This is apparently from 2012, but we’d never seen it. If the approval rating of the Senate is 10%, as he says, it will be near 0% after you’ve watched. (4:08 minutes).
Jul 31 2015 | Posted in Politics | Read More »
McCaul: This secret deal between the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and Iran…
Kerry: There is no secret…
McCaul: We’ve never seen this. Are you going to present that to the Congress?
Kerry: There’s no secret deal. There’s an agreement which is the normal process of the IAEA where they negotiate a confidential agreement as they do with all countries between them and the country — and that exists. We have been briefed on it…
McCaul: Are you going to present that to the Congress, sir?
Kerry: We don’t have it. It is not in our possession. We have been briefed on it. I have not personally seen it. Andrea Mitchell later interviewed McCaul on her news program:
McCaul: These side deals…When I asked if he’s going to present that to the Congress, I didn’t get an adequate response to it, and I also asked him if he’s actually seen these agreements, these secret deals that were done, and his response was he’s been briefed but has not seen them, so this goes to the verification process itself…in terms of how can the IAEA adequately verify that Iran is not cheating?
Mitchell explained how it’s done, as Kerry had, yet McCaul, although chairman of the key committee, was unaware of the IAEA’s workings, the agency that monitors nuclear non-proliferation, and was seemingly incapable of grasping what it’s all about, continuing with, “If we’re going to hide secret deals from Congress…”
Beleaguered
Testifying before the House of Representatives in late July on the impending Iran deal, Secretary of State John Kerry was quizzed by Texas Republican Mike McCaul, who is chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. It went like so:
Jul 27 2015 | Posted in World | Read More »
The defects emphasized by the detractors are real and worrisome, and conservatives in Congress vow to block the deal when it comes up for vote in late September. For them, the fantasy of a “better deal” persists, undeterred by negotiations that have taken 20 months with repeated deadline extensions as negotiators fought over final terms and language. When at his press conference President Obama spoke of war as an alternative, there it was again: A freshman representative from Long Island named Lee Zeldin (R-NY) popped up with, “Here’s an alternative better than war: A better deal”. At this terminal moment, Mr. Zeldin, how would you force a better deal on Iran? “I think a better deal is possible”, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Tougher sanctions would force “Iran to choose between lifting the sanctions and rolling back, truly rolling back, their nuclear capability”. The opposite is assumed. With no carrot of sanctions relief, Iran would build its bomb. Lindsey Graham operates in the same imagined reality. “I’d enforce the U.N. resolutions, saying remove all the highly enriched uranium”. Enforce by what army? To Iran he says, “We’re not going to lift sanctions until you stop destabilizing the region”. sanction erosion
The fantasy is that the sanctions, the thumbscrews that brought Iran to the table, will always be available. In fact, there seems to have been something of a race to get the deal done before the sanctions fall apart. More than the six negotiating nations have gone along with sanctions, but countries such as Japan, South Korea and India are restive. They are not in Iran’s crosshairs as is the U.S. and, while cooperative, they will not indefinitely injure their economies. Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. says the sanctions have already reached the high water mark and will probably erode if the pact is rejected. Germany’s ambassador said, “If diplomacy fails, the sanctions regime might unravel”. Former CIA director James Woolsey thinks “the sanctions regime is slipping; the world is tired of these sanctions”. Moreover, the provision that if Iran cheats, sanctions will be “snapped back” is a “mirage”, says a Wall Street Journal editorial (titled “Tehran’s Nuclear Triumph”). Getting all signatories to face down business interests newly engaged in trade with Iran and vote to restore the sanctions would be a tough go. Brit Hume of Fox News says the likelihood of sanctions collapse is probably the best argument for the deal to go through. There won’t be another. breakout now or later
The deal is designed to extend the “breakout” time — the time needed to create enough enriched uranium for a single bomb — to a year. Right now, with 19,000 centrifuges and an enriched stockpile already in hand, the breakout time is estimated at a mere 2-3 months. Yet those opposed are astonished at a deal that will allow Iran to emerge a decade hence with the full capacity to create a nuclear bomb that they could produce right now in three months. How to explain the alarm for the future that is greater than alarm for the immediate present? “They were months away from it in 2013”, said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va), referring to bomb development. “Could you imagine a point at year 15 or 25 where they might do something bad? Yes, you could …but remember that we were at that point two years ago” before the interim accord froze Iran’s activities so that talks could proceed. viewed in a vacuum
