Dershowitz on the Iran deal and Congress

The New Neo Posted on by

Alan Dershowitz opines on the “treaty vs. agreement” dispute regarding the Iran deal:

The Framers of our constitution probably would have regarded the nuclear deal with Iran as a “treaty,” subject to a two thirds ratification by the Senate. At the very least they would have required Congress to approve the agreement by a majority vote. It is unlikely that it would have allowed the President alone to make so important and enduring an international agreement.

If President Obama doesn’t treat the Iran agreement with more respect, all his arguments today are beside the point. The agreement won’t have the force of law.

Then Dershowitz goes into the history of Congress’ treaty power and the Founders’ intents concerning it. Then he has the following to say about the Corker-Menendez bill:

While a majority of the House and the Senate voted for this exceptional set of rules for approving the Iran agreement, it was only to assure themselves that they would have any say at all in the matter. President Obama’s position was that he could make the “executive” agreement without Congressional approval.

It occurs to me that, among other things, the Republicans in Congress did not communicate at all well to the public what the Corker-Menendez was about when they passed it so that their base—and anyone else who might be listening—could understand it. They tried, but it involves a rather complicated point of law and procedure and precedent—although there really is no precedent because no president has ever done such a thing. So basically, Congress was flailing around to try to get some tool to stop him, because they realized they could call it a treaty and unapprove it but that course of action would probably have no power or meaning. Nor did they think they were giving up the right to do this in addition, even if they did pass Corker-Menendez.

Dershowitz goes on to point out what he sees as one of the weaknesses of Obama’s position:

An agreement, as distinguished from a treaty does not have the force of law. It can simply be abrogated by any future president. In the end, the court of public opinion decides important policy decisions that may affect us all

But smart as Dershowitz is, I think Obama has outsmarted him on this one. Unfortunately. By signaling a lack of determination to continue the sanctions several months ago, Obama cued the rest of the world on plans to dismantle them, and to vie for the lucrative business opportunities that Iran presents. In addition, if the next president is a Democrat and/or if Congress becomes majority Democrat, either would be extremely disinclined to change the status quo. What’s more, if before the next election Iran violates the treaty and secretly advances its bomb-making capacity, that horse will be out of the barn. The same with its capacity to wage terrorist war with the huge amount of windfall money the deal will give it.

In other words, the deal can be abrogated in the future. But time cannot be turned back, and many of its consequences will already have taken place.

[NOTE: Among other things, Dershowtiz ought to feel like a fool on this issue, because even as late as the 2012 election he supported Obama and explicitly defended the president’s position regarding Iran and nuclear weapons.]

Further reflections on the Trump phenomenon

The New Neo Posted on by

Donald Trump’s popularity has been the talk of the political world.

To me it reflects two things more than anything else. The first is that politics has become dominated by the idea of celebrity. The second is that many people are very very angry at the political establishment and its failure to reflect and act on the will of the people. Although Trump’s popularity mainly reflects the strength of that anger on the right, the anger is also felt on the left and in the middle as well.

Trump combines both traits I just mentioned: celebrity and a channeling of the anger. That makes him a sort of perfect political storm.

I don’t trust Trump*. I believe he’s another narcissist who doesn’t necessarily say what he means and/or mean what he says. Even though he’s not a career politician, I still don’t trust him. The only thing that might give him more trustworthiness than the average politician is that he’s not beholden to anyone for money at this point. But his narcissism and his showboat tendencies could very much get in the way.

Beyond any issues of trust, though, and even if he is extremely sincere and means what he says, as an outsider he has no history of any ability to get people in government to do what he says. It’s all very well and good to say “When I’m president I will get it done”—but how? I don’t even see a glimmer of a plan in his rhetoric.

