Middle East

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least among American political analysts, that the struggle against violent Islamist extremism is back in play as an organizing principle in international affairs.

Read the full World Politics Review article U.N. Trapped on Front Lines of New Struggle With Violent Islamists

Last week’s top-level session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York offered three basic lessons. The first is that the United States can still dominate the U.N. when it wants to. The second is that a clear majority of other countries’ leaders are quite relieved to follow an American lead. But the third is that the U.N. is only really still relevant in two—admittedly sensitive—regions: Africa and the Middle East.

MUNPlanet brings you a special interview with Richard Gowan on the occasion of the Sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Paris wants a gentlemen’s agreement among the council’s five veto-wielding permanent members not to veto resolutions meant to halt mass atrocities.

Against the grim backdrop of global terrorism and a deadly health crisis, world leaders are preparing to convene in New York for their annual gathering at the United Nations General Assembly. The terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State and efforts to control the spread of the Ebola virus are expected to dominate discussions.