Everyone seems in the giving mood on Middle Eastern peace this holiday season
Barnett
¦"Sharon Says Breakthrough in Relations With Palestinians Is Possible in '05: 'This is the hour, this is the time,' the prime minister said. 'This is the national test,'" by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 17 December 2004, p. A14.
¦"Donors Consider Large Rise In Aid To Palestinians: Conditions Are Attached; U.S., Europe and Arabs Want Both Sides to Act to Reduce Conflict," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 17 December 2004, p. A1.
Sharon is sending out as clear a signal as possible that he wants to deal, as is the moderate presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas, as is Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek, and now the deep pocket donors are making all the right noises.
Now all is left are the spoilers: Hamas and Hezbollah, and their backers Syria and Iran.
Of that quartet, which offers the most arm-twisting potential regarding the others? And which has the most to gain right now by backing a deal?
Hmmmm.
Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett at 06:03 PM
Iraq's "democracy": the compromise will always be on social values (re: women's rights)
¦"A Jeffersonian in Cleric's Garb: U.S. Pins Hope on Ally's View of Iraqi Democracy With Islamic Tint," by Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 17 December 2004, p. A12.
This is the face of Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq: a cleric by the name of Farqad Qizwini, who talks the talk quite nicely on both economics and politics, but then basically balks at anything that smacks of equal rights for women. Is he a positive force? You bet. Should he be encouraged? Absolutely.
We just need to be real on where Qizwini will draw the line: basically anything having to do with women's rights. Qizwini recently opposed the appointment of a female judge and is working against U.S. attempts to ensure women hold a certain percentage of positions in the new government.
So he's not perfect, but he is willing to withstand the many death threats he's received for even working to make some form of democracy work in Iraq as quickly as possible. Remember, women got the vote here less than a century ago.
Ain't pretty, ain't perfect, and when the push comes to shove, we'll end up holding our noses on certain gender and sex issues again and again.
Don't tell me this is a war over ideologies. This remains the same struggle it's always been—one over sexual mores.
Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett at 06:03 PM
The best sign of Core-ness: lotsa new mortgages!
¦"Mexico's Working Poor Become Homeowners: Mortgages From a Government Program," by Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 17 December 2004, p. W1.
Give it up to Vincente Fox. He promised to double the number of mortgages granted each year in Mexico by the end of his administration, and he's on track. A Credit Suisse First Boston construction analyst said, "I have never seen a housing plan such as the one in Mexico. It's a unique model that has been extremely successful." So now we're talking roughly 750,000 new mortgages each year in Mexico, instead of the usual 350,000.
To me there is nothing better than home mortgages to signal membership in the Core, because they require both solid property rights and a reasonably sophisticated financial system to pull off. The key? The government housing agency, Infonavit and private lenders have managed to sell roughly $400 million in mortgage-backed securities, or collections of individual loans packaged up into a long-term bond. This is the basis of the sophisticated and very fluid mortgage market that the U.S. has long enjoyed, but such secondary market instruments only came to Mexico in 2003. And that was only 8 years after the peso collapsed.
See, the Core has an A-to-Z system for dealing with economically bankrupt states. Now we just need one for politically-bankrupt states in the Gap.
Meanwhile, Mexico's mortgaging "are laying the groundwork for a new middle class," says one homebuilding company CEO.
Good stuff! |