This campaign has more conservative talent than in any past year I can think of. Walker, for example, has shown a remarkable ability as a conservative to get things done in a blue state, and he doesn’t appear to be a narcissist. He’s not catching on as much because people are mad at politicians in general, and because he’s not a TV personality like Trump, and because he doesn’t speak with his bluster. Carly Fiorina is an outsider like Trump and she knows business, and she is actually saying things that are very much like what Trump is saying, and she’s saying them with a quiet authority. And Ted Cruz is a true conservative who is a brilliant man and a good speaker.

But none of these qualities cut it very well with the angriest and most frustrated portion of the electorate. They like and want what Trump is selling.

For years I’ve been reading posters who feel this anger, on this blog and others. To a certain extent I share it. I just don’t have the same reaction to the anger that I feel. I think the surge for Trump is an emotional, “let’s stick it to the man” urge, something like the urge the left felt in the 60s or like the Perot phenomenon in the 90s only more so. I don’t think it will lead to anything good. If Trump is nominated I don’t think he would be elected. If elected I don’t think he’d be a good president (although believe me, if he is nominated or elected I sincerely hope I’m underestimating him and I’d be happy to say I was wrong).

I think those who support Trump are shooting from the hip and feel a certain emotional satisfaction, but are throwing away one of their best chances since Ronald Reagan to elect an actual conservative as president. Maybe they don’t care. Maybe they really do want to “Let it burn.”

As for the debate last night, I think Trump did more poorly than I expected. His furrowed brow and pursed lips could not disguise the fact that he seems to be a murky thinker, full of bluster and sound bites and “I can do it” but not much else except to act as a conduit for discussion of the politically incorrect, which I recognize as a plus. But I want much more than that from a candidate and from a president.

[* NOTE: This is one of several reasons I don’t trust Trump. I’ve noticed, too, that quite a few of his supporters are willing to forgive or ignore anything he’s done, because they like the way he sticks it to the establishment.

60s stuff, as I said.]

[ADDENDUM: An example of Trump’s thin skin, here. Trump supporters will no doubt love it.]

Does Schumer’s opposition to Obama on Iran mean the override will fail?

The New Neo Posted on by

I believe it does, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong, wrong, wrong.

A few days ago I wrote some predictions about what I thought Schumer might do:

Prediction: Schumer will cave to Obama. Or he will take the weaselly option mentioned here, voting to override Obama’s veto of a Congressional bill to continue sanctions and block the Iran deal’s lifting of them, but being careful to not bring along enough people with him to make an override stick.

I still go with that “weaselly” prediction, if the Senate is voting under Corker-Menendez, that is. However, having read the text of Schumer’s declaration of intent about this, I note something that makes me think he is talking about something else: voting with the forces that disapprove of the Iran deal. He doesn’t limit his discussion to one about sanctions (which is the topic of Corker-Menendez); he speaks of a resolution of disapproval.

Would this be a vote on the Iran deal as a treaty—something I’ve said several times is a course that the Senate did not rule out by passing Corker-Menendez? It’s unclear. If I’m reading Schumer correctly, he seems be anticipating that there will be a vote on the issue of disapproval of the deal, although he also speaks of sanctions. But he does not mention the vote being a vote on a treaty and in fact carefully doesn’t mention the word “treaty” at all.

From Schumer [emphasis mine]:

Ultimately, in my view, whether one supports or opposes the resolution of disapproval depends on how one thinks Iran will behave under this agreement…

But if one feels that Iranian leaders will not moderate and their unstated but very real goal is to get relief from the onerous sanctions, while still retaining their nuclear ambitions and their ability to increase belligerent activities in the Middle East and elsewhere, then one should conclude that it would be better not to approve this agreement…

Therefore, I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power. Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.

For all of these reasons, I believe the vote to disapprove is the right one.

Why am I emphasizing this “vote to disapprove” business? A vote to continue sanctions under Corder-Menendez needs 2/3 approval in order to override a presidential veto that is inevitable, and that’s a very high bar. A vote to disapprove, however—well, what is that? Is it the same as voting on the Iran deal as a treaty, and failing to approve it? I’m having trouble finding out exactly how it would go. This article seems to think that a vote to disapprove would be subject to a presidential veto, and would need 2/3 to ultimately pass. It’s also speaking about a vote of disapproval in the House, however, and the House can’t vote initially on the Iran deal as a treaty because the House doesn’t have the treaty approval power under the Constitution anyway; that’s the Senate. And Chuck Schumer is a member of the Senate.

