3 things to think about today (July 27th)
1) In a meeting with the pro-American Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who has tried to rein in the country’s powerful pro-Iranian Shia militias, President Biden called for an end to American combat operations in the country, which have been going on for 18 years. Initiated by the Bush administration, based on the imperative to destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programme (there wasn’t any), the Iraq conflict has: cost $1.9 trillion; killed 460,000 Iraqis and 4500 Americans; shattered Iraq as a coherent state; left Iran the dominant power in the country; and indirectly spurred the horrendous ISIS insurgency. Coupled with Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, there is a general winding down of America’s ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East as it strategically completes the ‘Pivot to Asia,’ and its new focus on the Indo-Pacific.
2) The new Gallup poll of July 23rd finds Joe Biden’s overall approval rating falling to 50%, the lowest of his presidency, down from 57% at the time of his inauguration. While still relatively high, the decline will be worrying to the White House, especially as the president’s overall slide has been led by a fall in support from pivotal independents voters, who are often the decisive bloc in US elections. According to Gallup, Biden’s support from independents has rather dramatically fallen from 61% at the start of his term to just 48% today. Renewed fears of systemic inflation, the tie up of his two mammoth spending bills in Congress, the rise in the crime rate, and an influx of illegal immigrants on the Mexican border are all to blame for the immediate fall.
3) Tunisia, a rare (relative) success story from the Arab Spring, veers towards authoritarianism. With its political class discredited by a plunge in GDP last year of eight percent, and with one of the highest rates of Covid deaths in the region, President Kais Saied—an independent with no political party backing but with the support of the army—has dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi (along with the Justice and Defence Ministers), imposing an emergency curfew and banning public gatherings. Saied has also suspended parliament for 30 days, and the military have prevented MPs from entering the building. Having invoked emergency powers, Saied presently has unlimited executive power for an unspecified amount of time. Tunisia’s major political parties have denounced all this as a coup.