Harris should be more consistent on foreign policy
AFTER our new Taoiseach’s first week in office, I was struck by the fact he decided not to take action on the domestic issues that affect his citizens, but to focus on virtue signalling on the international stage. While we are all shocked by the scenes in Gaza, I think even the most idealistic pro-Palestine activist will admit that not a single thing will change on the ground due to Ireland recognising Palestine as a state; it would just be empty rhetoric.
But if Simon Harris is going to be a foreign-policy Taoiseach, focusing on recognising countries, why not expand his scope?
Taiwan has had a separate government to China since the 1940s. It is a democratic island that lives in constant fear of invasion by its larger neighbour with imperialist intentions. So isn’t it time we ended the ridiculous ‘one China policy’ and send an ambassador to Taipei? Well that might annoy the Chinese Communist Party, and China buys more milk from us than the Israelis do, so it might damage the economy – better leave that one alone.
How about Somaliland? In the 1960s, its colonial masters forced it into an unhappy union with Somalia, but for over 30 years, it has had its own democratic government. Isn’t it time we recognised it? Well, there are not many votes in caring about Africa since apartheid ended.
But what made Harris’s press conference comical to me was the man standing next to the Taoiseach, sharing his call for Palestinian statehood: the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez. Spain is the EU country with the greatest record of opposing selfdetermination of peoples.
Maybe Simon should have recognised the state of Catalonia, which voted for independence from Spain; the latter responded by imprisoning the leaders of the independence movement. Or maybe the Taoiseach could ask about the military actions taken to prevent the Basque country from gaining independence.
Spain is a country that can somehow demand that Gibraltar be turned over to it, against the wishes of its people, because geography demands it, while at the same time, without a hint of irony, refuse to turn over its own colonial-era settlements on the Moroccan coast, claiming they are integral parts of Spain.
Spain also steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the independence of Kosovo, preventing it from moving towards EU membership and the prosperity that comes with it, in case it encourages the Catalans or the Basques.
But I suppose virtue signalling makes strange bedfellows. PETER COSGROVE, Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford.
Self-serving West
JUDGING from recent history, the US and Britain will likely further sanction Iran for its retaliatory drone attack on Israel. There has been a predictable American and UK proclivity for sanctioning Iran and/or its officials ever since the Iranian Revolution.
The revolution’s expulsion of major Western nations was largely due to US corporate interests further exploiting Iran’s plentiful fossil fuel resources.
Such an expulsion would’ve been a big-profit-losing lesson learned by the foreign-nation oil corporation heads, which they, by way of accessing domestic political and thus military muscle, would not willingly allow to happen to them again. Maybe the 2003-11 US invasion of Iraq, and then its oil fields, is an example of this insatiable-greed mentality.
It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran’s government to fall, thus enabling Big Oil to access Iran’s oil fields. It may be that if the relevant oil-company heads were/are in fact against Iran’s post-revolution governments, then likely so are their related Western governments.