Lecturas para abrir la semana

Se está preparando una nueva "guerra de verano" en Oriente Próximo? Las consecuencias del exceso de confianza en Hamás:

The growing willingness of Arab and European states to tolerate and even aid the Hamas movement has been based on the notion that Hamas could be coaxed toward more civilized behavior and tacit recognition of Israel; that is why many supported the creation of a "unity" government of Hamas with the secular and more moderate Fatah. But Mr. Meshal and his sponsors in Syria and Iran have a very different agenda: to use force to intimidate and eventually dominate Fatah, and to wage an unending war of attrition against Israel. That's the same course that Hezbollah, another proxy of Iran and Syria, has been pursuing in Lebanon.

Artículo completo en Washington Post.

La diplomacia europea (la de la Unión) sigue pensando en esquemas estratégicos obsoletos. El Ministro de Asuntos exteriores portugués (próximo país que ocupará la presidencia de la Comisión Europea) invita al cambio en la estrategia, centrándose más en la lucha contra el terrorismo islámico:

"I think we need to understand that the strategic environment has changed after the 9/11 events," said the minister referring to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001.

He added that the bloc is still working in a "post-Soviet era," with much of the focus on Europe's borders to the east.

Instead, said Mr Amado, the EU should find the same "strategic vision and leadership" that it used to keep peace in its eastern neighbourhood after the disintegration of the Soviet empire - which eventually resulted in the EU taking on eight new member states from the region - in a new focus beyond Europe's southern borders.

Leer completo en el EU-Observer.

Y para terminar, un magnífico retrato de Bernard Kouchner, el flamante nuevo Ministro de exteriores francés.

Named as foreign minister, Mr. Kouchner is in many ways the political opposite of his new boss, President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Both are pro-American, but Mr. Sarkozy is conservative while Mr. Kouchner is a man of the left. Mr. Sarkozy opposed the American invasion of Iraq, while Mr. Kouchner, unlike most of the political elite on both the right and the left here, believed that military intervention was justified to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sarkozy opposes Turkey’s entry into the European Union; Mr. Kouchner supports it.

Leer entero en The New York Times.