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sábado, 30 de junio de 2018


Reconciliar para reconstruir
Gustavo Gordillo
http://www.jornada.com.mx/2018/06/30/opinion/019a1eco

Después de las elecciones del domingo próximo nos encaminamos a un nuevo régimen. En un corto periodo de 21 años se intentará por segunda vez.
La primera transición. De 1977 a 1997 se realizó gradualmente, con avances y retrocesos, una transición que modificó radicalmente el espacio electoral. Se estableció el principio de que el voto cuenta y se cuenta. La principal expresión de esa transición fue un sistema de partidos que sustituyó al régimen de partido casi único o hegemónico. Se suponía que el nuevo sistema de partidos contagiaría o, dicho de manera menos coloquial, generaría las condiciones para transformar a los otros poderes del estado sin necesidad de un pacto fundador a la manera española o chilena.
La gobernabilidad. Más que de actos fundadores, la transición mexicana, gradual en sus ritmos, fue sobre todo una mezcla de acoplamiento institucional y transformismo político. El eje autoritario del viejo régimen: presidencialismo más partido hegemónico más interacción entre reglas formales establecidas en la Constitución, y un amplio abanico de reglas informales y facultades meta-constitucionales; se fue paulatinamente debilitando sin ser sustituido por otro arreglo de gobernabilidad acorde con un contexto de mayor pluralidad y competencia electoral.
Decadencia administrada. Lo que siguió a partir de 1997 ni siquiera fue continuidad bajo la conducción de otro partido, sino una consistente decadencia en donde el centro político se desmadeja, combinada con una emancipación desordenada tanto de las entidades federativas como de franjas de la sociedad, al tiempo que opera la colonización de franjas del aparato estatal o de territorio nacional por un sinnúmero de poderes fácticos, incluyendo el crimen organizado. Este régimen especial ha generado un escaso crecimiento económico, una metástasis de la corrupción, una crisis mayúscula de seguridad pública y un vaciamiento de las formas de intermediación política.
El contexto actual. El nuevo régimen enfrentará un Estado muy debilitado, una generalizada fragmentación social y política, y una polarización sobre todo entre las élites. Nada de esto es resultado de esta campaña electoral. Vienen de más lejos: del fracaso de dos modernizaciones, la económica y la política, y de una guerra, la denominada guerra contra las drogas. Pero en ese contexto y con una creciente ola de expectativas, comenzará el nuevo régimen, la segunda transición.
La segunda transición. La segunda transición supone dos tareas centrales: la reconstrucción del Estado y la configuración de un nuevo sistema de intermediaciones políticas y sociales. No será la obra solamente ni de un individuo, ni de un partido, ni de un movimiento, ni de un grupo de expertos o de intelectuales. Todo eso se requiere. Un liderazgo político claro y con solvencia moral, un sistema de partidos que se reconstruya a partir de los resultados de las elecciones del domingo, movimientos sociales de campesinos, obreros, estudiantes, colonos, organizaciones no gubernamentales que luchen por causas y demandas específicas, expertos para afinar las políticas y comentaristas e intelectuales para ejercer la indispensable crítica en todo régimen democrático.
La segunda transición no será rápida ni sencilla, requerirá paciencia y comprensión de que la magnitud de la reconstrucción va más allá del nuevo sexenio. Del primero de julio al 30 de noviembre se juega literalmente el sentido de esta transición y la capacidad del nuevo grupo gobernante para hilar alianzas y concitar consensos.
Omni determinatio est negatio. Creo vehementemente en la máxima de Spinoza. Por ello nunca he pensado que en opciones cerradas uno escoge la menos mala. Se escoge lo mejor dentro de lo disponible, o te abstienes. No es mi caso. El mejor capacitado para enfrentar esos retos porque conoce bien el país, sus habitantes y sus humores, creo que es López Obrador.