All the articles I’ve been able to find in a quick Googling that talk about a Congressional approval or disapproval vote for the Iran deal have to do with a vote in the House, and they assume that the president could veto it (see this, for example). So I haven’t been able to find an answer to the question of whether this is the same sort of bill Schumer is talking about in the Senate, in which case his vote wouldn’t matter so much unless a large number of Democrats come along with him and succeed in overriding an Obama veto. It he’s talking about a treaty approval vote in the Senate, however, a 2/3 override would not be necessary and his vote against would be far more meaningful.

More here:

The likely next leader of Senate Democrats, Schumer (N.Y.) said his three-week reading of the proposal left him unconvinced. “There is a strong case that we are better off without an agreement than with one,” he said, referring to the nuclear pact…

While his opposition is significant, Schumer did not signal whether he would actively rally undecided Democrats to also oppose the deal.

Even if an override is needed and that override fails, though, it’s possible that this still was somewhat of an act of courage by Schumer in that it may have made it more difficult for him to take over Harry Reid’s position, as he had long planned:

Schumer’s decision brought condemnation from some Obama allies who are still upset with his proclamations that the timing for pushing the president’s health-care law through Congress in 2010 was wrong politically.

“The base won’t support a leader who thought Obamacare was a mistake and wants War with Iran,” Dan Pfeiffer, the former Obama adviser, wrote on Twitter late Thursday, embracing the president’s line that the only way to otherwise curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions was war.

It really depends on whether Schumer has already cleared his position with the leadership and with Obama and already knows an override would be necessary and that it would fail. In that case, he would be allowed to vote against the deal and the word would get out that he did it knowing his vote was not fatal, which could preserve his chances to take on Reid’s role. Personally I don’t care whether Schumer or some other Democrat becomes the head of the Democrats in the Senate, but I’m rather sure that he cares.

By the way, note that the new way for the left (including, of course, Obama) to refer to a vote of disapproval of the deal is that it’s a vote for war, by those who want to go to war with Iran.

[ADDENDUM: One more thing—Schumer could vote to disapprove but then vote not to override. I think that’s a less likely course of action, however, than a consistent vote to disapprove and to override along with an override failure.]

[ADDENDUM II: Ace reacts to the White House’s Dan Pfeiffer’s tweet putting Schumer down: “Well, according to White House henchman, [Schumer is] just a dual-loyalty Jew who wants War with Iran.”

Pfeiffer’s tweet was as follows: “The base won’t support a leader who thought Obamacare was a mistake and wants War with Iran.” By the way, although it’s somewhat irrelevant to the matter at hand, Schumer never said Obamacare was a mistake; he said that the timing of its passage was a mistake. But misrepresenting what Schumer said is typical White House mendacity in dealing with someone it wants to discredit.

And Ace quotes Fred Fleitz as writing, about Schumer and the Iran deal and the White House:

The reason the Schumer defection matters is because it puts the lie to the Obama administration’s shameful claim that opponents of the Iran deal are partisan extremists who want war with Iran. Schumer’s announcement is a powerful indication that opposition to this terrible agreement is in fact principled and bipartisan.

True, but it won’t matter, because the leftist and liberal LIV troops will pick up the White House meme and run with it. Note, also, that Obama doesn’t just indicate that those who oppose him will inadvertently cause war with Iran, it’s that they want war with Iran and seek war with Iran. And he and his lackeys are just as willing and eager to say this about a member of their own party who might deign to cross or criticize them. The Menendez thing is an indication of what they are willing to do to a true opponent who is a Democrat. Democratic opponents are actually more dangerous to them than Republican ones, in many instances, for exactly the reason that Fleitz points out.

