By Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, September 28, 2015
Autumn in Manhattan: The leaves are turning, there’s a chill in the breeze, the traffic is once again snarled on the east side, and convoys of black SUVs flank the entrances of the city’s toniest hotels. Yes, the United Nations’ General Assembly is in session. Here are the key narratives to track.
Putin’s power play. President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin were set to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Monday. Well before the two addressed the chamber filled with world leaders and dignitaries, the contours of their disagreements were clear.
In his Monday morning speech, Obama denounced Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, a Black Sea territory that most governments recognize as part of Ukraine. He also signaled his concern with Russia’s recent military escalation in Syria in defense of the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad and warned that there “cannot be … a return to the pre-war status quo”–that is, as the United States has insisted in the past, Assad must go.
Putin didn’t equivocate on the matter, either. Russia is a staunch and longtime ally of the Syrian government. In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he said that the aid provided by the United States and a number of other countries to rebel factions fighting the Assad regime “contravenes the principles of international law and the U.N. Charter.”
Putin, whose government is widely seen as the main actor behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, said Russia backs “only legal government entities.”
Obama’s speech was framed around sober, liberal themes: the need for multilateralism when addressing global challenges, the limits of military power, the importance of strengthening inclusive, democratic institutions in every country and the perfidy of domineering strongmen. These were all, in some sense, direct or indirect jabs at Putin’s authoritarian politics.
Putin responded in kind later in the day. He gestured at the U.S. track record of intervention in the Middle East, and the anarchy unleashed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He framed the 2011 upheavals of the Arab Spring–which were celebrated as a democratic awakening by the White House–as a threat to Middle Eastern stability. He asked “those responsible” (presumably the U.S.): “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Putin also said Russia was eager to take more of a lead role in coordinating a response to the terrorist threat in Iraq and Syria, a cause in which it has backing from Iran.
Iran’s moment. This is the first General Assembly session following the July announcement of a proposed nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Obama hailed the agreement at the U.N. as a victory for the prevailing international order that makes “our world safer.”
The deal faced a heated backlash in Washington, with many congressional Republicans and neo-conservatives decrying what they considered appeasement to a regime long at odds with the United States. They failed to rally enough support against the deal in the U.S. Senate and its passage now appears to be a fait accompli.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has pinned his political fate on the deal, which will eventually see the loosening of sanctions on the Iranian economy in return for Tehran complying with measures aimed at curbing its ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
In an interview with CNN, Rouhani mocked the opponents of diplomacy. “Some of them wouldn’t even know where Tehran was in relation to Iran,” he said. “Some of them didn’t know where Iran was geographically, not distinguishing that one is the capital of the other.”
On Monday, Rouhani said the deal was a “victory over war,” championed Iran’s future economic prospects and launched his own barb at Israel, singling out the “Zionist regime” as the Middle East’s only nuclear power while calling for regional non-proliferation.
Who sounds most like the pope? Pope Francis left the United States before a blood moon rose in the night sky, but his whirlwind visit still casts a shadow on the meetings at the U.N. The pontiff spoke passionately about a number of key international crises: the threat of climate change; the perils of growing global economic inequity; the imperative to welcome immigrants and refugees.
Expect quite a few of these themes to be echoed in the speeches of the General Assembly, particularly regarding the refugee crisis facing Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, perhaps the most outspoken world leader on the need to provide for Syrian refugees, is scheduled to speak Thursday.
The question of Palestine. On Wednesday, the flag of Palestine will be raised among the other 193 member states of the United Nations. Hundreds of world leaders have been invited by the Palestinians to attend the ceremony; the United States, Israel and a handful of other nations will be sure to boycott the event.
Palestine, like the Holy See, has non-member observer status at the U.N., but a recent General Assembly resolution permitted its flag to be flown outside the organization. The raising of the flag will mark a “glorious day,” according to the Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour.
Like much of the enfeebled Palestinian efforts to force the matter of Palestinian statehood on the international stage, it is a purely symbolic gesture. On the ground, a separate, viable Palestinian state is nowhere in sight. And its potential existence is rejected by senior members of the current right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Among many governments in the West, there is deepening frustration with the current status quo, and a host of European countries took steps to recognize Palestine as an independent state in recent years. But there is also a creeping apathy. Obama, in his remarks Monday, made no mention whatsoever of Israel and the Palestinians–a conspicuous absence for any U.S. president addressing the U.N.
