Política Internacional

By George Friedman

Stratfor, September 8, 2010

It has now been nine years since al Qaeda attacked the United States. It has been nine years in which the primary focus of the United States has been on the Islamic world. In addition to a massive investment in homeland security, the United States has engaged in two multi-year, multi-divisional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, inserted forces in other countries in smaller operations and conducted a global covert campaign against al Qaeda and other radical jihadist groups.

In order to understand the last nine years you must understand the first 24 hours of the war — and recall your own feelings in those 24 hours. First, the attack was a shock, its audaciousness frightening. Second, we did not know what was coming next. The attack had destroyed the right to complacent assumptions. Were there other cells standing by in the United States? Did they have capabilities even more substantial than what they showed on Sept. 11? Could they be detected and stopped? Any American not frightened on Sept. 12 was not in touch with reality. Many who are now claiming that the United States overreacted are forgetting their own sense of panic. We are all calm and collected nine years after.

At the root of all of this was a profound lack of understanding of al Qaeda, particularly its capabilities and intentions. Since we did not know what was possible, our only prudent course was to prepare for the worst. That is what the Bush administration did. Nothing symbolized this more than the fear that al Qaeda had acquired nuclear weapons and that they would use them against the United States. The evidence was minimal, but the consequences would be overwhelming. Bush crafted a strategy based on the worst-case scenario.

Bush was the victim of a decade of failure in the intelligence community to understand what al Qaeda was and wasn’t. I am not merely talking about the failure to predict the 9/11 attack. Regardless of assertions afterwards, the intelligence community provided only vague warnings that lacked the kind of specificity that makes for actionable intelligence. To a certain degree, this is understandable. Al Qaeda learned from Soviet, Saudi, Pakistani and American intelligence during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and knew how to launch attacks without tipping off the target. The greatest failure of American intelligence was not the lack of a clear warning about 9/11 but the lack, on Sept. 12, of a clear picture of al Qaeda’s global structure, capabilities, weaknesses and intentions. Without such information, implementing U.S. policy was like piloting an airplane with faulty instruments in a snowstorm at night.

The president had to do three things: First, he had to assure the public that he knew what he was doing. Second, he had to do something that appeared decisive. Third, he had to gear up an intelligence and security apparatus to tell him what the threats actually were and what he ought to do. American policy became ready, fire, aim.

In looking back at the past nine years, two conclusions can be drawn: There were no more large-scale attacks on the United States by militant Islamists, and the United States was left with the legacy of responses that took place in the first two years after 9/11. This legacy is no longer useful, if it ever was, to the primary mission of defeating al Qaeda, and it represents an effort that is retrospectively out of proportion to the threat.

If I had been told on Sept.12, 2001, that the attack the day before would be the last major attack for at least nine years, I would not have believed it. In looking at the complexity of the security and execution of the 9/11 attack, I would have assumed that an organization capable of acting once in such a way could act again even more effectively. My assumption was wrong. Al Qaeda did not have the resources to mount other operations, and the U.S. response, in many ways clumsy and misguided and in other ways clever and targeted, disrupted any preparations in which al Qaeda might have been engaged to conduct follow-on attacks.

Knowing that about al Qaeda in 2001 was impossible. Knowing which operations were helpful in the effort to block them was impossible, in the context of what Americans knew in the first years after the war began. Therefore, Washington wound up in the contradictory situation in which American military and covert operations surged while new attacks failed to materialize. This created a massive political problem. Rather than appearing to be the cause for the lack of attacks, U.S. military operations were perceived by many as being unnecessary or actually increasing the threat of attack. Even in hindsight, aligning U.S. actions with the apparent outcome is difficult and controversial. But still we know two things: It has been nine years since Sept. 11, 2001, and the war goes on.

What happened was that an act of terrorism was allowed to redefine U.S. grand strategy. The United States operates with a grand strategy derived from the British strategy in Europe — maintaining the balance of power. For the United Kingdom, maintaining the balance of power in Europe protected any one power from emerging that could unite Europe and build a fleet to invade the United Kingdom or block its access to its empire. British strategy was to help create coalitions to block emerging hegemons such as Spain, France or Germany. Using overt and covert means, the United Kingdom aimed to ensure that no hegemonic power could emerge.

The Americans inherited that grand strategy from the British but elevated it to a global rather than regional level. Having blocked the Soviet Union from hegemony over Europe and Asia, the United States proceeded with a strategy whose goal, like that of the United Kingdom, was to nip potential regional hegemons in the bud. The U.S. war with Iraq in 1990-91 and the war with Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999 were examples of this strategy. It involved coalition warfare, shifting America’s weight from side to side and using minimal force to disrupt the plans of regional aspirants to gain power. This U.S. strategy also was cloaked in the ideology of global liberalism and human rights.

