LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

LFTC - Index 9/18/09

4 posts: (1) An American Hero Gives All--The Home Front; (2) Europe Missile Defense: Allies Betrayed; Alliance Endangered--Wobble Watch; (3) Lawfare Strikes Again; Time to Strike Back--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (4) Green Giant Passes On, Will Kyoto Endure in Copenhagen?--"It's the Earth Stupid!".

LFTC - An American Hero Gives All

Yesterday President Obama awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sgt. Jared Monti.  Sgt. Monti tried three times to rescue a wounded comrade, under intense fire each time; the third time saw him killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.  Details in the article give the full picture of Sgt. Monti's devotion and  sacrifice.  His heroism has earned the admiration and respect of all civilized Americans, and his family's sacrifice earned everyone's respect as well.

LFTC - Europe Missile Defense: Allies Betrayed; Alliance Endangered

President Obama's announcement on European missile defense yesterday fell, in a masterpiece of sickening symbolism to which his administration is absolutely tone-deaf, on the 70th anniversary of Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin's invasion of Poland (which came 16 days after Hitler invaded the country to begin World War II).  More detail on the plan came from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, followed by a DoD briefing.  The briefing, by General James Cartwright of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained the various missile defense systems being deployed and upgraded.  The two technical arguments he makes are that Iran is acquiring a capability to overwhelm the originally planned system by sheer numbers, and that Iran's longer-range systems look to be farther off then previously thought by the American intelligence community.

The technical arguments are not frivolous, though our intel shift is a guess at best.  Frivolity came during the Q&A, when a reporter asked about Russian concerns.  Gen. Cartwright replied that Russia objected to deployment of omni-directional (360-degree) radar in the Czech Republic, which could not only see Iranian launches but also Russian launches.  Second, that Russia feared the missiles (to be based in Poland) could be converted to offensive missiles like the 1980s Pershing II missile system, and rapidly strike Russia without warning.

There is, of course, nothing whatsoever wrong with our desire to be able to peer into Russia and monitor their missile launches.  As for the Poles ever consenting to a nuclear first strike being launched at Russia from its soil, as sportscaster Warner Wolf used to say, "Gimme a break!"

Coincidentally, yesterday came an AP report that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on its latest Iran inspection has concluded that Iran already has the ability to make a nuclear bomb, and is on its way to perfecting a missile delivery system to carry a nuclear payload.  The conclusion is reportedly contained in a "secret annex" that is being withheld at the behest of Muhammad el-Baradei, the IAEA chief inspector (& undeserving Nobel Peace Prize winner), who has in the past publicly said he sees no reason why third world countries cannot make nuclear weapons if the big powers have them.  For its part, the IAEA denies the AP report.  Meanwhile, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu called upon the world to back Israeli self-defense (fat chance).

As for the claim that new intel on Iran's missile program progress was a factor in the cancellation, a WSJ editorial notes that already, last February, the administration began making noises about scrapping the deployment, long before the alleged Iran intel shift.  Another WSJ piece adds detail on distress in Eastern Europe.  The WSJ editors add a recap of how Team Obama has shafted allies in its first eight months:

The European switcheroo continues Mr. Obama's trend of courting adversaries while smacking allies. His Administration has sought warmer ties with Iran, Burma, North Korea, Russia and even Venezuela. But it has picked trade fights with Canada and Mexico, sat on trade treaties with Colombia and South Korea, battled Israel over West Bank settlements, ignored Japan in deciding to talk with North Korea, and sanctioned Honduras for its sin of resisting the encroachments of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

Ralph Peters writes that in pressing the reset button with Russia 44 hit the delete key with Eastern Europe.  Washington Times pundit Wesley Pruden sums it up even better: "Christmas arrives early" for Putin.  National security maven Seth Cropsey sees "incalculable damage" to America's credibility with allies around the globe.  According to the Daily Telegraph, the President's decision has Russia's leaders smiling and Eastern European leaders frowning.  Der Speigel reports "euphoria in Moscow" and adds that Russia will give little if anything in return.  The Economist sees a need for America to reassure allies of its alliance commitment.

Team Obama sees nothing wrong with this picture, and thus Jed Babbin concludes 44 is "slow-rolling" missile defense with no intention of ever deploying promised systems.  The NRO editors note that five months ago President Obama, in Prague, praised the courage of the two countries in accepting systems Moscow opposed.  Also at NRO, Rich Lowry talked to John Bolton, who sees the decision as "pre-emptive capitulation" to Moscow; JB also noted that Gates was weak on missile defense during his Bush 43 years.  A New York Times front-pager sees Obama scrapping Ronald Reagan missile defense vision, too.

If the deal changing old for new missile defense technology plus accelerating deployment is so good, why are the Poles & Czechs unhappy?  Presumably, Poles & Czechs would be delighted with a better system sooner.  That they are not suggests that the deal is not as Team Obama casts it.  Only if there is a secret protocol between America & Russia committing Russia to help stop Iran's nuclear program could this be justified.  We should be so lucky.

Bottom Line.  The clear inference--unavoidable in this case--is that America buckled to Moscow's campaign to stop missile defense deployment in Western Europe.  The administration has unilaterally abrogated a solemn compact negotiated by the prior administration with the Czechs & Poles, whose governments braved strong domestic political pressure, driven by fear of antagonizing Moscow.  In place of an ostensibly binding agreement, Eastern Europe now has an eminently revocable "commitment" by the current administration.  Russia now has a de facto veto over American actions in Eastern Europe, whose countries have been staunch American allies since being liberated from domination by the former Soviet Union--far more faithful, sending soldiers to fight alongside us in foreign wars while our Western European continental allies kept their troops out of harm's way.

The Czech Republic and Poland were among the most ardent friends of America.  They joined the NATO alliance for security in the face of Mother Russia, whose menacing shadow conjures up painful memories, such as the 1939 & 1944-45 rapes of Poland and the 1968 crushing of the Prague Spring.  Of such cavalier treatment are alliances endangered.  If this is how America treats its most faithful friends in Continental Europe, how will our fair-weather allies regard future American promises?

LFTC - Lawfare Strikes Again; Time to Strike Back

In the latest round of succumbing to lawfare follies, the Pentagon announced it will confer legal rights upon 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.  Yet a contrary report in the Washington Times notes that Team Obama has filed an appeal contesting conferring such rights on Bagram detainees, and also asked for extension of Patriot Act provisions governing roving wiretaps, seizure of business records and monitoring of "lone wolf" terror suspects, all due to expire this year.

NRO legal ace Andy McCarthy, a former top terror prosecutor, calls for waging warfare against lawfare.  McCarthy's vehicle: a new Declaration of Independence that frees national security from the shackles of lawfare.  He is right, but Team Obama is tone-deaf here, as is the Democratic Congress.

LFTC - Green Giant Passes On, Will Kyoto Endure in Copenhagen?

Gregg Easterbrook salutes Norman Borlaug, the anonymous genius who is credited with saving over one billion lives via his "Green Revolution" that boosted agricultural yields sufficiently to forestall mass famines as the world's population bomb went off.  Borlaug died last week, age 95.  Here is Easterbrook's money paragraph on the results of Borlaug's work:

In 1950, as Borlaug began his work in earnest, the world produced 692 million tons of grain for 2.2 billion people. By 1992, with Borlaug's concepts common, production was 1.9 billion tons of grain for 5.6 billion men and women: 2.8 times the food for 2.2 times the people. Global grain yields more than doubled during the period, from half a ton per acre to 1.1 tons; yields of rice and other foodstuffs improved similarly. Hunger declined in sync: From 1965 to 2005, global per capita food consumption rose to 2,798 calories daily from 2,063, with most of the increase in developing nations. In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared that malnutrition stands "at the lowest level in human history," despite the global population having trebled in a single century.

