There is still time to accomplish all this. Rep. Dave Camp has already introduced proposals to lower and simplify our tax rates, close loopholes, and make permanent low rates on capital gains and dividends. Even Mr. Obama has endorsed the idea of lowering our corporate tax rate. Sen. Rand Paul, meanwhile, has a bill that would require an up-or-down vote on "major" regulations, those that cost the economy $100 million or more. And the House has already passed a spending plan this year that lowered discretionary spending by $862 billion over 10 years. Such reductions are important, but nondefense discretionary spending is a mere 19% of the budget. Focusing on this alone would lead to draconian cuts to essential and legitimate programs. To get our debt under control, we must reform and save our entitlement programs. No changes should be made to Medicare and Social Security for people who are currently in the system, like my mother. But people decades away from retirement, like me, must accept that reforms are necessary if we want Social Security and Medicare to exist at all by the time we are eligible for them. Finally, instead of simply raising the debt limit, we should reassure job creators by setting a firm statutory cap on our public debt-to-GDP ratio. A comprehensive plan would wind down our debt to sustainable levels of approximately 60% within a decade and no more than half of the economy shortly thereafter. If Congress fails to meet these debt targets, automatic across-the-board spending reductions should be triggered to close the gap. These public debt caps could go in tandem with a Constitutional balanced budget amendment. Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis. I know that by writing this, I am inviting political attack. When I proposed reforms to Social Security during my campaign, my opponent spent millions on attack ads designed to frighten seniors. But demagoguery is the last refuge of the spineless politician willing to do anything to win the next election. Whether they admit it or not, everyone in Washington knows how to solve these problems. What is missing is the political will to do it. I ran for the U.S. Senate because I want my children to inherit what I inherited: the greatest nation in human history. It's not too late. The 21st century can also be the American Century. Our people are ready. Now it's time for their leaders to join them. Mr. Rubio, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Florida. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Obama - The Great Thinker!
Upon my return I had over 1200 e mails to either read and/or eliminate. I am now down to less than 90 and most of what I am posting are some of the better ones I received while away. I won't be expressing my own thoughts and posting my own items for several more days. --- Interesting article by Porter Stansberry. (See 1 below.) --- Avi Jorisch has written another article tracking those who benefit Iran. (See 2 below.) --- Stratfor's Friedman asks what happened to declarations of war? (See 3 below.) --- Two postings by Yisrael Ne'eman regarding his thoughts on what is happening in the Middle East in view of the recent uprisings. (See 4 and 6 below.) --- Maine's new governor proves he could be a challenge to Christy when it comes to straight 'talkin.' There are a host of Republican presidential hopefuls emerging and it is too early to focus on who is most likely to be the one to challenge Obama. If Trump is not eventually trumped by logic then another Dole defeat is ahead. Bachman (one Michelle is enough) is perhaps better than Palin but suffers from too narrow a position-focus. Pawlenty probably has the broadest appeal and Romney will suffer from his Obamascare health program. Christy says he ain't running, Gingrich is bright but yesterday and Bolton and Caine would make interesting V.P choices but are unlikely to raise the money necessary to be viable candidates for the Oval job. Gov. Daniels has constructed an excellent administrative record but has not declared, lacks visual appeal (charisma) but seems solid. The best hope to defeat Obama is that the American voters will come to their senses, quit experimenting out of frustration, get serious and disregard the media's bias. That's a tall order but hope springs eternal. Obama is not a serious leader. He is simply an opportunist politician who has been given a free ride and personifies the "Peter Principle." He ducks,flips and flops and makes vapid speeches. He is an empty suit manipulator but you still have to beat a nobody with somebody. (See 5, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d below and 5e written by a friend.) --- Hanson on energy. (See 7 below.) --- Special Stratfor report on Yemen. (See 8 below) --- The easiest solution to the Arab/Muslim problem might be for them to take the advice proffered by an Arab U.N speaker and boycott all Israeli medicines. (See 9 below.) -- I asked an update from a dear friend, an IDF officer and educator what he was thinking and this was his reply: "The USA has been supporting Taliban veterans in Libya while ignoring Darfur and Yemen. The oval office has folks thinking these rebels are Twitter yuppies---pathetic. Running to help European countries who would not give them the time of day in Afghanistan is even more pathetic. Oy, this president is nuts. Way too quick on the draw to drop Mubarak. Bad message to allies. Goldstone's retraction is too little too late and he must remain excommunicated. Take care while on the run." JD My friend was referring to Goldstone's report in which Goldstone acknowledged he was duped but then lays some blame on lack of Israeli co-operation. Goldstone duped himself because he probably wanted to suck up to the U.N.'s 'machers' and the Far Left Israeli haters.(See 10 below.) --- For those who like demographics this might be of interest: Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map?hp --- Dick ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1)Record earnings for the S&P 500… Mean reversion… How to recognize bubbles… 200% for Extreme Value readers… The vitriol returns… S&P 500 earnings are on pace to hit an all-time high of $91 a share by August. That's up nearly 13-fold from the March 2009 lows of $7 a share. And it would represent an all-time high… surpassing the prior record of $90 a share it reached in the third quarter of 2007. The rise in profits is no real surprise… Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has flooded the market with trillions of dollars. The fresh capital and a 0% federal-funds rate caused corporate profits to soar. The "velocity" of those earnings, however, is unusual. We've enjoyed the quickest recovery since at least 1900. As Porter pointed out in last Friday's Digest, the biggest contributor to the bull market is the financial sector: The entire rise in U.S. corporate profits came from the financial sector. That is, the earnings growth driving our current bull market in stocks is coming exclusively from the financial sector. The nonfinancial sector of our economy actually saw profits fall in last year's fourth quarter. Today, financial sector profits make up more than 30% of total domestic corporate profits. That's the same level we saw in 2006 and 2007… just before the financial crisis. – Porter Stansberry, April 1, 2011, S&A Digest Corporate profits are also soaring despite near record-high unemployment. This makes sense, considering the source of the financial sector's profits. (It can generate higher profits by deploying more capital, which doesn't necessarily require more employees.) In the second quarter of 2007, corporate profits totaled $1.565 trillion annually, while the unemployment rate was 4.5%. By the third quarter of 2010, corporate profits increased to an annual rate of $1.64 trillion. But unemployment had more than doubled to 9.6%. How sustainable does this rally seem to you? That's the problem with record earnings… or record anything for that matter… Eventually, they come back to Earth. A reversion to the mean – a return to average levels from an extreme – is only more certain considering the weak fundamentals of the current rally. Jeremy Grantham, of value investing money manager GMO, is the market's No. 1 proponent of mean reversion. And he used this concept to time both the market top in 2007 and bottom in 2009. In his first quarter 2009 letter, Grantham wrote he was increasing his fund's allocation to equities. In fact, Grantham was bullish on nearly everything at that time… except for corporate profit margins. As predicted, equities soared. But profit margins followed suit. Grantham updated his bearish call on margins in his latest letter, from January 2011 (emphasis added): On one part of the fundamentals we were, in contrast, completely wrong. On the topic of potential problems, I wrote, "Not the least of these will be downward pressure on profit margins that for 20 years had benefited from rising asset prices sneaking through into margins." Why I was so wrong, I cannot say, because I still don't understand how the U.S. could have massive numbers of unused labor and industrial capacity yet still have peak profit margins. This has never happened before. In fact, before Greenspan, there was a powerful positive correlation between profit margins and capacity in the expected direction. It is one of the reasons that we in asset allocation strongly suspect the bedrock on which these fat profits rest. We still expect margins to regress to more normal levels. In the January 2011 letter, Grantham also discussed bubbles… and how to recognize them. First, he said every famous bubble burst after short-term rates started to rise. Considering short-term rates are close to zero, they have nowhere to go but up. He also noticed another interesting signal… The very famous, very large bubbles also often give another type of warning. Probably knowing they are dancing close to the cliff and yet reluctant to stop, late in bubbles investors often migrate to safer stocks, and risky stocks betray their high betas by underperforming. We can get into the details another time, but suffice it to say that there are usually warnings, sometimes several, before a bubble breaks. Overvaluation must be present to define a bubble, but it is not a useful warning in and of itself. People are getting comfortable with this rally… And retail investors could push this market higher as the last entrants. We should expect the rally in smaller-cap stocks to continue until at least June of this year, when the second round of quantitative easing (QE2) is supposed to end. When the government money stops flowing (which is far from a certainty), much of the speculative money will also stop. Using the Russell 2000 – an index of the 2,000 smallest securities based on market cap – versus the Dow, we can see small-cap stocks still rule. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2)Iran’s generous friends Op-ed: India, Germany undermining global anti-Iran effort by helping Tehran skirt sanctions Avi Jorisch India is poised to assist Iran in sidestepping international sanctions by using the German financial system to facilitate the transfer from India to Iran of billions of dollars annually for oil sales. The United States and the European Union should take immediate action to prevent this abuse of the financial sector. Failure to take a strong stance will allow a rogue regime to fill its coffers with the hard currency it needs to repress its people, facilitate terrorism, and build a nuclear bomb. On March 29, Germany’s foreign and economic ministries ratified an arrangement that would allow India to transfer an estimated $12.65 billion dollars to the German Central Bank to pay for Iranian oil. The money would then be routed to Iran through the European-Iranian Bank (Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank, or EIH), which has been blacklisted for proliferating weapons of mass destruction. According to the Indian press, New Delhi and Tehran have been trying to find a way to conduct business for some time, as sanctions levied by the US, Europe, and the United Nations have made it difficult for Iran to move its funds internationally. Until recently, India and Iran were using a relatively unknown clearing house based in Tehran to move billions of dollars annually. In late 2010, the US government realized that Iran was able to circumvent sanctions easily using the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), and that India was the major culprit. Since 2008, India and Iran have transacted business involving approximately $30 billion dollars using the ACU. Washington put significant pressure on the Indian government, and transactions between Tehran and New Delhi have ground to a halt. Supporting Iran’s terror agenda For decades, Germany has served as the Islamic Republic’s largest trading partner on the European continent. Despite Berlin’s public support of sanctions against Iran, the government feels it is in Germany’s interest to facilitate these types of transactions, with the result that Germany has long been willing to allow its financial system to be abused to help Iran promote its terror agenda. Germany allows blacklisted banks to openly operate and transact business in Hamburg and Frankfurt. The Melli, Mellat, and Sepah banks and EIH have all been blacklisted for proliferating weapons of mass destruction by the US Treasury, and all but EIH have also been subject to UN restrictions for their role in Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, two of EIH's main shareholders, Bank Mellat and Bank Refah, are under European Union and American sanctions. In September 2010, the US Treasury Department blacklisted EIH because it had served “as a key financial lifeline” for Iran. The bank was reportedly involved in arms trafficking, the Iranian missile program, and proliferating weapons of mass destruction. German officials, however, are hiding behind the fact that EIH’s shareholders, but not EIH itself, have been sanctioned by the EU. German officials claim the bank is under “strict” supervision, with all transfers over 10,000 Euros requiring approval, according to Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert. Stiff cost What can the international community do to stop these types of transactions