Chai is a Jewish Word which stands for 18, which stands for life or living and some use it instead of good luck. I thought the above was a clever way of expressing 2018.
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I expect before too long John Bolton may well be serving in Trump's State Department in some capacity. (See 1 below.)
And
Oren on Obama. What a fraud/naive pushover or both our former president was. (See 1a below.)
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Kim on civil service reform.
Andy Stern knew, when he took over the civil service union for federal and state employees, he had struck a gold mine. That is why he left his former union administrative position.
He knew politicians would willingly increase salaries and benefits because the raises would be laundered back into their campaign treasuries.
Kim is right. It is time to stop the abuse and turn the clock back. (See 2 below.)
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This memo was pretty much finished yesterday evening. Last for a while.
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Dick
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1) Threats of 2017 - Mideast, Terror, Weapons - Will Linger in the New Year
Domestically and internationally, President Trump finished 2017 in dramatic fashion. Obtaining the most sweeping tax cuts in 30-plus years (and repealing ObamaCare's most philosophically oppressive aspect, the individual mandate) was a landmark achievement. And, by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, then suggesting major changes in U.S. funding of the United Nations, he disrupted foreign-policy conventional wisdom on both the Middle East and "global governance."
The administration's national security strategy, published this month, centered its foreign policy in the conservative mainstream, but there is little time for complacency. On Inauguration Day, the president inherited acute dangers and longer-range strategic challenges, ignored or mishandled for years. While Trump has emphasized his intention to reverse course, the national security agencies have a mixed record in actually following his lead. Events in 2018 could well determine whether America resumes control of its international fate, or whether it continues to be buffeted by threats it could overcome but chooses not to.
In this article today, we review the administration's 2017 record and 2018 prospects in three critical near-term areas: Middle East turmoil, international terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Tomorrow, we consider the longer-term risks posed by China and Russia, and the overarching issue of U.S. sovereignty.
Trump's Jerusalem decision had the virtue of recognizing reality and simultaneously erasing libraries of arid scholasticism on the "Middle East peace process." The long-predicted violent reaction by the "Arab Street" largely failed to materialize, despite palpable efforts by Turkey's President Erdogan and Tehran's ayatollahs to foment trouble. And the inevitable efforts in the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly were essentially charades, ritualistic theater that now makes even the participants weary. The lasting consequences of bashing America in New York will more likely be felt within the United Nations, as we will see tomorrow, rather than in the Middle East.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are undergoing sweeping changes, the full dimensions of which cannot yet be confidently predicted. These changes have, in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's view, opened prospects for resolving the Palestinian and broader regional issues heretofore beyond reach. The behind-the-scenes White House peace initiative, also unconventional, has given the foreign policy establishment a case of the vapors.
Now unleashed, Riyadh's "modernization" efforts, in economic and social policy as well as religion, may appear unstoppable, but it would be a mistake for the administration simply to assume so. The Shah of Iran had far less distance to travel to "modernize" his country, and seemingly lighter opposition than the Saudi monarchy faces today. Nonetheless, the 1979 Islamic Revolution deposed the shah, leaving Iran repressed by the brutal theocratic regime founded by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Both Saudi reformers and Washington need to remember this catastrophe, primarily to avoid the possibility of radical backlash, but also to put in place contingency plans should there be either a countercoup or a religious eruption similar to 1979 Iran. The last thing we want is history recording we weren't ready, that we didn't try to prevent such a crisis, that the inevitable spiking oil prices and violent global market fluctuations surprised us.
Despite America's 16 years combating radical Islamist terrorism since 9/11, serious threats against friendly Middle East regimes are entirely predictable. These threats underline the unfinished business of eliminating ISIS (following its caliphate's destruction in 2017), Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other, still nascent terrorist groups. Against entrenched resistance from Obama-era judges, Trump has tried protecting the homeland through stricter immigration controls. The Supreme Court will likely resolve several key legal issues in 2018.
