We also are extremely fond of Andy, his Cheyenne girlfriend, who is now completing her studies for her BA.
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My friend Avi describes what Obama is doing regarding Iran. (See 1 below.)
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When humor and comedians were classics https://www.youtube.com/watch_
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Now even my friend Toameh is after Kerry. (See 2 below.)
Rockets from Gaza continue. What say Kerry? (See 2a below.)
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Henninger weighs in on the Obama obfuscations and lies which are getting to be commonplace. This one pertains to the IRS shakedown. (See 3 below.)
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Do we appreciate the significance of our institutions? (See 4 below.)
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When Sam Nunn was a Senator, I actively supported him and on two occasions urged him to run for the presidency. I offered to work for him at no pay for six months and then said I would return to my career on Wall Street. Sam thanked me but demurred because he neither had the fire in his belly nor thought he had the sex appeal or charisma.
Now Sam's daughter, Michelle, is seeking the seat Sen. Chambliss is vacating. I have never met Michelle but am sure she is a lovely and honorable person. However, I am not going to support her because a vote for her is a vote for Harry Reid and Harry Reid is an autocratic disaster. In fact his single handed dictatorial management of The Senate has made it a branch of government that suffers from political constipation.
Another reason I am not going to support Ms. Nunn is because we already elected a community organizer president and we know how that has turned out.
Rather, I am actively supporting Jack Kingston who served our First District well for 20 years. Jack is intelligent, like Michelle, honorable but unlike her, is experienced. He has served on some of the most important House Committees,, built a very pro-constituent organization and has earned the opportunity to elevate his influence. Furthermore, I know where Jack stands on critical issues.
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I am actively supporting
Dick
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1The Iranian Kabuki dance
by Avi Jorisch
Al-Arabiya
Al-Arabiya
)Starting next Monday, Iran will formally implement an interim agreement with the West. President Rohani has described the accord as the world "bowing to Iran's might, power and resistance." The Islamic Republic has agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities for six months in return for what has been called "modest" relief from the crippling international sanctions imposed for most of the last decade. But the West, by rolling back the sanctions regime, has given Tehran an opportunity to reinvigorate its economic and diplomatic ties with the rest of the world, and Western countries have eagerly exploited the opening to do business with Iran. Re-legitimizing business as usual before Iran makes any significant concessions on its nuclear program not only sends the wrong message, but impairs the West's ability to negotiate effectively.
Iran has made a full court press to rehabilitate its economy following the relaxing of sanctions. In the last six weeks, Tehran has been working its charm offensive, principally with Europe, but also with Japan, Turkey and Azerbaijan. In addition, it has begun rebuilding the critical infrastructure necessary to transact global business, including in the banking and energy sectors.
According to the White House briefing on the agreement, Iran will be offered about $7 billion in sanctions relief, including access to $4.2 billion in frozen oil revenue. But while most policymakers have focused on the relatively small amount of money this supposedly represents, it is actually the renewed banking and business infrastructure that requires attention. It took years to implement an effective sanctions regime, and that effort is now eroding quickly – despite U.S. claims to the contrary. Should Iran decide to drag out the negotiations or leave them all together, it would be extremely challenging to reinstitute the sanctions because of the length of time required.
Iran was forced to negotiate largely because of the sanctions, as over 80 financial institutions around the globe cut off ties or significantly reduced their relationship with it. Major international banks stopped supplying financial services to Iran, which significantly curtailed its ability to transact global business. According to Ali Majedi, Iran's deputy oil minister for international and commercial affairs, as a result of the agreement, the Islamic Republic will regain access to several global banks to handle payments for its crude exports and other commodities. Undoubtedly, other financial institutions will wish to follow suit.
Until recently, oil companies were forced to turn their backs on Iran's energy giant, largely due to U.S. policy and Congressional legislation. But Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Iran's oil minister, met this month with the heads of European companies like Vitol Group, Eni SpA, OMV AG and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Furthermore, according to Daniel Bernbeck, head of the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other U.S. companies have already come to Tehran to explore business opportunities.
