Photo Credit: Oleg Zabielin | shutterstock.com
Tim Fernholz, Quartz: It’s not the poverty in the Middle East that’s driving terrorism—it’s the politics
Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose data on worsening inequality in advanced economies has captivated the public, makes a compelling—if not original—argument that economic disparities in the Middle East are a key motivation for terror attacks, including the recent ISIL murders in Paris.
“It is obvious that terrorism feeds on the Middle Eastern powder keg of inequality we have largely contributed to create,” Piketty wrote in Le Monde on Nov. 24, building on his research into inequality in the region.
His thinking wouldn’t be out of line with what then-US president George W. Bush told the United Nations in 2002, that “we fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror.”
Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 1, 2015
Why Syria is the canary in the coal mine for a new era of world conflict -- Michael Renner, Reuters
Viewpoints: How to defeat Islamic State -- BBC
Why defeating the Islamic State won't bring stability to Iraq -- Ali Mamouri, Al-Monitor
Will Congress Finally Declare War on ISIS? -- Nora Kelly, The Atlantic
The Sultan of Turkey -- Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review Of Books
Putin Takes Ineffectual Aim at Turkey -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg
What Putin is really after -- Emmanuel Karagiannis, Al Jazeera
‘Nothing is real, anything is possible': How Putin’s propaganda machine works -- Jason Fields, Reuters
For Chinese leader Xi Jinping, it's all about the Communist Party -- Peter Ford, CSM
Chinese bomber exercise affirms air-defence identification zone, penetrates Second Island Chain -- Richard D Fisher Jr, IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
Poverty, corruption fuel Boko Haram in Nigeria -- PBS
Ukrainian refugees in Russia: Did Moscow fumble a valuable resource? -- Fred Weir, CSM
Does Europe Even Matter? -- Anne Applebaum, Foreign Policy
Saving Honduras -- Richard W. Rahn, Washington Times
Argentina Elections, A Wake-Up Call For Latin American Left -- Arlene B. Tickner, Worldcrunch
Does the Paris Climate Summit Matter? -- Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations
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