The real fight, however, will continue to be in the anarchic regions where the terrorists take root, whether Afghanistan, the hollow shells of Syria and Iraq, Yemen, Libya or the chaotic seam between Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa where Boko Haram and its ilk continue their depredations. America requires what the British once called "forward defense" against the terrorists, at least until the current wave of radical Islamism finally burns itself out in distant decades and until its financial supporters like Iran turn off the flow of money and weapons. Indeed, it is the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat from rogue states and their terrorist proxies that was and will continue to be the gravest danger facing America and its friends worldwide.
In 2017, the president acted on his critique of the fatally flawed Iran nuclear agreement by refusing to certify it under the Corker-Cardin legislation. Because, however, Washington did not actually withdraw from the deal, it still provides cover and legitimacy to the terrorist regime of the ayatollahs and allows Europe, Russia and China to trade and invest, thereby subsidizing nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Just a few weeks into 2018, the White House will face yet another certification decision, which will afford the Iran agreement's vociferous supporters within the permanent bureaucracy yet another opportunity to keep it on life support. Trump should abrogate the deal as early as possible and think seriously about how to thoroughly denuclearize Iran.
Trump also jettisoned President Obama's failed "strategic patience" with North Korea, and not a moment too soon. Pyongyang's threat will almost certainly come to a head in 2018. The past year showed dramatic improvements in both the North's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. China could act decisively, as it has the unique capability to do, to overthrow Kim Jong Un's regime, allowing the Korean peninsula to be reunified or installing a new regime and, with America, jointly denuclearizing the North.
If not, Washington will face an unattractive but unavoidable binary choice: Either we will have to consider using preemptive military force to destroy North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities, or we and our allies will have to endure Kim Jong Un with deliverable nuclear weapons. And it won't just be a threat from the North but from ISIS or Al Qaeda, Iran, and other rogue states with nuclear aspirations and hard currency to which Pyongyang can sell. This year was fraught on all these issues, but 2018 will be even more so. Tomorrow, we consider the long-term strategic threats the Trump administration faced this year — and could confront head-on next year.
John R. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is Chairman of Gatestone Institute, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad".
1a)
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Former US president Barack Obama chose not to support the 2009 Iranian Green Protest Movement because he hoped to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear weapons that he signed six years later, Deputy Minister Michael Oren (Kulanu) said on Monday.
Obama’s failure to help Iranian protesters has been criticized since then by Israeli officials, led by Jewish Agency chairman and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who has called it the biggest failure to help human rights in modern history. Oren, who was the ambassador to the US at the time, said Obama initially claimed he would not support the protesters because the CIA helped overthrow nationalist Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and that he wanted to show the Iranian people that he respected their sovereignty. Oren said the Obama administration had told Israelis behind the scenes that the protesters themselves did not want an American endorsement because it could discredit them in the eyes of the Iranian people. “In retrospect, those explanations are less credible,” Oren told The Jerusalem Post. “The Obama administration’s lack of support for the Green Revolution was part of a pattern in which it did not hold Iran accountable for any provocation. It would seem it was part of a general approach that began in Obama’s first week in office in 2009 of wanting to reach a deal with Iran at pretty much any cost.” Among the Iranian provocations ignored by the Obama administration, Oren listed the crackdown on the protesters, the kidnapping of Americans, having their missile boats provocatively approach American destroyers, trying to assassinate him and his Saudi counterpart in downtown Washington, the failure to follow through on a red line Obama imposed on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad using chemical weapons and Iranian-backed Hezbollah smuggling massive amounts of cocaine into the US. Oren contrasted Obama seeing Iran as the solution to problems in the Middle East with his successor, Donald Trump, who Oren said sees Iran as the problem. Asked if Israel deserved credit for Trump’s view, Oren said Israel did not need to push him because he knew the Iran deal was bad. “If the Iranian regime brutally cracks down on its own people peacefully demonstrating, imagine what that regime would do to nations it vows to obliterate,” Oren tweeted. “Under the nuclear deal, the regime could someday produce nuclear weapons. Nix or fix it now.” Ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu releasing an English-language video about Iran on Monday evening, Israeli politicians declined to speak about the current protests. Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid both told the Post the issue was too sensitive. “We need to be saying as little as possible on Iran, because that is the responsible thing to do,” Lapid said. “Israel saying more would harm the protesters and could strengthen the regime.” But Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay had no problem with endorsing the protests, even hinting that they sent a message to Netanyahu himself. “We should be happy the people of Iran are coming out against their leadership,” he said. “I wish the earlier protests had succeeded. The protesters’ message is important to all the rulers in the region: Deal with the needs of your people.” |
2)
A Big, Beautiful Trump 2018 Issue
Civil-service reform could get bipartisan support, even in a rough election year.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
President Trump is on the hunt for a 2018 issue—a strong follow-up to his tax-cut victory that will motivate voters and gain bipartisan support. Democrats are pushing for an infrastructure bill, inviting the president to spend with them. House GOP leaders are mulling entitlement reform—a noble goal, if unlikely in a midterm cycle.