For years, European and Asian legislators treated Iran as a pariah and attempted to isolate the regime. Yet a European Parliament delegation arrived in Tehran in December, the first EU legislative institution to visit the country in over six years. Just last week, a four-member parliamentary delegation from the UK, led by former foreign secretary Jack Straw and former chancellor of the exchequer Lord Lamont, traveled to Iran to meet with members of the Majlis and invite them to the UK. Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino visited Tehran last month to work on a "plan of exchanges and cooperation," and not just in the energy sector.
Hiroyuki Ishige, chairman of Japan's External Trade Organization, visited Tehran in December to discuss expanding bilateral ties and floated a plan to form a joint committee to promote trade. In addition, Turkey and Iran are now expected to significantly ramp up their bilateral ties through a high-level Cooperation Council, intended to "fast track cooperation and cut the red tape in bureaucracies." The two are also considering a joint cabinet meeting.
Predictably, negotiations until now stalled because of problems over Iran's advanced centrifuge research. Policymakers should pay very close attention to these devices that purify uranium: at low levels, they can create fuel in atomic power plants, but at high levels, they can be turned into nuclear weapons. According to diplomatic insiders, Iran is pressing ahead with development of very advanced centrifuges, a worrisome sign indeed.
In the 1960s, a new term came into the American lexicon following U.S.-Japanese negotiations that lasted over 25 years: the Kabuki dance, now synonymous with political posturing. The international community should cut the disco party short and determine whether Iran plans to shut down its nuclear program or continue marching towards the bomb. To prove it has truly dropped its nuclear ambitions, Iran must stop its centrifuges, shut down the Arak plutonium reactor and transfer its uranium and plutonium stockpiles out of the country.
U.S. and international lawmakers should continue promoting legislative efforts such as the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act, currently being considered by Congress, which would place sanctions on Iran if it does not agree to acomprehensive deal later this year or next. The intelligence community should use signal and human intelligence and satellite imagery to verify Iranian claims, which will likely become more challenging because of political interests if the negotiations drag out.
The international community must take decisive steps to ensure Iran does not get the bomb. Only by keeping sanctions and a credible military threat on the table will the West show Iran that its actions have consequences.
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2)Kerry's Peace Process Double Standards
Khaled Abu Toameh - Gatestone Institute
The U.S. Administration has reacted quickly and strongly to statements attributed to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon. Ya'alon was quoted by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot as describing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as “messianic and obsessive.”
In response, the U.S. condemned Ya'alon's comments as “offensive and inappropriate.”
Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon greets U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Israel, May 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Department)
But while the U.S. Administration has been quick in issuing a response to the Israeli minister's statements, it continues to ignore remarks and demonstrations against Kerry made by Palestinians and other Arabs.
Palestinian officials representing various organizations, including the Palestinian Authority, have been denouncing Kerry almost on a daily basis over the past few weeks. But these condemnations do not seem to bother the State Department.
Among the officials who have been extremely critical of Kerry's role in the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO's Secretary-General and one of the closest advisors to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Just last month, Abed Rabbo launched a scathing attack on Kerry, denouncing his latest proposals as unacceptable. “Kerry does not have the right to decide where our borders will be,” the top PLO official said. “If the U.S. wants, it can give parts of California or Washington to Israel. Kerry's framework agreement is very dangerous.”
Abed Rabbo has also accused Kerry of seeking to “appease Israel by fulfilling its expansionist demands in the Jordan Valley under the pretext of security. He wants to buy Israeli silence over the Iran deal (with the six big powers).”
Palestinian officials have also been leaking details about Kerry's latest proposals for reaching an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Some have gone as far as accusing Kerry of being biased in favor of Israel, working toward “liquidating” the Palestinian cause and trying to extort the Palestinians.
Tayseer Khaled, member of the PLO Executive Committee, was recently quoted as accusing Kerry of trying to extort the Palestinians politically. Khaled's allegations have since been repeated by other Palestinians.
In addition, anti-Kerry demonstrations have become a common phenomenon in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At some of these protests, Kerry is often condemned as a pawn in the hands of Israel.
At another protest in Ramallah, Palestinians chanted, “Oh Kerry, you coward, you have no room in Palestine.”
In Bethlehem several weeks ago, Palestinians took to the streets to protest against Kerry's visit to the city. And when President Barack Obama visited Bethlehem last year, Palestinians hurled shoes at his portrait and chanted, and set fire to his photograph.