As an exercise to understand how the detractors seemingly view the deal, assume there is no consequence to aborting the proposed agreement. Looked at that way, Iran certainly looks to have emerged triumphant. The deal subjects Iran to an inspection regime that — if we suspend our belief that Iran will cheat long before — variously lasts 10 to 15 years and, as critics say, fails to dismantle Iran’s nuclear undertaking altogether (the original objective) and instead “legitimated a program until this morning that was illegal, that was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions”, said former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden on the day of the announcement. “As we get to the sunset years, even assuming success across the board for the agreement …Iran is very well-positioned to break out if they choose to do so”. Sen. Graham says much the same: “If they comply with everything in this deal, they become a nuclear power… We’ve now locked in place an industrial size nuclear program”. That’s the case because the six nation consortium yielded to Iran’s merely mothballing two-thirds of its 19,000 centrifuges rather than destroying them, permitting ongoing enrichment up to a certain level with the remaining machines, allowing continued research on advanced centrifuge design, and diluting their enriched uranium rather than shipping it out of the country. money for nothing
Where the critics are absolutely correct and the government Panglossian is the danger posed to the region by an economically revived Iran. Every commentator on the right erupted about the $100 billion to $150 billion in blocked funds that will be released to Iran in 90 days time if they behave to the inspectors’ satisfaction, and the lifting of sanctions that will bring companies from around the world eager to do business. As Iran shows no sign of moderating its practices — its “revolution” — it is expected to use its new-found wealth to fund its combative proxies in the region. And what became of Obama’s insistence on a phased lifting of sanctions in cadence with Iranian compliance with the agreement? Sanctions are not to be lifted on signing as Iran had been insisting, but they will be lifted all at once rather than phased out. How that concession came about, and with no evidence of anything in return, has not been mentioned. we’re the decider
The outrage at seeing how well Iran has done arises from a belief held by Americans — the opposition in Congress, anyway — in an all-powerful United States that can dictate to the world. Since an outline of terms was agreed to in March, we have heard them repeatedly say we should insist on a better deal as if its terms are ours alone to decide. Iran is its own sovereign nation of over 75 million that doesn’t take dictation. The George W. Bush administration decreed that Iran could not have any enrichment at all — “not one centrifuge spins”, was the edict of Robert Joseph, then the State Department’s top proliferation official. So, Iran did what it pleased and went from 164 centrifuges to 6,000 by when Bush left office, and now has more than tripled that amount. Arrogance blinds us from the obvious — that there are limits to America’s power short of war, and short of war all we have are the sanctions. To those opposed to the deal, Secretary of State John Kerry asks, “their alternative is what, perpetual state of sanctions? Not going to happen”. Kerry, understandably, sees the deal differently. In an interview on Andrea Mitchell’s news program on MSNBC, negative questioning by the often right-leaning host (her husband is Alan Greenspan, after all) provoked some irritation from Kerry, who listed the accomplishments of the deal: “We negotiated a series of restraints on Iran ranging from a 300 kilogram stockpile [of enriched uranium] for 15 years, a limit on their enrichment to 3.67% [far below weapons grade] for 5 years, a limit on metallurgy, a limit on heavy water, all for 5 years, a limit on their centrifuge production — with insight to their centrifuge production — for 20 years, and a complete tracking of their mining, milling, their use of and their disposal of uranium for 25 years. And beyond that there’s the lifetime, forever requirements of the Additional Protocol and the mechanism by which we negotiated access.” anywhere, anytime
But what happened to anywhere, anytime? In the rush to judgment, detractors decided that it had vanished. The moment the deal was struck, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga) appeared on the PBS NewsHour. “I’m on page three of 158 pages, but…” he was an expert nonetheless, telling us, as would others who followed, that, “This deal is totally different. It’s up to 23 to 24 days after notice before the Iranians have to let anybody in”. Megyn Kelly on her Fox News program: “Iran gets nearly a month’s notice and only if the overseeing nations agree that the inspections are warranted”. The clownish Jesse Watters, who works for Bill O’Reilly, appeared on a Fox program named “Outnumbered” to spread disinformation with “What does it say? We have to give them a 24-day alert before we go in and inspect the nuke facilities?”. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Tn) on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” made the unverifiable statement that, “Senior administration officials are already saying on background that anytime/anywhere inspection, which is the standard this president set, will not be met”. Donald Trump explained, “It’s called anytime, anywhere, and if you don’t have that, you have nothing because…you know, the Iranians are going to cheat”. One after another misinformed the nation that Iran had to agree to all inspections. They had quickly found the section of the accord — the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) — titled “Access” and apparently rushed to the cameras the moment they read its opening sentence which began, “Requests for access pursuant to provisions of this JCPOA…”. Requests? Kerry explains: I will tell you, as a negotiator for these last many years, we never had a discussion about anywhere/anytime. Anywhere/anytime is this euphemism that’s out there maybe in the political atmosphere, but it’s not a realistic or existing term of art within arms control. There is no country anywhere in the world that allows anywhere/anytime… The only example I can think of is Iraq after we invaded, once we had a total surrender and a takeover of the country. That’s different.” Well, not quite. That would count his own aide in the negotiations, nuclear physicist