from taking place? The US Treasury Department should issue a warning directed at companies that use the German Central Bank/EIH mechanism to transact business with Iran, and these companies should lose their access to the US market. The State Department should issue a demarche to the German government stating clearly that Germany is facilitating transactions with a blacklisted entity and openly allowing UN- and US-blacklisted banks to operate in its jurisdiction. To facilitate sanctions against EIH, the US should also provide the European Council with any intelligence it possesses that can help to prove the bank is involved in illicit activity. Working with our trans-Atlantic partners to ensure a coordinated policy on Iran will help to restrict Iran’s ability to engage in illicit activity. India needs to buy oil to fuel its economy, but there are many other sources around the globe. New Delhi’s insistence on buying oil from a rogue regime is nothing short of baffling. As Iran marches toward obtaining a nuclear bomb, the US government should make it clear that there is a stiff cost for doing business with Iran. Countries helping Iran through oil transactions and banking relationships should be no exception. Avi Jorisch, a former US Treasury official, is president of the Red Cell Intelligence Group and the author of Iran’s Dirty Banking: How the Islamic Republic is Skirting International Financial Sanctions ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3)What Happened to the American Declaration of War? By George Friedman In my book “ The Next Decade,” I spend a good deal of time considering the relation of the American Empire to the American Republic and the threat the empire poses to the republic. If there is a single point where these matters converge, it is in the constitutional requirement that Congress approve wars through a declaration of war and in the abandonment of this requirement since World War II. This is the point where the burdens and interests of the United States as a global empire collide with the principles and rights of the United States as a republic. World War II was the last war the United States fought with a formal declaration of war. The wars fought since have had congressional approval, both in the sense that resolutions were passed and that Congress appropriated funds, but the Constitution is explicit in requiring a formal declaration. It does so for two reasons, I think. The first is to prevent the president from taking the country to war without the consent of the governed, as represented by Congress. Second, by providing for a specific path to war, it provides the president power and legitimacy he would not have without that declaration; it both restrains the president and empowers him. Not only does it make his position as commander in chief unassailable by authorizing military action, it creates shared responsibility for war. A declaration of war informs the public of the burdens they will have to bear by leaving no doubt that Congress has decided on a new order — war — with how each member of Congress voted made known to the public. Almost all Americans have heard Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to Congress on Dec. 8, 1941: “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan … I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.” It was a moment of majesty and sobriety, and with Congress’ affirmation, represented the unquestioned will of the republic. There was no going back, and there was no question that the burden would be borne. True, the Japanese had attacked the United States, making getting the declaration easier. But that’s what the founders intended: Going to war should be difficult; once at war, the commander in chief’s authority should be unquestionable. Forgoing the Declaration It is odd, therefore, that presidents who need that authorization badly should forgo pursuing it. Not doing so has led to seriously failed presidencies: Harry Truman in Korea, unable to seek another term; Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, also unable to seek a new term; George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, completing his terms but enormously unpopular. There was more to this than undeclared wars, but that the legitimacy of each war was questioned and became a contentious political issue certainly is rooted in the failure to follow constitutional pathways. In understanding how war and constitutional norms became separated, we must begin with the first major undeclared war in American history (the Civil War was not a foreign war), Korea. When North Korea invaded South Korea, Truman took recourse to the new U.N. Security Council. He wanted international sanction for the war and was able to get it because the Soviet representatives happened to be boycotting the Security Council over other issues at the time. Truman’s view was that U.N. sanction for the war superseded the requirement for a declaration of war in two ways. First, it was not a war in the strict sense, he argued, but a “police action” under the U.N. Charter. Second, the U.N. Charter constituted a treaty, therefore implicitly binding the United States to go to war if the United Nations so ordered. Whether Congress’ authorization to join the United Nations both obligated the United States to wage war at U.N. behest, obviating the need for declarations of war because Congress had already authorized police actions, is an interesting question. Whatever the answer, Truman set a precedent that wars could be waged without congressional declarations of war and that other actions — from treaties to resolutions to budgetary authorizations — mooted declarations of war. If this was the founding precedent, the deepest argument for the irrelevancy of the declaration of war is to be found in nuclear weapons. Starting in the 1950s, paralleling the Korean War, was the increasing risk of nuclear war. It was understood that if nuclear war occurred, either through an attack by the Soviets or a first strike by the United States, time and secrecy made a prior declaration of war by Congress impossible. In the expected scenario of a Soviet first strike, there would be only minutes for the president to authorize counterstrikes and no time for constitutional niceties. In that sense, it was argued fairly persuasively that the Constitution had become irrelevant to the military realities facing the republic. Nuclear war was seen as the most realistic war-fighting scenario, with all other forms of war trivial in comparison. Just as nuclear weapons came to be called “strategic weapons” with other weapons of war occupying a lesser space, nuclear war became identical with war in general. If that was so, then constitutional procedures that could not be applied to nuclear war were simply no longer relevant. Paradoxically, if nuclear warfare represented the highest level of warfare, there developed at the lowest level covert operations. Apart from the nuclear confrontation with the Soviets, there was an intense covert war, from back alleys in Europe to the Congo, Indochina to Latin America. Indeed, it was waged everywhere precisely because the threat of nuclear war was so terrible: Covert warfare became a prudent alternative. All of these operations had to be deniable. An attempt to assassinate a Soviet agent or raise a secret army to face a Soviet secret army could not be validated with a declaration of war. The Cold War was a series of interconnected but discrete operations, fought with secret forces whose very principle was deniability. How could declarations of war be expected in operations so small in size that had to be kept secret from Congress anyway? There was then the need to support allies, particularly in sending advisers to train their armies. These advisers were not there to engage in combat but to advise those who did. In many cases, this became an artificial distinction: The advisers accompanied their students on missions, and some died. But this was not war in any conventional sense of the term. And therefore, the declaration of war didn’t apply. By the time Vietnam came up, the transition from military assistance to advisers to advisers in combat to U.S. forces at war was so subtle that there was no moment to which you could point that said that we were now in a state of war where previously we weren’t. Rather than ask for a declaration of war, Johnson used an incident in the Tonkin Gulf to get a congressional resolution that he interpreted as being the equivalent of war. The problem here was that it was not clear that had he asked for a formal declaration of war he would have gotten one. Johnson didn’t take that chance. What Johnson did was use Cold War precedents, from the Korean War, to nuclear warfare, to covert operations to the subtle distinctions of contemporary warfare in order to wage a substantial and extended war based on the Tonkin Gulf resolution — which Congress clearly didn’t see as a declaration of war — instead of asking for a formal declaration. And this represented the breakpoint. In Vietnam, the issue was not some legal or practical justification for not asking for a declaration. Rather, it was a political consideration. Johnson did not know that he could get a declaration; the public might not be prepared to go to war. For this reason, rather than ask for a declaration, he used all the prior precedents to simply go to war without a declaration. In my view, that was the moment the declaration of war as a constitutional imperative collapsed. And in my view, so did the Johnson presidency. In hindsight, he needed a declaration badly, and if he could not get it, Vietnam would have been lost, and so may have been his presidency. Since Vietnam was lost anyway from lack of public consensus, his decision was a mistake. But it set the stage for everything that came after — war by resolution rather than by formal constitutional process. After the war, Congress created the War Powers Act in recognition that wars might commence before congressional approval could be given. However, rather than returning to the constitutional method of the Declaration of War, which can be given after the commencement of war if necessary (consider World War II) Congress chose to bypass declarations of war in favor of resolutions allowing wars. Their reason was the same as the president’s: It was politically safer to authorize a war already under way than to invoke declarations of war. All of this arose within the assertion that the president’s powers as commander in chief authorized him to engage in warfare without a congressional declaration of war, an idea that came in full force in the context of nuclear war and then was extended to the broader idea that all wars were at the discretion of the president. From my simple reading, the Constitution is fairly clear on the subject: Congress is given the power to declare war. At that moment, the president as commander in chief is free to prosecute the war as he thinks best. But constitutional law and the language of the Constitution seem to have diverged. It is a complex field of study, obviously. An Increasing Tempo of Operations All of this came just before the United States emerged as the world’s single global power — a global empire — that by definition would be waging war at an increased tempo, from Kuwait, to Haiti, to Kosovo, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and so on in an ever-increasing number of operations. And now in Libya, we have reached the point that even resolutions are no longer needed. It is said that there is no precedent for fighting al Qaeda, for example, because it is not a nation but a subnational group. Therefore, Bush could not reasonably have been expected to ask for a declaration of war. But there is precedent: Thomas Jefferson asked for and received a declaration of war against the Barbary pirates. This authorized Jefferson to wage war against a subnational group of pirates as if they were a nation. Had Bush requested a declaration of war on al Qaeda on Sept. 12, 2001, I suspect it would have been granted overwhelmingly, and the public would have understood that the United States was now at war for as long as the president thought wise. The president would have been free to carry out operations as he saw fit. Roosevelt did not have to ask for special permission to invade Guadalcanal, send troops to India, or invade North Africa. In the course of fighting Japan, Germany and Italy, it was understood that he was free to wage war as he thought fit. In the same sense, a declaration of war on Sept. 12 would have freed him to fight al Qaeda wherever they were or to move to block them wherever the president saw fit. Leaving aside the military wisdom of Afghanistan or Iraq, the legal and moral foundations would have been clear — so long as the president as commander in chief saw an action as needed to defeat al Qaeda, it could be taken. Similarly, as commander in chief, Roosevelt usurped constitutional rights for citizens in many ways, from censorship to internment camps for Japanese-Americans. Prisoners of war not adhering to the Geneva Conventions were shot by military tribunal — or without. In a state of war, different laws and expectations exist than during peace. Many of the arguments against Bush-era intrusions on privacy also could have been made against Roosevelt. But Roosevelt had a declaration of war and full authority as commander in chief during war. Bush did not. He worked in twilight between war and peace. One of the dilemmas that could have been avoided was the massive confusion of whether the United States was engaged in hunting down a criminal conspiracy or waging war on a foreign enemy. If the former, then the goal is to punish the guilty. If the latter, then the goal is to destroy the enemy. Imagine that after Pearl Harbor, FDR had promised to hunt down every pilot who attacked Pearl Harbor and bring them to justice, rather than calling for a declaration of war against a hostile nation and all who bore arms on its behalf regardless of what they had done. The goal in war is to prevent the other side from acting, not to punish the actors. The Importance of the Declaration A declaration of war, I am arguing, is an essential aspect of war fighting particularly for the republic when