Anti-Kerry protests have also taken place in Egypt and Jordan, where protesters also torched his portrait and declared him persona non grata.
Why, then, Kerry is not just as offended by the Arab condemnations?
It is interesting to see how one comment from an Israeli minister has managed to strain relations between the U.S. Administration and Israel, while fiery rhetoric and street demonstrations against Kerry and Obama in the Palestinian territories and Arab capitals are completely ignored by Washington. If Kerry really cares about the peace process, he also needs to ask the Palestinian Authority and Arab governments to lower the tone and stop inciting against him and the U.S. Unless, of course, those statements and protests do not offend him.
2a)
Iron Dome downs five rockets headed for Ashkelon
Yoel Goldman
The Iron Dome missile defense system in action, November 15, 2012(photo credit: Uri Lenz/Flash90)
The Iron Dome missile defense system shot down five rockets that were fired from the Gaza Strip in the direction of Ashkelon overnight Wednesday.
Three additional rockets landed in open areas outside the southern Israeli city. No injuries or damage were reported.
In response to the late-night barrage, the Israeli Air Force conducted airstrikes on four sites in northern Gaza, including a hidden rocket launcher, a weapons storage site and a weapons manufacturing facility. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit reported direct hits on all targets.
“The IDF response was precise, swift and efficient in eliminating terror capabilities that only exist in order to terrorize, kill and maim Israelis,” read a statement by Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who later linked to footage of Iron Dome intercepting the rockets:
Palestinian medical sources cited by Ynet said a woman and four children were injured as a result of the strikes.
Warning sirens wailed in Ashkelon shortly before 2 a.m. local time, alerting residents to quickly find shelter.
Southern Israeli cities in proximity to Gaza were the targets of constant rocket fire for years before Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Rocket fire from the Strip was reduced dramatically following the 8-day Israeli military campaign.
On Monday, two rockets were fired from Gaza at the western Negev just as the funeral of former prime minister Ariel Sharon was finishing. The rockets fell in an open area near the border fence, in the Sha’ar Hanegev regional council.
There were no injuries or damage reported.
Security officials had expressed concerns that Gaza militants might target the Sharon funeral, and the military moved Iron Dome batteries to the area in order to protect the high-profile event.
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3) Chris Christie Is an Amateur
The left's political methods make Gov. Christie look like Little Bo Peep.
By Daniel Henninger
There haven't been so many reporters chasing a story in Trenton, N.J., since Washington crossed the Delaware. But compared with the methods the Democratic Party is using now to take down its opponents, Chris Christie looks like Little Bo Peep.
Gov. Christie's hyper-political aides ordered traffic jams in neighborhoods near the perpetually backed-up George Washington Bridge to annoy the mayor of Fort Lee. And they may have canceled meetings with the mayor of Jersey City because he wouldn't endorse Mr. Christie. Oh my.
The Christie bonfire has burned for a week. In that same week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI found nothing in the IRS's targeting of conservative political groups that warrants criminal charges.
This conclusion struck lawyers Jay Sekulow and Cleta Mitchell as fairly amazing. Both represent conservative groups targeted by the IRS, and they say the FBI only recently got in touch with a few of their clients.
The Internal Revenue Service building at the Federal Triangle complex in Washington. Associated Press
Thus, two of the most powerful public institutions in the U.S.—the FBI and the IRS—have concluded no harm, no foul, and the memory hole swallows the Obama administration's successful kneecapping of the GOP's most active members just as they prepared to participate in the 2012 presidential campaign. Many—ruined or terrified by the IRS probes—shut down. Mr. Obama won.
One may be thankful that corners of the U.S. judiciary remain intact and unintimidated. Late last week, a judge in Wisconsin slowed down what was essentially a Democratic prosecutor's star-chamber investigation of conservative groups that supported Republican Gov. Scott Walker. A special prosecutor armed with subpoena power had been poring over the groups' finances, while a gag order stopped the groups from saying they were his targets.
On Friday, a court quashed some of the subpoenas for lack of probable cause. That's good, but don't expect to see Friends of Scott Walker going on offense any time soon. Legal pistol-whippings by state prosecutors can have that effect, win or lose.
