Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer was made Beijing Bureau Chief in May 2008. He had previously been the Shanghai correspondent at the Financial Times, appointed in 2005. Geoff joined the FT in 1994 and has been the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology correspondent, Brazil correspondent and a companies reporter.

Geoff Dyer Obama, Israel and the spirit of Rosa Parkes

March 21, 2013 10:28 pm by Geoff Dyer

Reaching out? The Bibi and Barack show, complete with gags about each other's pulchritude (Getty)

As they were trying out their new bromance on Wednesday, Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu opened a press conference with some blokey teasing about their families. Mr Obama joked that Mr Netanyahu’s two sons “clearly got their good looks from their mother”. Mr Netanyahu shot back: “Well, I could say the same of your daughters.”

Speaking in Ramallah on Thursday, Mr Obama made a reference to his daughters that probably did not bring quite the same smile to Mr Netanyahu’s face. Discussing the struggles to get ahead that young Palestinians face, the US president drew a parallel with the civil rights movement in America and its impact on his family.

“Those of us in the United States understand that change takes time, but change is possible,” he said in Ramallah, three weeks after he unveiled a new statue in Washington to civil rights hero Rosa Parkes. “There was a time when my daughters did not have the same opportunities as somebody else’s daughters.”

For many Israelis, there is no analogy more insulting than having the country compared to the Jim Crow American South or, worse still, to apartheid South Africa – as it sometimes is by human rights groups. Read more

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Foreign affairs, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, US foreign policy |

Geoff Dyer Israel and the US: ten things to watch out for on Obama’s Middle East trip

March 19, 2013 11:56 am by Geoff Dyer

Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama at a previous meetingBody Language. The worst-kept secret in diplomacy is the bad blood between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. When he was first elected, Netanyahu apparently felt Obama was trying to strong-arm him on settlements. It has been downhill since. There was the time when Netanyahu lectured Obama in the Oval office. Or the time when Obama told Nicolas Sarkozy: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day.” Or when Netanyahu appeared to endorse Mitt Romney (he was just being polite to an old friend, the Israelis say). Or when Obama was quoted calling Netanyahu a “political coward”. Given that this squabbling is bad politically for both leaders, expect them to behave like the best of chums this week. Watch for how many time Obama calls Netanyahu ‘Bibi’.

The Peace Process. The White House has done everything it can to play down expectations about the launch of any new initiative on this trip to such an extent that Obama is being accused of going merely as a “tourist”. But given how little the White House has said about what the US might do or how much importance it places in the peace process in Obama’s second term, any hints or suggestions will be pounced upon.

John Kerry. One of the signals on the peace process will be how Obama talks about his new secretary of state, who will be accompanying him on the trip. Some in Washington expect Obama to state publicly that he is tasking Kerry with picking up the reins of the peace process, which would give him much greater authority. Read more

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Israel, Middle East, US foreign policy |

Geoff Dyer Why we need a more honest conversation about Iraq

March 15, 2013 6:55 pm by Geoff Dyer

Photo by Getty

“If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.” Proud, unrepentant, unreflecting, these are the words of Dick Cheney in a new documentary to be aired on American television on Friday evening.

The film is being released a few days before the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, but it is not the place to go for a candid reassessment of the war. Mr Cheney admits that “we did not find stockpiles” of weapons of mass destruction, but he adds: “We did find that he had the capability and we believed he had the intent.”

He is equally unflinching in his support for torture and other controversial aspects of the war on terror. “It isn’t so much what you achieved as is what you prevented,” he says. Read more

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Foreign affairs, Iraq, Middle East, Obama, US foreign policy |

Geoff Dyer US-Venezuela ties start on bad footing post Chávez

March 6, 2013 4:34 am by Geoff Dyer

Lets just say that the idea of a post-Chávez rapprochement between the US and Venezuela did not get off to a great start.

Even before the death of Hugo Chávez had been formally announced on Tuesday, two US military officials were expelled for “planning to destabilize the country”.

Vice-president and heir apparent Nicolás Maduro then promised an investigation into the prospect that Venezuela’s “historical enemies” had induced Mr Chávez’ terminal cancer. There had been “too many historical cases” of such under-hand assassinations, he warned. Read more

Posted in Chavez, Foreign affairs, Latin America, US foreign policy, Venezuela |

Geoff Dyer Ten questions for John Brennan

February 7, 2013 5:44 am by Geoff Dyer

(AP)

John Brennan’s confirmation hearing on Thursday for CIA director is shaping up to be a rare moment of scrutiny into the war on terror, especially the use of drones to kill suspected terrorists. Among politicians, there is little opposition to the basic idea of targeted killings, but a growing feeling among some members of both parties that the programme has got out of control. Here are 10 questions he should be asked.

1) Legality. The legal opinion that justifies killing suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who are Americans is being shared with some members of Congress, but is secret for everyone else. If the government claims the authority to kill some of its citizens, at the very least shouldn’t the legal justification be made public?