engaged in frequent wars. It achieves a number of things. First, it holds both Congress and the president equally responsible for the decision, and does so unambiguously. Second, it affirms to the people that their lives have now changed and that they will be bearing burdens. Third, it gives the president the political and moral authority he needs to wage war on their behalf and forces everyone to share in the moral responsibility of war. And finally, by submitting it to a political process, many wars might be avoided. When we look at some of our wars after World War II it is not clear they had to be fought in the national interest, nor is it clear that the presidents would not have been better remembered if they had been restrained. A declaration of war both frees and restrains the president, as it was meant to do. I began by talking about the American empire. I won’t make the argument on that here, but simply assert it. What is most important is that the republic not be overwhelmed in the course of pursuing imperial goals. The declaration of war is precisely the point at which imperial interests can overwhelm republican prerogatives. There are enormous complexities here. Nuclear war has not been abolished. The United States has treaty obligations to the United Nations and other countries. Covert operations are essential, as is military assistance, both of which can lead to war. I am not making the argument that constant accommodation to reality does not have to be made. I am making the argument that the suspension of Section 8 of Article I as if it is possible to amend the Constitution with a wink and nod represents a mortal threat to the republic. If this can be done, what can’t be done? My readers will know that I am far from squeamish about war. I have questions about Libya, for example, but I am open to the idea that it is a low-cost, politically appropriate measure. But I am not open to the possibility that quickly after the commencement of hostilities the president need not receive authority to wage war from Congress. And I am arguing that neither the Congress nor the president has the authority to substitute resolutions for declarations of war. Nor should either want to. Politically, this has too often led to disaster for presidents. Morally, committing the lives of citizens to waging war requires meticulous attention to the law and proprieties. As our international power and interests surge, it would seem reasonable that our commitment to republican principles would surge. These commitments appear inconvenient. They are meant to be. War is a serious matter, and presidents and particularly Congresses should be inconvenienced on the road to war. Members of Congress should not be able to hide behind ambiguous resolutions only to turn on the president during difficult times, claiming that they did not mean what they voted for. A vote on a declaration of war ends that. It also prevents a president from acting as king by default. Above all, it prevents the public from pretending to be victims when their leaders take them to war. The possibility of war will concentrate the mind of a distracted public like nothing else. It turns voting into a life-or-death matter, a tonic for our adolescent body politic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4)Bashar Assad: A Second Hama? By Yisrael Ne'eman Syrian President Bashar Assad cannot compromise. This is clear from yesterday's speech to Parliament and even more so from the overall socio-political situation in Syria. Assad and those in power look around the Arab/Muslim world very carefully, absorbing two major lessons - being conciliatory and promising concessions will only lead to more demands and increase public pressure on the regime to give in further. On the other hand, swift focused repression of discontent leaves one with the best chance of remaining in power. He backs up the analysis with examples. Tunisia and Egypt fell quickly while Qaddafi in Libya is still holding on despite Western intervention. In Bahrain the rebellion is over thanks to Saudi and Arab Emirate intervention on the side of the king and his ruling Sunni elite. Another lesson learned concerns the West. When Europe and the US can afford to allow one of its dictatorial secular allies to fall in the name of "democracy," they will step aside. In such cases the West fears being caught on the wrong side of a people's revolt. If one is expendable and has a terrible track record due to human rights abuses and previous support for terrorism, such as in the Libyan example, Europe and the US will even join the rebels "proving" their loyalty to rule by the people. If one is not expendable, such as in the Bahraini example, the West and the US in particular will allow its non-democratic allies to intervene to ensure the "correct outcome", the continued existence of the regime – regardless of oppression or human rights abuses. Stability of Persian Gulf oil supplies can trump all. Syria is a fragmented society made up of the ruling Alawite minority, Druze, Kurds, Christians and the Sunni majority, the latter split between supporters of and partners in the secular Ba'ath regime and the opposition radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood advocates. Sitting in the presidential palace in Damascus, Assad only need look eastwards to Baghdad to understand his predicament. Saddam Hussein, a student of Stalin, understood that holding together a multi-ethnic/religious artificial state can only be done through repression and the negation of human rights. The minute Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and individual tribes will all have their "rights" at the "expense" of a unified Iraq all will collapse. Saddam weathered the eight year war with Iran (1980-88) and the first American led Allied/Arab invasion after his Kuwait adventure (1990-91) and only fell when he was physically swept from power in 2003. Otherwise he put down all uprisings. Qaddafi understood the same and the only reason he may lose Libya is due to the same Western intervention. Assad understands that both Saddam and Qaddafi made one crucial mistake of omission. Neither had a powerful ally whose fate was inextricably linked to their own. The Russians and Chinese may not be happy with Western intervention but they always understood that they would survive the outcome. Not so Ahmedinejad and the Iranians. Syria is a major piece in their Middle Eastern puzzle and Assad knows it. Anti-regime demos in Iran are brutally repressed while the Western cacophony makes unlimited noises but none would dare intervene. Developing their nuclear program and threatening to rocket fair portions of the Middle East should they be disturbed by outside forces the Khomeinist leadership in Iran rests assured that a brutal crackdown ensures their continued survival – just witness the "elections" of June 2009 and the aftermath. Bashar is fully aware of the massacre in Hama ordered by his father Hafez al-Assad in 1982 when the Muslim Brotherhood threatened his Ba'ath regime. Some 20,000 were killed (although this writer has heard of deaths reaching 38,000 from students who studied in Syria in the 1990s) and if need be Bashar can consider "Hama Two" in whatever geographical location is necessary. Bashar's take on the present instability is as follows: Thank God the Americans and West are not your allies and the Iranians and Hezbollah stand beside you. Western intervention can be ruled out and you can take whatever repressive action deemed necessary. One should also be grateful there is no real dilemma. Reforms and democracy could lead to the shattering of the Syrian State and worse yet the massacre of one's own Alawite minority. One is reminded of Mikhael Gorbochev's reforms in the late 1980s, the fall of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Furthermore the Americans are bogged down in Afghanistan, are attempting to leave Iraq (but who knows?) and are engaging in Libya. Obama needs intervention in Syria like he needs a Republican Senate. Best yet is the question of who will replace Assad and his Ba'ath regime – the Muslim Brotherhood or some form of anarchy are the two immediate answers. For the West the present Syrian regime is the best of all evils, there is no real reason to intervene. Even should it damage Iranian/Hezbollah interests, the longer term effects could prove more of a loss than a gain. The Israeli understanding is similar, Assad being a pillar of stability despite his Iranian and Hezbollah connections. The Ba'ath is a much better option than anarchy. The only other more positive possibility is the breakdown of Syria into smaller but stable entities, but this is a long shot. With Hamas losing control in Gaza and Hezbollah controlling south Lebanon, Israel does not need instability on the Golan front and it needs the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria least of all. Strange as it may sound the West and Israel are hopeful Bashar Assad and his Ba'ath dictatorship will remain in power. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4)New Maine Governor In case you haven’t heard about this guy before. His name will stick in your mind! The new Maine Governor, Paul LePage is making New Jersey 's Chris Christie look like an enabler. He isn't afraid to say what he thinks. And, judging by the comments heard at the cigar shop & other non-political gathering places, every time he opens his mouth his popularity goes up. He brought down the house at his inauguration when he shook his fist toward the media box & said, "You're on notice! I've inherited a financially-troubled state to run. Observe . cover . but don't whine if I don't waste time responding to your every whim for your amusement." During his campaign for governor he was talking to commercial fishermen who are struggling because of federal fisheries rules. They complained that President Obama brought his family to Bar Harbor & Acadia National Park for a long Labor Day holiday & found time to meet w/union leaders, but wouldn't talk to them. LePage replied, "I'd tell him to go to hell & get out of my state." Media crucified LePage, but he jumped 6 points in the pre-election poll. The Martin Luther King incident was a political sandbag which brought him national exposure. The 'lame stream' media crucified him, but word on the street is very positive. The NAACP specifically asked him to spend MLK Day visiting black inmates at the Maine State Prison. He told them that he would meet w/ALL inmates regardless of race if he were to visit the prison. The NAACP balked & then put out a news release claiming falsely that he refused to participate in any MLK events. He read it in the paper for the 1st time the next morning while be driven to an event & went ballistic because none of the reporters had called him for comment before running the NAACP release. He arrived at that event & said on TV camera, "If they want to play the race card on me they can kiss my butt" & he reminded them that he has an adopted black son from Jamaica & that he attended the local MLK Breakfast every year that he was mayor of Waterville. (He started his morning there on MLK Day.) He then stated that there's a right way & a wrong way to meet w/the governor & he put all special interests on notice that press releases, media leaks & all demonstrations would prove to be the wrong way. He said any other group which acted like the NAACP could expect to be at the bottom of the governor's priority list! He then did the following, & judging from local radio talk show callers, his popularity increased even more: The state employees union complained because he waited until 3 p.m. before closing state offices & facilities & sending non-emergency personnel home during the last blizzard. The prior governor would often close offices for the day w/just a forecast before the 1st flakes. (Each time the state closes for snow, it costs the taxpayers about $1 million in wages for no work in return.) LePage was CEO of the Marden's chain of discount family bargain retail stores before election as governor. He noted that state employees getting off work early could still find lots of retail stores open to shop. So, he put the state employees on notice by announcing: "If Marden's is open, Maine is open!" He told state employees: "We live in Maine in the winter, for heaven's sake, & should know how to drive in it. Otherwise, apply for a state job in Florida!" Governor LePage symbolizes what America needs; Refreshing politicians who aren't self-serving & who exhibit common sense! 