viernes, 29 de junio de 2018

CORRUPCIÓN

Estas elecciones se han significado por la continua mención de la mayoría de los candidatos, especialmente los que aspiran a la presidencia de la República, de la imperiosa necesidad de disminuir y/o erradicar la corrupción de la vida pública del país, pues es la principal causante de los mayores problemas nacionales.
El candidato puntero en todas las encuestas para la elección presidencial ha hecho del combate y la erradicación de la corrupción su programa futuro de gobierno y la condición indispensable para superar todos los otros problemas del país como la inseguridad, la violencia, la impunidad, la desigualdad, la pobreza y los rezagos en educación y salud; así como la crisis en derechos humanos y en materia de protección ambiental.
Por ello, vale la pena reproducir aquí un diálogo ficticio entre dos personajes de una novela que escribió en 1982, al final del sexenio lopezportillista y a punto de iniciar el ciclo neoliberal, el escritor y periodista Luis Spota, de nombre Paraíso 25 (Grijalbo), continuación de otra novela llamada Casi el Paraíso.
En Paraíso 25, el protagonista, un promotor de inversiones internacionales y miembro de la nobleza española (que 25 años antes había sido expulsado del país, después de haber engañado a la alta sociedad mexicana, haciéndoles creer que era un príncipe italiano; y que 25 años después regresa a México con su nueva identidad), es conducido por el sobrino de quien será el próximo presidente de México, en el periodo entre las elecciones y la toma de posesión, por los meandros de la corrupción oficial.
El sobrino preferido de “El Electo”, lleva al conde Sandro Grimaldi a conocer a secretarios de Estado, subsecretarios, directores de empresas paraestatales, empresarios, juniors de políticos y de funcionarios supermillonarios, todos dispuestos a usar su influencia y posiciones políticas para hacer negocios a costa del erario público.
En un momento, el sobrino del presidente electo establece el siguiente diálogo con el promotor de inversiones español, que resulta muy ilustrativo para la etapa que iniciará el próximo lunes 2 de julio, después de las elecciones y que terminará el 1 de diciembre con la toma de posesión del nuevo mandatario (p.208-211).
(Sobrino del “Electo”, Frank Uribe Loma)- ¿Qué es lo más que te ha impresionado de México?
(Grimaldi)- Pues, su tamaño. Una ciudad en la que Madrid, cabría, con toda su gente, unas cuatro veces…
(Uribe)- No me refiero a eso, sino a …Vaya ¿qué impresión te han causado las personas que hemos visto: los políticos, los funcionarios; todos ellos? ¿Buena, mala, regular?
(Grimaldi)- Muy buena. Amable, con deseos de cooperar. Me pregunto, sin embargo, si serían así de serviciales si no estuvieras tú…
(Uribe)- A veces, como dice mi tío, esos burócratas son verdaderas calamidades….
(Grimaldi)- No sé si lo he comentado contigo, o si sólo lo he pensado, pero algo que verdaderamente me impresiona, me maravilla diría mejor, es la facilidad con que entienden lo que proponemos y la rapidez con que aceptan darnos lo que de ellos demandamos…
(Uribe)- Aunque no gratis, ciertamente. De un modo o de otro, todos se llevan su tajada. Así que no creas, conde, que hacen lo que hacen nada más por simpatía hacia ti o hacia mi…
(Grimaldi)- Voluntades hay que aceitar dondequiera. Aquí, en España o en la Conchinchina. Me asombro, repito, lo rápidamente que se mueven…Según veo, lo que en México puedes armar en un par de días, te llevaría meses, si no es que años, armarlo en España o en el resto de Europa.
(Uribe)- No siempre es así. Las cosas en Palacio van despacio, como se dice, y México no es la excepción…
(Grimaldi)- Para nosotros, vaya que han ido de prisa. Por ejemplo…- y le enumeró, usando los dedos para la cuenta, los asuntos que llevaban tratados con buena fortuna en esa primera semana y los resultados, todos positivos, obtenidos hasta el momento; resultados tan concretos que se resistiría a creer si no tuviera ya por escrito, atesorado en su portafolio, lo que de palabra le había sido prometido por personajes de jerarquía- Si esto no es marchar al galope, dime tu qué es…
Frank no había intentado interrumpirlo para que el entusiasmo no se le marchitara a Grimaldi. A su vez, dijo:
(Uribe)- Lo que hemos propuesto funciona porque es bueno para México, bueno para España, y lo será para nosotros…
(Grimaldi)- Bien…
(Uribe)- ….y si las cosas están marchando sin tropiezo, ello se debe a que sólo hemos solicitado lo que es correcto…
(Grimaldi)- De eso, ni hablar.
(Uribe)-…y, sobre todo, porque lo estamos solicitando al fin de una Administración.
(Grimaldi)- Eso ¿en qué modifica el tema…?