The key to this strategy was its global nature. The emergence of a hegemonic contender that could challenge the United States globally, as the Soviet Union had done, was the worst-case scenario. Therefore, the containment of emerging powers wherever they might emerge was the centerpiece of American balance-of-power strategy.

The most significant effect of 9/11 was that it knocked the United States off its strategy. Rather than adapting its standing global strategy to better address the counterterrorism issue, the United States became obsessed with a single region, the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush. Within that region, the United States operated with a balance-of-power strategy. It played off all of the nations in the region against each other. It did the same with ethnic and religious groups throughout the region and particularly within Iraq and Afghanistan, the main theaters of the war. In both cases, the United States sought to take advantage of internal divisions, shifting its support in various directions to create a balance of power. That, in the end, was what the surge strategy was all about.

The American obsession with this region in the wake of 9/11 is understandable. Nine years later, with no clear end in sight, the question is whether this continued focus is strategically rational for the United States. Given the uncertainties of the first few years, obsession and uncertainty are understandable, but as a long-term U.S. strategy — the long war that the U.S. Department of Defense is preparing for — it leaves the rest of the world uncovered.

Consider that the Russians have used the American absorption in this region as a window of opportunity to work to reconstruct their geopolitical position. When Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008, an American ally, the United States did not have the forces with which to make a prudent intervention. Similarly, the Chinese have had a degree of freedom of action they could not have expected to enjoy prior to 9/11. The single most important result of 9/11 was that it shifted the United States from a global stance to a regional one, allowing other powers to take advantage of this focus to create significant potential challenges to the United States.

One can make the case, as I have, that whatever the origin of the Iraq war, remaining in Iraq to contain Iran is necessary. It is difficult to make a similar case for Afghanistan. Its strategic interest to the United States is minimal. The only justification for the war is that al Qaeda launched its attacks on the United States from Afghanistan. But that justification is no longer valid. Al Qaeda can launch attacks from Yemen or other countries. The fact that Afghanistan was the base from which the attacks were launched does not mean that al Qaeda depends on Afghanistan to launch attacks. And given that the apex leadership of al Qaeda has not launched attacks in a while, the question is whether al Qaeda is capable of launching such attacks any longer. In any case, managing al Qaeda today does not require nation building in Afghanistan.

But let me state a more radical thesis: The threat of terrorism cannot become the singular focus of the United States. Let me push it further: The United States cannot subordinate its grand strategy to simply fighting terrorism even if there will be occasional terrorist attacks on the United States. Three thousand people died in the 9/11 attack. That is a tragedy, but in a nation of over 300 million, 3,000 deaths cannot be permitted to define the totality of national strategy. Certainly, resources must be devoted to combating the threat and, to the extent possible, disrupting it. But it must also be recognized that terrorism cannot always be blocked, that terrorist attacks will occur and that the world’s only global power cannot be captive to this single threat.

The initial response was understandable and necessary. The United States must continue its intelligence gathering and covert operations against militant Islamists throughout the world. The intelligence failures of the 1990s must not be repeated. But waging a multi-divisional war in Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. The balance-of-power strategy must be used. Pakistan will intervene and discover the Russians and Iranians. The great game will continue. As for Iran, regional counters must be supported at limited cost to the United States. The United States should not be patrolling the far reaches of the region. It should be supporting a balance of power among the native powers of the region.

The United States is a global power and, as such, it must have a global view. It has interests and challenges beyond this region and certainly beyond Afghanistan. The issue there is not whether the United States can or can’t win, however that is defined. The issue is whether it is worth the effort considering what is going on in the rest of the world. Gen. David Petraeus cast the war in terms of whether the United States can win it. That’s reasonable; he’s the commander. But American strategy has to ask another question: What does the United States lose elsewhere while it focuses on the future of Kandahar?

The 9/11 attack shocked the United States and made counterterrorism the centerpiece of American foreign policy. That is too narrow a basis on which to base U.S. foreign policy. It is certainly an important strand of that policy, and it must be addressed, but it should be addressed through the regional balance of power. It is the good fortune of the United States that the Islamic world is torn by internal rivalries.

This is not dismissing the threat of terror. It is recognizing that the United States has done well in suppressing it over the past nine years but at a cost in other regions, a cost that can’t be sustained indefinitely and a cost that could well result in challenges more threatening than a rising Islamist militancy. The United States must now settle into a long-term strategy of managing terrorism as best as it can while not neglecting the rest of its interests.

