From Nukes to Banks: How Smart is President Obama? (Matlin)

The Department of Defense has announced the deployment of Prompt Global Strike in 2014. According to the US Government, a new conventional warhead of enormous weight, delivered at high speed with precision accuracy, will destroy its target with the destructive power of a nuclear weapon but without the radiation fallout. Because the weapon is not ballistic, it will be easy to control.

Viewing America: North Carolina, Tea Parties, and the Supreme Court (Matlin)

One might think that cruise missiles would be destructive enough for our American cousins, and as for pinpoint accuracy, well, we’ve heard this before. In an episode of The West Wing, President Bartlett is urged by his Chief of Staff to go to the Situation Room to witness the result of the latest Star Wars test.


“Intervention in fifteen seconds,” the President is told by a General.

Twenty seconds later, the President asks, “Did we hit it?”

The General pauses. “Not exactly, Mr. President, one hundred and thirty eight.”

The President leans towards his Chief of Staff, whispering, “one hundred and thirty eight feet, not bad.”

“Actually, it was one hundred and thirty eight miles, sir,” comes the response.

I suppose spending loads of taxpayers dollars on the latest war toy might be justified by the administration because of the huge numbers of people employed in the American munitions industry. But why, in the face of the recent nuclear treaty with Russia, is it necessary to add a new weapon of such destruction to America’s phenomenal arsenal?

I wonder if the administration is playing really cool, getting the Russians to agree to disarm nuclear weapons on a one for one basis. “You disarm a nuclear weapon and we won’t build a GPS missile” could be the deal. If so, what a clever move it might be, especially if this new American weapon system would never have been built in the first place. No money spent and missiles deleted. Obama has demonstrated more than once that he values “smart” as much or more than “tough.”

Is Obama being smart about financial regulation as well? The Republicans in Congress object to new financial regulation rules. These laws challenge the complete freedom hitherto enjoyed by the economic elite on how they run the hedge fund industry, with the federal government seeking to introduce transparency and fairness. Obama’s point is straightforward and well-taken. He has told Wall Street, “Unless your business model depends on bilking people, there is little to fear from these new rules.” into the hedge fund market.

Republicans are protesting on grounds of “more socialism” and “denial of freedom” by the federal government. Yet not so long ago, these same Republicans were very keen to have the federal government bail out their banker friends. Then they stood mute whilst the heads of suspect financial institutions paid themselves huge bonuses, to the disgust of the American taxpayer. Whoever said “the lunatics have taken over the asylum” was right.

Who do these bankers think they are? There seems to be a parallel with the way some Premier League football (soccer) players are treated in England and the acceptance of a separate set of social rules for the sporting prima donnas. The stars can rightfully claim to entertain hundreds of thousands every Saturday as they play the beautiful game, not that this is any excuse for some pretty deplorable behaviour on their part. In comparison, however, investment bankers play their game only for the very few and can make no claim for “the beautiful deal”.

Last week, we, the taxpayer bailers of the banking system, were treated to disclosure of the kind of behaviour that got the global financial world into the disaster from which we all suffered.

In 2007, as the American housing market showed signs of weakness, Goldman Sachs, the doyen of Wall Street investment bankers, sold an investment product based on the housing mortgage market. The product was inherently bound to fail, something which Goldman knew but neglected to mention. Worse, another Goldman client and customer, John Paulson Inc., was certain to profit from the inbuilt capacity for failure of the Goldman investment. As a result, the federal government has commenced a civil suit against Goldman at the very time that the new financial laws are coming to a voting boil in Congress.

I have no doubt that within the hundreds of pages of small print attached to the investment in question, Goldman will have warned buyers that investments can result in losses, that independent advice should be sought before purchase, and probably in a few words buried deep in the documentation, that the buyer would almost certainly lose. However, it is clear to me, as someone who worked in the City of London for many years, is that Goldman has behaved unethically and, in any view, wrongly by breaching conflict of interest principles.

Goldman has already sought refuge that an individual rogue director was solely to blame, claiming that this person was working on his own. That won’t fly. Does Goldman suggests it doesn’t have a vetting process for financial products and that its lawyers don’t write the small print? Methinks this banker doth protest too much.

Still, I dislike the probability that Obama’s administration has manipulated and politicised the Goldman affair, hoping to embarrass Republican legislators into accepting the new financial regulation laws. It may be a smart move politically but this is not the right way to pass important legislation. New law should be judged on merit alone.

It has been timely for me to get away to North Carolina. Beaufort, pronounced “Bewferd,” is a jewel of a town on the Crystal Coast. Part of the Inner Banks, The town was settled in colonial times and there is much West Indian architecture to admire.

I also took a boat ride to the Outer Banks, an Oceanside wilderness which has hardly changed since the founding fathers’ time. I have seen wild horses, all kinds of bird life, dolphins and maybe a whale --- one glimpse was too quick for confirmation. The boat ride, the beauty and peace there, the restaurants --- don’t miss Amos Mosquito ---- and the sights and sounds of the coast provided a refreshing change to large American and European cities.

So while I still ponder whether President Obama, from nukes to finance, is being “smart” as well as “tough”, I do hold this clear, immutable, and unchangeable opinion: on any view imaginable, the Inner Banks and Outer Banks of North Carolina are infinitely better than all of the Wall Street banks.

Israel-Palestine: Washington's Carrots and Sticks for Netanyahu and Abbas (Yenidunya)

Following his second meeting with U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed his government on Sunday and said that it would soon become clear whether there would be Middle East peace talks. He added that Israel and the United States want to "begin a peace process immediately."

In a statement summing up his visit, Mitchell said he held "positive and productive talks" with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort "to improve the atmosphere for peace and for proceeding with proximity talks".

On Thursday, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, received an official invitation to the proximity talks. In this message to Ramallah, the Obama Administration confessed that Washington had been unable to get a commitment from Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem but had received a guarantee that Israel would refrain from "significant" actions in the eastern part of the city during negotiations.



To  get Ramallah's consent for the beginning of proximity talks, the Obama Administration also put forward the idea of an Obama-Abbas meeting, an invitation confirmed by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo, told Palestinian radio that there is talk about an invitation for Abbas to visit Washington, possibly next month.

Washington also reportedly lined up possible sanctions against Israel in case of a failure to comply with its commitments. American officials reported said that if Netanyahu takes an uncompromising stance in the negotiations, like the one he displays in public, Israel's Labor Party might quit the coalition and pave the way for a new government.

The US message to Netanyahu: "natural growth" is OK in East Jerusalem during negotiations, along with other confidence-building measures, as long as you are ready to change your position on East Jerusalem's status and to come to terms with Ramallah on other border issues at the end of indirect talks. Otherwise, the Labor Party will be out, the coalition government collapses, and you will lose your Premiership.

And to Abbas: if you co-operate and accept that Israeli "natural growth" is not a barrier to discussions leading to a settlement, you will get the public acclamation, symbolised by your trip to Washington, of being an international leader.

Viewing America: North Carolina, Tea Parties, and the Supreme Court (Matlin)

The University of North Carolina, located in Chapel Hill, is a wondrous place, an oasis of liberalism within a desert of reaction. Only here, since it is hunting season, might a visitor be treated with a juxtaposition between higher education and wild turkeys.

My own hunting has been less successful. I have been here for ten days and have yet to meet or track down a Republican.

I’m pretty sure I saw one on my ride from the airport, with the clue lying in the “Impeach Obama” sticker on the driver’s truck. Beyond that, however, it seems that this is an enclave free from members of the Grand Old Party. I am told that at a faculty meeting at the university last year, the subject of diversity arose.



“We have too many white men,” said the first speaker. “This needs to be addressed.”

“I agree,” came a response, “let’s find another Republican.”

This doesn't necessary mean, however, that Chapel Hill is a bastion of liberalism. There are Democrats and then there are Southern Democrats, and the twain do not meet with any comfort. A Southern Democrat is not necessarily a Republican in other clothes, but both on historical background --- tread carefully when approaching the story of segregation and civil rights --- and in contemporary context, there are tensions on political, economic, and social issues.

This complexity is overshadowed now on the national scene by two sweeping stories. The first, the Tea Party, should not be an issue at all. This is a collection, predominantly of late middle-aged, middle-class, comfortably well-off folks don’t want to pay anything for those Americans less fortunate than them. They are able to make sufficient noise to give certain areas of the media the opportunity to blow the alleged importance of the TP out of all proportion.

At first sight, the Tea Partiers could be mistaken for supporters of Ross Perot, the businessman who ran a third-party Presidential campaign in 1992. In that time of economic distress in the 1990s, a distrust of Washington gave rise to a desire amongst a minority to support an "independent" for President and shake up the established order.

So, where are the differences? First, Perot supporters came from both sides of the political aisle. Tea Partiers are from the right-wing of the Republican Party, screaming their love for Sarah Palin when she says, “We’ll keep the guns and our religion and they can have the rest.” Second, Tea Party activists seem to be older and wealthier than Perot fans. Third, TP ideology is focused on taxes and "Big Government". Perot’s supporters had much wider issues of concern.

The second big issue is President Obama’s next Supreme Court pick. Within a day of Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to retire, Congressional Republicans threatened a filibuster if Obama did not choose a middle-of-the-roader who accorded with Republican thinking.

Presently, the court is pro-business and leans to the right. Surely, the Court needs a "left" thinker, capable of articulating the views of ordinary Americans and who understands how court decisions affect ordinary lives. But I am even more concerned, given the Republican stance, over their fear of a differing point of view on the Court? Why is diversity suddenly a dirty word?

Iran: Hyping the Threat from Tehran (Walt)

Stephen Walt writes for Foreign Policy:

Back when I started writing this blog, I warned that the idea of preventive war against Iran wasn't going to go away just because Barack Obama was president. The topic got another little burst of oxygen over the past few days, in response to what seems to have been an over-hyped memorandum from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and some remarks by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, following a speech at Columbia University. In particular, Mullen noted that military action against Iran could "go a long way" toward delaying Iran's acquisition of a weapons capability, though he also noted this could only be a "last resort" and made it clear it was not an option he favored.

One of the more remarkable features about the endless drumbeat of alarm about Iran is that it pays virtually no attention to Iran's actual capabilities, and rests on all sorts of worst case assumptions about Iranian behavior. Consider the following facts, most of them courtesy of the 2010 edition ofThe Military Balance, published annually by the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London:



GDP: United States -- 13.8 trillion
Iran --$ 359 billion  (U.S. GDP is roughly 38 times greater than Iran's)

Defense spending (2008):
U.S. -- $692 billion
Iran -- $9.6 billion (U.S. defense budget is over 70 times larger than Iran)

Military personnel:
U.S.--1,580,255 active; 864,547 reserves (very well trained)
Iran--   525,000 active; 350,000 reserves (poorly trained)

Combat aircraft:
U.S. -- 4,090 (includes USAF, USN, USMC and reserves)
Iran -- 312 (serviceability questionable)

Main battle tanks:
U.S. -- 6,251 (Army + Marine Corps)
Iran -- 1,613 (serviceability questionable)

Navy:
U.S. -- 11 aircraft carriers, 99 principal surface combatants, 71 submarines, 160 patrol boats, plus large auxiliary fleet
Iran -- 6 principal surface combatants, 10 submarines, 146 patrol boats

Nuclear weapons:
U.S. -- 2,702 deployed, >6,000 in reserve
Iran -- Zero

One might add that Iran hasn't invaded anyone since the Islamic revolution, although it has supported a number of terrorist organizations and engaged in various forms of covert action.  The United States has also backed terrorist groups and conducted covert ops during this same period, and attacked a number of other countries, including Panama, Grenada, Serbia, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.

By any objective measure, therefore, Iran isn't even on the same page with the United States in terms of latent power, deployed capabilities, or the willingness to use them. Indeed, Iran is significantly weaker than Israel, which has roughly the same toal of regular plus reserve military personnel and vastly superior training. Israel also has more numerous and modern armored and air capabilities and a sizeable nuclear weapons stockpile of its own. Iran has no powerful allies, scant power-projection capability, and little ideological appeal. Despite what some alarmists think, Iran is not the reincarnation of Nazi Germany and not about to unleash some new Holocaust against anyone.

The more one thinks about it, the odder our obsession with Iran appears. It's a pretty unloveable regime, to be sure, but given Iran's actual capabilities, why do U.S. leaders devote so much time and effort trying to corral support for more economic sanctions (which aren't going to work) or devising strategies to "contain" an Iran that shows no sign of being able to expand in any meaningful way? Even the danger that a future Iranian bomb might set off some sort of regional arms race seems exaggerated, according to an unpublished dissertation by Philipp Bleek of Georgetown University. Bleek's thesis examines the history of nuclear acquisition since 1945 and finds little evidence for so-called "reactive proliferation." If he's right, it suggests that Iran's neighbors might not follow suit even if Iran did "go nuclear" at some point in the future).

