Foreign Policy In Focus

During his State of the Union address President Obama trumpeted the supposed success of tougher sanctions on Iran. U.S. policymakers seem to believe that stronger measures will deny the regime’s nuclear capability and force it to cry uncle. Although sanctions are indeed causing serious harm to the Iranian economy, they have not forced the government to comply with U.S. demands. Greater pressure seems only to have hardened the regime’s determination to press ahead with the nuclear program, while weakening the position of the country’s beleaguered civil society opposition.

The recent indictment of four Kenyan leaders by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes represents the culmination of a remarkable process of local and international peacemaking. It also stands in stark contrast to Western military invasions in Ivory Coast and Libya last year. The ICC indicted four Kenyan leaders on January 23 for their role in the orgy of political violence that followed the disputed December 2007 election and left 1,200 dead and 250,000 displaced.

With tensions between the United States and Iran rising over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, the prospect of an accidental or deliberate military provocation in the region has increased dramatically. Direct military conflict between the two sides is more likely now than at any point since diplomatic relations were severed in 1980.

A century ago, the Ottoman Empire was falling apart as a result of disastrous wars and economic decline. Dubbed “the sick man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire was not ultimately able to pull itself together. It expired in the flames of World War I, but not before pulling down a good chunk of the world order with it.