After nine years, the issue is not what to do in Afghanistan but how the global power can return to managing all of its global interests, along with the war on al Qaeda.

Integra da reportagem publicada no site Atlantic

Fidel: ‘Cuban Model Doesn’t Even Work For Us Anymore’

By Jeffrey Goldberg

There were many odd things about my recent Havana stopover (apart from the dolphin show, which I’ll get to shortly), but one of the most unusual was Fidel Castro’s level of self-reflection. I only have limited experience with Communist autocrats (I have more experience with non-Communist autocrats) but it seemed truly striking that Castro was willing to admit that he misplayed his hand at a crucial moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis (you can read about what he said toward the end of my previous post - but he said, in so many words, that he regrets asking Khruschev to nuke the U.S.).

Even more striking was something he said at lunch on the day of our first meeting. We were seated around a smallish table; Castro, his wife, Dalia, his son; Antonio; Randy Alonso, a major figure in the government-run media; and Julia Sweig, the friend I brought with me to make sure, among other things, that I didn’t say anything too stupid (Julia is a leading Latin American scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations). I initially was mainly interested in watching Fidel eat – it was a combination of digestive problems that conspired to nearly kill him, and so I thought I would do a bit of gastrointestinal Kremlinology and keep a careful eye on what he took in (for the record, he ingested small amounts of fish and salad, and quite a bit of bread dipped in olive oil, as well as a glass of red wine). But during the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

“The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, “Never mind”?

I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, “He wasn’t rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under ‘the Cuban model’ the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country.”

Julia pointed out that one effect of such a sentiment might be to create space for his brother, Raul, who is now president, to enact the necessary reforms in the face of what will surely be push-back from orthodox communists within the Party and the bureaucracy.  Raul Castro is already loosening the state’s hold on the economy. He recently announced, in fact, that small businesses can now operate and that foreign investors could now buy Cuban real estate. (The joke of this new announcement, of course, is that Americans are not allowed to invest in Cuba, not because of Cuban policy, but because of American policy. In other words, Cuba is beginning to adopt the sort of economic ideas that America has long-demanded it adopt, but Americans are not allowed to participate in this free-market experiment because of our government’s hypocritical and stupidly self-defeating embargo policy. We’ll regret this, of course, when Cubans partner with Europeans and Brazilians to buy up all the best hotels).

But I digress. Toward the end of this long, relaxed lunch, Fidel proved to us that he was truly semi-retired. The next day was Monday, when maximum leaders are expected to be busy single-handedly managing their economies, throwing dissidents into prison, and the like. But Fidel’s calendar was open. He asked us, “Would you like to go the aquarium with me to see the dolphin show?”

I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. (This happened a number of times during my visit). “The dolphin show?”

“The dolphins are very intelligent animals,” Castro said.

I noted that we had a meeting scheduled for the next morning, with Adela Dworin, the president of Cuba’s Jewish community.

“Bring her,” Fidel said.

Someone at the table mentioned that the aquarium was closed on Mondays. Fidel said, “It will be open tomorrow.”

And so it was.

Late the next morning, after collecting Adela at the synagogue, we met Fidel on the steps of the dolphin house. He kissed Dworin, not incidentally in front of the cameras (another message for Ahmadinejad, perhaps). We went together into a large, blue-lit room that faces a massive, glass-enclosed dolphin tank. Fidel explained, at length, that the Havana Aquarium’s dolphin show was the best dolphin show in the world, “completely unique,” in fact, because it is an underwater show. Three human divers enter the water, without breathing equipment, and perform intricate acrobatics with the dolphins. “Do you like dolphins?” Fidel asked me.

“I like dolphins a lot,” I said.

Fidel called over Guillermo Garcia, the director of the aquarium (every employee of the aquarium, of course, showed up for work — “voluntarily,” I was told) and told him to sit with us.

“Goldberg,” Fidel said, “ask him questions about dolphins.”

“What kind of questions?” I asked.

“You’re a journalist, ask good questions,” he said, and then interrupted himself. “He doesn’t know much about dolphins anyway,” he said, pointing to Garcia. He’s actually a nuclear physicist.”

“You are?” I asked.

“Yes,” Garcia said, somewhat apologetically.

“Why are you running the aquarium?” I asked.

“We put him here to keep him from building nuclear bombs!” Fidel said, and then cracked-up laughing.

“In Cuba, we would only use nuclear power for peaceful means,” Garcia said, earnestly.