Dan Pfeiffer’s rhetoric and what appears perhaps to be the Liebermanization of Schumer is starting to make me wonder whether Schumer has been cleared by the leadership for what he’s doing, or whether it might actually be what I doubt it is, a shot across the bow by Democrats against Obama. Dare I hope?]

Fiorina: watch this…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and see why Fiorina’s star is rising. Doing what she does best:

How she manages to hold her own like that, put Matthews in his place, barely come up for air, and not sound like a shrew is something I don’t understand. But it’s a wonderful thing to see.

Please spread it around. I would dearly like to see it go viral.

Also, in case you think that this is some new persona for Carly, take a look at this video from her 2010 campaign in California. Even though it’s true-blue California, she refuses to condemn the Tea Party as “extremists” and…well, just take a look. I’ve cued it up to start at a place where the real fun begins (by the way, the short, gray “do” is because she was recovering from chemo):

Several people said that Fiorina’s appearance today on “Morning Joe” was excellent. I haven’t yet had time to watch the clip (and I can’t find an embed code), but I think this is the appearance they might be talking about.

Sure enough, right on cue, there are people going around dropping criticisms of Carly everywhere. She failed at Hewlett-Packard and was fired. She outsourced. When she worked for McCain in 2008 she spoke in favor of this and that cause that he supported and that she opposes now. The long knives are out, predictably, because she is now considered a serious and viable candidate.

The Republican “debate”

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, that was different.

My impressions:

John Kasich: A snooze. I have no idea why he is one of the top 10.

Chris Christie: Didn’t enhance his standing, which is already low. He just doesn’t wear well.

Ben Carson: I thought he showed a nice relaxed sense of humor and was also hard-hitting at times, and acquitted himself well. Whether it’s well enough to move up in the rankings I haven’t a clue. Obviously an intelligent man.

Mike Huckabee: The same people who supported him before will continue to support him.

Jeb Bush: Dreadful. I didn’t like him to begin with, but it seems to me he should lose support because of his weak and mealy-mouthed showing here. He came across as a liberal, which is not going to appeal to the GOP electorate this year of all years.

Rand Paul: No, no a thousand times no. Although the libertarians who like him will continue to like him.

Scott Walker: A bit weaker than expected, and somewhat dull, but about halfway through he started to do better and better and had a strong finish. That midwestern blandness makes it hard for him to shine in the prize-fight-like venue.

Marco Rubio: I thought he did better than expected. Solid but not fabulous.

Ted Cruz: I have always thought him smart and articulate, and a fighter. As a seasoned debater, he’s very polished, perhaps a little too polished. But I think he was probably the winner in this particular debate, clear and focused, and avoided a descent into attacking the others or seeming mean-spirited.

Donald Trump: Yes, I saved him for last. I have no idea what Trump supporters thought of his performance; I’m not a Trump supporter, although I understand how sick people are of political business as usual. I tried, when watching him, to evaluate him as though I didn’t already think him a narcissistic blowhard. I don’t know whether I succeeded in being objective. But it seemed to me that he did very poorly. The format emphasized his worst traits, and made him seem formulaic, full of himself, unnecessarily and reflexively combative, and emphasized the more problematic stances he’s taken in the past: single payer healthcare, contributions to the Clinton Foundation, throwing around his money to get political favors, coming late to the Republican Party (and party).

UPDATE 11:52: Fox commentators seem to think that Bush and Christie did well. I beg to differ. Perhaps they’re just trying to boost them both, but I don’t know what Republican voters they’re talking to.

Tonight we have…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the first Republican debate. Actually, two debates, one at 5 PM for the second string, and one at 9 PM for the first.

You can discuss it all here.

UPDATE 6:15: Well, I’ve been watching it, sort of. As some of you long-time readers know, listening to things (speeches, debates, interviews, lectures) is not my forte; I don’t do well with an auditory format and never have. In addition, live debates make me nervous, and the speed with which these candidates are almost forced to talk makes their messages sound both forced and canned, and there’s already a tendency to sound forced and canned anyway.