Fortunately for the president, there’s a better idea out there that’s already a Trump theme. It’s also a sure winner with the public, so Republicans ought to be able to pressure Democrats to join.
Let 2018 be the year of civil-service reform—a root-and-branch overhaul of the government itself. Call it Operation Drain the Swamp.
When Candidate Trump first referred to “the swamp,” he was talking about the bog of Beltway lobbyists and “establishment” politicians. But President Trump’s first year in office has revealed that the real swamp is the unchecked power of those who actually run Washington: the two million members of the federal bureaucracy. That civil-servant corps was turbocharged by the Obama administration’s rule-making binge, and it now has more power—and more media enablers—than ever. We live in an administrative state, run by a left-leaning, self-interested governing class that is actively hostile to any president with a deregulatory or reform agenda.
It’s Lois Lerner, the IRS official who used her powers to silence conservative nonprofits. It’s the “anonymous” officials who leak national-security secrets daily. It’s the General Services Administration officials who turned over Trump transition emails to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the absence of a warrant. It’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Leandra English, who tried to stage an agency coup. It’s the EPA’s “Scientific Integrity Official” who has taken it upon herself to investigate whether Scott Pruitt is fit to serve in the office to which he was duly appointed. It’s the thousands of staffers across the federal government who continue to pump out reports on global warming and banking regulations that undermine administration policy.
More broadly, it is a federal workforce whose pay and benefits are completely out of whack with the private sector. A 2011 American Enterprise Institute study found federal employees receive wages 14% higher than what similar workers in the private sector earn. Factor in benefits and the compensation premium leaps to 61%. Nice, huh?
These huge payouts are the result of automatic increases, bonuses, seniority rules and gold-plated pensions that are all but extinct in the private sector. The federal workforce is also shielded by rules that make it practically impossible to fire or discipline bad employees, to relocate talent, or to reassign duties. These protections embolden bureaucrats to violate rules. Why was Ms. Lerner allowed to retire with full benefits? Because denying them would have cost far more—and required years of effort.
It’s been nearly 40 years since the last civil-service overhaul. Trump appointees are doing valiant work to shift the bureaucracy by canceling programs and using buyouts to cut staff. White House Counsel Don McGahn —a veteran at battling the federal career elite—is recruiting a generation of judicial nominees who are experts in administrative law. And Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, tapped another administrative-law genius, Neomi Rao, to head the deregulatory effort.
Even so, Trump officials spend most of their days fighting rearguard actions against their own employees when they should be implementing the president’s broad vision across the executive branch. Since congressional Republicans refuse to slash agencies, the least they can do is make oversight a priority.
Americans generally have a higher opinion of federal agencies than they do of Congress, though the Veterans Affairs and Justice departments have seen their ratings slip in recent years, as has the Environmental Protection Agency. But government overhaul is an issue that unites across parties on grounds of accountability, fairness and spending. Ask Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Civil-service reform’s bipartisan appeal means it has a shot in the Senate. The Chuck Schumers and Elizabeth Warrens will fight for their federal union buddies. But will Democrats like Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly —who represent conservative or right-to-work states—go to bat for the likes of Lois Lerner? Will they defend the CFPB, the majority of whose employees take home six-figure salaries, when the median personal income in the U.S. is about $31,000?
If Democrats insist on engaging in class warfare, Republicans should take on the governing class. Washington is now home to a bureaucratic elite, fantastically paid and protected, divorced from economic reality, and self-invested in thwarting conservative policy efforts. Let’s drain the swamp, or at least make it smaller.
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