Attention to the Unseen

Brian Klaas writes: On Friday, 49 people were killed in a terrorist attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand — the country’s worst mass killing since 1943. A suspect charged in the attack was reportedly an anti-Muslim zealot. As news of the attack was unfolding, President Trump tweeted a link to Breitbart — a far-right “news” site. Breitbart has published vile anti-Muslim hatred, including calling Muslims “rapefugees,” mocking the notion of Islamophobia, and absurdly claiming that terrorist attacks are…

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Natalie Nougayrède writes: If Brexit is halted, both the UK and the rest of Europe will reap the benefit – and Donald Trump, for one, will suffer a defeat. The sect of Brexit has passionate adherents far beyond Britain’s hardline leavers. It includes vocal and influential preachers in the Trumpian world of Washington – and the reality of Trump is having a deep impact on Europe, with the Brexit mess a key part of it all. The Brexit saga isn’t…

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Alexander Reid Ross writes: At how many conferences can you be guaranteed to meet Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Russian imperialists, anti-Ukrainian fascists, Chinese spies, Qaddafi devotees, Corbyn fans, Assad apologists, neo-Nazis, Trump devotees, French Holocaust deniers, Western anti-war feminists, African American separatists, Venezuelan socialists and anti-Semites of every conceivable form and type? There’s really only one, and it’s run by an organization that the U.S. Treasury designates as a front for the Iranian regime’s most hardline power-brokers. And the New Horizon…

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Syrian anti-government protesters march as part of an uprising against the country’s authoritarian regime, in Banias, Syria, April 17, 2011. The Arabic banner at center reads: ‘All of us would die for our country.’ AP/Anonymous By Wendy Pearlman, Northwestern University Amid headlines about the Islamic State group and photographs of rubble, it can be easy to forget that the Syrian war began as a nonviolent uprising. March 15, the uprising’s eighth anniversary, serves as a reminder that any enduring end…

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Jolyon Maugham writes: MPs have just voted against a no-deal Brexit. But this vote doesn’t achieve much by itself, because it’s just an indicative vote. “No deal can’t be taken off the table; it is the table.” You’ll hear this clever soundbite in the Twitter feeds of MPs and commentators on both sides of the Brexit divide, but it suffers from the serious defect of being wrong. When we talk about no deal being the table, what we really mean…

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Rafael Behr writes: The story that May’s deal, sprinkled with magic codicils, could be transformed from a dud to diamond was dishonest. The Brexit ultras of the European Research Group put on a show of legal piety, convening a “star chamber” of jurists to evaluate the EU’s offer. They borrowed the nomenclature from Tudor England, not because the historical analogy is appropriate but as a stylistic affectation, lending bogus gravitas to what is, in reality, a conclave of veteran Eurosceptics…

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Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister, writes: I’m struck, as the British parliament moves towards the endgame on Brexit, with the number of times Australia, Canada, New Zealand and India have been advanced by the Brexiteers in the public debate as magical alternatives to Britain’s current trade and investment relationship with the European Union. This is the nuttiest of the many nutty arguments that have emerged from the Land of Hope and Glory set now masquerading as the authentic standard-bearers…

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is preparing to shutter many of its immigration operations abroad, cutting back on a key support system for those applying overseas to relocate to the United States. The director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, L. Francis Cissna, told senior staff members this week that the international division, which has operations in more than 20 countries, would close down by the end of the year, according to two people with knowledge…

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