Venezuela's rejection of Mr. Chavez's "president for life" ambition is encouraging. But as various panelists have noted, he doesn't represent the "Left" any more than does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The trend in Latin America still seems to me to be a strengthening of the center-left, after the failure of the very conservative pro-market governments in Argentina and elsewhere. The paradigmatic figure is Lula in Brazil. Maybe it's this "New Left" -- very pragmatic, market-friendly but not slavishly so -- that deserves a closer look. (Especially since something similar may be emerging in the U.S. in the 2008 presidential elections).

I would be interested to know whether PostGlobal panelists and readers see similar signs of this more confident center-left in their parts of the world.

Sometimes events create space for diplomacy where none existed before. I want to think that this might be the case with the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
What matters about the NIE is less the details than the atmospherics. The details themselves are hard to parse: Yes, we now believe that in 2003 Iran halted a previously unknown covert military program to build a bomb; but no, that doesn't mean Iran has stopped its threatening nuclear activity or that it has given up its ambition to be a nuclear power.
When you boil it all down, the United States has aimed its intelligence rifle at Tehran--and shot itself in the foot. It has undercut its old policy and embarrassed itself and its allies. So what's the advantage in that, you ask?
Simply this: The NIE creates a way for both parties to come to the negotiating table without losing face. Both sides can start a new narrative, in place of the old one that led to an impasse. It is this serendipitous aspect--this unexpected reversal of the parameters of the game--that interests me most.
A similar unlikely opening with Iran came in 1987, after a U.S. Navy cruiser in the Persian Gulf accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airliner. It was an appalling tragedy, but it created space for Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini to do what he dreaded, yet knew he must: end the ruinous war with Iraq. Is it possible that the NIE could provide a similar opportunity for both sides to do what is unpleasant, but necessary?

**Editor's Note: This week, PostGlobal asked panelists to choose the best of six proposals on how to move forward on climate change.**

When we talk about global warming, we're talking about a planetary community that doesn't exist. That's what bothers me after Bali.

When Bashir Goth says: This is all part of a plot for Western dominance, I want to respond: C'mon Bashir, we're talking about my children and your children. But he could easily answer: Sorry, David, but how many Americans are ready to stop driving their SUVs – NOW – to prevent further desertification of Somalia?

Right now, the mismatch between what we say about climate change and what we do about it is so wide, you can't even see across the divide: Why is Harvard University taking the issue of climate change more seriously than the United States government? Why is it that every other car on the road in America (including one of my own) is still an SUV? Why is the Democratic Congress still having jurisdictional fights over this issue, rather than passing legislation? Why aren't the candidates in the presidential campaign angrier about this administration's environmental record? Why are we setting declaratory goals at Bali for reduction of emissions, which are meaningless, rather than real goals? What would it take to move this issue from easy talk to painful action?

If this is truly a planetary emergency, as the Bali rhetoric says, then it must have political primacy. But I see no instrument or pathway that could make this real. That's the challenge after Bali: If the world means what it says about climate change, how will it enforce that political will?