Gideon Rachman

Politics on the Edge: A Memoir from Within by Rory Stewart (Jonathan Cape) A brilliant insider account of the Cameron-May-Johnson years. Stewart served in several ministerial positions and even, briefly, the cabinet. The book is full of sharp observations and often funny. But the wider picture is depressing: a portrait of a country where power is wielded by empty careerists, working in a broken system. Johnson at 10: The Inside Story by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell (Atlantic Books) A det…

Joe Biden is not just an old guy. He is also a representative of an old idea — one that dates back to the 1940s. The US president believes that his nation and the wider world are safer if the US plays the role of world policeman. He argued recently that: “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe . . . To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it’s just not worth it.” The world view that…

“Things can only get better” felt like the anthem for the 1990s. Released in 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the song was the perfect soundtrack for a decade in which apartheid ended, democracy came to eastern Europe, peace came to Northern Ireland and the Oslo accords promised an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the 1990s, the spirit of the age favoured peacemakers, democrats and internationalists. Today, it is nationalists, warmongers and conspiracy theorists who h…

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘The global power of the dollar’ [MUSIC PLAYING] Gideon RachmanHello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about America’s use of economic and financial sanctions in Gaza, Ukraine and around the world. My guest is Wally Adeyemo, the deputy US Treasury secretary. So do financial sanctions work or are they a tool that will eventually…

Historians are fascinated by the outbreak of the first world war. How could the assassination of an Austrian archduke in Sarajevo in June 1914 have led, just a few weeks later, to a conflict that dragged in every major power in Europe, and eventually the US? The question is particularly troubling because many of the leaders involved tried hard to avoid a general European war. The German and Russian emperors exchanged numerous messages trying to defuse the month-long crisis that led to conflict.…

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Coups make a comeback in Africa’ [MUSIC PLAYING] Gideon RachmanHello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about military coups in Africa. My guest is Comfort Ero, president of the International Crisis Group, one of the world’s leading think-tanks, which tracks conflicts around the world. So why are the men in uniform making a com…

“While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” So said Joe Biden on his recent visit to Israel. But the US president did not elaborate in public on the mistakes that America made. So what were they? Broadly speaking, the US attempted to defeat “terrorism” through conventional military means. It launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that led to hundreds of thousands of dea…

Whose side are you on — the Israelis or the Palestinians? Do you think that western policy should be to support Israel, in the aftermath of the biggest single slaughter of Israeli civilians since the foundation of the state in 1948? Or do you think that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is itself committing mass atrocities in Gaza, and that western policy should be to put maximum pressure on Israel to stop? These are the binary terms in which much of the debate about the Israel-Palestinian confli…

Both European and American officials are attempting to juggle support with calls for restraint

Wars unite nations. The shock and horror of the Hamas attacks on Israel have brought a deeply divided country together. It is possible that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, may now form a national unity government. Israeli unity will last a while because this crisis is very far from over. The fate of the hostages inside Gaza, including children and old people, will continue to torment Israel. The government also faces the risk of new fronts opening in the occupied West Bank or on…