Iran operates with a historical precedent for reaching an agreement. In July 1988, Iraq, after eight years of war with Iran, launched strategic air raids against Iran’s industrial plants and began sending rockets into Tehran. The rockets caused little damage but generated panic, leading Iranians by the thousands to flee the city. With great reluctance, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a message. “Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom,” his statement read. “Unhappy am I that I still survive. … Taking this decision is more deadly than drinking from a poisoned chalice.”

The decision was to accept a cease-fire with Iraq. The announcement was actually made by Iran’s then-president — none other than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — now Iran’s supreme leader.

Khamenei operates under the legitimacy of Iran’s having accepted a hateful deal with a hated enemy.

But he seeks to realize a set of complex goals. He must avoid being seen as caving in to foreigners. The Iranian revolution was made on the basis of freeing Iran from foreign interference — of creating a truly independent Iran. The agreements Iran chooses to accept must be sold to the Iranian people as the choice of its leadership to the benefit of its people rather than as Iran’s having been beaten into a deal.

That means there are no circumstances that would allow Khamenei to give up Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities. That is seen as the scientific triumph of the “Islamic revolution” and testament to its success.

Khamenei also, desperately, wants to get the international sanctions lifted. In the end, the longevity of the revolutionary regime will depend on its ability to produce continuous economic growth. But the sanctions have really begun to bite, and the Iranian economy is in “shambles,” as President Barack Obama has said.

On July 1, the European Union will add new punishing sanctions — an embargo on buying, financing, transporting and insuring Iranian oil — further pressuring the economy.

Just how vulnerable the economy is to sanctions is revealed by the fate of the rial. Iranians had rushed to dump their currency for the relative greater safety of dollars. In 2011, 10,800 rials could buy a dollar. When the sanctions really took hold, the rial collapsed. Iran’s central bank lifted the exchange rate to 12,260 rials to the dollar. But the currency traders were demanding 18,200 for a dollar. Eventually the bank relented and authorized trades at any level. The rial went to 20,000.

When negotiations began between Iran and the West in April, the rial strengthened as high as 15,000 to the dollar. Since then it has fallen, but that’s an indication of how the Iranian public reacts to the possibility of the lifting of sanctions and Iran giving up some of its isolation.

If Khamenei could make a deal, it could assuage a very nervous public. More important, it could lead to the lifting of sanctions.

That’s the carrot. Then there are the sticks. The major one is the threat of an Israeli assault against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Last week, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, made it clear that: “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force. But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available. And not just available, but it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”

The major obstacle to any deal with Iran may actually come from Israel and its supporters rather than from the ayatollahs. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on Iran’s meeting three of Israel’s demands:

•Iran must stop the development of its second nuclear enrichment site at Fordo, deep under a mountain and immune from bunker-buster bombs.

•Iran must also ship its 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country to prevent a rush to enriching it to bomb strength.

•Iran must end all future enrichment.

If Israel is serious, the last of its demands is the deal breaker. Of course, Israel is not a direct party to the negotiations. But its supporters in the U.S. are extraordinarily important, particularly in the midst of the U.S. presidential campaign. “As the evidence of Iran’s illicit activity continues to mount,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee recently declared, “Congress and the (Obama) administration must remain united in preventing the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism from acquiring the capability to build an atomic bomb.”

The U.S. House, in parallel, just passed a resolution by a vote of 401-11 that declares it a “vital national interest of the United States to prevent the government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.” AIPAC and its allies could certainly veto any deal the president believed to be in America’s national interest.

The challenge for Iranian and U.S. negotiators is to balance the commitments of their domestic constituencies with the need for Iran to get the sanctions lifted and the bombing threat eliminated and the U.S. to end the dangers of Iran’s developing nuclear weapons.

The challenges are immense but the stars seem aligned for serious negotiations in Baghdad. That certainly does not mean that an agreement will be reached soon. But this is certainly the best chance since Iran announced in 1982 that it would start importing nuclear technology again.

Marvin Zonis is professor emeritus at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

On May 4, more than 350 protesters, including 16 women and 10 children, were arrested near Defense Ministry in the Abbaseya neighborhood of Cairo, adding to the approximately 12,000 political prisoners detained since the Revolution.

The Abbaseya protesters fortunate enough to be released from detention have revealed horrific stories of torture and abuse at the hands of military officers. Interrogators hurled abusive insults at them and said sarcastically that any future president would be working under the orders of the ruling military council, better known as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Their accounts dash any illusions that the lead-up to the election, complete with formal televised debates and countless informal discussions on the streets, represents a new era of freedom in Egypt.

On multiple occasions since March 2011, the military police have tortured and abused protesters, according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch. Despite repeated promises to investigate, Egypt’s ruling military council has shown little action and no one has been held accountable.

The girls who were imprisoned for protesting on May 4 heard screams of their fellow protesters being beaten and tortured in cells above them. One girl who has made public statements after being released was too shaken to bring herself to describe what happened to her and other girls.

Of the 15 boys released in early May — because they had student identification cards — one of them, 24-year-old Halim Hanish, summoned the courage to recount his ordeal: “They beat us with long sticks on our backs and legs for hours; some went unconscious and were never given any medical care and disappeared later. I was threatened with sexual assault with a foreign object …”

The ostensible reason behind the release of the 15 students was the timing of their final exams. But the young men were far too traumatized by what they suffered to take their exams. Some have remained silent, fearing the retribution of speaking out.

In a society where men value macho pride and unmarried women value virginity, it is courageous for young men and women who have been abused to go public about the torture and sexual violence that occur regularly to those who are held in detention. Moreover, some of the parents are also not afraid to speak out.

The father of Ahmed Taha, a 17-year-old student who was arrested on allegations of violence, spoke out about his son’s detention and rape by an officer in the High Court building on October 28. Ahmed was attending the funeral of fellow protester, Essam Ata, when he got detained. Despite being under age and having endured such brutality, Ahmed remains in detention and has been denied access to medical attention or legal council.

The ruling military council’s widespread use of detention and trial appears unprecedented, even when measured against the time of Hosni Mubarak. The addition of abuse and torture all adds up to a zero-sum strategy of squashing dissent and consolidating power.

By trapping civilian protesters inside the military system, the ruling military council completes the cycle of intimidation against Egyptian citizens.

According to Tamer Baza, a lawyer for protesters, detainees do not file formal complaints about the beatings and tortures to the judges (all of whom are military judges) for fear of further detention as retribution. The halcyon days of the revolution when Egyptian activists proclaimed “the army and the people are one hand” are but a distant memory as the ruling military council drives an unprecedented wedge between the military and civilians, particularly the revolutionary youth.

One doctor, who was arrested after she had treated protesters, overheard military officers inciting soldiers against the protesters: “I could hear the officers saying to the soldiers, ‘These are the people who killed hundreds of soldiers.’ So now Egyptian soldiers are made to feel that civilians are there to attack them, that we are the enemy, and they congratulate themselves for arresting us.”

How is it possible that the United States granted a human rights waiver to the ruling military council government that has instituted these brutal practices?

With the misguided calculation that the ruling military council can ensure “stability,” the U.S. government has sacrificed its own credibility as a defender of human rights. As more human rights violations come to light, the U.S. government should change its policy and hold the government accountable, rescind the waiver and condition military aid.

When Egyptians go to the polls on Wednesday for the first genuine election in their lifetimes — a great milestone — the voices of the “magnificent youth” who “woke Egyptians from the dead” and have fought to keep the ideals of the revolution alive should not be forgotten as they continue to be locked up in prison.

Let’s hope that one of the first acts of the new Egyptian president will be to uphold justice by releasing all the innocent political prisoners who are under detention.

Cynthia Schneider, a former U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, is a distinguished professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University and co-director of the MOST Resource Center, which provides information about Muslims to the American film and television industry. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Khaled Abol Naga, an Egyptian actor and filmmaker, is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

Tehran’s goal is to engage with the United States. Although the meeting will involve six world powers — Russia, China, France, the UK, Germany and the United States — it is the only venue it has to speak to American officials.

Any breakthrough in talks with Washington might help ease mounting tensions with America’s allies in the Middle East, including the Gulf Arab States and even Israel. Furthermore, it will ease voices inside Iran that oppose talks with the United States, without whose consensus Iran will be unable to shift the direction of its nuclear program.

Iran wants to get Washington to accept it is a player in Middle East politics. This grants it leverage to negotiate new terms of agreement over its nuclear activities. In return, Tehran will offer solutions to its conflicts with the United States in the region.

Unlike the United States, Tehran currently supports the Syrian regime and will aim to ensure that a future Syrian government will protect Iranian regional interests. Iran supports Palestinian Hamas against the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority. Iran supports Baghdad’s Shia government, which makes Iraq the only Arab country in the Persian Gulf to have closer ties with Iran than with America’s Arab allies.

Iran also aims to keep Israel at arm’s length. It likes to portray Israeli hostility as a case of simple regional rivalry rather than one based on the real threat of a nuclear Iran. Ongoing talks allows it to maintain just enough transparency over its nuclear program to make the case that it is not fear of a nuclear Iran which prompts Israeli hostility, but the fact that it is capable of counter-balancing Israeli power in the region.

Iran will therefore insist in the talks what Israel refuses to accept, that all states must join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, eliminate existing nuclear weapons stockpiles and have the right to develop peaceful nuclear energies.

Another goal Tehran will pursue is to demand that the tightening sanctions regime be loosened. An Iran-based journal, Iranian Diplomacy, suggests that Iran could cap its uranium enrichment at 3.5 percent — a grade that can be used for nuclear power but not for nuclear weapons — in exchange for easing sanctions.

Iran could also propose first to dispose of its extra 20 percent enriched uranium, which it claims is produced for medicinal purposes. That is presuming that the Iranian claim to have the capacity to produce in abundance the higher-grade fuel is correct. The article underscored a political reality that U.S. diplomats have already experienced: Iran will never agree to cease enrichment altogether or give its enriched uranium away.

In fact, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Iran would, but the message was lost in translation when it was told in New York. That was because the West refused to admit a hard dose of reality when it was injected by Ahamdinejad’s controversial figure.

Just as it refuses to accept that Iran’s nuclear policy is not determined by its presidents but by a higher body of decision-makers, which means that regardless of who leads the country the nature of its nuclear program will not change unless its demands are met.

Iran is buying time without altering its questionable behaviors over its nuclear and regional policies. But the signs are clear that Tehran is committed to engagement to meet its desired goals. Iran’s goal is to use delay tactics to arrive at some “soft compromises” in the talks.

These include getting the United States to convince Israel to cease threatening Iran over its nuclear program, which has created tensions inside Iran. It also includes convincing the United States to permanently recognize Iran’s enrichment program and to agree to ease the sanctions.

In short, Iran is in the mood for what it calls “resistance diplomacy.” This means, in the process of talks, it will continue to exercise patience to wear out the U.S. resolve to confront it.

In the best case, Iran hopes to leave the talks feeling assured that its immediate security concerns have been sufficiently addressed. That explains Iran’s recent accommodating stance towards the talks, which, according to former Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, has the full blessing of the supreme leader.

In the worst case, Iran will continue using its regional influence and enrichment program to obtain future concessions. Iran will then use the next presidential race in June 2013 to revamp the nuclear talks by instilling in the West the false hope that a new presidential figure might be able to alter the course of Iran’s nuclear program, which will not happen, again, unless its security concerns are addressed.

The best choice right now is to play the same game with Iran, by engaging it with the same patience. At the same time, Washington must recognize that any change Tehran will introduce will be measured against a host of demands that it will make to ensure regime security.

Therefore, in the process of talks, threatening Tehran with military action is counter-productive. And while sanctions are useful tools, they must be adjusted to loosen to any constructive change Iran makes and tighten if Iran is unaccommodating.

The alternative is risking entering into a protracted conflict with Iran.

Tehran’s choice to pick Baghdad as the next venue for the May talks reveals a final goal: to unnerve the world by reminding it that only a decade ago Iraq was invaded on charges of possessing weapons of mass destruction. The current threat of war against Iran for fear that it could possess nuclear weapons may risk repeating the consequences of the Iraqi invasion in 2003. The Iraqi invasion brought about civil strife in the country, and increased the Iranian influence in the region.

Banafsheh Keynoush is an independent scholar and private-sector consultant. Previously, she was an accredited interpreter with the European Commission and worked as interpreter with three Iranian presidents and a Nobel peace laureate, the United Nations and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal.

Tell that to Asia Lumbantoruan, a Christian elder whose congregation outside Jakarta has recently had two of its partially built churches burned down by Islamist militants. He was stabbed by these extremists while defending a third site from attack in September 2010.

This week in Geneva, the United Nations is reviewing Indonesia’s human rights record. It should call on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to crack down on extremists and protect minorities. While Indonesia has made great strides in consolidating a stable, democratic government after five decades of authoritarian rule, the country is by no means a bastion of tolerance. The rights of religious and ethnic minorities are routinely trampled. While Indonesia’s Constitution protects freedom of religion, regulations against blasphemy and proselytizing are routinely used to prosecute atheists, Bahais, Christians, Shiites, Sufis and members of the Ahmadiyya faith — a Muslim sect declared to be deviant in many Islamic countries. By 2010, Indonesia had over 150 religiously motivated regulations restricting minorities’ rights.

In 2006, Mr. Yudhoyono, in a new decree on “religious harmony,” tightened criteria for building a house of worship. The decree is enforced only on religious minorities — often when Islamists pressure local officials not to authorize the construction of Christian churches or to harass and intimidate those worshiping in “illegal” churches, which lack official registration. More than 400 such churches have been closed since Mr. Yudhoyono took office in 2004.

Although the government has cracked down on Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda affiliate that has bombed hotels, bars and embassies, it has not intervened to stop other Islamist militants who regularly commit less publicized crimes against religious minorities. Mr. Yudhoyono’s government is reluctant to take them on because it rules Indonesia in a coalition with intolerant Islamist political parties.

Mr. Yudhoyono is not simply turning a blind eye; he has actively courted conservative Islamist elements and relies on them to maintain his majority in Parliament, even granting them key cabinet positions. These appointments send a message to Indonesia’s population and embolden Islamist extremists to use violence against minorities.

In August 2011, for example, Muslim militants burned down three Christian churches on Sumatra. No one was charged and officials have prevented the congregations from rebuilding their churches. And on the outskirts of Jakarta, two municipalities have refused to obey Supreme Court orders to reopen two sealed churches; Mr. Yudhoyono claimed he had no authority to intervene.

Christians are not the only targets. In June 2008, the Yudhoyono administration issued a decree requiring the Ahmadiyya sect to “stop spreading interpretations and activities that deviate from the principal teachings of Islam,” including its fundamental belief that there was a prophet after Muhammad. The government said the decree was necessary to prevent violence against the sect. But provincial and local governments used the decree to write even stricter regulations. Muslim militants, who consider the Ahmadiyya heretics, then forcibly shut down more than 30 Ahmadiyya mosques.

In the deadliest attack, in western Java in February 2011, three Ahmadiyya men were killed. A cameraman recorded the violence, and versions of it were posted on YouTube. An Indonesian court eventually prosecuted 12 militants for the crime, but handed down paltry sentences of only four to six months. Mr. Yudhoyono has also failed to protect ethnic minorities who have peacefully called for independence in the country’s eastern regions of Papua and the Molucca Islands. During demonstrations in Papua on May 1, one protester was killed and 13 were arrested. And last October, the government brutally suppressed the Papuan People’s Congress, beating dozens and killing three people. While protesters were jailed and charged with treason, the police chief in charge of security that day was promoted.

Almost 100 people remain in prison for peacefully protesting. Dozens are ill, but the government has denied them proper treatment, claiming it lacks the money. Even the Suharto dictatorship allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit political prisoners, yet the Yudhoyono government has banned the I.C.R.C. from working in Papua.

Instead of praising Indonesia, nations that support tolerance and free speech should publicly demand that Indonesia respect religious freedom, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on media and human rights groups in Papua.

Mr. Yudhoyono needs to take charge of this situation by revoking discriminatory regulations, demanding that his coalition partners respect the religious freedom of all minorities in word and in deed, and enforcing the constitutional protection of freedom of worship. He must also make it crystal clear that Islamist hard-liners who commit or incite violence and the police who fail to protect the victims will be punished. Only then will Indonesia be deserving of Mr. Cameron and Mrs. Clinton’s praise.

Andreas Harsono is a researcher for the Asia division at Human Rights Watch.

The PRI has not cleaned up its act or modernized over the last 12 years. To the contrary, it has deepened its networks of corruption and illegality in the territories it still controls. The 10 states where the PRI has never lost power are among the most violent, underdeveloped and corrupt in the country. In these states, democratic transition and accountability are exotic concepts and the local governors rule like despotic feudal lords.

For example, the state of Veracruz is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Recently, four journalists were assassinated in a single week. In January, officials close to the governor were detained in an airport with a suitcase containing nearly $2 million in cash, supposedly for an advertising campaign.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating alleged complicity between three former governors of Tamaulipas and some of the most violent drug cartels in Mexico. The former governor of Coahuila, Humberto Moreira, has been embroiled in an enormous corruption scandal that left his state $3 billion in debt, allegedly involving falsified government documents and complex front corporations in Texas.

The state of Mexico, where Peña Nieto just finished a six-year stint as governor, is no exception. Homicide and poverty rates have skyrocketed and “femicides” — targeted killing of women — are common. A recent study by scholar Guadalupe Hernandez found that millions in government “social spending” went unaccounted for while Peña Nieto was governor, most likely to illegally fund his presidential campaign. Independent civil society groups rank the state at the bottom in competitiveness and tops in corruption.

Peña Nieto is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He hides behind a telegenic smile and sharp attire, but he represents Mexico’s old corrupt political class. Last week, for example, a high-ranking general apparently close to Peña Nieto and his group of politicians from Mexico state was arrested on organized-crime charges.

During his governorship, Peña Nieto allegedly spent tens of millions in public funds to illegally boost his image on national television. But he has few ideas of his own and questionable moral character. He fathered a son in an extramarital affair and has come under fire from the boy’s mother for being an irresponsible parent.

When Peña Nieto was asked at a book fair to name three books he had read, he could only mention that he had gone over “parts” of the Bible. The late Carlos Fuentes, who died May 15, said that Peña Nieto’s “ignorance” cast serious doubts on his ability to be a good president. No intellectual or independent journalist is willing to publicly endorse Peña Nieto’s candidacy.

Peña Nieto would not stand a chance under typical democratic conditions in which candidates are forced to engage with citizens and frequently debate their adversaries. But in Mexico the powers that be have been working hard to protect him. For instance, not a single television station or major university has sponsored a debate between the candidates.

Those who support Peña Nieto behind the scenes do so not because they think he would be a good president but because the return of the PRI is seen to be their best insurance policy. “Who’s going to move the people with the money?… Peña Nieto is,” boasted a prominent Mexican businessman close to the PRI.

But Mexico doesn’t need more privileges for the rich and powerful. It needs greater opportunities for the common people, who have seen their wages stagnate over the last three decades. Mexico is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. It is home to both the wealthiest man in the world, Carlos Slim, and the most powerful narco-trafficker in the hemisphere, Joaquin Guzman. Only 10 families control 10% of Mexico’s gross domestic product. Meanwhile, more than 50 million people languish under the poverty line.

If the next president does not attack inequality and stimulate economic growth, the violence and discontent will only deepen. This could lead to expanding social protest and political instability as well as significant new outflows of migration to the United States.

There is some evidence that Mexicans may be opening their eyes. Peña Nieto has fallen from first to third place among college-educated voters. His support in northern Mexico, normally a PRI stronghold, and among independents is also in free fall. Earlier this month, students booed and literally ran Peña Nieto off campus after his speech at one of Mexico City’s elite private schools. This weekend, tens of thousands of students took to the streets to protest against a possible return of the PRI on July 1. “It would be like a horror movie,” said one of the marchers.

The upcoming elections, which include the Senate and the federal Chamber of Deputies and six governorships, are very much up in the air. There is still an opportunity for Mexico to move forward instead of backward in its struggle to consolidate democracy, institutionalize accountability and expand economic opportunity.

John M. Ackerman is a professor at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, editor in chief of the Mexican Law Review and a columnist for Proceso magazine and La Jornada newspaper.

The savagery will make the alleged Republican sins against women — as politically motivated Democrats have charged — pale in comparison. The Taliban’s strict enforcement of Sharia law, or Islamic law, has resulted in what can be described without exaggeration as a scourge against women.

The atrocities run from everyday humiliations such as the required wearing of turtle-shell burqas, to the denial of education and other rights, “honor” killings, public stonings, and rape.

In 1999, the United Nations detailed how the government enforced “official, widespread and systematic violations of the human rights of women.” That was before the United States drove the Taliban from power, at last giving women a taste of liberty.

But as Amnesty International pointed out in its “shadow summit” conference during the NATO meetings in Chicago, such degradations haven’t ended, and with the re-emergence of the Taliban as a threat to the U.S.-backed government the worries of backsliding into a Dark Age of oppression are real and imminent.

An Elimination of Violence Against Woman law enacted in 2009 criminalized “child marriage, selling and buying women for the purpose or under the pretext of marriage, baad (giving away a woman or girl to settle a dispute), forced self-immolation and 27 other acts of violence against women, including rape and beating.” But a U.N. report last year concluded that while the law has improved matters, it has “not yet succeeded in applying … the law to the vast majority of cases of violence against women.”

The shadow summit has called for eight “critical steps” to protect women, generally directed at increasing the role of women in any peace and reconciliation negotiations and the insistence that any agreement ensures protections of women’s constitutional and human rights. As Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a summit participant noted, “If you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu.”

And yet, as laudatory as such demands are, calls for reason and diplomacy won’t budge the Taliban from its long-entrenched manual of horrors. It will take force to protect women and their rights. Which runs headlong into the purpose of the Chicago NATO summit: the “orderly” withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Bluntly stated: What President Barack Obama is engineering by his abandonment of what he once called the real war in the Middle East is a betrayal of women. And that also goes for the peace activists, anarchists, ancients from ’60s protests, feminists, isolationists and well-intentioned protesters who were on the streets of Chicago outside of the summit.

Do they really believe that they can “talk” the Taliban out of floggings and public executions in soccer stadiums, the brutal repression of free speech and the total elimination of “non-Islamic” influences like music? The murderous Taliban are so nutsy they even banned kite flying, something of a national sport.

The Chicago media obsessed with the coverage of the protesters while pretty much ignoring the essence of what was happening inside McCormick Place — the selling out of women for the fictitious appearance of peace and stability in Afghanistan. If the protesters really cared about ending the jihad against women threatened by the pullout of forces in Afghanistan, they would have railed against Obama’s politically motived double-cross.

The anti-war protesters are up against it. Can they acknowledge that sometimes the only way to deal with the insane is the threat or use of force? Did we learn nothing from the appeasement that led up World War II?

Sure, there are serious questions to be raised about the future and purpose of NATO, the most powerful military alliance ever assembled. Do we want it acting as the world’s police force, imposing its will on sovereign nations? Even American conservatives should be troubled by a world police force that can intervene whenever and wherever the U.N. approves or directs.

But the more pressing and practical issue is whether the White House and the self-appointed advocates for right, justice and peace can recognize that sitting down at the table with the Taliban is like an invited pig seeing bacon on the menu.

Dennis Byrne, a Chicago writer.

Questions remain as to who should draft a new constitution, what authority the new head of state might have, particularly in relation to the legislative branch, and what role the military might play in the burgeoning political system. With candidates from the revolutionary movement, Islamists and members of the old guard vying for leadership, the election could be one final opportunity for Egypt’s de facto ruler, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to help usher in a genuine and safe political transition.

The SCAF, a 20-member body of Egypt’s top military brass once headed by Hosni Mubarak, was initially hailed as a defender of the uprising, but its high-handed management of the transition and seemingly paradoxical decisions have eroded some of the goodwill it enjoyed in February of last year.

It finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. Historically, the SCAF has considered itself to be the only national actor with the legitimacy, ability and wisdom to protect the country from threats both foreign and domestic. But now it is being forced to respond to mounting demands for radical political changes from a mobilized protest movement and to the political rise of the long-persecuted Islamists.

These developments go against its conservative nature and deep attachment to stability and continuity. In a way, the military has been in charge of administering the very process that is chipping away at its nearly seven decades of political and economic prerogatives.

To be sure, the generals are not keen on governing, but with insecurity high, volatility in the Sinai and troubles in neighboring Gaza, Libya and Sudan, they are reluctant right now to trust an untested civilian leadership. Nor do they accept attempts to undermine their privileged status, which includes a budget largely outside of civilian control, virtual immunity from prosecution and important business ventures linked to key parts of the economy.

On top of that, despite being extremely shy of the public spotlight, the military does not want its influence to diminish, as demanded by the secular-minded protest movement or to see the balance of power shift to a single political party, especially an Islamist one.

The SCAF’s actions in recent months, however, have done little to help it achieve those goals. By playing Islamists off against secularists, and vice versa, it has alienated both. Now the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and the SCAF appear entangled in a confrontation over the post-transition arrangements. Fearing that the junta will impose a strong presidential system and void Parliament of its power, the Brotherhood has thrown itself into campaigning, reneging on a pledge not to present a candidate. Neither wants the contest right now, but as the transition takes on a zero-sum-game quality, neither feels that it can back down.

It might not be too late. The generals urgently ought to do now what they should have done more than a year ago: talk to actors from across Egypt’s political spectrum — not just the Muslim Brothers, but also the ultraconservative Salafis and the liberal protest movement — to find a way of accommodating peacefully their diverse and competing goals and interests.

A way must be found to define the parameters of the country’s future political system; the powers of the presidency, the makeup of a committee to draft the new constitution and a basis for civil-military relations. Such fundamental issues determining Egypt’s political stability should not be left unaddressed.

More than ever, Cairo needs consensus-building in order to shake off the economic and political paralysis it has suffered during the 18-month-long transition, and move quickly to meet the salient expectations of those who took part in the Jan. 25 revolt, and the majority that struggles to secure basic necessities like food and health care.

The lead-up to the presidential election has been far from reassuring. For example, the candidate list was finalized less than a month before the voting, amid much controversy over the last-minute nomination (and disqualification) of the Muslim Brotherhood deputy general guide, Khairat el-Shater, as well as Mubarak’s director of the General Intelligence Services, Omar Suleiman.

If the SCAF can help outline exactly what is at stake in the election — by agreeing with most political parties on the relations of authority among the different branches of government, and ensuring that fundamental guarantees are in place to protect the various interests at play — it could help transform the election from a potentially volatile existential exercise into a manageable political one.

This may be the generals’ last chance to peacefully produce a balanced and democratic political system reflecting the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral prowess and the protest movement’s democratic aspirations, while protecting the interests so critical to the military. Ultimately, the SCAF should step aside, clearing the way to democratically elected civilian institutions; the trick is to make sure that happens in a safe, orderly and dignified manner.

Yasser M. el-Shimy is a Middle East analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Alex Aan, a 30-year-old civil servant, is a gentle, soft-spoken, highly intelligent young man who simply gave up his belief in God when he saw poverty, war, famine and disaster around the world.

He faces the possibility of up to six years in prison, charged with blasphemy, disseminating hatred and spreading atheism. Radical Muslims came to his office, beat him up, and called the police after reading about his views on Facebook.

Alex is the first atheist in Indonesia to be jailed for his belief, but his case is symptomatic of a wider increase in religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. The previous Sunday, I joined a small church in Bekasi, a suburb of Jakarta, for a service, but found the street blocked by a noisy, angry mob and a few police.