Autumn in Manhattan: The leaves are turning, there’s a chill in the breeze, the traffic is once again snarled on the east side, and convoys of black SUVs flank the entrances of the city’s toniest hotels. Yes, the United Nations’ General Assembly is in session. Here are the key narratives to track.
Putin’s power play. President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin were set to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Monday. Well before the two addressed the chamber filled with world leaders and dignitaries, the contours of their disagreements were clear.
In his Monday morning speech, Obama denounced Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, a Black Sea territory that most governments recognize as part of Ukraine. He also signaled his concern with Russia’s recent military escalation in Syria in defense of the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad and warned that there “cannot be … a return to the pre-war status quo”–that is, as the United States has insisted in the past, Assad must go.
Putin didn’t equivocate on the matter, either. Russia is a staunch and longtime ally of the Syrian government. In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he said that the aid provided by the United States and a number of other countries to rebel factions fighting the Assad regime “contravenes the principles of international law and the U.N. Charter.”
Putin, whose government is widely seen as the main actor behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, said Russia backs “only legal government entities.”
Obama’s speech was framed around sober, liberal themes: the need for multilateralism when addressing global challenges, the limits of military power, the importance of strengthening inclusive, democratic institutions in every country and the perfidy of domineering strongmen. These were all, in some sense, direct or indirect jabs at Putin’s authoritarian politics.
Putin responded in kind later in the day. He gestured at the U.S. track record of intervention in the Middle East, and the anarchy unleashed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He framed the 2011 upheavals of the Arab Spring–which were celebrated as a democratic awakening by the White House–as a threat to Middle Eastern stability. He asked “those responsible” (presumably the U.S.): “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Putin also said Russia was eager to take more of a lead role in coordinating a response to the terrorist threat in Iraq and Syria, a cause in which it has backing from Iran.
Iran’s moment. This is the first General Assembly session following the July announcement of a proposed nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Obama hailed the agreement at the U.N. as a victory for the prevailing international order that makes “our world safer.”
The deal faced a heated backlash in Washington, with many congressional Republicans and neo-conservatives decrying what they considered appeasement to a regime long at odds with the United States. They failed to rally enough support against the deal in the U.S. Senate and its passage now appears to be a fait accompli.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has pinned his political fate on the deal, which will eventually see the loosening of sanctions on the Iranian economy in return for Tehran complying with measures aimed at curbing its ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
In an interview with CNN, Rouhani mocked the opponents of diplomacy. “Some of them wouldn’t even know where Tehran was in relation to Iran,” he said. “Some of them didn’t know where Iran was geographically, not distinguishing that one is the capital of the other.”
On Monday, Rouhani said the deal was a “victory over war,” championed Iran’s future economic prospects and launched his own barb at Israel, singling out the “Zionist regime” as the Middle East’s only nuclear power while calling for regional non-proliferation.
Who sounds most like the pope? Pope Francis left the United States before a blood moon rose in the night sky, but his whirlwind visit still casts a shadow on the meetings at the U.N. The pontiff spoke passionately about a number of key international crises: the threat of climate change; the perils of growing global economic inequity; the imperative to welcome immigrants and refugees.
Expect quite a few of these themes to be echoed in the speeches of the General Assembly, particularly regarding the refugee crisis facing Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, perhaps the most outspoken world leader on the need to provide for Syrian refugees, is scheduled to speak Thursday.
The question of Palestine. On Wednesday, the flag of Palestine will be raised among the other 193 member states of the United Nations. Hundreds of world leaders have been invited by the Palestinians to attend the ceremony; the United States, Israel and a handful of other nations will be sure to boycott the event.
Palestine, like the Holy See, has non-member observer status at the U.N., but a recent General Assembly resolution permitted its flag to be flown outside the organization. The raising of the flag will mark a “glorious day,” according to the Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour.
Like much of the enfeebled Palestinian efforts to force the matter of Palestinian statehood on the international stage, it is a purely symbolic gesture. On the ground, a separate, viable Palestinian state is nowhere in sight. And its potential existence is rejected by senior members of the current right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Among many governments in the West, there is deepening frustration with the current status quo, and a host of European countries took steps to recognize Palestine as an independent state in recent years. But there is also a creeping apathy. Obama, in his remarks Monday, made no mention whatsoever of Israel and the Palestinians–a conspicuous absence for any U.S. president addressing the U.N.
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