Worth noting is what the IRS's political audits and the attempted takedown of the pro-Walker groups have in common: Both took place essentially out of public view.
An event like Chris Christie's traffic jam is the Internet's version of bread and circuses. What the Democrats' left-wing activists have learned is that most of the time the Web's political media beasts are sleeping. It's most opportune during those periods of non-attention to use modern media technology not just to hit one's opponents, but to drive them from politics.
Ask ALEC.
ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-of-center group of state legislators who gather to compare notes on public-policy issues. The group's ultimate goal is to create templates for bills to enact their policy ideas, such as reforming state public-pension obligations.
Because this process gets laws passed, the left has created organizations whose job is to take down ALEC by frightening its financial supporters.
In December, articles appeared on progressive websites attacking Google,GOOG +0.77% Facebook FB -0.10% and Yelp for participating in ALEC's annual conference last year. The Web giants wanted to explore various Internet legal issues with the state legislators.
A coalition that included the Sierra Club, RootsAction and the Center for Media and Democracy said it outputted 230,000 petition signatures in a "Don't Fund Evil" drive to separate Google from "right-wing extremists" at ALEC, whose sin is "climate denial." The Sierra Club's site says Kraft, GE and McDonald's MCD +0.56% pulled away from ALEC in the past under pressure. To date, none of the Web companies have done so.
In coverage of the effort on a FastCompany website, one activist remarked: "It's definitely a reputational risk for these forward-looking companies like Google and Facebook and Yelp to keep their membership in ALEC."
Reputational risk? That's right.
In 2012, when ALEC got caught up in the controversy over the Trayvon Martin shooting and stand-your-ground laws, progressives saw a chance to brand the legislative group's corporate supporters as anti-black.
Here's the audio transcript of a radio ad created by ColorOfChange about CVSCVS -0.50% pharmacies, which supported ALEC: "CVS, when you hear that name, do you think of the law that protected Trayvon Martin's killer? Or laws that suppress the black vote." The ad never ran. But copies of the ad were mailed to CVS, John Deere, HP,Walgreens, WAG +0.80% Best Buy, BBY -28.05% BP and a dozen others. All disassociated from ALEC.
This is the Democratic left's modus operandi. In early December, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) sent a letter to the heads of J.P. Morgan, JPM -0.87% Bank of America,BAC -0.70% Goldman Sachs, GS -2.04% Citigroup, C -3.98% Wells FargoWFC -0.17% and Morgan Stanley, MS -1.09% asking them to reveal any contributions to "private think tanks." Her goal, she said, was "transparency."
No, the purpose is to surface any such association so the cadres can move in and use the Web, mass Twitter TWTR +0.40% feeds, shareholder resolutions and media campaigns to drive private companies out of the political arena, leaving politics in the control of public-sector interests—i.e., the state rules.
Threatening companies that participate in politics with reputational destruction is the American left's version of Maoist shaming sessions. Modern Red Guards don't hang signs around your neck. Their weapon of choice is modern media. In this league, a political traffic jam is the work of amateurs.
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4)Elections Don't Matter, Institutions Do
Many years ago, I visited Four Corners in the American Southwest. This is a small stone monument on a polished metal platform where four states meet. You can walk around the monument in the space of a few seconds and stand in four states: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. People lined up to do this and have their pictures taken by excited relatives. To walk around the monument is indeed a thrill, because each of these four states has a richly developed tradition and identity that gives these borders real meaning. And yet no passports or customs police are required to go from one state to the other.
Well, of course that's true, they're only states, not countries, you might say. But the fact that my observation is a dull commonplace doesn't make it any less amazing. To be sure, it makes it more amazing. For as the late Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington once remarked, the genius of the American system lies less in its democracy per se than in its institutions. The federal and state system featuring 50 separate identities and bureaucracies, each with definitive land borders -- that nevertheless do not conflict with each other -- is unique in political history. And this is not to mention the thousands of counties and municipalities in America with their own sovereign jurisdictions. Many of the countries I have covered as a reporter in the troubled and war-torn developing world would be envious of such an original institutional arrangement for governing an entire continent.
In fact, Huntington's observation can be expanded further: The genius of Western civilization in general is that of institutions. Sure, democracy is a basis for this; but democracy is, nevertheless, a separate factor. For enlightened dictatorships in Asia have built robust, meritocratic institutions whereas weak democracies in Africa have not.
