Bret L. Stephens (Continuación)

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, candidato a la presidencia de México, cerró su campaña el 27 de junio de 2018 en Ciudad de México. Credit Ramón Espinosa/Associated Press

MundoAmérica,

El 1 de julio, los mexicanos acudirán a votar unidos políticamente por una sola causa: el desprecio absoluto hacia Donald Trump. Entonces, ¿por qué parecen decididos a elegir a la versión mexicana y de izquierda del presidente de Estados Unidos?

Esa es la pregunta más importante que se cierne sobre la victoria anunciada de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, o AMLO, un agitador populista que ha aspirado a la presidencia tres veces. El exjefe de gobierno de Ciudad de México estuvo a punto de ser elegido en las elecciones presidenciales de 2006 y apareció en la boleta electoral de 2012. Ahora se encamina a ganar, según encuestas de Bloomberg, con más del 50 por ciento en una contienda disputada por cuatro candidatos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israelis celebrating the 70th anniversary of their independence. Credit Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo,

Adam Armoush is a 21-year-old Israeli Arab who, on a recent outing in Berlin, donned a yarmulke to test a friend’s contention that it was unsafe to do so in Germany. On Tuesday he was assaulted in broad daylight by a Syrian asylum-seeker who whipped him with a belt for being “yahudi” — Arabic for Jew.

The episode was caught on video and has caused a national uproar. Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, tweeted, “Jews shall never again feel threatened here.”

It’s a vow not likely to be fulfilled. There were nearly 1,000 reported anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year.…  Seguir leyendo »

Kim Jong-un of North Korea, in Pyongyang in April. Credit Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

MundoAsia

Henry Kissinger once offered a good description of the way in which policy choices come before a president. “If forced to present options, the typical department will present two absurd alternatives as straw men bracketing its preferred option — which usually appears in the middle position,” he wrote in his memoirs.

“A totally ignorant decision maker,” he added, “could easily satisfy his departments by blindly choosing Option 2.”

What are Donald Trump’s options when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs? Conventional wisdom offers the usual three: more sanctions on Pyongyang, renewed diplomacy or military strikes. The first option can handicap the regime but has not stopped its nuclear drive.…  Seguir leyendo »

Migrantes recién naturalizados durante una ceremonia para nuevos ciudadanos en Atlanta, en otoño de 2016 Credit David Goldman/Associated Press

MundoAmérica,

Cuando se trata de inmigración, este columnista conservador forma parte del grupo que favorece la deportación. Estados Unidos tiene demasiadas personas que no trabajan, que no creen en Dios, que no aportan gran cosa a la sociedad y que no aprecian la grandeza del sistema estadounidense.

Necesitan regresar al lugar de donde vinieron.

Hablo de estadounidenses cuya familia ha estado en este país desde hace varias generaciones. Complacientes, sintiéndose con todos los derechos y en ocasiones sorprendentemente ignorantes respecto a temas básicos de la ley y de la historia de Estados Unidos, son una laguna estancada en la que podrían ahogarse nuestros prospectos como nación.…  Seguir leyendo »

Jeremy Corbyn leaving a polling station after casting his vote in London on Thursday. Credit Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MundoAméricaEuropaUnión Europea, , ,

In the last year there have been four touchstone elections in the West: two in Britain, one in the U.S., one in France. Two of these were disasters, one was nearly so, and one was a huge relief. None went according to script.

Maybe that’s because we have lousy pollsters and lackluster mainstream politicians. There’s also the matter of reckless voters.

As of Friday, it seemed that Theresa May would cobble together a coalition government — just barely — with a small northern Irish party, which should keep her in office for a while longer. In every other sense she’s a humiliated politician, who squandered a huge lead in a lousy campaign against a vile opponent.…  Seguir leyendo »

David Rubinger’s iconic photo of Israeli soldiers from June 1967 was projected on the ancient walls of Jerusalem’s Old City during an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. Credit Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo

In June 1967 Arab leaders declared their intention to annihilate the Jewish state, and the Jews decided they wouldn’t sit still for it. For the crime of self-preservation, Israel remains a nation unforgiven.

Unforgiven, Israel’s milder critics say, because the Six-Day War, even if justified at the time, does not justify 50 years of occupation. They argue, also, that Israel can rely on its own strength as well as international guarantees to take risks for peace.

This is ahistoric nonsense.

On June 4, 1967, the day before the war, Israel faced the fact that United Nations peacekeepers in Sinai, intended as a buffer with Egypt, had been withdrawn at Cairo’s insistence; that France, hitherto Israel’s ally, had imposed an arms embargo on it; and that Lyndon Johnson had failed to deliver on previous American assurances to break any Egyptian blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat.…  Seguir leyendo »

People on the streets of the Front National stronghold Henin-Beaumont, France in April. Henin-Beaumont is a former mining city and had an unemployment rate of twenty percent in April. Credit Kay Nietfeld/Picture-Alliance, via Associated Press

EuropaUnión Europea,

Americans live to work, while the French work to live. That’s the cliché, and it’s time to retire it. If Emmanuel Macron defeats Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s election — let’s pray the polls are right this time — the message from voters will be: The vacation in Martinique will have to wait. First, we’d like to work.

That’s the real story of this election, the most stunning aspect of which isn’t that the French might possibly install a crypto-fascist in the Élysée Palace. It’s that they seem strongly inclined to elect a former Rothschild investment banker who evinces no sense of guilt about his elite pedigree, capitalist profession and market-friendly economic inclinations that include tax cuts for corporations and an easing of the 35-hour workweek.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Si el presidente Obama decidiera ordenar un ataque militar contra Siria, su principal objetivo tendría que ser acabar con Bashar al Assad. Y también con el hermano de Bashar y principal secuaz, Maher. Y también con todos los demás miembros de la familia Al Assad que tengan poder político. Y también con todos los símbolos políticos del poder de la familia Al Assad, incluidas todas sus residencias oficiales o no oficiales. El uso de armas químicas contra sus propios ciudadanos refleja una barbaridad solo igualada en la historia reciente por Sadam Husein. Un mundo civilizado no puede tolerarlo. Tiene que demostrar que el castigo por ello será muy personal e inevitablemente mortal.…  Seguir leyendo »