Obama's Tax Plan Is Simple - A Car W/O Brakes!

If you want to understand mankind's inhumanity to womankind then I suggest you click on this site.

I am surprised feminists are not outraged but perhaps they are too busy trying to break glass ceilings.

http://backup.laflammenet.com/tcp.ppsDowd. (See 2 below.)
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Liberals/progressives throw brickbats at Breitbart but can't fire him. (See 3 below.)
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Tom Sowell would like liberal/progressives to learn from history but he might as well talk to the wall because they know it all - just ask them. (See 4 below.)
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This writer has a solution to the problem of America's poor workers - move to Europe.

Then they can either do like the Puerto Ricans once did when they flew to New York - go immediately on welfare or get a lower wage job.

Another solution for those who don't want to move to Europe: they can leave their unions, move South and seek a job. (See 5 and 5a below.)
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As things fall in place and come the way of Republicans and Tea Party candidates will they be smart enough to grasp the reins of a growth agenda and ride a horse bereft of the burdensome saddle of big government? (See 6 below.)
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Michael Gerson has a novel idea on how we can resolve the Afghan War - win and then negotiate.

The problem with this brilliant idea is that there is no will to win, no real plan to win nor do we have the money to win.

In fact the world and U.N no longer tolerate winning because winning entails doing things the world and U.N no longer have the stomach for - otherwise the Palestinian-Israeli problem could have been solved decades ago.

I have said time and again your adversary is more amenable to a solution when he is looking up at you because you have beat him to his knees. That is what winning is all about. Being in a position to impose on your adversary that which is best for all but they are unable to grasp the logic.

The world and the U.N. believe you should pull your adversary's chestnuts out of the fire and pacify him with largess. (See 7 and 7a below.)
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Black parents owe Michelle Rhee a debt of gratitude not the other Michelle. (See 8 below.)
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Dick
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1)Poll: A few cracks in Obama's Hispanic support
By LIZ SIDOTI

President Barack Obama's once solid support among Hispanics is showing a few cracks, a troubling sign for Democrats desperate to get this critical constituency excited about helping the party hold onto Congress this fall.

Hispanics still overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party over the GOP, and a majority still think Obama is doing a good job, according to an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Hispanics.

But the survey, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, shows Obama gets only lukewarm ratings on issues important to Hispanics — and that could bode poorly for the president and his party.

For a group that supported Obama so heavily in 2008 and in his first year in office, only 43 percent of Hispanics surveyed said Obama is adequately addressing their needs, with the economy a major concern. Another 32 percent were on the fence, while 21 percent said he'd done a poor job.

That's somewhat understandable, given that far more Hispanics have faced job losses and financial stress than the U.S. population in general.

An unfulfilled promise to overhaul the nation's patchwork immigration system, which Hispanics overwhelmingly want to see fixed, also may be to blame. That's despite the fact that Obama is challenging an Arizona law that requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion he or she is in the country illegally.

Still, 57 percent of Hispanics approve of the president's overall job performance compared with 44 percent among the general population in the latest AP national polling.

"It's been tough, but I think he's been doing a fair job," says Tony Marte, 33, a physical education teacher in Miami who is a Nicaraguan native. He voted for Obama in 2008 and, so far, likes how Obama has handled the economy.

But Marte's not satisfied with Obama's> work on immigration reform. "Nothing has been done," he says, adding that between now and 2012, Obama should "be looking out for the groups that put him up there. The Latinos. The minorities." He says he'll probably back Obama again but "we'll see."

The political power of Hispanics now and in the future cannot be overstated. They are the nation's fastest-growing minority group and the government projects they will account for 30 percent of the population by 2050, doubling in size from today.

Democrats long have had an advantage among Hispanics and maintained it even as George W. Bush chipped away at that support. Obama erased the GOP inroads during his 2008 campaign, winning 67 percent of their vote to 31 percent for Republican nominee John McCain. And Hispanics consistently gave Obama exceptionally strong marks in his first year as president.

With the first midterm congressional elections of Obama's presidency in three months, the poll shows a whopping 50 percent of Hispanics citizens call themselves Democrats, while just 15 percent say they are Republicans.

Among Hispanics, 42 percent rate the economy and the recession as the country's biggest problem; unemployment and a lack of jobs come in at 23 percent.

Ascencion Menjivar, a Honduran native who is a cook in Washington, isn't sold on the administration's approach to creating jobs and is waiting for a solution to get the economy back on track. "I think it'll be a long process," says Menjivar, 30. Still, he says Obama — "a genius" — eventually will make it happen.

Patricia Hernandez Blanco of Miami, 38, is less confident that recovery is under way. "I'm not sure it's improving," she says. Even so, this Cuban who voted for McCain says she would now cast a ballot for Obama.

Re-electing Obama would be "really stupid," counters Carlos Toledo of Puerto Rico, an independent voter, clothing store manager and self-defense instructor in Washington. Toledo, 35, disagrees with Obama's economic policies and says he worries about joblessness as budgets are cut and money is spent on wars despite the country's debt.

Behind economic woes, immigration comes in second in importance.

Since the controversy over the Arizona law erupted in April, Hispanics who mostly speak English at home gave Obama higher marks on his handling of their top issues than did Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish and who tend to be more recent immigrants or non-citizens.

Analysts say it's possible that the more English-dominant Hispanics rallied around the president following the enactment of the Arizona law and his challenge to it; some 40 percent of them approved of his performance on their key issues before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April, but the figure rose to 52 percent in the weeks after.

The poll also showed that two years after witnessing Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House bid, Hispanics are twice as likely to expect to see a woman than a fellow Hispanic become president.

Some 59 percent said it is likely that a woman will be elected president sometime in the next two decades, while just 29 percent thought it likely that a Hispanic will be elected president over that period. And, 34 percent of non-citizen Hispanics thought the country is likely to have a Hispanic president, compared with 27 percent of citizens.

A significant percentage of Latinos — 41 percent — said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who is Hispanic.

The AP-Univision Poll was conducted from March 11 to June 3 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Using a sample of Hispanic households provided by The Nielsen Company, 1,521 Hispanics were interviewed in English and Spanish, mostly by mail but also by telephone and the Internet. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Stanford University's participation in the study was made possible by a grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

1a)Obama and the Fake Tag
By Kevin Jackson

The election of Obama reminds me of years ago, when I bought a fake Tag Heuer watch while visiting Manhattan. Normally I walk right by street vendors, but this watch caught my eye. It was sleek and clean, and some described it as gorgeous. Only true Tag aficionados could tell that the watch was a fake.


The thing that impressed me about my fake Tag was that it had the "weight" of a real Tag. It didn't feel like the lightweight replicas I had seen in Mexico, China, and Africa. And the best part? My fake Tag cost me $7!


My fake Tag was made of a high-gloss "white gold" electroplate -- okay, stainless steel -- with a sea-blue oyster shell face. It had a curved glass bezel, not plastic. The contrast between the high-gloss steel and the face gave my fake Tag a regal appearance.


My fake Tag had all the real Tag markings on the back, though I certainly wasn't given papers to authenticate my fake Tag. However, if I had asked, the salesperson might have produced them.


I wore the watch everywhere and received numerous compliments, and I was so confident about my fake Tag that occasionally, I would allow questioners to inspect it firsthand. I was proud of my fake Tag. People would see my fake Tag and say things like, "I didn't know Tag made anything except diving watches. That is an exquisite Tag! Where did you get it?"


"Oh this thing..." I would deflect to keep from outright lying.


"Diving!" I thought. I didn't dare get my fake Tag near anything moist, for that would mean certain death. In rainstorms, I took off my fake Tag, placing it in the driest available pocket. If I were in a high humidity climate, I kept fake Tag near a de-moisturizer packet, again in my pocket. I treated fake Tag better than I did my real Tag, which was a true Tag diving watch.


One day a few months after acquiring my fake Tag, I found it lying on my nightstand, lifeless.


"Not for long," I panicked aloud.


I rerouted a few errands that day so I could visit a watch repair kiosk at the mall, hoping to have them breathe life back into fake Tag. I had gotten accustomed to the look of fake Tag on my wrist. Without it, I felt naked.


I approached my fake Tag's potential life-giver with mixed emotions. Would fake Tag be good enough to fool a watch expert? Would the sales clerk unknowingly compliment me as others had on my fake Tag? Or would he "out" me as a pretentious sellout for having purchased what I knew was not the real thing?


I laid my fake Tag on the g-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">countertop, and the young salesperson said, "Wow, nice Tag! You're gonna want a Tag battery for this."


I said, "Well how much is a Tag battery?"


The salesman said, "Twenty-four dollars. But you wouldn't want to skimp on a Tag by getting a Chinese battery, or you could ruin the inner workings."


Now I had a dilemma.


"Just out of curiosity, how much is the Chinese battery for a Tag?" I inquired.


The salesperson said, "Three dollars. But again, you could ruin a Tag if you...because Chinese batteries are...blah blah blah."


I didn't even hear the rest of his education on fine watches and cheap batteries. Circling through my mind was the fact that I had a $7 watch that I wanted people to believe was a $2,500 watch and the idea of putting a battery in it that was costing me more three times more than the cost of fake watch!


Liberal America in electing Obama bought a fake Tag. And the batteries have run down in less than a year. Obama may still look good, but he's draining his political juice.


The Liberals feel trapped, because they simply can't admit that they have bought a fake Tag, and maintenance of their fake costs more than the fake himself!


As for that battery salesman, I suspect he knew my Tag was a fake. Why not take advantage of somebody who was a poser? I was ripe for the picking.


The moral to the story: Don't settle for the fake, as it will cost you three times more in the end.


That's my rant!


Kevin Jackson is author of The BIG Black Lie and The Black Sphere blog.
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2) Obama's White House Is 'Too White'?
By -spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Rosslyn Smith

According to Maureen Dowd, Barack Obama's latest problem may be because he isn't black enough:


The Obama White House is too white.


It has Barack Obama, raised in the Hawaiian hood and Indonesia, and Valerie Jarrett, who spent her early years in Iran.


But unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture, Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience, ones who understand "the slave thing," as a top black Democrat dryly puts it.


-spelling-error">Dowd continues:


The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only didn't bother to Google, they weren't familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod. And they didn't return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong.


Dowd then collects quotes from several aging veterans of the 1960s civil rights era -- John Lewis, James Clyburn, Eleanor Holmes Norton -- as well as unnamed sources. Here is one of the anonymous quotes: "Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people?"


Outside of wondering when the Irish-American Dowd became the arbiter of the authentically black in American politics, my first reaction to the above was, Who ever suspected that Andrew Breitbart was such an evil genius? In plucking Shirley Sherrod out of obscurity to make a point about the NAACP and the Tea Parties, could OR_39">Breitbart have started a small-scale war among black American politicians?


All I can say is, thank God that instead of telling them all to shut up, baby boomer Maureen ror" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Dowd encouraged these political old timers to publicly nurse egos bruised when the Generation X occupants of the White House didn't fall down in awe of all things from the 1960s. The fault lines Dowd writes about have actually existed for some time now, but it is hard to imagine a less appropriate time for veterans of the civil rights era to be dissing Obama for lacking a personal claim to authentic black victim status. While Obama may not have shared their experiences in a pre-Civil Rights era South, neither do millions of other blacks born in the north at too late a date to recall seeing stories about Freedom Riders on the Huntley-Brinkley Report, or who heard parents talk about newspaper headlines about members of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee over breakfast.


Those doing the complaining about Obama on race seem to miss what the focus of most people in the Tea Party is. Obama not only shares the redistributionist agenda many so-called civil rights activists have promoted their entire political careers, but he is also coming close to putting that agenda into operation in major segments of the economy. There is nothing racial about being opposed to Marxist-style class warfare solutions that, for all their claims of social justice and fairness, have been repeatedly proven to worsen economic conditions for the vast majority of a nation's citizens.


This fall, Democrats need an enthusiastic turnout by black voters in several statewide election contests. Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio immediately come to mind. While expressed support for Obama among blacks remains very high in the polls, converting that support to actual votes for other Democrats on the November ballot is not a given -- not with the stated black unemployment rate currently exceeding 15%, black-on-black crime high, and large cities all across the nation cutting back on services.


Even a small drop in the turnout percentage among black voters could cost the Democrats several Senate seats and governor's mansions. Intensity of political support can be very much a function of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. This is not usually measured in the the abstract terms favored by academic types, who love mankind in general while showing disdain for most humans as individuals. "Where are the jobs?" is an almost universal political question this summer.


As someone who was a local political junkie when I lived in Chicago, Dowd's unawareness that Obama has heard the complaints she reported at least once before in his political career is amusing. In the tribalism of Chicago politics, the reaction to the Hawaiian-born, Indonesia-raised Barack Obama's status until quite recently was the wait-and-see attitude reserved for an untried son in-law, not the full embrace given a genuinely beloved member of the civil rights community. For years, some blacks looked at Obama's exceptionally large number of "present" votes in the State Senate and wondered what exactly his game was. Where could he be fit along the traditional local scale between the greedy pragmatists, who wanted only to run the Cook County Democrat machine for themselves, and the starry-eyed reformers, who desired to tear it all down in favor of their own pet theories of government?



Then, in their 2000 primary contest, Civil Rights-era veteran Congressman Bobby Rush effectively painted primary challenger Obama, the favorite of the University of Chicago community in Hyde Park, as an "educated fool" and an elite outsider. In promoting his own long career as a black nationalist to voters in Illinois' First Congressional District, Rush noted exactly what Dowd's sources say today: "Barack Obama is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it."


Chicago political insiders also noticed that in a redistricting map drawn after the 2000 census that was notorious for allowing incumbents of both parties to pick their constituents instead of the other way around, Obama ended up with a district that contained more affluent white liberals and fewer poor blacks. Black political colleagues would poke fun at Obama's trying to fit in as one of them by talking jive even as he also reminded everyone of his Harvard law degree. Several expressed open dislike of him to one of the few white reporters in the 2004 election cycle who bothered to ask.



My own suspicion is that we will know if the black dissatisfaction Dowd writes about is real by how actively partisan the First Lady is on the campaign trail this fall. If her schedule includes a great many stops in cities in key states and appearances in front of local chapters of the NAACP, ACORN offshoots, and other black activist venues, we will know there is a general enthusiasm gap, and not just some grousing by old-timers about the Generation X crowd. That's because, in her criticism of Barack Obama's "too white" set of advisors, Dowd overlooked Michelle Obama. Her family's background in Chicago's identity politics makes her the member of the administration best-suited for outreach to those who refuse to let go of "the slave thing."



Coming on the heels of the Journolist revelations, Dowd's musings about Obama's White House being too white call to mind one of Obama's peers in the Illinois State Senate. Before the national media climbed onto Obama's bandwagon and he started bringing home the political bacon from Washington, D.C., critical comments about him were far from heresy in Chicago political circles. In 2000, Illinois State Senator Donne Trotter also challenged Congressman Bobby Rush in the primary. When asked about the campaign, Trotter said this to a reporter from the alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader:


Barack is viewed in part to be the white man in blackface in our community. You have only to look at his supporters. Who pushed him to get where he is so fast? It's these individuals in Hyde Park, who don't always have the best interest of the community in mind.

Today, Senator Trotter's criticism can be seen as both insensitive to Obama's mixed-race background and remarkably prescient about his political base being strongest among the white radical left. Over twenty months after they elected Obama president, many American voters feel they still don't know the full measure of the man they voted for, while the motives of those supporters on Journolist who labored to keep the voters intentionally blind -- even while urging them to make a leap of faith -- have become increasingly suspect.
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3)Nobody Can Fire Andrew Breitbart
By Christopher Chantrill
As the mainstream media synchronized their watches over the Shirley Sherrod affair, the object of their little trench raid was clear. Demonize Andrew Breitbart for the unethical publication of a video featuring Ms. Sherrod uttering racist remarks at an NAACP awards dinner.


You could see the strategy. The MSM wanted to discredit and demonize Breitbart so that he could be fired or marginalized, just like Rush Limbaugh was fired from ESPN for the thoughtcrime of suggesting that the media wanted Donovan McNabb to succeed as the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback because he was black.


But then I thought: Yeah, but who can fire Andrew Breitbart?


When Rush Limbaugh wanted to buy the St. Louis Rams, the Ruling Elite trailed a few stories about his supposed racist remarks. They pressured the NFL, and the NFL could pressure the syndicate to remove Rush.


But Andrew Breitbart? Can anyone fire him?


For that matter, what about Rush? You can kick him off ESPN; you can kick him off the St. Louis Rams. You can even force Snapple drinks and the Florida oranges off his radio show. But "they" haven't been able to fire him from his position as host of the Rush Limbaugh Program. The reason is, I suspect, that Rush's show is owned by not a public corporation, but a private venture. Rush has to keep the confidence of only his partners and affiliates, not the executive committee of the Ruling Class as a whole.


No doubt the same is true of Andrew Breitbart.


Here we see the late-dynasty stupidity of the Ruling Elite. A Ruling Elite that was up to the job would have co-opted or destroyed Limbaugh and Breitbart long ago.


Rush remarked on his radio show last week that he anticipated, when he moved to New York in 1988 and made talk radio into a national phenomenon, that he would get accepted into the social circles of the media elite.


But the invitation never came. Sorry, old chap -- not Ruling Class solidarity, you see.


Even Rush's acceptance into the modest social circle of conservative media was a big deal for him. When Bill Buckley died, he spoke on his show about his first visit to Buckley's New York home. He had his driver drive around the block before he could summon up the courage to enter Buckley's lair.


This is the guy who fearlessly skewers liberals daily on the EIB Network's fun, frolic, and serious discussions of the issues.


I suspect that Andrew Breitbart is even less biddable than Rush.


There is a generational pattern here. In Generation One, we had Buckley, the Catholic rich man's son with a non-profit movement. In Generation Two, we had Rush, the local WASP judge's grandson and a for-profit enterprise. But Generation Three, with Drudge and Breitbart, is an outsider generation, a trouble-making insurgency. Drudge (born 1966) and Breitbart (born 1969) are both Jewish, and they take their place in a conservative movement that is increasingly combative and increasingly led by Jews.


In Generation One, conservatives fenced with the Ruling Class using foils, masks, jackets, and breeches. In Generation Two, conservatives roamed in the talk radio AM band hinterland around the Ruling Class's NPR-fortified cities. Now, in Generation Three, conservatives move through the internet as a fish swims in the sea.


In Generation One, conservatives wanted to be treated as part of the elite. So they were, grudgingly; Bill Buckley got his "Firing Line" show on PBS, and Milton Friedman got his "Free to Choose." Generation Two never got past the TV Nazis. No PBS shows for them. Rush's syndicated television show was confined to middle-of-the-night time slots. Generation Three is different. It aims to get respect with hard-knuckle action in the mean streets of the internet. That is what Andrew Breitbart is all about, as Kyle Wingfield recognizes:


Breitbart is clear about his desire to turn the tables on liberal media and activist groups. That's why he went after ACORN, and why it makes sense that he'd set his sights higher than an obscure bureaucrat.


Breitbart aimed to play the race card right back in the face of the racist NAACP. While the media was busy getting its knickers in a twist about out-of-context quotes, Breitbart had managed to make fools of both the NAACP and the Obama administration.


Or maybe it's just a coincidence that the Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index dipped to -20 over the weekend.


You can't hurt Andrew Breitbart by playing the "out-of-context" card, the one that leads into a demand to have the conservative racist fired. In the kind of ball that Breitbart plays, there is no appealing to the friendly umpire or the CEO who fears a call from the White House.


Breitbart is BigGovernment.com. He is BigJournalism.com, and BigHollywood.com, and BigPeace.com. He's not shilling for some Mr. Big, some right-wing George Soros.


Guess what, liberals. He can't be fired.


Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his roadtothemiddleclass.com and usgovernmentspending.com.
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4)How Smart Are We?
By Thomas Sowell

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time-- and with the same disastrous results.

One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.


In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century. As J.A. Schumpeter later wrote of that era, "general well-being ought to have been the consequence," but "instead we find misery, shame and, at the end of it all, a stream of blood."

The same could be said of the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions of the 20th century.

The idea that the wise and knowledgeable few need to take control of the less wise and less knowledgeable many has taken milder forms-- and repeatedly with bad results as well.

One of the most easily documented examples has been economic central planning, which was tried in countries around the world at various times during the 20th century, among people of differing races and cultures, and under government ranging from democracies to dictatorships.

The people who ran central planning agencies usually had more advanced education than the population at large, and probably higher IQs as well.

The central planners also had far more statistics and other facts at their disposal than the average person had. Moreover, there were usually specialized experts such as economists and statisticians on the staffs of the central planners, and outside consultants were available when needed. Finally, the central planners had the power of government behind them, to enforce the plans they created.

It is hardly surprising that conservatives, such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States, opposed this approach. What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach.

As they replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries' economic growth rate almost invariably increased, often dramatically. In the largest and most recent examples-- China and India-- people by the millions have risen above these countries' official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.

China, where famines have repeatedly ravaged the country, now has a problem of obesity-- not a good thing in itself, but a big improvement over famines.

This has implications far beyond economics. Think about it: How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?

One implication is that no one is smart enough to carry out social engineering, whether in the economy or in other areas where the results may not always be so easily quantifiable. We learn, not from our initial brilliance, but from trial and error adjustments to events as they unfold.

Science tells us that the human brain reaches its maximum potential in early adulthood. Why then are young adults so seldom capable of doing what people with more years of experience can do?

Because experience trumps brilliance.

Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they pre-empt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
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5)What We Can Learn: An Excerpt from Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?
How Europe builds better products for better lives.
By Thomas Geoghegan

A young member of the IG Metall union protests during a rally at the Opera Square on September 5, 2009, in Frankfurt, Germany. (Photo by: Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)
It's no accident that the social democracies—Sweden, France and Germany, who kept on paying high wages—now have more industry than the United States or the UK.SHARE THIS ARTICLE Americans may believe the United States is set up for the middle class, and Europe is set up for the bourgeois. Or let’s put it this way: America is a great place to buy kitty litter at Wal-Mart and relatively cheap gas. But it is not designed for me, a professional without a lot of money. That’s who Europe is for: people like me.

OK, as a union-side lawyer, Europe’s really set up for people like my clients, or those who used to be my clients before the unions in America collapsed. Let’s put my own self-interest aside: Where would my clients, who are not poor, who make $30,000 to $50,000 a year and yet keep coming up short, maybe by $100, $200 a month, really be better off?

That’s easy: Europe. I can answer that as their lawyer, the way a doctor could answer about their health. The bottom two-thirds of America would be better off in Europe. I mean the people who have not had a raise (an hourly raise in real dollars) in maybe 40 years, and who do not even have a 401(k), nothing but Social Security, and either have no health insurance or pay deductibles of $2,000 or more. Sure, they’d be better off in Europe. When unemployed, they’d certainly be better off in Europe. Over there, even single men can get on welfare. And in much of Europe, contrary to what we hear, unemployment is much lower than over here.

One of the ways Europe is set up for the bourgeois — including, perhaps, many readers of this magazine — is the very fact that it is also set up for people who make $50,000 or below. Since it’s set up for these people too, the bourgeois — me, maybe you — get the political cover to have it set up for them. What the people-in-the-unions get, people-from-the-good-schools also get. (And indeed, in Europe people-in-the-unions are often people-from-the-good-schools.) They get the six weeks of vacation each year and the pension like a golden parachute. And the higher up we are in terms of income, the more valuable these things are. In America, they don’t tell us: Social democracy, or socialism, or whatever Europe has, pays off biggest for people in the upper middle class, those just below the top.

Public and private wealth
Take Zurich and Chicago. One looks good and the other, broken down. If America has such a famously high GDP per capita and Chicago is one of America’s crown jewels, maybe there is something wrong with using GDP per capita as an index of social well-being. It’s not that the numbers “lie” in any crude way, but past a certain point, maybe these numbers mislead us as to where we’re better off. For to look at the numbers, who would guess that Zurich looks gloriously like Zurich all over, and that Chicago looks glorious in Lincoln Park, dumpy west of Pulaski Avenue, and gulag-like by 26th and California? But forget the look of the place. It’s also the way of life.

The numbers say, on paper, I have a better way of life in Chicago. But are these numbers right? It may be that, past a certain level, an increase in GDP per capita pushes my living standard down. I don’t mean this in a spiritual sense — I mean it in a cold, neutral, out-of-pocket sense. Example: If I make more by working longer, I might subcontract out more of my life and incur other “costs,” like losing a trip to Zurich, which may be of far more value than the extra income. Or another example: If I get a raise, I might be worse off. I might widen the gap in income with others around me. Who cares? Well, by doing this, I might be spreading poverty, which, like everything, is relative. I might make my public space more of a hellhole than before.

People at the libertarian Cato Institute love to scoff: “Oh, our poor in America are so well off in GDP per capita.” Go ahead. Argue. I’ll let you win. But I dare the Cato types, when the argument is over, to go outside and walk around some Chicago neighborhoods.

In other words, the further ahead we get, the more our standard of living drops. Let’s say, as a European, I work 1,500 hours a year. Now, let’s put me at 1,800 or even 2,300 hours, like many Americans. While I’ve moved to higher GDP per capita, I don’t have:

• Six weeks off.

• A perfect cup of coffee to sip at some place other than the office.

• A city to inhale like a bank of violets.

In 2005, the real hourly wage for production workers in America was approximately 8 percent lower than it was in 1973, while our national output (productivity) per hour is 55 percent higher. So it’s dubious whether most Americans have gained even a penny in purchasing power since 1989. And even skewed by all this U.S-type inequality, we understate what Europeans at the “middling” level are able to get for free, i.e., publicly provided goods like education, healthcare, cities like banks of violets. Even apart from the grotesque U.S. social inequality, the net purchasing power disparity after we toss in the public goods is not so great.

Or maybe I mean this: Europe has a kind of invisible GDP, which we don’t know how to count. The ambitious European who might want to work 2,300 hours may be the luckiest to escape his or her fate under the U.S. model. When that person has 700 more hours a year, to learn an extra language, to go to Sri Lanka, or just to read, it’s that high achiever who may be best off under the European model.

It’s no accident that the social democracies — Sweden, France and Germany, who kept on paying high wages — now have more industry than the United States or the UK. During the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the Anglo-Americans, the neoliberals, The Economist crowd, and the press generally, would taunt the social democrats in Europe: “You’d better break the unions.” That’s the way to save your industry.

Indeed, that’s what the United States and the UK did: They smashed the unions, in the belief that they had to compete on cost. The result? They quickly ended up wrecking their industrial base. But Germany, Sweden and France ignored the advice of the Anglo-Americans, the Financial Times elite, the banking industry: Contrary to what they were told to do, they did not wreck their unions.

And it was the high labor cost that pushed those countries into making higher “value-added” things. Where is Germany competitive? It’s in high-end, precision machinery, made by people with the highest skills. It’s in engineering services. People look at Germany and say, “What about the German unemployment?” But no one in the United States ever says, “What about the German labor shortages?”

Even in 2008, precisely because of “globalization,” Germany had a serious shortage of people able to fill high-skill, high-paying jobs, especially engineers. In the United States, engineers complain they can’t find work; many of them just end up in sales. In the union-free, lower-cost United States, we don’t create the kind of jobs engineers can do. Germany’s problem? It has too many such jobs. It’s our whole globalization thesis turned upside down.

That leads to a seeming paradox: Higher labor costs can make a country more, not less, competitive. In many ways, the United States and the UK got out of manufacturing because their labor costs were too low. I have spent my life watching plants close in Milwaukee and Waukegan, where skilled labor was paid $26 an hour, only to reopen in Georgia and North Carolina, where it was paid $8 an hour. While still fighting over severance two years later, we get the news: The company is bankrupt. The products it makes so cheaply are now crap.


The German model
In the United States, our elite, scoffing, says that there is just not enough labor-market flexibility in a country like Germany to allow it to adapt to globalization as we do. But it’s precisely because of our flexibility that we can’t compete. What the laws manage to do in Germany is to keep people together and to hold onto their skills in groups. Co-determination and works councils — in other words, worker control — keep people in groups, rubbing elbows with each other, and all this rubbing of elbows helps build up human capital.