(Uribe)- Al fin de una Administración en México, el tiempo tiene otro valor; un valor diferente al que tendría si estuviéramos al principio de la misma. En estos últimos meses, en este último año de Gobierno, día que se pierda es día que no se recupera. Negocio que no haces, negocio que ya no harás porque lo harán los que vienen. Peso, dólar o peseta que no atrapas, otras manos lo atraparán…. Es por eso, conde, que ciertos negocios; lo que tú y yo estamos planteándole a nuestros amigos, funcionan; hay que hacerlos en estos tres meses que faltan para llevarnos las migajas; nada despreciables por cierto, del gran pastel que algunos han estado comiéndose seis años[1] ….¿Entiendes por qué nadie nos pone piedras en el camino, ni nos aburren con papeleo? A ellos tampoco les conviene que perdamos el tiempo en vueltas y revueltas…
(Grimaldi)- Ya.
(Urbie)- Como nadie nunca está seguro en el cargo que ocupa en el Gobierno, los que llegan a los puestos de importancia se imponen como obligación la de hacerse ricos lo antes posible. Hay que atesorar para los tiempos malos, que suelen ser más largos que los buenos
(Grimaldi)- Es igual en todas partes.
(Uribe)- Bien; supongamos que hubieras llegado a México, con tus proyectos y tus ideas, no ahora, sino al principio, al arranque del gobierno de mi tío. Aun usando mi influencia, Incluso presionándolos directamente, los funcionarios no responderían como hoy nos responden y nuestras gestiones no hubieran prosperado tan de prisa. ¿Sabes por qué? Porque el tiempo, para los que van llegando, para los que se inician, tiene una importancia distinta al de los que se van. Los nuevos, digámosles así, no tienen prisa. ¡Ya vendrán los días de los negocios! Los harán, como carajos no, pero a su hora, del mismo modo que hace seis años los hicieron aquéllos a los que están reemplazando…. Se ha hablado tanto de moralidad, de honradez y de todas esas pendejadas de campaña electoral para que el pueblo crea que, ahora sí, las cosas van a cambiar y que no habrá lugar para corruptos y corruptores, que los nuevos proceden, naturalmente, con discreción….
(Grimaldi)- ¿Dónde he oído o leído, que un Gobierno de Honrados es uno en el que se roba en silencio?
Asintió Frank y nuevamente tendió al mayor Piñar, para que le sirviera, su copa.
(Uribe)- Lo cierto es que la corrupción de un régimen supera siempre a la del anterior, pero se queda corta ante la del que viene…Con mi tío las cosas sí van a ser diferentes….
Reflexivamente inquirió Grimaldi:
(Grimaldi)- Por lo regular ¿cuánto tiempo se prolonga, en el nuevo gobierno, ese periodo de rechazo a lo que pueda parecer ilegal, amañado, sospechoso, aunque no lo sea?
(Uribe)- Psch…imposible precisarlo, pero se dan casos de ansiosos que empiezan a hacer negocios, o a preparar sus movidas, aun antes de tener siquiera una mediana seguridad de que recibirán nombramiento…
(Grimaldi)- Esos no son modelo de paciencia.
(Uribe)- Tipos así rara vez llegan y, si por casualidad se cuelan, duran poco. Los que no se mueven de más antes de tiempo, esos sí prosperan…
(Grimaldi)- Lo que hemos puesto a caminar con los que se van…
(Uribe)- Eso querido Sandro, estará ya funcionando cuando el próximo régimen inicie…Habrá, sí, algunos problemitas en los meses de despegue, pero serán mínimos, debido a los ajustes naturales en la maquinaria del estado. Así que si en esos meses, tres o cuatro a lo sumo, sientes que las cosas van lentas, como arrastrándose, y no tan rápidamente como ahora, ni te desanimes ni creas que nos están saboteando…
Spota escribió esta novela cuando el candidato presidencial del PRI, que entonces ganaba la elección presidencial sin problemas, era Miguel de la Madrid, quien lanzó una campaña de “renovación moral”, ante las evidencias escandalosas de corrupción durante el gobierno de José López Portillo (1976-1982). La campaña mentada fue puro humo y por supuesto, durante el gobierno de De la Madrid sólo se usaron a algunos funcionarios del gobierno anterior como muestra de que se combatía la corrupción (como por ejemplo al ex director de Pemex, Jorge Díaz Serrano, adversario político de De la Madrid, que fue encarcelado); pero en general los negocios, siguieron como de costumbre.
Igual sucedió cuando vino la “alternancia” del PRI al PAN en el año 2000, y Vicente Fox prometió meter a la cárcel a los “peces gordos” que se habían enriquecido a través de la corrupción en los gobiernos priístas; y resultó una farsa mayúscula, pues ni charales pudo pescar el hablantín y farolero ex presidente.
Ojalá no suceda lo mismo con el nuevo gobierno; primero, que en los cinco meses entre la elección presidencial y la toma de posesión los que se van no terminen de saquear al erario público; segundo, que los que llegan no se hagan como que combaten a la corrupción, y al final se dediquen a hacer lo mismo, pero más discretamente; y tercero, que el presidente que llegue no sólo confíe en su proceder personal, sino también en todo un sistema preventivo y punitivo que disuada primero y castigue después a la jauría de corruptos que puebla al sistema político y económico de nuestro país.
Y tampoco aparezca un sobrino o un “favorito” que se encargue de hacer los negocios en lo oscurito.