The church, known as HKBP Filadelfia, was forced to close a few years ago, even though the local courts had given permission to open. The local mayor, under pressure from Islamists, has declared a “zero church” policy in his area. For the past two months, the congregation has been blocked from worshiping in the street outside their building, and the atmosphere has grown increasingly tense.

When I was there, I felt it could have erupted into violence at any moment. The radicals in control of the loudspeaker shouted “Christians, get out,” and “anyone not wearing a jilbab (headscarf), catch them, hunt them down.”

World leaders and commentators like to point to Indonesia as a model of tolerance and pluralism and an example of how Islam and democracy are not incompatible. To a certain extent they are right — Indonesia does have a great tradition of pluralism, a generally tolerant brand of Islam, and has made a remarkable transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

The majority of Indonesian Muslims remain moderate, and are appalled by rising intolerance. But three factors are undermining religious freedom: the silence and passivity of the majority, growing radicalization, and the weakness of the government at every level.

It is not only religious tolerance and freedom that is under threat, but also the rule of law. Another church, GKI Yasmin in Bogor, an hour from Jakarta, has approval from the Supreme Court to open, but the local mayor, again under pressure from Islamists, refuses to allow it. A district mayor is in defiance of the Supreme Court, and no one says a word.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim community is perhaps the most persecuted. Violent attacks against this group, whose beliefs are considered heretical by many conservative Muslims, have increased significantly. Last year I met victims of one of the worst outbreaks of violence, an attack on Ahmadis in Cikeusik on Feb. 6, 2011, which left three people dead.

One man described how he was stripped naked and beaten severely and a machete was held at his throat. He was dragged through the village and dumped in a truck like a corpse. Another man fled into a fast-flowing river, pursued by attackers throwing rocks and shouting “kill, kill, kill.”

He hid in a bush, dripping wet and extremely cold, for four hours. A third suffered a broken jaw, while a fourth, pursued by men armed with sickles, machetes and spears, was detained by the police for three days, treated as a suspect not a victim.

Of the 1,500-strong mob that attacked 21 Ahmadis, only 12 people were arrested and prosecuted, according to The New York Times. Their sentences were between three and six months.

These are by no means the only cases. Earlier this month, radicals attacked a lecture by the liberal Canadian Muslim Irshad Manji. In Aceh, 17 churches were forced to close.

I met other church pastors who talked about their churches being closed, and a woman, the Rev. Luspida, who was beaten while one of her congregation was knifed. “We have no religious freedom here anymore,” she told me. “We need to give a message to the president. He cannot say the situation is good here. We need to remind him our situation is very critical, and he should do something for the future of Indonesia. Support from outside is very important to pressure the president.”

As Indonesia faces its Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations Human Rights Council — a process applied periodically to every member state — serious questions should be asked about the country’s future. If action is not taken, Indonesia’s accomplishments over the past decade could be jeopardized.

It is not too late. There are some excellent Indonesian Muslim organizations such as the Wahid Institute, founded by former President Abdurrahman Wahid, and the Maarif Institute, whose work should be supported.

If President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono acted, he would have the silent majority behind him. His government made progress in tackling terrorism, but it should not shirk its responsibility to fight the ideology that underpins terror. His government should stop giving in to the radicals and start protecting the rights of all Indonesians to choose, change and practice their religion, as provided in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I went to meet Alex Aan because as a Christian, I believe in the freedom of religion, which includes the right not to believe.

Benedict Rogers works for the international human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide, based in London.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently banned Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, from entering Kabul for alleging that Mr. Karzai and his supporters rule through exclusionary tactics and make money to stay in power.

That the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs oversight and investigations subcommittee was restricted from entering Afghanistan is appalling, given that American taxpayers spend nearly $2 billion a week on the 11-year-old conflict and almost 2,000 U.S. military personnel have lost their lives for its government. For the endemically corrupt regime and its band of thugs and cronies, this is business as usual.

One real life drama that played out in Kandahar, between Afghan entrepreneur Naseem Pashtoon Sharifi and the Afghan president’s brother, Qayum Karzai, shows how damaging such behavior by those in positions of authority can be.

Like many in the Afghan diaspora, the 37-year-old Mr. Sharifi returned to his homeland after the fall of the Taliban regime to help rebuild his country and invest in civil society. He pioneered an outdoor billboard company, Arakozia Advertising, and was the editor of the Kandahar-based newspaper Surgar Weekly.His media empire became the fourth-largest employer in the region, as contracts from banks, wireless phone companies and even NATO-led poppy eradication projects came streaming in.

His vibrant business came to an end when Kandahar Mayor Ghulam Hamidi, a longtime friend of Mr. Karzai, arbitrarily raised the municipal taxes on Arakozia’s billboards from 6 percent to 60 percent. When Mr. Sharifi resisted, dozens of his billboards were torched, torn down and destroyed. Threats of violence followed, from anonymous phone calls to intimidation by Kandahar police. Mr. Sharifi was once again forced into exile.

Eventually, Qayum Karzai, a Baltimore restaurateur who also dominates the construction and security business in Kandahar, emerged in Mr. Sharifi’s place. Qayum Karzai founded his own billboard business, Innovative Kandahar Advertising, which charges four times as much, compared with Arakozia. In a devastating 2010 expose, theToronto Star’sMitch Potter verified Mr. Sharifi’s accounts. Other Kandahar-based sources also confirmed his accusations.

But Qayum Karzai is not the only Karzai involved in such strong-arm tactics against his business rivals. Hamid Karzai’s younger half-brother, the late Ahmed Wali Karzai, once consolidated his power by acting as both the powerful chairman of Kandahar’s provincial council and by relying on a mafialike network of militias that made millions of dollars by bribing security companies that benefited from contracts escorting NATO convoys.

One diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals U.S. officials once described the Karzai clan’s grip over Kandahar as a “semi-modern aristocracy.” Congressional investigators have found mounting evidence that American taxpayer dollars had inadvertently created a network of warlords that fed the insurgency’s momentum with economic assistance from the coalition.Worse, U.S. military officials say perceptions that power in Kandahar is concentrated in the hands of the Karzai family fuel support for the insurgency.

Rep. John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Democrat, once said: “In this case, the U.S. appears to be inadvertently fueling the very warlordism and corruption that we are pressing President Karzai to curtail.”

So what can be done?

Step one:Establish just criteria and follow a careful vetting process to identify capable, honest and reputable Afghans from within the country and in the diaspora to serve during a one-year interim government.

Step two: Of those Afghan government officials where conclusive proof of their criminal wrongdoings will result in conviction, conduct public trials and mete out sentences commensurate with the offense.

Step three: Allow the Afghan people to decide their preferred method of governance, by either traditional means or democratic-style elections.

None of this will be easy, but as the saying goes, “no justice, no peace.” If this or similar efforts for redress cannot be pursued, then Washington has even more reason to exit this conflict swiftly. Contrary to received wisdom, Afghanistan’s bloodshed is not solely a result of the absence of functioning central government institutions. Rather, in the process of building those institutions, the coalition put into power a network of warlords contributing to alienation, violence and impoverishment.

Failing to appreciate the depths of Afghan corruption trivializes a primary motive that spurs many Afghans to fight, and many more to give up hope.

Malou Innocent is a foreign-policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Danny Markus has lived and worked in Afghanistan, on and off, since 2008.

In June 1978, Song Jian, a top-level manager in charge of developing control systems for the Chinese guided-missile program, traveled to Helsinki for an international conference on control-system theory and design. While in Finland, he picked up copies of “The Limits to GrowthandBlueprint for Survival”- publications of the Club of Rome, a major source of Malthusian propaganda – and made the acquaintance of several Europeans who were promoting the report’s method of using computerized “systems analysis” to predict and design the human future.

Fascinated by the possibilities, Mr. Song returned to China and republished the Club’s analysis under his own name (without attribution), establishing his reputation for brilliant and original thinking. In no time at all, Mr. Song became a scientific superstar. Seizing the moment to grasp for greater power and importance, he pulled together an elite group of mathematicians from within his department and, with the help of a powerful computer to provide the necessary special effects, issued the profoundly calculated judgment that China’s “correct” population size was 650 million to 700 million people – which is to say, some 280 million to 330 million less than its actual 1978 population.

Mr. Song’s analysis quickly found favor at top levels of the Chinese Communist Party because it purported to prove that the reason for China’s continued poverty was not 30 years of disastrous misrule, but the very existence of the Chinese people. Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his fellows in the Central Committee were very impressed by the pseudo-scientific computer babble Mr. Song used to dress up his theory and even more impressed by the possibilities that arrogating the power to permit or deny children would provide to the state.

Thus began the most forceful population-control program since Nazi Germany. Qian Xinzhong, a Soviet-trained former major general in the People’s Liberation Army, was placed in charge of the campaign. He ordered all women with one child to have a stainless steel IUD inserted and to be inspected regularly to make sure they had not tampered with it. To remove the device was deemed a criminal act. All parents with two or more children were to be sterilized. No pregnancies were legal for anyone under 23, whether married or not, and all unauthorized pregnancies were to be aborted.

Women who defied these injunctions were taken and sterilized by force. Babies would be aborted right through the ninth month of pregnancy, with many crying as they were being stabbed to death at the moment of birth. Those women who fled to try to save their children were hunted, and if they could not be caught, their houses were torn down, and their parents thrown in prison, there to linger until a ransom of 20,000 yuan – about three years’ income for a peasant – was paid for their release.

Babies born to such fugitives were declared to be “black children,” illegal non-persons in the eyes of the state, without any right to employment, public schooling, health care or reproduction. Millions have been confiscated from their mothers and placed in “orphanages” where, if not adopted in short order, they are left to expire without food in “dying rooms.”

Local Communist Party officials were given quotas for sterilizations, abortions and IUD insertions. If they exceeded them, they could be promoted. If they failed to meet them, they would be expelled from the party in disgrace. These measures guaranteed results. Since 1983, the combined total coerced abortions, IUD implantations and sterilizations have exceeded 30 million per year, or nearly one billion in all.

Given the supreme importance to rural Chinese families of having a son, both to take care of aging parents and to continue the line and honor family ancestors, many peasants simply could not accept a daughter as their only child. As a result, female infanticide has become rampant. During the period from 2000 to 2004, almost 1.25 boys were born for every girl born – indicating that one-fifth of all baby girls in China were either being aborted or murdered. In some provinces, the fraction eliminated was as high as one-half. According to Chai Ling, the former Tiananmen Square rebel leader who now heads a dissenting organization “All Girls Allowed,” the death toll now exceeds more than 100 million girls.

Such is the horror of China’s population-control policy. America needs to take a strong stand against it and aid in every way those brave men and women who would bring it to an end.

Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy, and the author of Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

But if even a fraction of the stories about the wealth and lifestyles of China’s “princelings” — the descendants of Mao’s revolutionary generation — are to be believed, China’s New Class wants not only control, but also ownership. Few of China’s netizens are likely to believe that Bo Xilai, the Politburo member and party boss of the mega-city of Chongqing who was ousted in March on corruption charges, was an aberration.

Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite? And why have so many Chinese leaders sent their children abroad for education? One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China’s future.

This may seem strange, given that the Chinese have propelled their country into the top ranks of global economic powerhouses over the past 30 years. There are those who predict a hard landing for an overheated economy — where growth has already slowed — but the acquisition of wealth is better understood not just as an economic cushion, or as pure greed, but as a political hedge.

China’s Communist leaders cling to Deng Xiaoping’s belief that their continuance in power will depend on economic progress. But even in China, a mandate based on competence can crumble in hard times. So globalizing one’s assets — transferring money and educating one’s children overseas — makes sense as a hedge against risk. (At least $120 billion has been illegally transferred abroad since the mid-1990s, according to one official estimate.)

Mao and his colleagues had a self-confidence born of many factors: triumph in civil war; a well-organized party apparatus; a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework, the road map to a socialist future; and the bulwark of the victorious People’s Liberation Army. Today, more than 60 years after the civil war, only the P.L.A. looks somewhat the same, and the self-confidence is fraying.

The denunciations of party leaders and officials by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution undermined the party’s authority and legitimacy. The party’s insecurity was accentuated by Deng’s rejection (in practice) of Marxism-Leninism. The cloak of ideological legitimacy was abandoned in the race for growth.

Today, the party’s 80 million members are still powerful, but most join the party for career advancement, not idealism. Every day, there are some 500 protests, demonstrations or riots against corrupt or dictatorial local party authorities, often put down by force. The harsh treatment that prompted the blind human-rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to seek American protection is only one of the most notorious cases. The volatile society unleashed against the state by Mao almost 50 years ago bubbles like a caldron. Stories about the wealth amassed by relatives of party leaders like Mr. Bo, who have used their family connections to take control of vast sectors of the economy, will persuade even loyal citizens that the rot reaches to the very top.

The Bo affair is not just about massive corruption but also succession. Mr. Bo had developed a high-profile “Chongqing model” characterized by crime busting, Maoist singalongs, cheap housing and other welfare provisions. It was a populist, and popular, attempt by a charismatic “princeling,” son of a revolutionary hero, to assert his natural right to ascend to the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress later this year. Among the rumors circulating in China is that, once on the committee, Mr. Bo would have tried to replace the party’s incoming general secretary and president agreed to by the outgoing leadership: Xi Jinping.

Mao, who died in 1976, hand-picked his successor. Deng, who died in 1997, blessed Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao to follow him. Mr. Hu, not being a revolutionary hero like Mao or the godfather of economic reform like Deng, did not have the prestige to appoint his successor. The low-key Mr. Xi, a princeling like Mr. Bo, emerged as a result of jostling behind closed doors. Lacking institutional legitimacy and a laying of hands by an elder, he might have looked an easy target to an ambitious Mr. Bo.

In the months ahead, party leaders will use every propaganda tool to dissipate the damage inflicted on leadership unity, party discipline and national “harmony” by the Bo debacle. They might divert criticism from Bo by depicting his allegedly murderous wife as China’s Lady Macbeth. But members of China’s New Class will still worry that the revelations about elite corruption have exposed them to the danger of the Bolsheviks coming back.

Roderick MacFarquhar, a professor of government at Harvard, is a co-author of Mao’s Last Revolution.

From the time of Ramses II, the strong pharaoh who ruled Egypt thousands of years ago, until last year when Hosni Mubarak’s reign ended, Egyptians were never able to witness a debate over who should take over the democratic reins in the highest office of the land. Our new culture of debate, together with the election of the Parliament last December, are milestones in the history of the nation, paving a new, but rocky, path toward democracy.

Unlike in nearby Syria or earlier in Libya, the Egyptian Army has taken the high road and protected the revolution in its infancy. And it has been the guardian of these unprecedented transparent elections.

The challenges facing the country, of course, are still monumental.

Among the most serious problems are economic hardship, the uncertainty of the political climate and the deterioration of security — a feature that Egyptian society faces anew. These problems have been compounded over the past 15 months as each of the three main constituencies involved in the revolution — the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which is in charge of the transition period; the politically liberal as well as Islamic-oriented parties; and the youth who triggered the uprising — have stumbled in one way or another.

Even some of the people most thirsty for transforming Mubarak’s stagnant nation from a democracy-deficient to a democracy-rich society have, in despair, been yearning for the old stability.

True, there are chaotic symptoms — such as the conflicts among the different political parties and the occasional clashes between the SCAF, the Parliament and the government — but this is a form of the “creative chaos,” in the words of Condoleezza Rice, that is a consequence of revolutionary changes that ultimately will lead to a stable democracy.

The recent French election is a lesson for us in the peaceful, civilized transfer of power. Looking back, we know the French Revolution some two centuries ago, through a liberation movement not unlike ours, was accompanied by widespread bloodshed and ugly political conflicts for many years.

It is a hopeful sign indeed that we Egyptians are still marching forward toward democracy with relatively little bloodshed. All signs indicate that a counterrevolution is not in store for Egypt. We will not turn back to a totalitarian governing system.

Perhaps the most encouraging of all is the confidence of Egyptians in their future.

The governor of the central bank of Egypt, Farouk Al-Okda, recently informed me that the hard-currency revenues coming from expatriates are the highest ever. Even the many strikes for betterment of education, improvement of health care and increase in salaries can be read as acts of high expectations for the future.

A rise in violence between some Muslims and Christians is cause for concern. But its origin and intensity are exaggerated in the media.

Egypt’s Christian history is part of the fabric of the society. Egypt does not have a ghetto for its minority population nor segregation of students at schools, but indeed has some solvable problems to address, including those of civic society issues and representation in governance.

Growing up in Egypt, I witnessed the harmony between the peoples of the two of faiths. Together we celebrated Eid al-Fitr, Easter and Christmas, and together we lived in the same buildings and went to the same schools. The late Pope Shenouda III used to say: “We do not live in Egypt, but Egypt lives within us.”

The current grand imam and sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, has signed on a new constitutional paper demanding unity and human rights for all Egyptians.

In the post-revolution period, some bad actors, including those from the previous regime, seek to fan inter-religious violence in order to destabilize our infant democracy. The fact that it hasn’t taken a deep hold is yet another sign of hope.

Naturally, the role of religion in politics is now being debated, and in fact the recent debate is telling of this change.

Dr. Aboul Fotouh was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood group that was established in 1928, and suffered from political persecution. He calls himself a liberal Islamist.

Mr. Moussa, on the other hand, who was a foreign minister and secretary general of the Arab League during the Mubarak era, stresses his experience and paints his opponents as religious extremists.

The open debate between the secular and religious orientations of politics was unthinkable over the past 60 years. This new openness means the Egyptian body politic is maturing.

Citizens are taking responsibility for their own fate by insisting that diverse visions and ideologies compete. In the end, Egyptians know that, for the first time, they can choose their future. It won’t be dictated or imposed by anyone.

From my involvement in Egypt, I am confident that the SCAF will hand over the power to the elected president. I, however, believe that the SCAF wishes to have a “respectable exit” and some guarantees regarding the status of the army in the constitution of the new Egypt.

My message to the Egyptian people, and especially to the politicians, is simple: For the sake of Egypt, unite together to complete the passage from fallen dictatorship to emergent democracy by focusing on charting the new constitution.

No matter who comes to power, the constitution will protect citizens against abuse of authority either by the legislative and executive branches. Luckily, Egypt still has a respected and robust judiciary system to complete the triad of democracy.

My concern is that the practice in Mubarak’s era of “conflicts of trivialities” can cause the nation to drift away from the central issues of the constitution and economic productivity. The more effective this unproductive course, the longer the transition time to democracy.

It is imperative that we do not give up hope. The world must support a democracy that has passed its pregnancy stage and is now in the gestation period, ready for a new birth.

Ahmed Zewail was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is a professor of chemistry and physics at the California Institute of Technology and is playing an active role in Egypt’s transformation to democracy.

The Afghan people are thankful for the efforts and support offered by the international community, which has been standing by us. We look forward to a long-term partnership to generate a durable peace.

The people of Afghanistan have known nothing but war for the past 33 years. It is time to put the Afghan-led peace process at the top of our priorities so Afghans can experience peace and prosperity. Afghans, in particular the Taliban, must get the message that peace and reintegration is not surrender, it is an opportunity for all Afghans to return to their families, villages and country with honor and dignity and become part of the wider political system under the Afghan constitution.

There are those who will never recognize peace in Afghanistan. They should not allow others to use them as an instrument to destroy their own country. After signing our Partnership Agreement with the United States and other members of the international community, Afghans are taking full responsibility for provision of security for our own people. If insurgents insist on continuing the fight, they will find they are up against a fully capable Afghan National Security Force which will enjoy further support of our communities. I expect this NATO summit will cement the long-term commitment to build the capacity and capabilities of the ANSF, which will be insurance to the people of Afghanistan that the history of the 1990s will not be repeated.

Women in Afghanistan have taken huge steps in the last few years and have become integrated in the Afghan government at local, regional and national levels. The women’s contribution to our nation will only become prevalent as more women graduate from our universities and take their places in Afghan society. This will be only possible if we achieve durable peace in our country.

I highly encourage our strategic partners to join in our Afghan pride. Our neighbors in the region respect us once again as a sovereign nation and we continue to establish trade partnerships. Heads of state continue to come to Afghanistan to re-establish relations.

As we transition to peace, we are grateful that our strategic stakeholders respect and support our determination to achieve Afghan independence. I look forward to the day Afghanistan is no longer remembered as a war-torn country, but as a country of peace.

Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai is chief executive officer of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program.

Much has improved over the past 10 years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Afghanistan has a vibrant press, many civil society organizations and much better access for women — especially in urban areas — to education, health care and work. But many Afghans are nervous about whether these advances will survive the impending international retreat from their country.

Few think another Taliban takeover is imminent, but other bleak scenarios are envisioned. Some predict a return to the kind of full-scale civil war between different regions and ethnic groups that reduced Kabul and other parts of the country to rubble in the 1990s. Many anticipate that the Taliban will expand its control, particularly in the southern and eastern Pashtun areas. Others foresee further decline in the authority of an already weak central government, unable to stem the growth of local and regional fiefdoms. Local control in Afghanistan often means handing parts of the country to warlords with little tolerance for democratic dissent or women’s rights.

The anxiety of Afghans only intensifies as they look at the human rights record of their government, the large number of human rights abusers in the government and parliament, and the inconsistent actions and rhetoric of President Hamid Karzai. Government-backed militias and the U.S.-supported paramilitary Afghan Local Police have resorted to extortion, assault, murder, rape and forced recruitment. Torture is routine in jails run by the Afghan intelligence service. Accountability mechanisms to prevent and redress human rights violations do not function properly.

A central problem, long avoided by Washington, is the rot at the heart of the Afghan government. In ousting the Taliban, the U.S. deliberately funded and financed power brokers and warlords, many of whom, such as Vice President Mohammed Fahim, have long histories of complicity in atrocities. Karzai is trapped by these men and dependent on them to remain in power.

The surest way for the international community to squander its decade of investment in Afghanistan is to withdraw troops, breathe a sigh of relief and walk away. What is needed in Chicago and thereafter is a renewed and deepened commitment to protect the rights of Afghans through properly trained and vetted security forces. Also critical are accountability mechanisms for abusers, yet the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission is under intense pressure from the Afghan and other governments not to publish a report detailing abuses committed by powerful individuals and factions.

Moreover, in key capitals such asWashington, D.C., London and Brussels, policymakers need to recognize that Afghanistan cannot be rebuilt by men with guns alone.Afghanistan’sdedicated schoolteachers, doctors and lawyers, honest civil servants, courageous journalists and activists need continued financial, political and moral support, and at times, physical protection.

In Chicago and beyond, the risk is that there will be no strategy for anything other than an international pullout. Ten years after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban, despite regular rhetorical commitments to the rule of law and good governance, it is fair to ask the world’s leaders to articulate a clear strategy to protect the rights of all Afghans. How will the security forces being trained by the U.S. and others be professional? How will they be held accountable for abuses? What is the strategy to protect women and other vulnerable communities? How will the international community ensure that girls are not barred from attending school in rural areas, that women are not prohibited from going to work, that the rights of women and girls are not bargained away by the government in a “peace” deal with the Taliban? These are the questions that Afghans are asking. In Chicago, President Barack Obama and others should start providing answers.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch.

With a new round of talks coming this week in Baghdad between Iran and the group of nations known as the “P5+1” — the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration has gone to great lengths to stress the possibility and desirability of a diplomatic solution, and to make clear that the military option is a last resort. As White House deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough said this month in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “We believe the policy we are pursuing is working. . . . We’re not involved in a negotiation effort for the sake of negotiations.”

But despite the optimism that came out of the negotiations last month in Istanbul, there is little reason to believe that Iran is serious about doing anything other than using the coming weeks to enrich more uranium and make progress toward a nuclear weapon. Success in the Baghdad talks would mean starting a process that would halt Iran’s program rather than just buy more time for Tehran. To do so, the United States must not only lay out the curbs on Iran’s nuclear program that Washington would be willing to reward, but also clearly outline what advances in Iran’s nuclear program it would be compelled to punish with military force. This is the only way to prove to the Iranians that, as Obama has said, the window is indeed closing.

Over the past six years, the international community has engaged in an intense diplomatic effort to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program. All the while, the program has continued to progress, reaching disturbing milestones.

For example, in 2008, the international community was concerned about Iran’s mastery of enrichment at a formerly secret underground facility at Natanz and would have found the construction of another enrichment facility highly provocative. Nevertheless, in September 2009, the existence of such a facility was exposed; earlier this year, Iran began enriching uranium at the facility near Qom.

Similarly, in January 2010, Iran was enriching uranium to 3.5 percent — a low level that has plausible applications for a civilian nuclear energy program — at Natanz, but we consoled ourselves with the hope that Iran wouldn’t be reckless enough to enrich to higher levels under the watchful eyes of international inspectors. That is, until it did just that. Iran now possesses more than 100 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium, having done 90 percent of the work required to get to weapons-grade material.

At their news conference at the G-8 Summit in September 2009 revealing the site at Qom, Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed anger that Iran had again been caught concealing an enrichment facility, which U.S. officials claimed was “the right size” to produce weapons-grade uranium and was designed to give Iran “an option of producing weapons-grade uranium without the international community knowing about it.”

But when it came to a response, the United Nations did not approve sanctions against Tehran until nine months later.

Even beyond Qom, international sanctions have been disconnected from Iranian actions, driven instead by the politics and the timelines of the U.N. Security Council, the European Union or the U.S. Congress. This obviously limits their deterrent value.

Iran has repeatedly crossed what should have been bright red lines for the international community. But instead of taking tough measures to stop them, the world simply watched, responding with bluster not backed up by serious repercussions. If the regime crosses another red line in the future, such as enriching beyond 20 percent, will we stand by once again?

The Obama administration has articulated only one bright red line: building nuclear weapons. But if we wait until Iran turns the final screws on a nuclear device, we probably will be too late. The administration’s pledge to use force if necessary also rings hollow if Iran is allowed to make significant progress in all the other areas required for a weapon.

The United States can strike Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from making weapons-grade uranium, but once it has the fissile material, the game is over. At that point, our options would be reduced to either beginning an operation to topple the regime — which would most likely require ground forces — or simply praying that Tehran doesn’t weaponize. Neither is attractive.

A more reasonable set of red lines would include advances that would greatly shrink Iran’s dash time to a bomb, such as building additional covert facilities, installing advanced centrifuges at Natanz or Qom, maintaining larger stockpiles of low-enriched uranium, enriching beyond 20 percent, kicking out international inspectors, or conducting certain weaponization-related research.

Clearly articulating the red lines that Iran cannot cross would place the last clear chance to avoid a confrontation squarely on its shoulders. If Iran is willing to put hard ceilings on all aspects of its nuclear program, it can avoid a near-term conflict, but if it pushes forward, it will invite a strike that will be much more painful for itself than it is for the United States. After all, Washington has a spectrum of viable military options, including a limited strike against a few key nuclear facilities, as well as a broader bombing campaign that could destroy the Iranian military and destabilize the regime. The response could be commensurate to the seriousness of Iran’s transgressions.

This proactive approach should help calm nerves in the region about Obama’s mettle, and could forestall Israel from taking matters into its own hands.

Some will argue that articulating red lines would legitimize Iran’s activities thus far. But the confidence-building measures the international community has previously put on the table — such as fuel-swap proposals — have already had that effect, even if unintentionally. Red lines could be outlined in a way that does not undermine the Security Council’s demands that Iran halt all enrichment activities and answer the International Atomic Energy Agency’s questions about possible military dimensions of its program. The benefits of being clear about what we cannot accept outweigh the possible costs.

