A Good Bush Policy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071301723.html I proposed this policy in my law school thesis as an important way of getting the developing world on board to achieve climate change mitigation. It should capture a lot of low-hanging fruit (ie, cheap ways to reduce emissions) and encourage a more conscious environmental ethos among third-world governments and businesses. Though modest in size and impact, it would at least make a good start in this area of mitigation. But, more important is the potential for it to create positive momentum on a number of levels: the sense of international equity, economic structure, technological dispersion, efficient allocation of emissions reductions.

Iran, Israel, America: A Lovers' Quarrel

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18morris.html

This is a fairly plausible take on the situation as far as I can tell (lacking all the information on Iranian and Israeli capabilities). The qualification that occurs to me is that even Israeli nuclear strikes might fail to stop the Iranian program, unless the Israelis have adequate intelligence to work with on the key locations of the program. Perhaps the gravest threat posed by Iran’s strategy of nuclear escalation is the first strike incentive each side will perceive once the Iranians go nuclear.

Mossad clearly has the "advantage" of operating under a pressure of necessity that our intelligence services do not experience. They have long known, not just in an abstract sense, but in an absolutely visceral sense with whom they have to deal. I willingly grant that Mossad is more intelligent, superior technologially, more experienced, and, when required, just as ruthless as their foes--hell, they're ruthless enough to spy on us. But, Mossad also played a low-profile, and not particularly commendable, role in the intelligence gathering and analysis that led to the Iraq war. Their intel was wrong: Saddam bluffed the Israelis along with the rest of the world. Yet now they are expected not only to know the status of the Iranian nuclear program, but also to have precise information on its multiple locations, the defensive precautions at each location, the key operatives of the program, etc? This much I do not believe. Nor do I deem it inconceivable that they may find themselves in the position of knowing so little of the program as to render an attack counterproductive. Short of a major nuclear strike, I think the Israelis could delay the program for a few years at best. Given this, perhaps the most probable scenario is an Israeli strike (of limited efficacy) followed by Iranian counterstrikes that would enable the U.S. to sell, for purposes of international PR, its immediate intervention as a defensive measure provoked by Iran. This would give us some diplomatic cover, while ensuring that the Iranian program suffers a more serious setback than the Israelis could inflict themselves. To achieve more than a setback would necessitate regime change at a minimum, possibly a full-blown, old-school occupation (see WWII, multi-year occupations of Germany and Japan).

Israel and Problems

In a recent speech to AIPAC, the highly influential Israel lobbying group in America, Obama said, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." Shortly thereafter he said to Fareed Zakaria:  "I think the Clinton formulation provides a starting point for discussions between the parties." The Clinton plan was for a divided Jerusalem. He said he wasn't sufficiently careful with his syntax on the prior occasion.

Making a divided Jerusalem the starting point of negotiations is clearly disadvantageous to the Israelis, and they are much mispleased with this aboutface. Clinton's starting point was more pro-Israel in 2000. Of course, the Israelis would prefer to propose a solution in which they derive all the benefits--but the Palestinians will never (and should never) concede all points. The outcome of negotiation is failure or compromise--neither side dictates except by imposition of simple force. Obama probably could not do worse than any preceding President; each left office with this issue unresolved.

The Israelis get away with playing an evil game, such as we would be most reluctant to countenance in any other ally, by using the excuse that their adversary is still more brutal.

The assumption that Israel is the white knight facing off against the Muslim devils is foolish and grossly oversimplified. Israel established its independence by means of terrorism, butchery, brutality, deviousness, and many other less than lovely qualities. Today the West Bank is pockmarked with innumerable Jewish settlements scattered all over a territory to which they have no legal claim. This is simply an ostentatious and unnecessary provocation of the Palestinians and their supporters. It is the "might makes right" philosophy in action. There is little underlying moral difference between the two religions: both are essentially tribalistic in outlook and espouse "eye for an eye" moral codes. The difference arises instead from cultural history and present circumstances. In particular, the Jews have had benefit of exposure to Western ideas for centuries, have understood and largely absorbed the Western tradition (and were in fact contributors to this intellectual background), whereas the Muslims have only a despotic political tradition and no civil society per se, just the overweening religious structures. Finally, as the weaker party in the power relation, the Muslims have been driven to more desperate measures (overt terrorism) to persuade the Israelis that they still have some power and some basis for leverage at the negotiating table.

