a refreshing look at Obama

[Ben]

Worse Than Nixon? Committee to Protect Journalists Warns About Obama Crackdown on Press Freedom:

[Ben]

Malala Yousafzai tells Obama drones are 'fueling terrorism':

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/1...meet-with.html

[Ben]

U.S. Can’t Track Tons of Weapons-Grade Uranium, Plutonium

President Obama has repeatedly said his top counterterrorism goal is to prevent terrorists from acquiring the building blocks to make nuclear or “dirty” bombs. In April of 2009, Obama announced a new international effort to “secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years.” Since then, the Department of Energy has dispatched scientists around the globe to collect hundreds of pounds of the stuff.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/uranium-mia/

[Ben]

[Stavros]

While President Obama is being slated in other threads over the Affordable Health Care Act, perhaps one should acknowledge some recent successes which might have long-term benefits for the US and also in the Middle East: in this last quarter, the US has pulled back from direct military engagement with the armed forces of Syria, and has played an integral part in the agreement with Iran that will slow (but not halt) the pace of its nuclear development and open the process to more direct scrutiny. In both cases, the Obama presidency has preferred diplomacy over military action, but in both cases the administration has and will continue to attract the opposition of those elements in Congress addicted to violence as a solution to political problems.

A guarded welcome is due because the isolation of Iran has been a problem inside the country. Rouhani's election and his 'moderate' stance has already paid dividends, but does set up a potential conflict with the Republican Guard that sees itself as the guarantor of Khomeini's legacy if they feel that Rouhani is trying to gradually undo all they achieved since 1979. Potentially, the now open channels of communication between Washington and Tehran could benefit the crisis in Syria where the opposition has failed to make any significant military gains, and has actually lost territory in the north to Islamic extremists who don't share their long-term agenda. It is true that the powerful position Iran seems to have been in since regime change in Iraq has worried Saudi Arabia and Israel -the Saudis were not aware of the secret channels the US opened with Iran (possibly initially via Mrs Clinton through Oman where Kerry went over a year ago) and have to face the fact that their sponsorship of the opposition in Syria has got nowhere on the battlefield, while the leader of the Syrian opposition's 'Free Syrian Army' is refusing to go to the talks in Geneva next month. Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the deal with Iran at the same time as claiming it was his pressure on the US that prevented them from giving Iran even more 'concessions' -and has been rightly pilloried in the Israeli press as a result.
A cautious welcome, because as long as the military conflict in Syria continues factions will continue to make demands that in reality cannot be met. Some of the refugees in the Zaatari camp in Jordan have decided to leave the squalor there and take their chances back home; and at some point in the future the Syrian opposition will have to deal with the al-Qaeda franchise which is undermining its claims of legitimacy.

One hopes that the diplomatic process can bring the politicians back into the equation -this conflict is going nowhere and is destroying lives; solutions are available, if the parties have the courage to face up to them.

[broncofan]

I have read several commentary pieces on the deal with Iran and the skeptics hold a line of reasoning I don't really understand. They say that if negotiations break down, this will be an impetus for Iran to "race" to complete development of nukes, and this will spark off an arms race with other Middle East rivals, including Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of the sanctions as I understood it is to prevent Iran from developing nukes. The premise must be then that undeterred they would develop nuclear weapons. So they do not need to wait for sanctions to fail to encourage them to develop nuclear weapons. Diplomacy as far as I see it has a potential upside and no downside, but I am what the Republicans would call naive.

I do not understand the idea that failed diplomacy does anything but keep Iran on the track they've been on. Maybe it accelerates the pace of development because diplomacy will have failed and Iran will have no reason to hold back...but for the West a diplomatic solution has been the only realistic option for a long time. The military option is simply not feasible. If it were feasible, it would be feasible after a failed diplomatic effort. But it's neither feasible if diplomacy fails or never begins.

[broncofan]

Oh, I guess the idea is that in the interim we take the squeeze off Iran, which is letting them off the hook. This means that further negotiation could fail and the sanctions will not have been doing their work. While this is true I am not sure Iran was ever going to unilaterally submit based on the effects of the sanctions. Something would have to be negotiated and you do have to make some good-faith concessions to get them to the table.

[Stavros]

Oh, I guess the idea is that in the interim we take the squeeze off Iran, which is letting them off the hook. This means that further negotiation could fail and the sanctions will not have been doing their work. While this is true I am not sure Iran was ever going to unilaterally submit based on the effects of the sanctions. Something would have to be negotiated and you do have to make some good-faith concessions to get them to the table.

The criticism is based on the various deals on nuclear proliferation with North Korea in exchange for food which the North Koreans then repudiated; the question is can Iran be trusted any better than North Korea?

The Conservative opinion bank (Ted Cruz, John Bolton, Claude Chafin and Frank Gaffney in the first link, Jiri Valenta in the second) has already lodged its complaints that Obama has been duped by the Iranians, though the argument that joint missile development between Iran and North Korea will threaten the US is a bit far fetched given that North Korea's missiles so far have ended up in the sea rather than Long Island.

Yes, the US and its allies should be cautious, but as you say diplomacy must first be exhausted, and the 'taking out' of targets, as Cheney suggested isn't as easy as it sounds.

The discussion and prediction of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East has been going on since the 1970s when Iran sought US backing for its nuclear option...

http://freebeacon.com/iran-north-kor...-nuclear-deal/

http://russiancouncil.ru/en/blogs/jvlv/?id_4=837

[Prospero]

Refreshing....

[Ben]

Obama... speaking, frankly, about the corrupt nature of the system: