A Diplomatic Victory

The G3+3 have reached an interim six-month agreement with Iran on its nuclear program.  This is the best news on foreign relations that we have had for a long time.  Let's hope the war-mongers, neocons, lobby-influenced Congressmen, and Benjamin Netanyahu don't manage to find a way to scuttle it before the next stage.  Even as this past weekend's negotiations were getting underway, Senators, including Democrats, were lining up to impose additional sanctions on Iran.  Pro-Israel groups, mainly AIPAC, contributed no less than $12.5 million to congressional candidates during the period from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012 - putting them solidly among the top special interest group lobbies in the country.   Nevertheless, the historic agreement, interim though it may be, was made and initial indications from Congress are that they will allow time to see if the agreement will work. 

As Reuters reported on Sunday November 24: "Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signalling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that would reduce the risk of a wider Middle East war.  Aimed at easing a long festering standoff, the interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...The agreement, which halts Iran's most sensitive nuclear activity, its higher-grade enrichment of uranium, was tailored as a package of confidence-building steps towards reducing decades of tension and ultimately creating a more stable, secure Middle East."  The negotiators noted that this was an important first step, that "the accord created time and space for follow-up talks on a comprehensive solution to the dispute".  Iranian Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Mohammed Javed Zarif said "in an interview broadcast on state television that Iran would move quickly to start implementing the agreement and it was ready to begin talks on a final accord."

Some US allies in the Middle East - particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel - are not happy with the détente in US-Iranian relations.  Netanyahu went so far as to call the negotiated agreement a "historic blunder."   To which should be said that Saudi Arabia and Israel should have no fears.  Just because we are lessening the chances of war in the Middle East doesn't mean they are no longer our allies. The amount of military aid and sales to these countries is staggering.  Israel receives direct US military aid - averaging 1.8 billion dollars annually since 1987 and increasing to 2.4 billion/year in 2008.  Saudi Arabia purchases billions of dollars of military equipment from the American arms industry.  With a more peaceful Middle East, perhaps there would not be a need for these expenditures. 

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  As such, it has the right to develop its nuclear industry for peaceful purposes.  It also has the obligation to allow periodic inspections. As noted in a Washington Post article from August 2012, "IAEA inspectors are regularly in Iran, but the core of the current dispute is that Tehran is not letting them have unfettered access to all of the country’s nuclear installations."  Apparently that has changed with the agreement reached this weekend. 

Israel is not a signatory to the treaty and not subject to inspections of its nuclear facilities.  It is estimated that Israel has at least 80 nuclear weapons, although they have never admitted it publicly.  The last person to disclose the Israeli nuclear program, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, "was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Italy, taken home to trial, convicted and served 18 years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement." [Washington Post]

Maybe it's too much to hope for but a totally nuclear free Middle East would be a good thing.  And a totally nuclear free world would be even better.  That would give us all something to be truly thankful for. 

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Happy Thanksgiving! The Left Bank Café will be back after the Thanksgiving holidays.

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Sunday Round-Up - November 24, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the European Space Agency's SWARM project, cleanup at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Scandinavian countries' offer to help in the removal of Syrian chemical weapons, China's efforts to reduce its air pollution, and the final draw of the 2014 World Cup. 



"The European Space Agency on Friday launched three satellites it hopes will help understand why the magnetic field that makes human life possible on Earth appears to be weakening." [New Straits Times]  The ESA's Swarm project will collect data to "improve scientists' relatively blurry understanding of the magnetic field that shields life on Earth from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate. Scientists say the magnetosphere is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down."  The last time the magnetic poles flipped was 800,000 years ago.  We are apparently long overdue for another flip - previous flips occurred about once every 250,000 years.

Reuters reported Thursday on a "rare success in the often fraught battle to control the [Fukushima nuclear reactor] site."  The first batch of fuel rods were successfully removed after a four-day operation - a difficult key step in the decommissioning of the nuclear facility destroyed by the earthquake/tsunami in March 2011.  "The batch of 22 unused fuel assemblies, which each contain 50-70 of the fuel rods, was transferred by a trailer to a safer storage pool, the last day of a four-day operation, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, said in a statement.  The company must carefully pluck more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged assemblies from the unstable reactor No.4....Tepco estimates removing the damaged assemblies from reactor No.4 alone will take a year."