The American-Israeli relationship is not a fair deal for the U.S. It never was, nor is it today. Their efforts to make peace with their neighbors have been insufficient--and we have borne a substantial portion of the costs created by their foreign policies. Salting Palestinian wounds by planting settlements all over the West Bank is not excused by the madness of Hamas.

They ought to keep in mind that without us Israel would be a radioactive desert within 20 years.

Opening Bid

http://www.energyxxi.org/xxi/open_letter.html This is an open letter sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, which was slightly pro-business in its leanings the last time I checked. This is a crushing indictment of most of the Bush administration energy policies, signed by some of his former cabinet and other executive officials. I take this to be a blueprint for what an intelligent republican administration (perhaps McCain's) would pursue as its energy policy--though, with a democratic Congress, compromise would be inescapable. I consider it an interesting update on what the "business/security first" types are willing to concede to the environmentalist elements and what they demand in return. Mostly they seem clever enough to at least go for "dual-use" policies: those environmentally friendly policies that are also good for business or security. That's something, and quite a bit more than the genius in the Oval Office is prepared to sign on for.

Political Psychology

I remember one morning in a seminar class in my last semester of law school having a discussion with my classmates concerning the effect the internet would have on the dissemination of the news. People now have access to vast troves of information and I observed my classmates arguing through variations on what appeared to me to be a touchingly naive underlying consensus that this would result in a more informed populace, one capable of exercising critical judgement as to which resources were most trustworthy and which perspectives could claim the strongest arguments. I argued that in reality most people have neither the time nor the intelligence nor the inclination to play at their game of analytical objectivity--people would simply do what they have always done, only more so given the multiplied options and facility provided by the new medium: they will seek out those news outlets that confirm their prejudices most energetically and emphatically. Since I had thought about this question before, I was able to deliver a brief and fairly coherent and, most important, punctual perspective. That ended the discussion.  

How can one-sided articles like this one:
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/07/16/obamas-left-wing-extremism
be particularly interesting to intelligent people (which is always a minority of the population), even in the rare cases when they string together some good points? All of these editorials (and I do not even except those written by the few authors whom I regularly read), all of them--insult one's intelligence. Instead of confronting all the relevant facts on a given issue, as honor and honesty require, editorialists either misrepresent or ignore the inconvenient facts. For example, the Harvardeer below critiques the Obama health care plan using the usual arguments--but then fails to mention that there are a few problems with the status quo that the republicans are doing nothing to rectify: we spend vastly more than any other nation on our grossly inefficient health care system and we derive little obvious benefit from the huge amount of extra spending we do over and above that of other rich nations. He also fails to note that the government currently pays for 60% of health spending in this country, including tax breaks. Now, I am aware of these inconvenient facts and still oppose nationalization of the health system at this time. Why? Because I believe that we derive tremendous non-obvious benefits from our partly private system. Nationalizing the system would diminish innovation at all levels (which is a double blow because the entire world depends upon our innovation in this field), it would create new socialist-minded voting constituencies (perhaps nurses unions to add to the abominable the teacher's unions), it would further encourage the dependency psychology already too prevalent among certain social groups, it would strike a terrible blow to the ideal of individual liberty, it would make medical care the political plaything of unaccountable bureaucrats and cynical politicians, and, contrary to Democratic propaganda, it might very well intensify the gap between rich and poor--the rich will always have access to private care, which might someday be much better than the public system.

And that's only my criticism of an editorial I fundamentally agree with!

How Many Times Has Bush Shot America?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15tier.html?em&ex=1216267200&en=68581e548380028b&ei=5087%0A

Is it really possible that the Republican Congress in 2006, during a Republican administration, could set these wheels in motion? From the Democrats one might expect this sort of myopic infantile pandering, but from the Republicans? Aside from the Iraq invasion and the climate change issue, what most disappoints me about the Bush administration and his Congress (2000-2006) is that they adopted so many of the worst habits of the Democrats--this is merely one of many examples. I suppose the most notorious instance remains Bush's vast new Medicare entitlement program (the costs of which his people criminally and, I believe, intentionally underestimated when trying to push it through Congress). But this, working toward a new quota system in our university science departments, this is as much as to stab a vital organ necessary to the life of American competitiveness in economic and military spheres.