and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, as a member of the “political atmosphere”. In April, Moniz said that “we expect to have anywhere, anytime access.” Had any of them read further, they would have discovered that the “Access” section deals with “undeclared nuclear materials or activities…at locations that have not been declared under the comprehensive safeguards agreement or Additional Protocol”, which you may recall Kerry mentioning above. It is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that does the inspecting and the protocol the agreement dating from 1997 that sets the rules for inspections agreed to by all signatories to nuclear nonproliferation. In other words, the drawn out “request” to inspect pertains to suspect sites, not the already known sites such as Natanz and Fordo at which the IAEA has continuous access and even on-site personnel. The Additional Protocol is evidently unknown to our perfunctory senators. “Iran has agreed to adopt the Additional Protocol of the IAEA. That has a huge set of additional requirements for access and for accountability”, Kerry assures us. suspect sites
But the drawn out process for access to undeclared sites that arouse suspicion was a surprise and has caused valid consternation. The IAEA and Iran have 14 days to agree or disagree about access, then a commission of seven negotiating countries have seven days to discuss it, and if Iran loses the argument it has three days to comply. The back and forth can chew up to 24 days “after they’ve been able to scrub their site” said Tom Cotton. He was the senator who rounded up 47 Republican signers of a letter to the Ayatollah Khomenei to warn him that the United States can’t be trusted. Secretary Moniz says the 24 days are not a problem which is why the process was accepted because the Iranians could not eliminate all traces of uranium from a site. That assumes illicit work would always be done with uranium present. And otherwise, the tracking of all milling and movements of uranium would, say proponents, quickly reveal a diverted quantity. why not everything
Critics who showed the least intelligence were those who assailed what was not in the deal — the return of hostages, renouncement of threats to Israel, promises to make nice in the region. “Does this deal resolve all other threats Iran poses to its neighbors in the world? No”, said Obama. “Does it do more than anyone has done before to make sure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon? Yes. And that was our top priority from the start.” Kerry and the administration steadfastly kept the focus on that singular purpose. But the media is always ready to drop the main story to chase after a sideshow. They had one when a CBS reporter asked the President if he was “content” to leave the hostage trade off the table. Obama’s answer said that if we had made hostage return part of the negotiations, Iran would demand yet another concession to weaken the nuclear deal. Three Fox programs that we watched cut that part of his answer in order to make Mr. Obama seem only contentious. arms and iran
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey had said, “Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking”, yet we did. The arms embargo will be lifted in five years; for missiles, eight years. John Kerry says that the United Nations resolution that bans arms and missile imports lifts when Iran comes to the negotiating table, so this would happen anyway. “We won that battle” by these extensions, and did so against negotiating partners Russia and China, who wanted the ban to end immediately so they could partake of some of the billions of frozen assets that are to be returned to Iran’s coffers. Restrictions on development of missiles with which to deliver a nuclear weapon was unaccountably never part of the discussions. Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of CentCom, has said that Iran has the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East. A year ago, the head of our missile defense agency said, “Iran can develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015”. So opponents of signing say that not only will Iran be poised to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons ten years hence — and that’s if they don’t cheat — but will as well have the missiles to put them on. Says Lindsey Graham, “Any member of the Senate that votes for this deal, you’re insuring that the largest state sponsor of terrorism has more money, not less; they will have more weapons, not less; you’re insuring that one day they will have a nuclear weapon. You will own the outcome of this deal”. But if the U.S. Congress scuttles the deal, they will own the fallout. Not just the partners in the negotiations, but the world, will have confirmation that the United Stated can’t be relied on, can’t get the job done. We will show ourselves as incapable of leading by virtue of our factionalism. “Iran is almost certain to react by portraying the United States as dishonest and as blocking arms control and peace”, says Anthony Cordesman, former military advisor to Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The prosperous Iran that the disputants fear will happen anyway, because without the United States, the sanctions will definitely evaporate. Iran will have erased the sanctions, which will be very difficult if not futile to reconstitute, in return for a temporary stay of their nuclear plan. They have patience. The hope that the country will rejoin the “family of nations” is wishful. Rather, Iran shows every ambition of becoming the hegemon of the Middle East. They have inserted themselves in Iraq to combat ISIS. They are supporting the Houthis in Yemen. They back Hamas in Gaza. Once the deal is signed — a deal that does not govern their non-nuclear behavior — will they turn Hezbollah, and its thousands of rockets, loose against Israel? And eventually, they will build their bomb. We have merely delayed the inevitable. 