Denmark announced that it would provide major support in the removal of Syria's chemical weapons.  Denmark told the United Nations that "it is prepared to provide maritime help and bodyguards in connection with the removal of chemical weapons from Syria.  Following a meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee [on November 8], Defence Minister Nicolai Wammen said Denmark would agree to a request from the United Nations to provide shipping and warship support to remove Syrian chemical weapons. At the same time Denmark would provide a military bodyguard unit to protect the UN’s weapons inspector in Syria." [Politiken website]  Sweden and Norway have also offered to help in the removal.


In a week with some frustrating news on the UN Climate Change talks in Warsaw, there has been at least one glimmer of hope.  "The latest Climate Change Performance Index published by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe suggests that China is taking action to clean up its act as it tries to deal with its hazardously high levels of air pollution."  This is good news since rapidly developing China was responsible for 27% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions last year.  The report indicates both a slower growth rate in the emissions and a decoupling of emissions growth from GDP growth.  China's slower growth of emissions is linked to its attempts to combat its air pollution.  The report notes that China's "heavy investments in renewable energies and a very critical debate on coal in the highest political circles, resulting from the heavy smog situation in many towns, give hope for a slower emission growth in the future."   [The Guardian, Nov 21]

Finally, in the world of sports, the final draw has been completed for the FIFA 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil.  Of the 32 qualified teams, Bosnia-Herzegovina is represented for the first time and Colombia returns for the first time since 1998.  I can't say how soccer crazy Bosnia-Herzegovina is, but I am sure people in Colombia are very, very happy.  I was in Colombia at the time of the 1998 World Cup and saw my colleagues suffer as the Colombian team was eliminated at the group stage - managing just a single win against two losses.  Other 2014 qualifying sides that were not in the field of 32 in 2010 are Ecuador, Costa Rica, Belgium, Croatia, Iran, and Russia.  Here's the complete field from the FIFA website.  Congratulations, all!

 

  

Images
The Russian Rokot lifting the three SWARM satellites into orbit is from the ESA website.
Tepco provided the handout image of the fuel rod removal operation at Fukushima.
The photo of Chinese wind turbines is by Yi Lu/Corbis and is taken from The Guardian article.

Remembering JFK

Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas.  I was in high school when we all heard the news.  By the time I got on the subway to go home that afternoon, the world knew that the shot had been fatal.  Just forty-six years old, he had been President for less than three years.  In that short time, he inspired a generation of young Americans to believe that the world could be better. 

His inaugural speech in 1961, given at the height of the Cold War, is his best known.  "The torch has been passed to a new generation" and "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" are probably the most memorable and quoted lines. 

Here is a personal selection of some other JFK quotes from his speeches.

We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier...a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils — a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats...Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus...I believe the times demand new invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that New Frontier.

 The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

If an American, because the color of his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public schools available, if he cannot vote for those public officials that represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

 

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win...

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.

We can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a better place to in which to live.
 

 

 

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” 

 

Yesterday, a shaft of light cut into the darkness. Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water…Now, for the first time in many years, the path to peace may be open.... Let us, if we can, step back from the shadows of war and seek out the way of peace. And if that journey is 1,000 miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step.

 

 Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. 

Images
James Meredith integrating the University of Mississippi in 1962 is from the Wikipedia entry on the United States Marshals Service

JFK and quote is from Prose Before Hos website
 
Kennedy signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is from the National Archives and Records Administration found at the britannica.com entry

Sunday Round-Up - November 17, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Republican stranglehold on Congress, the Euro-recession, war spending and the deficit, The Guardian editor's upcoming appearance before Parliament, and bee colony collapse.

In an article posted on its website on November 11, Rolling Stone magazine takes up the lock on Congress that Republicans have in spite of the growing gap between their policies and the wishes of the majority of the electorate.  Tom Dickinson explains how national Republicans have rigged the game by "waging an unrelenting campaign to exploit every weakness and anachronism in our electoral system.  Through a combination of hyperpartisan redistricting of the House, unprecedented obstructionism in the Senate and racist voter suppression in the states, today's GOP has locked in political power that it could never have secured on a level playing field."  The redistricting of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan is described in some detail.  The vast sum of money spent by Republicans in North Carolina to take over the state legislature in 2010, voter suppression laws, activist judges and the unprecedented use of the filibuster in the Senate are exposed.  And, as Dickinson notes, the Republicans are not done yet.  "In a project with the explicit blessing of Republican National Committee Chairman..., a half-dozen Republican-dominated legislatures in states that swing blue in presidential elections have advanced proposals to abandon the winner-take-all standard in the Electoral College. These states would instead apportion electoral votes by the favored candidate of each congressional district – a method currently practiced by only two, small, homogenous states, Maine and Nebraska. Thanks to the GOP's gerrymandering, such a change would all but guarantee that a Democratic presidential candidate in a big, diverse state like Michigan would lose the split of electoral votes even if he or she won in a popular landslide."

