Iran’s presidential election presents a paradox. The vote was free enough for Hassan Rohani to score a shocking win and for the favored conservative candidate to finish a dismal third. And yet it was blatantly unfair because hundreds of reformist and pragmatic candidates were blocked from running. For policymakers in the U.S. and Europe, this presents a challenge: How should they respond to this remarkable upset victory for Rohani, who was the eventual candidate of Iranian reformists and is also

Viewpoints June 17, 2013

CAMBRIDGE ― The term “currency wars” is a catchy way of saying “competitive devaluation.” In the wake of the sharp fall in the value of the yen over the last six months, owing to the monetary component of Japan’s efforts to jump-start its economy, the issue is expected to feature prominently on the agenda at the G8’s upcoming summit in Northern Ireland. But should it?According to the International Monetary Fund, competitive devaluation occurs when countries are “manipulating exchange rates…to ga

Viewpoints June 17, 2013

Let the geeks, and we use the term endearingly, argue over the changes Apple Inc. announced this week to its mobile operating system. Our focus is on something more prosaic: an advertisement ― and what that ad says about the state of U.S. manufacturing. Apple’s latest slick promotion touts the “Designed by Apple in California” line it includes on its devices (conveniently overlooking the second line, “Assembled in China”). At the end of the ad, a somber voice intones: “This is our signature. And

Viewpoints June 16, 2013

Conservative Republicans in our nation’s capital have managed to accomplish something they only dreamed of when Tea Partiers streamed into Congress at the start of 2011. They’ve basically shut down Congress. Their refusal to compromise is working just as they hoped: No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform.It’s as if an entire branch of the

Viewpoints June 16, 2013

Should the U.S. be taking economic lessons from India? Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks so. Perhaps not from India as a whole, but at least from the booming western state of Gujarat, which has enjoyed 10 percent-plus growth under its controversial chief minister, Narendra Modi. “If we had Gujarat’s growth rates over the last 10 years,” Gingrich told Modi in a recent Skype video conversation, “we would have been a lot healthier country than we are right now.” While the “Gujarat model” ha

Viewpoints June 16, 2013

PARIS ― Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor on the lam for having dumped some classified documents on the desk of a British reporter, says that he doesn’t consider himself a hero, but his girlfriend’s blog paints a different picture, with delusions of grandeur dating back more than three months. If only the NSA’s PRISM Program was as significant as their sense of self-importance.Snowden’s Hawaii-based dancer-girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, repeatedly refers to herself as a

Viewpoints June 16, 2013

For so many years, Iran has been a popular neighbor among most Arab states, largely because of its unremitting hostility toward Israel and the West.But now, the tables have turned, and its past behavior counts for nothing. Iran has lost the friendship and support of almost every Arab and Muslim state, leaving it as one the least liked nations in the world. Its only true competitor for that title right now seems to be North Korea.Paradoxically, it would seem, while Iran’s popularity has plummeted

Viewpoints June 14, 2013

Prosecutors missed another important opportunity to firmly establish their political independence when they refrained from detaining former spymaster Won Sei-hoon after charging him with intervening in the December presidential election. Wrapping up their two-month investigation, prosecutors concluded that Won had orchestrated the National Intelligence Service’s systematic and extensive involvement in domestic politics since January 2012.Under his instructions, they said, a dozen or so NIS agent

Editorial June 13, 2013

Tracing the ill-gotten hidden wealth of former President Chun Doo-hwan and forcing him to pay his massive court-ordered fines has emerged as a hot political issue since President Park Geun-hye pledged to tackle the problem.Chun, who took power in 1980 through a military coup, accumulated wealth illegally during his seven-year rule by taking bribes from big business groups. In 1997, he was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay 220 billion won ($193 million) in fines. But he has thus far paid only a

Editorial June 13, 2013

Obstetric fistula, an abdominal injury that occurs in unattended childbirth and causes incontinence, is among the most intractable challenges of extreme poverty. In Tanzania, however, a pilot program that relies on mobile-phone communication has brought fistula sufferers in remote areas to a central hospital for reparative surgery. This strategy, if duplicated elsewhere, could offer hope of a new life for many of the estimated 2 million women afflicted with fistula worldwide. A fistula is a hole

Viewpoints June 13, 2013