Leave it, then to (who else?) the Greens to oppose Borlaug bringing hybrid crops & new technology to Africa.  Easterbrook offers detail plus Borlaug's tart response:

After his triumph in India and Pakistan and his Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug turned to raising crop yields in other poor nations—especially in Africa, the one place in the world where population is rising faster than farm production and the last outpost of subsistence agriculture. At that point, Borlaug became the target of critics who denounced him because Green Revolution farming requires some pesticide and lots of fertilizer. Trendy environmentalism was catching on, and affluent environmentalists began to say it was "inappropriate" for Africans to have tractors or use modern farming techniques. Borlaug told me a decade ago that most Western environmentalists "have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."

Environmentalist criticism of Borlaug and his work was puzzling on two fronts. First, absent high-yield agriculture, the world would by now be deforested. The 1950 global grain output of 692 million tons and the 2006 output of 2.3 billion tons came from about the same number of acres—three times as much food using little additional land.

"Without high-yield agriculture," Borlaug said, "increases in food output would have been realized through drastic expansion of acres under cultivation, losses of pristine land a hundred times greater than all losses to urban and suburban expansion." Environmentalist criticism was doubly puzzling because in almost every developing nation where high-yield agriculture has been introduced, population growth has slowed as education becomes more important to family success than muscle power.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Europeans are incensed that Team Obama plans to weaken the successor treaty to the expiring Kyoto Accords.  Team Obama wishes to substitute its own carbon emissions reduction plan for the European proposal; it would be less stringent, but have a chance to pass the US Senate.  Stay tuned.

Manhattan Institute scholar Peter Huber sees Team Obama with the right goal--carbon emission reduction--but the wrong strategy.  Instead of relying on renewables to replace oil, 44 should, PH writes, make natural gas, of which America has plenty, the vehicle fuel of the future, supplemented by electric cars.

LFTC - Index 9/17/09

5 posts: (1) Sarko Nails Iran; Obama Nails Allies?--Wobble Watch; (2) Health Care Bounces--The Home Front; (3) Etiquette in Nancy's House--The Home Front; (4) ACORN Scorned--The Home Front; (5) Iran: An Expert's View--Us v. Them.

LFTC - Sarko Nails Iran; Obama Nails Allies?

BELOW IS A POSTING FINISHED EARLY TODAY.  SINCE THEN BOTH THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HAVE CLARIFIED THE DECISIONS TAKEN.  RATHER THAN EDIT THIS POST, I WILL POST A REVISED ASSESSMENT TOMORROW, AS MORE DETAILS EMERGE,  I REMAIN, HOWEVER, HIGHLY SKEPTICAL OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S CALL.  POSTED 10:40 AM THURSDAY SEPT. 18, 2009.

The Jerusalem Post reports that French President Nicholas Sarkozy told French lawmakers that every intelligence service in the world knows Iran is working on a nuclear weapons program.  And no one is acting seriously to stop it.

The Czech press is reporting that President Obama will scrap missile defense for the Czech Republic & Poland, to placate Vladimir Putin.  NATO's Secretary-General praised the decision.  A WSJ op-ed details more of the mess Obama is creating with his decision--eerily reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's 1978 decision to scrap the "neutron bomb" (a tactical weapon designed to kill personnel while minimizing collateral damage, and thus ideal for tank killing on the German plain) to placate Moscow.  Carter's call enraged German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who had, like the Czechs & Poles today, taken political risks in accepting deployment.  Moscow repaid Carter's unilateral concession by invading Afghanistan the following year and thus educating Carter about the wages of appeasement.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the systems we had promised to deploy knows that they were largely symbolic, and ZERO threat to Moscow.  Moscow has systems that can easily bypass the low-level system we were to give the Czechs & Poles to ward off an Iranian mini-strike.  Moscow knows this--indeed, told our mid-level State Department types during Bush 43's tenure.  But they used it as a political football to cow a President who understands virtually nothing about arms control, and what little he knows is simply wrong.

Bottom Line.  The West dithers as Iran approaches nuclear status, with only Israel willing to seriously consider stopping the mullahs.  And America, once again shafts close allies, to placate an adversary that will coolly pocket this unilateral concession while giving nothing of real substance in return.  Above all this is a slap in the face of the Poles, whose troops are fighting--and dying--alongside ours in both Iraq & Afghanistan.  And Team Obama repays them by pulling out the rug, after the Poles took serious political risk of offending a revanhcist Moscow by agreeing to accept deployment in the first place.  To borrow from the 19th century French diplomat Talleyrand of Concert of Vienna fame, it was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.