“I didn’t think I was in Iran,” I answered.

Fidel pointed to the small rug under the special swivel chair his bodyguards bring along for him.

“It’s Persian!” he said, and laughed again. Then he said, “Goldberg, ask your questions about dolphins.”

Now on the spot, I turned to Garcia and asked, “How much do the dolphins weigh?”

They weigh between 100 and 150 kilograms, he said.

“How do you train the dolphins to do what they do?”  I asked.

“That’s a good question,” Fidel said.

Garcia called over one of the aquarium’s veterinarians to help answer the question. Her name was Celia. A few minutes later, Antonio Castro told me her last name: Guevara.

“You’re Che’s daughter?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“And you’re a dolphin veterinarian?”

“I take care of all the inhabitants of the aquarium,” she said.

“Che liked animals very much,” Antonio Castro said.

It was time for the show to start. The lights dimmed, and the divers entered the water. Without describing it overly much, I will say that once again, and to my surprise, I found myself agreeing with Fidel: The aquarium in Havana puts on a fantastic dolphin show, the best I’ve ever seen, and as the father of three children, I’ve seen a lot of dolphin shows. I will also say this: I’ve never seen someone enjoy a dolphin show as much as Fidel Castro enjoyed the dolphin show.

In the next installment, I will deal with such issues as the American embargo, the status of religion in Cuba, the plight of political dissidents, and economic reform. For now, I leave you with this image from our day at the aquarium (I’m in the low chair; Che’s daughter is behind me, with the short, blondish hair; Fidel is the guy who looks like Fidel if Fidel shopped at L.L. Bean).

‘Modelo cubano não funciona mais nem mesmo para nós’, diz Fidel

Ex-presidente admitiu que o modelo não tem apelo para ser exportado.

Especialista diz que declaração deve abrir espaço para reformas em Cuba.

Do G1, em São Paulo

O ex-presidente cubano Fidel Castro admitiu que o “modelo cubano” não tem mais apelo para ser exportado para outros países. A declaração faz parte de uma longa entrevista que concedeu à revista americana “The Atlantic Monthly”, cuja segunda parte foi publicada nesta quarta-feira (8). Questionado pelo o jornalista Jeffrey Goldberg se achava que o modelo cubano ainda poderia ser exportado para algum lugar, Fidel respondeu: “O modelo cubano não funciona mais nem mesmo para nós”.

Segundo Julia Sweig, diretora de pesquisas sobre a América Latina no Council of Foreign Relations, que acompanhou o jornalista em sua viagem a Cuba, “ele não rejeitou as ideias da revolução”, mas apenas admitiu que sob o “modelo cubano” o Estado tem um papel grande demais na vida econômica do país. Segundo ela, trata-se de uma forma de abrir espaço para que Raúl Castro, irmão de Fidel que está no poder desde que ele saiu da Presidência, faça as reformas necessárias para abrir a economia do país.

Na mesma entrevista, o ex-ditador cubano criticou a retórica antissemita usada pelo presidente iraniano, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Não acredito que alguém tenha sido mais difamado que os judeus. Diria que muito mais do que os muçulmanos. Foram mais difamados que os muçulmanos porque são acusados e caluniados por tudo. Ninguém culpa os muçulmanos de nada”, estimou Fidel.

“Digo isso para que você possa dizer a ele”, respondeu Fidel, indagado pelo correspondente Jeffrey Goldberg se tem a intenção de compartilhar com Ahmadinejad seu ponto de vista.

Goldberg foi convidado pelo próprio Fidel, que se interessou por um artigo seu sobre as tensões entre Irã e Israel. “Os judeus tiveram uma vida muito mais dura do que a nossa. Não há nada que se compare ao Holocausto”, afirmou Fidel Castro, que foi entrevistado pelo jornalista em Havana durante três dias.

Fidel Castro, que voltou a aparecer em público e escrever com frequência nas últimas semanas, criticou Ahmadinejad por negar o Holocausto, e afirmou que o governo iraniano contribuiria para a paz se tentasse entender porque os israelenses temem por sua existência, escreveu Goldberg.

Fonte BBC Brasil

O grupo separatista basco ETA afirmou que não vai mais realizar atentados em sua campanha por independência na Espanha.

Em um vídeo obtido pela BBC e divulgado neste domingo, o grupo afirma que a decisão foi tomada há meses para “colocar em andamento um processo democrático”.

O governo espanhol se recusava a negociar com o ETA enquanto o grupo mantinha a luta armada.