"The EU economy will remain flat in 2013, EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said on Tuesday (5 November), as he downgraded the bloc's growth forecasts for 2014 and 2015...There was little to cheer for Europe's jobless. Unemployment levels are likely to remain virtually unchanged, although they are forecast to fall from 12.2 percent to 11.8 percent across the eurozone by 2015."   The November 13 EU Observer article should be a reminder to us of how austerity programs implemented to reduce deficits slow recovery from a recession.  The "sequestration" cuts, our own version of misguided austerity, will begin having a greater impact in 2014.  Combine this with the fiscal cliff negotiations and the possibility of another government shutdown and we may be in for an interesting ride leading to the 2014 mid-term elections.

Speaking of the US deficit, a Harvard report out earlier this year put the eventual total monetary cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars as high as 6 trillion dollars - or 35% of the 17 trillion dollars total national debt.  The DNA India website noted that this corresponds to $75,000 for every household in the country.  "There's a sense that we are turning the corner, but unfortunately, the legacy of these wars, because of decision about the way we fought and funded these wars, means we will be paying the costs for a long time to come," [Harvard Professor Linda] Bilmes said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "We may be mentally turning the page, but we are certainly not from a budgetary and financial perspective."   As the Congressional budget discussions proceed, it should be helpful to keep in mind this graphic from the National Priorities Project.



 

In the UK, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has been asked to appear before Parliament to give evidence regarding the intelligence files leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.  Rusbridger will appear at a meeting of the home affairs select committee amidst rising criticism from British intelligence agencies and Tories.  "Alan has been invited to give evidence to the home affairs select committee and looks forward to appearing next month," a Guardian spokeswoman said.  A New York Times editorial  warns that the freedom of the press so essential to democratic accountability, is being challenged by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron.



Finally, here's an update on the bee colony collapse that's been occurring around the world and threatening to impact fruit and vegetable production.  Ars Technica reported on October 21 that Italian researchers had cut through the complexity of causes that had surrounded the bee colony collapse.  Infections, insecticides and agricultural practices were all thought to be involved.  "Previous toxicology work in mammals indicated that a specific class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, could influence the activity of genes involved in the innate immune system."  The researchers started by showing that the same is true in insects. Initially, they worked with everyone's favorite fruit fly, Drosophila, showing that the equivalent genes responded in the same ways in the flies. They then showed that the innate immune response isn't activated when these same flies are exposed to an infection.... Various infections may still be doing the ultimate job of killing the bees, but their virulence could be explained by compromised immune function, caused by a combination of insecticide use and agricultural practices. The results will also provide further support for the European Union's attempt to ban the use of neonicotinoid pesticides."  The relationship between insecticides and colony collapse had been legally challenged by Bayer and Syngenta earlier this year.  

The image of the European honey bee is from Wikipedia.

Assassinations and History

November 22 is the fiftieth anniversary of President John Kennedy's assassination.  It is a time to reflect on how the world may have been different without the political assassinations that have marred human history - not just JFK's but others that might have made a difference.  

 

John Kennedy's assassination in 1963 was the fourth of a US president. It was the first of three assassinations in the 1960's that took the lives of charismatic liberal political leaders in the United States. The civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK's brother and Democratic Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy were both killed within a two-month span in 1968. How much different would the America and the world have been had these men lived? 

 

November 4 was the eighteenth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli radical.  It now appears that the death of Rabin's fellow peace prize winner PLO leader Yasser Arafat  on November 11, 2004 was also an assassination - by polonium poisoning by person or persons unknown. As reported in Al Jazeera on November 6: "A 108-page report by the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, which was obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, found unnaturally high levels of polonium in Arafat’s ribs and pelvis, and in soil stained with his decaying organs."

 

Vietnam

A question long debated has been whether John Kennedy would have escalated the Vietnam War as did his successor Lyndon Johnson or whether Kennedy would have withdrawn American forces. An argument could be made either way. On the one hand, Kennedy subscribed to the failed domino theory used as justification for this tragic war and Johnson inherited Kennedy's "best and brightest" advisors. On the other hand, Kennedy was growing increasingly skeptical of the war and disenchanted with his advisors.

Robert Kennedy's assassination almost certainly delayed the end of the Vietnam War. If Robert Kennedy went on to win the Democratic nomination in 1968, he would have defeated Nixon. Certainly, Bobby Kennedy would have ended the Vietnam War long before 1975. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

 

Domestic Programs and Politics

The assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King likely did not have much effect on the domestic programs of the 60's and early 70's. In 1964, the election of the most liberal Congress in decades with Johnson's landslide victory over conservative Barry Goldwater led to the enactment of the most progressive legislation since the New Deal. The Civil Rights Movement made significant progress with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1968. Lyndon Johnson's other Great Society programs, some of which were stalled initiatives from John Kennedy's "New Frontier", were enacted by the liberal Congress and then expanded by Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford. The "War on Poverty" (e.g., the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964), medical care for the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid), Federal aid to education provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, improvements to Social Security - all came about in this period.

Although the assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King may not have made a great difference in the domestic programs of the 60's, the deaths of these great leaders did effect the national political atmosphere. JFK's call for the new generation to step forward in leading the country to the beckoning New Frontier inspired many. MLK's message of unity, brotherhood, and social justice and RFK's idealistic vision may have counteracted or mitigated the mean-spiritedness and stigmatization of the poor, the greed and the hatred of government that has developed with such force in some quarters over the past three or four decades. There is no way of knowing how this would have played out in the long term but we surely would be looking at a better version of than America democracy than we are now.

 

 

Israel and Palestine

 

Probably no single event has had as great an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli fanatic in 1995. The assassin was angered at Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords which were to form the basis of the two-state solution. Rabin was succeeded by fellow Labor Party member Shimon Peres until 1996. A 17 year period of primarily right-wing Israeli governments began with the formation of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. The years since Rabin's death have been marked by little-to-no progress in the creation of a viable state for the Palestinian people. No Israeli since Rabin has been far-sighted enough to engage the Palestinians. No Israeli since Rabin has been able to bring Israelis back from, in Chris Hedges' words, "the psychosis of permanent war." Had the promises of the Oslo Accords been acted upon and a Palestinian state created, the Middle East would be a more stable, more secure region today. Israel would be at peace and unthreatened. Palestinians would have attained justice.
Images
JFK and quote is from Prose Before Hos website
Yitzhak Rabin is from Wikipedia entry.

Sunday Round-Up - November 10, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Sources include Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera, boston.com, and Haaretz.

Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, considered illegal by international organizations and by most countries, continue to be approved and Palestinian anger over the continued settlement building is rising.  John Kerry is in the Middle East trying to save the peace talks.

January 2011 map from Peace Now. Blue areas are Israeli settlements
in the West Bank; the brown areas are Palestinian localities.  Peace Now
is "Israel's most veteran and diverse peace movement with over 10,000
members from the Middle East and around the world." 

The Background
An article in the November Le Monde Diplomatique describes the significance of the settlements. Laurence Bernard writes that the settlements, are "jeopardising the two-state solution.  The West Bank has...been reduced to an archipelago of little urban islands by the Separation Barrier, the line of which annexes nearly 10% of Palestine’s territory.... 60% of all Palestinian territory ...
remains under complete Israeli control. This [controlled area] already has 350,000 Israeli settlers living in 35 settlements, compared with 180,000 Palestinian residents. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is concerned at the growth of violence by settlers, the denial of construction permit applications to Palestinians by the Israeli civil administration..., and the systematic demolition of buildings erected 'without a permit'."  Bernard also discusses other key issues.

• Water - "Palestinians only have 20% of the West Bank’s water resources...[and] use only 25% as much water per person per day."
• East Jerusalem - "250,000 settlers living in Palestinian areas"
• the blockade of Gaza, "already one of the most densely populated territories in the world", - "[the] Israeli...buffer zone along the barrier denies residents access to 17% of the territory (and 33% of the farmable land)...the outer limit of the fishing zone, set at 20 nautical miles under the Oslo accord, is now reduced to between 3 and 6 miles."
• Palestinian refugees  - "nearly five million expelled from their villages in 1948 and 1967.  A third still live in 'temporary' camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria; 3.5 million rely on the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic health and education."  