No one wants military action. But drawing red lines linked to the guaranteed use of force by Washington and its allies could be the best way to avoid conflict. Iran temporarily halted key aspects of its nuclear program when it faced what it deemed the real potential of a U.S. military attack after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Only if Iran’s leaders again fully understand that future nuclear advances would result in a devastating military strike will they be deterred from inching closer to nuclear weapons, which would menace international peace and security for decades.

Jamie Fly, executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, served as director for counterproliferation strategy on the National Security Council staff of the George W. Bush administration. Matthew Kroenig, a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as adviser on Middle East policy in the office of the secretary of defense from 2010 to 2011.

By 2002, the consequences of such deliberate human cruelty were abundantly clear. Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis. Seventy percent of its people were malnourished, and 25 percent of children died before age 5. A decade ago, after years of war with the Soviet Union followed by the rise of the Taliban, basic infrastructure, such as roads and schools, lay in ruins. In rural areas, clean water and electricity are still luxury goods rather than the norm.

But the Afghan story is changing. Over the past 10 years, there has been remarkable progress. Four thousand schools have been built, and more than 100,000 new teachers have entered the classroom. Today, girls make up 37 percent of the 7 million Afghan students in primary and secondary schools. During Taliban rule, only 900,000 children, all male, attended school.

Adult learning has also accelerated. More than 62,000 Afghans attend universities. The co-educational American University of Afghanistan, which opened in 2006 with 50 students, has more than 1,700 full and part-time students and offers Afghanistan’s leading MBA program. This fall, a record 52 Afghans will come to the United States as Fulbright scholars. A basic literacy and math education program that I visited in 2008 is reaching more than 300,000 Afghan adults, 60 percent of them women.

Innovative private programs, many sponsored by businesses, foundations and charities, are also transforming Afghanistan. These private organizations risk safety and money to improve conditions for ordinary citizens. One example is the Chicago-based Arzu Studio Hope, launched in 2004 to employ Afghan women as rug weavers. What began as a business opportunity as part of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council has become a comprehensive revitalization project. Arzu, which means hope in Dari, provides employment, job training, education, basic health care and access to clean water for female employees and their families. When the lives of women are better and safer, everyone benefits — sons and daughters, husbands and wives.

Despite these gains, however, Afghanistan’s progress remains tenuous. A March 2 fatwa from the Ulema Council, which advises the Afghan government on religious matters, actively encouraged a return to shades of Taliban-era female repression, including support for husbands beating their wives. It said that women should not travel without a male relative and also declared men to be “fundamental” and women “secondary.” In this climate, Afghan women understandably fear losing everything.

Last fall, I received a letter from an Afghan woman who wrote encouragingly of refugees who are now home, girls who attend school, women who are able to work and participate in public life, and farmers who have reclaimed their land. But she added, “Though many victories have been won for the Afghan people, I fear it is all at risk, and the return of the Taliban is an impending threat.” The rippling consequences of such a return would be devastating.

Many of the vital gains that Afghan women have achieved over the past decade were made because of the sacrifice and support of the United States and the broader NATO alliance. The United States and NATO deserve international gratitude for their role in helping to improve the lives of women in Afghanistan. But now, as the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan changes, the world must remember the women of Afghanistan.

In 2001, the world’s eyes were opened to the horrors suffered by Afghanistan’s women. Leaders from government, business and civil society around the globe, as well as private citizens, stepped forward to support these women, sending a powerful signal that progress is possible only if it includes all of a country’s citizens.

But if this progress is to last, these business and educational investments must be protected and expanded. And, every bit as important, the Afghan government cannot negotiate away women’s rights. At their gathering, NATO officials have an opportunity to communicate that aid, investment and alliances are not guaranteed if women are simply to be treated as a bargaining chip.

Having already seen the terrible cost of denying the most basic of human freedoms, do we dare risk the consequences now of abandoning the women of Afghanistan?

Laura Bush was first lady from 2001 through January 2009. She is honorary chair of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council and chairs the Women’s Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.

De hecho, veintitrés años después de que el disidente Fang Lizhi se refugiara en la embajada de los Estados Unidos, a raíz de la violenta represión aplicada en la plaza de Tiananmen, la única opción de Cheng fue la de saltar a la desesperada a los brazos de diplomáticos americanos. El caso de Cheng revela deficiencias en el régimen jurídico de China y debería dar un impulso con miras a trabar vínculos más fuertes entre los activistas en pro de los derechos humanos y los juristas en sentido más amplio de China.

Chen adquirió relevancia como activista jurídico autodidacta después de que impugnara la aplicación forzosa de las políticas de planificación familiar del Gobierno. Su actitud reflejaba una tendencia más amplia de resistencia basada en los derechos en China que comenzó a finales del decenio de 1990; Chen formaba parte un grupo de abogados y activistas, algunos muy conocidos y muchos otros no, deseosos de que el Gobierno fuera coherente en la aplicación de sus propias normas.

El activismo fue interpretado como una señal de que estaba surgiendo en China una cultura basada en el imperio de la ley, pero la carrera de Chen como activista jurídico sufrió un final abrupto al ser condenado judicialmente por alteración del orden público y la mayoría de los expertos de dentro y de fuera de China consideraron ilegal su posterior reclusión.

El caso de Chen, como tantos otros en China, nos recuerda lo incompleta que ha sido la reforma jurídica china. Pese a las muchas leyes promulgadas, los muchos abogados formados, las muchas salas de audiencia construidas y los muchos millones de dólares gastados en asistencia técnica, las instituciones jurídicas de China siguen siendo déficientes, en particular cuando las causas que se les presentan tienen –o adquieren– connotaciones políticas.

El activismo jurídico en China no carece de precedentes. En 1923, más de cien jueces, fiscales y secretarios judiciales chinos dimitieron en masa para protestar por acusaciones de corrupción amañadas contra el entonces ministro de Hacienda. Su preocupación primordial fue la de que Gobierno se inmiscuyera en el procedimiento jurídico en su prosecución de la causa. “Nos hemos esforzado diligente y cuidadosamente… [para procurar] dotar a nuestro sistema judicial de fundamentos sólidos”, escribieron en su carta de demisión. A consecuencia de la amenaza del Gobierno a la independencia del poder judicial, concluían, “la substancia de los resultados de nuestro largo y arduo esfuerzo se pierde como agua entre las manos”.

Los abogados sostienen posiciones impopulares. Desafían al poder establecido. Chen ha pagado un precio terrible por poner en práctica los ideales de su profesión. En un momento en que el mundo académico jurídico y los profesionales del Derecho son víctimas de ataques en los Estados Unidos, el caso de Chen nos recuerda lo que unos abogados y unas instituciones jurídicas sólidos aportan a la sociedad.

El pasado mes de junio, encabezamos una delegación de nueve decanos de facultades de Derecho de los EE.UU. en una cumbre de dos días con diez colegas de las más importantes facultades de Derecho de China, que concluyó con la declaración conjunta de que las dos partes apoyaban el imperio de la ley y convenían en la importancia de fomentar la integridad de la abogacía. El caso de Chen nos recuerda también que la integridad de la profesión está sometida a presiones.

Los abogados activistas de China desempeñan su labor con poco apoyo explicito de los juristas académicos o de la abogacía. No pueden hablar en las facultades de Derecho y menos aún enseñar o reclutar estudiantes para que trabajen con ellos. Muchos abogados y juristas académicos chinos desean que el imperio de la ley en China sea más sólido y algunos de ellos, como, por ejemplo, Jiang Ping, han advertido sobre el peligro de un retroceso, pero, en casos como el de Chen, incluso los colegas simpatizantes sienten con frecuencia temor de alzar la voz y más aún de actuar.

Ahora los más importantes decanos y catedráticos de Derecho de China tienen una oportunidad de convertir la retórica en realidad. Las facultades de Derecho deben ser lugares en los que estudiantes y profesores aborden plenamente el Derecho y la actividad judicial de China. Eso significa estudiar cómo se está desarrollando y desplegando el Derecho chino en la protección de los derechos y brindando oportunidades para trabar relaciones y comunicarse con quienes están en la vanguardia de esos movimientos en todas las esferas del Derecho.

Poco después de que Chen abandonara la embajada de los EE.UU. en Beijing para ingresar en el hospital Chaoyang, el Gobierno de China hizo pública su habitual denuncia de la injerencia de los EE.UU. en sus asuntos internos, pero los dirigentes chinos no deben extrañarse de ello, mientras mantengan un sistema en el que los abogados afrontan el peligro de ser perseguidos cuando defienden los derechos de los grupos más débiles de su sociedad.

Chen tuvo que recurrir a diplomáticos americanos para que fueran sus defensores, pero sería un mejor augurio para el futuro de China que la profesión jurídica del país se uniera para instar a las autoridades a respetar el imperio de la ley incluso en los casos más delicados, lo que contribuiría a garantizar que tres decenios de reforma jurídica sean más substanciales que agua que se escapa entre las manos.

Michael A. Fitts is Dean at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Amy Gadsden is Associate Dean for International Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.Traducido del inglés por Carlos Manzano.

To give this transition a real chance of succeeding, Afghanistan and its partners need to concentrate on the risks and challenges in the critical next two years. At the NATO summit in Chicago beginning Sunday, the withdrawal timetable of international forces from Afghanistan and future commitments to support the Afghan government and army after the drawdown will be key areas of discussion.The U.S. political strategy in Afghanistan remains largely focused on talks with the Taliban, and a chorus of voices inside and outside the government is optimistically making the case that the Taliban have reformed and can be “reconciled.”

While there is general consensus among Afghans that a broad-based and inclusive reconciliation is necessary to end the conflict, key questions remain about the political order that may emerge from such a process.

This lack of discussion has amplified fears among the Afghan population of a grand bargain either between the United States and Pakistan or between the Afghan government and a resurgent Taliban — tacitly endorsed by NATO countries seeking a face-saving exit — that could undo the social gains and ethnic pluralism in current Afghan politics. These concerns are already creating fractures in the fragile political balance among Afghanistan’s various ethnic powers and exacerbating fears of a civil war once the international troops exit.

Afghans also remain concerned about the 2014 presidential elections, when President Hamid Karzai is due to step down. The absence of an “inevitable” candidate and political trust are likely to lead to an enormously challenging electoral environment, rife with legitimate worries about voter fraud.

To instill confidence in the process, the international community needs to assist Afghan efforts to ensure credible elections through technical and diplomatic support. All Afghan political actors need to be on board for changes planned in the electoral process. This will also be an opportunity to offer any reconcilable Taliban a chance to be part of the election process.

The most critical element to securing peace in Afghanistan will be convincing Pakistan to close down Taliban sanctuaries. While Pakistan and Afghanistan have set up joint mechanisms aimed at establishing more firm control over Taliban contacts, Afghans continue to believe that Islamabad’s policy gurus will continue to use its control over the Taliban as bargaining chips in order to retain maximum leverage on reconciliation and the post-2014 political order in Afghanistan.

A jittery Iran, incensed by the U.S.-Afghan partnership, also has the potential to foment instability. China, the central Asian republics, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are other key regional players that are anxious about the form the post-2014 political order will take. If more is not done to address their concerns, these regional actors may revert to supporting competing factional elements in Afghanistan and feed the conflict as they did during its 1990s civil war.

Afghans are trying to soften the blow to the economy that will follow the NATO drawdown and to move toward sustainability through regional economic cooperation, agricultural development, mining and associated infrastructure improvement. While this strategy is necessary for the long-term, Afghans want to see clear signs that steps are being taken to avoid repeating the lawlessness and violence that followed when Moscow cut billions of dollars of aid to the Najibullah regime in 1991.

To bolster confidence in the economy’s sustainability, the international community will need to pace the reduction of aid, work with the Afghan government to create an enabling environment for foreign investment and support economic projects in the areas of mining, infrastructure and trade. It will also have to ensure that the tools for allocating and managing aid money are improved to minimize the possibility that these vital resources will be squandered through corruption and wasteful spending.

Afghanistan — located in the heart of the most dangerous neighborhood in the world — still matters, and the security concerns of the United States and the international community will continue to be affected by instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The task ahead, in Chicago and later this summer at a conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo, is to focus concretely on how best to restructure and reprioritize international efforts to strengthen the prospects for a successful political, economic and military transition to a sovereign and stable Afghanistan. That will be the real test facing a fatigued international community and concerned Afghans.

Rina Amiri is a former senior adviser to the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador to Canada and France, is senior Afghan expert at the United States Institute of Peace.

Not anymore. Horrifying stories of random shootings, mass beheadings and mass graves have become commonplace. Gunmen think nothing of mowing down a couple dozen teenagers in a disco with machine guns and tossing grenades indiscriminately into crowds during holiday fiestas. Mexicans have almost become immune to carnage, it seems.

As a result of such wanton acts of terrorism, and government efforts to combat them, more than 47,500 have died in the last 5½ years. Many of the dead were believed by authorities to have been connected to the drug trade, but others were innocent civilians — including women and children — who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Many Mexicans wrongly put the blame for those deaths entirely on the shoulders of Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The argument goes that, if Calderon had only left the cartels alone, Mexico wouldn’t be on fire.

Calderon is a convenient target because he has made it his personal mission to destroy Mexico’s drug syndicates. We’re talking about a half-dozen drug cartels, each of which rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars annually in a country so poor that the average laborer is lucky to earn $8 a day. The cartels’ customers are mainly Americans, who consume more than their share of illegal drugs.

Is Calderon winning his war? Hard to say.

It’s true that a few cartels have been weakened; government officials say that the drug syndicate La Familia has all but been destroyed. What they don’t say is that, from the ashes, has arisen a new group called Knights Templar.

So the horror continues.

Just recently, in a widely reported case, Mexican police found 49 mutilated bodies in a small town between the cities of Monterrey and Reynosa near the U.S.-Mexico border. Heads, arms and legs were chopped off, making it difficult for authorities to identify the dead.

It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy where every act is bloodier than the one before it, and they go on without end. A new generation of drug traffickers aiming to be bosses seems locked in a gruesome contest as to who can be the most vicious.

As for blame, Mexicans should at least dole it out correctly.

Calderon is responsible for his decision to use the Mexican military as the government’s chief weapon against the cartels, in part because so many of the local police in Mexico are thought to be corrupt or corruptible. And so, when the military is accused of being heavy-handed with civilians and violating the rights of Mexican citizens, as it has been in recent years, that blame should go to Calderon.

But the Mexican people also bear a responsibility — for empowering the drug lords. For decades, Mexicans have romanticized the drug trafficking industry in film, music and other aspects of popular culture. There are many “corridos” (Mexican ballads) that tell the story of the rise-from-nothing fellow who becomes the head of a powerful syndicate by relying on his wits and strength.

Recently, Mexican actress Kate del Castillo — who coincidentally was cast as a powerful female drug lord in Telemundo’s Spanish-language series “La Reina del Sur” — tweeted that she has more faith in Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman than she does in government.

Guzman heads the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, and once landed on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people with an estimated net worth of $1 billion.

There are even so-called drug saints that some Mexicans pray to — inspired by Robin Hood-like figures who are seen as protectors of the poor against the government. Of course, the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize these saints, but this fact hasn’t made them any less popular. One of the most popular of the “narco saints” is Jesús Malverde, named after a bandit, who legend has it, was killed by authorities in the early 1900s. Known as the “generous bandit” or the “angel of the poor,” Malverde is a folk hero to some in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Mexico is in chaos. And many Mexicans are in shock. They don’t know what to do, or even if they can do anything at all.

Well, they can do this: They can stop making folk heroes out of murderers and terrorists. They can stop writing poems and songs that honor drug traffickers and instead start praising the Mexican law enforcement officers who are bravely trying to bring these outlaws to justice. And they can support their government and stand by their president in fighting a battle that needed to be fought.

It’s time to step up and take ownership of the drug war — as well as the circumstances that made it necessary.

People on both sides of the border had a hand in helping make this mess. It’s going to take people on both sides of the border to clean it up.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a CNN.com contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist.

Il faut de prime abord rappeler que l’engagement occidental en Afghanistan, suite aux attentats du 11 septembre 2001, s’est fait avec l’accord de l’ONU et dans le cadre du droit international. Après que les Talibans et Al-Qaida ont été dispersés, la «Communauté internationale» s’est engagée dans une entreprise d’ingénierie sociopolitique qui a buté sur les tourments géopolitiques de la Haute-Asie.

En 2009, le «surge» [l’accroissement massif des effectifs militaires] de l’administration du président Barack Obama est fondé sur la question des moyens civilo-militaires, la mobilisation des premières années étant jugée insuffisante. On peut aussi penser que les théories artificialistes de la postmodernité – l’idée que les identités ne seraient que superficielles et conventionnelles – ont prédisposé à la définition d’objectifs trop ambitieux. Une fois la guerre engagée en Irak, il était peut-être plus rationnel d’accorder la priorité à ce théâtre stratégique et de limiter ses objectifs en Afghanistan.

Les renforts ayant permis de contenir les offensives talibanes dans les régions afghanes les plus exposées, les difficultés s’étalant au plan géographique par ailleurs, le principe d’un retrait des troupes de l’OTAN à l’horizon 2014 a été arrêté lors du sommet de Lisbonne (2010). Formées et appuyées par les Alliés, les forces de sécurité afghanes sont appelées à prendre le relais. Le sommet de Chicago affinera le calendrier, statuera sur le niveau des forces afghanes et sur la répartition du financement entre alliés, coalisés et partenaires.

Précisons qu’il ne s’agit pas de se détourner de l’Afghanistan, ce qui réitérerait les erreurs de l’immédiat après-Guerre froide. Les Alliés ont en fait redéfini dans un sens plus restreint l’«état final recherché», c’est-à-dire le but de guerre. L’idée est de consolider un pouvoir central afghan à même de contrôler le territoire et de contenir le désordre des zones afghano-pakistanaises, pour empêcher la reconstitution d’un émirat islamique fonctionnant comme centre nerveux du terrorisme planétaire.

Ce faisant, l’OTAN bascule de la contre-insurrection au contre-terrorisme, à savoir une «guerre au scalpel» menée au moyen de drones, de forces spéciales et de troupes locales soutenues par les puissances occidentales. Les objectifs sont mieux circonscrits et ils semblent à portée, pour autant que les calculs domestiques et le «chacun pour soi» ne transforment pas ce redéploiement en fuite honteuse. Si tel était le cas, les contrecoups se ressentiraient dans l’ensemble du Grand Moyen-Orient et ils amplifieraient les logiques d’anomie ­à l’œuvre dans l’espace sahélo-saharien. Aussi les Etats-Unis et l’OTAN négocient-ils avec Kaboul des «partenariats stratégiques» visant à prolonger l’effort après 2014.

Un soutien inscrit dans la durée est d’autant plus nécessaire que l’Afghanistan n’est pas un lointain bout du monde au milieu de nulle part, mais un territoire à la croisée du Moyen-Orient, de l’Asie centrale et de l’Asie du Sud. D’importantes problématiques géopolitiques – l’islamo-terrorisme, la prolifération et le désenclavement de l’Asie centrale – s’y recoupent.

Le conflit larvé que New Delhi et Islamabad se livrent sur place est connu. Sur les frontières nord-orientales de l’Afghanistan, la Chine doit être prise en compte. Hostile à l’Inde, elle est l’alliée du Pakistan. Aux frontières occidentales, l’Iran chiite soutient aussi certains groupes et chefs de guerre sunnites pourvu qu’ils s’attaquent à l’OTAN. Enfin, l’Afghanistan est une aire de passage vers l’Asie centrale et la Caspienne que la Russie s’efforce de maintenir dans l’«étranger proche». Moscou veut interdire aux Occidentaux le plein accès à ces espaces.

En Europe comme en Amérique du Nord, la circulation des cartes de la puissance semble justifier chez certains un intérêt moindre. Le fait est qu’il faudra raccourcir les lignes d’engagement pour mieux déterminer les points d’application de la «grande stratégie» occidentale et ne pas se laisser prendre au piège de l’hyperextension impériale. Cela dit, l’Afghanistan et son environnement ont trop d’importance pour être négligés: la guerre par procuration et le contre-terrorisme ouvrent donc une voie médiane.

Au vrai, le défi afghan met surtout en lumière les failles des sociétés européennes. Ce conflit de faible intensité ne requiert qu’un engagement limité mais les Etats providence ont dévoré les budgets militaires. Plus encore, on constate les effets d’une grande fatigue morale, avec le repli géographique sur l’Europe en guise de panacée. Une illusion de plus en ce nouvel âge global.

Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, chercheur associé à l’Institut Thomas More, think tank libéral basé à Bruxelles

Putin’s excuse — that he was too busy with the formation of the new Cabinet — is hardly credible. Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev has the responsibility to nominate the Cabinet, not Putin. But Medvedev will be in the United States attending the G-8 summit. So the prime minister, who is in charge of forming the Cabinet, can go to the summit. But Putin, who does not have the main responsibility in this matter, cannot.

Putin presumably intends to send two important messages through his absences. First, to underscore that Putin is the Voshd — Numero Uno — even in matters that constitutionally fall to the prime minister. This is hardly news. It was clear when Putin was prime minister that he was the real power behind the throne. Now that he is again president, Putin was just making it clear, lest anyone wondered.

The second — and more important — message was that Putin was not ready to fly off to the United States simply for a photo-op and handshake with President Barack Obama. There had to be substantive progress on reducing areas of disagreement on key issues, particularly on missile defense. He was not prepared to come to Chicago to be a bit actor in a play endorsing NATO’s missile defense plans. This was a task for Medvedev, who would be associated with decisions that were not seen to have benefits for Russia.

This does not mean that under Putin, relations with Russia are likely to revert back to the Cold War. Putin would like better relations with Washington — on his terms. The Putin camp believes Russia received few benefits from the Obama administration’s reset policy. They want a more “balanced” relationship — one that takes into consideration more forcefully Russian interests. They believe Medvedev as president was not tough enough with the Obama administration. They want a more equal relationship.

At the same time, the internal situation in Russia makes a reset with Moscow more difficult. For one thing, the economic situation in Russia is far less advantageous now than it was during Putin’s first two terms, when a dramatic rise in oil prices allowed Russia to recover more quickly than many Western observers had anticipated.

In addition, Putin faces a much more restive and assertive Russian middle class than in his first two terms. While some of the energy that fueled the protests before Putin’s election in March has fizzled, the rallies continue to draw large crowds, and discontent with Putin’s rule remains strong among the urban middle class.

The continued protests and calls for greater internal reform ensure that democracy and human rights issues will be important items on the U.S.-Russian political agenda in a way they were not in Putin’s earlier tenure as president. This is likely to complicate the U.S.-Russian dialogue and make resolution of other issues, particularly missile defense, more difficult.

Putin’s decision to withdraw from the G-8 meeting, for instance, appears in part to have reflected irritation over the Obama administration’s statements about the protests during Putin’s inauguration.

Another sore point has been pending legislation in Congress that seeks to punish Russian officials linked to human rights abuses. This has complicated the administration’s efforts to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment, passed during the Cold War, which imposed sanctions on Moscow because of its restrictions on emigration of Jews. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, successive American administrations have waived the sanctions. But Moscow feels that the Obama administration has not been assertive enough in pressing for the abolition of the legislation.

Putin also has been irked by what he perceives as efforts by the administration to undermine his political authority. In December, he publicly accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of promoting “regime change” in Russia. The Russian press has also sharply attacked Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, viewed as one of the main architects of the administration’s policy aimed at democracy promotion.

These attacks underscore the way in which internal and external policy have become more closely fused of late. Until these issues are sorted out, the prospects for a serious improvement in U.S.-Russian relations will remain dim.

F. Stephen Larrabee, who holds the distinguished chair in European security at the nonprofit RAND Corp., served on the National Security Council staff in the Carter White House.

The protesters remind us that the US government is not representative of the US people. It’s encouraging to see so many willing to take action and stand up against this unjust, disastrous war.

Recently Barack Obama travelled to Kabul to meet Afghanistan’s so-called president, Hamid Karzai. Both leaders used this meeting to pretend that they are ending this war when they are really trying to prolong it. Obama knows that the American people are turning against the war, and both men also know that the Afghan people are against not only the war, but the continued occupation of their country. Both claim that the war will end in 2014, while saying simultaneously that American troops will remain in some capacity until 2024. As 2024 nears they will probably say they mean to remain in Afghanistan until 2034.

The reality is that the US and its Nato allies plan to dominate Afghanistan and the larger region militarily for the next generation. Their reasoning is geostrategic: to control our energy and mineral resources, and maintain military superiority over China and other competitors.

No one can believe leaders like Obama who say they are working for peace even as they continue the bombings, night raids and drone attacks that kill civilians every week – sometimes every day – in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.

This weekend’s protests will likely face repression. Police in Chicago have reportedly spent $1m on riot-control equipment ahead of the summit. But it’s vital that people take to the streets to raise their voices. Here in Afghanistan, peace and women’s rights activists risk their lives to hold protests against both the occupation and the fundamentalist warlords.

President Obama lived in Chicago for many years; it is practically his hometown. Mine is in Afghanistan’s remote Farah province, where I was elected as an MP in 2005, at the age of 26. Because I spoke out and denounced the occupation, the warlords and the Taliban, I faced threats and assassination attempts – and was kicked out of parliament in 2007.

Because I was banished, I was unable to stand in parliament and condemn a Nato bombing in May 2009 that killed about 150 people in Farah. Most of the victims of this massacre were women and children. I would like to ask Obama and his wife, Michelle, how they would feel if their own daughters were killed in this senseless and brutal manner?

Because this is the reality of the war in Afghanistan. This is the reality of what Nato does all around the world, and if Nato is allowed to stay and continue the war in Afghanistan, it will be emboldened to wage more wars against more people – in the Middle East, in Africa and beyond.

We have many problems in Afghanistan – fundamentalism, warlords, the Taliban – but we will have a better chance to solve them if we have our self-determination, our freedom, our independence. Nato’s bombs will never deliver democracy and justice to Afghanistan or any other country.

The voices of protest in the streets of Chicago will be seen and heard in Kabul, and in Farah, and eventually in every corner of Afghanistan. As we say here, the truth is like the sun: when it comes out, nothing can block it.

I’m sorry I cannot be in Chicago this weekend physically. But I, along with millions of other Afghans, will be there in heart and in spirit, standing in solidarity with the demand that Nato withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician and a former elected member of the Parliament from Farah province.

Las situaciones en las que se enmarcan son distintas, pero sus desempeños no lo son tanto. España se enfrenta a una crisis económica que pone su Estado de Bienestar en riesgo de retroceso letal, producto de los draconianos ajustes del PP. Por su lado, Chile experimenta un crecimiento económico que no solamente no está resolviendo sus dilemas pendientes de productividad, sino que, por sí solo, no responde las preguntas levantadas por las movilizaciones sociales. Estas han remitido a la crisis de representatividad de un sistema político colocado usualmente como ejemplo de gobernabilidad, así como a un extendido repudio ciudadano frente al abuso del poder económico.

Chile se encuentra entre los veinte países más desiguales del planeta. Mientras fueron Gobierno, estando el socialismo chileno en coalición con la Democracia Cristiana por veinte años –lo que explica, en parte, su retraso en asuntos de libertades individuales–, se incurrió en cierta complacencia con el empresariado y no se fue diligente en la promoción de las inversiones necesarias para diversificar sus economías y poner a tono su mano de obra.

