Austria’s Anti-Immigrant experiment is the stuff of dreams for every far-right populist party ever. Surely, it would be hard to imagine what Donald Trump could add to the Austrian agenda. How it fares then could set the tone for similarly draconian policies across the world. Meanwhile, the United States is advised to drop Egypt as an ally, Trump has introduced a new National Security Strategy that lacks substance, and South Africa is set on a path of reform.
Everyone has their eyes set on Austria’s draconian populism
Austria’s new ruling coalition has set out draconian immigration controls that every populist party dreams of implementing, and therefore must be watched closely, writes Leonid Bershidsky in BloombergView.
According to the migration policy stated in the 180-page coalition agreement, “Asylum seekers should be prepared to give up their mobile phones for analysis to determine their travel routes and, where necessary, their identity. If a positive identification can’t be made, as was the case with many new arrivals during the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, the new government intends to refuse asylum. It also plans to confiscate any cash asylum-seekers might be carrying and put it toward the cost of their settlement. Any help they receive, the program goes on, should only be in kind. Individual accommodation should be ruled out, and medical confidentiality should be waived for diseases deemed important for the settlement process. Any asylum seekers convicted of crimes are to be deported. Deportation appeals procedures are generally to be curtailed.”
“If it succeeds — and if its policies lead to demonstrably better outcomes, such as lower undocumented immigration and less unemployment among immigrants — center-right parties will take notice. They’ll advocate similar approaches to immigration to counter the threat from populist parties. The populists, too, will be watching the Austrian experiment: It may help get them out of hopeless opposition and looking for ways to join forces with mainstream parties by adopting a more respectable and responsible image,” Bershidsky writes.
Time to drop a terrible ally
“Diplomatic relations are not cast in stone, and the US needs to realise that with regard to its relations with Egypt. American and Egyptian interests are increasingly divergent and the relationship now has far less common purpose than it once did,” write Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky in The New York Times a day before US Vice President Mike Pence visits Egypt.
“Mr. Pence should make clear to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s president, that the two countries need a reset, beginning with a major reduction in American military assistance” — the subtext being that US aid is not unconditional.
“For too long, the United States has allowed the Egyptian government to treat security assistance as an entitlement owed for making peace with Israel. The United States has not held Egypt accountable for how this money is spent and whether it serves broader American objectives in the region, giving Egypt a free ride on American generosity.”
They write that “disabusing Cairo of the notion that assistance is an entitlement might help to restore some leverage to extract concessions from Cairo. And, while instability in Egypt is a legitimate concern, we are deluding ourselves to think that American assistance is the difference between order and chaos.”
The battle for the man in the top job in South Africa
That Cyril Ramaphosa — one of the handful of heroes who negotiated the peaceful dismantling of apartheid in the 1990s — won the African National Congress’ top job shows that there is still hope for South Africa, argues The Economist.
He “promised ‘moral renewal’. He has been deputy president since 2014, but is untarred by the murk around Mr Zuma. In almost every campaign speech, he pledged to fight corruption. Unions backed him (he is a former union boss). Businessfolk backed him, too (he is a tycoon with a reputation for pragmatism). Polls said he was far more popular with ordinary voters. Yet his victory was terrifyingly narrow: fewer than 200 votes among almost 5,000 party delegates. Had the courts not disqualified more than 400 illegitimate delegates, many of them from provinces supporting the Zumas, Mr Ramaphosa would surely have lost.”
While Ramaphosa’s appointment marks the rejection of dynasty and “state capture”, his is nevertheless an uphill battle. “Having averted the entrenchment of a dismal dynasty, he must set about undoing the damage Mr Zuma has wrought. The first step should be to remove him from office. Mr Zuma would ordinarily expect to serve another year and a half as president. That would be a disaster: it would give the vultures around him yet more time to pick the bones of the state. Mr Ramaphosa should immediately press the ANC to recall Mr Zuma. If Mr Zuma fails to heed his party’s wishes, Mr Ramaphosa should urge a no-confidence motion in parliament. As deputy president, Mr Ramaphosa would be next in line. He should appoint a credible head of public prosecutions who can decide whether to press those 783 charges of corruption against Mr Zuma. He should also set up a judicial commission of inquiry to probe allegations of state capture.”
National security starts at home, Mr. President
The Trump administration’s just released National Security Strategy is an egregious example of the “say-do gap” in security strategy documents, and must simply not be taken seriously, writes Micah Zenko in The Foreign Policy.
“President Donald Trump, in his introductory letter, pledges to ‘put the safety, interests, and well-being of our citizens first,’ and the very first chapter — or ‘pillar,’ as the document has it — proclaims that the United States will ‘protect the American people, the American way of life, and American interests’. However, almost nothing in the 68-page document deals with the actual domestic threats, risks, and systemic harms that Americans experience every day.”
For example, the Trump NSS “mentions terrorists 58 times, and pledges to ‘defeat jihadist terrorists,’ just as all previous NSS documents have done since 9/11. Over the past 16-plus years, jihadis have killed 103 Americans within the United States, while right-wing terrorists have killed 68. During that same time period, drug-induced deaths have more than tripled, with over 59,000 Americans dying in 2016, while America’s suicide rate has risen by 25 percent, resulting in 43,000 deaths annually.”
“The truth that this president as his predecessors cannot acknowledge is that the gravest threats to America are coming from inside the house,” he concludes.
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