A new issue of the journal Papeles de Cuestiones Internacionales, published by the Peace Research Center (Centro de Investigación para la Paz, CIP-FUHEM) has just been released.

Issue 96 (Winter 2006-2007) includes, in the Current Issues section, articles on Latin America in the Security Council; North Korea’s Nuclear Testing; two different articles on Israeli policies. This issue also contains a special dossier on Africa ("Perspectives from Africa"). It also looks at topics related to international interventions and human rights violations by UN peace missions in the Dialogue, Interview and Book Review sections.

Table of Contents in the attached document (Spanish)

With shouts of ''Fatherland, socialism or death -- I swear it, Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez was inaugurated on January 10, for a second six-year term. During the inaugural week he has announced to the country and the world at large his dramatic "New Year’s Resolutions" as his Bolivarian revolution takes a pronounced leftward turn. After a resounding 61-38% electoral triumph last December 3, in which he garnered more than twice the number of votes he received in 1998, Chávez now feels the wind of a mandate at his back. But he also has gained in popularity because of his social welfare programs and food subsidies, fed by windfall oil profits.

For several years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Afghanistan was showcased as a successful example of US military determination. It emerged as a symbol of the accomplishments of the Bush administration’s belligerent foreign policy -- transforming a security threat into a functioning democracy. Even critics of the war in Iraq would cite Afghanistan as the place where the US had diminished the threat of terrorism from a failed state. However, the scenario was never quite so rosy as the overly optimistic commentary; since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Afghanistan has suffered from inattention and neglect, lack of resources, and a narrowly-based military strategy. The reality of developments in Afghanistan since 2005 have mocked US assertions and in 2006 the scales finally fell from the eyes of those observing events in Afghanistan. The dragon’s teeth have sprouted on Afghan soil; the armed men have returned. MORE...

Photo: Complements of Alernet. Reuters/Stringer, 2006

The US started a war with Iraq but Iran may have already won it. Although the news this week in Washington is centered on the troop "surge" in Iraq, Iran remains perhaps an equally complex and difficult policy issue for the Bush administration. In 2001, notwithstanding Iran’s mutual interest with the US in removing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Al Qaeda-sponsored terrorist attacks of September 11, and its initial support for the US war there, Washington missed an opportunity to build the relationship. The Bush administration believed Iran was weak, threatened with democratic reform movements and despite, its initial intelligence and logistical support in countering Al Qaeda, tied to Middle Eastern terrorism. It did not help that administration rhetoric has often ranged from clumsy to belligerent. In 2002, Bush administration hardliners placed Iran in its tripartite "axis of evil" (with Iraq and North Korea) and viewed it as the next target after Iraq. The invasion of Iraq, which Iran opposed, and the toppling of the government, removed its foremost regional enemy while tying down its Western nemesis in an unwinnable war. At the same time it had the effect sharpening the antagonism with the US. MORE...

Map: Complements of Alernet