O ministro do Interior do País Basco, Rodolfo Ares, afirmou que a única coisa que a sociedade basca espera é um fim definitivo das atividades terroristas, e que a declaração do ETA é “insuficiente”

A campanha violenta do ETA por independência do País Basco levou a mais de 820 mortes nos últimos 40 anos. Nas últimas décadas, o ETA já havia anunciado cessar-fogo em duas ocasiões, mas nas duas vezes acabou abandonando a iniciativa.

No vídeo obtido pela BBC, três integrantes do ETA aparecem com máscaras ao lado de bandeiras do grupo separatista.

A pessoa no meio lê um pronunciamento do ETA em defesa da luta armada pela independência do País Basco, mas no final afirma que o grupo agora quer atingir seu objetivo de forma pacífica e democrática.

“O ETA confirma o seu comprometimento com a busca de uma solução democrática para o conflito”, afirma.

“Nós pedimos aos cidadãos bascos que continuem seu esforço, cada um na sua área, com qualquer que seja o grau de comprometimento de cada um, para que nós possamos derrubar o muro da negação e possamos dar passos irreversíveis para frente, a caminho da liberdade.”

Nos últimos anos, o ETA enfraqueceu-se na Espanha, depois que alguns dos seus líderes foram presos. Partidos políticos na região, que também defendem a independência do País Basco, vinham pedindo que o grupo renunciasse à violência.

Segundo o correspondente da BBC em San Sebastian, Clive Myrie, o ETA vinha enfrentando crescente pressão para abandonar as armas.

Em 2006, negociações pela paz foram interrompidas depois que uma bomba do ETA matou duas pessoas em um aeroporto em Madri.

Editorial do The New York Times.

We were glad to see President Obama go to Fort Bliss on Tuesday before his Oval Office speech on Iraq, to thank those Americans who most shouldered the burdens of a tragic, pointless war. One of the few rays of light in the conflict has been the distance America has come since Vietnam, when blameless soldiers were scorned for decisions made by politicians.

President George W. Bush tried to make Iraq an invisible, seemingly cost-free war. He refused to attend soldiers’ funerals and hid their returning coffins from the public. So it was fitting that Mr. Obama, who has improved veterans’ health care and made the Pentagon budget more rational, paid tribute to them.

“At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve,” he said on Tuesday night. He added: “There were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.”

The speech also made us reflect on how little Mr. Bush accomplished by needlessly invading Iraq in March 2003 — and then ludicrously declaring victory two months later.

Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction proved to be Bush administration propaganda. The war has not created a new era of democracy in the Middle East — or in Iraq for that matter. There are stirrings of democratic politics in Iraq that give us hope. But there is no government six months after national elections.

In many ways, the war made Americans less safe, creating a new organization of terrorists and diverting the nation’s military resources and political will from Afghanistan. Deprived of its main adversary, a strong Iraq, Iran was left freer to pursue its nuclear program, to direct and finance extremist groups and to meddle in Iraq.

Mr. Obama graciously said it was time to put disagreements over Iraq behind us, but it is important not to forget how much damage Mr. Bush caused by misleading Americans about exotic weapons, about American troops being greeted with open arms, about creating a model democracy in Baghdad.

That is why it was so important that Mr. Obama candidly said the United States is not free of this conflict; American troops will see more bloodshed. We hope he follows through on his vow to work with Iraq’s government after the withdrawal of combat troops.

There was no victory to declare last night, and Mr. Obama was right not to try. If victory was ever possible in this war, it has not been won, and America still faces the daunting challenges of the other war, in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama, addressing those who either believe that he is not committed to the fight in Afghanistan or believe that he will not leave, said Americans should “make no mistake” — he will stick to his plan to begin withdrawing troops next August. He still needs to clearly explain, and soon, how he will “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda” and meet that timetable.

As we heard Mr. Obama speak from his desk with his usual calm clarity and eloquence, it made us wish we heard more from him on many issues. We are puzzled about why he talks to Americans directly so rarely and with seeming reluctance. This was only his second Oval Office address in more than 19 months of crisis upon crisis. The country particularly needs to hear more from Mr. Obama about what he rightly called the most urgent task — “to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work.”

For this day, it was worth dwelling on this milestone in Iraq and on some grim numbers: more than 4,400 Americans dead and some 35,000 wounded, many with lost limbs. And on one number that American politicians are loath to mention: at least 100,000 Iraqis dead.