5)Mark Steyn: Obama now offers hope of no change By MARK STEYN America is the brokest country in history, but Obama and Harry Reid say relax, that’s no reason not to spend more. By the time you read this, President Barack Obama will be taking a well-deserved break from the 54th hole of today's scheduled golf game and the grueling responsibility of picking out his Final Four priority high-speed rail projects on ESPN by relaxing on a beach in ... Libya ? Japan ? No, Brazil . Oh, here he is now: "Tall and tan and young and lovely FILE: President Barack Obama, right, rides in a golf cart with White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, left, while playing golf at the Farm Neck Golf Club, in Oak Bluffs, Mass. , on the island of Martha's Vineyard , Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010. The President was vacationing on the island with his family. The boy from Spendaholica goes walking And when he passes Each one he passes Goes 'Aiiieeeeee...'" Hey, it worked in 2008, and who's to say the same old song won't exercise its seductive charm all over again in 2012? That's the way the president's betting. As he told a gathering of high-rolling Democratic donors in Washington last week: "As time passes, you start taking it for granted that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States . But we should never take it for granted. I hope that all of you still feel that sense of excitement and that sense of possibility." Well, no, I couldn't honestly say that I do. I mean, I always like the bit in the movie where 007 says, "The name's Bond. James Bond," but generally he follows it by rappelling into a hollowed-out volcano and taking out the evil mastermind while disabling the nuclear launch codes with three seconds to spare. I'm not sure I get quite the same "sense of excitement" from the Obama version: "The name's Bond. James Hussein Bond." "I'm afraid you're growing rather tedious, Mr. Bond." Speaking of names, the new stimulus-funded Amtrak station in Wilmington , Del. , is to be named after Vice President Joe Biden. Say what you like about Obama, but he made the naming of train stations run on time. We should never take it for granted that a guy named Joseph Robinette Biden is a railroad halt in the Northeast corridor. I hope that all of you still feel that sense of excitement and that sense of possibility. I couldn't be more excited if Robinette Hussein Robinette were president. In 2008, Obama offered Hope and Change. This time round he's offering the Hope of No Change. Life goes on. When your president's middle name is Hussein, trust me, that's all the change you guys need. Harry Reid says he doesn't even want to talk about the possibility of opening discussions to consider raising the possibility of contemplating the thought of the merest smidgeonette of changes to Social Security for another 20 years. Sen. Reid, 71, told MSNBC this week, "Two decades from now, I'm willing to take a look at it." Big of you. No-Change You Can Believe In! The Audacity of Torpor. There may be more takers for this than my friends on the right would wish. On Libya , the Audacity of Golf seems to have done the trick: Nobody's in the mood for a no-fly zone in another thankless distant hellhole just as Iraq and Hoogivsastan have dropped off the news. And yeah, gas seems to be going up, and, when 40 percent of Americans work in minimal-skill service jobs, it makes a difference to the economic viability of those jobs whether you're driving there at a dollar-eighty per gallon or four bucks. "We have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe ," Steven Chu, now Obama's Energy Secretary, said in 2008. We're getting there. It's just shy of 10 bucks per in Britain , but there's no reason a fuel policy for small, densely populated nations can't work for Wyoming , because we're investing in all those high-speed rail links. So you'll be able to commute from your home in Rattlesnake, Nev. , to your job in North Rattlesnake, Nev. , via the Joseph Robinette Biden Delaware, Lackawanna , Atchison , Topeka , Santa Fe & Canadian Pacific High-Speed Interchange Facility & Federal Stimulus Mausoleum in Wilmington . How will we power the trains? Nukes? Oh, perish the thought. Not after those whachamacallits in Japan failed to withstand the thingummy from the whoozis. Obviously, if something can't shrug off one of the five most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, then we shouldn't have anything to do with it at all, no way, no how. Instead, we should "invest" in "green jobs," and then you'll be able to commute to your overnight shift at the KwikkiKrap because the high-speed trains will have giant wind turbines nailed to the roof of the caboose, at least until the next of kin of boxcar-riding hobos caught in the slipstream file a class-action suit. And by then you won't need to commute to the KwikkiKrap because they'll have cut the night shift after the drop-off in vehicular traffic was so severe they had to change the sign to "CASHIER CARRIES LESS THAN $3.79 IN CHANGE." But that proved to be the biggest stimulus to the American sign-manufacturing industry since they had to make all those "THIS TWO-HUNDRED YARD STRETCH OF SCARIFIED PAVEMENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE AMERICA RECOVERY & REDISTRIBUTION ACT" sign, so that's even more good news. The Audacity of Golf may yet prove a potent message. Many Americans seem disinclined to heed warnings, especially of stuff that Harry Reid assures us is a long way off. Change we can believe in? Thanks but no thanks. We'll wait till it happens. In New Orleans, they waited till the hurricane hit, and then the cops walked off the job, and the fleet of evacuation buses lay empty and abandoned, and enterprising locals fired on army engineers repairing the 17th Street Canal, and less-ambitious types went a-lootin', and, when the feds showed up to hand out emergency debit cards, they spent them at strip joints, and of the refugees who fled to Texas, 45 percent turned out to have criminal records, and the Houston homicide rate went up 23 percent. So imagine if last week's earthquake and tsunami had hit Louisiana . Japan is a dying nation, literally. They're the oldest people on Earth, and their shrunken pool of young 'uns are childless. They're already in net population decline: The nation that invented the Walkman would have been better off inventing the walker. Today their only world-beating innovations are in post-human robotechnology – humanoid nurses with big-eyed Manga faces doing the jobs that humans won't do. Japan is doomed. And yet, watching the exemplary response to catastrophe this week, you sense that their final days will at least be tranquil and orderly. From afar, we shrieked like ninnies, retreating to the usual tropes: No nukes! And more carbon offsets to appease the great Water Gods of the Tsunami! America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone has ever owed anyone. And Obama and Reid say relax, that's no reason not to spend more – because the world hasn't yet concluded we have no intention of paying it back. When they do, the dollar will collapse, like those buildings in Sendai . When that happens, it will make a lot of difference whether Americans react like the Japanese or Louisianans. But, in the meantime, Barack Obama goes to Brazil and assures us that life's a beach: Golf on, Mr. President. 5a) Editorial: The president’s speech Being a leader is about more than reading off a teleprompter By THE WASHINGTON TIMES When King George VI gave his Sept. 3, 1939, war message to the people of the British Empire, it was a time of great moment. It was a “grave hour,” he began, “perhaps the most fateful in our history.” The king said that “for the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war.” That, however, was back when war was war. Now it is just kinetic military activity. The king’s speech, so recently dramatized in an Oscar-winning film starring Colin Firth, was significant because though George VI suffered a speech impediment, his message was of the highest importance. President Obama, by contrast, has always been given ludicrously high marks for his abilities as an orator but seldom has anything substantive to say. Mr. Obama waited nine days after U.S. forces began to engage in hostilities in Libya to make a major address to the nation. He initially avoided making more than perfunctory remarks because U.S. involvement in the nonwar was supposed to be brief and limited. But as the kinetic became more frenetic, and Mr. Obama didn’t see the favorable bump in public opinion most presidents enjoy after unleashing military force, he was compelled to address the issue head on. Unbeknownst to the novice commander in chief, Mr. Obama faces a mass of contradictions that makes this conflict a hard sell. Mr. Obama has started a war that is not a war. Mr. Obama is using military force, but his secretary of defense says there is no vital American interest involved. Mr. Obama sold the country and the United Nations on a no-fly zone, but coalition forces are targeting Libyan ground troops. Mr. Obama’s mandate was to protect civilian lives, but he is actively siding with the rebellion. Mr. Obama has praised the “legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people,” but many of the rebels are Islamist radicals and even members of al Qaeda. Mr. Obama has gone to war to prevent a “bloodbath” in Libya but only offers empty words to innocent Syrians being gunned down by the Assad dictatorship. Mr. Obama has said the United States is not seeking to force regime change but believes that Moammar Gadhafi “has to go.” Mr. Obama said there would be no “boots on the ground” in Libya but reports are emerging that some boots have landed. Mr. Obama said the operation would be handed over to NATO but the United States will still be doing the heavy lifting. Mr. Obama said Operation Odyssey Dawn would be limited to “days, not weeks,” but now it is projected to go on for months, or longer. Mr. Obama denounced his predecessor President George W. Bush for unilateralism but the O Force has gone to war with no congressional authorization, fewer coalition partners and weaker support from the Arab world. All of these contradictions were of the president’s making and are the product of trying to preserve an exalted image that now only a few members of the White House inner circle still believe. The Nobel Prize-winning man of peace who expanded America’s wars; the champion of Muslims who only helps them when it’s convenient; and the great global leader who continually emphasizes America’s declining influence: What a long strange odyssey the Obama presidency has become. © Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. 5b)Obama, Libya and Congress The president has failed to solidify congressional support for his Libyan action. That may come back to haunt him. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL President Barack Obama is going on a week into military action in Libya. If he doesn't start explaining how and why, he's going to be fighting a rearguard action in Congress. Commanders in chief are rightly accorded broad power to unilaterally order American military force. The smart ones understand they need to garner public and congressional support. Congress's backing is particularly crucial, given that body's own authority to play havoc with a military undertaking. In today's partisan political environment, presidential wooing is even more important. Mr. Obama, so recently a U.S. senator, knows better than most how that dynamic can play ugly (see Obama vs. Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan). It is therefore remarkable that this White House has made such a hash of its handling of Congress, vis-a-vis Libya. Consider it one consequence of waging war by international committee. More on that later. The speed and size of the congressional revolt is notable. In less than a week, the Peace Caucus has predictably got up and running, with Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich whipping up Mr. Obama's professional left. The Who-Do-You-Think-You-Are Caucus is bellowing that the president did not get an official vote from Congress for military action. The Cost Caucus—a new potent force in the form of dozens of freshmen Republican elected to cut budgets—is already complaining about the price of military action in Libya. Some of this is predictable griping. The Obama team's bigger mistake has been its mishandling of everyone else—the bulk of Republicans, who are at least open to supporting action, as well the majority of Democrats, who feel obliged to support Mr. Obama whether on principle or for political reasons. Most of this crowd was already alarmed by two months of haphazard White House policy on Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain. It last week watched the administration move from being a skeptic of intervention to a proponent of military strikes in Libya—in a matter of hours. The president offered these members no explanation for the flip. He also failed to partake in the traditional courtesy of consulting congressional leaders, or flattering their egos with a request for their advice on the coming action. Instead, a few hours before the bombs flew, the White House perfunctorily informed lawmakers of what it had already decided to do. Mr. Obama then decamped to Latin America, leaving the legislative branch in a vacuum. Who is in charge? Who are our partners? What are we attacking? What is the goal? How long? Can Gadhafi stay? If not, who next? The White House has offered no answers to these questions, though Press Secretary Jay Carney did use a recent briefing to complain that Congress shouldn't be complaining, since it was Congress that pushed the administration to act. Now there's a way to make congressional friends. For now, many in Congress remain open to supporting this effort. But the perception of disarray—the sight of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggesting the Libya campaign has been done "on the fly"—is putting enormous political pressure on Republicans to be seen to be exercising oversight. It's asking a lot of House Speaker John Boehner to provide the president cover for a mission the president seems unwilling to articulate. Mr. Boehner all but made that point with a tough letter this week, which the White House would be wise to use as a guide to the questions that need answering. The president has had something of a pass during this week of congressional recess, but the members are back on Monday—all the better to form ranks. There is already talk of hearings, investigations, a big fight over the Pentagon's budget. Republican leaders will have to work to keep some of this in check, and they are going to need a reason to work. The president faces just as big a risk from his Democrats. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi stepped up to defend the president this week—somebody had to. Lest the White House has forgotten, its party took a "shellacking" last year, and dozens of prominent and vulnerable Democrats are looking out for No. 1. It might not take much to send them bolting from their own president—which will further dissuade Republicans from sticking. This is what comes from waging war through the United Nations. The White House was determined not to move on Libya unless it could hide behind a U.N. resolution. The best that multinational body could muster was a vague and confused resolution backing efforts to stop Gadhafi from slaughtering civilians. That resolution, Mr. Obama's rationale for action, is now his constraint. To answer Congress's questions would require thinking and resolving beyond the U.N. remit. He's unwilling to do so. The president seems instead to be hoping he can quickly hand this off to some other leader of the free world, and move on. But a failure in Libya will only bring more congressional questions. Better to define an actual U.S. strategy—one that can succeed—while Congress is still willing to listen. 