Indeed, for some economists this is now a fashionable idea. Think of all the buzz about the “knowledge” economy, which, in the world of academic economists, is an inquiry into how knowledge drives economic growth. David Warsh in his 2006 book, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations, introduces us to economists trying to untangle the connections between the kind of knowledge that comes from groups and economic growth.

German worker control contributes to a group interaction that over time not only builds up but also protects a certain amount of human capital, especially in engineering and quality control. This kind of knowledge is not just individual but group knowledge. It’s the kind of group knowledge that our efficient, “flexible” labor markets so readily break up and disperse. It’s our flexible labor markets that make it so hard for the United States and the UK to compete. We spend vastly more on basic research than the Germans do — U.S. companies are unrivaled. We spend far more on higher education. But with our flexible labor markets, we’re unable to capitalize on this research and education. Sometimes we try the Japanese model of work, but we never try the German, because we don’t want to cede any real control to workers. Supposedly it’s a great mystery why Germans keep investing in manufacturing and even prospering, despite the claims that the German education system is broken (OK, it needs help) and they aren’t spending enough on research (OK, they aren’t). But they’re doing something right. What is distinctive about Germany is the privileged position the worker has within the firm.

And we must look to that privileged position of the worker to explain how our own middle-class way of life can survive. Putting more money into education is a waste of effort. Putting more money into basic research is a waste of effort. We already spend enough. In fact, we have every factor of production going for us: We have more land, more labor, more capital and higher levels of formal education. But with our flexible labor markets, we cannot develop the human capital or knowledge needed to wean ourselves away from turning out crap. In global competition, the United States has almost every comparative advantage over Germany, but the one great comparative advantage Germany still has over us is that it is a social democracy. Yes, I admit Germany has its problems. But we’re losing our middle class, and our problems are even worse.

The real knowledge economy
The strangest thing I saw this year is a YouTube video, with a hip-hop soundtrack, about a lot of German kids on strike. These were IG Metall apprentices, and they weren’t like the kids in the cafés. (IG Metall is the largest metal workers’ union in Germany.) Instead they wore black, gray and white car coats and were from obscure little German towns, but all of them were marching, at night, both boys and girls, striking against the big global companies for not delivering on jobs. At about the same time as the strike, IG Metall held a rock concert with Bob Geldof, which drew 50,000 people, mostly kids. Here’s a shocking thing to a U.S. labor lawyer like me: In 2008, youth membership in IG Metall — kids under 27 who voluntarily pay union dues — climbed yet again, this time by 6 percent. At last count, IG Metall had more than 200,000 of these kids! As someone who ran for Congress and found out why campaign staffs think it a waste of time to bother with young people, I find that stunning. Even the Financial Times, which always writes off labor, has had to admit that in Germany, unions are resurging among kids who are highly skilled.

Why are kids in Germany paying dues, voluntarily?

I think it’s an American who can best explain why. It’s not Marx but John Dewey whose picture should be in the lobby of the Willy Brandt Haus, the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party. It’s Dewey who believed that schools should not just teach practical skills but explain why kids have to be political, to be citizens and yes, to get into labor movements to protect the skills they are acquiring. One can say that union membership is a “tradition” in certain industries. But that’s just an opaque way of saying that the kids get politicized both at home and at school as they go through the Dual Track — Germany’s specialized, apprenticeship vocational schools.

The answer to the problems of our country is education, but not the kind we’re pursuing, i.e., jamming more kids into college or even teaching practical skills; instead, it’s teaching them how, politically, to cut themselves a better deal. As long as that’s going on, it’s impossible to write off the European or, more specifically, the German model.

Just as the answer to the problems of democracy is usually more democracy, so the answer to the problems of a social democracy is usually more social democracy.

This essay was adapted from Thomas Geoghegan’s new book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life (The New Press)

5a)The Foreign Investment Solution for American Jobs
You know that battery plant in Michigan the president visited the other day? It's Korean-owned.
By ROBERT M. KIMMITT AND MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER

At the ground-breaking ceremony for a new factory in Michigan this month, President Barack Obama touted the fact that 300 people will soon be employed building lithium-ion car batteries there. "These are jobs in the industries of the future," Mr. Obama said at the Compact Power Inc. plant. "You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America."

Nowhere in his remarks did the president mention that Compact Power is a subsidiary of LG Chem Limited, a multinational firm headquartered in South Korea. But it is important for the administration to acknowledge explicitly that it can promote job creation by supporting investment in the U.S. by foreign companies like LG Chem. Such support should begin with free trade agreements (the U.S.-South Korean agreement remains stalled in Congress), but extend far beyond.

Since December 2007, the U.S. has lost 16% of its manufacturing jobs. Just 11.7 million Americans work in manufacturing today, the fewest since April 1941. Michigan has been hit hardest, losing 11.3% of its total jobs as the number of unemployed Michiganders has nearly doubled. The state unemployment rate hit 14.5% last December and is now at 13.6%.

For decades, multinational companies headquartered outside the U.S. have been creating high-paying American jobs. According to the Commerce Department's most recent data, over 5.5 million Americans—4.6% of all private-sector workers—are employed at such companies here. Foreign multinationals account for 11.3% of capital investment and 14.8% of research and development in the U.S. private sector, along with 18.5% of all exports of goods. Much of this activity is in manufacturing. More than 36% of the Americans working for foreign multinationals—nearly two million—are in manufacturing, which accounts for less than 11% of all private-sector U.S. workers.

In 2007, total U.S. compensation at these multinational companies was $403.6 billion—a per-worker average of $72,363. That was 33.2% higher than the average of $54,319 for the rest of the U.S. private sector. Moreover, contrary to popular opinion, these companies have high unionization rates. In 2007, 12.4% of their U.S. employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements—versus just 8.2% of private-sector workers overall.

LG Chem is a prime example of how international investment benefits the U.S. economy. The company started researching lithium-ion batteries in South Korea in 1995, began producing them three years later, and now employs 14,000 employees across 28 subsidiaries world-wide. Compact Power was founded in 2001 as one such subsidiary, and its R&D operations in Michigan have won multiple contracts from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium.

To support similar international investment into the U.S., the Obama administration can take two significant steps immediately.

First, it should issue an "open investment policy" statement to affirm its commitment to policies that promote foreign investment, such as granting foreign investors "national treatment" so they can operate in the U.S. as American companies do with regard to bidding on contracts, making capital investments, and hiring personnel. (An important exception, however, is that the government justifiably denies national treatment to foreign companies whose operations present potential national security concerns.)

Second, Mr. Obama should formally designate a single official as the federal government's point person on international investment. Many different federal agencies currently have responsibility for some element of U.S. investment policy, including the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the departments of State, Treasury and Commerce. This dispersion of authority can create turf battles that muddle policy. Designating a single senior official—such as the National Economic Council deputy who also serves as the president's sherpa for the G-20—would underscore the importance that the U.S. attaches to investment from multinationals.

These steps are especially important since the U.S. faces increasing competition to attract and retain companies like LG Chem. The U.S. share of global foreign direct investment is now only about half what it was 20 years ago. Meanwhile, countries like China and India continue to grow and gradually liberalize their economies. This highlights the need for smart U.S. investment policies that support American job growth.

Mr. Kimmitt served as deputy secretary of the Treasury from 2005-2009. Mr. Slaughter served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2005 to 2007.
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6)Go for Growth: An agenda for Republicans.
BY Matthew Continetti

If Republicans were James Bond villains, this would be the moment in the movie when they chuckle and say deviously, “Everything is going according to plan.” The president’s approval rating continues to fall. Last week Gallup found that Congress is the least popular institution in the land. The GOP maintains a slight lead in the congressional generic ballot, a metric in which the Republicans typically underperform. What was recently unthinkable—that the GOP could take one or both houses of Congress this November—is a real possibility.

If only Republicans knew what to do when (and if) they return to power.

True, there are some conservatives and Republicans who believe an agenda isn’t necessary. Let the Democrats fall under their own weight, they say. Then we can clean up the mess. Alternative policies, in their view, would only give liberals and Democrats something to demagogue in the campaign. Better to remain cautious. Better to wait until the storm is over.

They’re wrong. Not only is such a strategy timid, it is also a false reading of the last two years in American politics. After all, the Democrats are a case study in the perils of victory by default. It was not a strong alternative agenda that netted the Democrats 55 House seats and 16 Senate seats between 2006 and 2008. The party made those gains by vigorously opposing an unpopular war, an unpopular president, a corrupt Republican majority, and an economy in recession. The Democrats won by being the other guy. (A little luck, in the form of razor-thin Senate victories in Montana and Virginia in 2006 and Minnesota in 2008, and Arlen Specter’s defection in 2009, helped too.) Nor did Obama run on bailouts, a trillion-dollar stimulus, and a health insurance mandate. He ran on an airy promise to bring the country together and govern differently from George W. Bush.

Look where that has brought him and his party. A lack of new ideas and victory through opposition may have provided the Democrats with tactical victories. But every day those victories look more and more Pyrrhic—indeed, they may have opened the door for Republican strategic victory in 2010 and 2012 and beyond. Yes, the Democratic majority emerged. But it isn’t durable. Liberalism is exhausted.

Liberals and Democrats write all this off, of course. The reason President Obama is unpopular, they argue, isn’t that his agenda is too liberal for public consumption. It’s that the economy continues to be in the doldrums. That’s true as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far.

Obama’s agenda has hurt him. It is hard to think of an era in which the political majority pushed so many unpopular initiatives in such a short span of time. From the stimulus to the mandate to cap and trade to flirting with a trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court to suing Arizona for enforcing federal immigration law, it’s almost as if this administration enjoys being on the wrong side of public opinion. Can liberals honestly believe that these policies would be more popular if America were at full employment?

The reason the economy hurts Obama is that his agenda has not produced a recovery. At best, the legislation he has signed into law has delayed the financial reckoning. At worst, it has actively hindered recovery by increasing the regulatory and tax burdens on business and crowding out private investment. And so a principled and cheerful opposition to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid legislation, and a promise to overturn that legislation’s worst elements, is the beginning of a Republican agenda. But just the beginning.

Luckily, the GOP still has some idea men in its ranks. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Representative Tom Price of Georgia, has designed an alternative budget resolution. And Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has designed a long-term Roadmap for America’s Future. Both plans limit government and encourage growth. Ryan’s plan is especially audacious, as it overhauls the welfare state in a market-oriented, conservative direction. The really remarkable thing, however, is that these are the only two Republican visions of the future at this time of political and economic ferment. Why aren’t there more?


An enterprising conservative would build on the RSC and Ryan plans with an explicitly pro-growth agenda. He (or she!) would do this with the understanding that only robust, broad-based, and prolonged economic growth will produce jobs, reduce the debt burden, and increase social cohesion. He (or she) would be aware of a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation that found that net job growth in the United States comes from firms less than one year old. This enterprising conservative’s growth agenda, therefore, would make it a point to reduce hindrances to entrepreneurship and small business.

Meaning? An extension of current tax rates on income, dividends, and capital gains until the economy is booming and Congress is ready to undertake large-scale, pro-family, pro-investment tax reform. A payroll tax cut. A promise to take the Federal Register to the paper shredder, reducing the number of regulations that aspiring businessmen face when they start new ventures. A plan to withdraw from GM and Fannie and Freddie and end corporate welfare. A commitment to advance free trade by passing stalled agreements with South Korea and Colombia and championing new agreements with India and Africa.

The benefits associated with this agenda would not only be economic. The public would know where conservatives and Republicans stand. They would know what to expect in the years to come. And they would be able to hold the GOP accountable. The alternative is for Republicans to stand pat, benefit in the short term from Obama’s unpopularity in 2010—and reap the whirlwind in 2012.

—Matthew Continetti
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7)The Desperation of an Afghan Deal
By Michael Gerson

The Wikileaks document download -- illustrating Afghan corruption, Pakistani duplicity and Taliban toughness -- revealed little that is new. But it will intensify a popular kind of desperation.

A consensus is growing among foreign policy realists, skittish NATO allies and anti-war activists that the time has come to cut a deal with the Taliban. The Afghan government is hopeless; recent elections were discrediting; nation-building has failed. The only hope is to pursue not only reintegration of low- and mid-level Taliban fighters into Afghan society but reconciliation with Taliban leaders based in Pakistan. As long as these leaders end their relationship with al-Qaeda -- the only firm, non-negotiable red line -- the Taliban could return to effective control of southern Afghanistan in a more decentralized system.

Some Afghans are preparing for this prospect -- particularly those who find themselves on the wrong side of the red line. "Women are living in great fear for a peace deal with the Taliban because of what it will mean for their rights," says the manager of an Afghan woman's shelter. In areas currently controlled by the Taliban, schools for girls are shut down, women terrorized for working outside the home, woman politicians and activists attacked and murdered. A typical "night letter" from the Taliban reads: "We warn you to leave your job as a teacher as soon as possible otherwise we will cut the heads off your children and we shall set fire to your daughter." An Afghan women's rights activist recently explained to Human Rights Watch, "Every woman activist who has raised her voice in the last 10 years fears they (the Taliban) will kill us."

This debate is not only a conflict of two policy views but of two worlds. Recently, I attended a meeting of diplomats, foreign policy experts and journalists where a diplomatic settlement with the Taliban was broadly endorsed. The participants admitted that some regrettable abuses would result. But Afghanistan, in the general view, had become a costly distraction from issues such as Iran and North Korea. Best to cut our losses and get out. Around the polished table, every participant was a well-dressed, Western man, casually condemning millions of poor and powerless women to fear and slavery.

Supporters of a settlement with the Taliban respond that they are just facing reality -- that protecting the rights of Afghan women is desirable; it is simply not possible. In truth, they know no such thing. Those who predict defeat in Afghanistan significantly overlap with those who confidently predicted defeat in Iraq. Their military judgments merit some skepticism, particularly when American commanders are pursuing a new strategy in Afghanistan they believe may succeed. We should be suspicious of a realism that always amounts to defeatism.

The prospect of serious negotiations with the Taliban does not seem particularly realistic. If America were to insist on protections for the rights of women, ethnic minorities and civil society as preconditions for power sharing discussions with the Taliban, it would probably be a deal breaker. As it stands, the Taliban has every reason to think that it wins by enduring. A panting desire for a hasty deal only encourages this belief. Coming to the table at this point, the Taliban would have little motivation to make concessions on the most fundamental aspects of its ideology.