[1] Énfasis agregado por el autor del blog.

miércoles, 27 de junio de 2018

Turkey’s European dream may be over, is the Sultan ready for Eurasia?
June 26, 2018
https://thesaker.is/turkeys-european-dream-may-be-over-is-the-sultan-ready-for-eurasia/
by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
Erdogan has lost his parliamentary majority and must now establish a coalition with the far-right Nationalist Action Party; given the latter is anti-Western, the road ahead points in only one direction: Eurasian integration
To the utter despair of stoic defenders of “Western values,” Europe is now condemned to suffer two populist autocracies on its eastern borders: Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey.
For the EU’s political leaders, the only accepted narrative is blanket, hysterical condemnation of “illiberal democracies” distorted by personal rule, xenophobia, and suppression of free speech. And that also applies to the strongmen in Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
These EU leaders and the institutions that support the – political parties, academia, mainstream media – simply can’t understand how and why their bubble does not reflect what voters really think and feel.
Instead, we have irrelevant intellectuals mourning the erosion of the lofty Western mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission), investing in a philosophical maelstrom of historical and even biblical references to catalog their angst.
They are terrified by so many Darth Vaders – from Putin and Erdogan to Xi and Khamenei. Instead of understanding the new remix to Arnold Toynbee’s original intuition – History is again on the move – they wallow in the mire of The West against The Rest.
They cannot possibly understand the mighty process of Eurasia reconfiguration. And that includes not being able to understand why Recep Tayipp Erdogan is so popular in Turkey.
Sultan and CEO
Profiting from a large turnout of up to 85% and fresh from obtaining 52.5% of the popular vote – thus preventing a run-off – Erdogan is now ready to rule Turkey as a fascinating mix of Sultan and CEO.
Under Turkey’s new presidential arrangement – an Erdogan brainchild – a prime minister is no more, a job Erdogan himself held for three terms before he was elected as president for the first time in 2014.
Erdogan may be able to rule the executive and the judiciary, but that’s far from a given in the legislature.
With 42.5% of the votes and holding 295 seats, Erdogan’s AKP, for the first time in 16 years, lost its parliamentary majority and must now establish a coalition with the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP).
The doomsday interpretation spells out a toxic alliance between intolerant political Islam and fascistic extreme-right – both, of course, hardcore nationalist. Reality though is slightly more nuanced.
Considering that the MHP is even more anti-Western than the AKP, the roadmap ahead, geopolitically, may point to only one direction: Eurasian integration. After all, Turkey’s perennially plagued EU accession process is bound to go nowhere; for Brussels, Erdogan is little else than an unwelcomed, illiberal, faux democrat.
In parallel, Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism has been given a reality check with the failure of his – and former Prime Minister Davutoglu’s – Syria strategy.
The Kurdish obsession though won’t go away, especially after the success of operations ‘Euphrates Shield’ and ‘Olive Branch’ against the US-backed YPG – which Erdogan brands as an extension of the dreaded PKK. Ankara now holds the previously Kurdish-dominated Afrin, and now, under a US-Turkey deal, the YPG must also leave Manbij. Even after giving up on “Assad must go”, Ankara for all practical purposes will keep a foothold in Syria and is invested in the Astana peace process alongside Russia and Iran.
Take it to the bridge
Turkish politics used to be a yo-yo between the center-right and the center-left, but always with the secular military as puppet masters. The religious right was always contained – as the military were terrified of its popular appeal across Anatolia.
When the AKP started its political winning streak in 2002, they were frankly pro-Europe (there was no subsequent reciprocity). The AKP also courted the Kurds, who in their absolute, rural, majority were religiously conservative. The AKP and Erdogan even allied themselves with the Gulenists. But once they solidified their electoral hold, the going got much tougher.
The turning point may have been the repression of the Gezi Park movement in 2013. And then, in 2015, the pro-Kurdish – and left-wing – Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP) started to emerge and capture votes from the AKP. Erdogan’s response was to fashion a strategy of mingling the Democratic Peoples’ Party with the PKK – as in “terrorists,” which is absurd.
Party leaders were routinely thrown in jail. For these latest elections, HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş actually campaigned from jail, warning: “What we are going through nowadays is only the trailer of the one-man regime. The actual scary part is yet to begin.” Even facing myriad constraints, the HDP managed to get a significant 11.7% of the vote or 67 seats.
“One-man regime” was actually solidified a good two years ago, after Gulenists in the military ended up launching the (failed) military coup. Erdogan and the AKP leadership are convinced the Gulenists received crucial help from NATO. The subsequent purge was devastating – hitting tens of thousands of people. Anybody, anywhere, from academia to journalism, criticizing Erdogan or the ongoing dirty war in eastern Anatolia, was silenced.
