the hidden shame of the world.

More than 1,000 civilians have been killed or wounded in recent fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, and tens of thousands have fled their homes. The UN says wounded civilians are lying untended in the streets after heavy artillery and mortars pounded residential areas. Since February, 96,000 refugees have swelled the ranks of Somalia's 400,000 internally displaced persons.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israel is still counting the cost of last summer's war against Hizbullah in Lebanon – though the final balance may not be entirely disadvantageous. Regional analysts say internally challenged Arab regimes such as Egypt were privately pleased to see a threatening "sub-state" actor like Iranian-backed Hizbullah knocked on the head. After all, they could be next.

Arab-Israeli relations have followed an upward curve ever since the war, culminating in prime minister Ehud Olmert's weekend offer of multilateral peace talks without preconditions. Unconfirmed reports abound of secret meetings between Israeli and Saudi officials. Miri Eisin, Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, declined to address the issue directly: "We have contacts with some Gulf states.…  Seguir leyendo »