If the coalition does not insist on the protection of human rights as a precondition for negotiations, the whole thing gets much easier. It is always easy to end a conflict by giving in to the enemy. Reconciliation with the Taliban from a position of weakness -- granting the Taliban control over portions of the country -- bears a close resemblance to surrender. No paper assurances could hide the reality that America, under military pressure from Islamist radicals, had betrayed millions of Afghan men and women into comprehensive tyranny.

When asked last month about the possibility of an American settlement with the Taliban, CIA Director Leon Panetta responded: "We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al-Qaeda, where they would really try to become part of that society. We've seen no evidence of that and very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation, unless they're convinced that the United States is going to win and that they're going to be defeated, I think it's very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that's going to be meaningful."

This is the realistic alternative: Win first, then negotiate.

7a)From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields Liberals contemplate withdrawal from Afghanistan, heedless of the consequences
By BRET STEPHENS

Innocent civilians become the tragic casualties of war. Insurgents plant thousands of IEDs. Special-ops teams hunt down insurgents. The Taliban may have a few Stinger missiles. Pakistan plays a double game with the Taliban. The U.S. government can't keep its secrets. The New York Times has about as much regard for those secrets as a British tabloid has for a starlet's privacy. The Obama administration blames everything on Bush.

Is any of this news? Not exactly.

Still, you'd be forgiven for thinking it is, given the Pentagon Papers-style treatment now being accorded to the WikiLeak of 92,000 classified documents on the Afghan War. John Kerry says the documents "raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan." WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees "evidence of war crimes." A Time magazine columnist, making explicit the comparison with the Vietnam War, offers that the leak underscores "how futile the situation in Afghanistan is."

We'll see about that. In the meantime, take note of another item in the news: Yesterday's conviction by a U.N. tribunal of former Khmer Rouge prison commandant Kaing Guek Eav—better known as "Comrade Duch"—to 19 years in prison for his role in the Cambodian genocide. Remarkably, Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge official to be convicted for the crimes of Pol Pot's regime, more than three decades after it was evicted from Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian genocide is especially worth recalling today not only for what it was, but for the public debates in the West that immediately preceded it. "The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns," said then-congressman, now senator, Chris Dodd, by way of making the case against the Ford administration's bid to extend military assistance to the pro-American government of Lon Nol.

In the New York Times, Sydney Schanberg reported from Cambodia that "it is difficult to imagine how [Cambodian] lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." Mr. Schanberg added that "it would be tendentious to forecast [genocide] as a national policy under a Communist government once the war is over."

A year later, Mr. Schanberg was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, though not for tendentiousness.

All in all, America's withdrawal from Southeast Asia resulted in the killing of an estimated 165,000 South Vietnamese in so-called re-education camps; the mass exodus of one million boat people, a quarter of whom died at sea; the mass murder, estimated at 100,000, of Laos's Hmong people; and the killing of somewhere between one million and two million Cambodians.

Now we have the debate over Afghanistan. Should America begin to withdraw, and if so, how soon and by how much? These are important questions, although it's interesting to note how so many of the same people—including the Time columnist mentioned above—who now see nothing but quagmire and futility in Afghanistan were making precisely the same noises about Iraq in 2007. As was once said about the old Bourbon dynasty, they forget nothing—and they learn nothing.

It's also interesting to note that the further the debate moves politically leftward, the louder the calls for an immediate withdrawal become. Here again, the same people who protest every drone strike as a violation of the laws of war, or trumpet every inflated Taliban claim of civilian casualties as irrefutable fact, also want America out of Afghanistan. Right now. For the sake of peace.

As it happens, there is a defensible, if flawed, case for an American exit from Afghanistan. It is an argument based on a bloodless tabulation of economic and strategic costs and benefits, an argument about whether—as former Secretary of State James Baker was alleged to have said about the Balkans—the U.S. really has a dog in this fight. It is an argument that discounts considerations of American sacrifice and honor. It is an argument that is profoundly indifferent to whatever furies will engulf Afghanistan once the Taliban returns, as surely they will, provided the spillover effects are somehow contained.

In an old-fashioned sense, it is a very Republican argument. Just ask Pat Buchanan.

But somewhere in the bowels of the State Department, somebody might want to think hard about the human consequences of American withdrawal. What happens to the Afghan women who removed their burqas in the late fall of 2001, or the girls who enrolled in government schools? What happens to the army officers and civil servants who cooperated with the coalition? What happens to the villagers who stood with us when we asked them to?

It is a peculiar fact of modern liberalism that its best principles have most often been betrayed by self-described liberals. As with Cambodia, they may come to know it only when—for Afghans, at least—it is too late.
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8)Giving Lousy Teachers the Boot Michelle Rhee does the once unthinkable in Washington.
By WILLIAM MCGURN

Donald Trump is not the only one who knows how to get attention with the words, "You're fired." Michelle Rhee, chancellor for the District of Columbia schools, has just done a pretty nifty job of it herself.

On Friday, Ms. Rhee fired 241 teachers—roughly 6% of the total—mostly for scoring too low on a teacher evaluation that measures their performance against student achievement. Another 737 teachers and other school-based staff were put on notice that they had been rated "minimally effective." Unless these people improve, they too face the boot.

The mass dismissals follow a landmark agreement Ms. Rhee negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) at the end of June. The quid pro quo was this: Good teachers would get more money (including a 21.6% pay increase through 2012 and opportunities for merit pay). In exchange, bad teachers could be shown the door.

At the time, many gave the teachers union credit for approving this deal. Here's how another New York-based newspaper described the contract:

"Teachers' unions around the country are realizing that they can either participate in shaping reforms or have others' reforms forced upon them. The latest example comes from Washington, where the union has wisely negotiated and ratified a contract that gives the city greater leeway to pay, promote or fire teachers based on performance."

The danger, of course, was always that the taxpayers would make good on the money, but the promised accountability would never materialize. In this case, however, the accounting has begun. Apparently Ms. Rhee is a lady who means what she puts her name to.

The same cannot be said for the other side. WTU President George Parker told the Washington Post that the union would appeal the firings—and he threatened to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the District. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, accused Ms. Rhee of "stubbornly adhering to the destructive cycle of 'fire, hire, repeat.'"

Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a national voice for charters and school choice, says the responses from union leaders show they are not used to dealing with a chancellor willing to call their bluff. "The union has been given so much credit for 'coming to the table,'" she says. "But if you really believe what you signed, you don't then announce to the local paper you are filing a grievance when the other side tries to make good on that contract."

Now, getting good teachers in the classroom and rewarding them for their work has always been a key aim of reformers. Alas, that also requires getting the dead weight out of the classroom and off the payroll. That's not so easy to do in big-city school districts, as reformers like Joel Klein, New York's school chancellor, have found.

So why has Ms. Rhee succeeded where others have come up short? One huge reason is the advance of school choice and accountability throughout Washington. Though reform has come fitfully to D.C., today 38% of the district's students are in charter schools. Until the Democrats killed it, there was also a voucher program for a few thousand more. The result of all this ferment is that the teachers union is feeling pressure it has never felt before.

Maybe that's why, unlike so many in her position, Ms. Rhee has not been afraid to speak up for more choice and more competition. "I'm a huge proponent of choice," she told The Wall Street Journal three years ago, "but I'm also an unbelievably competitive person, and my goal is . . . to create schools within the system that I believe are the most compelling choices."

Another way of putting that is this: Ms. Rhee is smart enough to know that when she negotiates with the unions, the shift to charters and choice in the district gives her more leverage for the reforms she needs.

When I emailed a spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan asking if the administration supported Ms. Rhee's decision to fire the teachers not measuring up, the answer came back that "we have not weighed in on D.C. specifically but we support the use of student achievement as one factor in teacher evaluation." When asked if I could say that meant the secretary supports Ms. Rhee, the answer was "No," because "we do not know the facts." Two emails later, the clarification: "This is basically a staffing decision executing on their new labor agreement—something that is happening all across America—which is a local issue."

So goes the Obama administration. On the one hand, it deserves credit for contributing to a climate that challenges the status quo and supports certain initiatives. On the other hand, when a brave reformer such as Ms. Rhee actually makes a tough decision, it can be shy with the backup.

The good news is that Ms. Rhee isn't waiting for it.
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Big Government - One Big Leaky Damn!

An 'engaging' Sweet-Tammys cake that makes you want to get engaged all over again.

Here is the finished audition video we shot for the Food Network's cupcake wars. Lets hope we make it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bc1AfT2-zg
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Pat Condell is a British stand-up comedian, but this video isn't comic, it's pure truth, and utterly brilliant. You may have seen it already. I had but still it is worth re posting.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
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Big Government is just one big leaky 'damn.' From oil to paper!

Was it an attempt to make everything McChrystal clear that Obama's expanded Afghanistan War has simply made us more hated? Is Obama's targeted drone bombings, that have killed untold innocent Pakistanians, something about which Goldstone should draft a UN sponsored report.?

Will the liberal press and media now attack Obama as they did Israel for its engagement in Gaza?

War is hell and those who are opposed to Obama's war seem prepared to make his life hell.

Life is just full of surprises but one thing is for sure - what goes around comes around even for our Messiah.

We lived through "The Pentagon Papers" and we will get through this bigger leak but it does create a problem for those who are being asked to trust us with their intelligence and what will be the impact on the troops who are out there exposed to attack every minute.(See 1 below.)
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When it comes to doing something laudable for his people ,Abbas can't quite rise to the occasion or better yet sit down and talk face to face. He claims he will do so when there is nothing left to negotiate.

Meanwhile, this Israeli believes the Gordian knot is due to Israel's intransigence over security. No doubt Israel abuses Arabs living within Israel and no doubt there are Israeli politicians who have extreme views towards them. However, when you are dealing with those who still want to kill you, who have already engaged in doing so, disengaging from them carries a burden which this young lady seems to dismiss as meaningless.

I know of no nation that treats all its citizens, regardless of their personal differences, as equals. Obama proves that every time he opens his mouth yet, Israel always gets singled out. Could anyone perhaps look into how Arab and Muslim nations treat their own much less Christians and others living within their borders and issue a report.

And another apologist offers his solution - Netanyahu quit being so obdurate. Oh well!

But then a more realistic view.(See 2, 2a, 2b and 2c below.)
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Guilt meet trauma. A hard hitting article explaining why Europeans have a growing contempt for Israel.

My thoughts, for what they are worth, is that opinions should be seriously considered when they come from trustworthy and moral sources. Europe's hands are fairly dirty when it comes to even handedness because they are energy dependent and commercially committed to Arabs and have a sad history of treatment of their Jewish fellow citizens.

Seeking to gain the friendship of the world community, at this point in time, lamentably means bowing to cowards and that has never paid rich dividends. Investing in illusions is dumb.

Netanyahu should not lecture the world but neither should he kowtow.

Eventually the world will pay a heavy price for its own collective weakness and unwillingness to face up to its true enemy - radical Islamism which is fascism parading under the guise of a religion. (See 3 below.)
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Russia and China and Iran. Long but interesting. (See 4 below.)
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Daniel Pipes poses an interesting question regarding Turkey and world opinion. (See 5 below.)
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Obama is seeking to re-sell his own re-branding. What the messiah does not comprehend is that smooth talk and coolness will not wash away the consequences of his dumb radical policies.

Yes, Obama got a lot of legislation passed. His problem is that he did it against the wishes of those impacted by it - DUH!

The more Obama tries the more he seems to turn off even those who once revered him and now are hanging on as they bite their fingernails.

It is all too plain Obama feels our pain.

At least, Obama can still count on black voters because they continue to live on the Obama- Democrat plantation. Charlie Rangel benefited but little ever trickled down to the average black person. A unified black family remains illusory and that directly impacts education but government welfare stuck a knife through the heart of the black family. Education is the best lever for black citizens to improve their personal lot but unions remain an impediment and Democrats remain loyal to their union funding relationships.(See 6 below.)
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WAKE UP AMERICA! http://apathetic-usa.com/
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Dick
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1)Damage from leaks? WH says disclosure alarming
By ANNE FLAHERTY and RAPHAEL SATTER,


The monumental leak of classified Afghan war documents threatened Monday to create new conflict with Pakistan, whose spy agency was a focus of much of the material, and raised questions about Washington's own ability to protect military secrets. The White House called the disclosures "alarming" and scrambled to assess the damage.

The documents are described as battlefield reports compiled by various military units that provide an unvarnished look at combat in the past six years, including U.S. frustration over reports Pakistan secretly aided insurgents and civilian casualties at the hand of U.S. troops.

WikiLeaks.org, a self-described whistleblower organization, posted 76,000 of the reports to its website Sunday night. The group said it is vetting another 15,000 documents for future release.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military would probably need "days, if not weeks" to review all the documents and determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."

The White House says it didn't try to stop news organizations who had access to secret U.S. military documents from publishing reports about the leaks. However, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it did ask WikiLeaks — through reporters who were given advanced copies of the documents — to redact information in the documents that could harm U.S. military personnel.

It was not clear whether Wikileaks' decision to withhold 15,000 of its files was related.

The Pentagon declined to respond to specifics detailed in the documents, including reports of the Taliban's use of heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.

"Just because they are posted on the Internet, doesn't make them unclassified," Lapan said.


The Pentagon says it is still investigating the source of the documents. The military has detained Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst in Baghdad, for allegedly transmitting classified information. But the latest documents could have come from anyone with a secret-level clearance, Lapan said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised on Monday that the release of documents — one of the largest unauthorized disclosures in military history — was just the beginning.

Assange told reporters in London he believed "thousands" of U.S. attacks in Afghanistan could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, although he acknowledged that such claims would have to be tested in court.

Assange pointed in particular to a deadly missile strike ordered by Taskforce 373, a unit allegedly charged with hunting down and killing senior Taliban targets. He said there was also evidence of cover-ups when civilians were killed, including what he called a suspiciously high number of casualties that U.S. forces attributed to ricochet wounds.

The Defense Department declined to respond to specifics contained in the documents, citing security reasons.

But Lapan said that coalition forces have made great strides in reducing the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones said the release of the documents "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk," while Pakistan dismissed the documents as malicious and unsubstantiated.