Obama anuncia fim da guerra no Iraque ‘no prazo’

AE – Agência Estado

O presidente dos Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, afirmou nesta segunda-feira que a guerra do Iraque se aproxima do final “como prometido e no prazo”, comemorando o que ele chamou de um sucesso de seu governo, que ocorreria em meio ao persistente instabilidade e incerteza no Iraque. Obama citou o progresso para cumprir o prazo final de retirar todas as tropas de combate do Iraque até o final de agosto. Numa lembrança da situação muito instável no Iraque, ataques a bombas e disparos de armas de fogo mataram 12 pessoas nesta segunda-feira.

“A dura verdade é que nós não vimos o final do sacrifício norte-americano no Iraque”, disse Obama aos veteranos, em discurso na convenção nacional dos Veteranos Americanos, que reúne soldados que foram mutilados na guerra. “Não se enganem: nosso comprometimento com o Iraque está mudando, passando de um esforço militar liderado por nossas tropas para um esforço civil conduzido por nossos diplomatas”, afirmou o mandatário.

O anúncio de Obama vem à tona em um momento no qual a situação no Iraque parece voltar a se deteriorar. O governo norte-americano vem prometendo há dois anos um fim responsável para a guerra no Iraque, atualmente em seu sétimo ano. No entanto, julho foi o mês com mais mortes relacionadas ao conflito em mais de dois anos, segundo números oficiais divulgados pelo governo iraquiano no fim de semana. Ao mesmo tempo, o país árabe encontra-se sem um governo efetivo desde as eleições gerais de março, que terminaram sem um vencedor claro. As diferentes facções políticas do país ainda não conseguiram um acordo para a formação de uma coalizão.

Os EUA manterão uma força de 50 mil soldados no Iraque, a qual deverá ter como missão o treinamento das tropas iraquianas. Sob um acordo negociado em 2008 com o governo iraquiano, todas as tropas dos EUA deverão deixar o país do Oriente Médio até o final de 2011. Há cerca de 65 mil militares norte-americanos atualmente no Iraque. Quando Obama assumiu a presidência, em janeiro de 2009, os EUA tinham 140 mil soldados no Iraque. Em 2007, durante a presidência de George W. Bush, os EUA chegaram a ter 167 mil soldados no Iraque.

Em homenagem a minha tia Jake, apresento uma versão simplificada da notícia anterior, em português, e aproveito e mando um recado para ela: Obrigado por todas as palavras de incentivo e pelos olhares críticos!

Acordo de paz no Oriente Médio é possível em um ano, diz Abbas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – O presidente palestino, Mahmoud Abbas, disse na quarta-feira que um acordo de paz no Oriente Médio é possível “dentro de um ano” e condenou os últimos ataques contra judeus na Cisjordânia.

Falando a líderes israelenses e árabes e para o presidente norte-americano, Barack Obama, na Casa Branca, Abbas pediu a Israel que congele todas as atividades de assentamento e disse que é tempo de fazer a paz, terminar a ocupação de Israel e estabelecer um Estado palestino.

No mesmo encontro, o primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, afirmou que seu país não deixará terroristas bloquearem o caminho para a paz no Oriente Médio. Qualquer acordo de paz deve garantir a segurança, disse.

Obama pediu aos líderes que não deixem escapar a chance para a paz ao abrir uma cúpula patrocinada pelos Estados Unidos para retomar as conversações diretas assombradas pela violência na região.

Na terça-feira, quatro colonos israelenses foram mortos a tiros na Cisjordânia ocupada, num ataque que o grupo islâmico palestino Hamas disse ter sido seu primeiro gesto contra as negociações de paz que começaram na quarta-feira em Washington.

New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Obama began his foray into Middle East peace-making on Wednesday, as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed to work on a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty in the next year intended to end a conflict that has endured for six decades.

In a remarkable tableau at the White House, Mr. Obama, flanked by the leaders of Israel, the Palestinians, and the only two Arab states with whom Israel has made peace, vowed to do everything within his power to achieve the comprehensive agreement that has eluded negotiators since Israel was established.

“We are but five men,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday night. “But when we come together, we will not be alone. We will be joined by the generations of those who have gone before.” He spoke of Anwar el-Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, the Egyptian and Israeli leaders who lost their lives because they pursued peace; of Jordan’s King Hussein and Israel’s Menachem Begin — “statesmen,” Mr. Obama said, “who imagined the world as it should be.”

Mr. Obama said that he and the other leaders owed it to those men to “work diligently to fulfill their aspirations.”

In somber, emotional tones, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority expressed their own determination to make peace.

Mr. Netanyahyu, turning toward to Mr. Abbas, called him his “partner in peace.” He said he came to find a “historic compromise” but warned that any deal must be anchored in ensuring Israel’s security.