Su ejercicio en la oposición es una mezcla de reactividad con negación. Por los motivos que sean, no se han generado espacios para debatir las causas de sus respectivas derrotas. Confían en un pronto regreso al poder, ya sea por haberle puesto un dique al PP en las recientes elecciones andaluzas, o bien por su aferramiento a liderazgos con supuestas capacidades taumatúrgicas, como sería en Chile el de la expresidenta Bachelet. Aunque el relevo generacional no es en absoluto la panacea, supone una asignatura pendiente para el progresismo chileno. Enfrascados en discusiones sobre cupos electorales y política de alianzas, apuestan a un retorno más asentado en los posibles errores del adversario que en la reelaboración de un proyecto histórico que conecte sus principios con las transformaciones en curso.

El triunfo de Francois Hollande, en Francia, podría tener un efecto ambiguo. Si bien permitirá el repunte de una izquierda hambrienta por mejorar su autoestima, podría acentuar el escamoteo de temas sustantivos como, por ejemplo, los dilemas del crecimiento y la distribución.

Frente a la tentación a tomar atajos, destaca el esfuerzo por encarar los dilemas de la socialdemocracia realizado por Carlos Ominami, exministro, exsenador y otrora jefe de campaña del expresidente chileno Ricardo Lagos. En su libro recién publicado que lleva por título Secretos de la Concertación. Recuerdos para el futuro, desarrolla una reflexión política e intelectual que interroga  tanto al pacto de la transición de fines de los 80, como a lo que vino después, en un ejercicio de introspección política. Confrontando en primera persona los miedos de toda una generación que vivió el golpe de Estado de 1973, aspira a contribuir al necesario enjuiciamiento crítico de una coalición de centroizquierda que, si bien contribuyó a reducir la pobreza y abrió Chile al mundo, no se aplicó de la misma manera en el combate de la desigualdad y la concentración económica. Tampoco removió la Constitución heredada del régimen militar que, aunque reformada, conserva su esencia neoliberal. Aboga por la necesidad de recuperar para la política progresista el sentido estratégico perdido, proponiendo alineamientos que respondan a los dilemas de seguridad, igualdad y cohesión. Dedica especial atención a la renovación del socialismo chileno que califica como frustrado ya que, a pesar de haber revalorizado la democracia, falló en dos elementos fundamentales, que hacen que catalogue la historia política del Chile reciente como de renuncia: la falta de contrapesos al mercado y la inexistencia de una fuerza política cohesionada.

Y aunque no menciona la influencia española, no deja de resultar una ironía el hecho de que el socialismo chileno, influenciado por un PSOE que cumplió un rol en su proceso de renovación, llamando a la moderación, haya devenido en una fuerza con talante conservador.

La confesión de Ominami, actor privilegiado de la transición chilena, sugiere, al menos, dos cosas. La primera, que la recomposición del socialismo, para ser efectiva, debe superar los estrechos contornos locales. Si hay esperanza para la socialdemocracia, pudiera encontrarse en una América Latina que atraviesa su mejor hora. La segunda, que es necesario hacer gestos de arrepentimiento, algo aparentemente alejado de los entresijos de la política pero que, ya vemos, hasta los monarcas reconocen su importancia.

María de los Angeles Fernández Ramil es directora ejecutiva de la Fundación Chile 21.

Abu Zubaydah, our client, was an early poster child for the Bush administration’s torture regime. He was the first prisoner held in a secret “black site” and the first to be tortured using “enhanced interrogation” techniques. The infamous torture memo of August 2002 was written to clear away legal barriers that stood between him and CIA contractor interrogators. As far as we know, he is the only prisoner whose interrogation was the subject of high-level discussion in the White House and the only prisoner subjected to every enhanced technique the U.S. had authorized.

When Abu Zubaydah was arrested in March 2002, American officials vilified him. The Justice Department lawyers who wrote the torture memo described him as Osama bin Laden’s “senior lieutenant.” They said he was involved “in every major terrorist plot” carried out by Al Qaeda and that he was one of the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush said he was a “trusted associate” of Bin Laden and vowed that he would be prosecuted.

After his initial interrogation by the FBI didn’t produce anything remotely like what they had expected, government officials seemed certain he was hiding something. That’s why they decided to torture him.

First, they beat Abu Zubaydah, as authorized by the torture memo. Interrogators wrapped a towel around his neck and smashed him repeatedly into a wall. He was left confined in a tiny, pitch-dark box for hours; he was suspended naked from hooks in the ceiling; he was not allowed to sleep for days on end.

He was also subjected to waterboarding, 83 times in August 2002 alone. In fact, the CIA brass at Langley ordered his interrogators to keep at it long after agents on the scene warned that he had been wrung dry.

One can question whether that kind of interrogation is ever justifiable, but in Abu Zubaydah’s case it was particularly disturbing because the outlandish allegations against him were wrong. The U.S. no longer believes he was even a member of Al Qaeda, let alone a trusted associate or senior lieutenant of Bin Laden.

Journalist Ron Suskind was the first to question those depictions. In his 2006 book, “The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since9/11,” he concluded that Abu Zubaydah had been a minor logistics man, in essence a travel agent.

In 2009, both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran stories raising questions about the Bush administration’s portrayal of Abu Zubaydah. The Post quoted a Justice Department official who described him as having provided militants with “above-ground support” and concluded that “to make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous.” The Times, relying on current and former intelligence officers, called the initial assessment “highly inflated” and said it reflected “a profound misunderstanding” of Abu Zubaydah’s role, which was as a sort of “personnel clerk.”

Contrary to what Bush promised, Abu Zubaydah has never been charged in the military commission system. It would be far simpler for the U.S. to forget about him, to just keep him locked up and hope people would one day forget. And that’s why we have asked that charges be brought.

No one should misunderstand what we have done. We don’t believe the military commission system is fair. In fact, we think its proceedings bear only a glancing resemblance to a real trial. But Abu Zubaydah has been in custody for more than 10 years without being able to answer his accusers, or even know what he is accused of. We’ve come to the conclusion that a prosecution in a flawed system is better than nothing.

At least in the commission system the government would have to put up or shut up. And it’s about time that happened.

Joseph Margulies, assistant director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, is counsel for Abu Zubaydah.

En 1948, con la mayoría de los palestinos transformados en refugiados desterrados, sin propiedad ni identidad, hubiese parecido imposible que el pueblo palestino pudiese algún día vencer esas circunstancias e injusticias y levantarse otra vez para lograr sus derechos nacionales.

Pero el pueblo palestino se liberó de su agonía y pudo reconstruir su identidad nacional y su memoria colectiva. Esta historia de renacimiento y lucha es nuestra historia como palestinos. Para nosotros, la Nakba es la memoria de un pasado glorioso así como la injusticia del asalto sistemático que intentó borrarlo, así como nuestra determinación para que esa injusticia pueda corregirse y nunca más repetirse.

Yo nací en Safad, cerca de la frontera con Siria. Es un lugar hermoso, y toda su población palestina, tanto cristiana como musulmana fue entonces expulsada. La recuerdo, sin embargo, muy bien por los concursos literarios que organizábamos en la escuela donde mi padre era el director.

Luego, a mi padre se le designó una escuela en el puerto de Jaffa. Vivíamos allí en una casa cerca del famoso hospital Dajani. Gozábamos con las tertulias literarias, con los periódicos que diariamente se imprimían, con las idas al teatro y por supuesto con el cine Al Hamra, un edificio que hasta el día de hoy se mantiene en pie. Toda esa fascinación que como un niño conservo de Jaffa se transformaría en la principal memoria que pude guardar de Palestina desde que comenzó nuestro exilio hace más de sesenta y cuatro años.

Mi exilio, mi Nakba, comenzó en Egipto, desde donde pasé como estudiante a los Estados Unidos. Mi padre quería que fuese banquero por lo que también me envió durante varias temporadas a trabajar a bancos en Ginebra y en Londres, pero nada podía hacerme olvidar los aromas de Palestina. Esos mismos que cargué conmigo en el exilio y que, cuando pude retornar en la década de 1990, pude distinguir como únicos. El aroma del jazmín, de los almendros, de los olivos, de los naranjos.

Ese aroma tan romántico que sentí entrando a Gaza en 1994 me trajo a la memoria numerosos momentos de la vida de esa sociedad palestina que fue condenada al exilio en 1948. Ya habían pasado casi cincuenta años, y el compromiso histórico palestino de 1988, reconociendo a Israel sobre el 78% de la Palestina histórica, ya se había realizado. El niño que se había ido al exilio, volvía como uno de los negociadores jefes de la OLP para un proceso de paz que en plazo de cinco años debería haber terminado con la ocupación de Cisjordania y la franja de Gaza, incluyendo a Jerusalén Oriental.

Pero de los sueños de niño y el romanticismo de los aromas palestinos, pasamos a la depresión de ver in situ como Israel en vez de tomar el proceso de paz como una oportunidad para lograr la paz, simplemente lo uso como una cortina de humo para cubrir la continuación de la colonización de nuestra tierra: de los caso 200.000 colonos que había cuando se firmó el Acuerdo de Oslo en 1993, hoy se han convertido en algo más de medio millón. Cisjordania se ha plagado de restricciones de movimiento, las demoliciones de hogares y el desplazamiento de la población son una realidad casi cotidiana, la confiscación de tierras sigue, el ilegal muro se está por terminar y Jerusalén Oriental se ha cerrado para el resto de la población palestina cristiana y musulmana. Mientras esto pasa, la franja de Gaza sigue sufriendo un bloqueo ilegal y a millones de refugiados palestinos se les sigue denegando sus derechos de retorno, compensación y restitución, en línea con el derecho internacional.

Sesenta y cuatro años después de la Nakba, seguimos la lucha por nuestros derechos nacionales y la búsqueda de la justicia. Al mismo tiempo, hacemos todo lo posible para incentivar a la comunidad internacional para detener la impunidad con la que Israel ha podido actuar. Con un proceso de paz detenido por los israelíes, que continúan el saqueo diario de la patria palestina, nos hemos volcado a la comunidad internacional para lograr nuestro reconocimiento como Estado y nuestra admisión en Naciones Unidas.

En ese contexto, esperamos que España, siendo un país que ha invertido en la búsqueda de la paz y la justicia en nuestra región, reconozca al Estado de Palestina según las fronteras de 1967. Hace 21 años, España se alineó del lado correcto de la historia con la generosidad de su pueblo, y fue huésped de la histórica Conferencia de Paz desde donde se lanzó el proceso de negociaciones que hoy se encuentra estancado por culpa de Israel. El parlamento español ya ha sido claro en cuanto a la necesidad de reconocer a Palestina como una forma de avanzar hacia la paz. Es tiempo de que España proteja nuestro derecho a la autodeterminación que ha sido pisoteado durante años debido a la impunidad que se ha garantizado al Estado de Israel.

Hoy, como desde hace sesenta y cuatro años, los palestinos recordamos esas historias lindas de una Palestina libre y próspera. Hoy aun seguimos luchando porque Palestina retorne al mapa. Independiente de las violaciones diarias que se cometen contra de nuestro pueblo y la incansable construcción de colonias en territorio ocupado, que ha llevado a muchos a señalar que la solución de los dos estados está a punto de ser ya inviable, nosotros seguimos creyendo que la libertad es posible. Para que ello suceda, la comunidad internacional debe asumir su responsabilidad histórica y obligación moral: terminar con la ocupación y lograr una solución justa a la cuestión de los refugiados palestinos de acuerdo a la resolución 194 de Naciones Unidas. No se trata de una suerte de “precondiciones palestinas” sino simplemente de la aplicación del derecho internacional y las resoluciones relevantes de la ONU.

Nakba no es la derrota del pueblo palestino, ya que hemos probado nuestra determinación y compromiso para poder vencer los obstáculos que se han puesto en nuestro camino. Así como la Nakba simboliza exilio y destrucción, también es un llamado para lograr la justicia y hacer todo lo que sea necesario para lograr la paz.

Nabil Shaath, comisionado internacional de Al Fatah, fue ministro de Relaciones Exteriores durante diez años y el primer jefe negociador por Palestina.

Last week, the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital, handed down a historic judgment. It ordered South African authorities to investigate and prosecute members of Robert Mugabe’s government who had tortured their political opponents. Under South African law, the police are obliged to investigate evidence of a crime against humanity, wherever it occurs, if the rule of law does not exist there, as is the case in Zimbabwe.

The ruling has profound implications. It could cement South Africa’s commitment to protecting human rights and broaden the application of universal jurisdiction, which is the ability of countries to prosecute people who committed certain egregious crimes outside its borders. Unfortunately, the South African authorities want to sidestep it and are reportedly preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which oversees the High Courts.

Overturning the ruling would be a disastrous setback, and all those who care about human rights in Africa should pressure President Jacob Zuma of South Africa to let the decision stand.

The case began in early 2008, when lawyers gave South African government prosecutors a dossier containing evidence that 17 Zimbabweans, some of whom now live in South Africa, had been tortured. They had been seized by Mr. Mugabe’s police in Zimbabwe during a raid of the main opposition party’s headquarters. The police then tortured them with electric shocks, mock executions and simulated drowning. Inside the dossier were the victims’ sworn statements, corroborating affidavits from witnesses and doctors and the identities of the alleged perpetrators.

Yet the South African government prosecutors have so far refused to investigate these allegations, overruling the recommendations of the prosecutor in charge of the case. They tried to argue that such an investigation was impractical, and that it would complicate diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe at a time when President Zuma was supposed to be mediating between Mr. Mugabe and the opposition. The Pretoria High Court threw out all these objections, and said that the South African police and prosecutors had acted unconstitutionally by letting political considerations stop them, and that they were obliged to investigate.

Although South African prosecutors cannot try the perpetrators in absentia, the case will still have a galvanizing effect on the situation in Zimbabwe. Anyone there who is under investigation will now risk arrest by coming to South Africa, a country frequented by the Zimbabwean elite for shopping, medical treatment, catching international flights or visiting their vacation homes in Johannesburg or Cape Town.

Already there is speculation about who is on the confidential suspect list. It is believed to include midranking and senior police officers, and members of the military council that essentially runs Zimbabwe for Mr. Mugabe. But future cases may reach higher, as South Africa’s laws could trump diplomatic and sovereign immunity, which means sitting heads of state could be potentially vulnerable, too — although they would have to be on South African soil to face arrest.

This ruling would have a far greater impact than the current American and European Union sanctions, which impose a travel ban and asset freeze on Mr. Mugabe and his inner circle, who still routinely manage to travel to United Nations gatherings in the United States and Europe by exploiting diplomatic exemptions.

The most immediate effect would be on the behavior of Mr. Mugabe’s enforcers in the run-up to the next elections, which are due to take place sometime in the next year. During the 2008 elections, hundreds of opposition supporters were killed and thousands tortured, a period Zimbabweans refer to as “The Fear.” There are already signs of an uptick in political violence as the next election approaches. But the fact that the perpetrators of violence can no longer act with complete impunity should make many of them think twice.

All efforts should now be brought to bear on Mr. Zuma and the South African government to dissuade them from appealing the verdict. South Africa’s powerful trade union movement, Cosatu, which is allied with the ruling African National Congress, should strenuously lobby Mr. Zuma for this law to be honored, as should the lively South African media.

Likewise, all nations that care about countering crimes against humanity should pressure South Africa to accept the court’s decision. By letting this judgment stand, Mr. Zuma’s government has a historic opportunity to show its critics that it has a genuine commitment to human rights. If, however, South Africa seeks to reverse the ruling, it will be a tragedy for Zimbabwe’s many torture victims, past and future.

Peter Godwin is the president of the PEN American Center and author, most recently of The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe.

May ’67 was Israel’s most fearful, desperate month. The country was surrounded and alone. Previous great-power guarantees proved worthless. A plan to test the blockade with a Western flotilla failed for lack of participants. Time was running out. Forced to protect against invasion by mass mobilization — and with a military consisting overwhelmingly of civilian reservists — life ground to a halt. The country was dying.

On June 5, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on the Egyptian air force, then proceeded to lightning victories on three fronts. The Six-Day War is legend, but less remembered is that on June 1, the nationalist opposition (Menachem Begin’s Likud precursor) was for the first time ever brought into the government, creating an emergency national-unity coalition.

Everyone understood why. You do not undertake a supremely risky pre-emptive war without the full participation of a broad coalition representing a national consensus.

Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7-8, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national unity government. Shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September.

Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win?

Because for Israelis today, it is May ’67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms. Israelis today face the greatest threat to their existence — apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel’s annihilation acquiring nuclear weapons — since May ’67. The world is again telling Israelis to do nothing as it looks for a way out. But if such a way is not found — as in ’67 — Israelis know they will once again have to defend themselves, by themselves.

Such a fateful decision demands a national consensus. By creating the largest coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu is establishing the political premise for a pre-emptive strike, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.”

So much for the recent media hype about some great domestic resistance to Netanyahu’s hard line on Iran. Two notable retired intelligence figures were widely covered here for coming out against him. Little noted was that one had been passed over by Netanyahu to be the head of Mossad, while the other had been fired by Netanyahu as Mossad chief (hence the job opening). For centrist Kadima (it pulled Israel out of Gaza) to join a Likud-led coalition whose defense minister is a former Labor prime minister (who once offered half of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat) is the very definition of national unity — and refutes the popular “Israel is divided” meme. “Everyone is saying the same thing,” explained one Knesset member, “though there may be a difference of tone.”

To be sure, Netanyahu and Kadima’s Shaul Mofaz offered more prosaic reasons for their merger: national service laws, a new election law and negotiations with the Palestinians. But Netanyahu, the first Likud prime minister to recognize Palestinian statehood, did not need Kadima for him to enter peace talks. For two years he’s been waiting for Mahmoud Abbas to show up at the table. Abbas hasn’t. And won’t. Nothing will change on that front.

What does change is Israel’s position vis-a-vis Iran. The wall-to-wall coalition demonstrates Israel’s political readiness to attack, if necessary. (Its military readiness is not in doubt.)

Those counseling Israeli submission, resignation or just endless patience can no longer dismiss Israel’s tough stance as the work of irredeemable right-wingers. Not with a government now representing 78 percent of the country.

Netanyahu forfeited September elections that would have given him four more years in power. He chose instead to form a national coalition that guarantees 18 months of stability — 18 months during which, if the world does not act to stop Iran, Israel will.

And it will not be the work of one man, one party or one ideological faction. As in 1967, it will be the work of a nation.

Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist based in Washington.

Washington Post Writers Group.

Este último, al ser interrogado ante las cámaras por su sistemática posición favorable al Gobierno sirio en el Consejo de Seguridad, respondió en tono airado y con inaudita desfachatez: “Nuestra posición sobre Siria está enfocada a la futura reconciliación de aquella sociedad.” Hermosas palabras si no fuera por la pestilente dosis de falsedad, cinismo e hipocresía que destilan. Sostener hoy a El Asad y mantener su sangrienta continuidad, invocando la futura reconciliación de su pueblo, equivale a lo que hubiera sido, en la antigua Yugoslavia de 1995, defender la continuidad de los grandes asesinos Karadcik y Mladic, propugnando la prolongación de sus crímenes con el grotesco argumento de “favorecer la futura reconciliación” de serbios y bosnios.

Los horrores perpetrados por las tropas de El Asad contra la población civil vienen siendo denunciados dramáticamente por muy diversas y autorizadas voces. Empezando por la del actual secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon: “Estamos viendo” —dijo— “que se bombardean vecindarios de forma indiscriminada, que se emplean hospitales como centros de tortura, que se abusa de niños de 10 años, etcétera. Se trata, con absoluta certeza, de crímenes contra la humanidad.” En efecto, los testimonios señalan que a los heridos por el ejército se les impide el acceso a los hospitales, lo que obliga a atenderlos precariamente en edificios privados, donde finalmente son localizados, torturados y masacrados. “Es una violencia ciega y sin límites. Me recuerda a la de Sarajevo”, afirmaba un destacado testigo, Antoine Foucher, alto responsable de Médicos sin Fronteras. A su vez, la enviada de la ONU a Siria, Valerie Amos, declaraba a Reuters, refiriéndose al barrio de Bab Amro, el más duramente atacado de Homs: “Está completamente destruido. Estoy preocupada por saber dónde está la gente que vivía ahí.” En efecto, cuando ella llegó al lugar, acompañada de una misión de la Media Luna Roja, encontró Bab Amro sumido en un vacío sepulcral.

Las grandes cantidades de combustible y equipo militar que el régimen necesita para cubrir el gran consumo de sus incesantes operaciones represivas con abundante despliegue de armamento pesado, siguen llegando a los puertos sirios (precisamente procedentes de Rusia, qué casualidad). Ante el bloqueo del Consejo de Seguridad por el repetido veto de Rusia y China, la Asamblea General respaldó la resolución de 16-2-12 presentada por la Liga Árabe (y apoyada por el voto de 137 países), resolución que propugna una firme actuación internacional respecto a Siria basada en estos tres pilares: transición pacífica a la democracia, elecciones libres, y alejamiento del poder de Bachar El Asad. Resolución que —como subrayaba en estas páginas el embajador y eurodiputado Emilio Menéndez del Valle— “no tiene valor vinculante por no estar respaldada por todos los miembros del Consejo, pero sí lo tiene, y muy alto, político y moral.”

El favorecer la continuación de la barbarie criminal con el extravagante pretexto de la futura reconciliación constituye un alarde del más venenoso cinismo. Esa futura reconciliación exige, por el contrario, el poner fin sin pérdida de tiempo a los crímenes que, en caso de continuar, la harán imposible por varias generaciones de odio y rencor. En los crímenes colectivos —el caso yugoslavo resulta revelador—, cuanto más se acumulan las crueldades en cantidad y calidad, más se envenenan los sentimientos y la memoria de las sociedades que las padecen, creando grandes posos de veneno y odio inextinguible, que en su día emponzoñarán y dificultarán los futuros intentos de reconciliación. Pues en las grandes masacres, humillaciones y aniquilamientos colectivos son muchos los miles de víctimas que sobreviven con unas heridas anímicas tan traumáticas que no terminan de cicatrizar jamás. Heridas cuyo dolor se conserva en sus entrañas hasta la muerte, y que solo futuras generaciones conseguirán superar. Un dolor tanto más penetrante y duradero cuanto más se haya prolongado la barbarie, cuanto mayor sea el número de crímenes perpetrados y el número de fosas comunes sembradas para la posteridad.

Al cumplirse 13 meses del estallido popular contra el Gobierno sirio, las víctimas causadas por este se estiman en más de 9.000 muertos (en su mayoría civiles desarmados), varios miles de desaparecidos (tal vez ya en fosas comunes), 35.000 huidos a las vecinas Turquía, Líbano y Jordania, y unos 200.000 desplazados, huidos de sus casas, pero que permanecen ocultos dentro del país. La comunidad internacional pretende cortar esta sangría de muerte y sufrimiento mediante adecuadas resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU. Pero Rusia lo ha impedido ya por dos veces. No olvidemos que Putin trabaja —dice— “para la futura reconciliación”.

Prudencio García es profesor del Instituto Universitario Gutiérrez Mellado de la UNED y fellow del IUS de Chicago.

Sea exitoso o fracase el plan de paz de Annan, está claro de momento que las instancias externas capaces de expulsar del poder al presidente Bashar el Asad por medios militares no irán más allá, desde luego mientras la oposición permanezca desunida. La secretaria de Estado estadounidense, Hillary Clinton, se refirió en la reunión de los Amigos de Siria el 19 de abril en París, a la “necesidad de actuar de forma vigorosa en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas para proponer la aplicación de la resolución sobre sanciones contenida en el capítulo siete” y manifestó que Turquía podría invocar el artículo cuatro del tratado del Atlántico Norte, medidas ambas susceptibles de dar pie a una respuesta militar común a las amenazas contra la paz internacional o contra la seguridad de los países miembros. No obstante, Rusia sigue oponiéndose enérgicamente a la primera opción –que Gran Bretaña, asimismo, ha calificado de “prematura”– y Turquía no ha empezado siquiera a aplicar ninguna de las medidas prácticas que pondrían de manifiesto la intención inminente de desarrollar la segunda.

En cambio, cuando el secretario general de la Liga Árabe, Nabil el Araby, invitó a las divididas facciones y grupos de la oposición sirias a reunirse en El Cairo a mediados de este mes, asoció el propósito de unificarlos a la esperanza de que, dado el caso, “negocien en un solo bloque con el Gobierno sirio”. Esto da a entender que las instancias externas no van de momento más allá de un endurecimiento de las sanciones económicas contra el régimen sirio, aun en el caso de que el proceso diplomático permanezca eclipsado por la violencia y ofrezca escasas esperanzas creíbles de una solución de la crisis.

Estas realidades imprimieron su huella en el consejo de ministros de Asuntos Exteriores de la Liga Árabe, que el 26 de abril hicieron un llamamiento para que el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas actúe a fin de acabar con las matanzas de civiles en Siria de acuerdo con el texto del capítulo siete. Sin embargo, el Consejo retiró rápidamente su declaración inicial y emitió una declaración revisada sin referencia alguna al capítulo siete reafirmando el plan de actuación árabe del 22 de enero, que pedía a El Asad que cediera el poder a una presidencia interina. El hecho de que tal solicitud no se incluya en el plan de paz de Annan, que sigue aprobando la Liga Árabe, indica la existencia de notables divergencias e incertidumbre sobre la forma de proceder.

En tales circunstancias, el régimen sirio conserva cierto margen de maniobra para conseguir que la oposición y las fuerzas exteriores permanezcan divididas. No ha habido rostros o partidos auténticamente nuevos en liza en las elecciones del pasado 7 de mayo; se ha dicho que El Asad sigue barajando la idea de permitir la participación de la oposición en un nuevo gobierno. Se ha dicho también que el régimen piensa en la posibilidad de recuperar el “comité de diálogo nacional” bajo los auspicios del Gobierno; previsiblemente, esto incluiría la presencia de supuestos partidos de la oposición cuidadosamente seleccionados, si no creados, por el régimen, y la exclusión de los principales movimientos que rechazan el diálogo con el régimen sin una plena aplicación de las condiciones contenidas en el plan Annan. Es improbable que las propuestas del régimen ganen terreno entre la oposición o entre sus defensores en la región o en la escena internacional, pero es posible que Rusia y países árabes como Iraq y Egipto las presenten como oportunidades de que prosigan las negociaciones.

Entre tanto, quienes buscan la salida incondicional de El Asad han seguido insistiendo en la búsqueda de “puntos de inflexión” en los que protagonistas institucionales o bases sociales clave en Siria avancen con determinación contra el régimen. Una expectativa común entre las instancias externas estriba en que los altos mandos militares alauíes eliminen a El Asad, ya que el precio para su comunidad en términos de vidas y medios de sustento crece continuamente y además aumenta la conciencia de que el régimen no puede ganar a largo plazo. Otra es que las sanciones cada vez más estrictas económica y financieramente incitarán a los empresarios del país y a la amplia clase media a desafiar abiertamente al régimen, aportando la masa crítica necesaria para asegurar su caída.

Estas expectativas sólo ponen de relieve la notoria falta de estrategia política capaz de generar y ampliar estas ansiadas fracturas en las filas del régimen o de convencer a la clase media siria, a la que no gusta el régimen pero que está preocupada por una eventual alternativa y se ve disuadida por el alto coste personal en caso de incorporarse a la oposición abierta, de que es vital emplearse en ello. Tal estrategia debe responder a las preguntas más difíciles y potencialmente causantes de división para la mayoría de la oposición: ¿están dispuestos a contemplar algún tipo de reparto de poder? En caso afirmativo, ¿en qué términos? Y, si no, ¿cómo piensan tratar con los altos funcionarios gubernamentales y funcionarios públicos o con el partido Baas en la nueva Siria que persiguen? Deben ser contestadas no para persuadir al régimen, sino a audiencias más amplias.

