MEDIA REACTION: WEEK OF NOVEMBER 10-16; 11/16/09; BUENOS

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001254 SIPDIS STATE FOR INR/R/MR, I/GWHA, WHA, WHA/PDA, WHA/BSC, WHA/EPSC CDR USSOCOM FOR J-2 IAD/LAMA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KPAO KMDR PREL SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: WEEK OF NOVEMBER 10-16; 11/16/09; BUENOS AIRES SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: WEEK OF NOVEMBER 10-16; 11/16/09; BUENOS AIRES ¶1. SUMMARY STATEMENT Leading international stories last week were related to: President Obama's visit to China, Japan and South Korea; the war in Afghanistan; and Israeli President Shimon Peres' trip to Argentina and Brazil. ¶2. PRESIDENT OBAMA'S TRIP TO ASIA - "Obama accompanies the world power's turn towards the Asian region" Leading "Clarin" carries an opinion piece by political analyst Jorge Castro, who opines (11/15),"Barack Obama's trip to Asia is in line with the world power's turn from the west to the east, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Emerging and developing countries account for more than half of the world GDP in terms of domestic purchase power... Asia is the central region of the emerging world and China is the axis of Asia. There is the hard chore of the change in the world accumulation structure and the focus of the world power's turn... Obama's rip to Asia indicates that the US is adapting itself to a process that started two decades ago and that will extend during the next 20 or 30 years. "The US change is a response to a need because the power turn towards the Asian region is a synonym of the most gigantic industrial revolution in the history of capitalism." ¶3. AFGHANISTAN - "Obama could order additional troops to Afghanistan" Silvia Pisani, daily-of-record "La Nacion's" Washington-based correspondent, comments (11/12),"Less than one month from his trip to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama seems to have made a decision on the difficult US war in Afghanistan. And the step includes the shipment of additional troops to the bloody front (15,000, 30,000 or 40,000 troops)... Whatever decision Obama makes, he will do it against the US society's increasing rejection of the US troops' stay in the Afghan war. Obama's strategy is based on the acknowledgement that the number of Taliban militants has strongly increased as well as their al Qaeda allies. In parallel to his decision about the number of US troops to be sent, Obama seeks to convince his NATO allies that they should provide additional troops to the region. It does not seem an easy task. So far, only UK and Turkey have offered their support." - "Obama's Vietnam" Centrist "Perfil's" international analyst Fabian Calle (11/14) comments, "There are few doubts that the war in Afghanistan, in particular, and the AFPAK, generally speaking, pose a serious challenge to the Obama administration. The same president himself has called prestigious historians to analyze the similarities and differences between this war and that of Vietnam and their impact on the US domestic and international policy... Obama has already sent some 34,000 soldiers and he could decide to send 41,000 more... Meanwhile, the US will speed up its retreat from Iraq in ¶2010. Obviously enough, the president's political and strategic leadership will have to go through an acid test amid the campaign for mid-term elections." ¶4. MIDDLE EAST - "Middle East: lights and sparks among the shadows" Marcelo Cantelmi, international editor of leading "Clarin," negative opines about the US strategy to obtain an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Cantelmi writes, (11/14) "The (Middle East) scenario is that of a defeat for President Barack Obama, whose torch of hope has long extinguished. Not only his arrival to the Oval Office but his remarkable Cairo discourse last June had fed the now failed illusion that the time had come for the resolution of a conflict with a two-state formula... In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has decided to bury long-standing rancor and promote a rapprochement with Syria, Tehran's ally, with the argument that a united Arab world could revive its leadership. The move has been blessed by Washington, Riyadh's largest partner, and it was not by chance. The US needs some good news in the Middle East to prevent this disaster from triggering anti-US rage and to stop being the symbolic partner of the Afghan-Pakistan rebellion." ¶5. SHIMON PERES TO ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL - "Terrorism and aircrafts on the agenda" Business-financial "Ambito Financiero" carries an opinion piece by its columnist Edgardo Aguilera, who opines (11/13),"After five days in Brazil, where he asked Congress to use a 'clear voice' against terrorism and threats to the integrity of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres will repeat this same message to the Kirchner administration and the Argentine Congress. He will do so during a meeting with the President and with a meeting with all the ministers, excluding Nilda Garre... Peres will come along 40 businessmen from the sectors of defense, security, communication, airlines, biotechnology, and the pharmaceutical industry. The accent will be placed on the first three of them." To see more Buenos Aires reporting, visit our classified website at: http://www.state.sqov.gov/p/wha/buenosaires MARTINEZ MARTINEZ