Institutions are such a mundane element of Western civilization that we tend to take them for granted. But as I've indicated, in many places I have worked and lived, that is not the case. Getting a permit or a simple document is not a matter of waiting in line for a few minutes, but of paying bribes and employing fixers. We take our running water and dependable electric current for granted, but those are amenities missing from many countries and regions because of the lack of competent institutions to manage such infrastructure. Having a friend or a relative working in the IRS is not going to save you from paying taxes, but such a situation is a rarity elsewhere. Successful institutions treat everyone equally and impersonally. This is not the case in Russia or Pakistan or Nigeria.
Of course, Americans may complain about poor rail service and deteriorating infrastructure and bureaucracies, especially in inner cities, but it is important to realize that we are, nevertheless, complaining on the basis of a very high standard relative to much of the developing world.
Institutions, or the lack of them, explain much that has happened in the world in recent decades. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Central Europe went on to build functioning democracies and economies. With all of their problems and challenges, the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have not fared badly and in some cases have been rousing success stories. This is because these societies boast high literacy rates among both men and women and have a tradition of modern bourgeois culture prior to World War II and communism. And it is literacy and middle class culture that are the building blocks of successful institutions. Institutions after all require bureaucrats, who must, in turn, be literate and familiar with the impersonal workings of modern organizations.
The Balkans have been less fortunate, with bad government and unimpressive growth the fare in Romania since 1989, semi-chaos rearing its head in Albania and Bulgaria, and inter-ethnic war destroying the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s. Here, too, a history of lower literacy rates, weak or in some cases non-existent middle classes, and an Eastern Orthodox faith that, because it is more contemplative it does not encourage impersonal standards, at least to the degree of Protestantism or even Catholicism, have all been factors in a weaker institutional basis for economic growth and political stability. Russia, too, fits into this category. Its system of oligarchs is a telltale sign of weak institutions, since corruption merely indicates an alternative pathway to getting things done when laws and the state bureaucracies are inadequately developed.
Then there is the greater Middle East. The so-called Arab Spring failed because the Arab world was not like Central and Eastern Europe. It had low literacy, especially among women. It had little or no tradition of a modern bourgeois, despite commercial classes in some cities, and so no usable institutions to fall back upon once dictatorships crumbled. Thus, what was left in North Africa and the Levant after authoritarianism was tribes and sects; unlike the post-communist civil society that encouraged stability in Central Europe. Turkey and Iran, as real states with more successful urbanization and higher literacy rates, are in an intermediate category between southern Europe and the Arab world. Obviously, even within the Arab world there are distinctions. Egyptian state institutions are a reality to a degree that those in Syria and Iraq are not. Egypt is governable, therefore, if momentarily by autocratic means, whereas Syria and Iraq seem not to be.
Finally, there is Africa. In many African countries, when taking a road out of the capital, very soon the state itself vanishes. The road becomes a vague dirt track, and the domains of tribes and warlords take over. This is a world where, because literacy and middle classes are minimal (albeit growing), institutions still barely exist. The way to gauge development in Africa is not to interview civil society types in the capitals, but to go to the ministries and other bureaucracies and wait in line and see how things work -- and if they do.
Indeed, people lie to themselves and then lie to journalists and ambassadors. So don't listen to what people (especially elites) say; watch how they behave. Do they pay taxes? Where do they stash their money? Do they wait in line to get drivers' permits, and so forth? It is behavior, not rhetoric, that indicates the existence of institutions, or lack thereof.
Elections are easy to hold and indicate less than journalists and political scientists think. An election is a 24- or 48-hour affair, organized often with the help of foreign observers. But a well-oiled ministry must function 365 days a year. Lee Kuan Yew is one of the great men of the 20th century because he built institutions and, therefore, a state in Singapore. For without basic order there can be no meaningful freedom. And institutions are the foremost tools of order.
Because institutions develop slowly and organically, even under the best of circumstances, their growth eludes journalists who are interested in dramatic events. Thus, media stories often provide a poor indication of the prospects of a particular country. The lesson for business people and intelligence forecasters is: Track institutions, not personalities.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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