Mr. Abbas, for his part, said he would push hard despite “the difficulties we’re going to face tomorrow.” But he quickly foreshadowed the biggest early sticking point in the talks, calling for Mr. Netanyahu to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank.

The East Room gathering was a rare moment of diplomatic theater, endorsed by the attendance of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan, and orchestrated by Mr. Obama as part of an effort to invest the process with his own personal stature. It came after Mr. Obama held a series of one-on-one meetings with the men throughout the day, and just before they were to begin a working dinner. On Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas are to begin direct talks.

For Mr. Netanyahu and Mr.Abbas, the talks, with their very real chance of failure, represent a huge risk: President Bill Clinton’s failed attempt in 2000 led to the Palestinian intifada while President George W. Bush’s Annapolis peace attempt dissolved amid chronic violence in Gaza.

“Too much blood has already been shed, too many hearts have already been broken,” Mr. Obama said. “This moment of opportunity may not return soon again.”

The inclusion of Mr. Mubarak and King Abdullah underlines the administration’s hopes to forge a regional solution to the conflict. Egypt and Jordan are critical to providing Israel with security guarantees that would enable it to accept the creation of a Palestinian state.

Mr. Mubarak has offered to host subsequent rounds of talks in Egypt, though officials said he was pushing for Mr. Obama to take a direct personal role in the process. The standing of Mr. Mubarak, 82, in the region is such that officials said the administration was eager to get direct talks going quickly, because his health is said to be fragile and the United States is worried about the uncertainty that will come after he passes from the scene.

Jordan is a crucial player because of the difficult question of how to secure its border with a new Palestinian state. Israel currently has troops on that frontier and would balk at withdrawing them without a guarantee that the border would not become a conduit for missiles that militant groups opposed to the peace process, chiefly Hamas, could fire at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities.

Previous attempts to involve Israel’s Arab neighbors in constructing a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians have fared poorly. Mr. Obama’s most recent attempt, when he sought to win confidence-building measures from Israel’s neighbors like allowing Israeli carriers to fly over their countries, failed when Saudi Arabia and other Arab states refused. But more recently, the Saudis pressed Mr. Abbas to agree to the direct talks, using their financial aid to the Palestinian Authority as a lever.

The Arab League also has put its stamp of approval on the negotiations.

The success of the talks, all sides said, will depend in part on whether Mr. Obama can succeed where his predecessors have failed in pushing Palestinians and Israelis toward resolving the core final status issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979. They include the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the borders of a Palestinian state, the security of Israel, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees who left, or were forced to leave, their homes in Israel.

Mr. Obama will know quickly whether he has any more chance of success than the eight failed attempts that have gone before this one. At the end of September, Israel’s 10-month moratorium on settlement construction will expire. Mr. Netanyahu so far has not indicated any willingness to extend it, and Mr. Abbas has said that he will withdraw from negotiations if settlement activity resumes.

American officials have been working with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to try to come up with a way around the issue to no avail so far.

During the meeting on Wednesday afternoon between Mr. Obama and Mr. Abbas, American officials said they would press the Israelis to find a way around the moratorium expiration, but they also asked the Palestinian president to try to be flexible, according to advisers to all three sides.

Mr. Netanyahu made no specific mention of settlements during his remarks before the dinner. The closest he came was in an acknowledgment of Palestinian claims to land.

“The Jewish people are not strangers in our homeland, the land of our forefathers,” he said. “But we recognize that another people share this land with us. And I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both peoples to live in peace, security and dignity.”

For Mr. Obama, the settlements issue is doubly important because if it blows up the talks, Middle East experts said, he will once again have left the perception in the Arab world of escorting Mr. Abbas out on a limb and then leaving him there.

Many Palestinian officials complain that Mr. Obama’s decision last year to drop his demand for Israel to halt settlement construction as a prelude to peace talks may have delayed the start of these negotiations, since it was difficult for the Palestinian leader to back down.

While the issues are daunting, some analysts also saw a reed of hope in the resolute response of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas to the killing by Hamas gunmen of four Israeli settlers in the West Bank on the eve of the talks. Both men immediately said the attack should not be allowed to derail the negotiations, and the Palestinian Authority condemned the killings.

“Normally, it’s been reliably easy to torpedo, or veto, any progress between Israelis and Palestinians,” said Ziad J. Asali, the president of the American Task Force on Palestine. “This means an incredible loss of a weapon.”

O ex-premiê britânico Tony Blair revelou, em um livro de memórias que está sendo lançado nesta quarta-feira, que recorreu a bebidas alcoólicas para conseguir relaxar e lidar com as pressões do cargo.