Turkish historian Cam Erimtan stresses how Erdogan defended the necessity of anticipated elections by invoking “historic developments in Iraq and Syria” that have made it “paramount for Turkey to overcome uncertainty.”
Erimtan characterizes the so-called “People’s Alliance” of the AKP with the MHP as the “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis” of the 21st century, pointing how “the AKP base is large and fully convinced of the fact that the current systemic change is on the right track and that the return of Islam to Turkish public life was long overdue.”
So, “illiberal” or otherwise, the fact is a majority of Turkish voters prefer Erdogan. The European dream may be over – for good. Relations with NATO are fractious. Neo-Ottomanism is a minefield. So Eurasian integration seems the sensible way to go.
Relations with Iran are stable. Energy and military relations with Russia are paramount. Turkey can invest in economic projection across Central Asia. Russia and China are luring it into joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Erdogan may finally be able to position Turkey as the essential bridge between the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the West.

That’s a much better deal than trying to join a club that doesn’t want you as a member. “Illiberal democracy”? Who cares?

martes, 26 de junio de 2018

EL CORRUPTO SISTEMA POLÍTICO Y ECONÓMICO DE MÉXICO INTENTA CONDICIONAR A LÓPEZ OBRADOR


A pesar de que el candidato presidencial de la coalición “Juntos Haremos Historia”, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), ha moderado al extremo su discurso contra el sistema, ha invitado a miembros prominentes de la subclase política corrupta y de la oligarquía a su movimiento, y ha asegurado hasta el cansancio que no pretende cambiar el modelo económico neoliberal, sus detractores han lanzado una campaña brutal para obligarlo a que no sólo cumpla con esas promesas, sino que de ninguna manera critique, señale o denuncie absolutamente nada de las deleznables prácticas corruptas, explotadoras, expoliadoras y hasta anti patrióticas que las élites económicas y políticas han llevado a la práctica en el país los últimos 30 años.
Desde sus periódicos, revistas, sitios de internet, programas de radio y televisión, ante la inevitabilidad del triunfo de AMLO en la elección presidencial del próximo 1º de julio, se han lanzado los pagados títeres de la oligarquía y de la subclase política corrupta a intimidar a AMLO y sus seguidores para que no peleen por las gubernaturas que les sean robadas con fraude (como por ejemplo en Puebla y Veracruz); que no busquen la mayoría en el Congreso; que no se atrevan a intentar cambiar una coma de las reformas estructurales; que no critiquen, ataquen o persigan de ninguna forma a los corruptos políticos y explotadores oligarcas que se han beneficiado ad nauseam los últimos 30 años; que permitan que la oposición se reagrupe para que los pueda vencer en 6 años; en resumidas cuentas, que a pesar de que AMLO y su coalición ganen en las urnas, de antemano se den por vencidos en la arena política y que no lleven a cabo ningún cambio, ninguna reforma, ninguna crítica, del modelo actual, con objeto de que se auto derroten (muy al estilo de Francisco I. Madero, que dejó intacta a la clase gubernamental porfirista y que traicionó las promesas hechas a la mayoría del pueblo), para que en 3 años el Congreso esté en manos de la oposición de derecha y en 6 puedan echar a patadas a López Obrador y a su coalición del gobierno.
Desde el exterior, concertadamente, los paleros del neoliberalismo como The Economist, Washington Post y New York Times, hacen su parte advirtiendo a AMLO que cualquier cambio al modelo económico prevaleciente llevará a México a la crisis económica.
En suma, los grupos de poder que perderán la elección presidencial (y probablemente hasta la mayoría en el Congreso), le están avisando a AMLO que aun así, el poder lo tienen ellos y que no van a permitir ningún cambio a su modelo político corrupto y a su modelo económico depredador, de lo contrario atacarán a AMLO y a su gobierno con boicots, sanciones desde el exterior, “falta de confianza” por parte de los mercados; descalificaciones a AMLO de ser un autoritario, populista, ultra nacionalista, proteccionista (ya lo califican así, pero la campaña se haría general en todas las capitales de Occidente); y, finalmente lanzarían un plan para su derrocamiento, al estilo de lo que han estado haciendo (y hasta ahora han fracasado) en Venezuela.
Por lo que se ve AMLO ya acusó recibo, pues ha puesto a su equipo de neoliberales como Romo, Urzúa, etc. a platicar con los oligarcas (CMN) y con los representantes del capital internacional (Black Rock), para asegurarles que van a seguir haciendo negocios a costillas del pueblo y de los recursos naturales y financieros del país, y que los izquierdistas y “radicales” de su movimiento quedarán conveniente y permanentemente excluidos de su gobierno.
Pues bien, ni así le creen a AMLO, y de aquí a la toma de posesión el 1º de diciembre, lo van a tratar de condicionar, rodear, presionar y obligar a que prácticamente ninguna de sus promesas de campaña las lleve a la práctica, y acabe convirtiéndose en un títere más de los poderes fácticos, como en su momento lo fue Ollanta Humala en Perú, el que después de presentarse como el candidato del pueblo, acabo siendo un lacayo del capital internacional y ni así se salvó de ir a la cárcel después de terminado su mandato.

