WORLD ROUNDUPWhy Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away, and more
· Why Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away
The new city, Nusantara, comes as Jakarta continues to sink at a record pace
· America’s Failed Approach to Iran Can’t Really Be Called a Strategy
For almost a decade, Washington has had an attitude toward Iran — unrelenting opposition and pressure — but not a strategy
· NATO’s Weak Spot Against Russia Facing a Choice to Take Up Arms
The undefended Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea have long been a gap in Europe’s shield. Remilitarization could turn them into one of the West’s key defenses
Why Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away (Bryan Pietsch, Washington Post)
for Indonesia, the primitive landscape of Nusantara proved a more attractive option than its current capital, Jakarta, dubbed by some experts as the world’s fastest-sinking megacity.
Moving the capital from Jakarta has been discussed for many years in Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago. But the plan finally comes to fruition this weekend, with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, set to host Independence Day celebrations in Nusantara on Saturday.
America’s Failed Approach to Iran Can’t Really Be Called a Strategy (Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post)
Consider the failure of Washington’s current approach. Since President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, U.S. policy toward Iran has been one of “maximum pressure.” The number of sanctions against Iran rose from 370 under Barack Obama to more than 1,500 during the Trump administration, making the country the most sanctioned on the planet. While the other partners in the nuclear-deal negotiations — European powers, Russia and China — objected, the United States used secondary sanctions to effectively block them from trading much with Tehran. The Biden administration has mostly continued the Trump policy, with a few modifications and relaxations.
And what has been the result of the Trump-Biden policy of maximum pressure? Freed from the constraints of the nuclear deal, Iran has massively advanced its nuclear program. It now has 30 times more enriched uranium than the deal allowed, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The deal created a year-long “breakout time,” the period necessary to produce the nuclear fuel needed for a weapon. Last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tehran was one to two weeks away from breakout capacity.
Meanwhile, Iran has responded to the pressure from abroad by forging closer ties with an array of substate groups in the region — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria. Together this “axis of resistance” has plunged Israel into its longest and most perilous war in decades, diverted about 70 percent of vessel traffic out of the Red Sea, and turned Iraq and Syria into reliable client states. By virtually any measure, Washington’s policy toward Iran has failed. (Cont.)
