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1. Have the Argentinian midterm elections significantly weakened Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner?
2. Is it too late to impose a two state solution on the Israelis and Palestinians?
3. Does the European economy face a deflationary challenge?
4. Will the transition to a parliamentary system enhance Georgian democracy?
5. Is it in Ukraine’s best economic interest to side with the European Union or Russia?
6. How will poor relations between Japan and South Korea impact China’s foreign policy in the Pacific?
7. Is the UN Human Rights Council a credible international institution?
8. What steps should Ollanta Humala take to enhance his political position in Peru?
9. Is Great Britain still a world power?
10. Why has the Quebec separtist movement lost support?
On September 22nd, German voters handed Chancellor Angela Merkel her biggest electoral triumph and put her in a position to lead her third consecutive government. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) took 41.5% of the vote. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) took second place with 25.7% of the vote and the communist leaning Left Party took 8.6% of the vote. However, the CDU/CSU only won 311 seats in the 630 seat German Bundestag, which leaves it five seats shy of a majority. The CDU/CSU’s coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to win representation in parliament for the first time since 1949, so the CDU/CSU must now enter into a coalition with the SPD or the Green Party, which took 8.4% of the vote, to govern the country. A failure to form a new coalition would inaugurate new elections. The German election was watched closely by European political observers because Germany’s economy is the largest in Europe and it guides a great deal of European Union (EU) policy. A Merkel defeat might have spelled significant changes for how the EU is handling debtor countries like Greece and further complicated the process of European integration. Her victory shows that German voters have endorsed her handling of the German economy through the euro zone crisis that began in 2010.
Extempers are probably filing a great deal of articles at the moment about the ongoing conflict in Syria. The United States is preparing for a possible intervention there, but it is important to go back to a conflict that also involved some of the current issues regarding Syria: a country that is under the rule of a tyrant, questions of weapons of mass destruction use, and uncertainty about who will fill the power vacuum if that tyrant is eliminated. The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was supposed to inaugurate a process of nation building in the Middle East, whereby Iraq would be a beacon of democracy for other Middle Eastern nations. Ten years later and two years after the withdrawal of American troops, Iraq is witnessing an increase in sectarian violence, at its highest levels since 2008 and there are fears that if Iraq descends into anarchy and violence that the sacrifices of American and coalition personnel made in the 2003 invasion and occupation were for naught. The U.S. media has largely ignored Iraq over the past year, focusing most of its attention on Syria and other uprisings in the Arab world. However, this neglect is unwarranted, as Iraq could have significant implications for American foreign policy in the region.