Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. June 2, 2024 | |
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Today on CNN: 'Why Iran Hates America' |
On CNN, at 10 a.m. ET:
The sudden death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who perished in a helicopter crash in foggy conditions in northern Iran last month, only made the Islamic Republic more difficult to gauge. As war continues in Gaza, Iran plays an important role in an increasingly unstable region.
It's also one of America's most bitter enemies. Why? And how can Washington navigate the ongoing tension?
If you missed its premiere in February, today CNN will air Fareed's recent special report, "Why Iran Hates America." In it, Fareed details the hostile US–Iran relationship that is now central to fears of a wider Middle East war, examining what started the animosity and why it has persisted for four decades.
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If you were distracted by former President Donald Trump's historic criminal conviction on Thursday, you may have missed another bit of US news: The Biden administration lifted a key restriction on the arms it has been sending to Ukraine, allowing Kyiv to use US weapons to conduct limited strikes within Russian territory.
Ukraine and its supporters had sought this move for some time. In a New York Times interview in late May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: "What we have always asked of President Biden, and not only President Biden but the leaders of many countries, is that we want to use the weapons for defense. How do we respond when they strike our cities? Their ability to strike from a distance is such because they are stationed in the villages nearest to the border of Ukraine with Russia. They strike from there, knowing that we will not return fire."
At the online security-focused publication 1945, former US Marine Julian McBride recently urged the White House to lift restrictions, depicting fears of Russian escalation as overblown. McBride wrote: "On the weekend of May 18th, Ukraine successfully used [a long-range, US-made] ATACMS missile to sink a Black Sea Fleet naval vessel. Before America transferred the missiles, Russia made threats of direct war if ATACMS were used on their military, and the lack of response by the Kremlin displays their bluffs." |
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US Election: The View From China |
That's the subject of an essay in the current issue of the right-leaning politics journal American Affairs by China-based writer and editor Jacob Dreyer, who reflects on China's changes and what the Biden vs. Trump matchup looks like from his side of the Pacific.
Dreyer writes: "Ever since I arrived in 2008, China has been changing very quickly. But now? China's rise has been a wave crashing on the beach of anglophone commercial civilization. Like the wave, it has seemed powerful and violent, full of froth. … The immediate future for China seems to be one of struggle and yet more hard work, with little punctuation; the opportunity to watch the blunderings of the Biden administration, and to listen to the exceptionally negative perspective on the U.S. government not only of Trump but also of [independent presidential candidate] Robert Kennedy Jr., offers Chinese office workers some form of consolation. At least it was worse in America. The former U.S. president said so. To most Chinese, it seemed almost inevitable that he would return; few, if any, felt confused about why Americans would choose Trump as a leader. For most of 2024, he seemed to have a veto on American legislation and foreign policies; Biden, a senile prince regent surrounded by scheming courtiers, against a figure who the Chinese have contextualized in the history of patriarchal monarchs. If you dislike patriarchal monarchy, Trump is easy to dislike; but many Chinese take it for granted as the way that human societies are structured, and therefore find Trump much easier to understand than many Americans do. King Lear is still a king." |
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