Nevertheless, I’ll say that Fiorina did fine but seemed more grim than usual, Perry was intermittently okay, and Gilmore (with whom I wasn’t familiar) sounded competent. Lindsay Graham sounded grumpy and tired. Jindal always talks way too fast and in addition swallows many of his words; not sure if he’s tried to overcome this and failed, or if he really hasn’t tried, but it’s a big problem.

The empty auditorium didn’t do them a favor, either. What’s Fox thinking? Are they out to get these candidates (some think so)?

The commentators afterwards on Fox (Wallace and Will) were impressed with Fiorina.

And the commenters at Ace’s really liked Martha MacCallum’s hair.

I wonder how many people watched the undercard debates, though, and will watch tonight at 9. My guess is that it’s mostly political junkies like us.

The Iran apologists have been around for a long time

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a tremendously informative article in Commentary on the “give Iran a chance” wing of the left, and how long they’ve been trying to influence our foreign policy—essentially, ever since the 1979 Iranian revolution that ushered in the theocracy there. Please read the whole thing.

I’d like to focus on one particular person, however: Richard Falk. In a way it’s an odd choice of mine, because he is not really on the same page as the Obama administration on Iran these days. Falk has been an Iran apologist off and on for decades, as well as a consistent pro-Palestinian (and a 9/11-truther, by the way), but he disagrees with the Obama administration’s approach because Falk would like to see the entire Middle East de-nuclearized (see this) and would like the administration to focus on achieving that end—which of course at this point would mean forcing (or “convincing”) Israel to give up its nuclear weaponry.

What interests me most, however, is how successful and influential Falk has been in his long, long career. One of the earliest players of that Iran apology game, he was a Princeton professor who wrote a well-known op-ed in the New York Times in 1979 called “Trusting Khomeini.” In it, Falk offered all sorts of excuses for Khomeini’s actions in the early stages of his taking power, and Falk saw much potential for “nonauthoritarian humane governance” in Iran. Again, please read the whole thing; it’s really quite something.

If I or any other blogger had made that large an error, we’d be hanging our heads in shame for a long time afterward. But Falk has never shown repentance, and he still has respect in the international community—which probably does not care if he’s right or wrong, as long as he’s on the right—that is the left—side of things. And remember that the left supported Khomeini back then, and some still support his successors.

Falk is a communist, or at least was one quite openly back in the 1950s, and certainly is a man of the far far left today. His entire history reads like a primer of leftist causes and attitudes, and his most recent appointment was to the UN, although Obama did not make the appointment:

On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”…

The appointment of Falk was reached through a consensus decision by the 47 members of the UN’s Human Rights Council. Despite attempts from Jewish groups to persuade the EU and Canada to publicly oppose the appointment the EU remained silent, while Canada chose not to oppose the consensus, instead issuing a statement distancing itself from the choice.

According to a UN press release, then Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Itzhak Levanon strongly criticized the appointment stating that Falk had written in an article that it was not “an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity”, arguing that “someone who had publicly and repeatedly stated such views could not possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective”. According to the The Jewish Daily Forward Falk actually said: “Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.”

The most intriguing thing about Falk is not his political position, which is clear and consistent, but the fact that he has taught with great honor at Princeton since the early 1960s and is now affiliated with the University of California at Santa Barbara, and that the Times was presenting him as a seemingly objective expert on Iran in 1979. When you think about it, it’s no surprise that generations of students were influenced by the kind of thinking espoused by Falk.

Looking backward with the perspective of time, here’s what Falk had to say in 2012 about that 1979 article of his in the Times on Iran:

I am inclined to think that my response to what took place in Iran was authentic at its various phases, reflecting my best understanding of the unfolding circumstances, adjusting my evaluations phase by phase. I prefer such a view, even in retrospect, to indifference to the Shah’s oppressive regime, while realizing that drastic change, especially in a country endowed with abundant oil reserves, is almost certain to be a rocky road. Should I have been immediately more suspicious of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic dimensions of the revolution? Probably, but it was not clear at the time”¦

But it was plenty clear at the time, to those who wanted to see. Just as Iran is clear today.

