| | | | Is the Middle East Coming Apart? | | The overwhelming support for independence among Iraqi Kurds in this week's referendum raises a fundamental question for the rest of the Middle East, writes Robin Wright in the New Yorker: "Are some of the region's most important countries really viable anymore?"
"The world has resisted addressing the issue since the popular protests in 2011, known as the Arab Uprising, or Arab Spring, spawned four wars and a dozen crises. Entire countries have been torn asunder, with little to no prospect of political or physical reconstruction anytime soon," Wright says.
"Meanwhile, the outside world has invested vast resources, with several countries forking out billions of dollars in military equipment, billions more in aid, and thousands of hours of diplomacy -- on the assumption that places like Iraq, Syria, and Libya can still work as currently configured. The list of outside powers that have tried to shape the region's future is long -- from the United States and its European allies to the Russian-Iran axis and many of the Middle East's oil-rich powers. All have, so far, failed at forging hopeful direction.
"They've also failed to confront the obvious: Do the people in these countries want to stay together? Do people who identify proudly as Syrians, for example, all define 'Syria' the same way? And are they willing to surrender their political, tribal, racial, ethnic, or sectarian identities in order to forge a common good and a stable nation?"
| | The idea underpinning President Trump's proposal for tax reform is that tax cuts inevitably lead to higher economic growth. But Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, writes that that's a myth – one that he helped to create.
"Today, Republicans extol the virtues of lowering marginal tax rates, citing as their model the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered the top individual income tax rate to just 28 percent from 50 percent, and the corporate tax rate to 34 percent from 46 percent. What follows, they say, would be an economic boon," Bartlett writes in the Washington Post.
"But there is no evidence showing a boost in growth from the 1986 act. The economy remained on the same track, with huge stock market crashes -- 1987's "Black Monday," 1989's Friday the 13th "mini-crash" and a recession beginning in 1990. Real wages fell."
More recently, "[d]espite huge tax cuts almost annually during the George W. Bush administration that cost the Treasury trillions in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office, growth collapsed in the first decade of the 2000s. Real GDP rose just 19.5 percent, well below its '90s rate."
| | Get Ready for America's Newest "Climate Refugees" | | The devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico "could spawn one of the largest mass migration events in the United States' recent history," write Daniel Cusick and Adam Aton in the Scientific American. Welcome to the plight of America's latest "climate refugees."
"Of course, Puerto Rico -- unlike 'climate refugee' communities such as Isle de Jean Charles, La., or Shishmaref, Alaska -- is not literally being swallowed by the sea. Nor will it be permanently denuded, since many of its roughly 3.4 million residents will stay and rebuild, regardless of government support," they write.
"But experts say Maria will trigger profound demographic changes for Puerto Rico, which has already witnessed an outmigration of roughly a half-million people over the past decade. Many of these are college graduates and young professionals who find better job prospects in cities like Miami, New York, Chicago or Orlando, Fla., than they could ever imagine in San Juan or Ponce.
"Now, however, the pull of the U.S. mainland's big cities has been eclipsed by the push of Puerto Rico's plunge into sudden darkness, fear and chaos."
| | Macron's Extraordinary Summer | | The odds are usually stacked against French presidents trying to reform their country. But Emmanuel Macron looks poised to buck the trend, The Economist editorializes. If he succeeds, France might once again return to Europe's center stage.
"Something extraordinary, if little-noticed, took place this summer," The Economist says. "While most of the French were on the beach, Mr Macron negotiated and agreed with unions a far-reaching, liberalizing labor reform which he signed into law on September 22nd -- all with minimal fuss. Neither France's militant unions, nor its fiery far left, have so far drawn the mass support they had hoped for onto the streets. Fully 59% of the French say that they back labor reform. More protests will follow. Harder battles, over pensions, taxation, public spending and education, lie ahead. Mr Macron needs to keep his nerve, but, astonishingly, he has already passed his first big test."
"[I]f this year has shown anything, it is that it is a mistake to bet against the formidable Mr Macron."
| | How the "Big Men" are Hurting Kenya | | Almost a month after Kenya's Supreme Court annulled the country's presidential election over "irregularities and illegalities" and neither candidate appears interested in doing what's best for the public, argues John Campbell for the Council on Foreign Relations. Indeed, both are acting like tribal chiefs – and increasing the likelihood of violence in the process.
"President [Uhuru] Kenyatta persists in his denunciations of the Supreme Court justices as members of his Jubilee Party in the senate move to strip the Supreme Court of the power to void future elections," Campbell writes.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Raila Odinga "is calling for demonstrations; in Nairobi, on September 26, pro-Odinga demonstrators chanted 'no reforms, no elections,' and stoned police and counter-protesters. The police responded with tear gas. Demonstrations are also taking place in other cities."
"At present the two 'big men' are at an impasse and the potential for demonstrations to turn violent is real. If the impasse continues, there is the possibility that there will be no elections on October 26, leading to a constitutional crisis."
| | Will Brazil Get Its Own Trump? | | The elections are still a year away, and analysts say his popularity might yet wane. But Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was running second in one major newspaper's poll – and he is aiming to take a leaf out of Donald Trump's winning playbook, writes Anthony Boadle in a Reuters analysis.
"Bolsonaro, a 62-year-old former paratrooper, lacks a major party behind him but hopes to emulate Donald Trump's unexpected rise to the U.S. presidency with the support of Brazilians fed up with corrupt politicians and bad government," Boadle writes.
"His support is fed by a surge in violent crime and Brazil's worst-ever graft scandal, which has implicated much of the political class, including President Michel Temer."
"Battling what he sees as a hostile press, Bolsonaro aims to use social media to deliver his message directly to voters, as Trump did successfully in the U.S. election last year. His Facebook page has more followers than any other politician in Brazil -- 4.5 million." | | | | | | |