¿AMLO se convertirá en el Ollanta Humala mexicano? Pronto lo sabremos.

lunes, 25 de junio de 2018

Mohammed bin Salman Has Thrown the Palestinians Under the Bus
The United States and Arab governments have abandoned the Palestinian cause and believe they can browbeat Mahmoud Abbas into submission.
 | 25 JUNE, 2018

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner — U.S. President Donald Trump’s hand-picked advisors on Middle East peace — last week to discuss humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip. The duo then moved on to Qatar for more talks on how to ease conditions in Gaza as part of an effort to promote Trump’s much-vaunted peace plan.
The focus on Gaza will likely raise the ire of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Even before it began, the trip was characterized by top Abbas aides as “meaningless” and a “waste of time,” but Greenblatt and Kushner’s whirlwind visit to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt is happening — with or without the Palestinians.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership has been boycotting U.S. officials since December when Trump announced he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which he then proceeded to recognize as Israel’s capital.
For months, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has eyed the close ties between the Trump administration and some Persian Gulf states with disdain. In a closed-door meeting in New York in March with Jewish leaders, Mohammed bin Salman reportedly slammed the Palestinians for missing opportunities for peace, downplayed the importance of their cause, and said they should accept any deal offered to them.
His remarks, according to the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, citing a source who was in the room, stunned attendees to the point that some “literally fell off their chairs” — a far cry from when then-Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz threatened to break off ties with the United States in 2001 unless Washington acted to stop Israel’s attacks on Palestinians during the Second Intifada.
Saudi Arabia’s increasingly warm bilateral ties with Israel have not gone unnoticed by the PA, which has also noted Trump’s insistence — from the outset of his presidency — that striking an “ultimate deal” between Israel and the Palestinians would require the involvement of the broader region.
The PA watched in shock as Riyadh gave permission to Air India to fly to Tel Aviv through Saudi airspace and later as Mohammed bin Salman, in an interview with the Atlantic, acknowledged Israel’s right to its “own land.” And while the PA boycotted a White House meeting on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis in March, several Arab countries — including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia — attended, as did Israel.
Palestinians are no longer the focal point of the regional agenda, and PA leaders have grown increasingly uneasy as some Arab leaders have shifted their attention to Iran, fixating on Tehran’s involvement in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria.
Arab leaders frequently profess support for the Palestinian cause, but Palestinians know that these proclamations are often sanctimonious. Much of the aid pledged by Arab donors for Gaza’s post-2014 war reconstruction never materialized, and the flow of government aid to the region has all but dried up. Instead, the diplomatic focus of Arab governments has veered primarily to domestic woes and stability, regional adversaries such as Iran, inter-Arab disputes, and fighting off Islamic militancy.
Arab leaders “now not only have their own priorities that subordinate the question of Palestine, but they have every incentive” to stop the public from rallying around the Palestinian cause “because they see it as a threat,” said Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Whereas these governments once were able to “use public obsession with Palestine as a distraction, now people use it as a wedge because they can’t confront the government directly” on local grievances such as unemployment and poverty, Telhami added.
Though Mohammed bin Salman has paid lip service to the Palestinians in public — claiming that closer ties between Riyadh and other Gulf states and Israel could only happen with significant progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — he has demonstrated a willingness to leverage the region’s various conflicts and Riyadh’s fear of Iranian influence to shift the focus away from their cause.
Palestinians now realize that they can no longer depend on their traditional allies in the Arab world.
The asymmetry of power between Israelis and Palestinians, coupled with the Palestinians’ internal divisions and utter dependence on external aid, has also left them with very little leverage.
One of their last options would be to turn to the international community, as they have in recent years, by seeking to join international organizations, treaties, and conventions as part of their strategy to achieve statehood through global forums or lodging international criminal complaints in the hope that it would pressure Israel and call it to account for its actions.
This tactic has proved successful at times. But the current international climate differs immensely from the one that existed under President Barack Obama, and the Trump administration has made it clear that it will be a strong opponent to the Palestinians at the United Nations.
“The opportunities [for] bilateral engagement to get some sort of recognition of a Palestinian state, which had been the go-to international diplomatic strategy of the PLO, [do] not seem to have as much traction today,” said Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
The lack of external assistance provides an opportunity to look inward. Palestinians have to deal with a domestic legitimacy crisis: The PA has no succession plan to speak of despite an aging leadership headed by an 82-year-old Abbas, who has been president since 2005.
The progress made on the intra-Palestinian reconciliation between the PA and Hamas last year dissipated after what the PA labeled an assassination attempt on its prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, and intelligence chief Majed Faraj in Gaza in March and the recent crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank protesting the PA’s punitive measures in Hamas-run Gaza.
Without a unified government or a clear, solid succession process, the PA leadership may very well find itself having to pick one of two bad options. The PA can either participate in a rigged peace process under even less favorable terms than in the past — or forge its own path without the support of Western donor aid that the administration is dependent on to function. This would mean that the livelihoods of 145,000 civil servants in the occupied Palestinian territories would disappear.
But for ordinary Palestinians, it has presented an opportunity to further engage in peaceful resistance, whether by supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel or by participating in other nonviolent tactics like the “Great March of Return,” a monthlong protest held along the fence separating Israel from Gaza, which was met with lethal force from Israeli soldiers.
This grassroots activism has the potential — further down the line — to give rise to a leadership that is more reflective of its constituency. (According to a recent poll, more than two-thirds of Palestinians want Abbas to resign.) Though BDS has not made much of a dent on Israel economically, successive cancellations of trips to Israel by world-renowned actors and singers have done more damage to the country’s reputation than the PA joining the European Federation of Crohn’s & Ulcerative Colitis Associations.
Palestinians’ frustration with the PA’s failure to bring them closer to independence and the shift in Arab states’ priorities have made the contours of a U.S.-Saudi-Israeli deal more evident: a demilitarized state without Jerusalem as a capital, territory with limited sovereignty and geographical contiguity, and an inadequate solution to the question of refugees.
According to a report in the New Yorker, Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman have outlined a Middle East strategic alliance that would focus on thwarting Iran and getting the Palestinians to agree on a peace deal. The Saudi crown prince reportedly said, in describing their strategy to get the deal done, “I’m going to deliver the Palestinians, and he [Trump] is going to deliver the Israelis.”
The king-to-be’s comments no doubt came as music to the Israeli prime minister’s ears. Benjamin Netanyahu believes that this new regional reality makes reaching a solution with the Palestinians less pressing — or even entirely unnecessary.
That’s a far cry from 2002, when the Arab Peace Initiative, championed by Saudi Arabia, presented Israel with an opportunity to integrate itself into the region in exchange for withdrawing from the Palestinian territories it still occupies to this day. Israel refused the deal, instead peppering the West Bank with more settlements as successive U.S. administrations engaged in an endless cycle of peace processing and turned a blind eye as Israelis established new facts on the ground.
Now, regional changes have paved the way for another opportunity for Israel to formally normalize relations with its neighbors — but this time without a peace deal.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have moved from secretly courting the Israelis to overtly conveying their readiness and desire to build a relationship beyond their current clandestine links.
Today, most of Israel’s traditional enemies have either been weakened or neutralized: The Palestinian leadership has been co-opted through U.S. largesse; Jordan and Egypt’s peace deals have weathered even the thorniest of diplomatic crises, and Iraq and Syria have been carved up by the campaign to oust the Islamic State.
But not everyone is convinced that a de facto alliance with some Arab states against Iran will yield regional peace without real progress on the Palestinian issue. “Those who see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not in terms of win-win but in terms of zero-sum think they could use better relations and an alliance of interests between Israel and the Arab world as a way to bypass the Palestinian issue,” said Nadav Tamir, a senior advisor for governmental and international affairs at the Peres Center for Peace, speaking at J Street’s annual conference in April.
Netanyahu and the Trump administration, however, agree that a deal can be reached by virtue of Israel’s warm relations with Arab countries that will in turn pressure the Palestinians into submission. As far as the Trump administration is concerned, “this is a transaction — you just have to find the selling price,” said William Quandt, a former National Security Council member in the Nixon and Carter administrations, speaking at a conference in Washington in March. “And if the Saudis are prepared to finance it, how can the Palestinians … say no to the Saudis?” added Quandt, who was part of the U.S. negotiating team at Camp David that led to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty in 1979. “We’re stuck with an American policy that leads nowhere, and when it fails, there’s no fallback.”
Palestinians have learned from their past that Arab governments’ support is as volatile as the region’s changing political terrain. Once again, Palestinian leaders find themselves isolated and fragmented while Arab and Western governments ratchet up the pressure. Their choices today are limited: They can end security cooperation with Israel; dismantle the PA altogether and force Israel to take responsibility for its military occupation, or embrace civil disobedience and the tactics of the BDS movement on a national level.
They could also acquiesce to Mohammed bin Salman and his co-conspirators’ plan for the region while focusing on isolating Hamas and punishing Palestinians in Gaza for having the misfortune of being born there — but not without facing the wrath of their own people.

jueves, 21 de junio de 2018


Trump's trade war will disrupt world economic order
Source: Global Times Published: 2018/6/20


Just one day after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 10-percent-tariff on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods, financial markets across Asia, Europe and America jittered with stock markets in most countries experiencing a fall. While a real trade war has yet to be launched, the threats of one have already exerted negative effects on the entire world.

The American government is the initiator of evil. Some analysts believe that while the Trump administration pledged to cut taxes domestically, it intends to realize a so-called revenue balance by increasing tariffs.