But Barack Obama is now in charge, along with John Kerry. And as the author of the Commentary piece, Sohrab Ahmari (who came to this country from Iran at the age of 13), writes, “We have come full circle. The apologists are now running the show, even if the Obama administration feels compelled to lie about the fact.”

[NOTE: Ahmari had a bit of a run-in with the Iranian regime himself, before coming to the US in 1998:

As a child, he was interrogated by security officials about his parents and faced disciplinary action for accidentally bringing a videocassette of Star Wars into school at a time when Western films were officially banned in the country.]

Hinderaker on Obama’s Iran deal speech

The New Neo Posted on by

John Hinderaker has what I think is just about the best analysis and reaction to Obama’s speech yesterday to sell his Iran deal. It’s well worth reading the entire thing (and sending it out to others), but the summary line at the end tells the tale:

Barack Obama is a terrible president, but he is a worse man.

True enough, but Obama as a man would only be a problem for those around him. As a president, he has been able to do far far more damage.

And this is a good comment to the article, as well.

There have been many reactions from the right to Obama’s speech. including my rather short one here. At this point my reaction to the situation is a fairly intense combination of weariness, sorrow, and anger. If some of those things seem contradictory, so be it.

[NOTE: Another good article about the speech is this one by Rich Lowry.]

A poet of the right

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: An exchange I had with commenter “Cornflour” on the Robert Conquest thread (here and here) reminded me of a previous post from about two years ago, one that I think it appropriate and interesting to revisit with some added words for today.

It features a poem by a friend of Robert Conquest’s, the British poet Philip Larkin.]

British poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was a complicated man, like many poets. But unlike most of them these days, he was politically of the right, at least in some respects.

Larkin wrote in forms, which is inherently conservative. But his language, although direct and very accessible, was most assuredly not conservative (liberal use of the f-word, for example). There’s a tension between the traditionalism of his forms and the modernism of what he was saying, and in that conflict lay his uniqueness and a good deal of his appeal. He wrote about things people tend to understand and care about: love, death, time, country, religion, sex. And he wrote in a way that doesn’t need special training to understand, although he’s a good (and many think great) poet.

Here’s a poem of Larkin’s that I recently discovered. Seems that England went through a lot of things before we did, or simultaneously (the poem was written in 1969 and published in 1974, around the time of the wind-down in Vietnam):

HOMAGE TO A GOVERNMENT

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.

It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.

In our case, we know who wanted it to happen: Obama and the left.

On reading that, four years after Obama’s complete withdrawal from Iraq and squandering of everything we accomplished there, and one day after his execrable Iran speech, I would add that I’m not at all sure that we’ll be able to leave our children money (Larkin wasn’t sure, either; he wrote of a hope). Nor do I think Obama’s motivation was to save money. The amount of money that would have been used by keeping the requested residual troops in Iraq was not that much in the governmental scheme of things.

And I don’t see money as the motive for the Iran deal, either. It is something much more ideological and destructive.

Obama’s Iran speech

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama pisses on America’s leg and tells us it’s raining.

You can read about it here and here.

Highlighted quote:

“Just because Iranian hard-liners chant ”˜death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe,” Obama said to strong applause from the audience.

“In fact, it’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo,” Obama said Wednesday afternoon. “It’s those hard-liners chanting “death to America” who have been most opposed to the deal.”

“They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus,” Obama said to laughter and wild applause.

Yessiree, the “Death to America” chanters and the Republican caucus, joined at the hip.

By the way, this quote also contains a classic Obama strawman, “that that’s what all Iranians believe.” No one on earth believes it’s what all Iranians believe. But that sort of sophistry is Obama’s favorite rhetorical device.

[ADDENDUM: And here’s a report on Obama’s attempt to scare Jewish leaders into supporting his deal.]