Este es un problema para la oposición en su conjunto, pero plantea un problema especial al Consejo Nacional Sirio. Fuentes internas revelan que sus principales patrocinadores occidentales y árabes, que lo reconocieron el 1 de abril como “organización paraguas bajo la que se congregan los grupos de oposición sirios”, no creen que esté a la altura de las expectativas. Algunos, en privado, esperan la aparición de nuevos líderes y movimientos en el seno de Siria que demuestren una mayor coherencia política y organizativa. Pero esto exigirá tiempo. Hasta entonces, los movimientos de oposición existentes hacen frente a la perspectiva de entrar en un diálogo formal con el régimen sin tener las propuestas de fondo susceptibles de aumentar su credibilidad entre los diversos sectores dentro de Siria que esperan con impaciencia el resultado.

Yezid Sayigh, investigador asociado del Centro Carnegie sobre Oriente Medio, Beirut. Traducción: José María Puig de la Bellacasa.

Il a passé une année en captivité durant laquelle il fut confronté à la barbarie qu’il avait si bien cernée dans ses travaux sur la Syrie. En relisant ses textes aujourd’hui, après la réédition de son ouvrage L’Etat de barbarie (Seuil, 1989), on est saisi par leur actualité et leur pertinence, trois décennies après leur première publication dans la revue Esprit, en 1983.

Dans le contexte de la révolution syrienne actuelle, deux questions développées par Michel Seurat semblent particulièrement intéressantes à revisiter.

Dans son analyse du système fondé par Hafez Al-Assad, Michel Seurat utilise un concept d’Ibn Khaldoun, historien et sociologue maghrébin du XIVe siècle : la «’asabiyya » (ce que Durkheim appelle « la solidarité mécanique »). Ce concept lui permet d’expliquer le rôle du pouvoir et des associations que le clan Assad a créées dans la transformation de la communauté alaouite en une confession politique (et pas seulement religieuse). Cette transformation s’est opérée à travers un discours, une réactivation dans la mémoire collective d’une hostilité à la ville et son « histoire d’exploitation des ruraux » et un recrutement des jeunes de la communauté dans l’armée et les services de renseignement.

Elle a également été renforcée par un contrôle du parti Baas et une instrumentalisation de ce dernier pour soumettre les institutions de l’Etat et les organisations de la société, notamment urbaines, à ses commandes. Ainsi, Hafez Al-Assad a soudé la communauté et établi une’asabiyya dominante dans le pays, tout en élargissant progressivement l’assise sociale et les réseaux économiques de son pouvoir.

La question communautaire de même que celle des rôles des forces armées et du parti Baas restent aujourd’hui omniprésentes pour la compréhension de ce qui se passe en Syrie, celle du fils et héritier de Hafez, Bachar Al-Assad. La’asabiyya persiste en tant que solidarité de corps pour maintenir la base fidèle au régime et est de ce fait le principal atout qui lui reste, après la décomposition de son autorité, de son contrôle symbolique, de son discours et de sa métamorphose en une simple machine répressive depuis mars 2011.

Par contre, la démographie et les évolutions socio-économiques ont modifié la donne du paradoxe urbain-rural. Le mouvement de contestation n’est plus uniquement citadin, comme Michel Seurat le décrivait au début des années 1980. Il est également rural, et le rapport entre les villes et les campagnes ne peut plus le contenir ou dresser ses frontières. Ces dernières sont dépassées par la nouvelle génération qui reconstitue son champ politique, à la fois dans des régions périphériques, dans les nouveaux espaces rattrapés par l’élargissement des agglomérations et dans le coeur même des cités syriennes.

Michel Seurat utilise cette « controverse hégelo-marxienne » pour intituler un de ses textes sur la confrontation qui opposait les Frères musulmans (et des formations politiques et syndicales islamistes comme de gauche) au pouvoir Assad entre 1979 et 1982. Une confrontation qui s’est soldée par les massacres de la ville rebelle de Hama et des campagnes d’arrestations massives contre les opposants politiques.

Hafez Al-Assad est parvenu en fin de compte, en s’appuyant sur la’asabiyya à l’intérieur du pays et sur la complicité ou le silence à l’extérieur (notamment au niveau international), de même que sur sa rhétorique idéologique (se réclamant du nationalisme arabe et de la lutte contre l’impérialisme et le sionisme), à réduire en cendres le champ politique syrien et à éradiquer les Frères musulmans du pays.

Mais, s’il a réussi, c’est aussi parce que les Frères n’ont pas pu étendre horizontalement leur soulèvement que Damas et sa bourgeoisie ne les ont pas suivis, et que la terreur s’est rapidement installée, érigeant les murs de la terreur et du silence. La Syrie est devenue un espace fragmenté, ses habitants solitaires, des « hommes écrasés les uns contre les autres » comme le décrit Hannah Arendt dans son analyse de la tyrannie.

Si cette lourde défaite de la société syrienne a anéanti toute possibilité d’action politique collective pendant des décennies (exception faite du court printemps de Damas en fin 2000 et début 2001), la révolution syrienne aujourd’hui marque la sortie définitive de la solitude.

De Deraa à Homs, de Deir Ezzor à Hama, de Damas à Idlib, de l’université d’Alep à Salamiyya et de Kfernabel à Kamechlie, les Syriens dans leurs manifestations quotidiennes et dans leur résistance à la machine de mort reconstruisent leur champ politique sur les décombres de la peur.

Ils rétablissent dans leur solidarité citoyenne des liens territoriaux et se réapproprient la géographie, l’espace, afin de dépasser le déchirement, la fragmentation et retisser les rapports sociaux.

Ainsi, la société syrienne se libère chaque jour un peu plus de la tyrannie. Elle renaît, se découvre et constitue une nouvelle mémoire. Seul le pouvoir déclinant demeure encore ce qu’il fut il y a trois décennies : un Etat de barbarie.

Par Ziad Majed, professeur des études du Moyen-Orient à l’Université américaine de Paris.

¿Quién debería llevar las riendas del país en tal coyuntura? Según la mayoría de sondeos de opinión, el presidente Obama le lleva de 4 a 6 puntos porcentuales de ventaja a Romney. Cabe añadir que cuando la pregunta se refiere a quién de los dos es más apto para dirigir la economía, se adelanta Romney con dos puntos porcentuales. Cuando se pregunta a la gente sobre su lista de prioridades, la economía y el puesto de trabajo ocupan los primeros puestos, con un 86% y un 84% respectivamente, aunque también ocupan lugares preferentes la sanidad y la educación en comparación con el control de natalidad y el aborto. Estas últimas cuestiones interesan en mayor medida a las mujeres que a los hombres y Romney es notablemente impopular entre las mujeres, aspecto que podría constituir un factor de suma importancia en las elecciones. En pocas palabras, por importante que sea la economía, hay otras cuestiones susceptibles de ejercer su impacto en la decisión de voto del electorado.

Siguiente cuestión: ¿Qué cabe entender con la expresión “situación económica”? Si alude a la bolsa, la situación no es mala en absoluto. El índice Dow Jones está de nuevo muy alto, por encima de 13.000 puntos, tan alto como antes de la crisis iniciada en el 2008. En cuanto al paro, la situación es menos alentadora. Ha habido una cierta recuperación, pero reducida.

La situación varía según los estados. Es mala en California, Illinois y Georgia donde el paro supera el 12%. Es mucho mejor en Washington DC, Maryland y estados del norte, además de Iowa en el Medio Oeste, que muestran un nivel de paro de un 6% o incluso menos. Las mismas grandes diferencias que puede haber entre regiones de España, Francia o Italia pueden observarse asimismo en Estados Unidos.

¿Cuáles son los puntos de fricción en política económica entre los dos partidos? Ante todo, la fiscalidad y la cuestión “Keynes versus Hayek”; es decir, si la situación económica debería mejorarse preferentemente mediante una política de ahorro y recorte del gasto o si debería ponerse el acento en el crecimiento de la economía. Obama y los demócratas quieren aplicar impuestos más elevados a quienes ganan por encima de 250.000 dólares al año. Es una idea que repugna a los republicanos tanto por motivos ideológicos como prácticos. Además, estos no quieren acabar con las numerosas lagunas legales existentes para eludir el pago de impuestos que, en caso de eliminarse, supondrían bastantes millardos de dólares. Razonan que siempre que se suben los impuestos sale perjudicada la economía.

El crecimiento económico estadounidense fue muy elevado tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial y en los años cincuenta, cuando los tipos impositivos más altos para los muy ricos alcanzaron un 80% o más. El crecimiento fue bajo durante la pasada década, cuando bajo la presidencia de Bush hijo el tipo impositivo más alto fue del 35%. Aunque los fondos resultantes para las arcas gubernamentales en el caso de aplicar la “regla Buffet” (nombre del ciudadano estadounidense muy rico que sugirió que los ricos deberían pagar impuestos mayores que los pobres) no bastaría en absoluto para solucionar los problemas económicos, la cuestión no es de poca monta y reviste gran importancia.

Según los resultados de un reciente sondeo de opinión de The New York Times, Obama y Romney están prácticamente empatados. Sin embargo, tres de cada cuatro estadounidenses apoyan la regla Buffet mientras que los republicanos han prometido que nunca la aceptarán, aunque en última instancia habrán de hacer concesiones. Cuando hace poco los estadounidenses hubieron de presentar sus declaraciones de renta, Romney pidió un prolongamiento del plazo, lo cual es totalmente legítimo pero no causó buena impresión.

Cabe aplicar lo propio a la promesa de los republicanos de eliminar parte de la burocracia administrativa de Washington; han aludido al respecto a los departamentos de Sanidad y tal vez de Educación. Una de las armas más frágiles del arsenal de Obama es su idea de reforma sanitaria, el proyecto de ampliar la cobertura de la atención sanitaria a ciudadanos actualmente sin cobertura. Quizá se equivocó al plantearlo, aunque es un proyecto deseable y conveniente en época de crisis. Cuando Romney fue gobernador de Massachusetts fue aproximadamente por el mismo camino y desde entonces se ha visto en apuros para explicar a sus colegas republicanos que su enfoque es totalmente distinto.

La frase “¡Lo que cuenta es la economía, estúpido!” es cierta pero sólo hasta un punto. Romney tiene el apoyo de las áreas rurales más pobres, pero las áreas residenciales de Filadelfia y Pittsburgh, donde viven familias de clase media y alta y población de mayor formación, son contrarias a su candidatura. La gente no vota únicamente de acuerdo con sus intereses materiales, existen también otros valores e inquietudes y tal circunstancia dificulta notablemente el pronóstico político.

Walter Laqueur.

This means building on the achievements of the Istanbul meeting, which established trust between the two sides — the five permament members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany on one, Iran on the other — and set the stage for the Baghdad talks whose goal will be to reach “concrete” results, to quote Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

Since the April talks, Ashton’s deputies have been communicating with Iran’s negotiating team on the agenda of the Baghdad meeting and on areas of potential accord. Both sides agreed in Istanbul to adopt the standards of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as the framework for negotiations. This was regarded as a victory for Iran since a nuclear fuel cycle is allowed by the treaty.

Meanwhile, ahead of the Baghdad talks, another crucial meeting between Iran and top officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency to resolve certain “outstanding questions” regarding Iran’s nuclear program has been scheduled. This can be instrumental in bringing the multilateral negotiations in Baghdad to a positive conclusion.

If the I.A.E.A. and Iran can agree, agency inspectors will have access to certain military installations in Iran, such as Parchin, which is mentioned in I.A.E.A. reports as the possible site of experiments related to nuclear weapons. Iran denies any such work and notes that the I.A.E.A. visited the site twice and found nothing suspicious.

Unfortunately, the newly built trust between Iran and the 5+1 powers is in danger of collapse because of the unreasonable insistence by hawkish politicians and pundits in the West who echo Tel Aviv’s demands that Iran halt all enrichment activities and shut down the underground Fordo facility, even though the I.A.E.A. inspects it regularly.

If the West is serious about putting the Iranian nuclear genie back in the bottle, then it must stop appeasing the hawkish politicians who seek to deny Iran its inalienable nuclear rights. If not, a golden opportunity to sharply lower tensions with Iran will be lost.

Assuming that Tehran agrees at the Baghdad talks to the demands on nuclear transparency, it is unclear whether the U.S. Congress, which has the sole authority to roll back U.S. sanctions and which is led by hawkish voices opposed to Iran, would go along with any deal. This represents a major stumbling block, since Iranian negotiators need to produce a tangible trade-off between any concessions and a recognition of Iran’s right to legitimate enrichment plus a gradual lifting of sanctions.

Without the firm guarantee of such a trade-off, it is difficult to foresee a meaningful breakthrough in Baghdad. That said, Tehran may be open to taking a patient approach on sanctions so long as oil and the central bank are off the list and Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes is respected.

We are now at a critical threshold in the Iran nuclear crisis. Only prudent diplomacy by both sides — not illegal threats of military action or sabotage — can produce positive results.

Hossein Mousavian is a research scholar at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators. Kaveh Afrasiabi is a former political science professor at Tehran University and a former adviser to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team.

Hay algo muy especial acerca del sadhu y su teléfono móvil, porque es en el ámbito de las comunicaciones donde la transformación de la India ha sido más dramática en los últimos años.

En 1975, cuando salí de la India para ir a Estados Unidos a realizar mis estudios de postgrado, posiblemente el país tenía unos 600 millones de habitantes y únicamente dos millones de teléfonos fijos. Tener un teléfono era un privilegio raro. Si usted no era un alto funcionario del gobierno, un médico o un periodista, probablemente estaba destinado a languidecer en una larga lista de espera y a nunca conseguir un teléfono. Los miembros del Parlamento tenían entre sus privilegios el derecho de asignar 15 conexiones telefónicas cada uno a quienes consideraran dignos de tenerlas.

Por otra parte, un teléfono, en caso de que se tuviera uno, no era necesariamente una bendición. Pasé mis años de secundaria en Calcuta, y recuerdo que coger el auricular del teléfono, no era garantía de que uno pudiese obtener un tono de marcado; y obtener un tono de marcado, no era garantía de que uno pudiese comunicarse con el número telefónico deseado; se escuchaban exasperados “¡número equivocado!” en más ocasiones que amistosos “hola”.

Si quería llamar a otra ciudad, por ejemplo, Nueva Delhi, había que reservar una “llamada de larga distancia”, y luego sentarse al lado del teléfono todo el día esperando la conexión solicitada. Alternativamente, usted podía pagar ocho veces el precio habitual para obtener una “llamada relámpago” – sin embargo, hasta los relámpagos tardaban en la India en aquella época, ya que para hacer una de estas llamadas se tenía que esperar una media hora en vez de las habituales tres o cuatro (o más) horas de espera para obtener una conexión.

Incluso en 1984, cuando un miembro del Parlamento protestó por las frecuentes caídas de la línea telefónica y en general por el lamentable funcionamiento del monopolio del sector público, el entonces ministro de Comunicaciones, respondió de manera altiva: en un país en desarrollo, afirmó, los teléfonos eran un lujo, no un derecho; el Gobierno no estaba en la obligación de ofrecer un mejor servicio, así que si cualquier habitante de la India se sentía insatisfecho con su servicio telefónico, podía devolver su teléfono, ya que había una lista de espera de ocho años para obtener una línea telefónica.

Ahora trasladémonos de manera rápida a la actualidad. En la primera edición de mi libro The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone (El elefante, el tigre y el teléfono móvil), informé que, en abril de 2007, la India alcanzó un nuevo récord mundial al vender siete millones de teléfonos móviles solo en ese mes, y al establecer más conexiones telefónicas que cualquier otro país en un mes. Hasta el momento se imprimió, encuadernó y distribuyó el libro en las librerías, la cifra citada ya era obsoleta. Es más, durante el año 2010, la India vendió 20 millones de teléfonos móviles por mes, durante tres meses seguidos.

Ahora, la India ha superado a EE UU. quitándole el título de segundo mayor mercado mundial de telefonía, ya que ha alcanzado la cifra de 857 millones de tarjetas SIM en circulación y unos 600 millones de usuarios individuales. China tiene un mayor número de usuarios, pero la India está a la cabeza en número de teléfonos por habitante, y la cifra va creciendo de manera rápida. Se prevé que se superará a China antes de que finalice este año.

No estoy meramente celebrando un triunfo de los capitalistas de la India. Lo que es maravilloso acerca del “milagro del teléfono móvil” (no me avergüenzo de llamarlo así) es que ha logrado algo que nuestras políticas socialistas pregonaban, pero que hicieron muy poco por lograr – el teléfono móvil apoderó a los menos afortunados. Los beneficiarios no sólo son los ricos, sino las personas que en los viejos tiempos no hubieran ni siquiera soñado con apuntarse en las temidas listas de espera para obtener una línea telefónica.

Es para mí una fuente de constante alegría  ver teléfonos móviles en manos de conciudadanos míos, quienes en el pasado hubiesen muy improbablemente accedido a servicios telefónicos: taxistas, paan wallahs (vendedores de betel), agricultores y pescadores. Si uno visita a un amigo en un suburbio de Nueva Delhi, notará en las calles laterales la presencia de un istri wallah, una persona dedicada al oficio de planchar; este personaje tiene un carro de madera que aparenta haber sido diseñado en el siglo XVI, utiliza una plancha de vapor a carbón que parece haber sido inventado en el siglo XVIII con la cual plancha la ropa de los habitantes de la zona. En la actualidad, sin embargo, este planchador tiene un instrumento del siglo XXI en su bolsillo, las llamadas entrantes en la India no cuestan en la mayoría de los planes, por lo que al planchador no tiene que pagar nada para informarse sobre dónde se requieren sus servicios.

Recientemente, visité la granja de un amigo en Kerala. Me preguntó si quería agua de coco fresco, le dije que sí, entonces sacó su móvil y marcó el número del destilador local de vino de palma. Una voz respondió: “estoy aquí”, miramos hacia arriba, y allí estaba él, en la parte superior del árbol de coco más cercano, con su lungi (falda tradicional) atada a sus pies, un hacha en una mano y un móvil en la otra.

Los pescadores llevan sus móviles a alta mar para así poder llamar a los mercados en los pueblos de la costa cuando están regresando a la orilla. Así averiguan dónde pueden obtener los mejores precios por su pescado. Los agricultores solían tener que enviar hasta la ciudad a un familiar con buen físico, que podía inclusive ser un niño de diez años de edad. Dicha persona realizaba una caminata agotadora bajo el sol ardiente con el fin de averiguar si el mercado estaba abierto, si la cosecha podía ser vendida, y en caso afirmativo, a qué precio. Ahora, los agricultores ahorran medio día con una llamada de dos minutos.

El teléfono móvil ha apoderado a las clases inferiores de la India, en formas que no lograron 45 años de discursos sobre socialismo. En la nueva India, las comunicaciones se han convertido en el gran nivelador.

Shashi Tharoor, ex ministro de Estado para Asuntos Exteriores de la India y ex subsecretario general de la ONU, es miembro del Parlamento de su país y autor de varios libros. Traducido del inglés por Rocío L. Barrientos. © Project Syndicate, 2012

Poco duró el espejismo. Si la Europa en la cumbre de su poder colonial fue incapaz de acomodar a una Alemania con pretensiones imperiales y se enzarzó en dos guerras mortíferas que pusieron fin a su hegemonía, ahora Estados Unidos podría correr la misma suerte tras desaprovechar la última década del siglo XX y la primera del XXI para asentar un poder que hace apenas 20 años nadie parecía disputarles. Pero en lugar de ello se distrajo metiéndose en guerras contra un terrorismo sin rostro que son imposibles de ganar y que han sangrado su economía. Como dice Robert Cooper, “la última década ha puesto de relieve la debilidad del poder y el fracaso de las reglas” en el sentido de que el poder militar no produce influencia política en ausencia de la legitimidad que otorga la norma. Nadie cree ya que EE UU sea la nación “escogida por Dios y encargada por la historia para ser un modelo para el mundo”, como afirmó George W. Bush hace apenas 10 años.

Vietnam marcó los límites del poder imperial en el mundo bipolar. Ahora las experiencias de Irak y de Afganistán muestran que esos límites siguen siendo infranqueables en ausencia de la URSS y ponen de relieve la imposibilidad de escribir la historia en solitario. El estilo de Obama —que es convicción a la vez que necesidad— se muestra en la salida de Irak, en el repliegue afgano, en la forma de encarar la crisis libia, en la doble vía —descartada la de la simple contención— para enfrentar la nuclearización de Irán, o en la enorme prudencia con la que analiza la situación siria.

No es que el poder militar americano se debilite en términos absolutos pues con el 4,8% del gasto nacional dedicado a Defensa, Estados Unidos continúa siendo la “nación indispensable” que decía Margaret Albright en el sentido de que si no lo pueden hacer todo, al menos nada se puede hacer en su contra y muy difícilmente sin su participación o luz verde. Pero Washington sabe que necesita apoyos en un mundo interdependiente y globalizado en cuya marcha hay otros países decididos a intervenir, países respaldados por pujantes economías, clases medias en imparable crecimiento y una fuerte confianza en su destino que oculta fragilidades no menos ciertas. Son los BRICS (Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Suráfrica) que representan más de la cuarta parte de la superficie del planeta, el 40% de su población, el 24% del PNB y el 15% del comercio mundial.

Por eso, Estados Unidos necesitará cada vez más a Europa. Que Europa necesita a EE<TH>UU es evidente desde hace un siglo cuando la intervención americana acabó las dos grandes guerras en favor de unas democracias que no las podían ganar por sí solas. Una Europa envejecida, sin apenas fuentes de energía, hedonista, más preocupada “por su seguridad social que por su seguridad nacional” (como dice Brzezinski evocando de nuevo la confrontación entre Marte y Venus de que nos hablara condescendientemente Robert Kagan hace una década) y en plena crisis económica, necesita del músculo americano para garantizar su propia seguridad como nos han demostrado las sucesivas crisis balcánicas. También voces europeas —Steiner y Torreblanca— se interrogan sobre nuestra decadencia y la “fragmentación del poder europeo”. No nos engañemos, la crisis que atraviesa Europa está provocando un cambio estructural y de largo alcance en el reparto mundial del poder y Europa corre el riesgo de quedar al margen de los foros donde se decide la marcha de la Historia. Está claro que necesitamos a los americanos, nos guste o no. La alternativa es hundirnos mientras la orquesta sigue tocando, como en el Titanic.

Pero también los americanos nos necesitan a nosotros, aunque algunos aún no lo sepan, porque tienen que hacer frente a un tiempo a sus problemas económicos internos (que se agravarán si empeoran los de Europa), a un sin fin de crisis regionales irresueltas (desde Irán hasta Corea, pasando por Siria, Oriente Medio y el “despertar árabe”), a problemas globales como la proliferación o el calentamiento del planeta, al logro de un acomodo con una Rusia crecientemente nacionalista y a la emergencia de China como gran potencia, algo que merece un comentario especial porque ningún gran país ha entrado en el escenario de la Historia con ambición protagonista sin afectar a los intereses de los actores que ya estaban en él y eso es algo que está comenzando a suceder a pesar de la exquisita prudencia de los dirigentes chinos con sus políticas de “despertar pacífico” y de “armonía global”. Para enfrentar todos esos escenarios los americanos necesitan a Europa.

Uno de los fracasos de la diplomacia occidental de los últimos años es no haber sabido encontrar un encaje geopolítico y securitario a la Rusia postsoviética, país con un liderazgo conocido y con una sociedad en cambio acelerado, y este es otro de los campos en que europeos y americanos podemos trabajar juntos pues si para Washington Rusia es un problema estratégico, para Europa es además una cuestión de vecindad reforzada por ingentes suministros energéticos.

El área euro-atlántica constituye el mayor espacio económico del planeta: con el 12% de su población, acumula más de 50% del PIB y el 33% del comercio mundial, sumando intercambios de tres billones de euros que dan empleo a 14 millones de personas. Hay tanta inversión norteamericana en Alemania como en China, Brasil, India y República Sudafricana juntos. Los americanos han invertido en Irlanda el doble que en China y en Brasil la mitad que en España y, por eso, europeos y norteamericanos nos beneficiaríamos mucho de la supresión de tarifas arancelarias y de la mayor homologación regulatoria que implicaría la creación de una zona de libre cambio en la cuenca atlántica.

Europa y Norteamérica han formado la más formidable alianza defensiva de la historia —la OTAN— que muestra vitalidad y capacidad de adaptación a un mundo en rápido cambio y por eso sigue habiendo países que siguen deseando guarecerse bajo su paraguas protector mientras extiende sus competencias a nuevas áreas geográficas (Afganistán) y nuevos retos (ciberseguridad). Estados Unidos no se desenganchará de la OTAN pero reducirá su presencia militar en nuestro continente y ello nos exigirá un mayor compromiso con nuestra propia defensa.

Pero, por encima de todo, Europa y Estados Unidos aportan hoy conjuntamente el 80% de la ayuda mundial al desarrollo y comparten unos valores que no son necesariamente los de las potencias emergentes, herederas de otras tradiciones culturales que fueron arrinconadas durante el apogeo del colonialismo. La primacía del grupo sobre el individuo, el sentido confuciano de la autoridad, el papel de la mujer en algunas sociedades son algunos ejemplos claros. Nuestros valores, bueno es señalarlo, son compartidos por los países de América Latina a los que habrá que incorporar un día al proyecto trasatlántico. Si creemos en principios como el buen gobierno, el imperio de la ley, la democracia participativa, la igualdad de género, la libertad de expresión, los derechos humanos, la economía de mercado…mejor que nos preparemos a defenderlos porque no todos hoy en el mundo piensan igual y crece a diario el peso económico y político de los que los matizan o que tienen distintas concepciones sobre ellos.

De manera que si Estados Unidos sigue hoy siendo “la nación indispensable” también Europa puede ser el “socio indispensable” que Washington precisa para defender una cosmovisión que se bate en retirada a principios del siglo XXI ante el ascenso imparable de otros actores y otros valores. Los americanos nos necesitarán como compañeros en esas trincheras porque no encontrarán a otros. Pero para ello es preciso que antes solucionemos nuestros problemas económicos y reforcemos nuestra integración política para hablar hacia el exterior con una sola voz. Mientras eso no suceda los americanos seguirán sin “ver” a Europa y continuarán tratando bilateralmente con Berlín, Londres y París, como ocurre ahora.

Jorge Dezcallar es embajador de España. Hasta ayer lo fue en Estados Unidos

Yet rather than asking tough questions about how Bin Laden had managed to live unmolested in Pakistan for years, the Pakistani Supreme Court instead chose to punish the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, by charging him with contempt for failing to carry out the court’s own partisan agenda — in this case, pressuring the Swiss government to reopen a decades-old corruption investigation of President Asif Ali Zardari. (Never mind that Swiss officials say they are unlikely to revisit the charges.)

In handing down the decision, one justice chose to paraphrase the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran. He held forth in a long appeal to religious-nationalist sentiment that began with the line, “Pity the nation that achieves nationhood in the name of a religion but pays little heed to truth, righteousness and accountability, which are the essence of every religion.”

That a Supreme Court justice would cite poetry instead of law while sentencing an elected leader on questionable charges reflects Pakistan’s deep state of denial about its true national priorities at a time when the country is threatened by religious extremism and terrorism.

