Новости за 03.04.2016

Rob Fulford, NP
There’s pathos as well as tragedy in Ukraine’s fate. It has lived in the shadow of Russia for so long that it lacks identity. At the moment several parties in the Ukrainian parliament are trying to create a presumably stable and coherent coalition. They hope to qualify for a .7-billion recovery loan from the International Monetary Fund, which has already warned that political paralysis is putting the loan at risk. Once more, Ukraine’s fate rests in foreign hands.

H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe
If Europe is at war, it is at war with itself. How did this come to pass? Primarily it comes from Europe’s inability to integrate its growing Muslim population, and that’s a problem that has been going on for almost a century.

Alberto Mucci, Politico EU
Rome hopes stability in the North African nation will protect its oil interests and stop the flow of migrants.

Paul Salem, RealClearWorld
The cease-fire and the evolving Russian position have affected Assad's strategy. His intention had been to maintain Russian help until a full battlefield defeat of the opposition, while leaving the fight against ISIS for a later stage. With the first lane now closed, he has been forced to reevaluate.

Mohammed Hanif, New York Times
In the world we live in, there is no dearth of pious men who believe that most of the world’s problems can be fixed by giving their women a little thrashing. And this business of a man’s God-given right to give a woman a little thrashing has brought together all of Pakistan’s pious men.

Robertson, Riley & Willis, Bloomberg
For eight years, Seplveda, now 31, says he traveled the continent rigging major political campaigns. With a budget of 0,000, the Pea Nieto job was by far his most complex. He led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices, all to help Pea Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, eke out a victory. On that July night, he cracked bottle after bottle of Coln Negra beer in celebration. Читать дальше...

Andrew Bacevich, Nation
Rather than Reaganesque, Cruz’s prescription for dealing with Islamist radicalism represents a throwback to bomb-them-back-to-the-Stone-Age precepts pioneered by Gen. Curtis LeMay and endorsed by the likes of Barry Goldwater back when obliteration was in fashion. The embryonic Cruz Doctrine offers an approximation of total war. “I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out!” he promises with evident enthusiasm.

Aaron David Miller, Wall St Journal
Should he survive until 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu will be the longest-governing prime minister in Israel’s history, surpassing David Ben-Gurion. Critics of Mr. Netanyahu say that, rather like “Seinfeld,” his tenure has been a show about nothing. Yet he survives. His political wiles have established the perception that he is indeed prime minister material, with tested security credentials. And there is no single Israeli leader on the scene with the stature to challenge him.

Metin Gurcan, Al-Monitor
What would a content analysis of this speech by Erdogan tell us? First of all, in contrast to traditional speeches, this one was more emotional and congenial. Instead of telling the audience about global security and the TSK’s structural transformation, Erdogan wanted to relate the tough conditions he has to work under. By expressing his regret about the legal unfairness TSK personnel were subjected to, he appealed to the hearts of these young officers.

Max Fisher, Vox
In Hebron, and elsewhere, some young Palestinian men have indulged their anger in recent months by stabbing Israelis more or less at random, wounding or killing a number of innocent civilians and bringing terror to much of Israel. Last Thursday, two of those young men reportedly stormed a Hebron checkpoint, stabbing an Israeli soldier in the arm. Other soldiers fired at the Palestinians, killing one and wounding the other, 21-year-old Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif. A few minutes later... Читать дальше...

Juan Nagel, Foreign Policy
Venezuela is, once again, in the throes of a full-blown electricity crisis. Citizens complain of unannounced blackouts are shutting down factories, forcing shopping malls to close early, and otherwise wreaking havoc on an already-sputtering economy. The crisis is so severe that President Nicols Maduro has curtailed working hours for government workers. Last week he even extended the Holy Week holiday to reduce power usage.

Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books
The suicide bomber who killed seventy-two people on Easter Sunday in a park in Lahore, Pakistan has drawn condemnation from around the world. Among the killed were twenty-nine children, and another 370 people were wounded, many of them members of the country’s Christian minority. Far less noted, however, has been the attack’s equally devastating effect on relations between Pakistan’s army and civilian government, which threatens to bring further instability to the country’s Punjab heartland.

Katrina Manson, Financial Times
The country is already so full of military personnel that its small, sandy capital city at times resembles a sprawling garrison. US fighter jets share the same airport runway as commercial airlines at the civil airport. French soldiers in impossibly skimpy, neon-hued shorts jog past brightly veiled women and mosques. The five-star Palace Kempinski hotel, a bubble of exclusivity in the otherwise poor city, serves Cokes and popcorn tossed in truffle butter to crewcuts in uniform. Читать дальше...

Tom Rogan, National Review
Raqqa, like Mosul, is compressed against the Euphrates River. Daesh would therefore face three choices in a battle for the city: surrender; run south into the desert (and face aerial obliteration); or face annihilation in separated blocks of the city (in a face-to-face, man-to-man urban battle). In short, the military situation favors attack. (The first factor, the discontent within Raqqa, is linked to this military factor: As the regional analyst known as “Beyond the Levant” noted to me... Читать дальше...

Angelo Codevilla, Federalist
Suggestions such as Trump’s, that we might leave the fight against ISIS to others unless we are paid, proceed from failure properly to identify for what we rightly hazard our lives. They reduce the American military to mercenaries and American statesmen to their contractor.