The moment the accord with Iran was announced, it was denounced. Even-handed circumspection was not the tenor of the day. What was most bewildering was to listen to those who find the deal disastrous but who are unperturbed by what would result if there is no deal.
Jul 23 2015 | Posted in World | Read More »
The United States tax code is a monstrosity that now exceeds a morbidly obese 70,000 pages. Politicians in Congress speak in platitudes about the need for its overhaul but turn away proposals. Year-long committee work led by House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) that resulted in a comprehensive tax overhaul plan disappeared as soon as introduced last year (“Blah, blah, blah” was House Speaker John Boehner’s reaction). Despite all the talk, Congress has done nothing since the Tax Reform Act of 1984 of the Reagan years. But evidently having a tax reform plan has become a prerequisite for the Republican nomination. One after another of the candidates has come forth with his (Carly Fiorina not yet) notion of how to rescue the nation from the code’s thicket of brambles. It will come as a no surprise that all solutions result in tax cuts that can be dangled before the electorate, 48% of which consider tax reform a key issue (terrorism rules at 76%). flatlining
The flat tax, that hoary perennial that will not go away, has several standard bearers. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Ben Carson and John Kasich want today’s seven brackets reduced to a single rate. Cruz exhumed the old enticement of tax returns so simple as to “fit on the back of postcard”. Rand Paul, always fun, took it much further in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Blow Up the Tax Code and Start Over”. And he meant it. Out would go the 4 million words of the tax code and all its special interest loopholes. Replacing it would be a flat rate of 14.5% on incomes over $50,000 for a family of four and the same rate on business in the form of a value added tax. Of course, he doesn’t call it a VAT, because the invention comes from socialist Europe. Paul would do away with payroll taxes and use the income from the VAT to fund Social Security and Medicare instead. The senator admits that of the face of it the government would be shy $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years, but he’s made pilgrimage to Arthur Laffer in Nashville, who preaches that tax cuts spur growth that leads to higher tax income than before the cuts and who continues to believe that phenomenon might actually happen someday. Dr. Ben Carson wants a flat tax, inspired by the Bible’s tithe. When told the 10% to 15% he is thinking of must be higher to raise the revenue the government needs and that higher rates would therefore harm the poor, he responded that it’s “very condescending” to say that poor people can’t pay the same tax rate as the wealthy. “I can tell you that poor people have pride, too”.