5c)The Great Obama Red Awakening By Brenda J. Elliott Alan Caruba asks in “Obama, As Red As It Gets”: Isn’t it about time that the mainstream media and all others begin to examine the record and conclude that a Communist holds the reins of power in the White House? … America has never had a Communist President until now. While others have written how obvious it is that Obama is a “Socialist”, I think this is a matter of caution in a society that has not seriously used the word “Communist” since the 1950s when entities like the House Un-American Activities Committee actively investigated and exposed how many existed in the government, the unions, and Hollywood. It’s not like Barack Hussein Obama has come out and said, “Yes, I’m a Communist”, but you don’t have to have a PhD in Political Science to connect the dots. The process is made murky by the way Obama has deliberately covered his tracks wherever he could, while dropping broad hints. … The harm and damage done by our first Communist President will take years to repair, but Americans have wakened to: . the socialist menace of the nation’s public sector unions, . the centralization of education in the federal government, . the threat of the Environmental Protection Agency’s assertion of control over America’s energy sector, . the refusal of the Interior Department to grant drilling permits, . the devaluation of the U.S. dollar by the Federal Reserve, . and the incremental efforts of an anti-American government to undermine defense, national security, our economy, and our worldwide reputation as a defender of freedom. Lawyer Kelly O’Connell writes in “Why Did He Even Bother Running? Obama Leadership Vacuum Menaces Globe” at Canada Free Press: Has any modern political figure ever squandered political goodwill in the manner of Obama—trading near messianic devotion from a hundred million for not even a cup of proverbial porridge in return? His political pratfalls occur only as often as he makes decisions. But even the most hardened Obama backers had to shudder and roll their eyes this week when Barack fixated on college basketball “brackets” instead of ongoing tragedy, chaos and the loss of tens of thousands. It became transparent—in a way in which only disasters bring clarity—that Obama is a boy amongst men, only haphazardly observing history’s progress the way a house cat mindlessly follows a fluttering object. … Recent tragedies and conflicts utterly prove Obama’s wholesale lack of principle. The import is he is wholly unpredictable, and will only be directed by circumstance and self-advancement. If we account for his indifference to history, democracy, capitalism, and Christianity—then shoehorn-in issues of mental competency, it adds up to perhaps the worst presidency in US history. We might only be one more simple crisis away from a total leadership implosion, given how Barack seems to lead less and less with each mounting disaster. In midst of one of history’s strongest earthquakes, an associated nuclear disaster, and political meltdown in Libya and across the Middle East, Obama reveals childish instincts to run and hide. He has all the enthusiasm of a hemophiliac at a knife-throwers convention. So we need to hit the reset button with 2 years left. … Barack is helping promote the biggest con job in socialist history. He sells the belief leftists access a body of wisdom unparalleled in human history, allowing stunningly correct decisions, light-years ahead of anyone else. We can call this the “One Right Solution” approach to leadership; an antidote to any problem. This idea derives from the notion good government is based upon humanistic roots that then cast up a Great Socialist to lead the people towards enlightenment. Consider these human super-dynamos who appeared to lead a nation helpless of dolts: Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, etc. But the real track-record of socialism is almost as convincing as that of alchemy. From where does such an outlandish idea come, that leftism has answers to life’s problems? By virtue of the sudden triumph of radical humanism against slowly developed traditions—often with roots in revealed religion. We can briefly note socialism represents a qualitative simplification of every important institution in the Western constitutional canon. Republicanism becomes vulgar democracy before its pushed into tyranny. Capitalism is crushed into socialism. Military strength is downsized into appeasement. The Rule of Law is reduced to the notion government can do no wrong. Related, religion is outlawed or belittled into subservience, and State itself then becomes a god. Rights of Free Speech, and other civil liberties and criminal rights therefore become enfolded into the state. Luke Matthews writes about Democratic tribalism at RedState.com: The only thing holding the Democratic coalition together is the shared moniker of ‘Democrat.’ The Obama administration can feel the rumblings and hear the faults begin to crack. As a result, the president and members of his administration are battening down the hatches, abandoning all pretense of governing, and doing what they think the do best; campaigning. Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 was considered magnificent. He ousted Hillary Clinton from her dominance over the nomination fight, created a persona no one could match, and defeated the entire Republican brand in the form of John McCain and a huge swath of Republican lawmakers. Following his victory, it was Obama who bragged that Democrats need not worry about making unpopular votes in Congress. When questioned about the 1994 landslide against the Democrats giving the House and Senate to the GOP, Obama scoffed. Then Rep. Marion Berry D-Arkansas recalled; ““They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” Obama and his entourage believed The Won would have coattails that spread like FDR. He believed he was charmed and could dispense that popularity like confetti upon the endangered few. The Democratic Party-aligned mainstream media also promulgated this idea. Obama’s campaigning skills were so powerful, he could just fly into a district or state and the people would flock to his side. 2010 proved just how wrong he really was. In fact, candidates fled before he arrived. Tim Kaine, Democratic National Committee chair pleaded with Democrats nationwide to embrace Obama, Obamanomics, Obamacare, and all things Obama-esque. This would be a winning combination, Kaine argued. The ones who were in deep navy blue districts or states survived. Those who were in districts that even tinged purple, lost. Or, managed to avoid appearing even slightly in favor of all things Obama. Joe Manchin in West Virginia is a good example. He only won by shooting a big example of Democratic legislative thuggishness in the form of a bill. Obama is now the brand. Many Democrats, those who still embrace the label and are reasonable, are scared to death. Obamanomics has failed miserably. The economy is sputtering. Job growth is anemic. Inflation is rearing its ugly head for the first time in decades. We are deeply addicted to spending, spending everyone realizes is poisonous. The deficits and debt weigh heavy on the general public and their attitudes toward their government. Overseas, we are viewed with suspicion, or jocularity, or outright contempt. For a president who promised peace, we are still embroiled in two occupations that look like wars and we are now saber-rattling in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. This is a president watching as his empty promises and failed policies drain the vigor from his Party. 5d) In Obama’s push for Mideast peace, whose side is he on? By Jackson Diehl So far what some are calling the Arab Spring has brought Israel the first terrorist bombing in Jerusalem in seven years and the first significant missile attacks from the Gaza Strip in two years. And that, for the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, is likely to be the easy part. The hard part will be managing Barack Obama. Netanyahu and the Israeli army know how to deal with Palestinian terrorist attacks. Their tanks and planes have been pounding targets in Gaza, and inflicting considerably more casualties and damage than have been caused by the rockets. The Israelis believe both the Jerusalem bombing and most of the missile strikes were carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a small militia controlled by Iran. Gaza’s ruler, Hamas, is thought not to want a wider conflict, much less a repeat of Israel’s devastating 2008 invasion. So barring a miscalculation by one side or the other, or a missile that wipes out an Israeli school, Netanyahu is likely to avoid major hostilities with Hamas. But what of the Obama administration and its renewed calls for “bold action” to revive negotiations on Palestinian statehood? For Netanyahu, that — more than a new Egyptian government or an offensive by Iran’s allies — may be the biggest short-term challenge emerging from the Middle East’s upheaval. A reasonable person might conclude from the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria et al., that the Middle East’s deepest problems have nothing to do with Israel and that the Obama administration’s almost obsessive focus on trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian settlement in its first two years was misplaced. But Obama isn’t one of those persons. Instead, like several American presidents before him, he seems to have concluded that the ideal segue from the latest Arab crisis is a new attempt to pressure Israel into accepting a quick march to Palestinian statehood. A “senior defense official” accompanying Defense Secretary Robert Gates on his visit to Jerusalem last week put it this way: “The Israelis have a very deep strategic interest in getting out in front of the wave of populism that is sweeping the region . . . showing progress on the peace track with the Palestinians would put them in a much better position for where the region’s likely to be six months or a year from now.” That’s true, of course — in theory. In practice, Netanyahu’s problem is twofold. First, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has no interest in negotiating with him, and never has. The 76-year-old Abbas has repeatedly shrunk from committing himself to the painful concessions he knows would be needed for Palestinian statehood. What’s more, he has despised and distrusted the Israeli prime minister since Netanyahu’s first term in office in the 1990s. Rather than bargain with Israel, Abbas seems inclined to go along with his aides’ plan to seek a U.N. declaration of Palestinian statehood at the next General Assembly in September. This might not be so troubling for Netanyahu, who is also not eager to make concessions for a peace deal, if not for his second problem: Obama continues to believe that Israel’s government, and not the Palestinians, is the primary obstacle to peace. The president made his mind-set clear from the beginning of his administration, when he chose to begin his diplomacy by demanding a complete freeze on Israeli settlement activity — a condition Abbas had never set but which he quickly adopted as his own. In a meeting with American Jewish leaders at the White House this month, Obama indicated that he hadn’t changed his mind. Abbas, he insisted, was ready to establish a Palestinian state. The problem was that Israel had not made a serious territorial offer. Netanyahu feels compelled to counter the Palestinian offensive at the United Nations, which his defense minister, Ehud Barak, says could turn into “an anti-Israeli diplomatic tsunami.” For that he will need the support of Obama. So Netanyahu has committed himself to deliver what could be the most-anticipated speech in Israel’s history — an address to the U.S. Congress in May in which he is to lay out a new “vision” for peace. To satisfy Abbas and Obama, Netanyahu will have to promise a significant concession. In the words of the Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar, “he will have to utter, with his own mouth, the magic words” — that a Palestinian state will be based on Israel returning to its 1967 borders. But if he does that, Netanyahu will infuriate most of his cabinet and probably cause the collapse of his coalition. His supporters believe he will also give up Israel’s best negotiating chip — territory — before the real bargaining even begins. Netanyahu felt comfortable enough with the Gaza mini-war and the state of security in Jerusalem last week to carry on with a planned trip to Russia. The coming showdown with Obama will require his full attention. 