Pakistan Ambassador Husain Haqqani said the documents "do not reflect the current on-ground realities." Islamabad's ministry of foreign affairs issued a similar statement, defending Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, against allegations it has supported insurgent networks.

"The people of Pakistan and its security forces, including the ISI, have rendered enormous sacrifices against militancy and terrorism," the ministry wrote.

NATO refused to comment on the leak, but individual nations said they hoped it wouldn't harm current operations in Afghanistan.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there has been significant progress recently in building up the Afghan state "so I hope any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned about possible "backlashes" and urged all sides in Afghanistan to work toward national reconciliation.

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the documents reflect his view that U.S. war strategy was adrift last year, before President Barack Obama's decision to retool the war plan and add tens of thousands of U.S. forces.

Skelton, D-Mo., warned Monday that the documents are outdated and "should not be used as a measure of success or a determining factor in our continued mission there."

U.S. government agencies have been bracing for the deluge of classified documents since the leak of helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 fire fight in Baghdad. That was blamed on Manning, the 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst who was charged with releasing classified information earlier this month.

Manning had bragged online that he downloaded 260,000 classified U.S. cables and transmitted them to WikiLeaks.org.

Assange on Monday compared the impact of the released material to the opening of East Germany's secret police files. "This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi archives," he said.

He also said his group had many more documents on other subjects, including files on countries from across the globe.

"We have built up an enormous backlog of whistleblower disclosures," he said.

Assange said he believed more whistle-blowing material will flood in after the publicity about the Afghan files.

"It is our experience that courage is contagious," he said.

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2)U.S. presses Abbas to resume direct peace talks with Israel
Internal memo to Palestinian officials urges PA president to resist U.S. pressure, warning that dropping preconditions for face-to-face negotiations with would be political suicide.

By The Associated Press

A senior U.S. envoy warned the Palestinian president that he must move quickly to direct talks with Israel if he wants President Barack Obama's help in setting up a Palestinian state, according to an internal Palestinian document obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

The 36-page memo, sent to senior Palestinian officials, advised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resist growing U.S. pressure, warning that rescinding his conditions for face-to-face negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be political suicide.

Abbas has said he won't resume talks that broke off in December 2008 unless Netanyahu accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, with some alterations, and freezes all settlement building there.

Netanyahu refuses to commit to anything before the start of talks, but has said he will not give up east Jerusalem. On Monday, he strongly indicated that he would not extend a 10-month freeze on housing starts in West Bank settlements beyond September.

The Palestinian memo was distributed just before a crucial meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Thursday.

Ministers are set to decide whether they favor a move to direct talks or support the Palestinian position that U.S. shuttle diplomacy should be allowed to run its course. Indirect talks, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell meeting separately with Abbas and Netanyahu, began in early May and were to last up to four months, until early September.

However, in recent days, the U.S. has stepped up pressure on Abbas to go to direct talks now.

In a July 17 meeting, Mitchell told Abbas that direct talks must begin soon in order to keep Obama engaged, according to the Palestinian memo, which summarized recent diplomatic efforts and was e-mailed to leaders of Abbas' Fatah movement.

Mitchell told Abbas that in the event of direct talks, the U.S. administration can push forcefully for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, according to the document. If Abbas refuses to negotiate, Obama may not be able to be of much help, get the settlement curb extended or prevent the demolition of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, the document said.

The envoy told Abbas he should seize the fleeting opportunity and not waste time, the memo said. He cautioned Abbas not to count on Netanyahu being replaced by another Israeli leader anytime soon, the document said.

In Washington, State Department officials would not confirm that the memo reflected Mitchell's exact words or talking points, but said that this indeed illustrates where we are. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the memo is based, in part, on notes taken of an oral presentation he made to Fatah leaders, but that not all points made in it are accurate.

Erekat confirmed that U.S. officials told Abbas that if he wants Obama to help, then he needs to go to direct talks.

Erekat denied that Abbas was warned by Mitchell of the possible downside of refusing to go to direct talks or told that Netanyahu could remain in office for several more years.

Two Palestinian officials confirmed receipt of the memo, which carried the letterhead of the Palestinian Negotiations Department.

The document summarizes diplomatic contacts with the Obama administration since February. It says that since the beginning of July, Abbas has come under growing pressure from the U.S. to go to direct talks.

The memo ends with recommendations to Abbas. There should be steadfastness in the Palestinian position regarding direct talks, the document says. Going to direct talks while the Israeli government refuses to stop settlement activities and refuses to continue talks where they left off in December 2008 would be like political suicide.

Also Monday, Israeli settlers entered a Palestinian village, set fire to a field, tried to tear down an unfinished house and attacked villagers, residents said. The rampage appeared to be in response to the demolition of illegal settler buildings earlier in the day by Israeli authorities.

The two sides began hurling rocks at each other, injuring 10 people, including one settler who was seriously hurt, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli police said.

The Israeli military, which controls the West Bank, arrived on the scene and separated the sides. No shots were fired.

2b)Israel needs a Palestinian state
By ALON BEN-MEIR
07/26/2010 22:16


Without direct talks, the Palestinians will declare statehood unilaterally.
Israel’s national security and self-preservation as a democracy, if not its very existence, depend on its ability and willingness to come to terms with the reality of coexistence with the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution.

Unfortunately, instead of seeking to promote the creation of a Palestinian state, the current government has sought to impede it.

Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s endorsement of the two-state solution at Bar-Ilan University last summer offered a good start, it fell far short of the kind of vision needed to achieve a sustainable, lasting agreement.

What he and his government have proposed amounts to an autonomous Palestinian entity, lacking territorial contiguity, with ultimate security responsibility remaining in Israel’s hands.

Today, few Israelis view the establishment of a Palestinian state as a national security imperative, and a growing number have resigned themselves to supporting the idea of conflict management rather than conflict resolution.

They simply do not believe that the Palestinians will ever accept Israel as an independent state. This particular view gained tremendous currency following the eruption of the second intifada beginning in September 2000 in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, many by suicide bombers. The intifada prompted prime minister Ariel Sharon to reoccupy much of the territories from which Israel had withdrawn as part of the Oslo Accords, and fueled disillusionment with the peace process. This skepticism was reinforced after the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Instead of using the withdrawal as an opportunity to build the foundation for a future state, the territory was used as a staging ground for rocket attacks, ultimately leading to Operation Cast Lead. These events, coupled with growing fears of Palestinian militancy following Hamas’ takeover of Gaza, have moved the political pendulum in Israel to the right of center, even as the concept of a two-state solution has moved more and more into the mainstream.

As Israelis have become disillusioned with the peace process, the country has strengthened its formidable military power and economic development, creating the false impression that it can sustain the status quo indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the settlement movement has gained significant political power, enabling it to exert immense influence on successive governments. The settlers’ commitment to territorial expansion that is driven by a belief in their divine right to settle the West Bank, coupled with widely held deep skepticism about the Palestinians’ intentions that is fueled by legitimate security concerns, have led the public to seemingly become immune to the plight of the Palestinian people.

Against this backdrop, the right-of-center government appears to be committed to disfranchise Palestinians, suppress opposition, undermine democratic values and forsake the moral tenants on which the state was created.

IN THIS regard, the introduction of two abominable measures in the Knesset speak volumes about how far this government will go to advance the right-wing “Greater Israel” agenda, however perilous this prospect may be. The first bill requires every individual seeking Israeli citizenship to declare his loyalty to a “Jewish democratic state,” specifically designed to discriminate against Palestinian citizens.

The second bill would punish anyone calling for a boycott of any Israeli individual or institution, whether in Israel or in the territories, with a fine of NIS 30,000 plus any proven damages.

In addition to such legislative efforts, the government has continued to demolish Palestinian houses, force eviction, seize land and deliberately disrupt communal life.

Indeed, there is no internationally orchestrated campaign to delegitimize Israel as many claim. By its own actions and policies, the country itself is doing a very good job at that. Rather than address Palestinian national aspirations for statehood in the context of a secure and independent Israel, the current government erroneously views maintenance of the occupation and expansion of settlements as synonymous with long-term national security.

The Palestinians have joined in choosing a convoluted course of action that has undermined their aspirations for statehood. Their intense and often violent factionalism has prevented them from adopting a unified purpose and an effective strategy vis-a-vie the occupation. In addition to the political rivalry for power, the dispute between Fatah and Hamas, which intensified following Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, is a battle of ideas over whether a militant or nonmilitant strategy would have greater effect on Israeli policy.


The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, although skeptical about the prospect of an agreement, still opts for a nonviolent strategy having concluded that violence provides justification for Israel to maintain the occupation. However, its inability to make significant progress at the negotiating table has served to further Hamas’s contention that Israel is not interested in peace and that only a militant strategy will force it to change course.

Although Hamas has suspended violence following the conclusion of the Gaza war in January 2009, the Netanyahu government has made no effort to explore a possible rapprochement with a group that it dismisses as an irredeemable terrorist organization that must be eliminated.

The building and expansion of settlements in the West Bank – even as Israel has declared a moratorium on such construction – has further strengthened the hand of those who argue that Israel has no intention of allowing Palestinians to establish a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza.

WHILE THE two sides remain in a deadlock, Palestinians recognize that the status quo cannot be sustained, and that the international community is on their side. It is with this recognition that Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has begun to build the infrastructure for a future state with the goal of ultimately declaring statehood with or without Israeli cooperation.

In so doing, he and President Mahmoud Abbas have disavowed the use of violence, thereby evoking tremendous international support and pressure on Israel to ease the occupation. In many ways this has created an historic point of departure in Israeli-Palestinian relations by offering the Israelis what they have always wanted – a nonviolent approach to reach a lasting solution. The Palestinians are thus demonstrating that, contrary to Israeli claims, there is indeed a partner ready and able to negotiate an end to the conflict.

That being said, their ability to negotiate is constrained by time, and it is unclear whether the current Israeli government will be willing to offer the minimum they can accept. The Palestinian public, like that in Israel, is disillusioned with failed peacemaking efforts. The leadership in Ramallah cannot afford to enter into negotiations unless they can demonstrate to the people that such talks have a real chance to succeed. Meanwhile, the more time that passes, the more the cases for a nonviolent approach and for continued peacemaking efforts are undermined. As such, it is no wonder that the Palestinian leadership is increasingly looking to the option of a unilateral declaration of statehood, supported by the international community.

The current deadlock does not change the reality that Israelis and Palestinians must coexist in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

In one form or another, and regardless of any political and territorial configurations, Israelis and Palestinians are stuck with one another. The welfare and well-being of both nations are interdependent.

Now they must make that fateful choice: Do they want to live in hatred and debilitating hostility, leaving a shameful legacy to the next generation, or do they want to live in amity and peace, and become a model of prosperous, neighboring democracies? Should Israel forfeit this historic opportunity to negotiate a conflict ending with an agreement with the leadership in Ramallah, the Palestinians will have the right and the obligation to move with full speed to coalesce international support for a declaration of statehood, with or without Israel’s consent. To avoid this scenario, the government must recognize that the national security of the State of Israel is dependent on the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state, and work accordingly to achieve this objective and market it as such to the public.

I maintain that Israel’s and the Palestinians’ long-term security and prosperity are interdependent, and that the establishment of an independent Palestinian state is central to this equation.

The writer is professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

2c)Who's Against a Two-State Solution?
By Efraim Karsh

"Two states, living side by side in peace and security." This, in the words of President Barack Obama, is the solution to the century-long conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs in the Middle East. Washington is fully and determinedly on board. So are the Europeans. The UN and the "international community" vociferously agree. Successive governments of the state of Israel have shown their support for the idea. So far, there is—just as there has always been—only one holdout.

The story begins a long time ago. In April 1920, the newly formed League of Nations appointed Britain as the mandatory power in Palestine. The British were committed, via the Balfour Declaration, to facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. But they were repeatedly confronted with violent Arab opposition, which they just as repeatedly tried to appease. As early as March 1921, they severed the vast and sparsely populated territory east of the Jordan River ("Transjordan") from the prospective Jewish national home and made Abdullah, the emir of Mecca, its effective ruler. In 1922 and 1930, two British White Papers limited Jewish immigration to Palestine and imposed harsh restrictions on land sales to Jews.

But the violence mounted, and in July 1937 it reaped its greatest reward when a British commission of inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, recommended repudiating the terms of the mandate altogether. In its stead, the commission now proposed a two-state solution: the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab state, united with Transjordan, that would occupy some 85 percent of the mandate territory west of the Jordan river, and a Jewish state in the remainder. "Half a loaf is better than no bread," the commission wrote in its report, hoping that "on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of partition are outweighed by its advantages."

But partition did not happen. While the Zionist leadership gave the plan its halfhearted support, Arab governments and the Palestinian Arab leadership (with the sole exception of Abdullah, who viewed partition as a steppingstone to the vast Arab empire he was striving to create) dismissed it out of hand.

The same thing happened in November 1947 when, in the face of the imminent expiration of the British mandate, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine. Rejecting the plan altogether, the Arab nations attempted to gain the whole by destroying the state of Israel at birth. This time, however, Arab violence backfired. In the ensuing war, not only did Israel confirm its sovereign independence and assert control over somewhat wider territories than those assigned to it by the UN, but the Palestinian Arab community was profoundly shattered, with about half of its members fleeing to other parts of Palestine and to neighboring Arab states.

But the results hardly won the Arabs over to the merits of the two-state solution. Rather, the Arab states continued to manipulate the Palestinian cause to their own several ends. Neither Egypt nor Jordan permitted Palestinian self-determination in the parts of Palestine they had occupied during the 1948 war. Jordan annexed the West Bank in April 1950, while Egypt kept the Gaza Strip under oppressive military rule. No new Palestinian leadership was allowed to emerge. Only after the conquest of these territories by Israel during the June 1967 Six-Day war, and the passage five months later of UN Security Council Resolution 242, would their political future become a question of the first order.

At the time, though, nobody envisaged a return to the two-state solution. To the contrary: Palestinian nationhood was rejected by the entire international community, including the western democracies, the Soviet Union (then the foremost supporter of radical Arabism), and the Arab world itself (as late as 1974, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad openly referred to Palestine as "a basic part of southern Syria"). Instead, under Resolutions 242's "land for peace" terms, it was assumed that any territories evacuated by Israel would be returned to their pre-1967 Arab occupiers: Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. The resolution did not even mention the Palestinians by name, affirming instead the necessity "for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"—a clause that applied not just to Arabs but to the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab states following the 1948 war.