Obviously, simple bean counts like the one presented above do not tell you everything about the two countries, or the political challenges that Iran might pose to its neighbors. Iran has engaged in a number of actions that are cause for concern (such as its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon), and it has some capacity to influence events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, as we have learned in both of these countries, objectively weaker adversaries can still mount serious counterinsurgency operations against a foreign occupier. And if attacked, Iran does have various retaliatory options that we would find unpleasant, such as attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf. So Iran's present weakness does not imply that the United States can go ahead and bomb it with impunity.

What it does mean is that we ought to keep this relatively minor "threat" in perspective, and not allow the usual threat-inflators to stampede us into another unnecessary war. My impression is that Admiral Mullen and SecDef Gates understand this. I hope I'm right. But I'm still puzzled as to why the Obama administration hasn't tried the one strategy that might actually get somewhere: take the threat of force off the table, tell Tehran that we are willing to talk seriously about the issues that bother them (as well as the items that bother us), and try to cut a deal whereby Iran ratifies and implements the NPT Additional Protocol and is then permitted to enrich uranium for legitimate purposes (but not to weapons-grade levels). It might not work, of course, but neither will our present course of action or the "last resort" that Mullen referred to last weekend.

Israel: Colonising East Jerusalem, Deporting Palestinians (Cole)

Parallelling the assessment of EA's Ali Yenidunya, Juan Cole considers the latest steps by the Israeli Government:

The new Israeli policy of deporting Palestinians from the West Bank on arbitrary grounds has kicked in with Ahmad Sabah, who has just been deported to Gaza and separated from his family in the West Bank. The measure contravenes the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations, and it also goes contrary to the undertakings Israel made toward the Palestine Authority in the course of the Oslo peace negotiations.

Palestine Analysis: Breaking Down Israel’s Counter Offer on Talks

The episode underlines the ways in which their forced statelessness leaves Palestinians (almost uniquely among major world nationalities) completely vulnerable to loss of the most basic human rights. That he was forcibly moved to Gaza by the Israelis suggests that many of those singled out for potential deportation from the West Bank may be moved to the small slum along the Mediterranean, which the Israelis have cut off from its traditional markets and which they keep under a blockade of the civilian population (a war crime). The Israeli establishment has decided not to try to colonize Gaza, and its isolation and hopelessness make it an attractive place for them to begin exiling West Bank residents, thus making more room for Israeli colonists.


The new policy, which is illegal six ways to Sunday in international law, is the brainchild of the government of far rightwing Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, an Israeli hawk and expansionist, slapped President Barack Obama in the face again Thursday when he confirmed that he refused to halt construction of new homes in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is militarily occupied by Israel.

Netanyahu’s announcement is probably the nail in the coffin of any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in which the Israelis have thrown most Palestinians now living beyond the Green Line off their land and deprived them of citizenship in a state and all the rights that go with such citizenship). Palestinians are so despairing that only 57 percent even believe in having an independent Palestinian state any more. The rest are resigned to becoming Israelis in the distant future, when demographic realities and perhaps world-wide boycotts of Israel for its Apartheid-style policies toward the occupied Palestinian will force Israel to accept them.

At the same time, Netanyahu tried to throw sand in peoples’ eyes by talking about recognizing an ‘interim’ Palestinian state with “temporary” borders.

Palestinian leaders reject this formulation, which is intended to allow the Israelis to continue aggressively to colonize Palestinian territory while pretending that they are engaged in a ‘peace process.’ The Palestine Authority, established in the 1990s, was already a sort of interim state then, and Palestine’s borders were then ‘temporary.’ So temporary that Israel has made deep inroads into them through massive colonies and building a wall on the Palestinian side of the border, cutting residents off from their own farms and sequestering entire towns and cities.

Netanyahu’s various moves this week, from illegally expelling a Palestinian from the West Bank to Gaza to blowing off the president of the United States and hitching his wagon to massive increased colonization of Palestinian land: all of these steps are guaranteed to mire Israel in violent disputes for years and perhaps decades. And the US, which has already suffered tremendously in Iraq and elsewhere from its knee-jerk support of illegal and inhumane Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, will suffer further.

Meanwhile, in the wake of a vicious attack on Barack Obama by New York senator Chuck Schumer, Steve Clemons of the Washington Note frankly wonders whether Schumer understands he is in the US Senate or whether he is under the impression he is serving in the Israeli Knesset.