Dear All, Sorry to have dropped from the Blogosphere. Too much going on in the world and in the Crawf household, and not enough to say. I had an interesting few days giving a Negotiation Skills masterclass at the IAEA in Vienna, then a shorter one-day version of the same […]
This is a grim article to read, showing as it does how the more exotic parts of modern feminism have plunged deep into the worst sorts of coercion and stupid thought control that echo what goes on in North Korea. Thus on one Canadian university campus – a space supposedly […]
Here is a really good WSJ piece on the foreign policy issues surrounding Syria. Really good for its grasp of the wider Big Picture, and despite the fact that I am mentioned in it: It is Barack Obama’s impulse to make himself and whatever is in his head the center […]
My piece for Telegraph Blogs this morning: Days ago Washington was gearing up to hit hard at the Assad regime because of its crimes against humanity in using chemical weapons. An almost impossible political case to sell (why will it make anything any better?) but at least it drew on […]
My Commentator piece about the notable developments last night in Parliament, noting three reasons why all is not (yet) lost: First and foremost, we risked ending up helping President Obama wriggle off an embarrassing immediate hook (the Syria regime boldly stepping across his own half-hearted ‘red line’) but without really […]
My new piece for The Commentator: The main reason why I think it’s almost better for Western governments to say as little as possible in these grim circumstances rather than make loud statements of condemnation is that words without action look ‘weak’. Any statements made are mainly for domestic and […]
Another day, another attempt to broker a deal betwen Israel and the Palestine Authority, this time with John Kerry leading the charge. Who knows, maybe this one will get somewhere. Perhaps the generalised shambles in Egypt and across the Middle East will create a sense that if there has to […]
The speech at the UN by young Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan is deservedly winning worldwide attention. Full text here. Malala of course would have been dead if Taliban lunatics had had their way: for them she is a “living symbol of the infidels and obscenity”. As it is she was […]
So much going on these days it is scarcely worth bothing to opine on it all. The Nigel Lawson call for the UK to think seriously about leaving the EU is a huge shift. The Unthinkable is being Thought. The US and Russia are trying to get the warring factions […]
Here’s my Commentator piece on that important Serbia/Kosovo/EU deal. Thus: Kosovo did better on symbolism than substance. It won agreement that Serbian officials in the municipalities concerned would henceforth be paid by Pristina, not Belgrade, and come under Pristina’s overall legal and political authority. And by the very fact of […]
