Новости за 01.03.2016

Daniel Brumberg, Foreign Policy
Reformists were on the verge of being excluded from Iranian politics. Now they're back at the center of the action.

R. Jahanbegloo, Huffington Post
Unlike what many may think, elections in an illiberal country like Iran are not only a political show. Their outcome serves as a test of strength among Iran's competing power centers. Over the weekend, the Iranian people went massively to the polls to elect members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the parliament, and the 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of selecting the next supreme leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This was... Читать дальше...

J. Doyle, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence have once again invaded the public consciousness. In the past few years, startling facts about these civilization-ending machines have come to light. They were not all mothballed when the Cold War ended. Even poor, isolated countries like North Korea can build them. Terrorists are trying to buy or steal them. They have nearly been detonated by accident many times. American nuclear missile operators were caught gambling... Читать дальше...

Maj. Frank Kuzminski, RealClearDefense
In a recent article, U.S. Army Major Christopher Lee argues that the United States should allow South Korea to obtain its own nuclear arsenal, stating that it is the only way for the South to prevent Kim Jong-Un from furthering his nuclear and ballistic missile program. This argument is a false dichotomy and fails to consider, or at least properly weigh, the global and strategic consequences of such an outcome.

Z. Beauchamp, Vox
In 2011, the United States and several European countries intervened in Libya's civil war, ultimately helping to topple dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Today, everybody agrees that Libya is a disaster. It has two competing, warring governments — neither of which actually runs the country. Militias roam freely. ISIS controls an entire city (Sirte), as well as a 175-mile strip across the eastern coastline.

Joshua Keating, Slate
Japan’s population decreased by nearly 1 million people over the past five years according to the country’s latest census, the first recorded population decline for the country since the 1920s. Officials expect deaths to continue to outnumber births for the foreseeable future. The largest drop, unsurprisingly, was in Fukushima, site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. At current rates, by 2060, Japan’s population will be one-third smaller than it is now and 40 percent of its citizens will be older than 65... Читать дальше...

M. Aikins, New Yorker
America’s war in Afghanistan, which is now in its fifteenth year, presents a mystery: how could so much money, power, and good will have achieved so little?

Alexander Decina, Daily Beast
A close look at Ahrar al-Sham, the so-called moderate Salafist militia, backed by U.S. allies, that’s actually allied with al Qaeda.

Hooman Majd, Al-Monitor
Iranians want a lot of things. What they don’t want is to be told that their vote doesn’t count or that it doesn’t matter.

Real Time
MICHAEL HAYDEN: I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign.

PBS Newshour
Iran’s election results show modest gains for reformists and moderates in Parliament, but experts remain cynical about prospects for real change, especially since many conservative and hardline candidates also managed big wins. Judy Woodruff talks to Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for more on what the elections really represent.

Philip Bobbitt, New Statesman
This rendering of the evolution of the modern state is crucial because if we unthinkingly assume that the only constitutional order we have known since feudalism is the nation state, we will be dead to the idea that our present constitutional order is being replaced and that the wars into which we are now entering will have a constitutional impact, challenging and reframing the international order.

Robert Farley, National Interest
The British Army and the Royal Navy could, possibly, have erected a credible defense of Nova Scotia, preventing the United States from completely rolling up Canada. London could also have offered support for resistance forces in the Canadian wilderness, although even supplying guerilla operations in the far north would have tested British logistics and resolve.

John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of Lech who died in the Smolensk air disaster, is the force behind PiS. He has remained in parliament to control the party while elevating the more diplomatic Beata Szydlo as prime minister and getting his attack dog, the Cruz-like Macierewicz, appointed as defense minister. Together, they are presiding over a transformation in Poland not unlike what the Tea Party would dearly like to accomplish in the United States.

Jon Tobin, Commentary
We shouldn’t expect any actual change in Iranian society or its foreign policy. Rouhani and his moderates don’t want a free Iran or even one that isn’t a threat to its neighbors. But they do want to exploit the foolish desires of Western liberals to pretend that the conflict with the Islamist regime is over.

Mark Lilla, NY Review of Books
The attention of the political class is now focused almost exclusively on the presidential elections of 2017, not on France’s long-term challenges. The chances of Marine Le Pen winning one of the top two spots in the first round are high, which would mean a repeat of the 2002 election when her father came in second, forcing the parties of the left to throw their support behind the conservative Jacques Chirac in the second round. Any president, Socialist or Republican... Читать дальше...

Adrian Karatnycky, The Atlantic
Let Poles, then, think in gray, and let outsiders not look for avatars of perfection in its politicians. Those viewing Poland from the outside should remember that even when these avatars have fallen, what remains in their place is a remarkable set of men and women across the political spectrum, who were once part of a vast movement that changed the world and made it possible for us to think in shades of ambiguity and ambivalence.

Giorgia Nicatore, Ramen IR
The government of Mali and Tuareg rebels who once claimed independence for the northern territory they call Azawad, signed a peace agreement in June of 2015, which put an end to hostilities between government-backed forces and different rebel factions.

Daniel Larison, American Conservative
The New York Times reports on Hillary Clinton’s role in the Libyan war. This passage sums up much of what’s wrong with how Clinton and her supporters think about how the U.S. should respond to foreign conflicts:

Michael Auslin, War on the Rocks
The news that China has deployed advanced fighter jets to, and emplaced surface-to-air missiles on, Woody Island in the disputed Paracel Island chain confirms long-held fears that Beijing plans to militarize its possessions in the South China Sea. As Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testified before Congress in February, China is militarizing the South China Sea, and to think otherwise, “you’d have to believe in a flat Earth.” He stated, “I... Читать дальше...

E. Braw, World Affairs Journal
A curious chain of events has unfolded in Finland that makes one wonder about the country’s newly formed anti-NATO political party, its founder, and his discomforting relationships with some shadowy characters.

Fred Hiatt, WaPo
Whatever your politics, you cannot fail to grasp that the problems are deadly serious, and any remedies complex and elusive. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential debates unfold like some grotesque game of playground taunting, with real problems, to the extent they are discussed at all, presented as amenable to easy solution.

Kaj Leers, RealClearWorld
With one year to go before the 2017 election, France's socialist president, Francois Hollande, is fighting for his political life. After boldly stating in the past that he would not stand for re-election should unemployment remain high, he must now also worry about a challenge from within his own party. Hollande's last and only chance is a rerun of the 2012 election against then-incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, the only candidate who appears less popular than Hollande.