Mike Huckabee espouses the The premise of flat and fair is to treat everyone alike, irrespective of income. Compared to today’s graduated scheme that increases the tax rate as income rises, a single rate applied to everyone, in the guise of simplification and “fairness”, results in an enormous gift to the wealthiest among us. Top earners would see their nominal tax rates cut — using Rand Paul’s specific 14.5% — by almost two-thirds from the top rate of 39.6% . More than that, a flat tax is irredeemably regressive. For workers at the low end of the economic scale, all earnings are taxed, whether as income at the flat tax rate, or, in the Huckabee variation, because all earnings are unavoidably spent and subject to his tax built into the elevated cost of most everything they buy. Those at the high end of the income scale don’t spend all their income, and that not spent is not taxed. Under these proposals, the rich get richer at a time of increasing concern that income inequality is tearing at the fabric of society. Marco Rubio is taking heat for the plan he drew up with Mike Lee, Republican Senator from Utah. They would crunch today’s graduated tax on income to just two rates: 15% and 35%. Singles would reach the 35% bracket with an income of just $75,000. For couples, income above $150,000 would be taxed at the 35%. Compare that to today’s earner not reaching the slightly higher 39.6% top bracket until income crosses $464,851. The high rate kicking in at low thresholds seems necessary to pay for the rest of the Rubio/Lee plan, which does away with all taxes on capital gains, dividends and estate inheritance — the rich need help — and gives parents a $2,500 deduction for every child. In what the The Wall Street Journal lambastes as “using the tax code for social policy”, Rubio and Lee champion the child credit as literally an award to parents for “raising the next generation of taxpayers who will grow up to fund the Social Security and Medicare of all future seniors”. Their plan would run up the national debt by $4 trillion over a decade. The Bush tax cuts “only” sunk us $1.5 trillion further in debt. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wants to return to the tax rates of the Reagan era, which, by the time Reagan left office, had been slashed to 15% and 28%. If he means that literally, he might need to test the math. Reagan’s top rate kicked in at around $58,000, according to tables adjusted to today’s dollars at the Tax Foundation (married, filing jointly). That won’t win votes. Today, 28% doesn’t start until one crosses $151,200. Like others, Christie believes his plan would bring in the same amount of revenue by eliminating tax deductions and credits, although he speaks of them as only “up for negotiation”. But the biggest — home mortgage interest and charity contributions — would be off limits for Christie (maybe not interest on second homes). Trouble is, there aren’t enough deductions to pay for the drop in government income that the Reagan rates bring in. It’s odd that politicians are drawn to just two or three tax rates, as if today’s seven are just too mindbogglingly complex. One speculates that they’ve never done their own taxes and having never dealt with the worksheets and the linguistic tangles (“if line 6 exceeds line 36 of form 1040, and line 6 is less than 0, then go to line 9 else”…and so forth) think that the simple brackets are the complexity the public loathes. Ted Cruz wants to get rid of the IRS altogether; rather unfair considering that it is Congress that serves up the changes that special interests lobby for — 4,430 averaging 1-a-day in the new century’s first decade — yet it is the IRS that takes the heat for the convoluted instructions they must devise. But, of course, like street waifs passing a bakery, looking at the pastries through the window, that is as close as Republicans will get to their delectable schemes. Special interests will come by to remind Congress members of the campaign funding they’ll lose if a pet exemption is removed and if one of these candidates reach the Oval Office, he will watch one confection after sold off to Congress’ rich corporate patrons. But for the moment it’s fun to look through the window.
FairTax, which gets rid of both the income tax and payroll taxes entirely and replaces them with a 23% national sales tax charged on all goods and services other than the cost of necessities.
Jul 18 2015 | Posted in Taxes | Read More »
On June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court by a single vote in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges created a new landscape for the meaning of marriage in the United States. We now look back on the time when this was defined not only by law, but by a cultural tradition reinforced over centuries as idealized romantic love between a man and a woman. Now, that is in the past; this part of the culture war having been won by the progressive movement — for lack of a more accurate descriptor. This means consideration of unintended consequences can no longer be dismissed as an argument by conservatives to retain traditional marriage. The war is over, the issue is dealing with the new order.
Marriage, pre Obergefell incorporated a universal ideal of western societies, created and celebrated by innumerable poems, songs, movies and novels. Common courtesy required an assumption that the bride and the groom were marrying for some version of this ideal. “Love” was the exalted poetic expression, sexual gratification and common interests the more prosaic elements of such marriage, literally the merging of two into one.
Of course this was the myth, one not subject to accurate surveys of it’s prevalence, but one that we went along with. Over time, laws were enacted that attempted to eliminate those who blatantly deviated from this general idealized institution. If love was essential, and if marriage was an intimate merger then it must be between two people only, so bigamy became universally criminalized. In order that the love be between equals, based on broader principles of family and clan, every state limited the institution by consanguinity, degree of blood relationship. All states prohibit first order relationships, and some second order, between close cousins.
We never did extend this promoting the ideal of marriage to age discrepancy, even though we still have a wide range of minimum ages among the various states. But no state has ever defined maximum age differences between the two parties; so a girl could marry a man three generations older without any legal hindrance. Maybe love had something to do with it, but during the depression those with coveted civil war pensions found many young women whose love may have been for that financial security more than their aged spouse. And, of course, pre-nuptual contracts and no-fault divorce are all deviations from the misty ideals of song and screen.
