Melchor, Gaspar y Obama: la llegada de una estrella risueña
Por Guillermo Fesser, periodista, miembro del dúo Gomaespuma y director de cine (EL MUNDO, 06/01/09):
Hoy, festividad de Reyes, hace días que ya no es Navidad en Estados Unidos. Y, sin embargo, todavía lo parece. La esperanza contagiosa que despierta la investidura de Obama, el próximo 20 en Washington, se asemeja bastante al entusiasmo genuino que todos hemos sentido alguna vez al echar la carta en vísperas de la cabalgata.
En el Estado de Nueva York, además, el paisaje ayuda a recrear el sueño. La tercera tormenta del año ha dejado un manto blanco que, como la luz de contra en el…
A shield that brings danger
By Mark Seddon (THE GUARDIAN, 03/01/09):
As Russia flexes its muscles, cutting gas supplies to Ukraine in a dispute that is as much about unpaid bills as it is about settling political scores, a small, disused Warsaw Pact airfield in a remote corner of north-west Poland finds itself at the heart of a new conflict between the US and Russia.
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and Poland a Soviet satellite state, but with the fall of communism both have moved into the western camp - and Redzikowo base was selected by the Bush administration to host the “missile defence shield”, a system designed…
Pyrrhic Torture Trials
By Ruth Marcus (THE WASHINGTON POST, 31/12/08):
Should Bush administration officials be put on trial for crimes such as authorizing torture?
Personally, I’m just relieved to have this crowd heading out of office and its policies — on torture, on indefinite detention, on warrantless wiretapping, on overweening executive power — soon to be inoperative.
But the imminent arrival of the Obama administration has sparked a renewed clamor for criminal investigation and prosecution in some quarters on the left. Vice President Cheney stoked the flames with an ABC interview in which he was typically unrepentant about the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and particularly explicit about his…
Obama: ¿cambio de rumbo? (y 2)
Por Fawaz A. Gerges, de la cátedra Christian A. Johnson de Oriente Medio, Sarah Lawrence College, Nueva York. Autor de El viaje del yihadista: dentro de la militancia musulmana, Ed. Libros de Vanguardia (LA VANGUARDIA, 26/12/08):
El cambio de rumbo, en el caso de Obama, entraña la inversión de su considerable capital político en el logro de un acuerdo de paz árabe-israelí. No se trata de hacerse ilusiones o de ejecutar una pirueta académica. Según se ha informado, los asesores con más experiencia de Obama - entre ellos, Dennis Ross, antiguo enviado para Oriente Medio durante los mandatos de Clinton y…
A New Old Nuclear Arsenal
By Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a nuclear weapons analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994 (THE WASHINGTON POST, 25/12/08):
For all their agreement on matters such as Afghanistan and defense spending, President-elect Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are on record disagreeing over a central matter for U.S. security: the future of nuclear weapons.
The issue is whether the United States should build the “reliable replacement warhead,” a matter that has major ramifications for all U.S. nuclear policy, including whether to ratify the comprehensive treaty banning nuclear tests and whether we will…
Callousness Against Hope in D.C.
By Bryan Weaver, chairman of the Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commission and president and founder of Hoops Sagrado, an international youth leadership program based in Washington. He was a friend to Derrell Goins (THE WASHINGTON POST, 25/12/08):
Remember on election night, when pundits on cable news shows shouted to the mountaintops about this moment in history? Remember that strangers were hugging each other in the streets? This was the moment, we declared, when we as a nation and as a people had at last overcome.
Yes, this election proved that if any person works hard enough, she or he can become anything, even…
La apertura a China, entonces y hoy / The Day the Door to China Opened Wide
Por Richard Holbrooke, ex secretario de Estado adjunto para Asuntos del Este Asiático y el Pacífico en tiempos de la normalización de relaciones entre EE UU y China (EL PAÍS/THE WASHINGTON POST, 23/12/08):
La apertura de Estados Unidos a China por parte de Richard Nixon y Henry Kissinger en 1971-72 fue un hito histórico. Menos famoso, pero igual de importante, fue el siguiente paso: el dado por Jimmy Carter hace exactamente 30 años al establecer relaciones diplomáticas plenas entre China y Estados Unidos. Sin esta acción, anunciada el 15 de diciembre de 1978, las relaciones entre China y Estados Unidos no…
El español en Estados Unidos
Por César García Muñoz, profesor de Comunicación en Central Washington University (EL MUNDO, 23/12/08):
Existe un gran optimismo en España en lo que se refiere a la pujanza del español en Estados Unidos, país que parecería destinado a convertirse en el centro de gravedad de la cultura en español en el próximo siglo. Aunque algunas razones de peso permiten sostener esa argumentación, lo cierto es que hay numerosos factores que apuntan en la dirección contraria, es decir, hacia una paulatina decadencia de la importancia de la lengua española en el gigante norteamericano. Me permito apuntar tres de ellos: los patrones de…
Obama: ¿cambio de rumbo? (1)
Por Fawaz A. Gerges, de la cátedra Christian A. Johnson de Oriente Medio, Sarah Lawrence College, Nueva York. Autor de El viaje del yihadista: dentro de la militancia musulmana, Ed. Libros de Vanguardia (LA VANGUARDIA, 23/12/08):
Aunque ahora conocemos a los principales responsables del equipo de Obama encargado de la seguridad nacional, no conocemos aún sus prioridades en política exterior. Al decidirse por un equipo de centroderecha, el presidente electo envía múltiples mensajes tanto a su propia casa como al extranjero. Una vez situadas figuras propias del establishment al frente de la seguridad nacional, resulta improbable que se produzcan experimentos radicales…
For Obama, Challenges Across the Sea and Across the Potomac
THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08:
Over the next few weeks, the Opinion section will publish a series of Op-Ed articles by experts on the challenges facing Barack Obama Barack Obama when he takes office. Military reform and potential foreign policy pitfalls is the focus of today’s articles.