“Uísque puro ou gim e tônica depois da janta, alguns copos de vinho ou até mesmo meia garrafa com a refeição. Nada excessivamente excessivo. Eu tinha limite. Mas eu estava percebendo que a bebida estava virando um amparo ['prop', em inglês]“, escreve Blair no livro A Journey (Uma Jornada, em português).

Tony Blair, do Partido Trabalhista, foi primeiro-ministro da Grã-Bretanha entre 1997 e 2007. Sua chegada ao poder interrompeu 18 anos de governo dos conservadores no país.

Sob a bandeira do New Labour (Novo Trabalhismo, em tradução livre) que pregava uma Terceira Via no debate ideológico entre esquerda e direita, Blair governou a Grã-Bretanha durante a invasão do Iraque, em 2003, que marcou seu governo.

“Ele era uma pessoa difícil, às vezes enlouquecedora? Sim”

Tony Blair sobre Gordon Brown

No livro, Blair fala sobre o seu período no poder, a guerra do Iraque e a ascensão dos trabalhistas na Grã-Bretanha, entre outros temas.

Gordon Brown

O livro provocou polêmica, em particular entre os trabalhistas britânicos devido a críticas ao seu sucessor no cargo, Gordon Brown. Os trabalhistas estão escolhendo neste mês quem será o sucessor do ex-premiê Brown na liderança do partido.

Brown renunciou à liderança do partido e ao cargo de primeiro-ministro em maio, quando foi derrotado pelo Partido Conservador de David Cameron em eleições gerais.

Em meio a algumas palavras elogiosas, Blair refere-se a Brown como “enlouquecedor” e diz que sabia que caso seu sucessor não mudasse algumas políticas, seu governo seria “um desastre”.

“Ele era uma pessoa difícil, às vezes enlouquecedora? Sim”, escreve Blair, que em seguida elogia Brown. “Mas ele também era forte, capaz e brilhante, e essas eram qualidades que eu nunca deixei de respeitar.”

Blair ainda diz no livro que Brown, que foi ministro das Finanças do seu governo antes de sucedê-lo como premiê, era um “sujeito estranho” e com “inteligência emocional zero”.

Ele sugere que caso tivesse demitido Brown, “o partido e o governo se desestabilizariam imediatamente e de forma grave, e sua ascensão ao cargo de primeiro-ministro seria talvez até mais rápida”.

Em entrevista à BBC, Blair diz que seu relacionamento com Brown era “francamente difícil, quase impossível”, mas que seu ministro sempre foi também uma fonte de força para o governo.

O porta-voz de Gordon Brown disse que o político não fará nenhum comentário sobre o livro de Blair.

Mas entre os trabalhistas, que estão passando pelo processo de escolha do sucessor de Brown para a liderança do partido, houve muitas críticas a Blair.

“Estou surpresa que Tony Blair não tenha esperado um intervalo maior antes de enfiar a faca em Gordon Brown. Isso não ajuda o partido neste momento”, disse a trabalhista Diane Abbott, que concorre para suceder Brown na liderança do partido.

Um parlamentar trabalhista ligado à Brown disse que “a versão unilateral de Blair” sobre os fatos já era esperada.

Iraque

Sobre a guerra do Iraque, Tony Blair diz que deixar Saddam Hussein no poder no país seria “um risco maior” do que removê-lo do poder.

Blair foi um dos principais defensores da ideia de invadir o Iraque junto com os Estados Unidos, em 2003, para derrubar o regime de Saddam.

“Eu não consigo satisfazer aos desejos nem mesmo de alguns dos meus apoiadores, que gostariam que eu dissesse: [invadir o Iraque] foi um erro, mas um erro cometido de boa-fé. Amigos que se opõem à guerra acham que eu estou sendo teimoso; outros, menos amigáveis, acham que eu sou delirante. A ambos, eu posso dizer: mantenham uma mente aberta”, escreve Blair.

Em suas memórias, Blair reconhece que houve problemas no planejamento da invasão do Iraque. Ele escreve que “nós não antecipamos o papel da Al-Qaeda ou do Irã” no planejamento sobre o que aconteceria depois da invasão.

Ele também falou sobre o seu “sofrimento” com as mortes provocadas pelo conflito na Grã-Bretanha.

“Eu lamento desesperadamente por eles [os soldados mortos], lamento pelas famílias cujo sofrimento foi agravado pela polêmica sobre o porquê de seus amados terem morrido, lamento pela seleção injusta de que quem perdeu a vida.”