So what can the EU do to make "credible its official support for an 'independent, democratic, contiguous and viable' Palestinian state" ?  Bernard recommends that the EU build on its recent directive that will make Israeli entities operating on Palestinian land "ineligible for grants, prizes and financial instruments" from the EU.  The EU, Israel's largest trading partner, could "threaten reprisals under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, ... freeze specific accords,... and suspend negotiations on strengthening the Association Agreement.  It could also stop importing goods manufactured or assembled in Israeli settlements in the West Bank." Finally, the EU could take action on the arms trade with Israel, the world's fourth leading arms exporter.  The arms trade "continues to grow in spite of the EU code of conduct that prohibits sales of military equipment that  might be used for internal repression or international aggression, or contribute to regional instability." 

Kerry's Trip to the Middle East

Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday on Kerry's efforts:  "Acknowledging that the negotiations had run into difficulties, Kerry spoke of a need for 'real compromises and hard decisions' from both sides...  Palestinians...have said an Israeli plan announced last week for 3,500 more settler homes in the occupied West Bank was a major obstacle to the success of the negotiations....'The Israeli side is determined to continue its settlement and we cannot continue negotiations under these unprecedented settlement attacks,' [a senior Palestinian official] said after a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators....  The settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, are considered illegal by most countries."

AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee's story on Kerry's trip to Jordan was reported on Thursday on boston.com.  Kerry went to Jordan to gain support from this close US Arab ally for the stalled peace process.  Kerry "issued a stark warning to Israel on Thursday, saying it faces international isolation and a possible explosion of violence if it does not make progress in peace efforts with the Palestinians.  Kerry issued the blunt remarks in a joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian television channels, ensuring the message would reach its intended audience.  'The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean does Israel want a third intifada?' Kerry said, using the term for past Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation....'If we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel. There will be an increasing campaign of de-legitimization of Israel (that) has been taking place in an international basis,' he said...'What is the alternative to peace?' Kerry asked at a joint news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. 'Prolonged continued conflict.'

Haaretz provided additional details of Kerry's comments on "Israel’s decision to build roughly 5,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and other settlements, alongside the release of a group of Palestinian prisoners. Kerry said settlement expansion sends a message that 'perhaps you’re not really serious,' during an interview which aired on Israel’s Channel 2, as well as in Palestinian media.  The lengthy interview ...focused on the struggling peace negotiations and Kerry’s efforts to prevent a total collapse in talks between Israel and the Palestinians.   Kerry denied the claims made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that there had been an agreement between the two sides stipulating that each wave of Palestinian prisoners released would be accompanied by settlement expansion. According to Kerry, the deal was that Israel would release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a halt of unilateral Palestinian actions at the United Nations during the nine months of negotiating.   'Palestinian leadership made it absolutely clear they believe the settlements are illegal, they object to the settlements and they are in no way condoning the settlements, but they knew Israel would make some announcements,' said Kerry."

The Off-Year Elections and What They Mean

Tea Party nemesis Republican Chris Christie won a second term as New Jersey governor by a wide margin - more than 20 points - over the Democratic challenger.  Across the river in New York, progressive Bill de Blasio won in a landslide, 73-24, over his Republican opponent, thereby becoming the first Democratic mayor of New York in two decades.  In Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the governorship by 2.5% over Tea Party favorite Ken Cuccinelli.

So what is the significance of these off-year election results and what do they  mean for 2014 and 2016?

Bi-partisanship works in a blue state.  Democrats generally believe that government can help people and will work with a Republican who is not too extreme.

• Christie is a popular governor who has made much of his ability to work with Democrats.  His handling of the damage wreaked by Superstorm Sandy was universally praised.  Christie had the support of several state Democratic leaders and politicians and he was endorsed by most of the state's newspapers, including the Newark Star-Ledger. 
• According to exit polls, Christie won majorities of women and Hispanics and increased his vote among African-Americans and union households.  Still, his percentage of the vote (60%) was less than the 1985 victory of Republican Tom Kean (69%).   
• New Jersey Democrats retained control of the legislature in spite of Christie's landslide win.

The Tea Party is down but not out.  They are still passionate about their causes and vote in droves when they are.