2) The Decider. According to a leaked summary of the legal opinion, drone strikes can be authorised by an “informed, high-level official”. How senior does that official have to be? Only the president? His counter-terrorism adviser? Military commanders in the field? And what happens if other high-level officials disagree? Read more

Tags:
Posted in Terrorism, US politics, World affairs |

Geoff Dyer Ten questions for Chuck Hagel

January 30, 2013 11:37 pm by Geoff Dyer

Facing a grilling: Chuck Hagel (Getty)

Chuck Hagel’s keenly awaited confirmation hearing on Thursday to be the next US defence secretary is likely to be dominated by the hot-button issues that have already got him into trouble with some of his fellow Republicans (and a few Democrats) – his position on Israel, his opposition to Iran sanctions, his criticism of the Iraq war and his views on gays.

If so, that will be a shame, because it would be both interesting and important to hear him explain what his brand of “principled realism” actually means for US foreign policy. The hearing could provide a seminal debate on America’s global role. Here are ten questions he should be asked.

1) Defence budget. You said in September 2011 that the defence budget was “bloated”. That was before the Pentagon announced $485bn in cuts over the next decade. Is the budget still bloated? Are more cuts possible or necessary?

2) Pentagon cuts. To meet the cuts that have already been announced, will the Pentagon need to axe some important capabilities? Can the US still afford all of its aircraft carrier groups? Is the F-35 jet fighter too expensive to support? Does the US need such a large presence in Europe? Read more

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Afghanistan, Asia, China, Foreign affairs, Iran, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism, US foreign policy, US politics, War, World affairs |

Geoff Dyer Yair who? Lapid’s rise makes US think again

January 22, 2013 11:32 pm by Geoff Dyer

Israeli politician Yair Lapid (Getty)

The cruellest but most revealing tweet about the Israeli election exit polls came from the American writer Jeffrey Goldberg: “I wonder if someone in the White House is right now researching the question, ‘who is Yair Lapid, and what exactly does he think?’”

Exit polls need to be treated with caution and Israel’s political system is particularly complex, but the early indications are that Lapid, a former television personality and leader of the self-described “centre-centre” Yesh Atid, has been the big winner of the elections.

The Obama administration had expected to be dealing with a Benjamin Netanyahu emboldened by a commanding electoral win and leading a coalition that was even more right-wing in its distaste for doing a deal with the Palestinians. According to the script, Nafatli Bennett of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, and not Lapid, was supposed to be the new star. Instead, the most likely outcome seems to be a more chastened Netanyahu looking to Lapid and the centre to help him form a new government. Read more

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Iran, Israel, Middle East, Obama, Palestine, US foreign policy, World affairs |

Geoff Dyer Chuck Hagel, Israel and Obama

December 20, 2012 7:14 pm by Geoff Dyer

Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel in Jordan in 2008. (Salah Malkawi/Getty)

The shadow boxing over the potential nomination of Chuck Hagel to be the next Pentagon boss intensified on Thursday when allies of the former Republican Senator leapt to his defence.

Mr Hagel has emerged as the clear frontrunner to take over from Leon Panetta as secretary of defence but has come under attack in recent days for comments he made several years ago about the “Jewish lobby”.

Amid a drip-feed of criticisms and insinuations about Mr Hagel, nine former senior diplomats released a public letter on Thursday describing him as an “impeccable choice” for the Pentagon. “Time and again he chose to take the path of standing up for our nation over political expediency,” they wrote.

Given that Mr Hagel has been criticised by one pro-Israel group for views that they say “border on anti-Semitism”, one of the interesting features of the letter is that five of the signatories are former ambassadors to Israel – Daniel Kurtzer, Thomas Pickering, Sam Lewis, William Harrop and Edward Djerejian. “He has invariably demonstrated strong support for Israel and for a two state solution,” they write. Read more

Tags: , , ,
Posted in US foreign policy, US politics |

Geoff Dyer N Korea gives Susan Rice her chance

December 12, 2012 11:41 pm by Geoff Dyer

Susan Rice – a successor to Hillary Clinton? (Getty)

North Korea’s rocket launch has injected itself into American politics in an unexpected way: it has become a real-life test of the diplomatic skills of Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN.

Ms Rice was a strong favourite to become the next secretary of state until she became the main target for Republican anger over the way the Obama administration handled the September attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya. But unlike the Benghazi attack, where her role was simply to appear on a few Sunday political talk shows, the North Korean rocket is a central part of Ms Rice’s job at the UN. And the pressure is now on to see if she can manoeuvre the UN into taking a much tougher line on North Korea. Read more

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Foreign affairs, North Korea, US foreign policy |

Geoff Dyer Magnitsky law lays down marker on rights

December 7, 2012 12:47 am by Geoff Dyer

Much to Moscow’s anger, the Senate passed the Magnitsky bill on Thursday, which places visa bans and assets freezes on a group of Russian officials accused of contributing to the death of whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The law is part of a broader piece of legislation that normalises trade relations with Russia following its entry to the World Trade Organisation this summer. The Magnitsky bill has attracted huge attention because of the gruesome back-story that propelled it and because of the friction it has caused between Moscow and Washington. But there are two further important things to note about the bill. Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Foreign affairs, Russia, US foreign policy, US politics |
BackOlder entries