5e) Our current President has a major failing; a major deficiency of character.It explains much about his policies and reactions to changing worldsituations.He has no intrinsic values. His policies and reactions do not follow a setcourse. He attacks Gaddafi in Libya for killing Libyan revolutionaries; yetwishes to subject Khalid al Sheikh to a civilian trial in New York, the manwho planned the killing of thousands of Americans. He campaigned extensivelyagainst the war against radical Islamists in Iraq, yet prosecutes a similarcampaign in Afghanistan, and has unilaterally started one against anadmittedly evil dictator in Libya.His values are all instrumental. That is, his values are only a means toachieve some other end, which in turn is more important. Many fear that eventhese values are not his own, but of some unnamed presence on the other endof his treasured Blackberry.Let us compare him to a great President, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan had aset moral course. All of his reactions, policies and decisions followed thatcourse. He believed in the primacy of mankind; the freedom of choice; andlimited government. He liberated Americans from oppressive tax rates, andprovided a foundation for the greatest expansion mankind has ever seen. Heoverturned a communist government in Grenada with a successful invasion,protecting innocent American students. He, in effect, ended the cold warcausing the dissolution of the Soviet Union.Obama, on the other hand, has forced through legislation detested by themajority of the American people; to further his eventual goal of asingle-payer, government controlled medical system. He attempted to raisetaxes on the American workers in the midst of a depression. He shut down ouroff-shore drilling operations, putting some 19,000 highly paid workers ontothe unemployment lines, and did so at a time of great unrest in the middleeast, the source of much of our imported crude oil. He mobilized the worldto combat the forces of Libyan dictator, Muamar Ghaddafi and then took theObama family to Brazil for a short vacation. As an aside, while there, hegranted the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobras, the right to drillfor crude oil off our gulf coast, where he has halted US based companyoperations. His golfing schedule dominates his weekly events. In his firsttwo years in office, he increased our national debt by more than $3.5trillion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) The Libyan Dilemma By Yisrael Ne'eman The West has its hands full in the Middle East for decades and now even more so. After two decades in Iraq in one form or another and a decade in Afghanistan the Libyan crisis is drawing Western attention and military intervention. The Egyptian and Tunisian regimes were overthrown and the West shifted from supporting the previous secular dictatorial administrations to encouraging the protesters and hoped for steps towards democracy. And then came Libya. Interestingly, as much as Col. Qaddafi is a brutal dictator, the rebels in Benghazi and the east did not receive automatic support for their revolt. No one can be sure they truly advocate democracy, or whether this is more of a regional rebellion against the pro-Qaddafi forces emanating from Tripoli and its environs. Most logically when Qaddafi was on the defensive and his days appeared numbered the West hesitated to intervene. Morally the Libyan leader was an uncomfortable economic ally necessary for a constant oil supply and one who was willing to halt the illegal flow of African immigrants into southern Europe. But when the revolt became a civil war, Qaddafi and his Tripoli allies understood they are in a zero sum game, announcing quite honestly their every intention of slaughtering all opposition. Nothing like an honest murderer and his henchmen when pushed to the wall (remember the forced admission over the Lockerbie bombing?). Led by France, the US, Canada, Britain and other European allies are imposing a no-fly zone and aerial-naval bombardment of Libya's air/coastal defense systems and armored forces. It is said Arab states will also be involved but no one is sure which ones since most are in some form of turmoil. At the moment no ground invasion is being contemplated, or so is said. (The above is from AlJazeera's English satellite station over the last few weeks.) What is missing are Allied/Arab objectives in what is being packaged as a war of liberation for human rights and democracy. Western leaders speak of halting the slaughter and Pres. Obama is in full concurrence. If so what of Bahrain and Yemen in particular? The Saudis and United Arab Emirates have all but invaded Bahrain and are brutally putting down the Shiite uprising, whether it be pro-democracy, pro-Iranian, both or neither, but whatever the protesters advocate they are unarmed. In Yemen government loyalists constantly fire on demonstrators. But in both of these cases Saudi and oil interests are at stake, and this is not just a Western issue but one involving Japan, China and India as well. If we do the calculations at least half the world needs a very stable oil market, especially in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. Libya has oil but only holds a few percentages of the world market. Western response was predicated on regime stability, as long as he firmly held the reigns of power most wanted to keep it that way, once his country descended into anarchy/civil war he was no longer an asset, even should he emerge the ultimate victor. For Qaddafi, western Libya (Tripoli) and his tribal alliance to win means long time instability. But will it be any different should the Benghazi rebels win with NATO assistance? A long time rebellion by pro-Qaddafi forces will be just as destabilizing. Iraq is a good comparison. Without going into the disagreements over the reasons for the Anglo-American offensive Saddam Hussein was ousted eight years ago and that country still suffers from Shiite-Sunni-Kurdish conflicts, suicide homicide bombings, endemic corruption and now a civil revolt by its population. Saddam was a brutal mass murderer (killing 100,000s of Shiites and 10,000s Kurds) who the Western/Arab alliance battled first in 1991 after his invasion of Kuwait. During, between and in the aftermath of both conflicts Saddam for all his murderous behavior was and is still hailed by many in the Arab world as a Salah a-Din type halting the Western Crusader invasion. Let us not forget the Shiite-Kurdish satisfaction with Saddam's final overthrow in 2003 and the fact that the Arab world did not send combat troops as they had done twelve years earlier. Even Saudi assistance was with great trepidation. Obama is not George W. Bush, he is very reluctant to press a Western/American agenda using military force or so it is believed. But what is the "agenda"? The agenda is much more oil and national security (Obama's continued initiative in Afghanistan) than it ever was human rights – remember the Guantanamo prison closure? The Obama Administration did not take the lead in curtailing Qaddafi & Co., the Europeans did, in particular the French, the same French who condemned the most recent American venture in Iraq. The issue of human rights is the perfect cover for low cost Western air and missile intervention in Libya. But can the West enforce its will, remove Qaddafi and find a comfortable business partner who allows at least a semblance of human rights? Other questions abound. To capture Tripoli and its environs the West must deploy ground forces. Will the West try to kill Qaddafi and his power elite as they circulate among civilian populations – using them as human shields? Or will this be considered an international criminal offense should civilians be killed or injured? Former UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Anan condemned such actions as "extra judicial killings" and even though he got the definition wrong many agreed with him especially when Israel took out terrorist masterminds in such a manner. Should civilians surrounding anti-aircraft batteries or standing on bridges targeted by the Western air forces be attacked? Put succinctly, will Qaddafi's human shields protect the dictator himself? And in the end will there be anti-war demos in the West with Obama, Sarkozy and Cameroon highlighted as war criminals? China, Brazil, Venezuela and especially Russia have announced their reservations or opposition to the Western initiative. Their condemnations will become more powerful once the operation is concluded. An anti-Western backlash can be expected. In the immediate future there will be many to praise the operation but similar to Iraq, Western intervention to remove an Arab/Muslim leader, no matter how brutal, will be remembered as unwarranted "Crusader intervention" in the Islamic domain. A radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood style backlash cannot be ruled out. The best option would be not to land ground forces and for the West to get over its nation state obsession. Libya is not truly one state, it is a conglomeration of the eastern Cyrene-Benghazi region, the western Tripoli area and tribal confederations to the south. Allowing for a split in Libya may be the least of all evils and it certainly will avoid more bloodshed while pre-empting a Western ground assault. Should the people desire a democracy in the Cyrene Benghazi area then the West can step in and help nurture the process, but the people must decide. As for the Tripoli region and the million or more pro-Qaddafi supporters it would be a disaster to bomb them into submission. According to news reports and even the pro-rebel AlJazeera Arab world satellite station (in English) most of western Libya prefers Qaddafi's regime. This does not prevent a later uprising on his own turf, one the international community should support when the time and conditions are ripe. It is very enticing to destroy Qaddafi in one shot, but caution and a two step process will limit damage and in the end not present the West and democracy as an enemy of the Arabs. Making democratic inroads into the Arab/Muslim world is tricky business. The West should be careful not to overstep its bounds and suffer a backlash destroying any forward progress and possibly even reversing advancements already made. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7)Utopian Policies Boosting Prices For U.S. Energy By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON Gas is well over $4 a gallon in most places in California — and soaring elsewhere as well. But are such high energy prices good or bad? That should be a stupid question. Yet it's not when the Obama administration has stopped new domestic offshore oil exploration in many American waters, curbed oil leases in the West, and keeps oil-rich Alaskan areas exempt from drilling. Last week, President Obama went to Brazil and declared of that country's new offshore finds: "With the new oil finds off Brazil, President (Dilma) Rousseff has said that Brazil wants to be a major supplier of new stable sources of energy, and I've told her that the U.S. wants to be a major customer, which would be a win-win for both our countries." Consider the logic of the president's Orwellian declaration: The U.S. in the last two years has restricted oil exploration of the sort Brazil is now rushing to embrace. We have run up more than $4 trillion in consecutive budget deficits during the Obama administration and are near federal insolvency. Therefore, the U.S. should be happy to borrow more money to purchase the sort of "new stable sources of energy" from Brazil's offshore wells that we most certainly will not develop off our own coasts. It seems as if paying lots more for electricity and gas, in European fashion, was originally part of the president's new green agenda. He helped push cap-and-trade legislation through the House of Representatives in 2009. Had such Byzantine regulations become law, a recessionary economy would have sunk into depression. Obama appointed the incompetent Van Jones as "green jobs czar" — until Jones' wild rantings confirmed that he knew nothing about his job description "to advance the administration's climate and energy initiatives." At a time of trillion-dollar deficits, the administration is borrowing billions to promote high-speed rail, and is heavily invested in the federally subsidized $42,000 Government Motors Chevy Volt. Apparently the common denominator here is a deductive view that high energy prices will force Americans to emulate European centrally planned and state-run transportation. That conclusion is not wild conspiracy theory, but simply the logical manifestation of many of the Obama administration's earlier campaign promises. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu — now responsible for American energy policy — summed up his visions to the Wall Street Journal in 2008: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." I think Chu is finally figuring out the "somehow." A year earlier, Chu was more explicit in his general contempt for the sort of fuels that now keep Americans warm and on the road: "Coal is my worst nightmare. ... We have lots of fossil fuel. That's really both good and bad news. We won't run out of energy but there's enough carbon in the ground to really cook us." In fairness to Chu, he was only amplifying what Obama himself outlined during the 2008 campaign. Today's soaring energy prices are exactly what candidate Obama once dreamed about: "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Obama, like Chu, made that dream even more explicit in the case of coal. "So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." There are lots of ironies to these "Alice in Wonderland" energy fantasies. As the public become outraged over gas prices, a panicked Obama pivots to brag that we are pumping more oil than ever before — but only for a time, and only because his predecessors approved the type of drilling he has stopped. The entire climate-change movement, fairly or not, is now in shambles, thanks to serial scandals about faked research, record cold and wet winters in much of Europe and the U.S., and the conflict-of-interest, get-rich schemes of prominent global-warming preachers such as Al Gore. The administration's energy visions are forged by academics and government bureaucrats who live mostly in cities with short commutes and have worked largely for public agencies. These utopians have no idea that without reasonably priced fuel and power, the self-employed farmer cannot produce food. The private plant operator can't create plastics. And the trucker cannot bring goods to the consumer — all the basics like lettuce, iPads and Levis that a highly educated, urbanized elite both enjoys and yet has no idea of how a distant someone else made their unbridled consumption possible ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8)Yemen in Crisis: A Special Report Yemeni anti-government protesters face off March 13 with security forces and regime loyalists in Sanaa Related Special Topic Page Middle East Unrest: Full Coverage A crisis in Yemen is rapidly escalating. A standoff centered on the presidential palace is taking place between security forces in the capital city of Sanaa while embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh continues to resist stepping down, claiming that the “majority of Yemeni people” support him. While a Western-led military intervention in Libya is dominating the headlines, the crisis in Yemen and its implications for Persian Gulf stability is of greater strategic consequence. Saudi Arabia is already facing the threat of an Iranian destabilization campaign in eastern Arabia and has deployed forces to Bahrain in an effort to prevent Shiite unrest from spreading. With a second front now threatening the Saudi underbelly, the situation in Yemen is becoming one that the Saudis can no longer leave on the backburner. The turning point in Yemen occurred March 18 after Friday prayers, when tens of thousands of protesters in the streets calling for Saleh’s ouster came under a heavy crackdown that reportedly left some 46 people dead and hundreds wounded. It is unclear whether the shootings were ordered by Saleh himself, orchestrated by a member of the Yemeni defense establishment to facilitate Saleh’s political exit or simply provoked by tensions in the streets, but it does not really matter. Scores of defections from the ruling party, the prominent Hashid tribe in the north and military old guard followed the March 18 events, both putting Saleh at risk of being removed in a coup and putting the already deeply fractious country at risk of a civil war. The Army Splits But the situation in Yemen is also not a replica of the crisis in Egypt, which was not so much a revolution as it was a very carefully managed succession by the country’s armed forces. In Egypt, the armed forces maintained their independence from the unpopular Mubarak regime, thereby providing the armed forces with the unity in command and effort in using the street demonstrations to quietly oust Mubarak. In Yemen, a tribal society at its core, Saleh insured himself by stacking the security apparatus with members of his family and Sanhan tribal village. For example: Gen. Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president’s son, is the commander of the Republican Guard and Yemeni special operations forces. The president originally had planned to have his son succeed him. Gen. Yahya Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, commander of the Central Security Forces and Counterterrorism Unit, is Saleh’s nephew. Col. Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, commander of the Presidential Guard, is Saleh’s nephew. Col. Ammar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, commander of the National Security Bureau, is Saleh’s nephew. Brig. Gen. Mohamed Saleh al-Ahmar, commander of the air force, is Saleh’s half-brother. Brig. Gen. Ali Saleh al-Ahmar, chief of staff of the general command, is Saleh’s half-brother. Brig. Gen. Mehdi Makwala, commander of the southern military zone in Aden, is a Hashid tribesman from Saleh’s village, Sanhan. Brig. Gen. Mohammed Ali Mohsen, commander of the Eastern Military Zone in Hadramawt, is a Hashid tribesman from Sanhan. However, Saleh cannot rely on the support of all of his relatives. The biggest threat to Saleh within the military apparatus comes from Brig. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Saleh’s half brother, commander of the first armored brigade and commander of the northwestern military zone. Mohsen is an influential member of Yemen’s old guard and initiated a fresh wave of defections when he announced March 21 that he is joining the people’s revolution and deployed an armored formation to protect the protesters. Armored vehicles under Mohsen’s command are now reportedly surrounding the presidential palace, where Republican Guard units under the command of Saleh’s son, Ahmed, have already taken up defensive positions. The potential for clashes between pro and now anti-Saleh security forces is escalating. Mohsen may be positioning himself for Saleh’s political exit, but he is unlikely to be a welcome replacement from the U.S. point of view. Ali Mohsen is considered a veteran of the Islamist old guard, who earned its claim to fame during the 1994 civil war, when Saleh relied on Islamists to defeat the more secular and formerly Marxist south. The infusion of jihadists and jihadist sympathizers throughout the Yemeni security apparatus — a critical factor that has compounded counterterrorism efforts in the country — is a product of the Mohsen legacy. Following Mohsen’s defection and a crisis meeting among senior Yemen defense officials March 21, Yemeni Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammad Nasser Ali asserted that the army would continue to stand behind Saleh and thwart any attempted coups threatening Saleh’s legitimacy. The Yemeni defense minister does not speak for the entire army, however, particularly those forces under the command of Mohsen deploying in the capital city. Tribal Opportunism If the army is the first pillar underpinning Saleh’s regime, the second pillar is the tribe. Yemen, much like Libya, is divided along tribal lines, particularly in the north of the country. Though Saleh understands the power of the tribe and has made a concerted effort to maintain his tribal alliances, his biggest threat within Yemen’s tribal landscape comes from Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar, one of the sons to the late Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, who ruled the Hashid confederation as the most powerful tribal chieftain in the country. Hamid is a wealthy businessman and a leader of the conservative Islah party that leads the Joint Meetings Party (JMP) opposition coalition. He has obvious political aspirations to become the next leader of Yemen and sees the current uprising as his chance to bring Saleh down. In fact, the first wave of resignations from within the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party could be traced back to the al-Ahmar family tree, as relatives and allies were called on to raise the pressure against Saleh. Still, there are significant arrestors to Hamid’s political rise. The al-Ahmars, while powerful and wealthy, do not speak for the entire Hashid confederation. Many members of both the Hashid and Bakil tribes have said as much publicly. Tribal sheikhs within the Bakil are especially wary of seeing an archrival Hashid leader assume control of Sanaa. In short, Saleh and his remaining loyalists still have some room to maneuver in playing tribal loyalties off each other to preserve his regime, but that room is narrowing. The Saudi Vote Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi is reportedly en route to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to deliver a “Presidential Letter” to the Saudi monarch. In this letter, Saleh is likely asking for Saudi support for his regime, making the case that his downfall will lead to a fracturing of the country and greater instability for the Arabian Peninsula overall. Saudi support for Saleh is nowhere near assured, however. Yemen has long had to contend with the fact that Saudi Arabia has the money, influence and tribal links to directly shape Yemeni politics according to its interests. The Saudis view Yemen as a subordinate power on the heel of the Arabian Peninsula, one that (if partitioned in a civil war) could potentially provide Riyadh with direct access to the Arabian Sea, but that if left to fragment, could also spread instability into the Saudi kingdom. The Saudis have thus relied primarily on their tribal links in the country to maintain influence and keep a lid on unrest, thereby keeping the central government in Sanaa weak and dependent on Riyadh for most of its policies. Given Saudi Arabia’s heavy influence in Yemen, the Saudi view on the situation in Yemen serves as a vital indicator of Saleh’s staying power. More specifically, defections or pledges of support by Yemeni tribal leaders on the Saudi payroll can provide clues on the current Saudi mood toward Yemen. The al-Ahmar family, for example, has extremely close ties to the Saudi royals, and Hamid al-Ahmar has made a point in his recent interviews to praise the Saudis and highlight that he has been traveling between Saudi Arabia and Yemen in recent weeks. At the same time, a number of other prominent tribes close to the Saudis continue to stand by Saleh. Throughout much of Yemen’s crisis, the Saudis did not show signs of abandoning Saleh, but they were not fully backing him, either. This is likely a reflection of internal Saudi differences as well as limited Saudi resources to deal effectively with Yemen at this point in time. The three Saudi royals who deal most closely with Yemen affairs are King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan and Interior Minister and Second Deputy Prime Minister Prince Naif. Prince Naif and Crown Prince Sultan have had a very rocky relationship with Saleh and would most likely be amenable to his ouster, while King Abdullah (whose clan rivals the Sudeiri clan, to which Crown Prince Sultan and Prince Naif both belong) has maintained a closer relationship with the Yemeni president. The three often disagree on various facets of Saudi Arabia’s policy toward Yemen. At the same time, the Saudi government has its hands full in dealing with Iran, preventing it from devoting considerable attention to Yemen’s political crisis. Using Bahrain as a flashpoint for sectarian unrest, Iran has been fueling a destabilization campaign throughout eastern Arabia designed to undermine its U.S.-allied Sunni Arab rivals. Yemen, while ranking much lower on a strategic level than Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, also is not immune to Iran’s agenda. In the northern Yemeni province of Saada, the Yemeni state has struggled to suppress a rebellion by al-Houthis of the Zaydi sect, considered an offshoot of Shiite Islam and heretical by Wahhabi standards. Riyadh fears al-Houthi unrest in Yemen’s north will stir unrest in Saudi Arabia’s southern provinces of Najran and Jizan, which are home to the Ismailis (also an offshoot of Shiite Islam). Ismaili unrest in the south could then embolden Shia in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, who have already been carrying out demonstrations against the Saudi monarchy with Iranian backing. (click image to enlarge) When Saudi Arabia deployed troops in the al-Houthi-Ismaili borderland between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in late 2009, STRATFOR picked up indications that the al-Houthis were receiving some support from Iran, albeit nothing that was considered a game-changer in the rebellion. With unrest spreading throughout eastern Arabia and the Yemeni state falling into a deepening political crisis, the Saudis now have to worry about Iran exploiting a second front through Yemen to threaten the Saudi underbelly. This is in addition to all the other “usual” security issues afflicting Yemen, most notably the threat posed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which uses Yemen as a staging ground for attempts at more strategic attacks in the Saudi kingdom. With distractions mounting in the region and Saleh still counting on a large network of familial and tribal ties to hold on to power, Saudi Arabia does not appear to have formed a coherent policy on its southern neighbor. This likely explains quiet complaints by Yemeni officials that they have been getting mixed signals from the Saudi kingdom in dealing with the current crisis. Now that the situation in Yemen has reached a tipping point, the Saudis will have to make a call on Yemen. Both Mohsen and the Al Ahmar family have a close relationship with the Saudis. The Saudi plan for Yemen is still likely being worked out, but any contingency involving a prominent political space for an Islamist like Mohsen is cause for concern for countries like the United States. Though speculation has arisen over a possible Saudi military intervention in Yemen, the likelihood of such a scenario is low. The Saudi royals are unlikely to fend for Saleh at this stage, and even if they did, they would face enormous difficulty in maintaining lines of supply to its southern neighbor to quell swelling unrest in the country when the army and tribal landscape are already split. Yemen may border Saudi Arabia, but the geography of this part of the Arabian Peninsula poses logistical challenges far greater than what exists between eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Even if Riyadh decided it wanted to deploy its armed forces to protect Saleh, it would not be as simple as sending troops across a causeway into Sanaa. Saleh in a Regional Context Saleh is no doubt a political victim of the current wave of Middle East unrest and faces tougher days ahead in trying to maintain control. But he also finds himself in a very different situation from than Mubarak’s Egypt or Ben Ali’s Tunisia. Both Egypt and Tunisia had institutions, most critically the armed forces, able to stand apart from their unpopular leaders and sacrifice them at the appropriate time. Though Mubarak and Ben Ali had built patronage networks throughout the countries’ ruling parties and business sectors, their family names were not entrenched in the security apparatus, as is Saleh’s. In some ways, Saleh’s case is more akin to that of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who presides over a tribal society split along an east-west axis like Yemen’s north-south axis. Though Yemen is more advanced politically and institutionally than Libya, both Gadhafi and Saleh have insulated their regimes by deliberately preventing the development of alternative bases of power, relying mostly on complex tribal alliances and militaries commanded by nepotism to rule. Such regimes take decades to build and an iron fist to maintain, making the removal of a single leader typically more trouble than it is worth. Though the system has worked for more than three decades for Saleh, the president’s carefully managed support network is now rapidly eroding. Saudi Arabia is now being force to make a tough call on the future of Yemen at a time when Riyadh cannot afford another crisis in the Persian Gulf region ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9) A short time ago, Arab speakers at the U.N. urged the Arab World to boycott everything that originates with the Jewish people. In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, offered to assist them : "Any Arab who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If an Arab suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner. An Arab who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube. If an Arab has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If an Arab has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. Arabs with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate. Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Should an Arab chilld get Diptheria, he must refrain from the "Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick. Arabs should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk. Arabs must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease. Arab doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts. In short, good and loyal Arabs should properly and fittingly remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio, Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10)Richard Goldstone Recants a Blood Libel By Martin Peretz The Goldstone Report gave the imprimatur of the UN to a blood libel against the Jewish state The editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic has a few choice words for a despicable "jurist" and those Members of the Tribe, on the Left, who were more than thrilled to blindly celebrate his so-called courage TEL AVIV — The scholarly texts of the Jews argue that “even though a Jew has sinned”—which in this context means sinned against his own—“he remains in Jewry.” We can leave it for the Lord Almighty to decide whether Richard Goldstone remains among His chosen. Still, whether the judge can worship with members of the congregation, as he was finally permitted to do at his grandson’s bar mitzvah last spring, remains in the hands of those who’d have to pray with him. If I were them, I would not allow him. Not for one moment. Let him pray with the Hamas Islamists who he believed or pretended to believe in his famous Gaza war crimes report would, like Israel has done, “investigate, transparently and in good faith,” the charges made against them. Goldstone is crystal clear in his Washington Post disavowal of the report’s accusations of intentional killing by Israel of non-Hamas Palestinians: “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” On the other hand, Hamas’s rockets “were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.” Here is the judge’s pathetic confession: “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” But why didn’t Goldstone and his fellow judges know? Well, for one thing, two of his three companions on the U.N. Human Rights Council judicial panel on Gaza, Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics and Hila Jilanu, a Pakistani jurist, had already condemned Israel even before the hanging court had been formed. And Richard Falk, the Council’s designated rapporteur on Israel, has been nothing less than an enemy of the Jewish state for decades. You don’t believe me? All you have to do is google Falk and Israel. There’ll be no surprises. Anyway, the Council endorsed the report by a margin of 25 to 6. Were you surprised by this one? It took The New York Times fully two days to publish anything in print (and, by the way, only on an inside page) about Goldstone’s sudden repudiation of his work. (Up to a few weeks ago he was peddling his old wares to anyone who would buy.) Is this the Times’s way of saying that such a recantation really has little meaning? But, of course, it is not only the Times which is allergic to admitting the falsehoods to which it gave currency and gave that currency altogether without scrutiny. Goldstone’s report and his reputation (a drastically scrubbed-up reputation if you haven’t researched his years as an apartheid judge) have since September 2009 become the poison gas with which the whole Israeli-Palestinian dispute has been made rancid and fiendishly immune to facts, let alone to the truth. The lopsidedness of the voting in international institutions speaks neither to the alleged depravity of Israel nor to the justice of the immoveable ultimata made by the Abbas regime. It reflects a widespread contempt in the world for the Jews—for their intrinsic peoplehood and their achievements, embodied in the State of Israel, in modern nation-building and daring renewal. Believe me: I do not gloat. Still, the comparison between pluralistic Zion and the deteriorating state of just about each and every Arab society, now on display in rancor and in blood, could have, should have evoked some identification with Israel’s cause. It will not, and not least because the very structure of global power is based in and has been routinized by illegitimate authority. It is gangster dictators who decide what will fly in the United Nations. More that that: These tyrants have been succored by the European and other democratic powers, to say nothing of the gargantuan dictatorships of People’s China and Russia. Recall to mind the photograph of the Western diplomats meeting in London to decide on what to do about Libya at arms. Each of them (representatives of the United Kingdom, the United States, and France, for example) had done dirty work—no, really filthy work—for the mad tyrant and they were now negotiating with his sons. Israel apparently will try to get the General Assembly to recant its endorsement of the Goldstone verdict on the Jewish crimes in Gaza. After all, the judge himself has recanted. Es vet helfn vi a toit’n bankes, my mother used to say: “It will help like hot suction cups will help a dead man.” Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic made the point early on after the judge confessed to his sins: “a blood libel, hard to retract once it’s been broadcast around the world.” Maybe Washington, which voted against the report, will take the leadership role on this. The president, the secretary of state, and the American ambassador to the U.N. have, it bears remembering, argued that our presence at the Human Rights Council can make a difference. Will Obama even try? It would mean, of course, that another one of his exemplary lessons in creative engagement will collapse. There should be many shamed faces in the crowd. The foreign high priest of the Palestinian cause is Desmond Tutu who, like his rival Jimmy Carter, finds no charge against Israel too preposterous to leave to, well, the gagasphere. But they have neither been heard from on Goldstone nor explained their silence. The Financial Times, which is the most consistent and hyperbolic critic of Israel in the United Kingdom, initially went bananas in praise of the Goldstone Report. It has not been heard from since the jurist’s own mea culpa. The human rights organizations? Ditto. Stephen Walt, Juan Cole, John Esposito, Naomi Klein, Michael Lerner, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, J-Street, which peddled the report door-to-door on Capitol Hill. Here’s my projection: Not a one of them will come clean. As is the case with the Israeli “peace left.” Not Peace Now, not the New Israel Fund, not B’tselem, not Agudah Lezchuyot Haezrch. And not Ha’aretz, either. They have made pacts with the devil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11)Why I Won't Vote to Raise the Debt Limit Everyone in Washington knows how to cut spending. The time to start is now. By MARCO RUBIO Americans have built the single greatest nation in all of human history. But America's exceptionalism was not preordained. Every generation has had to confront and solve serious challenges and, because they did, each has left the next better off. Until now. Our generation's greatest challenge is an economy that isn't growing, alongside a national debt that is. If we fail to confront this, our children will be the first Americans ever to inherit a country worse off than the one their parents were given. Current federal policies make it harder for job creators to start and grow businesses. Taxes on individuals are complicated and set to rise in less than two years. Corporate taxes will soon be the highest in the industrialized world. Federal agencies torment job creators with an endless string of rules and regulations. On top of all this, we have an unsustainable national debt. Leaders of both parties have grown our government for decades by spending money we didn't have. To pay for it, they borrowed $4 billion a day, leaving us with today's $14 trillion debt. Half of that debt is held by foreign investors, mostly China. And there is no plan to stop. In fact, President Obama's latest budget request spends more than $46 trillion over the next decade. Under this plan, public debt will equal 87% of our economy in less than 10 years. This will scare away job creators and lead to higher taxes, higher interest rates and greater inflation. Betting on America used to be a sure thing, but job creators see the warning signs that our leaders ignore. Even the world's largest bond fund, PIMCO, recently dumped its holdings of U.S. debt. We're therefore at a defining moment in American history. In a few weeks, we will once again reach our legal limit for borrowing, the so-called debt ceiling. The president and others want to raise this limit. They say it is the mature, responsible thing to do. In fact, it's nothing more than putting off the tough decisions until after the next election. We cannot afford to continue waiting. This may be our last chance to force Washington to tackle the central economic issue of our time. "Raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure." So said then-Sen. Obama in 2006, when he voted against raising the debt ceiling by less than $800 billion to a new limit of $8.965 trillion. As America's debt now approaches its current $14.29 trillion limit, we are witnessing leadership failure of epic proportions. I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 
There is still time to accomplish all this. Rep. Dave Camp has already introduced proposals to lower and simplify our tax rates, close loopholes, and make permanent low rates on capital gains and dividends. Even Mr. Obama has endorsed the idea of lowering our corporate tax rate. Sen. Rand Paul, meanwhile, has a bill that would require an up-or-down vote on "major" regulations, those that cost the economy $100 million or more. And the House has already passed a spending plan this year that lowered discretionary spending by $862 billion over 10 years. Such reductions are important, but nondefense discretionary spending is a mere 19% of the budget. Focusing on this alone would lead to draconian cuts to essential and legitimate programs. To get our debt under control, we must reform and save our entitlement programs. No changes should be made to Medicare and Social Security for people who are currently in the system, like my mother. But people decades away from retirement, like me, must accept that reforms are necessary if we want Social Security and Medicare to exist at all by the time we are eligible for them. Finally, instead of simply raising the debt limit, we should reassure job creators by setting a firm statutory cap on our public debt-to-GDP ratio. A comprehensive plan would wind down our debt to sustainable levels of approximately 60% within a decade and no more than half of the economy shortly thereafter. If Congress fails to meet these debt targets, automatic across-the-board spending reductions should be triggered to close the gap. These public debt caps could go in tandem with a Constitutional balanced budget amendment. Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis. I know that by writing this, I am inviting political attack. When I proposed reforms to Social Security during my campaign, my opponent spent millions on attack ads designed to frighten seniors. But demagoguery is the last refuge of the spineless politician willing to do anything to win the next election. Whether they admit it or not, everyone in Washington knows how to solve these problems. What is missing is the political will to do it. I ran for the U.S. Senate because I want my children to inherit what I inherited: the greatest nation in human history. It's not too late. The 21st century can also be the American Century. Our people are ready. Now it's time for their leaders to join them. Mr. Rubio, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Florida. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is still time to accomplish all this. Rep. Dave Camp has already introduced proposals to lower and simplify our tax rates, close loopholes, and make permanent low rates on capital gains and dividends. Even Mr. Obama has endorsed the idea of lowering our corporate tax rate. Sen. Rand Paul, meanwhile, has a bill that would require an up-or-down vote on "major" regulations, those that cost the economy $100 million or more. And the House has already passed a spending plan this year that lowered discretionary spending by $862 billion over 10 years. Such reductions are important, but nondefense discretionary spending is a mere 19% of the budget. Focusing on this alone would lead to draconian cuts to essential and legitimate programs. To get our debt under control, we must reform and save our entitlement programs. No changes should be made to Medicare and Social Security for people who are currently in the system, like my mother. But people decades away from retirement, like me, must accept that reforms are necessary if we want Social Security and Medicare to exist at all by the time we are eligible for them. Finally, instead of simply raising the debt limit, we should reassure job creators by setting a firm statutory cap on our public debt-to-GDP ratio. A comprehensive plan would wind down our debt to sustainable levels of approximately 60% within a decade and no more than half of the economy shortly thereafter. If Congress fails to meet these debt targets, automatic across-the-board spending reductions should be triggered to close the gap. These public debt caps could go in tandem with a Constitutional balanced budget amendment. Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis. I know that by writing this, I am inviting political attack. When I proposed reforms to Social Security during my campaign, my opponent spent millions on attack ads designed to frighten seniors. But demagoguery is the last refuge of the spineless politician willing to do anything to win the next election. Whether they admit it or not, everyone in Washington knows how to solve these problems. What is missing is the political will to do it. I ran for the U.S. Senate because I want my children to inherit what I inherited: the greatest nation in human history. It's not too late. The 21st century can also be the American Century. Our people are ready. Now it's time for their leaders to join them. Mr. Rubio, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Florida. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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