• Tea Party extremism is not as popular in New Jersey as in many other states.  Christie's victory there says nothing about his ability to win the Republican Presidential primary should he choose to run in 2016. 
• Even after the government shutdown, Republicans almost managed to win the governorship in Virginia.  Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli made "Obamacare" the issue in the weeks after the shutdown and almost pulled off a victory. 
• Six per cent of the vote in Virginia went to the Libertarian candidate.  This was double the margin of McAuliffe's victory.  Though no one can say how this Libertarian vote would have split, I think it's fair to say that McAuliffe owed his victory almost as much to this as Bill Clinton did to the Ross Perot vote in 1992 and George Bush to the Florida Ralph Nader vote in 2000.  (Okay, hanging chads and the Supreme Court had more to do with Bush's victory than the Nader vote.  Still Nader's 97,000 votes dwarfed the 537 vote margin by which Bush won Florida and thus the Presidency.)

Money and voter turnout (still) win elections. 

• McAuliffe had a big edge over Cuccinelli in money spent as did Democrats in the New Jersey legislative races.
• Thank God for the Democrats of (especially) northern Virginia.  As they did in the Presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, voters in the northern counties turned out in enough numbers to counteract the majority Republican vote in other parts of the state.
• Obama's Presidential victories in 2008 and 2012 were the result of the same dynamics.  He outspent his opponents and voter turnout was key. 
• Citizens United will bring essentially unlimited money into the 2014 and 2016 elections, primarily on the Republican side. Democrats had better begin planning now on how they will energize their base to a) not lose the Senate in 2014, b) pickup at least a few seats in the gerry-mandered House districts, and c) win the 2016 Presidential election. 

New York City is (still) overwhelmingly Democratic, progressive and ethnic.

• In electing progressive Bill de Blasio by nearly 50 points, New Yorkers returned to their roots.  The most liberal of the candidates in the Democratic field, de Blasio campaigned on a program to lessen New York's gap between the rich and the poor - provide universal pre-K, end stop-and-frisk, build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing.
• He is the fourth Italian-American to serve as mayor of the city.  He joins fellow Italian-American New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in running one of the most progressive cities in one of the most progressive states in the country.  De Blasio's  maternal grandparents were Italian immigrants.  He is married to an African-American woman and his inter-racial family was at the center of his campaign. 
• At 6' 5", he is 15" taller than the first Italian-American mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia.  Let's hope height is not inversely proportional to ability.  Fiorello LaGuardia, a progressive, reformist "New Deal Republican", is widely regarded as one of the 2 or 3 greatest mayors in US history.

Image
The photo of Governor Christie and President Obama is from The Governor's Office/Tim Larsen.

Sunday Round-Up - November 3, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Iran, Syria, and the self-fulfilling prophecy of perpetual war.  Sources include The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and TomDispatch.com.

Iran

Nuclear talks with Iran are showing signs of progress and hope. Unfortunately that doesn't stop some in Congress from threatening additional sanctions against Iran as the next round of talks gets underway. The increasingly-ridiculous House of Representatives has passed a resolution requiring additional sanctions. In the Senate, which should know better, the Banking Committee is now considering a similar move. These actions do nothing but poison the negotiating atmosphere. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the comments of Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking in Turkey on November 1. Zarif "warned that the international community risked missing a chance to strike a deal over Iran’s nuclear program and lambasted a “zero-sum” diplomatic approach in which each side tried to make gains at the expense of the other." That approach has failed to achieve any progress in the one and half years of talks and both sides need a fresh approach. Zarif said that "Iran was ready to “do everything in our negotiations with the P5+1 to ensure that even the perception that Iran has anything but peaceful intentions for its nuclear program will be removed, because we believe that even the perception that Iran pursues a nuclear weapons program is not only wrong, but dangerous.” 

 

The Obama Administration is not standing still in the face of the hawkish Congressional rhetoric. The Guardian.in an October 25 article, reported Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman's comments to Voice of America that a delay in new sanctions will let the US see if talks over Iranian nuclear ambitions can gain traction. "The public nature of Sherman's statement was seen as a significant gesture to Tehran. 'I thought it was a very positive statement...the most forward-leaning statement that I can recall an Obama administration official using, when discussing sanctions, at any time over the past four to five years.' said Reza Marashi, research director at the National Iranian American Council. "It was very specific. That not only sends a message to Congress but it also sends a message I think to the Iranians as well. That shows a certain level of seriousness to make these kinds of statements publicly."