1) Let Russia Stop Iran. A grand bargain on missle defense.
2) A Lean War Machine. A key to a better military: spend less.
3) Financial Time Bombs. How to prepare for economic terrorism.
4) Never Again, for Real. Ending genocide would help protect America.
5) The Syrian Strategy. Can a weak dictator bring Mideast peace?
6) How To Win…
Let Russia Stop Iran
By Oded Eran, the director of the Institute for National Security Studies, Giora Eiland, a retired major general in the Israeli Army and Emily B. Landau, senior research associates at the institute (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
Nine months have passed since the United Nations Security Council approved its most recent resolution imposing sanctions on Iran. That resolution, like its two predecessors, has failed to deter Tehran, which will soon be in a position to create a working nuclear weapon. Western intelligence establishments estimate that date as not later than mid-2010.
The problem with any Security Council resolution is that Russia and…
A Lean War Machine
By William A. Owens, a retired Navy admiral who was the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1994 to 1996. He is writing a book on 21st-century security (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
Can Barack Obama afford to keep the Defense Department’s budget at the extraordinary levels of the last seven years? With the spreading recession, the answer is no. Can he make cuts without jeopardizing national security and the safety of our troops? The answer is yes — but only if we demand that contractors, the four services and lawmakers make their own interests a lower priority…
Financial Time Bombs
By Charles Duelfer, the former director of the Iraq Survey Group and is the author of the forthcoming Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq and James Rickards, general counsel of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management and oversaw its rescue by the Federal Reserve (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
The economic crisis has made it painfully obvious that the United States economy has become very vulnerable to broken gears in the global financial system. But this is not simply a financial or economic problem — it is a grave national security risk, and our government must treat it as…
Never Again, for Real
By Madeleine K. Albright, the secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 and William S. Cohen, the secretary of defense from 1997 to 2001. They are the co-chairmen of the Genocide Prevention Task Force (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
Some we see; others remain invisible to us. Some have names and faces; others we do not know. They are the victims of genocide and mass atrocities, their numbers too staggering to count.
This month was the 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It has been 20 years since the United States became a party…
The Syrian Strategy
By Danielle Pletka, the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
Can Syria be the cornerstone of a new Middle East? Washington is abuzz with talk of a “strategic realignment” that would split Syria from Iran and upend the status quo in the Middle East. This must be a pleasing prospect to the incoming Obama administration: visionary, and in stark contrast to the Bush administration’s reflexive hostility to Syria. But is it a real possibility, or foreign policy alchemy?
On its face, the notion seems crazy. Syria has been nothing but…
How to Win Islam Over
By Olivier Roy, a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Justin Vaisse, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/12/08):
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would convene a conference of Muslim leaders from around the world within his first year in office. Recently aides have said he may give a speech from a Muslim capital in his first 100 days. His hope, he has said, is to “make clear that we are not at war with Islam,” to describe to Muslims “what our values and our interests are” and to…
The biggest scoop ever: if only we’d noticed
By Fred Emery, chief Washington correspondent of The Times 1970-77 and the author of Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon (THE TIMES, 20/12/08):
Although “Deep Throat” became for 33 years the most famous mystery source in investigative reporting, it is worth recalling that his momentous Watergate disclosures had little immediate public impact. Richard Nixon gained re-election in 1972 by a landslide despite the torrent of coverage of his campaign’s misdeeds in The Washington Post stemming from the fabulous insider source of Bob Woodward, then a cub reporter.
But if America ignored it at first, what Deep Throat - Mark Felt, who died…
The Pope’s Real Message for Obama
By John L. Allen Jr., the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and the author of The Rise of Benedict XVI (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 19/12/08):
The roughly 67 million Catholics in the United States make up nearly one-quarter of the American population, but just 6 percent of the global Catholic total of 1.1 billion. Ninety-four percent of the Catholics in the world, in other words, are not Americans, which may help explain why the pope and his lieutenants are not always think American thoughts when they get out of bed in the morning.
That’s a useful bit of context to bear…
Mr. Obama’s First Trip
By Michael Fullilove, the program director for global issues at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 15/12/08):
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that in the first 100 days of his administration he would “travel to a major Islamic forum and deliver an address to redefine our struggle.”
Egypt, Turkey and Qatar have been suggested as possible sites for such a speech. But the best candidate is the country in which Mr. Obama lived as a child: Indonesia.
Choosing Indonesia would throw light on the diversity and richness of Islam,…
The Day the Door to China Opened Wide
By Richard Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations who writes a monthly column for The Post (THE WASHINGTON POST, 15/12/08):
The opening with China by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1971-72 is justly remembered as a historic breakthrough. Less famous but of equal importance was the next major step: the establishment of full diplomatic relations between China and the United States. Without this action, announced by President Jimmy Carter on Dec. 15, 1978, the relationship could not have moved beyond a small, high-level connection with a very limited agenda.
When they left office in 1977, President Gerald Ford and Kissinger left behind an important…
