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25 October 2013

Obama Deals With Complicated Partners

Perhaps it’s foolhardy, but President Obama has leapt at chances to resolve long-standing problems when they have occurred in the course of doing business. Although the regime of Syria’s Bashar Al Assad used chemical weapons on civilians in the face of his “red line,” Obama jumped to accept collaboration with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin and invite the Syrians to destroy their chemicals arsenal as the price for avoiding a retaliatory American bombing.

Contrary to Daniel Henninger’s Opinion essay, “Obama’s Credibility is Melting,” in the October 24, 2013 WSJ, where he characterized Obama as joining with cynical and untrustworthy partners in Moscow and Damascus, the President views his number one job to be addressing long-term goals, even over humanitarian obligations like punishing murder with chemical weapons. Collaboration with the Russians and stability in the Middle East drive his strategy in Syria, not pleasing the Saudis.

Likewise, sanctions seem to have helped modulate the attitude of the Iranian government and bring that regime to the nuclear arms negotiating table. Keeping the pressure on at this point could only risk hardening the “tribal” behavior of the ruling mullahs, mirroring the desires of neighboring Arab monarchies identified by Karen Elliott House in the October 25, 2013 WSJ, “Behind the Saudi-U.S. Breakup.”

When it comes to the badly named Affordable Care Act, Obama’s advisers unfortunately were seduced into believing that a technical device like a website was all that was needed to escape decades of resistance to the imperative of universal health care. The designers of www.healthcare.gov were certainly not cynics; they made a mistake that only makes Obamacare harder to execute in the end.

17 October 2013

Climate Change and Sun Spots

Let’s not get confused about what the issue is with global warming. No one looks at the evidence, not economists, not scientists (aren’t economists scientists?), not “deniers,” no one refuses to acknowledge that average world temperatures have risen over the last few hundred years, if not tens of thousands of years. The issue is what we should be doing about it, not what the cause has been.

Whatever the cause--CO2, sun spots, unexplained cycles--the trend is longer term than our perspective for the future of our children or civilization. If we know that the production of carbon dioxide emissions at least contributes to global warming, then reducing its exacerbation of a trend that may inevitably change the world for the worse should be a goal of modern science, politics, personal and corporate behavior.

It may be just hubris, but we can’t have a more estimable aspiration than to leave to our descendants an improved, not deteriorated world. It’s not enough to make it possible for them to contend with future problems through education and wealth; we must also do our best to prevent those problems from arising to begin with. Now that we’ve detected that climate change is happening and that the consequences will be dire, we should not be looking for whom to blame. Our generation will deserve blame if we do not use the resources that our forbearers provided us with to improve the quality of life on our planet.

06 October 2013

Is “Waffling” Always a Bad Thing?

When President Obama accepted the quick take-up by Russia and Syria of Secretary of State Kerry’s proffer that Syria’s relinquishing its chemical weapons stockpile would obviate America’s insistence on militarily punishing the Assad regime for using them in its civil war, it was indeed a change in policy. This might be characterized as “waffling,” as Vali Nasr did in his Opinion piece in the October 3, 2013 NYT, “America Mustn’t Be Naïve About Iran;” but the U.S. has bigger fish to fry than conforming with the Middle Eastern respect for intransigence as a sign of strength.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s pouncing on this opportunity suddenly to play an unusually collaborative role in resolving a humanitarian atrocity, presumably with the approval of Vladimir Putin, gave Obama an opportunity to recognize an end to years of Russian obstruction of international cooperation. Moreover, Bashar Assad showed admirable flexibility by readily going along with the Russians instead of continuing his vain covering charge that Syrian rebels had themselves dropped the poisonous gas bombs on their own supporters. He probably was thankful for a way to extricate himself from blame for the awful consequences of overreaching by his uncontrollable military.

There appears to have been waffling on all three sides of this potential diplomatic triumph. Sadly, it comes at the expense of 1400 lives lost in the tragedy.

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