 

Syria

Syria has met the first deadline set by arms inspectors for the destruction of its chemical weapons.      "The Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced ...that Syria's declared chemical weapons production and mixing facilities had all been destroyed – a day ahead of the target it had set. It means that Syria can no longer produce any new chemical weapons, although it has yet to start destroying its existing stockpile. This is estimated at about 1,000 tonnes of chemicals and weapons, including mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin."  But the humanitarian crisis continues with the recent confirmation of a polio outbreak among Syrian children.  David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary and head of the International Rescue Committee called it a "terrifying indication of what can happen when a country falls apart under the weight of war".[The Guardian, October 31]

 

Besides polio, other diseases are taking hold along the Syria-Turkey border.  "According to doctors struggling to cope with minimal state help in the frontier region, measles and other infectious diseases such as cutaneous leishmaniasis [which causes skin sores] have started to appear on both sides of the border. The World Health Organisation has already raised an alert about the revival of polio in northern Syria. All were previously illnesses under control in the neighbouring countries...."Communicable diseases like measles, typhoid or TB are now popping up in Turkish cities," said Dr. Ramazan Kaya, a specialist for internal diseases. Speaking of Qamishli refugee camp, Kaya said "Sanitary conditions are dismal. Water is no longer chlorinated, rubbish isn't collected anymore.  Syria is known to have had very good healthcare. Since the beginning of this conflict, the system has started to break down, and it is getting worse by the day. There are shortages of everything – medicine, vaccines, medical equipment." [The Guardian, November 1]

 

In an October 28 article, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes Saudi Arabia's increasing involvement in the Syrian civil war. "The shift to an increasingly assertive stance on the Syrian crisis reflects the Saudi leadership’s dismay about the U.S.-Russian agreement on dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons capability. The effort effectively removes the specter of U.S.-led military action against the regime and potentially rehabilitates Assad as a partner of the international community. Riyadh has long pushed for a tougher line. The additional prospect of a U.S.-Iranian understanding on the nuclear file has only made the Saudi leadership more grimly determined to bring down Assad."  As CEIP's Yezid Sayigh explains, the "Saudi plan to build a new national army for the Syrian opposition is polarizing the rebels and potentially undermining Riyadh’s objectives in Syria." The Saudi effort will complicate the planned Geneva II peace conference.   Sayigh concludes "The Saudi leadership should be careful what it creates in Syria: [the rebel group] Muhammad’s Army may eventually come home to Mecca." 

 

Bringing both sides to the negotiating table without preconditions is the only hope for an end to this tragic conflict.  The United Nations Security Council should consider imposing an immediate arms embargo on Syria.  With neither side having a clear advantage, the humanitarian crisis will only worsen as long as this civil war, fueled by imported arms, continues.

 

The Self-fulfilling Prophecy of Perpetual War

 

The October 29 TomDispatch post presents the case against drone warfare.  Along with the blanketing surveillance (including that of allied world leaders), the increased use of drones is a symptom of  a larger disease. "Devoted since [9/11] to perpetual war across significant parts of the planet and to a surveillance apparatus geared to leave no one anywhere in privacy, the U.S. now resembles a rogue superpower to an increasingly resistant and restless world."   The post contains, in its entirety, the epilogue to Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield.  Tom Englehardt writes: "No single reporter has done more than Jeremy Scahill to bring us back news of how, in the post-9/11 years, Washington took its wars into the darkness, how it helped create a landscape of blowback abroad, and just how such roguery works when it comes to a superpower."  Recent investigations of drone attacks that resulted in civilian deaths in Yemen and Pakistan were investigated by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.  Human Rights Watch found evidence of  the killing of civilians "indiscriminately in clear violation of the laws of war."  Amnesty International "has serious concerns that this attack [in Pakistan] violated the prohibition of the arbitrary deprivation of life and may constitute war crimes or extrajudicial executions."  Besides the ethical and legal arguments, there is also the practical argument.  After a recent visit to Pakistan, UN special rapporteur on drones Ben Emmerson said, “The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation."  Addressing drone attacks in his epilogue, Scahill writes that today "decisions on who should live or die in the name of protecting America’s national security are made in secret, laws are interpreted by the president and his advisers behind closed doors, and no target is off-limits, including U.S. citizens....At the end of the day, U.S. policymakers and the general public must [ask]...are our own actions, carried out in the name of national security, making us less safe or more safe?...As large-scale military deployments wound down, the United States had simultaneously escalated its use of drones, cruise missiles, and Special Ops raids in an unprecedented number of countries. The war on terror had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The question all Americans must ask themselves lingers painfully: How does a war like this ever end?"