What, then, about the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), established in 1964 at the initiative of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser? Through a sustained terror campaign in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most notably including the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the September 1972 Munich Olympics, the PLO would gradually establish itself as a key international player. In October 1974 it was designated by the Arab League as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, and in the following month PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat became the first non-state leader ever to address the UN General Assembly. Soon afterward, the UN granted observer status to the PLO despite that organization's open commitment to the destruction of Israel, a UN member state; within a few years, it was allowed to open offices in most west European capitals.

The PLO's ascendance, coupled with Jordan's renunciation of its claim to the West Bank, led to a reinterpretation of Resolution 242 as in fact implying a two-state solution: namely, Israel and a Palestinian state governed by the PLO in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Conveniently ignored was one glaring fact: the PLO rejected any such solution. In June 1974, the organization adopted a "phased strategy," according to whose terms it would seize whatever territory Israel was prepared or compelled to cede and use it as a springboard for further territorial gains until achieving, in its phrase, the "complete liberation of Palestine."

It is true that, in November 1988, more than two decades after the passage of 242, the PLO made a pretense of accepting the resolution; but this was little more than a ploy to open a dialogue with Washington. Shortly after that move, Salah Khalaf, Arafat's second-in-command (better known by his nom de guerre of Abu Iyad), declared: "The establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of Palestine is but a step toward the whole of Palestine." Two years later, following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait (which the PLO endorsed), he reiterated the point at a public rally in Amman, pledging "to liberate Palestine inch by inch from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."

Despite all this, Israel's Labor government, which had backed the "land for peace" formula in the immediate wake of the 1967 war, decided to enter into its own peace negotiations with the PLO. In 1993 it signed the "Oslo Accords" providing for Palestinian self-rule in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip for a transitional period not to exceed five years, during which time Israel and the Palestinians would negotiate a permanent settlement. Although the Oslo accords were not based explicitly on a two-state solution, they signaled an implicit Israeli readiness to acquiesce in the establishment of a Palestinian state.

But once again the PLO had other plans. In its judgment, the Oslo "peace process" offered a path not to a two-state but to a one-state solution. Arafat admitted as much five days before signing the accords in Washington when he told an Israeli journalist that "In the future, Israel and Palestine will be one united state in which Israelis and Palestinians will live together"—that is, Israel would cease to exist. And even as he shook Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's hand on the White House lawn, Arafat was assuring the Palestinians in a pre-recorded Arabic-language message that the agreement was merely an implementation of the PLO's phased strategy.

The next ten years offered a recapitulation, over and over again, of the same story. In addressing Israeli or Western audiences, Arafat would laud the "peace" he had signed with "my partner Yitzhak Rabin." To his Palestinian constituents, he depicted the accords as transient arrangements required by the needs of the moment, made constant allusion to the "phased strategy," and repeatedly insisted on the "right of return," a euphemism for Israel's destruction through demographic subversion.

And that was the least of it. Further discrediting the idea of "two states living side by side in peace and security," Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) launched a sustained campaign of racial hatred and political incitement. Israelis, and Jews more generally, were portrayed as the source of all evil and responsible for every problem, real or imagined, in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians were indoctrinated in the illegitimacy of the state of Israel and the lack of any Jewish connection to the land, supplemented with tales of Israeli plots to corrupt and ruin them.

Nor did it stop there. Embracing violence as the defining characteristic of his rule, Arafat set out to build an extensive terrorist infrastructure in the territories—in flagrant violation of the accords and in total defiance of the overriding official reason for his presence there: namely, to lay the groundwork for Palestinian independence. Israeli concessions had no effect, or worse. In 1997, Jerusalem gave the PA full control over virtually the entire Arab population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as some 40 percent of the land, as a prelude to final-status negotiations. But Israel's civilian casualties only mounted. At the American-convened peace summit in Camp David (July 2000), Ehud Barak offered Arafat a complete end to the Israeli presence, ceding virtually the entire territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the nascent Palestinian state and making breathtaking concessions with respect to Jerusalem. Arafat's response was war, at a level of local violence unmatched in scope and intensity since the attempt to abort the creation of a Jewish state in 1948.

Although it had become abundantly evident by then that the PLO had no interest whatsoever in statehood, the international community responded by condemning Israel's defensive measures against the Palestinian intifada and urging it to accelerate the "peace process." It also maintained the massive influx of international aid to the Palestinian Authority, making the Palestinians the largest recipients of foreign aid per-capita in the world—though most of the funds were promptly siphoned off to the personal bank accounts of Arafat and his cronies and/or channeled to terror operations. Even after Arafat's death in late 2004 and the landslide victory of the militant Islamist group Hamas in Palestinian parliamentary elections twelve months later, Western governments insistently maintained the façade of a "peace process," now embracing Mahmoud Abbas and his defeated Fatah as the epitome of moderation.

But is there in fact a fundamental distinction between Hamas and Fatah when it comes to a two-state solution? Neither faction formally accepts Israel's right to exist; both are formally committed to its eventual destruction. Moreover, for all the admittedly sharp differences between Arafat and his successor Abbas both in personality and in political style, the two are warp and woof of the same dogmatic PLO fabric.

In a televised speech on May 15, 2005, Abbas described the establishment of Israel as an unprecedented historic injustice and vowed his unwavering resolve never to accept it. Two-and-a-half years later, at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, he rejected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposal of a Palestinian Arab state in 97 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, and categorically dismissed the request to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside the would-be Palestinian state, insisting instead on full implementation of the "right of return."

In June 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke with longstanding Likud precept by publicly accepting a two-state solution and agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state, provided the Palestinian leadership responded in kind and recognized Israel's Jewish nature. The Arab world exploded in rage. Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, whose country had been at peace with the Jewish state for 30 years, deplored Netanyahu's statement as "scuppering the possibilities for peace." Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that Netanyahu "will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him."

At Fatah's sixth general congress, convened in Bethlehem in August last year, the delegates reaffirmed their longstanding commitment to "armed struggle" as "a strategy, not a tactic . . . . This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated and Palestine is liberated." More recently, even as Abbas has publicly mouthed the Obama formula for "two states living side by side in peace and security," he pointedly insists on preconditions impossible for Israel to accept.

The Peel Commission had the principle right. While a two-state solution "offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely, freedom and security." It is a great historical irony that this "half-a-loaf" solution should have been repeatedly advanced as a response by others—Europeans, Americans, Israelis—to the actions of its most implacable opponents, who have then repeatedly proceeded to repudiate it in word and deed. On the Palestinian side, not a single leader has ever evinced any true liking for the idea or acted in a way signifying an unqualified embrace of it. The same is true, with the partial exceptions of Egypt and Jordan, for the larger Arab world.

Nearly two decades and thousands of deaths after the launch of the "peace process," one might hope that Western policy makers would at last begin to take the measure of what the Palestinian leadership tells its own people and wider Arab audiences. For the lesson of history remains: so long as things on the Arab side are permitted, or encouraged, to remain as they are, there will be no two-state solution, and therefore no solution at all.

Efraim Karsh, editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author most recently of Palestine Betrayed (Yale), is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London.
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3) EU hostile to Jewish State because Israel’s success flaunts Europe’s failure
By Moshe Dann



Antipathy for Israel among Europeans is increasing and alarming as campaigns of de-legitimization and vilification spread across the world, fueled by Muslim propaganda and money, whetted by the hunger for oil. Even once friendly European countries, those that helped establish the State of Israel and tried to assist Jews during the Holocaust, have become more hostile towards Israel. Europe's brief love affair with Israel seems over. Why?


"The path of national self-determination ... lies beneath the nearly boundless disgust so many feel towards Israel, and especially toward anything having to do with Israel’s attempts to defend itself… It is driven by the rapid advance of a new paradigm that understands Israel, and especially the independent Israeli use of force to defend itself, as illegitimate down to its foundations."

Still, this does not explain why the right of self-defense, sacrosanct and enshrined in national and international law, does not apply to Israel.


For Europeans today, who did not experience the Holocaust, Israel is a constant reminder of their complicity and guilt in the genocide of Jews. They want to forget it; Israel can't.


Before and after World War II, the Soviet Union slaughtered, persecuted and enslaved Jews in gulags, sponsored and trained Arab terrorists, and attempted to wipe out Judaism. Eventually, the barriers fell, Jews emigrated, and the USSR folded and became the FSU.


Every time we force European dignitaries to visit Yad Vashem, we rub their noses in what they allowed; a return to scenes of their crimes. We make them pay when they see how vibrant we are and - the ultimate snub, except for Russia - with an army more powerful than their own!


Deliberately, methodically, Europe became Judenrein; instead it has mosques and veils, and primitive Islamic laws to worry about.


Europe rid itself of most of its Jews - some escaped, built a country, and now Israel has a more stable economy than theirs. What an indignity that those whom you punished and persecuted for so long sing and dance before you, and make you pay to see their heritage revealed in archeological sites.


Let Arabs do dirty work
For 2,000 years, Europe expelled or murdered Jews, stole their property, tried to crush their spirit, and yet, they came back even stronger. Jews are on the cutting-edge of everything, while Europe can't seem to find the tools. It doesn't make sense.



Jews were supposed to be finished off in ghettos, gas ovens, and slave labor prisons. That didn't work. Ok, give them a state and let the Arabs, generously supplied by most European governments and corporations, finish them off; that didn't work either.


Ok, Oslo, a diplomatic coup, land-for-nothing: still undecided. Welcome Iran to do the job, its nuclear reactors built by Russians, French and Germans, financed by the ever-neutral Swiss; well, maybe that will work.


Israel's success flaunts Europe's failure. And, despite European economies going down the tubes, EU countries still fund Arab Palestinian hate groups and rescue terrorists. Having used the most powerful forces in the world to eliminate the Jewish people, Europeans must feel frustrated at the audacity of Jews, not only to defend themselves, but to survive as Jews, forcing their leaders to salute a flag that bears a Jewish symbol, and shake hands with Jewish generals.


Instead of their traditional Jew-hatred, Europeans smile, and slip cash to the Arabs to do their dirty work. Condemning Israel is easier than feeling shame.


Jews in Israel are a traumatized people. Traumatized by the Holocaust and by constant Arab terrorism, we are also traumatized by our own leaders who, in the name of peace, emboldened our sworn enemies and exposed us to their murderous efforts. And many Israeli academics never lose an opportunity to condemn the country that pays their salaries. Israel's media often operate as propaganda machines for the Left.


How Europeans must relish their bigotry when they see Israeli political cartoons, opinion pieces (as "news"), literature and art that depict Israelis as vicious, Jews as despicable, and Judaism as worthless.


Ach, Europe, how you must shiver with humiliation when you need Israeli-produced technology, science and medicine. What angst overtakes you when you must decide whether to boycott Israeli fruit and vegetables, or enjoy them.


Like a supposedly dispatched victim, Israel comes back to haunt Europe, not only to confront it with its strength, but ablaze with Jewishness. What an indignity for Europeans to see flourishing Jewish communities instead of piled corpses, bones of those buried in mass execution pits renewed in Israeli children.


Europe hates Jews, finally, because it hates itself; it knows what European civilization allowed, permitted, and condoned. "Never Again" is the Jewish password; Europeans know it can.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)SPRING 2010 • VOLUME XVII: NUMBER 2
By George L. Simpson, Jr.

Recent years have witnessed the rise of irregular but frequently intensive opposition to U.S. global preeminence by Russia and China. In their own ways, and in pursuit of their own interests, each of these authoritarian governments has established an informal alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran. For its part, the Khamenei regime in Tehran continues to view the United States as the "Great Satan" and works against American interests by engaging in international terrorism,[1] aiding in attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq[2] and Afghanistan,[3] working to derail any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,[4] and most of all by seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.


Iran tests a Shahab-3 missile in November 2006. Currently, the Iranian military is trying to develop the Shahab-6 missile, which will have a range of 3,500 miles, putting Europe within its sights. There is some speculation that Moscow is helping Tehran with a missile that will have a 6,300-mile range, enabling it to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.

There is a long history of conflict between Russia and Iran, so why is Moscow now warmly regarded by the Islamist regime, and why does Moscow, in turn, court Tehran? Furthermore, what explains Iran's new alliance with China? Has a new axis, opposed to the United States and Europe, formed, and if so, what are its roots and ramifications?

A New Geostrategic Axis?
Russian commentator Andrei Volnov has called the de facto Moscow-Beijing-Tehran alignment "a new geostrategic axis."[5] While such a characterization is more metaphor than reality, a trilateral combination, based on the common goals of promoting economic self-interest and reducing U.S. influence, certainly has been built on the foundations of fairly recent but significant bilateral ties between the two countries and Tehran. Thus, Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, notes that Moscow's ties with the Iranian regime "reflect a geopolitical agenda which is at least twenty years old."[6] Russia is engaged in what might be called "strategic opportunism" as it constantly fishes in troubled waters with the goal of identifying vulnerabilities that its policy makers can exploit.[7] Similarly, one can trace Beijing's increasing links with Tehran to the first years of the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s.[8] For its part, Iran has followed a consistent anti-America and anti-Israel path since its 1979 revolution.