But Washington has been seeking moral pretexts for the trade war. In a report released Tuesday, the White House again accused China of waging a systematic campaign of "economic aggression." Such mischaracterization of Sino-US trade is a means by which the White House instigates the US society to support the trade war on China.

The White House has gathered together extreme ideologists, geopolitical hardliners and populists to seek supposed fairness. Yet, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, farmers and housewives, in the US and abroad, will have to pay the price for the frantic and miscalculated actions by these forces.

The US is already the wealthiest country in the world, but the Trump administration has been lecturing the American people to believe that they have been plundered and deserve a better life.

Such misrepresentations cloud the truth. The fact is that the US' poverty issue is rooted in an unequal distribution of wealth. However, the Trump administration isn't able to launch a domestic reform, and as a result intends to dredge for money from the outside world to meet domestic demands.

The White House deceived the American people that it's safe to wage a trade war, but the backlash from the US' trading partners reflects that no one believes the US can score the victory that the White House pledged. It's a wide expectation that Beijing will certainly retaliate against Washington's new tariff and an unprecedented trade war will be waged.

Investors also anticipate that if Washington imposes tariffs on an extra $200 billion of Chinese goods, Beijing will not comply and will take further retaliatory measures. World economic order will eventually be disrupted.

The US is threatening to start a worldwide trade war that will sweep across Asia, the EU and North America. The international community is concerned about the serious consequences of a full-fledged trade war and hopes that the US is merely using talk of war as leverage for more economic gains.

How will the trade war end? The White House said earlier that China will suffer more losses than the US. It seems that Washington is hoping to crush Beijing's will. But there's no sign that the Chinese government will submit to Washington in this regard.

Apart from direct losses to China and the US, a trade war will also drag the global economy into chaos, from which Americans will be the first sufferers. The US will see rising unemployment rate and inflation.

China's stance is justified. The country also has a systematic basis for political stability and enormous space for economic growth. It's a daunting task for the US to defeat such a competitive rival.

lunes, 18 de junio de 2018

Is Europe Too Brainwashed To Normalize Relations With Russia?
Is Europe Too Brainwashed To Normalize Relations With Russia?
Paul Craig Roberts
Judging from statements made by G-7 leaders at the recent meeting, President Trump’s application of US sanctions to Europe and disregard of European interests, just as Washington dismisses every country’s interests except Israel’s, has not caused Europeans to disassociate from Washington’s hostility to Russia.
The prime minister of England said that the G7 “agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary.” The American puppet in France, Macron, falsely accused Russia, the only country trying to enforce the Minsk agreement, of violating the Minsk agreement. The French president also falsely accused Russia of invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea, despite the fact that Russian forces have been present in Crimea for years under a 50-year lease that provides Crimea as a Russian naval base. As the French president surely knows, all Russia did was to accept an unanimous vote of Crimeans to return to Russia. Crimea had been a part of Russia for three centuries, longer than the existence of the US, before it was illegally transferred to Ukraine.
The G7 politicians accused Putin of “destabilizing behavior,” of “undermining democratic systems,” and of “supporting Syria.”
Europe remains subservient to Washington despite everything Trump has done to humiliate Washington’s European vassals.
Putin’s response to what he called “creative babbling” was that Europe should get to work with Russia working out their common interest.
There are common interests, and Putin sees them, but, as the G7 statements make clear, the G7 sees only a Russian enemy.
From the West’s standpoint Putin is a problem because of his insistance on Russian sovereignty. When the West accuses Russia of “destabilizing behavior,” the West is saying that it is Russia’s independence that is destabilizing Washington’s world order. Russia is regarded as a destabilizing entity, because Putin does not accept Washington’s hegemony. Putin cannot overcome this attitude toward Russia with concessions and reasonable behavior. It could be a mortal delusion for Russia to believe that soft words can turn away the wrath of spurned hegemony.
Putin accepts insults, provocations, deaths in Russian Ukraine, and Israeli attacks on Syria, a country he has spent resources liberating from Washington’s “rebels,” in order to demonstrate to Europeans that Russia is not a threat. Judging from the G7 or G6 statements, the European politicians simply don’t care that it is Washington and not Russia that is the threat. Washington has handed Europe a Russian script, and Europe seems to be going by the script regardless of how Russia behaves and how Washington treats Europe. Previous hopes that European opposition to Trump’s effort to destroy the Iranian nuclear agreement would result in Europe’s assertion of independence are dashed by the unified hostility to Russia displayed at the recent G-7 meeting.
Putin’s strategy might not work for two reasons. One is that Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so they are likely to stick with Washington.
Putin’s other problem is his belief that Russia needs to be part of Europe. Americans reinforced this belief during the Yeltsin years. Russian economists and the Russian central bank actually believe that Russia cannot develop without Western participation. This makes Russia susceptible to destabilization by the Western financial empire. Foreign participation empowers Washington to manipulate the ruble and to drain the Russian economic surplus into debt service. To advance globalism, Washington works to discredit Russian politicians who favor a nationalist economic approach. Michael Hudson and I have described how, in effect, neoliberalized Russian economists are an American Fifth Column inside Russia.
Countries that open themselves to Western globalism lose control of their economic policy. The exchange values of their currencies and the prices of their bonds and commodities can be driven down by short-selling on futures markets. Remember, just one man—George Soros—was able to collapse the British pound. Today Washington can organize concerted action against currencies by coordinating attacks by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, and the Japanese central bank. Not even large countries such as China and Russia can withstand such an attack. It is remarkable that countries, such as Russia and China that wish to have independent policies rely on Western monetary and clearing mechanisms, thereby subjecting themselves to control by their enemies.
There is truth in the quote attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws.” A professor at Oxford sent to me a copy of a letter he obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library written by President Roosevelt to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933, in which Roosevelt writes:
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson—and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United States—only on a far bigger and broader basis.”
Being a reasonable and humane person, Vladimir Putin is focused on avoiding conflict. It takes patience for Putin to ignore insulting threats from militarily insignificant countries such as the UK, and Putin has the virtue of patience.
Nevertheless, patience can work against peace as well as for it. Putin’s patience tells Europeans that there is no cost to continuing hostile accusations and actions against Russia, and it encourages neoconservatives to employ more aggressive provocations and actions. Too much patience can result in Russia being backed into a corner.
The danger for Russia is that the desire to be part of the West results in concessions that encourage more provocations, and that the commitment to globalism undermines Russian economic sovereignty.
Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is the West’s weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar world.