Today, Pakistan is polarized between those who envision a modern, pluralist country and those who condone violence against minorities and terrorism in the name of Islam. Many are caught in the middle; they support the pluralist vision but dislike the politicians espousing it.

Meanwhile, an elephant in the room remains. We still don’t know who enabled Bin Laden to live freely in Pakistan. Documents found on computers in his compound offer no direct evidence of support from Pakistan’s government, army or intelligence services. But even if Bin Laden relied on a private support network, our courts should be focused on identifying, arresting and prosecuting the individuals who helped him. Unfortunately, their priorities seem to lie elsewhere.

In Pakistan, most of the debate about Bin Laden has centered on how and why America violated Pakistan’s sovereignty by unilaterally carrying out an operation to kill him. There has been little discussion about whether the presence of the world’s most-wanted terrorist in a garrison town filled with army officers was itself a threat to the sovereignty and security of Pakistan.

Pakistanis are right to see themselves as victims of terrorism and to be offended by American unilateralism in dealing with it. Last year alone, 4,447 people were killed in 476 major terrorist attacks. Over the last decade, thousands of soldiers and law enforcement officers have died fighting terrorists — both homegrown, and those inspired by Al Qaeda’s nihilist ideology.

But if anything, the reaction should be to gear up and fight jihadist ideology and those who perpetrate terrorist acts in its name; they remain the gravest threat to Pakistan’s stability. Instead, our national discourse has been hijacked by those seeking to deflect attention from militant Islamic extremism.

The national mind-set that condones this sort of extremism was cultivated and encouraged under the military dictatorships of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988 and Gen. Pervez Musharraf from 1999 to 2008. A whole generation of Pakistanis has grown up with textbooks that conflate Pakistani nationalism with Islamist exclusivism.

Anti-Western sentiment and a sense of collective victimhood were cultivated as a substitute for serious debate on social or economic policy. Militant groups were given free rein, originally with American support, to resist the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and later became an instrument of Pakistani regional influence there and in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

Pakistan’s return to democracy, after the elections of 2008, offered hope. But the elected government has since been hobbled by domestic political infighting and judicial activism on every issue except extremism and terrorism.

Before Mr. Musharraf was ousted, a populist lawyers’ movement successfully challenged his firing of Supreme Court justices. The lawyers’ willingness to confront Mr. Musharraf in his last days raised hopes of a new era. But over the last four years, the Court has spent most of its energy trying to dislodge the government by insisting on reopening cases of alleged corruption from the 1990s. During the same period, no significant terrorist leader has been convicted, and many have been set free by judges who overtly sympathize with their ideology.

This has happened because the lawyers’ movement split into two factions after Mr. Musharraf’s fall: those emphasizing the rule of law and those seeking to use the judiciary as a rival to elected leaders.

Asma Jahangir, who helped lead the lawyers’ movement, has become a critic of the courts, accusing them of overstepping their constitutional mandate and falling under the influence of the security establishment. And Aitzaz Ahsan, who represented the Supreme Court’s chief justice during the lawyers’ showdown with Mr. Musharraf, is now Prime Minister Gilani’s lawyer in the contempt-of-court case — a clear indication of the political realignment that has taken place.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s raucous media, whose hard-won freedom is crucial for the success of democracy, has done little to help generate support for eliminating extremism and fighting terrorism. The Supreme Court, conservative opposition parties and the news media insist that confronting alleged incompetence and corruption in the current government is more important than turning Pakistan away from Islamist radicalism.

While fighting Pakistan’s endemic corruption is vital, the media and judiciary have helped redirect attention away from the threat of jihadist ideology by constantly targeting the governing party — a convenient situation for the intelligence services, which would prefer to keep the spotlight on the civilian government rather than on the militant groups they have historically supported.

Convicting the dozens of terrorists released by Pakistani courts should be a greater priority for the country’s judiciary than scoring points against the elected executive branch. And the Pakistani media should be more focused on asking why those deemed terrorists internationally are celebrated as heroes at home.

Until their priorities shift, the empty pronouncements of our leaders against terrorism and the sacrifices of our soldiers in battle with militants will not suffice to change the nation’s course.

Husain Haqqani, a professor at Boston University, was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011.

The announcement has had immediate repercussions. Gay democrats have started making big campaign donations. Sixteen senators, led by John Kerry, have protested against the immigration department’s automatic decision to deny green cards to foreign same-sex spouses of US citizens. The human rights commission has called on all members of Congress to go on record as either for or against gay marriage. Obama’s team has already launched television ads that contrast his tolerance with Romney’s anti-gay bigotry. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has made a marriage equality statement, despite his personal conviction that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

There is definitely a feeling in the air that it’s no longer permissible to deny gays the right to marriage equality; the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay conservatives, have warned their fellow Republicans that they embrace the side of bigotry at their own election peril. About 65% of Democratic voters approve of gay marriage, so the president’s stand will not injure his re-election chances among his core group.

If the president has “evolved” in his affirmation of gay marriage, so have I. Originally I was opposed to gay assimilation and targeted gay marriage as just another effort on the part of gays to resemble their straight neighbours. When the president “came out” he was careful about mentioning the many gay couples he knew, even some in government, who had loving, “committed” relationships and who were parenting children. All pretty suburban, in my opinion. Must we be among the “good gays” in order to win our civil rights? If we’re too sexual, if we’re wearing drag or leather, if we have multiple partners, if we’re seropositive, will we be thrust beyond the pale? What if we don’t want to live with the same partner for many years or adopt a Korean daughter and join the parent-teacher association?

But I became pro-marriage equality once I realised how opposed to it the Christian right is in our country. Europeans forget that one-third of the American people have had a personal conversation with Jesus Christ and that the born-again are not just little old ladies in black but also CEOs and provosts of universities and candidates for office. The Republicans are the party of the rich, of the top 1% of the population. If they are going to command majorities, they must invent phony “moral” issues that will appeal to their middle-class constituents. The assault against women’s reproductive rights is one such issue; a similar struggle against gay marriage is the other leading issue in the culture wars.

I don’t have to get married myself in order to campaign on behalf of gay marriage. I defend the right of lesbians and gays to divorce, pay alimony and raise children who turn to drugs and hate their parents; why should straights alone have all these advantages? I’ve always deplored bad heterosexual values that dictate the minute a marriage is over the former partners no longer speak to each other; only straights could be so cruel and inhuman as to reject totally the person with whom they’ve shared their life for 20 or 30 years. Now gays can regress to this level of barbarity as well.

As it turns out, I may have to get married after all. I have lived 17 years with a partner in an extremely open, non-possessive relationship. He has shared my health benefits because Princeton, where I work, has covered domestic partners. But the university, which does not cover unmarried straight partners, has now told us that since we can get married in New York state we must. So the great libertine is going to be brought to the altar soon. Not that I’m opposed. There are many practical benefits, starting with automatic hospital visitation rights granted to a legal spouse and going on to clear inheritance rights and strengthening Michael’s position as my literary executor (I’m in my 70s, 25 years older than he).

But finally there’s a sentimental side. I’ve started looking at him in a different way, knowing that we’ll soon be legally joined together; marriage is such a powerful symbol, it’s bound to affect even such reluctant grooms as us.

Edmund White is an American writer.

Se espera que al finalizar este año alrededor de 600.000 cubanos ostenten una licencia para trabajar en el sector privado. Entre ellos se incluirán muchos de los que quedarán sin empleo a raíz de la reducción de plantillas que se lleva a cabo por todo el país. En los próximos meses más de 170.000 plazas serán cerradas en diferentes esferas pertenecientes al Estado y al personal se le reubicará en otras labores o irá al despido. Los eufemismos que caracterizan al lenguaje oficial han llegado a su máxima expresión a la hora de hacer referencia a este impopular proceso. Han dado en llamar a los recortes “reordenamiento laboral” y a las personas que están en el paro les han colgado el calificativo de “disponibles”. Como si no bastaran tales peculiaridades en el plano nominal, el único sindicato autorizado en el país ha apoyado la decisión de “desinflar las plantillas para lograr eficiencia”. La Central de Trabajadores de Cuba ha dejado claro que su papel está más al lado del empleador que de los empleados. Postura que no ha sorprendido a ninguno de sus casi tres millones de miembros, acostumbrados a pagar disciplinadamente su cuota pero conscientes de que esta organización representa los intereses del poder frente a la base y no a la inversa.

A ese mismo obediente sindicato ha ido a parar más del 80% de los más de 370.000 trabajadores por cuenta propia y una representación de ellos desfiló el pasado primero de mayo. No se han inscrito en él buscando representatividad o amparo, sino para evitarse problemas. Intuyen —con razón— que de no afiliarse podrían señalarse como “apáticos”, “burgueses” y en el peor de los casos como “contrarrevolucionarios”. Todos ellos, sin dudas, preferirían una asociación que los defendiera de los altos impuestos, convocara a protestas por la ausencia de un mercado mayorista y reclamara préstamos bancarios con los que sostener sus negocios. De poder elegir, ni siquiera hubieran votado por Salvador Valdés Mesa, el actual secretario general de la CTC, cuya ocupación anterior fue en el antagónico Ministerio del Trabajo. En lugar de la Iglesia en manos de Lutero, el nuestro parece ser un sindicato atrapado en los brazos del patrón. Una federación que ha respaldado la supresión de medio millón de empleos que se implementará hasta el año 2015 y que ha llamado a una mayor compromiso con el Gobierno de Raúl Castro. Como legado negativo de esa actitud pasiva y cómplice, quedará el rechazo futuro de muchos obreros a integrar sus filas o las de otra organización proletaria. A la palabra sindicato habrá que sacudirle en Cuba sus actuales connotaciones de inacción para devolverle aquel papel irreverente y autónomo que una vez tuvo.

Por el momento, en la tribuna del primero de mayo en lugar de un mensaje reivindicativo se imponen como lemas los llamados a la disciplina, la exigencia y el control. La inconformidad laboral no tiene cabida en una Plaza de consignas triunfales y loas al sistema. Ni un solo bloque representa a los desempleados, ni un solo puño se levanta en señal de protesta, ni un sólo cartel pone en jaque a las autoridades. Muchos de los allí presentes han asistido por la misma razón que se han inscrito en la CTC, para no marcarse como desafectos a un proceso político en el que ya apenas si creen. Sonríen a la cámara y algunos lleven a sus hijos sentados sobre los hombros; pero nada queda en ellos de la esencia contestataria del Día de los Trabajadores. Cuando termina el acto regresan a casa o se adentran en las calles de los alrededores en busca de algo para comer o beber. Terminan comprando en el mostrador de algún cuentapropista no sindicalizado que mantuvo abierto su negocio durante el feriado. A la mañana siguiente, el periódico oficialista Granma publica un orgulloso titular en letras rojas “este ha sido el desfile más organizado y más rápido” de nuestra historia. Y por esta vez, Granma tiene razón.

Yoani Sánchez es periodista cubana y autora del blog Generación Y. © Yoani Sánchez / bgagency-Milan.

Algunas obedecen a sus maridos, padres o hermanos; otras llevan el velo por convicción o por costumbre. Hay que cubrir los cabellos para no excitar a los hombres en la calle; una hermosa cabellera posee necesariamente carga erótica y hay que ocultarla… En el caso de los islamistas, un problema recurrente es el de su relación con la sexualidad. Es menester que la mujer se tape, se oculte con el velo y se esconda para que el vecino no la desee. Todo gira en torno a tal obsesión: la mujer es un objeto insoportable de deseo. Y no hay como la religión para justificar el miedo a la mujer.

Desde que el rey Mohamed VI nombró un primer ministro del Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo (islamista) y se ha formado un gobierno con mayoría de este partido, las cosas están cambiando en la vida diaria. El ministro de Justicia y de las Libertades, Mustafa Ramid, ha estigmatizado el turismo acusando a quienes acuden en concreto a Marrakech de elegir este destino por motivos sexuales. Ha dicho que van “para pecar y alejarse de Dios”. La alcaldesa de la ciudad ha protestado contra este ataque a la industria turística que proporciona sustento a miles de familias en la región. El ministro de Comunicación y portavoz del Gobierno, Mustafa el Khalfi, quiere que se retransmitan cinco llamamientos diarios a la oración en la televisión y la radio del país, además de la oración del viernes y las fiestas religiosas. Asimismo ha prohibido el uso de la lengua popular dialectal en los medios de comunicación. Únicamente se autoriza el uso de árabe clásico (que no habla una mayoría aplastante de la población marroquí) y del amazig (bereber) en los medios de comunicación públicos. La lengua francesa, prácticamente, se suprime. También se prohíbe la publicidad de los juegos de azar (loterías, etcétera) en los canales de televisión nacionales.

Notable hipocresía: tales juegos, que reprueba la religión, no se prohíben en la práctica. Los medios de comunicación de mayor audiencia han reaccionado de forma virulenta; el director de la segunda cadena del país, 2M, ha tachado tales reformas de “fundamentalistas”. 2M es una televisión joven y dinámica que ha conquistado un numeroso público entre la juventud. Lo cierto es que se libra actualmente en Marruecos una contienda entre lo que se denomina modernidad o incluso la laicidad y el conservadurismo religioso que querría cerrar el país a las influencias occidentales, esto es, lo que un periodista del periódico de esta tendencia ha llamado “el lobby francófono”.

Lo cierto es que se trata de un ataque a las libertades que ha empezado por criticar e incluso pedir la prohibición de películas marroquíes con escenas de sexo o diálogos violentos. Algunos responsables del nuevo Gobierno han llegado a hablar de “arte sucio” y piden a los artistas que hagan “arte limpio”. No entienden nada de la creación artística. Un artista es necesariamente un rebelde, alguien no conformista, alguien que muestra lo que la sociedad esconde.

La única mujer de este Gobierno, Bassima Hakkaui, ministra de Solidaridad, Mujer, Familia y Desarrollo Social, se ha pronunciado tajantemente contra el aborto justo cuando las asociaciones y movimientos de la sociedad civil reivindican la legalización de la interrupción del embarazo en casos difíciles sobre todo de violación o tratándose de menores.

Cabe añadir a todo ello la aparición de comités autoproclamados como tales para “limpiar” el país “del pecado y del mal”. La policía hace la vista gorda. Son iniciativas privadas que actúan en lugar de las fuerzas de seguridad y frente a las cuales el Estado, de momento, no reacciona.

El Gobierno, que no adopta decisiones aparatosas, da libertad de acción a su portavoz que trata de poner en práctica sus convicciones religiosas. Algunos se preguntan por qué no prohíbe el interés bancario… al fin y al cabo, el islam prohíbe fijar intereses sobre el dinero. Arabizar los medios de comunicación oficiales e imponerles una orientación moral, dar orientaciones a los creadores son también maneras de limitar las libertades. Nadie está contra la lengua árabe, pero renunciar al multilingüismo es ir contra la inclinación natural del pueblo. Más de medio siglo después de la independencia del país, la lengua francesa sigue aún viva en los medios escolares e intelectuales. Hay jóvenes que escriben novelas y poemas en esta lengua y ahí están las editoriales para publicarlos. Los cientos de miles de hijos de emigrantes marroquíes que van a Marruecos en verano no hablan el árabe o apenas lo hablan.

La vocación de Marruecos ha sido en todo momento la apertura al exterior. Fue el primer país que reconoció a Estados Unidos de América. Mantiene excelentes relaciones con Europa en el plano político y cultural. Sus élites dominan varias lenguas y son valoradas en el mercado de trabajo internacional.

El islamismo se caracteriza por el repliegue sobre sí mismo. Se mezcla con la moral y se inmiscuye en la existencia de las personas. Por eso los marroquíes laicos –que no son ateos ni antirreligiosos– piden la separación entre el islam y la política. El Colectivo Democracia y Modernidad ha impulsado recientemente un debate sobre la laicidad e inmediatamente ha sido atacado por el periódico afín al Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo, Attajdid, que le ha acusado de querer apartarse de los valores de la umma (comunidad de los creyentes). Conviene señalar que todo musulmán pertenece a Dar al-islam, el dominio histórico o morada del islam; es decir, el conjunto de territorios cuya unidad reside en la comunidad de fe y vigencia de la ley con las garantías de que gozan los miembros de la umma. Quien critica o pide que el islam se aleje del terreno político se convierte necesariamente en alguien que traiciona los “valores y principios de la casa”.

Salman Rushdie fue condenado por Jomeini en 1988 por haber escrito Versos satánicos siendo musulmán. Un musulmán no tiene en absoluto el derecho de criticar o ir contra los preceptos del islam; de lo contrario, es un traidor y merece ser condenado. Es la visión propia del integrismo y el fundamentalismo que han quedado anacrónicos en los tiempos modernos.

El Marruecos actual ha conseguido ahorrarse una revolución violenta, como ha sucedido en Túnez y en Egipto. Pero no ha logrado escapar de la ola islamista que se esparce crecientemente en el mundo árabe. La primavera árabe ha desembocado a una era islámica que ha llegado para quedarse durante al menos una generación o más.

Ahora le toca al Estado intervenir para acabar con estas artimañas que señalan un retroceso en el rumbo del país y lesionan la imagen más bien positiva de Marruecos en el exterior.

Tahar Ben Jelloum.

That threat comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Conventional wisdom suggests that the Iranian regime – increasingly isolated as a result of mounting international sanctions and facing growing socioeconomic malaise – isn’t an immediate danger to America in the cyberrealm. But those same factors have dramatically increased the potential for conflict in that domain between Washington and Tehran.

So has Iran’s expanding exploitation of cyberspace, which is driven by two principal strategies.

The first is domestic repression. In his March 2012 Nowruz message to the Iranian people, President Obama alluded to the growing efforts of the Iranian regime to isolate its population from the outside world when he noted that an “electronic curtain has fallen around Iran.” That digital barrier has grown exponentially over the past three years and now includes the construction of a new national Internet, which will effectively sever Iran’s connection to the World Wide Web; the installation of a sophisticated Chinese-origin surveillance system for monitoring phone, mobile and Internet communications; restrictive governmental guidelines forcing Internet cafes to record the personal information of customers and keep video logs of all customers accessing the Web; and movement toward the formation of a new government agency responsible for the “constant and comprehensive monitoring over the domestic and international cyberspace.”

The second is the quiet conflict already under way with the West over its nuclear ambitions. Since the fall of 2009, Iran has suffered a series of sustained cyberattacks on its nuclear program. The best known of these is Stuxnet, the computer worm that attacked the industrial control systems at several Iranian nuclear installations between 2009 and 2010. But at least two other cyberattacks aimed at derailing Iran’s nuclear development have targeted the Islamic republic as well. And while the origins of those intrusions are still hotly debated in the West, Iranian authorities already are convinced that conflict is under way – and are mobilizing in response.

Thus, in recent months, Iran has launched an ambitious $1 billion governmental program to boost its national cybercapabilities. That effort reportedly includes the acquisition of new technologies, major investments in cyberdefense and the creation of a new cadre of cyber experts. The Iranian regime also has activated a “cyberarmy” of activists that, while nominally independent, has carried out a series of attacks on sites and entities out of favor with the Iranian regime, including the social networking site Twitter, the Chinese search engine Baidu and the websites of Iranian reformist elements.

Moreover, Iran increasingly appears to be moving from defense to offense in the way it thinks about cyberspace. In his testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in January, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper noted that Iran’s cybercapabilities “have dramatically increased in recent years in depth and complexity.” More and more, they also appear to be directed against the United States.

Analysts have warned that should the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program precipitate a military conflict, Iran “might try to retaliate by attacking U.S infrastructure such as the power grid, trains, airlines, refineries.” And the Iranian regime appears to be contemplating just such an asymmetric course of action. Last July, Iran’s hard-line Kayhan newspaper issued a thinly veiled threat to the United States that it could soon face attack against “a section of its critical infrastructure.” In keeping with this warning, infrastructure professionals have noted growing Iranian interest in the U.S. electrical sector and other segments of our national grid. The Islamic republic, in other words, has begun to seriously contemplate cyberwarfare as a potential avenue of action against the West.

Iran has significant capacity in this sphere. A 2008 assessment by the policy institute Defense Tech identified the Islamic republic as one of five countries with significant nation-state cyberwarfare potential. Similarly, in his 2010 book “CyberWar,” former National Security Council official and noted cybersecurity expert Richard A. Clarke ranked Iran close behind the People’s Republic of China in terms of its potential for “cyberoffense.”

Does this mean Iran will target the United States? It is certainly not out of the question that the Iranian regime could attempt an unprovoked cyberattack on the United States. As the foiled October 2011 Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States in the nation’s capital indicates, Iran has grown significantly bolder in its foreign policy and no longer can be relied upon to refrain from direct action in or against the U.S. homeland.

Far more likely, however, is a cyberwarfare incident related to Iran’s nuclear program. In coming months, a range of scenarios – from a renewed diplomatic impasse to a further strengthening of economic sanctions to the use of military force against Iranian nuclear facilities – hold the potential to trigger an asymmetric retaliation from the Iranian regime aimed at vital U.S. infrastructure, with potentially devastating effects.

At the very least, it is clear that policymakers in Tehran are actively contemplating such an eventuality. Their counterparts in Washington should be doing so as well.

Ilan Berman is vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council. This article is adapted from testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Chen’s hope is to study law and live in peace with his children and wife, Yuan Weijing, an English teacher and activist who helps her husband, who is blind, with reading and writing. They have no choice but to accompany him, given that China commonly retaliates against family members to break the spirit of dissidents — and to set an example. Family members of Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer imprisoned in Xinjiang province, had suffered years of persecution before they fled the country. Liu Xia, the wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been under house arrest in Beijing since 2010.

Chen’s family had suffered years of persecution, and, as Chen learned after leavingthe U.S. Embassyand arriving at a Beijing hospital, police had detained relatives, surrounded their village, entered their home and set up cameras and an electric fence. Authorities reportedly tied Yuan to a chair for two days and threatened to kill her if Chen didn’t leave the embassy. In view of this, Chen’s reversal of his earlier decision to stay in China is based on real and reasonable fear for his family’s safety.

Chen would far prefer to remain in China, if he could work and live there safely with his family. Once he leaves China, if he tries to return later, it is very likely that authorities will deny him entry. China is known to treat dissidents as bargaining chips, as happened with Wei Jingsheng, Xu Wenli and Wang Dan, high-profile critics who were forced into exile. And the government has denied the right of “troublemakers” to return to their homeland, a practice that applies to thousands of exiled dissidents, most of whom left after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Ultimately, armed with a legal education in the U.S. and with the legend of his battling to help the disadvantaged and outsmarting a vast security apparatus, Chen could pose an even greater threat in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party.

But going abroad for study rather than seeking political asylum allows Chen to keep the door open, in theory at least, for his return. If barred from returning, Chen could join those exiles who promote rule of law in China from overseas. But he would no longer be doing what he prefers to do: provide legal services to the less privileged in Chinese society and inspire others to use the law to better their lives. The latter is what the Chinese Communist Party also claims to do.

For trying to do just that, Chen has long been treated as a dangerous criminal. After four years in prison on trumped-up charges of “blocking traffic,” he was released in 2010 into house arrest, where he remained until his escape in April. In his career as a “barefoot lawyer,” Chen successfully organized villagers fighting a polluting paper mill and provided legal advice to the disabled fighting unfair taxes. Chen’s exposure of forced abortions and sterilizations in his hometown represented what may have been the first known domestic challenge toChina’sone-child policy.

This challenge meant that Chen had crossed an invisible line and unnerved the government.

Chen’s suffering and the severe punishment of his fellow activists and lawyers for using legal tools made available in today’s China — concerted efforts that became known as weiquan, a civil rights movement — serve as a sad commentary on the country’s much-trumpeted progress in rule-of-law reform.

The promised U.S.-Chinese “collaboration” to facilitate Chen’s departure (assuming it materializes) indicates little progress on human rights. The “deal” includes no provisions that abusive authorities will lose the total immunity they enjoy from any criminal investigation for tormenting Chen and his family and harassing supporters. Beijing made no commitment to release Chen’s nephew, detained for resisting intruders in his house, or to refrain from further retaliation against supporters. Jiang Tianyong, a Beijing lawyer, was detained after he attempted to visit Chen last week and beaten so severely that his left eardrum appears to have been ruptured. There is no sign that similar persecution against other activists in the country would subside after the Chen incident. Chen’s confinement in the Beijing hospital looks eerily like de facto house arrest outside his home.

The political reality in China is such that this bleak picture is not surprising. Since the Arab Spring uprisings toppled rulers across the Middle East, Beijing has become more wary that a spark will ignite a popular revolt in China. Chen could very well be such a spark. The Chinese government is doing all it can to prevent a fire from catching on.

Renee Xia is international director of the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which documents human rights abuses in China.

Resumen: Existen cauces jurídicos al alcance de REE para defender sus legítimos derechos, llegado el caso judicialmente, frente al gobierno boliviano si no se logra un arreglo amistoso entre ambas partes en los próximos meses. Parece que la voluntad expresa del ejecutivo boliviano es tasar de forma independiente el valor de la empresa nacionalizada y compensar a REE. Ello apunta a una solución amistosa y rápida de dicha nacionalización; por desgracia, no parece que sea el caso de YPF. No obstante, a la vista de los sucesos de YPF y TDE, las empresas españolas deberían revisar sus negocios en algunos Estados latinoamericanos, donde se ha incrementado considerablemente el llamado riesgo político, traducido inter alia en una evidente inseguridad jurídica para sus inversiones.

Análisis

La nacionalización de Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE)

El gobierno boliviano celebró el primero de mayo dictando el Decreto Supremo nº 1214 por el que se nacionaliza la empresa Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE). TDE, principal operador dedicado al transporte de electricidad en Bolivia al poseer el 73% de las líneas de transmisión del Sistema Troncal Interconectado de Bolivia, pertenece mayoritariamente a la filial internacional de Red Eléctrica Española, S.A. (REE), una empresa que cuenta como accionista de referencia (con una participación del 20%) a la Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI). Horas después del anuncio de la nacionalización por parte del presidente Evo Morales, policías y militares bolivianos tomaron el control de las instalaciones de dicha empresa en la ciudad de Cochabamba. El presidente Morales acusó a la compañía TDE de invertir poco en el país, pero reconoció que, previa tasación por una empresa independiente en un plazo de seis meses de la inversión hecha, su gobierno compensaría a REE. Este hecho se produce en el contexto de una oleada creciente de reivindicaciones laborales y protestas sociales contra el gobierno boliviano que han hecho descender apreciablemente la popularidad del presidente Morales.

El gobierno boliviano alega también que el Decreto Supremo nº 1214 responde a un mandato constitucional y se fundamenta en varios preceptos de la Constitución Política de Bolivia, que declara que las diferentes formas de energía y sus fuentes constituyen un recurso estratégico (Artículo 378), consagra el deber del Estado de garantizar la generación de energía para el consumo interno (Artículo 379), y reconoce que el Estado asumirá el control y la dirección sobre la exploración, explotación, industrialización, transporte y comercialización de los recursos naturales estratégicos (Artículo 351.I).