Proponents of an informal alliance from the Russian Federation, China, and Iran present it as a reaction to the unilateralism of the United States and alleged U.S. aspirations for global hegemony. They consider the United States a significant rival and a threat to their long-term security. Consequently, Russia's goal, according to Cohen, is to engage in a "balancing strategy" that will knock the United States down a notch and thus revise the international status quo. While Cohen makes this point for Moscow's policy, it is an equally apt characterization of Beijing's approach as well.[9]

The View from Beijing
The leaders of China and Iran feel that they are the proud heirs to two great and ancient civilizations that have been humiliated and made victims of Western imperial aggression. They believe that Washington's "hegemonism" represents the unjust continuation of long-standing Western efforts to keep them weak and subordinate.[10] Hence, Sino-Iranian relations are bound by what Asia and Middle East analyst John Calabrese calls a "kinship of nationalisms."[11]

Perhaps more importantly, an understanding of economic issues further explains China's lukewarm support for the United States in its disputes with Iran. China, which has one of the world's fastest growing economies and which has designs on becoming an economic superpower, is today the world's second largest consumer of oil. Nearly 60 percent of its oil is imported from the Middle East. Iran, which possesses about 10 percent of the world's proven petroleum reserves, replaced Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier of oil to China in May 2009. Indeed, since reaching an agreement in October 2004, Beijing and Tehran have penned energy deals that purportedly are worth more than US$120 billion.[12]

Furthermore, Iran's oil producing facilities and equipment are in serious need of modernization. Beijing's willingness to invest in this vital sector of the Iranian economy (as much as 90 percent of Iran's export income comes from oil) is crucial to the fiscal well-being of the present Islamist regime, which, according to official estimates, faces an 11 percent unemployment rate and inflation exceeding 13 percent.[13] Thus, the China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil producer and supplier, signed a deal in January 2007 worth $3.6 billion to develop Iranian offshore gas fields. As recently as June 2009, the same company put its name to a $2 billion contract for development of the northern section of Iran's Azadegan oil field near Ahvaz.[14]

Despite U.S. pressure to keep Iran economically isolated, China has leaped into the void created by U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution. In 2003, trade between the People's Republic and Iran reached a record $4 billion, and that figure soared to $16 billion in 2006 and $29 billion in 2008.[15] Crude oil constitutes 80 percent of China's imports from the Islamic Republic with mineral and chemical products making up most of the remainder. Beijing's exports are more diversified, with machinery, electrical appliances, textiles, vehicles, and aircraft comprising the most important commodities in demand from Iran.[16]

Before 1997, Beijing had, for more than a decade, been Iran's most important partner in helping the Islamist regime develop its nuclear capability. As China expert John W. Garver writes, China's cooperation with Iran "was extensive, sustained over a fairly long period, and of crucial importance to Iran's nuclear effort."[17] The Chinese have apparently retreated from their policy of direct cooperation with the mullahs on the nuclear front since that time.

The View from Moscow
One might think that the long history of conflict between Russia and Persia would preclude Iran from seeking Russian aid. As far back as Peter the Great (r.1682-1725), tsars and tsarinas have nibbled at Iranian borders in the Caucasus and the Caspian region. Over time, first the Romanovs, then the communists intervened more and more in Persian affairs, with the latter going so far as to establish short-lived "People's Republics" in Kurdish and Azeri regions of Iran. Despite this, the courtship continues.

Russia also has economic reasons to back the Tehran regime. Russia's trade with Iran is more modest than China's but nevertheless significant. Total trade between the two countries equaled $3.2 billion in 2008 with analysts predicting even higher numbers within a few years. As both countries are major energy producers, they share a common interest in establishing pricing policies for oil and natural gas as well as manipulating these markets to their advantage.

More significant, however, is Moscow's role in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The Russian government has assisted in Iran's construction of the $800 million Bushehr nuclear power plant and has helped the mullahs obtain nuclear knowledge.[18] As a result, Moscow, as well as Beijing, is at odds with Washington over how to deal with Tehran's efforts to gain a nuclear capability. China and Russia, both of which wield veto power on the United Nations Security Council, have consistently obstructed efforts in the U.N. to halt Tehran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons. While it is true that from time to time, both countries have called on Iran's regime (which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), neither has supported effective sanctions or forceful measures to deal with the problem. Gennady Yevstafyev, a senior adviser at the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, has gone so far as to contend that "Washington closed its eyes to the creation of nuclear weapons by its strategic partner, Pakistan. But now it is threatening a war on its ex-strategic partner Iran for the same crime."[19]

Moscow continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth. Sergei Kiryienko, the director-general of Rosatom, Russia's federal atomic energy agency, has stated the official Russian position that "broad access to civilian nuclear power must be guaranteed while at the same time there must be a guarantee that weapons of mass destruction will not proliferate under any circumstances."[20] As recently as October 2007, then-president Vladimir Putin described a nuclear armed Iran to be a "strategic threat" to Russia when he met with leaders of the European Jewish Congress and with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow. Yet the Russian leader went on to claim that there was no "objective data" proving that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons so that "we proceed from a position that Iran has no such plans."[21] What lies behind the inscrutable strongman's thinking is difficult to say for certain, but one can speculate that Putin's antipathy towards the United States as well as his desire to conciliate cronies within the Russian Federation's military-industrial complex goes a long way to explain this gamble.

China, Russia, and Iranian Weaponry
Arms sales to Iran by China and Russia, which the three countries insist are lawful, is another source of contention between the latter two and Washington.[22] Russia is Iran's biggest weapons supplier by a wide margin, though China is also an important source. Russia reportedly supports the Islamic Republic's development of ballistic missiles, which former Secretary of State Colin Powell warns have been redesigned to enable them to carry nuclear warheads.[23] Currently, the Iranian military is trying to develop the Shahab-6 missile, a variant of the North Korean Taep'o-dong-2C/3, which will have a range of 3,500 miles, putting Europe within its sights. There are unverified reports that the Russians have transferred rocket engine technology for this program and even some speculation that Moscow is helping Tehran with a missile that will have a 6,300-mile range, enabling it to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.[24]

For its part, although the Chinese government denies as "groundless allegation[s]" reports about its role in supplying Iran with weaponry,[25] it is clear that it has transferred missile components and technology to Iran since the 1980s.[26] For example, Tehran has obtained Chinese-made anti-ship surface-to-surface C-801 and C-802 missiles, which pose a potential threat to Persian Gulf shipping and U.S. naval vessels in the region.[27].

According to the CIA and experts in the field, Iran is also trying to develop sophisticated biological and chemical weapons.[28] These efforts go back to the Iran-Iraq war when the Iranians were on the receiving end of Iraqi chemical attacks. Although Iran has ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, specialists believe that with the help of Russian experts, it is "in the advanced research and development phase" of weaponizing chemical toxins and living organisms.[29] For its part, China has helped in Iran's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by selling precursor and dual-use chemicals, as well as the technology and equipment needed to use them. Thus there is good reason to conclude that "the Iranian leadership intends to maintain a robust CW [chemical weapons] capability."[30]

Washington is concerned not just with Iranian possession of sophisticated weapons but with the prospect of Tehran transferring them to terrorist proxies, such as Lebanese-based Hezbollah. In fact, the group launched an Iranian C-802 missile during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, which hit the Israeli missile frigate Hanit.[31] According to Israeli press reports, the mullahs are currently supplying Iranian-made Zelzal and upgraded Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles to the radical Shi'i group.[32] In August 2009, Israeli president Shimon Peres claimed that Hezbollah currently had 80,000 Iranian-supplied missiles.[33] While neither Moscow nor Beijing is directly responsible for these developments, neither appears particularly concerned when the weapons or technologies they transfer to Iran find their way into the hands of terrorist organizations.

Finally, both Moscow and Beijing are aiding the Iranian military as it develops advanced conventional weapons. Despite Washington's strong objections, by late 2006, the Russia government had sold and begun delivery to Tehran of twenty-nine of its Tor-M1 air defense systems. Moscow argues that the $700 million sale is totally legal and asserts that these are "defensive" weapons.[34] Iran's acquisition of such a sophisticated and advanced system poses a threat to any potential U.S. or Israeli air attack to take out Tehran's nuclear facilities.[35] Iran has also acquired at least ten Russian-made Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range gun and missile air defense systems from Syria.[36] In March 2007, the Russian investigative journalist Ivan Safronov died mysteriously after learning that Moscow's military-industrial complex was planning to transfer S-300VB missiles to Iran via Belarus.[37] These are Russia's equivalent to the U.S.'s Patriot missiles: The S-300VB is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and has a range of 150 kilometers.[38] As of this writing, it appears that Iran has not received the weapons, but Iranian officials are eager to do so.[39] There are numerous reports that Russia and China have also covertly sold Iran an array of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), combat aircraft, sophisticated radar systems, and fast-attack missile vessels.[40] Some of the SAMs have apparently made their way to insurgents fighting coalition forces in Iraq.[41] Sources also claim that either China or Kyrgyzstan has sold the Iranians high-speed torpedoes originally produced by the Russians.[42]

Mixed Signals?
Recent events demonstrate the complexities of the evolving relationship between Tehran and its great-power allies. Over the summer of 2009, there were mixed signals coming from Russia and Iran concerning bilateral ties. In June, following the upheavals in Iran over that country's disputed presidential elections, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev cancelled, because of alleged scheduling conflicts, a planned meeting with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a mutual-security organization comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.[43] Iran has observer status with the multinational group and aspires to become a full member, but the Russians have not gone out of their way to make this happen. In August 2009, Russia joined with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in a four-party regional summit to which Iran was not invited.[44] At that time, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a journal whose views sometimes reflect those of the Kremlin, editorialized, "It appears that the idea that Iran is a regional power, which Russia could use as a trump card in relations with the West, has turned out to be mistaken."[45] It would appear that at least some in the upper echelons of the Russian government doubted the wisdom of continuing support to Tehran following the disputed election and the international opprobrium directed against the mullahs as they suppressed subsequent dissent.

For their part, at least some Iranians took note of this chilly behavior. An editorial in the "moderate" Iranian newspaper E'temad, which serves as the mouthpiece for Mehdi Karroubi's oppositional National Trust Party, complained that Moscow had not helped Iran in the United Nations with its "peaceful pursuit" of nuclear energy as much as it could, and that it was dragging its feet in getting the Bushehr nuclear facility up and running. The article concludes, "Russians cheat their allies if it is necessary, and history shows that they have swindled us heavily."[46]

At the same time, other Russian officials have acted as if it were business as usual between Moscow and Tehran. Moreover, supporters of this approach seem to have had the final say in the Kremlin. Two days after what was viewed by most outside observers as a fraudulent vote, newly "reelected" Iranian president Ahmadinejad made his first foreign trip to Russia. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called the visit "symbolic" and added, "This is a signal of successful mutual relations in the future."[47] Shortly thereafter, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov referred to the Iranian elections as "an exercise in democracy."[48]

In early September 2009, Foreign Minister Lavrov opined, "The most important thing is Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion of the situation, what positive role it can play in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region."[49] In fact, he all but ruled out imposing sanctions on Tehran in order to get the regime to come clean on its nuclear program. In light of this, it is doubtful that the Obama administration's recent lobbying efforts have fundamentally altered Russia's position on Iran. Two weeks after Lavrov's statement, following the revelation that Iran had been covering up the existence of a nuclear facility, CNN reported an unidentified senior U.S. official's claims that Washington's efforts to bring Russia (and China) on board with new sanctions against Tehran had "already begun to bear fruit."[50] Yet even after the existence of the secret Iranian nuclear site near Qom became public knowledge,[51] Medvedev told the press, following the Group of Twenty summit in Pittsburgh:

I do not believe sanctions are the best way to achieve results. Sanctions were used on a number of occasions against Iran, but we have doubts about the results. Nevertheless, when all instruments have been used and failed, one can use international legal sanctions. … I think we should continue to promote positive incentives for Iran and at the same time push it to make all its programs transparent and open. Should we fail in that case, we'll consider other options.[52]

Medvedev's statement offers no clear sense of what might prompt the Russians to wield a stick against the mullahs. Moreover, one must still wonder whether former president Putin, the real power behind the throne, would agree to such a policy. Notwithstanding Moscow's concurrence with an October 2009 IAEA compromise for Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad to be processed into reactor fuel, there seems to have been no Russian reaction to Tehran's failure to respond to President Obama's December 31, 2009 deadline regarding the offer. It is hard to imagine that Moscow will support any but modest penalties to be imposed against Tehran. Indeed, as recently as January 2010, Russian foreign minister Lavrov said that "acting with a logic of punishing Iran … is not a sober approach."[53]

On the surface, the Kremlin has apparently joined with the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany in pursuing the so-called "two track" policy of threatening Iran with sanctions while still dangling the carrot of dialogue. On February 5, 2010, Lavrov met with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle in Berlin and afterwards told reporters that "if we do not see a constructive answer from Iran, we will have to discuss this in the U.N. Security Council." Yet, the Russian foreign minister went on to say that he was still hopeful of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue.[54] The question remains, however, whether Moscow will let go of the carrot and, even if it does, whether it would ever support more than a slap on Tehran's wrist.

Basing one's appraisal of Russian intentions on experience rather than hope, one is inclined to agree with the conclusion of Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Nicholas Gvosdev, adjunct senior fellow at the Nixon Center: "Russia is not interested in playing an active role in resolving the Iran crisis on terms America will find acceptable."[55]

Tehran's ties with Beijing appear even stronger than those it has with Moscow. Chinese president Hu Jintao had even fewer scruples than his Russian counterpart in the wake of the fraudulent Iranian election. Days after the disputed vote, he shook hands with Ahmadinejad as Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, reported on the "sound momentum" of bilateral relations.[56] When the Chinese media actually did report on the post-election disturbances in the streets of Tehran, they were attributed to "vandals" and "terrorists," and Chinese television viewers were shown no images of Iranian security forces brutalizing protesters.[57] Still, Wu Sike, China's special envoy to the Middle East, maintains that Beijing opposes Iran's production and possession of nuclear weapons. The problem is that while he avers that China's policies have not changed on this issue, he and his superiors appear to see no urgency in acting to stop it.[58]

China does not, however, offer a strictly one-sided backing for all of Iran's aspirations. In 2008, China's Hu Jintao officially "welcomed Iran's interest to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), saying an expert committee will be formed to consider the proposal."[59] Yet little progress has been evident thus far; Iran sent a representative to the SCO secretariat in Beijing in January 2010 to discuss how it might further its interaction with the organization but remains an observer state.[60]

On the nuclear issue, Beijing also appears intent on opposing sanctions. Thus, in early September 2009, China's Foreign Ministry declared that "under current circumstances, we must increase diplomatic efforts and renew talks with Iran."[61] Although there was some hope that Vice President Joseph Biden's September 11, 2009 meeting with Wu Bangguo, China's second most powerful leader, would have changed this response, such has not been the result. Indeed, shortly thereafter, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson gave Beijing's response to the revelation about Iran's covert nuclear facility: "We believe that sanctions and exerting pressure are not the way to solve problems and are not conducive for the current diplomatic efforts on the Iran nuclear issue."[62]

While French prime minister Francois Fillon has since asserted that his country and China "share identical views on how to lead Iran away from its threatening stance and isolation on the nuclear issue,"[63] no such declaration has been forthcoming from Beijing. In fact, the opposite is true.