The Supreme Court can decide a case that earns landmark status, with the name of the plaintiff becoming immortalized in the decision, yet the consequences do not necessarily follow the instructions of the majority. Brown v. Board of Education ostensibly ended school segregation over sixty years ago, yet, based on statistical analysis schools are arguably more divided between blacks and whites than before that decision. Segregation of schools is a product of our racial history and values, with schools being only one component that is dependent on these elements that were not the essence of that 1954 decision.
I would offer that the current decision to legalize same sex marriage is about gender differences as reflected by culture, as such only minimally affected by laws. The broader consequences of this decision have never been part of the national discussion. This Supreme Court decision was based on several simplistic memes that prevailed, like snippets of DNA taken out of the whole tell nothing about the nature of the organism.
This essay is not a brief against same sex marriage, as this is now the law of the land, one that will not be reversed, nor am I convinced that it should be. The arguments why the decision should have been different are stated clearly in the dissents. In this post-Obergefell era, we can engage the meaning of this change of law in a way previously not possible when it was being contested — and thus deeply politicized. It was total war between the two sides, with language being the main order of battle. This is now over, just like on August 15th 1945, Japs became Japanese, and previous enemies joined in a desire to go forward under the new state of affairs. So too, on this day new norms must be addressed, new myths created, and like the end of WWII, the victors have as much investment in mutual accord as the losers.
As I described previously, marriage has long been quite different than the idealized myths accepted by many. Yet, sexual intimacy has long been a continuing element. Only this institution provided religious and legal sanction for this otherwise sinful activity.
If there is to be a celebration of this Supreme Court Decision it should not be cast as a defeat of “homophobes” — an irrational epithet that has been part of the armamentarium used in this war to depict any opposition as a deplorable mental defect. If this barely examined change in our central cultural myth is to be liberating, it can not be to the detriment of those who opposed this, who have been cowed by the current linguistic simplification worthy of Orwell: Discrimination = bad, Equality = good, Bigotry = evil.
Let the winners, those who see gender, as they do race, as a social constructs having no biological reality, while enjoying this victory, return to their roots of rationality. Males and females are different in ways that are verifiable from infancy to death, but also in subtleties we don’t fully understand, only some of which are social constructs. Societies do form norms around these, some oppressive and others consistent with viable cultures. This Obergefell decision is historic. Yet, the cheering should be conditional on going beyond the victory. Those who claim that the arc of history bends towards justice have no evidence for this being true, as over the course of civilizations it certainly has gone both ways — the direction only knowable in retrospect.
This battle is over. Marriage as an institution continues to be transformed as reflective of our larger culture — sometimes for the better other times not. War is ugly, whether fought with military weapons or vilification of the enemy, as sides must be taken, with those not with us being deemed against us
The greatest distortion of this entire movement that culminated in this Obergefell decision was that the only opposition was from benighted religious fundamentalists. This deflected the reality that this movement was a classic manifestation of the sociological phenomenon known as the Bandwagon Effect, where an idea takes on a life of its own immune to any other perspectives. Just as no high level law firm would make the case to the Supreme Court, those in the learned social sciences with values built over centuries of objectivity were silenced by the sound of the cheering on the bandwagon for equality and justice. None in this academic community chose to risk all by standing athwart this parade to yell “Stop!”
The decision called “Obergefell” has ended the battle but not the war. It would be a mistake if the process of this victory becomes the norm for resolving social issues, with heated verbiage shutting out enlightened discourse. Our country does not need another divisive wedge that is seen as vindication for one side based on a single vote majority of a non elected body. The question not resolved or even addressed by this decision is whether this country shall descend into being shaped by sound bites or develop a mode of discussion based on candid open mutual respect.
This will determine which way this decision bends the arc of justice.
An extended version of Al’s essay can be
found at AlRodbell.com.
“Break a leg” said to an actor entering on a stage is the peculiar wish for good luck in theater world. It’s not meant literally, of course, which suggests that when one really does break a leg, it’s a show in trouble. By that reading, the sight of Secretary of State John Kerry, hobbling about on crutches after his bicycle accident, should have told us that three months of negotiating since the verbal “framework” agreement of April 3rd between Iran and the six-nation alliance has still not produced a final written agreement. Instead, when the end-June due date arrived we heard Kerry saying, “we have to work through some difficult issues”. Really? Still? But no surprise, actually. Our article back in April was already titled “Cracks Develop in the Iran Deal’s Framework“. So the question is whether these difficult issues can suddenly be resolved by the new deadline of July 7th? As his title suggests, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say for Iran and he rattled the negotiators in a speech just a week before the June 30 deadline, drawing several red lines that he would not cross.