El ejecutivo de Evo Morales sigue así la política nacionalizadora que ha venido desarrollando en los últimos años. En el caso de TDE, se opta también por cambiar el modelo privado de gestión de la red de transporte eléctrico, que pasa a ser público. Desde que llegó al poder en enero de 2006, el presidente Morales ha nacionalizado una veintena de empresas de hidrocarburos, telecomunicaciones y generación de electricidad. Su programa de gobierno no era ningún secreto. De hecho, el Banco Santander vendió un pequeño banco filial y abandonó el país apenas unos días antes de la toma de posesión de Evo Morales. Ya en 2006, se nacionalizó el sector de los hidrocarburos y desde entonces diversos inversores extranjeros tanto europeos como americanos, entre ellos Repsol-YPF, se vieron obligados bien a renegociar las condiciones de sus contratos bajo un nuevo marco jurídico donde la gestión y comercialización de los hidrocarburos está dirigida por la empresa estatal Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), bien a aceptar la nacionalización de sus inversiones por parte del gobierno boliviano. REPSOL optó por quedarse negociando nuevos contratos. Las nacionalizaciones y expropiaciones en Bolivia han venido afectando desde entonces a otros sectores de la economía como las telecomunicaciones (Entel), la minería y la siderurgia (Vinto), la distribución del agua y de los servicios de alcantarillado sanitario (Aguas del Tunari) o la producción de energía eléctrica (Ecoenergy y Guaracachi). Ello ha provocado algunos litigios internacionales en materia de inversiones, aunque el grado de litigiosidad de Bolivia en esta materia no puede compararse en absoluto con el de Argentina, como ya tuvimos oportunidad de explicar al tratar de la expropiación de YPF (véase Carlos Jiménez Piernas, “La expropiación de YPF: análisis desde el Derecho Internacional”, ARI nº 31/2012, Real Instituto Elcano).

Para terminar este breve relato de los hechos, unas horas después de ese mismo día, 1 de mayo, el presidente Morales y Antonio Brufau, presidente de Repsol, acompañados del embajador de España, coincidieron en el acto de inauguración de una planta procesadora de gas que permitirá incrementar la exportación de gas precisamente a Argentina desde siete millones a 11,6 millones de metros cúbicos. Un consorcio de empresas liderado por Repsol ha invertido en esta planta varios cientos de millones de dólares. Morales afirmó públicamente en dicho acto que respetará las inversiones de Repsol en el país como “socio” estratégico en el sector energético. Visto lo sucedido dos semanas antes con la expropiación de YPF por parte del gobierno argentino, fue sin duda una escena esperpéntica, que ya hubiera querido idear y novelar algún seguidor del realismo mágico.

La reacción de los sujetos y actores implicados

A diferencia de lo acaecido hace dos semanas a propósito de la expropiación de YPF por el gobierno argentino, la reacción de los diversos sujetos y actores implicados ha resultado mucho más templada. En efecto, hemos anticipado que el gobierno boliviano se ha apresurado a asegurar que en un plazo de 180 días negociará el precio justo de la indemnización sobre la base de lo invertido por la empresa española en su filial boliviana. La tasación de la empresa nacionalizada será encomendada, por mutuo acuerdo entre el gobierno y REE, a una empresa especializada e independiente de reconocido prestigio. Ello apunta, en principio, a una indemnización rápida y adecuada, aunque habrá que comprobarlo en la práctica. La empresa española REE ha declarado que no comparte pero respeta “la decisión soberana sobre la estructura del sector eléctrico del país”, siempre que este proceso responda al Derecho Internacional (DI), y se ha puesto a disposición del gobierno boliviano para “alcanzar una compensación adecuada”. En este sentido, el presidente de REE ya se ha entrevistado en La Paz con el ministro de Hidrocarburos y Energía para tratar todas estas cuestiones. REE parece centrada en conseguir una solución negociada y no ha planteado por el momento la posibilidad de una demanda internacional contra Bolivia.

Por lo que se refiere al Estado español, que es accionista del 20% de REE a través de la SEPI, fuentes gubernamentales han afirmado que las situaciones de Repsol en Argentina y REE en Bolivia son muy diferentes e incluso han reconocido la legitimidad de la decisión tomada por Bolivia respecto a TDE, confiando en que la valoración del justiprecio que se realice por una empresa independiente satisfaga a REE. Tampoco parece que vayan a adoptarse medidas de retorsión como las emprendidas por el gobierno español contra Argentina a propósito de las importaciones de biodiesel. En el ámbito de la UE, organización que también es competente en materia de protección de las inversiones extranjeras en virtud del Artículo 207.1 de su Tratado de Funcionamiento, el portavoz de la Comisión en asuntos comerciales ha transmitido la preocupación del ejecutivo comunitario pero al mismo tiempo ha expresado su convencimiento de que el gobierno boliviano abonará una indemnización pronta y adecuada a la empresa española.

El valor y la repercusión económica de esta nacionalización para el negocio de REE es insignificante frente a la de YPF; sencillamente no son hechos comparables. La filial boliviana de REE apenas representaba el 1,5% de su negocio según balance, y las inversiones de TDE se habían ido reduciendo drásticamente en los últimos años; así pues, el impacto de la nacionalización tanto en los resultados como en el patrimonio de REE será mínimo. Por otra parte, conviene subrayar que el gobierno argentino no informó previamente al gobierno español acerca de la expropiación de YPF ni le ha asegurado que habrá indemnización, lo que de confirmarse la transformaría en una confiscación. El gobierno boliviano, al menos, informó al gobierno español unas horas antes de la expropiación y ha asegurado que se tasará la inversión hecha. Además, la intervención previa por decreto de YPF, el trato dado a sus ejecutivos y los métodos y formas empleados antes y después de la expropiación han sido francamente insólitos y muy inamistosos en el marco tradicional de las relaciones hispano-argentinas. Dicho esto, conviene no obstante analizar la repercusión jurídica y política de la nacionalización de TDE, que ha vuelto a dañar la presencia y la imagen de España y de sus empresas en Latinoamérica. Sus efectos perjudiciales radican justamente en el hecho de haberse producido dos semanas después de la de YPF, lo que le ha otorgado un eco mediático y un valor simbólico que trascienden desde un punto de vista político la razonable gestión jurídica y muy leve repercusión económica de la nacionalización de TDE.

El régimen jurídico internacional aplicable a las inversiones españolas en Bolivia

Recuérdese que el DI no prohíbe las expropiaciones y nacionalizaciones siempre que se respeten ciertas condiciones por el Estado que las lleva a cabo, en especial la de una indemnización pronta y adecuada (véase el ARI nº 31/2012 citado anteriormente). En concreto, el régimen jurídico que se aplica a las inversiones españolas en Bolivia está sometido a un conjunto de circunstancias particulares desde la perspectiva del DI. En primer lugar, el acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones (BOE, 15/X/2002) fue denunciado por Bolivia a principios del presente año. En segundo lugar, Bolivia se retiró del Convenio CIADI en el año 2007. Y en tercer lugar, como argumento de ambiente, el Artículo 366 de la Constitución Política de Bolivia dispone para las empresas extranjeras dedicadas al sector de los hidrocarburos (aunque éste no sería el caso de REE) que “no se reconocerá en ningún caso tribunal ni jurisdicción extranjera y no podrán invocar situación excepcional alguna de arbitraje internacional, ni recurrir a reclamaciones diplomáticas”. ¿Qué impacto pueden tener estas circunstancias tanto para REE como para cualquier otro inversor español afectado si, en defecto de una solución negociada entre la empresa española y Bolivia, fuera necesario definir una estrategia judicial ante la nacionalización de TDE?

El Artículo 13.1 del acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones establece que cualquiera de las dos partes puede notificar su denuncia por vía diplomática. La denuncia produce efectos jurídicos entre las partes transcurridos seis meses desde su notificación. Además, en virtud del Artículo 13.2 del citado acuerdo, la protección de la inversión efectuada por un inversor extranjero se garantiza por un período adicional de 10 años a partir de la fecha en que produzca efectos jurídicos la denuncia del acuerdo. Por tanto, REE podrá seguir invocando los derechos conferidos por el acuerdo a los inversores españoles más allá del próximo mes de julio. No así, por el contrario, aquellos inversores españoles que se establezcan en Bolivia transcurrida esa fecha crítica, quienes ya no quedarán amparados bajo el acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones. Sirva de aviso para navegantes.

El acuerdo citado impone a Bolivia una serie de obligaciones respecto a REE, como no obstaculizar mediante medidas injustificadas o discriminatorias la gestión de las inversiones extranjeras, proporcionar a las mismas un trato justo y equitativo, y ejercer toda medida de nacionalización o expropiación por una causa de utilidad pública, conforme a las disposiciones legales y de manera no discriminatoria. También permitiría a la empresa española, llegado el caso, interponer una demanda contra Bolivia ante un tribunal arbitral internacional conforme a lo establecido en el Artículo 11.2 del acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones. Dada la política de nacionalizaciones llevada a cabo por el gobierno boliviano, no parece prima facie que éste haya violado las disposiciones del acuerdo al nacionalizar TDE, reduciéndose el problema a la fijación de una indemnización pronta y adecuada. Nada que ver con el caso de YPF, ya que puede reprocharse al gobierno argentino una conducta de mala fe y discriminatoria contra Repsol.

Desde una perspectiva procesal, importa poner de relieve las consecuencias que tiene para REE la retirada de Bolivia del Convenio CIADI en el año 2007. Se trata, en definitiva, de determinar si esta retirada condicionaría o impediría la presentación por parte de la empresa española de una solicitud de arbitraje ante un tribunal internacional creado en el ámbito del CIADI. El Artículo 11 del acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones contiene una aceptación expresa y general por parte de Bolivia y España a la jurisdicción de los tribunales internacionales y, entre ellos, a los que se constituyen en el CIADI. Este precepto, además, establece que en el “caso de que una de las Partes Contratantes no fuera Estado Contratante del citado Convenio, la controversia se podrá resolver conforme al Mecanismo Complementario para la Administración de Procedimientos de Conciliación, Arbitraje y Comprobación de Hechos por la Secretaría del CIADI”.

En otras palabras, a tenor del acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones y aunque Bolivia ya no forme parte del Convenio CIADI desde el año 2007, REE tendría abierta la posibilidad de plantear un arbitraje de inversión aprovechando las reglas procesales del Mecanismo Complementario del CIADI en virtud del Artículo 11.2 del acuerdo. Además, a la luz de lo estipulado por el citado Artículo 13.2, REE y cualquier otro inversor español establecido en Bolivia antes de julio de 2012 conservan esta facultad de iniciar un arbitraje ante aquel foro por un periodo adicional de 10 años.

Ahora bien, habría que acoger con mucha prudencia la opción procesal de acudir al Mecanismo Complementario del CIADI. Bolivia se ha manifestado abiertamente contraria a resolver sus controversias derivadas de inversiones ante los tribunales internacionales y, en particular, el CIADI. Basta recordar el tenor del ya citado Artículo 366 de su vigente Constitución para comprender las reticencias del gobierno boliviano al arbitraje internacional de inversión. Por ello y a nuestro juicio, el recurso al Mecanismo Complementario del CIADI por parte de REE o de cualquier otro inversor español afectado constituye en el momento presente una opción poco aconsejable. En efecto, la práctica demuestra cómo Bolivia ha logrado dilatar y/o esquivar la mayoría de las demandas arbitrales interpuestas por inversores extranjeros ante el CIADI (Aguas del Tunari S.A. c. Bolivia, Caso CIADI nº ARB/02/3; E.T.I. Euro Telecom International N.V. c. Bolivia, Caso CIADI nº ARB/07/28; y Pan American Energy LLC c. Bolivia, Caso CIADI nº ARB/10/8). De hecho, sólo parece mantenerse activo el caso Quiborax S.A., Non-Metallic Minerals S.A. & Allan Fosk Kaplún c. Bolivia, Caso CIADI nº ARB/06/2.

Esto no significa que, además del recurso a los tribunales bolivianos, que por supuesto no recomendamos, REE o cualquier otro inversor español afectado no dispongan de medios procesales adecuados para defender sus derechos en sede internacional. Junto a los tribunales arbitrales creados en el seno del CIADI, el Artículo 11.2 del acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones también ofrece a los inversores la posibilidad de iniciar un arbitraje ad hoc administrado por alguna institución internacional, como la Corte Permanente de Arbitraje de La Haya, de conformidad con las reglas procesales de la Comisión de las Naciones Unidas para el Derecho Mercantil Internacional (CNUDMI). En este sentido, por ejemplo, a finales del año 2010 Bolivia consintió someter a arbitraje internacional ante la Corte Permanente de Arbitraje y conforme a las reglas de la CNUDMI una controversia con inversores norteamericanos y británicos (Guaracachi America, INC. (USA) and Rurelec PLC (UK) c. Bolivia, Caso CPA nº AA406).

En definitiva, tras lo acontecido en Argentina hace pocos días, la nacionalización de TDE por parte del gobierno boliviano constituye una nueva evidencia de la utilidad que presentan los acuerdos sobre protección de inversiones celebrados por España. En el caso de TDE, la predisposición de ambas partes a negociar una compensación satisfactoria hace suponer que finalmente se evitará la procelosa vía judicial, es decir, la interposición de una demanda por parte de REE contra Bolivia ante una jurisdicción arbitral. Si éste no fuera el caso, los responsables de REE deberán valorar con cautela todas las opciones que les sigue ofreciendo el acuerdo hispano-boliviano sobre protección de inversiones. A tenor de la práctica que hemos citado, no parece aconsejable iniciar un arbitraje de inversiones ante el CIADI y sería mejor optar por la vía de un arbitraje internacional ante la Corte Permanente de Arbitraje conforme a las reglas de la CNUDMI.

Conclusiones:Desde una óptica puramente económica, la nacionalización de TDE es un asunto minúsculo si se la compara con la de YPF por las razones ya apuntadas. Cabe esperar, si el gobierno boliviano actúa de buena fe, que se cerrará con una compensación satisfactoria para REE, lo que la haría jurídicamente inocua. Pero desde una perspectiva política, no puede desdeñarse el valor simbólico de la misma a dos semanas de la expropiación de YPF, que sí ha sido muy dañina para la imagen y la presencia de España y de sus empresas en Latinoamérica. No tanto por la expropiación en sí como por los procedimientos belicosos y desconsiderados empleados por el gobierno argentino, propios de una añeja retórica anticolonial, sin olvidar su amenaza de no abonar compensación alguna por la misma. Es cierto que el gobierno boliviano ha guardado algo mejor las formas evitando incurrir en demostraciones demagógicas tan toscas como las protagonizadas por el gobierno argentino y la clase política de aquel país. Pero la importancia de la nacionalización de TDE, a pesar de su irrelevancia económica y de su hasta ahora razonable gestión jurídica, proviene de su proximidad a la de YPF, porque ha multiplicado la resonancia política de esta última.

Ahora bien, lo peor con mucho de la nacionalización de TDE es su carácter sintomático de un estado de opinión proclive, en materia de inversiones, a la instauración de un clima de inseguridad jurídica, donde el derecho cede siempre frente a razones de oportunidad y voluntad política, de tal forma que las reglas de juego o bien no existen, o no son claras o se cambian de la noche a la mañana. Las empresas extranjeras harán bien en revisar sus negocios en algunos Estados latinoamericanos donde se aprecia un incremento evidente del riesgo político al calor de circunstancias e imponderables de diversa naturaleza que impiden o hacen muy compleja cualquier previsión empresarial a medio y largo plazo en esos mercados. Las empresas españolas, en particular, deben proceder a dicha revisión aún con más diligencia vista la concentración de sus inversiones (y riesgos) en la región. Esta es una buena enseñanza, que ya siguen al pie de la letra los inversores desde hace tiempo, porque el volumen de inversión extranjera directa en Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador y Venezuela es muy pequeña si se la compara con la que reciben Brasil, Colombia, Chile, México y Perú.

En cuanto al gobierno español, todo apunta a que intentará contrarrestar a medio plazo con la mayor decisión, mediante la vía diplomática, los daños sufridos a causa de estos inesperados sucesos. Recuérdese que a primeros de febrero, apenas tres meses antes de la nacionalización de TDE, el ministro boliviano de Exteriores visitó España y constató con su homólogo español el “buen estado de las relaciones económicas bilaterales y de la notable presencia de empresas españolas” en Bolivia, así como la voluntad de su gobierno de seguir fortaleciendo las relaciones bilaterales. Por tanto, no se trata sólo de que la realidad imponga que los intereses de España y de las repúblicas americanas pueden diferir e incluso entrar en grave contradicción, por ejemplo en materia de protección de inversiones, lo que es muy normal. Sino que ello es aún más probable cuando algunos de esos Estados padecen regímenes políticos con los que resulta difícil mantener relaciones fiables y previsibles, porque son democracias de muy baja calidad, dominadas por el cesarismo, el populismo y el nacionalismo, políticamente inestables y sin seguridad jurídica.

Convendrá ponderar con mucho tino la conducta a seguir a corto y medio plazo en Latinoamérica. A corto plazo y de cara a Argentina, al gobierno español y a Repsol les interesa que la nacionalización de TDE acabe bien, para que contraste con la expropiación de YPF, que quizás recorra por desgracia otro camino. A medio plazo, quede constancia de que conviene discernir en las relaciones con las repúblicas americanas y tomar buena nota de aquellas sometidas a circunstancias de grave riesgo político, con las consecuencias que de ello se derivan para el respeto del DI en materia de protección de inversiones. El gobierno español debe informar cumplidamente a las empresas que deseen invertir en esos países de los riesgos que corren, al margen de las ventajas que sin duda ofrece la comunidad de cultura a la hora de invertir en aquella región.

Carlos Jiménez Piernas, catedrático de Derecho Internacional Público y Relaciones Internacionales, Cátedra Jean Monnet de la Comisión Europea, Universidad de Alcalá.

Widely reported in the French press and blog world, the comment came from a publication described as run by the mayor of Tehran, who is reportedly close to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Some French bloggers treated it as Loony Tunes stuff from Mullahland. But the editorial had a matter-of-fact, non-hysterical tone.

“A victory will lead to a softening of Paris’ policies toward Iran,” it said. “France under Sarkozy was the strong voice in the European Union against Iran. Hollande’s victory will bring nuances to this approach.”

That’s bang-on correct about Sarkozy.

He was the hand holding the prod that pushed Europe toward enacting sanctions on Iranian oil scheduled to take effect July 1. And he took pride in policies repeatedly jabbing at what France maintained were the Obama administration’s illusions and foot-dragging concerning Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons.

While Sarkozy was president, a bipartisan French National Assembly report took a shot at President Obama for frittering away a whole year in the nuclear countdown with his failed “outstretched hand” initiative. The French proposed an Iran oil embargo at the United Nations only to have it shelved for a softer, embargo-less American proposal.

No country had a tougher stance. France believed that the best way to head off an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites was by intensifying sanctions, wary diplomacy, and an unyielding interpretation of the constraints placed by the U.N. Security Council on the mullahs’ atomic ambitions.

But what about Hollande?

Will there be nuances in his approach — exactly what the Iranian commentary expected to see — that dilute the hard French line on nonproliferation and sanctions?

France had considered the Iranian history of trickery and noncompliance as so profound that it was willing to stand alone in saying there could be no concessions in bargaining with Tehran. In view of talks with the Iranians, it rejected any possible deviation from the Security Council’s demands of suspension of all Iranian uranium enrichment, and access “without delay” for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to every site it designates as suspect.

Now, the broad issue comes quickly to hand with a new French government. On May 23, the Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany meet with Iran in Baghdad.

The question of whether France will continue to stand up as driver of sanctions and a bulwark of disbelief concerning Iran’s intentions to renounce its nuclear program challenges in significance Hollande’s woofing about renegotiating the E.U.’s debt and deficit consolidation program.

You can take it to the bank that the Europeans will come together (belatedly and insufficiently) on producing some growth-related measures without tearing up their austerity compact.

But France agreeing to offer Iran the right to keep uranium enriched to 3.5 or 5 percent — the Obama administration reportedly wants to propose this as bait in seeking a deal with Iran — could be portrayed as a French surrender of its traditional antiproliferation culture.

Not many here would believe that the West could get as a quid pro quo a concession of total freedom for I.A.E.A. inspection teams in Iran. Besides, under Sarkozy, the French also have been saying that Iran’s five stockpiled tons of 3.5 percent enriched uranium (theoretically convertible with additional processing into several nukes) would be next to impossible to control.

The contradictions in the situation and its implications for French reliability and independent action are great.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is apparently Hollande’s choice as defense minister, told small groups in Washington more than a month ago that a Socialist presidency would mean no basic change in French Iran policy.

But this week, I spoke to a man who had just talked to Hollande about Iran. My friend’s unequivocal impression was that the Socialist president will be closer to Obama’s line than Sarkozy’s.

Obama’s future may hang on the Iran issue through election day in November, but Hollande’s does not, and he might easily prefer a recognizant friend in the White House to a Republican.

This was not at all confirmed in a first interview with Hollande on Iran by Jean-Marie Colombani, a former editor of Le Monde, for the political Web site Slate.fr.

In it, Hollande said he had no criticism of Sarkozy’s “firm position” on Iranian proliferation. Indeed, he said he would “confirm it with the same force and willpower,” and that sanctions “must be reinforced for as long as necessary.”

He added: “I believe it is still possible to achieve the desired goal through negotiations.”

Considering the circumstances, that’s a circumlocution from a man practiced in imprecision worthy of the mullahs’ negotiators.

Whatever Hollande’s final position becomes, it will be impossible for the French, so clear for so long on Iran, to fog over a change of policy with a spray of ambiguity that would fundamentally alter — or soften, as the Tehran Emrooz editorial called it — the way the world approaches Iran’s nuclear threat.

John Vinocur is senior correspondent at The International Herald Tribune.

Las debilidades y vacíos de Estado generan oportunidades para actividades criminales. En México, por ejemplo, se roban el 30% de la gasolina de los oleoductos de PEMEX. Durante la Guerra Fría surgieron interpretaciones que planteaban que las causas de la violencia eran el Comunismo y la Teología de la Liberación y no el carácter autoritario de los Estados.

La violencia ha sido históricamente determinante en la construcción del Estado y sus instituciones. El monopolio de la violencia legítima es la primera condición para que haya Estado. Monopolio implica inexistencia de poderes armados que cuestionen la autoridad en el territorio y, en la actualidad, legitimidad implica respeto a los derechos humanos. En la segunda mitad del siglo pasado hubo en Latinoamérica insurgencias que se explicaban, entre otras razones, por la falta de neutralidad política del poder coercitivo. Fruto de aquella violencia surgieron instituciones democráticas. Ejércitos y policías terminaron siendo neutrales y las izquierdas pudieron por fin gobernar. Ahora estamos frente a una violencia criminal que ha evidenciado debilidades de los Estados y que, igual, obliga a construir institucionalidad, no importa que los delincuentes no tengan propuesta política.

Los problemas de: ineficiencia e insuficiencia de las policías, funcionamiento de la justicia, calidad de las prisiones, ausencia de Estado en el territorio y pobreza y desatención social a población con proclividad al delito; son, en algunos países, gigantescos. En Honduras se incendian prisiones y en El Salvador se cree en milagrosas negociaciones con criminales. En la mayoría de países la seguridad está en manos de instituciones no reformadas heredadas del autoritarismo. Los regímenes autoritarios delegaron en personas violentas el monopolio de la violencia en representación del Estado. Policías y ejércitos se llenaron de matones, ignorantes y corruptos, mal pagados, pero leales al poder. Violencia, corrupción e ilegalidad han sido antivalores tolerados entre militares y policías. No ha existido una barrera moral entre autoridades y delincuentes. Ejércitos y policías fueron preparados para combatir rebeliones y evitar golpes de Estado. Muchas de esas viejas estructuras han colapsado o han sido cooptadas por los criminales. Por otro lado, la liberalización económica redujo las capacidades de los Estados al multiplicar la seguridad privada en detrimento de la seguridad pública. Las drogas son entonces parte del problema, pero no la causa.

La violencia de México ha tenido tal impacto, que puso el tema de la legalización o despenalización de las drogas en la agenda de la reciente Cumbre de las Américas. La esperanza es encontrar una ruta rápida para acabar con la violencia. Inmediatamente esta demanda fue considerada una causa progresista porque permitía culpar a EE UU, rechazaba el conservadurismo moralista de la prohibición y no se comprometía con los temas de ley y orden que son considerados de derechas. Sin embargo, al menos para Latinoamérica, el debate estaría entre dejar que las drogas sean reguladas por el mercado, como han hecho las derechas con todo en los últimos años, o se resuelven los temas de fondo de construcción de Estado. La alergia de la academia y los progresistas por la agenda de seguridad dejó este tema con mucha gente en las graderías exigiendo, pero pocos en la cancha resolviendo; se ha aceptado implícitamente que la seguridad no es un tema científico, sino de matones.

Es un error hablar de guerra contra las drogas, porque las guerras terminan y la producción y el consumo de drogas no terminará nunca. Sin embargo, la legalización como “solución mágica” puede convertirse en escusa para “dejarlas pasar”, en vez de fortalecer al Estado. El resultado sería la institucionalización del crimen. A Colombia la lucha contra el crimen la está transformando en un mejor país, la seguridad y la justicia son ahora más eficientes y el Estado, después de décadas de ausencia, ha comenzado a volverse política, económica y socialmente responsable de todo el territorio. La violencia está obligando a Brasil a ocuparse, por fin, de las favelas y a México a depurar y modernizar sus tradicionalmente corruptas policías.

En Guatemala los ejércitos privados tienen tres veces más hombres que el Estado, los ricos se resisten ferozmente a pagar impuestos, los policías son escandalosamente corruptos, los criminales dominan extensos territorios y en los años ochenta los militares asesinaron a más de 100.000 personas. El gobierno de este país, con un general de presidente, se ha convertido ahora en el abanderado de la causa “progresista” por la legalización de las drogas.

Joaquín Villalobos fue guerrillero salvadoreño y es consultor para la resolución de conflictos internacionales.

Washington’s oddly relaxed approach to India’s nuclear program goes back to 2008, when Congress approved the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Under it, India agreed to separate its military and civil nuclear facilities and to place the latter under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards in exchange for a U.S. guarantee to work toward full civil nuclear cooperation with New Delhi. Today India is still the only country to have been accommodated in this way since the establishment of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1968.

In 2008, as a member of the House who sat on all of the major security committees, I was concerned about the quiet acceptance of India’s nuclear activities that the agreement represented. I was one of 59 representatives who opposed it. Four years later, India’s missile test leaves me even more troubled by Washington’s tacit acceptance of New Delhi’s nuclear program.

The timing of the launch was puzzling to say the least. It came just one week afterNorth Korea’sfailed missile test, which cost that country 240,000 metric tons of food aid — estimated to be worth $200 million — that Washington had promised in February.

India has an explicitly stated no-first-use policy and is widely viewed as a U.S. security ally. But that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to India’s actions. It was noticed around the world that Washington reacted so strongly against one missile test in the region while essentially turning a blind eye to another. Pakistan quickly followed with its own missile test and is believed to be expanding its already large nuclear arsenal at a time when its government is fragile and U.S.-Pakistan relations are at a low point.

These tests also occurred just a month before a second round of talks scheduled to take place between Iran and the U.S., China, France, Britain, Russia and Germany. Why, Iran might wonder, should it dismantle its nuclear program if India, which also once faced tough U.S. sanctions, can now get away with firing a long-range missile?

A North Korean foreign minister made an uncomfortably similar point a few months after the brutal death of Moammar Kadafi. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the foreign minister said in defense of his country’s nuclear program. North Korea’s songun ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways,” he stressed, and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean peninsula.

In other words, leaders be warned: Dismantle your nuclear program in response to international pressure and you’ll find yourself dismantled, perhaps at the hands of your own people.

In Tokyo last month, an Indian policymaker told me there was nothing significant about the timing of India’s missile test — that New Delhi had been planning it for a long time. It may be that India, and now Pakistan, thinks such conduct, the byproduct of a long-strained relationship, will not affect events outside of their sandbox. This myopic view is dangerous.