In January 2010, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States gathered in New York to focus on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Beijing, however, sent a low-level diplomat to the meeting in what observers considered a snub to the others.[64] The Chinese representative explained that his country was only prepared to begin discussing the possibility of imposing sanctions.[65] At this point, it would seem that optimism regarding China's coming around to support effective sanctions is reminiscent of Samuel Johnson's estimation of second marriages as "the triumph of hope over experience."

Conclusions
The most imminent threat to the global order comes from the radical Islamic regime in Iran bent on developing nuclear weapons. Both Russia and China have consistently supported Tehran by their aggressive, opportunist—and shortsighted—policies, and both are in large measure responsible for the threat that the Iranian government poses to the world today.

Should the radicals in Tehran obtain the ability to launch ballistic missiles with warheads on them, there is no guarantee that one day they might not target Russian cities or other objectives. China, too, might ultimately find itself in the sights of an unfriendly regime in Iran. Should a military conflagration occur in the Persian Gulf and curtail the flow of oil from the region, it would surely spell disaster for the Chinese economy. With its vast supplies of oil and natural gas, Moscow might reap windfall profits, but there is no guarantee of where the chain reaction of a Middle East war might stop. A radical Shi'i Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons would likely lead to proliferation among other states in the area such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. The stakes are high and getting higher. Indeed, those who have decided to back Tehran should consider how a nuclear Iran will promote their security interests.

The opaqueness of decision-making in the Kremlin makes it difficult to explain fully Moscow's behavior in abetting the Iranian regime, but it would seem that the temptation of making a fast ruble and undermining Washington in the bargain is just too much for those in power to resist. Likewise, both China's economic imperatives and its desire to become the next great superpower on the world stage likely play a decisive role in its behavior.

Russian and Chinese posturing that they have sought peace and stability in the region through constructive dialogue has been a façade. The occasional snubs from Russia following the 2009 sham election or expressions of discomfort from both countries over Iran's covert nuclear program seem little more than public relations stunts.

The two authoritarian regimes have consistently undermined the United States in its efforts to contain Iran and have profited by doing so. Indeed, if the leaderships in Moscow and Beijing continue to sabotage diplomatic efforts to halt the clerical regime's drive for nuclear weapons, they should be held accountable by Washington and the international community for obstructing nonviolent remedies to the Iranian problem. U.S. officials could launch a concerted public relations campaign to demonstrate to the world the depth of the Russian and Chinese culpability in creating a problem that threatens the stability of a vital geopolitical part of the world. Washington might press the restart button on its plan to provide missile defense systems in central Europe or increase its military cooperation with Taiwan. Additionally, as trade is a two-way proposition, the Russians and Chinese could encounter a host of difficulties in this sphere as well.

Unless they change their course immediately, it is they who will carry the onus for a U.S. or Israeli recourse to military intervention in order to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. It may seem hard to imagine the present administration in Washington taking such action, but it is also unclear what Jerusalem will do. An Israeli strike against Iran would likely result in a serious setback to Tehran's nuclear program, but its certainty of success is by no means guaranteed. Moreover, Israel would pay a heavy diplomatic price for what would no doubt be termed its "reckless adventurism." Thus, it hesitates, and if it does so for too long, one should not be at all surprised if Israel or some other country ends up being the innocent victim of a nuclear power that the Russians and Chinese will have helped to create.

While there may not be a new axis in a formal sense, the combination of Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran on a range of issues has undermined the security of the Persian Gulf region and worked against the interests of the United States and its allies. Its potential continuation represents a broader and more fundamental threat to global stability, would likely destroy decades of diplomacy, and sound the death knell of the nonproliferation regime.

George L. Simpson, Jr., is professor and chair of the history department at High Point University.

[1] Ely Karmon, "Counterterrorism Policy: Why Tehran Starts and Stops Terrorism," Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1998, pp. 35-44.
[2] Jonathan Schanzer, "Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2004, pp. 41-50.
[3] Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander U.S. Central Command, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategic Review and the Posture of Central Command, Apr. 1, 2009.
[4] Elihu D. Richter and Alex Barnea, "Tehran's Genocidal Incitement against Israel," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 45-51.
[5] Rossiiskie Vesti (Moscow), Russian Federation, June 23, 2005.
[6] Ariel Cohen, "The Russian Handicap to U.S. Iran Policy," Jerusalem Issue Briefs, Apr. 22, 2009.
[7] Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund, Russia since1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 211-30.
[8] John W. Garver, China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), pp. 71-82.
[9] Cohen, "The Russian Handicap to U.S. Iran Policy."
[10] Garver, China and Iran, p. 5.
[11] John Calabrese, "China and Iran: Partners Perfectly Mismatched," Middle East Institute, Aug. 18, 2006.
[12] Ilan Berman, "The Logic behind Sino-Iranian Cooperation," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Nov. 2006, pp. 15-23; "Fueling the Dragon: China's Race into the Oil Market," Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Potomac, Md., accessed Dec. 28, 2009.
[13] Tehran Times, Jan. 6, 12, 2010.
[14] United Press International, June 12, 2009.
[15] Asia Times (Hong Kong), Nov. 29, 2004; China Daily (Beijing), Feb. 18, 2008; The Guardian (London), June 22, 2009; Canberra (Aus.) Times, Nov. 12, 2007; Tehran Times, May 11, 2009.
[16] Garver, China and Iran, p. 247.
[17] Ibid., pp. 139, 155.
[18] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Bushehr-Background," GlobalSecurity.org, accessed Dec. 28, 2009.
[19] United Press International, June 6, 2006.
[20] Barbara Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (New York: St. Martins Press, 2006), p. 29.
[21] BBC News, Oct. 10, 2007.
[22] Fars News Agency (Tehran), May 9, 2009.
[23] The Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2004.
[24] Charles P. Vick, "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Shahab-6," GlobalSecurity.org, Jan. 26, 2009.
[25] Xinhua General News Service, June 16, 2006.
[26] "Unclassified Report to Congress, January–June 2003," Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., Apr. 30, 2007; Garver, China and Iran, pp. 182-9, 213-4.
[27] "C-801 YJ-1/YJ-8 (Eagle Strike), CSS-N-4 SARDINE," Military Analysis Network, Federation of American Scientists, Aug. 10, 1999; Reuters, Jan. 19, 2010.
[28] Agence France-Presse, Sept. 14, 2006.
[29] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Biological Weapons," GlobalSecurity.org, Apr. 28, 2005.
[30] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Chemical Weapons," GlobalSecurity.org, Oct. 15, 2008; Ronen Bergman, The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power (New York: Free Press, Sept. 2008), p. 313.
[31] "Din vecheshbon chelki," HaVaadah Livdikat Eiru'ei haMa'arachah beLevanon 2006 vaadat Winograd, MyNet.co.il, Apr. 2007.
[32] "Zelzal-1/2/3," MISSILETHREAT.com, Claremont (Calif.) Institute, accessed Jan. 25, 2010; The New York Times, July 9, 2008.
[33] Al-Manar TV (Beirut), Aug. 22, 2009.
[34] Jareer Elass and Amy Myers Jaffe, The History and Politics of Russia's Relations with OPEC (Houston: James A Baker, III, institute for Public Policy, Rice University, May 6, 2009), p. 31.
[35] Defense Industry Daily (Thetford Ctr., Vt.), Dec. 5, 2005; Pravda (Moscow), Dec. 1, 2007.
[36] Agence France-Presse, May 21, 2007.
[37] The Washington Post, Mar. 6, 2007.
[38] The Times (London), Sept. 19, 2008; The Guardian, Sept. 8, 2009.
[39] Tehran Times, Jan. 18, 2010.
[40] Gill Bates and Evan S. Medeiros, "Foreign and Domestic Influences on China's Arms Control and Nonproliferation Policies," The China Quarterly, Mar. 2000, pp. 74-9; Kenneth Katzman, "Iran: Arms and Technology Acquisitions," Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2001; "Iran Missile Milestones," IranWatch.org, Jan. 2010, accessed Feb. 7, 2010; "Thondar Fast Attack Missile Boat," GlobalSecurity.org, accessed Feb. 7, 2010.
[41] Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox, Communications Division chief for Multi-National Force-Iraq, and Brig. Gen. Mark Gurganus, Ground Combat Element commander for Multi-National Force-West, news briefing, Baghdad, Sept. 30, 2007.
[42] Associated Press Worldstream, Apr. 6, 2006; Bergman, The Secret War with Iran, pp. 294-5.
[43] Interfax News Agency (Moscow), June 16, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union-Political, June 16, 2009.
[44] Siyasat-e Rouz (Tehran), Sept. 12, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Middle East-Political, Sept. 27, 2009.
[45] Los Angeles Times, Aug. 10, 2009.
[46] E'temad (Tehran), Aug. 12, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Middle East-Political, Aug. 29, 2009.
[47] The Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2009.
[48] Reuters, June 25, 2009.
[49] The New York Times, Sept. 10, 2009.
[50] CNN News, Sept. 25, 2009.
[51] The Guardian, Sept. 26, 2009.
[52] MSNBC, Sept. 25, 2009.
[53] Iran Daily (Tehran), Jan. 23, 2010.
[54] Reuters, Feb. 5, 2010.
[55] Ray Takeyh and Nicholas Gvosdev, "The Russian Riddle II: Russia, the U.S., and Iran," The New York Times, Sept. 8, 2008.
[56] China View (New York), June 16, 2009.
[57] The Australian (Sydney), June 24, 2009.
[58] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Beijing, Aug. 11, 2009.
[59] Tehran Times, Sept. 7, 2008.
[60] "SCO Secretary-General receives Iran's Charge d'Affaires to China," Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Jan. 28, 2010.
[61] National Public Radio, Sept. 8, 2009.
[62] The Guardian, Sept. 24, 2009.
[63] Agence France-Presse, Dec. 22, 2009.
[64] The Times, Jan. 16, 2010.
[65] The Times, Jan. 18, 2010.
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5)Turkey in Cyprus vs. Israel in Gaza
by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
July 20, 2010

http://www.meforum.org/pipes/8649/turkey-in-cyprus-vs-israel-in-gaza

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In light of Ankara's recent criticism of what it calls Israel's "open-air jail" in Gaza, today's date, which marks the anniversary of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, has special relevance.

Turkish policy toward Israel, historically warm and only a decade ago approaching full alliance, has cooled since Islamists took power in Ankara in 2002. Their hostility became explicit in January 2009, during the Israel-Hamas war. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan grandly condemned Israeli policies as "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction" and even invoked God ("Allah will … punish those who transgress the rights of innocents"). His wife Emine Erdoğan hyperbolically condemned Israeli actions as so awful they "cannot be expressed in words."


Emine Erdoğan, wife of the Turkish prime minister.

Their verbal assaults augured a further hostility that included insulting the Israeli president, helping sponsor the "Freedom Flotilla," and recalling the Turkish ambassador.

This Turkish rage prompts a question: Is Israel in Gaza really worse than Turkey in Cyprus? A comparison finds this hardly to be so. Consider some contrasts:

•Turkey's invasion of July-August 1974 involved the use of napalm and "spread terror" among Cypriot Greek villagers, according to Minority Rights Group International. In contrast, Israel's "fierce battle" to take Gaza relied only on conventional weapons and entailed virtually no civilian casualties.
•The subsequent occupation of 37 percent of the island amounted to a "forced ethnic cleansing" according to William Mallinson in a just-published monograph from the University of Minnesota. In contrast, if one wishes to accuse the Israeli authorities of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, it was against their own people, the Jews, in 2005.
•The Turkish government has sponsored what Mallinson calls "a systematic policy of colonization" on formerly Greek lands in northern Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots in 1973 totaled about 120,000 persons; since then, more than 160,000 citizens of the Republic of Turkey have been settled in their lands. Not a single Israeli community remains in Gaza.
•Ankara runs its occupied zone so tightly that, in the words of Bülent Akarcalı, a senior Turkey politician, "Northern Cyprus is governed like a province of Turkey." An enemy of Israel, Hamas, rules in Gaza.
•The Turks set up a pretend-autonomous structure called the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Gazans enjoy real autonomy.
•A wall through the island keeps peaceable Greeks out of northern Cyprus. Israel's wall excludes Palestinian terrorists.

The division of Cyprus since 1974.



A sign on the fence around Varosha, Cyprus.

And then there is the ghost town of Famagusta, where Turkish actions parallel those of Syria under the thuggish Assads. After the Turkish air force bombed the Cypriot port city, Turkish forces moved in to seize it, thereby prompting the entire Greek population (fearing a massacre) to flee. Turkish troops immediately fenced off the central part of the town, called Varosha, and prohibited anyone from living there.
As this crumbling Greek town is reclaimed by nature, it has become a bizarre time capsule from 1974. Steven Plaut of Haifa University visited and reports: "Nothing has changed. … It is said that the car distributorships in the ghost town even today are stocked with vintage 1974 models. For years after the rape of Famagusta, people told of seeing light bulbs still burning in the windows of the abandoned buildings."

Curiously, another Levantine ghost town also dates from the summer of 1974. Just 24 days before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli troops evacuated the border town of Quneitra, handing it over to the Syrian authorities. Hafez al-Assad chose, for political reasons too, not to let anyone live in it. Decades later, it too remains empty, a hostage to bellicosity.


Erdoğan claims that Turkish troops are not occupying northern Cyprus but are there in "Turkey's capacity as a guarantor power," whatever that means. The outside world, however, is not fooled. If Elvis Costello recently pulled out of a concert in Tel Aviv to protest the "suffering of the innocent [Palestinians]," Jennifer Lopez canceled a concert in northern Cyprus to protest "human rights abuse" there.

In brief, Northern Cyprus shares features with Syria and resembles an "open-air jail" more than Gaza does. How rich that a hypocritical Ankara preens its moral plumage about Gaza even as it runs a zone significantly more offensive. Instead of meddling in Gaza, Turkish leaders should close the illegal and disruptive occupation that for decades has tragically divided Cyprus.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
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