Perhaps war would be less of a threat if Russia simply disengaged from the West and focused on integration with the East. Sooner or later Europe would come courting.

sábado, 9 de junio de 2018

A Mexican Corruption Cleanup Wouldn't Touch This Man
By 
June 8, 2018



For years, Manlio Fabio Beltrones had his own intro music on a Mexican radio show: the theme from “The Godfather.”
Graft scandals swirled around the powerful politician. He seemed impervious. Beltrones was never convicted of anything but, rightly or wrongly, he became one of the faces of what many Mexicans saw as a culture of backroom deals.
Now, voters are set to punish their establishment by electing a clean-hands outsider as president. You’d think that would spell trouble for Beltrones and his many peers. Signs indicate the opposite: The Godfather won’t be going anywhere under an Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador government. He might even thrive.
When they’re asked what’s wrong with the country, Mexicans regularly put corruption at the top of the list. All politicians promise to tackle it. The two leading contenders for the July 1 presidential vote are no exception -- but their strategies are very different.

Lopez Obrador emphasizes that outside of a few special or ongoing cases, he won’t target members of the outgoing administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto and his PRI party. He’ll focus on preventing graft in the future.



Going Soft?
Critics say the leftist frontrunner, known as AMLO, has gone soft on corruption and is cozying up to the PRI. But the conciliatory tone is attracting voters from rival parties. His poll lead keeps growing.
“He’s consciously widening the tent to take in members of the PRI who are dissatisfied,” said Andrew Selee of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. That could help Lopez Obrador, whose presidential victory looks increasingly assured, win a majority in Congress too, said Selee.

It’s easy to see how Beltrones, or someone like him, could be useful to an AMLO administration. One aide describes him as an octopus, with tentacles in every party. As PRI leader in the lower house, he played a key role reaching across the aisles to get Pena Nieto’s energy and education reforms through. His personal assistant in Congress, Canek Vazquez, has since joined Lopez Obrador’s Morena bloc, which may need allies to push through an ambitious economic agenda.
Running a distant second in the polls is a right-left coalition headed by Ricardo Anaya, who’s taken a much more aggressive line. He’s pledged to investigate Pena Nieto for corruption, fight for fully autonomous prosecutors, and strengthen anti-graft institutions.
Anaya’s campaign spokesman Fernando Rodriguez Doval told Bloomberg that Pena Nieto is “negotiating impunity” with Lopez Obrador. PRI president Rene Juarez called such talk an “urban legend,” and AMLO said it was a sign of desperation.
Vehement But Vague
Yet for all his tough talk, Anaya’s ties to previous administrations have undercut his promise of a break from the past, while head-on clashes with the PRI have left him isolated.
Bloomberg’s latest 
poll tracker shows Anaya 26 percentage points behind Lopez Obrador -- and only slightly ahead of PRI candidate Jose Antonio Meade. (Meade, who isn’t even a party member, was nominated as the PRI’s best shot at decoupling from its own scandal-tainted term in office. The plan hasn’t worked.)
When it comes to corruption, Lopez Obrador is vehement but vague. He promises to centralize all the federal government’s procurement, and generally to lead by example.
In that case, some Mexicans wonder, why are AMLO’s aides defending ruling-party stalwarts like the Godfather even when they’ve been mired in scandal?
Ricardo Monreal, one of Lopez Obrador’s campaign coordinators, has praised Beltrones as an honorable politician. More recently Yeidckol Polevnsky, the leader of Lopez Obrador’s Morena movement, defended an official who’s on trial for allegedly siphoning off government money to the PRI. Rumors swirled of a pact between the parties. Polevnsky quickly apologized and said she was misquoted.
‘A Certain Forgetting’
There are signs of “a sort of strategic coordination” between the ruling party and its likely successor, said political scientist Carlos Bravo. “It might be hard to swallow” for some Mexicans, he said, but it’s “not unheard-of. Regime-change projects sometimes have required a certain forgetting or forgiving of past sins.”
That clemency appears to include people like Beltrones, who’s served in both houses of parliament, governed Sonora state and led the PRI. He survived a New York Times expose in the 1990s linking him to alleged drug traffickers. Beltrones and later the Mexican government denied he was involved in any wrongdoing.
Other prominent PRI-istas tipped to be key interlocutors for a new government includes Juarez, Senator Emilio Gamboa, and former Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio.
The Angry Vote’
Lopez Obrador will need as much cross-party support as he can get for his economic plans, according to Aldo Munoz, a political analyst at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. Redistributing wealth is the candidate’s priority, judging by his 400-odd page “Plan for the Nation,” filled with new social programs.
That’s probably one reason why, even as he castigates big business over abuses, the likely next president is calling on Mexicans to respect Pena Nieto’s transition out of power.
“With this discourse, he can win over some of the undecided,” said Munoz. “He has the angry vote already.”