• OPINION

  Iran: 'Boots on the ground' war unwinnable

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/05/2019

  » 'After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favourably for the United States," said Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism adviser in the White House under three administrations. That was back in 2007, and he was talking about the Pentagon's attempts to come up with a winning strategy for a US war with Iran. No matter how they gamed it, the US lost.

• OPINION

  Happy ending if US strikes Iran? Not a chance

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/05/2019

  » US President Donald Trump is well known for his desire to cut American military commitments overseas. Indeed, it is one of his most attractive characteristics. But his attention span is short, he plays a lot of golf, and he does not have the knack of choosing good advisers.

• OPINION

  What if China won't back down to Trump?

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/05/2019

  » Donald Trump is playing hard-ball with China over trade, and the worry-warts are fretting that he's going to start a real trade war by accident. The bigger threat, however, is that he will push first China, and then the whole world, into a deep recession.

• OPINION

  South Africa poll won't be 'pivotal'

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/05/2019

  » All the major contenders in tomorrow's elections in South Africa held their closing rallies last weekend, and some striking things were said. As usual, Julius "Juju" Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF), won the prize for the most inflammatory statement.

• OPINION

  No populist breakthrough yet in Europe

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/05/2019

  » For the second time in a month, a member country of the European Union has not voted a populist into power. Could it be that the populist wave has broken?

• OPINION

  A journalist's funeral in Ireland reignites deadly past

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/04/2019

  » On Wednesday, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of the Republic of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, and Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom, both showed up in Belfast in Northern Ireland for the funeral of a young woman called Lyra McKee. So did the president of the Republic, Michael Higgins and UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's quite possible that none of them had even heard of her a week ago.

• OPINION

  Ukraine has nothing left to lose in latest vote

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/04/2019

  » Ukraine has a new president, and he's a comedian! Oh, wait a minute, that's not such a big deal. Guatemala was the first country to elect a comedian as president: Jimmy Morales, back in 2015. Although Mr Morales turned sort of serious once he took office: he's a right-wing nationalist who supports the death penalty and opposes abortion. Whereas Volodymyr Zelensky hasn't turned.

• OPINION

  Assange foolish not to go to Sweden

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/04/2019

  » Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is an unattractive character, and he also has very poor judgement. He should have gone to Sweden seven years ago and faced the rape charges brought against him by two Swedish women. Even if he had been found guilty, he would probably be free by now under Swedish sentencing rules, since no violence was alleged in either case.

• OPINION

  Israel's election and the West Bank

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/04/2019

  » It shouldn't have been a surprise when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, three days before the Israeli election, that he is going to annex all the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. After all, every other member of his Likud Party in the Israeli parliament (28 out of 29) had already said they wanted to do that. Yet it did come as a surprise.

• OPINION

  The 'immigrant problem': from bad to worse

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/04/2019

  » In a recent survey of potential adult migrants worldwide, 47 million said they would most like to move to Canada. There are only 37 million people in Canada. The same goes for Australia: 36 million would like to move there; only 25 million do live there. Most of these would-be immigrants are going to be disappointed. In fact, Canada lets in just 300,000 immigrants a year; Australia 200,000.

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