| | | | Venezuela's Legitimate 'Coup' | | Chaotic scenes may have unfolded in Venezuela today, but we shouldn't call opposition leader Juan Guaido's uprising a "coup," Bloomberg's Eli Lake writes: Guaido has constitutional legitimacy, and his supporters are trying to save their country from President Nicolas Maduro's "misrule." Writing for CNN, Frida Ghitis agrees—Venezuela already had a "coup," in which Maduro rigged an election and seized control of state institutions, she writes—advising that the best case scenario is for Maduro to step aside peacefully, while the worst is a civil war.
Regardless of what happens after today, Guaido's international backers must be in for a "long game," The Atlantic Council's Jason Marczak writes, as a quick democratic transition is unlikely. | | What We Can Learn from Baghdadi's Video | | After ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in a video for the first time in five years, Colin P. Clarke writes at Foreign Policy of his several potential motives—to boost morale, inspire attacks, or offer proof of life. But while Baghdadi is clearly alive, he failed to offer a vision for the future of the group, after the collapse of its territory in Syria, or to prescribe how ISIS offshoots can avoid similar defeat elsewhere, Clarke writes.
Some of Baghdadi's mystique seems to have disappeared. His soaring rhetoric is gone, The Atlantic's Graeme Wood writes: "He governed in poetry; he terrorizes in prose." Whether Baghdadi can still attract and motivate followers remains to be seen, Wood concludes. | | The Hawk in the White House | | | In a profile of US National Security Advisor John Bolton, The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins sketches a longtime hawk who sits at odds, in many ways, with his boss. Bolton has previously advocated war with Iran and North Korea, and while he now endorses President Trump's diplomatic overtures with the latter, it's clear Bolton must pick his spots to push his realist, hard-power policies in light of Trump's isolationism and aversion to foreign adventures.
At the same time, Bolton is America's most powerful voice on foreign policy, as the US government has no secretary of defense or UN ambassador, save on a fill-in basis, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seems more concerned with looking out for Trump, the profile points out. | | The Upside of China's Expansion | | There will be many benefits, for many countries, to China's $1 trillion global infrastructure-spending plan, Parag Khanna writes in Politico Magazine. China's Belt and Road Initiative has caused anxieties in the West, but it will open important new markets; the 6 billion citizens of Europe, Asia, and Africa are now the "center of gravity of the world economy," Khanna writes.
That means more trade and opportunity for everyone. On top of that, US firms are already subcontracting Chinese construction, Khanna points out, arguing there's more upside to China's plans than Washington seems to think. | | Indonesia's President Wants to Move the Capital | | Jakarta is sinking faster than any other urban area in the world, The Economist writes: Amid evolving construction and clogged, flooding rivers, some neighborhoods are sinking 25 cm per year. "Researchers think that almost all of north Jakarta could be submerged in 30 years," the magazine writes.
To escape the crowded, sinking city, and to help even out income inequality in the world's fourth-most-populous nation, Indonesia's recently reelected President Joko Widodo wants to move the capital to the island of Borneo, prompting some political questions: Can he start and sustain a 10-year project in a five-year term? And will the rest of Indonesia's political class go along with it? | | | | | | |
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