The debris found on Reunion Island is from Flight 370

The New Neo Posted on by

Confirmed:

It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you, an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion is indeed from MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a brief press conference. “We now have physical evidence that … Flight MH370 tragically ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.”

You can be sure that more people will be scouring the beaches of islands between Africa and the suspected crash site, and beyond.

Kerry doesn’t want us to screw the Ayatollah

The New Neo Posted on by

And “screw” is our illustrious Secretary of State’s word, not mine.

Here is the full Kerry quote, from a Jeffrey Goldberg interview in the Atlantic. It is worth pondering and understanding that Kerry is the man in charge of the negotiations, and that the following is either what he actually believes or what he wants us to believe (I think the latter, because I don’t think Kerry is that stupid or that naive, but perhaps I’m wrong):

The ayatollah approached this entire exercise extremely charily. He gave a kind of dismissive OK to [President Hassan] Rouhani and company to go do this, in the sense that he didn’t want to be blamed if this didn’t work. It was all Rouhani’s risk. He was playing the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps], and this and that. And so it was clear to me from my many conversations with Zarif and from the entire dynamic how fragile that journey was with him. The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them. This will be the ultimate screwing. We cut a deal, we stand up, it’s announced, five other countries believe in it””six other countries, because Iran signs off, and we’re the seventh””but you know, China, Russia, France, Germany, Britain, all sign off. Now the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.

Actually, what Obama, Kerry, and company did to the interests of the US, Congress, the people of the US, Israel, and quite a few of the US’s ostensible allies in the Arab world will be the “ultimate screwing” if the deal goes though. And what Kerry is saying here, among other things, is that neither Congress nor the American people have a right to go against anything that the executive branch does unilaterally in this regard, even if that executive action screws us and our allies (or the pooch, for that matter). All to placate and reassure a homicidal, fanatical, tyrannical dictator of a state that is a sworn enemy and has been for over thirty years?

One of the most interesting things about that Kerry quote is this sentence: “The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them.” It is unusually rich in irony, isn’t it? The idea that we have to prove ourselves trustworthy to him rather than the reverse would be ludicrous if it weren’t so dangerous. Kerry is correct, however, that the behavior of Kerry and company has taught Khamenei something about the US. But the thing it has taught has not been our trustworthiness; it has been our fecklessness, cravenness, stupidity, and impotence.

I have focused on this one remark of Kerry’s because it is so dramatic, and because it is featured in the headline of the article. But there are many other jaw-droppers in the interview. For example:

Goldberg: But does it bother you that money will be going to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad and Hezbollah?

Kerry: Yes, but it’s not dispositive. It’s not money that’s going to make a difference ultimately in what is happening. We have huge mechanisms by which we can push back and make the counter-difference. And the biggest, most important thing this is doing is that it is galvanizing a stronger, more defined security relationship between us and the Gulf states, and it will with Israel. We have countless ways to push back against those activities. And this will put to test whether or not Rouhani and Zarif are serious when they say they want a different relationship with the region.

It’s the equivalent of “Hey, let’s give Hitler (or Stalin, or choose your dictator) a ton of money and see what he does with it, and hope we can stop him in time if he uses it for ill. Isn’t that a great idea?”

Or how about this from Kerry:

Kerry: Let me put this in very precise terms. Look, I’ve gone through this backwards and forwards a hundred times and I’m telling you, this deal is as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets. And I believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.

Goldberg: So why do you think you can’t convince the majority of Israelis, or the majority of the organized Jewish community, of this?

Kerry: Because there’s a huge level of fear and mistrust and, frankly, there’s an inherent sense that, given Iran’s gains and avoidance in the past, that somehow they’re going to avoid something again. It’s a visceral feeling, it’s very emotional and visceral and I’m very in tune with that and very sensitive to that.

That’s not a parody; that’s a quote.

[ADDENDUM: Commenter “F” in the thread below describes Kerry’s narcissism, so I thought I would add that that was one of the first topics I wrote about when I first began this blog (see this, this, and this).]