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Earlier, Iran went back on agreeing to ship its already enriched uranium out of the country. The alliance yielded provided the stocks be diluted and held for 15 years at an enriched level of no more than 3.67%.
Khamenei’s truculence may be no more than a last minute attempt to unnerve the alliance and extract further concessions. In the face of widespread criticism that the alliance, and principally the U.S., has already made too many, President Obama says he will standing firm. “I will walk away from the negotiations if in fact it’s a bad deal. If we can’t provide assurances that the pathways for Iran of obtaining a nuclear weapon are closed, and if we can’t verify that, if the verification regime is inadequate, then we’re not going to get a deal”.
The Ayatollah has just tweeted a photo of his negotiating team posing in spotless, white lab coats. And he has more than once expressed support for his crew that agreed on April 3rd to the terms he now rejects. That suggests to some that his bluster is bluff.
Across the table, skeptics think Obama’s headlong drive to add trophies to his legacy will lead him to capitulate; few have doubts that he will go soft on some non-negotiables. Then again, maybe not. He may have been influenced by a letter signed by a mix of his own former advisors and the military that the accord “may fall short of the administration’s own standard of a ‘good agreement'” unless a list of recommended requirements are adhered to.
He has Congress to contend with. They have approval power. There’s a reason for the one week push to July 7. Signing a final deal triggers a 30-day congressional review, which would end just before they take off for their summer break, which of course ranks higher than any nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran. Otherwise, consideration of the deal is delayed until fall, with the risk of entropy. If Congress votes disapproval, the President has 12 days to veto. Congress than has 10 days to override. The key goal of the accord is to increase the “breakout” time it would take for Iran to produce enough fissile material needed for a bomb from three months to a year or more. There is disagreement on the alliance side whether the reduction to earlier model centrifuges and diluted uranium guarantees that. New York Timescolumnist Tom Friedman finds it “stunning to me how well the Iranians…have played a weak hand” against what he calls the “great power partners”. He has that backwards. The “powers” have only sanctions, which Iran has endured for six years while building its nuclear program. Pride is on their side and it is we who are desperate to make a deal. Our problem is that walking away means Iran will certainly return to full scale production of the nuclear weapons they claim to disavow and the United States (hard to imagine the other five joining in) facing either war or acquiescence.
Even if the deal goes through, the doubters expect that outcome. An op-ed appeared in the The New York Times by Alan Kuperman, an associate professor at the University of Texas where he is coordinator of an anti-nuclear proliferation project, that says Iran’s breakout time will remain at three months even if the deal goes forward. The centrifuges that we failed to destroy would be quickly brought up to speed as would the uranium we failed to export be reconstituted from its diluted state. For Kuperman and others, the deal accomplishes nothing. Worse, lifting the sanctions restores Iran’s economy and sets them on a path of dominating the Middle East.
Said Amir Mohebbian, advisor to Iran’s lead negotiator, “In the end, we want to lead the Muslim world”. All indications are that they think intimidating weapons hold the key.
Sanctions must be lifted on signing in their entirety. The Obama administration insists on a phased lifting in parallel with Iran honoring its pledges to allow free access to sites.Inspectors will be denied access to military sites. “It must absolutely not be allowed for them to infiltrate into the country’s defense and security domain under the pretext of inspections,” he had earlier said. This is a problem because Parchin, a major military site, is suspected of conducting nuclear weapons research.Scientists may not be interviewed. This to prevent the alliance from learning how far Iran has came in weapons capability. Nuclear research must be allowed to continue. After at first insisting that most of Iran’s 19,000 centrifuges be destroyed, the alliance conceded that 5,060 less efficient, first generation machines can remain in service during a 10-year span and the rest need only be idled. But now Khamenei said, “Contrary to the Americans’ insistence, we do not accept long-term, 10-year and 12-year restrictions”. He wants only a short moment before returning to research advanced centrifuges and fulfilling his dream of 190,000 centrifuges for — one can only assume — the very objective that the nuclear accord is meant to shut down.
Jul 1 2015 | Posted in World | Read More »