In recent weeks, the word “wary” appeared in many reports about New Delhi’s missile launch. “India, wary of Beijing, tests nuclear-capable missile,” one headline read. Other articles noted that “China and Pakistan reacted warily” and that the U.S. had issued a “wary” endorsement.

But “wary” may not be wise. Just as the killing of Kadafi in Libya may teach that giving up weapons of mass destruction makes you vulnerable, so these tests — without serious responses — may also spur reckless conduct. Wisdom counsels zero tolerance.

Jane Harman is director, president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was a nine-term congresswoman from California and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee from 2002 to ’06.

Mr. Zhao must have been very desperate because I had just graduated from university and was working as junior legal consultant for a state-owned company, and knew nothing about road-building contracts.

In today’s China, business deals are hardly ever carried out fairly. Mostly it’s a matter of who you know, or who you pay off, and then the proceeds are divvied up and down the chain of corruption.

Mr. Zhao was the lowliest link in the chain — the person who actually did some work. He claimed to be able to take on any kind of construction job. The price he was willing to pay for kickbacks was irrelevant because in his quest to make money, the more he had to kick back, the less he’d pay for materials. It was simple math.

To try to get me interested, Mr. Zhao offered me 100,000 yuan (almost $16,000) per kilometer of road built if I could help him land a contract. I initially thought he was a con man but soon realized that this offer was entirely normal and in accordance with the Rules of China game. Mr. Zhao was not a con man, he was simply an ambitious small-time operator lacking the right connections. Like most Chinese people, he was harmed by corruption yet he dearly wanted in.

I will never forget something Mr. Zhao said to me: There’s not a single straight road in China; they were all built with kickbacks.

No one stays clean when traveling along these sparkling, yet tainted roads. Corruption is the norm, it has become the unwritten law, an article of faith. It is everywhere. You don’t have to engage corruption, corruption engages you. It follows you, no matter where you go. No one can stay clean.

Journalists take “travel expenses” for writing articles. Professors ask for a “consulting fee” to go to doctoral seminars. Doctors expect red packets of cash for performing operations. Even donations to charities and temples are subject to corruption.

Good luck to the person who tries to stay clean.

In the autumn of 1997, a co-worker absconded with company funds. My supervisor and I were asked to accompany two police officers to another province to investigate. As is common practice, my company was expected to cover all the police officers’ expenses.

One evening after dinner, an officer suggested we go to a nightclub to have some fun — a polite euphemism for hiring prostitutes. My supervisor was a bit too slow to acquiesce and the policeman was furious. He spent the next hour cursing my boss. “You ungrateful idiot!” he shouted. “Am I asking too much? Did I ask for money?”

My boss and I were speechless. But deep down, I felt for the police officer’s grievance and I think most Chinese people would feel the same way.

In China, there is a commonly accepted protocol when dealing with the police: If the police agree to help you, it is your job to meet all their demands. It is not considered corruption for an officer to “charge extra money to do his job” — it is normal practice. And that night, our officer was being more than fair — he did not even ask for money. He merely wanted to “have some fun.” He had every right to be upset, I remember thinking.

If corruption is inevitable, then people inevitably force themselves to get used to it, and even defend its legitimacy. Most of us Chinese go from being shocked to being numb.

In 2001, I was working for a different company in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The day before the Chinese New Year, two officers from the local Bureau of Industrial and Commercial Administration turned up. Their visit was to offer “thanks” for our “support of their work.” They wanted “to listen to our suggestions.”

My boss knew the rules of the game well. She told me to prepare two envelopes. One contained 2,000 yuan, roughly $300, for the section chief, the other 1,000 yuan, for his assistant. We had tea together and talked about work. Everyone was happy. My boss later told me that she had done this many times. She did not see the 3,000 yuan as a bribe. It was merely a “friendly gesture.”

These are trivial examples from the recent past that do not represent a full picture of corruption in China. Soon I came to hear about and witness far more serious and disturbing things: a village chief embezzling several hundred million yuan; a provincial governor embezzling several billion yuan; a woman able to become a high official by selling her body; an attorney presenting a virgin to a judge …

At a time when I was naïve, I thought that the officials at the highest levels of government genuinely opposed corruption and that it was those on the lower levels who were not necessarily clean. Later, when I saw for myself the ever-increasing assets of corrupt officials, when I saw that every level of government resists the reporting of assets of civil servants, and when I saw that the mass media has become more and more constrained in their reporting on corruption cases, I came to realize that no one in China’s bureaucracy genuinely opposes corruption.

In the summer of 2009, in the middle of a well-publicized anti-mafia campaign spearheaded by Bo Xilai, the now-disgraced former head of Chongqing caught up in a murder and corruption scandal, the Chongqing Public Security Bureau invited me to Chongqing to write another book on corruption in the legal profession, like my novel “Dancing Through Red Dust,” which they considered “incisive.” The idea, I assumed, was that a new book by me would stress the significance of the anti-mafia campaign in Chongqing, and the government’s determination to combat corruption.

I turned them down. By then I had learned that you can’t fix corruption without fixing our noxious system, which lacks a robust legal and judicial regime. Until China has a new system based on the rule of law, any anti-corruption campaign would be simply for show. And, of course, anti-corruption campaigns are often themselves corrupt.

The leadership in Beijing needs corruption and actually encourages it. Corruption is the system’s natural lubricant, without which everything would grind to a halt. There’s no shortage of upright people in China, but in this system even the upright must study the crooked arts simply to survive.

Not a single person in China can completely break free from corruption, and not a single road is straight.

Murong Xuecun, the pen name of Hao Qun, is one of China’s early Internet writers, best known for the novel Leave me Alone, A Novel of Chengdu and Dancing Through Red Dust. This article was translated from the Chinese by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz.

¡Como cambió nuestra opinión al día siguiente! Visitamos varias organizaciones, organizaciones no gubernamentales, instituciones y universidades. Conocimos a gente joven, a artistas, periodistas, representantes de la Organización de Cooperación Islámica y del Banco de Desarrollo Islámico. Y siempre, a donde íbamos, las personas que más nos impactaban eran las mujeres. Sí, van cubiertas de cuerpo entero y con velo, pero sus mentes son libres.

Cuando visitamos la universidad para mujeres Dar al-Hekma, que significa casa de la sabiduría en árabe, conocimos a estudiantes y profesoras seguras de sí mismas, con mentes brillantes y personalidades fuertes. En esta universidad les enseñan a ser dueñas de su propio destino, a ser empresarias. “Las chicas que salen de esta universidad no buscan trabajo, lo crean”, nos explicaron. Las estudiantes también incorporan su cultura en los proyectos que diseñan. Por ejemplo, cuando bosquejaron casas de bajo coste, la cocina estaba incorporada de tal forma que las mujeres podían moverse libremente en ella sin ser vistas desde otras habitaciones. En esta universidad generan a un nuevo tipo de mujer, uno que está acostumbrado a hablar con jefes de Estado y que no tiene miedo de decir lo que piensa.

Más tarde, en un almuerzo con periodistas de Arab News, nos preguntaron qué pensábamos de las mujeres de Arabia Saudí. Respondí que a lo largo de todo el viaje que nos llevó por tres países —Marruecos, Jordania y Arabia Saudí— siempre hubo una conexión instantánea entre las mujeres de nuestro grupo, de origen europeo y estadounidense, y las mujeres del lugar. Y entre todas las mujeres que conocimos, las que más nos impresionaron fueron las saudíes. Tal vez porque no coincidían para nada con nuestra imagen de la mujer oprimida, tímida y sin voz ni voto. Al contrario, las mujeres que conocimos son fuertes, orgullosas, francas y luchadoras.

“Esta es una edad de oro para las mujeres saudíes. Cualquier cosa que hagamos, seremos las primeras mujeres saudíes en haberlo hecho”, nos explicó una chica en una reunión con jóvenes del centro Rey Abdulaziz para Culturas del Mundo. Expresaron que ven más oportunidades de éxito para ellas en su país que en Occidente, a pesar de que es más difícil. Las felicitamos por ser tan activas y notamos cuán poco, en cambio, habían dicho sus colegas hombres. “Nos han dejado de lado demasiado tiempo, ahora nos toca hablar”, nos dijo una joven.

No crean que este viaje me ha lavado el cerebro, que ya no veo los problemas. Estas mismas mujeres nos hablaron sobre cómo aún necesitan el permiso de un hombre para trabajar o viajar, cómo no pueden conducir ni hacer deporte abiertamente o lo difícil que es tener citas con hombres. Los retos a los que se enfrentan son varios y complejos. “Ten en mente siempre el impacto y el momento adecuado para los cambios”, nos aconsejaron. Mientras tanto, las mujeres saudíes se mueven como el agua: cuando se topa con un obstáculo lo bordea y sigue su camino.

Gabriela Keseberg Dávalos es periodista boliviana/alemana, co-fundadora y miembro de la junta directiva de International Young Women Partnership, una red que impulsa las carreras de mujeres, y becaria de UNAOC 2012.

And President Barack Obama, who has ramped up the campaign fiction that Republicans have declared a “war on women,” will continue the detente with the real war on women, in Communist China, where real blood is being shed in a fanatical crusade against mothers and their children.

Happy Mother’s Day.

As of this writing, Chen’s future is uncertain, but not so uncertain are the barbaric measures the Chinese government takes against women who choose to exercise their reproductive rights by having children. Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. KennedyCenter for Justice and Human Rights, described the incredible measures in The Huffington Post:

A woman who defies the government by having more than one child “can be fined, and so can her family and neighbors. She can be beaten, ostracized or detained. The belongings of her entire family can be confiscated, their houses bulldozed, and her husband, parents and siblings held hostage until she turns herself in. When she gives in to authorities, she faces a state-ordered abortion — with no regard for her health risks or religious beliefs, or viability of her child — and forced insertion of an IUD. Even further, under Chinese law, a woman may be sterilized by the state if she has a second child, refuses IUD (intrauterine device) insertion, or fails to appear for one of the quarterly uterus inspections with the population police.

“According to the government of China itself, 38 percent of women of child-bearing age have been sterilized, and China performs 35,000 abortions a day, often conducted under coercion. The vast majority are gender selective, as boys continue to be favored over girls. … One of China’s lesser-publicized tactics is to post a woman’s name on a bulletin board in her community under the heading ‘birth: not allowed.’ It’s a practice that works by enlisting her neighbors and friends as deputy family planning thugs, empowered to monitor her reproductive decisions and notify the police if she becomes pregnant.”

Like rape, forced abortion is perhaps the most hideous violation of a woman’s bodily integrity, not to mention her freedom and dreams. And yet it doesn’t seem to be much of a priority for President Obama, the beneficiary of Planned Parenthood campaign munificence.

Obama, for example, chose not to mention the vile practice in an April 6 speech at a White House Forum on Women and the Economy, a speech in which he enumerated all the other injustices committed against women. Last August, Vice President Joe Biden betrayed the administration’s ho-hum approach to the practice in a speech at Sichuan University in Chengdu. “(Your) policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.”

Interestingly, the administration is getting pummeled more for its “missteps” in the handling of Chen’s flight to the American Embassy in Beijing than for its tolerance of forced abortions and sterilizations. Certainly Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and theU.S. State Department can be judged adversely for the still not fully understood actions that resulted in Chen’s return to China’s dominion. It is a sad day for a nation that prides itself as a beacon of liberty. But the administration’s bungling of the affair comes second to what amounts to its lip service — at best — condemnation of forced abortion and sterilization.

More appalling are population control adherents who obliquely suggest that China’s one-child policy might be the correct one because “breeders” are condemning Earth to ultimate destruction. As if the way to control population growth is to control women.

Meanwhile, the media will continue to refer to Chen as a “human rights activist.” Yes, he is that, but more. To describe him simply as a human rights activist fogs the essence of Chen’s struggle to end forced abortions and sterilization. Calling Chen a “blind activist,” as if he were an advocate for the sightless, also is a euphonic, simplistic mislabeling.

The truth is, Chen is a pro-life activist. He deserves to be called what he is, if not in recognition of the righteousness of his cause, then at least for the sake of simple accuracy.

Dennis Byrne, a Chicago writer, blogs in The Barbershop on www.chicagonow.com.

Un repaso a la lista de los Premios Nobel de Ciencias (Física, Química, Medicina o Fisiología) muestra que los nobeleles que tuvieron como lengua materna el castellano son: nuestro Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Medicina, 1906), el citado Bernardo Houssay, Severo Ochoa (Medicina, 1959; español), Luis Federico Leloir (Química, 1970; argentino), Baruj Benecerraf (Medicina, 1980; venezolano), César Milstein (Medicina, 1984, argentino) y Mario Molina (Química, 1995; mexicano). Siete en total; no muchos, pero en realidad la cifra es engañosa y exagerada: Ochoa, Leloir, Benecerraf y Molina obtuvieron el galardón por trabajos realizados en Estados Unidos, país cuya nacionalidad adoptaron, salvo Leloir; y las investigaciones de Milstein se llevaron a cabo en Inglaterra, nación de la que terminó siendo súbdito. Dos son las conclusiones posibles: los hijos de España e Hispanoamérica son capaces de logros originales y notables en ciencia, pero suelen conseguirlos como exiliados científicos de sus patrias de origen, razón ésta que acaso explique el por qué no han sido, en cualquier caso, muy numerosos esos grandes científicos. Frente a esos siete nobeles de Ciencias, once obtuvieron el Nobel de Literatura escribiendo en nuestra lengua, y cinco el de la Paz. De la Paz, para ciudadanos de naciones que tantas asonadas y regímenes dictatoriales padecieron (acaso por eso mismo valoremos —algunos al menos— tanto la paz). No veamos, eso sí, inferioridades “raciales” sino de medios y de culturas, como revelan los porcentajes del PIB para I+D; según los Índices Estadísticos de la UNESCO (julio de 2011), éstos se distribuyen de la siguiente manera (obviamente existen diferencias notables dentro de las áreas geográficas elegidas): 2,6% en Norteamérica, 0,6% en Latinoamérica y el Caribe, 1,6 en Europa, 0,4% en África, 1,6% en Asia y 1,9% en Oceanía.

Estamos, por consiguiente, España y las naciones de Hispanoamérica, no sólo hermanados por la lengua sino también por la ciencia, o mejor por no haber logrado demasiados logros de alta distinción en ella. Durante las dos últimas décadas, la Real Academia Española ha intentado reforzar la comunidad lingüística que nos une, con una política que sin duda intensificará a partir de ahora, en un ámbito más amplio, el Instituto Cervantes bajo la dirección de Víctor García de la Concha. Ahora bien, siendo importante la lengua no lo es, en los sentidos que señalaba Houssay en la cita precedente, tanto como la ciencia. Lo que quiero sugerir aquí es que España proponga y lidere un proyecto de cooperación en investigación científica con las naciones hispanoamericanas (incluyendo también, si se cree conveniente, Brasil y Portugal). Un proyecto de colaboración en pie de igualdad, sin pretender ocupar una posición preferente, pretensión, por otra parte, que no se correspondería con la situación actual en todos los casos (Argentina, por ejemplo, aventaja a España en esfuerzos en I+D, y México en una nación con un gran potencial). No se trata que España descuide —no digamos ya abandonar— los caminos científicos que mantiene en la actualidad en Europa o en otros centros de élite, sino que haga de la colaboración científica hispanoamericana un proyecto preferente. ¿Por qué? En primer lugar, porque reforzar las relaciones, en el ámbito que sea, con Hispanoamérica no hará sino mejorar la posición internacional de España. Y para reforzar esas relaciones no basta ya con el argumento de la historia y de una lengua común. Vivimos en un mundo que necesita más que eso para mantener alianzas. Historia y lengua no son suficientes ya para mantener relaciones preferentes con naciones con regímenes como los que hoy existen en, por ejemplo, la Venezuela de Chávez, la Cuba de los Castro, la Bolivia de Evo Morales, el Ecuador de Correa o la Argentina de Fernández de Kirchner. Seguramente no sirven en ningún caso. Nos quejamos estos días —con razón y legitimidad— del atropello que el gobierno argentino ha llevado a cabo con REPSOL, y nos preocupa lo que puede suceder en el futuro, en ese país o en otros, con empresas españolas en Hispanoamérica. No estaría mal, sin embargo, ayudar a que no se nos vea en las naciones hermanas del otro lado del Atlántico como tanto tiempo se nos vio: una nación que ve a Hispanoamérica como un extenso y rentable mercado.

Un proyecto como este podría tener otro efecto positivo para España. Se trataría en mi opinión de seleccionar como campos de investigación comunes no cualquiera que forme parte del casi inabarcable dominio de la ciencia, sino sólo o preferentemente aquellos de los que quepa esperar con cierta rapidez retornos socioeconómicos; campos como, acaso, los vinculados al medio ambiente, combustibles, energías alternativas, medicina, química o comunicaciones. El efecto positivo para España al que me refería tiene que ver con hacer hincapié en el valor de programas específicos de investigación y desarrollo, asociados a necesidades socioeconómicas concretas. No ignoro que la ciencia es un complejo edificio, que puede sufrir cuando se limita la posibilidad de cultivar cualquier área. Pero tampoco desconozco que en países como España puede ser necesario elegir y hacerlo teniendo en cuenta aquellos campos más rentables (Japón lo hizo desde finales del siglo XIX, y no le fue mal), más aún en la actual coyuntura en la que tantas limitaciones se nos está imponiendo. Es absolutamente cierto que el apoyo público a la ciencia no ha sido ni todo lo constante ni todo lo firme que una nación como España exige, pero no lo es menos que en las más de tres décadas que llevamos de democracia, y aunque la calidad de la ciencia española haya mejorado notablemente, su grado de excelencia (el que realmente genera poder socioeconómico) no nos permite codearnos con los grandes países de la ciencia. Hemos avanzado, sí, pero ¿ha disminuido la distancia relativa que nos separa de ellos? Una distancia relativa que no se mide necesariamente en los denominados “índices de impacto”.

El próximo mes de noviembre se celebrará en Cádiz una nueva Cumbre Iberoamericana. No estaría mal que España introdujera en la agenda de esa reunión la posibilidad de aunar esfuerzos en investigación científica. No sólo constituiría una buena apuesta de futuro, también sería, simbólicamente, un justo homenaje a las ideas que animaron a los diputados españoles e hispanoamericanos que elaboraron en aquella noble ciudad la Constitución de 1812, una constitución que miraba al futuro de una manera más igualitaria de cómo habían sido en el pasado las relaciones entre España e Hispanoamérica. Además, y ahora que tanto hablamos del papel de la monarquía española, tal vez convendría involucrar en semejante proyecto al príncipe Felipe; sería una forma de asociarlo con una iniciativa que seguramente pueden comprender mejor los más jóvenes, porque de ellos, no lo olvidemos, es el futuro, un futuro que no se lee en los libros de historia sino en lugares como los laboratorios de investigación.

Refiriéndose a los pueblos de Iberoamérica, en el discurso que pronunció el 29 de noviembre de 1985 en el II Encuentro de Intelectuales por la Soberanía de los Pueblos de Nuestra América, el gran Gabriel García Márquez clamó contra la falta de una educación en la ciencia que lastraba el futuro de Iberoamérica: “Medio mundo celebrará el amanecer del año 2001 como una culminación milenaria, mientras nosotros empezamos apenas a vislumbrar los beneficios de la revolución industrial… los desmanes telúricos, los cataclismos políticos y sociales, las urgencias inmediatas de la vida diaria, de las dependencias de toda índole, de la pobreza y la injusticia, no nos han dejado mucho tiempo para asimilar las lecciones del pasado ni pensar en el futuro”.

Ya va siendo hora de cambiar ese futuro, tantas veces, tantos años, ajeno a la ciencia. España puede ayudar, y ayudarse ella al mismo tiempo.

José Manuel Sánchez Ron es miembro de la Real Academia Española y catedrático de Historia de la Ciencia en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

A neighbor, the father of three, died in the World Trade Center, and my city was traumatized. It was thus with a great personal interest that I looked forward to the alleged masterminds of this horrendous crime being brought to justice. But as I sat in the Guantánamo courtroom this weekend for the arraignment of the five leading suspects, I couldn’t help but feel cheated.

President Obama had the right idea in 2009 when his Justice Department sought and obtained grand-jury indictments against the five in federal court in southern Manhattan. Having worked as a prosecutor in that courthouse for four years before joining Human Rights Watch, I knew that even the toughest, most difficult cases could be handled there fairly and safely. However, after various objections to civilian trials were voiced, Obama soon reversed course and returned the case to a military commission in Guantánamo.

Some objected on security grounds to a trial in New York City — as if the city isn’t already a terrorist target, as if its courthouse hasn’t handled a long line of mafia dons, drug trafficking kingpins and even terrorists, with far less disruption than the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Others wanted to continue the Bush-era insistence on treating Al Qaeda members as “warriors” rather than common criminals, despite the more elevated label that bestowed.

Many simply sought a more controlled, predictable environment than a civilian court. In federal court, the judge enjoys the independence of life tenure; the jury pool is chosen randomly from the community; and defense counsel operates without interference from the prosecution. But in the military commissions, a military official appoints the judge and picks the jury panel, and the defense cannot subpoena witnesses or access investigative resources without seeking the prosecutor’s permission first.

Military commissions also make it easier to introduce statements that are the product of coercive interrogation. Obama’s military commissions do bar statements that were the product of torture or inhumane treatment, but those aren’t the only types of statements that are inherently unreliable.

American civilian courts prohibit all involuntary statements — a basic rule of fairness — but the military commissions require statements to be voluntary only when made by the defendants, not when made by other witnesses. That’s a major (and unfair) advantage for the prosecution, leaving open the possibility of convicting a defendant and sending him to death on the basis of coerced witness statements. That the rules were deliberately written that way raises concern that such an awful possibility may be the government’s intent.

To help ensure that witness statements are voluntary, regular federal courts require most witnesses to testify personally in court. But the military commissions allow the prosecutor to introduce a witness’s statement through the testimony of someone else — that is, through hearsay. And that hearsay testimony can be introduced as a summary of an interrogation rather than a transcript — another way to cover up possible coercion.

As a result, the military commission prosecutor might “launder” coerced witness statements — by introducing a summary through an official who was not even present at an interrogation, has no knowledge of its circumstances, and thus cannot be effectively cross-examined about them. Indeed, a prosecutor presented with such summary testimony by the C.I.A. might not even know that it was coerced.

These military commissions may be “new and improved” from earlier versions, but they are still rigged against the defendants.

Their proponents think that military commissions are the tough way to combat terrorism, but they are really a gift to terrorist recruiters. If a conviction is tainted by unfairness and the defendants are railroaded to death, it would generate outrage. Most people would simply grind their teeth and move on, but a small number would be driven into the grasp of Al Qaeda and its successors. And, as we sadly know, it doesn’t take many angry people to launch a horrible terrorist act.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Pero merece la pena echarle un vistazo a la propia legislación argentina, comenzando por el artículo 17 de su Constitución que establece: “La propiedad es inviolable, y ningún habitante de la Nación puede ser privado de ella, sino en virtud de sentencia fundada en ley“. Las expropiaciones, tanto en Argentina como en España, deben ser por causa de utilidad pública establecida en una ley. A diferencia de la española, la Constitución argentina añade que la expropiación debe ser “previamente” indemnizada. Y por ahí aparece uno de los muchos escollos jurídicos de la decisión de la presidenta Cristina Fernández: Repsol se ha visto privada de sus acciones en YPF sin que exista la ley que establece la utilidad pública de la expropiación y sin que se haya fijado previamente el justiprecio.

En cualquier caso, la primera objeción que se le puede hacer tanto al proyecto de ley como al decreto de necesidad (que tiene rango de ley) es un argumento del Derecho que Rousseau explicó con insuperable claridad: la ley es una norma general y abstracta, que no puede tomar decisiones concretas; tiene vedada “toda función que se relacione con algo individual”. Prohibición que parece estar recogida en el propio artículo 17 de la Constitución argentina cuando exige que la expropiación se realice “en virtud de sentencia fundada en ley”. Por eso, sería plenamente constitucional que la ley estableciera la utilidad social de los hidrocarburos y luego el poder ejecutivo aplicara esa decisión expropiando las empresas petrolíferas, ya que la ley no es el instrumento adecuado para decir con nombre y apellidos a quien se expropia.

Pero, en fin, teniendo en cuenta que ya se utilizó una técnica similar con Aerolíneas Argentinas en 2009 y que en España se expropió Rumasa en 1983 mediante decreto-ley no insistiremos más en en la inadmisibilidad de las leyes ejecutivas de caso único, aunque podríamos encontrar importantes diferencias entre los casos de estas empresas (cuya causa de expropiación fue su mala situación financiera, que constituía un peligro para las respectivas economías) y el de Repsol.

Mejor fijémonos en la coherencia interna del proyecto de ley: no se entiende que para lograr el autoabastecimiento de hidrocarburos y el desarrollo económico con equidad social (artículo 1) sea necesario declarar de utilidad pública no los hidrocarburos de toda Argentina, sino solo parte de las acciones de una empresa de hidrocarburos. Es más, una empresa petrolífera que no deja de perder cuota de mercado, como el propio Decreto le reprocha: en la actualidad YPF solo produce el 34% del petróleo argentino. Pero hay todavía otros elementos para resaltar la falta de congruencia de la expropiación con sus teóricos motivos de autoabastecimiento y desarrollo económico: a pesar del largo preámbulo del decreto (e inexacto, como ha probado Xavier Vidal-Folch), no hay ninguna respuesta a la pregunta de: ¿por qué se expropian las acciones “de la serie D” de Repsol en YPF y no las del Grupo Petersen, que son exactamente iguales? Ambos accionistas lo son por la misma razón: por la Ley número 24.145 de 1992, que privatizó YPF.

Al no expropiar proporcionalmente a todos los accionistas de YPF hasta alcanzar el 51%, la ley viola tanto la igualdad en las cargas públicas, consagrada en el artículo 16 de la Constitución argentina, como la prohibición de arbitrariedad de los poderes públicos, principio general de todo Estado de Derecho y reconocido en el artículo 43 de la Constitución. Es más, no se expropian todas las acciones de Repsol, el 57% de YPF, sino únicamente el 51%. Si se tratara de una OPA normal y corriente sometida al derecho mercantil, el Gobierno argentino estaría obligado a hacer una oferta por el total de las acciones. Además, la ley argentina de expropiación prevé que, si se expropiaran parcialmente inmuebles, el expropiado tendrá el derecho de exigir que se le expropie toda la finca. La nueva ley cambia estos principios generales por el concreto de expropiar el 51%, evidentemente con el objetivo de conseguir el justiprecio más bajo posible. Otra vez la arbitrariedad.

Si se sigue cotejando el decreto y el proyecto de ley con la Constitución se encontrarán otros argumentos para dudar de la constitucionalidad de estos textos, como la violación del principio de proporcionalidad en el objetivo de conseguir el desarrollo económico (subirle los impuestos hubiera sido más respetuoso con la propiedad privada) y la forma de calcular el justiprecio “al tiempo de la desposesión” (después de que el valor de las acciones se hubiera deteriorado). Por todo ello, Repsol puede ver el futuro con la misma confianza con la que el molinero Arnold se opuso a la arbitrariedad de Federico II de Prusia (“Sire, todavía quedan jueces en Berlín”) porque estamos seguros de que hay jueces independientes en Buenos Aires.

Agustín Ruiz Robledo es catedrático de Derecho Constitucional de la Universidad de Granada. Dolores Rufían Lizana es profesora de Derecho Financiero y abogada en Chile.