LFTC - Health Care Bounces

Begin with a YouTube ObamaCare video (3:46) made by a doctor, using Marvin Hamlisch's hit song "One" from "A Chorus Line."  It is clever & hilarious.  George Will is again at his acid best in styling the President as "CPR for the GOP"--and nailing Nancy Pelosi as well.  Begin with his gem nailing Pelosi perfectly:

She is liberalism's Dolores Ibárruri, a.k.a. La Pasionaria—the Passion Flower. An anti-Franco orator during the Spanish Civil War, Ibárruri gave the Loyalists their battle cry, "¡Nopasarán!"—"They shall not pass!" Franco's forces did pass, but Pelosi has vowed that a reform plan lacking a public option shall not pass the House. But Montana Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, says a public option cannot pass the Senate.

After noting Obama being in America's face all the time, and noting 44's serial hypocrisies (amusing to read, sad to contemplate) Will divines ominous signs for The One and his Faithful:

McConnell of the Mona Lisa smile says Congress will pass something because Obama will sign anything. McConnell notes, however, that never in his 25 Senate years have Republicans polled close to Democrats when the question is: Which party do you trust most to deal with health care? Until now. Last week's polling: Democratic Party, 41; Republican Party, 39—a statistical dead heat. On a generic ballot question—which party do you intend to vote for?—the GOP has gone from down 12 points to dead even since November. Independents defected in droves from the GOP in 2006 and 2008, but today only one third of them view Obama's handling of health care favorably.

The latest Rasmussen poll shows that the positive bounce President Obama got from last week's health care address has already evaporated.  Gallup's Sept. 16 poll shows 50-38 against ObamaCare; those in favor cite above all the need to help the uninsured, while those against cite fears about bigger government involvement in HC.  Polls also show most doctors opposed to ObamaCare, and nearly half willing to consider leaving their practice if ObamaCare passes.

Michael Barone explains how & why the base of the Democrats is far harder line than the base for the GOP, which will affect the politics of health care.  Thomas Sowell looks at ObamaCare and sees in 44 a "Charlatan-in-Chief" selling snake oil.  Two health care mavens weigh in on President Obama's HC speech proposals.  A WSJ editorial details how Team Obama distorts insurance costs to make a public option look better. Team Obama ignores the fact that Demcorats do not give self-employed the same tax break employees get when enrolled in company plans, which distorts true relative HC costs.

Virginia GOP Congressman Eric Cantor offers five reasons not to like ObamaCare: public option, jeopardy to private plans, government rationing of care, illegals covered & total cost; read all his expertly detailed comments.  Here is his specific take on how private insurers would be put in peril by fine print slipped into the innards of ObamaCare:

Keeping the plan you have if you like it: Is it true, as the president insists, that all Americans will be able to keep the health insurance they already have? On page 15, as part of Section 101, the government gives itself the power to declare what qualifies as acceptable health insurance. While Democrats highlight a provision in the next section titled “PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE,” when you read the fine print a different story emerges. Subparagraph (a)(1) says that, for you to keep your insurance, your insurer can’t enroll anyone new into your plan. Meanwhile, subparagraph (a)(2) says the insurer can’t change the terms, conditions, or benefits of your plan. But if you have employer-based insurance, subsection (b) of this section says that, in reality, you only get to keep your current plan for, at most, five years if it fails to conform to all the new federal requirements.

Offering proponents of ObamaCare plans due process, here is a health care op-ed by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), whose cost estimates, to his credit, were accepted by the Congressional Budget Office.

LFTC - Etiquette in Nancy's House

House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter (D-LA) released an updated House Rules of Decorum, to clarify what Members may and may not say about the president.  Unlike the Senate, which follows the Cole Porter rule"Anything Goes," the House prohibits certain unkind references--to the President only.  There is, of course, a way around the House rule: toss the epithets at the President's entire administration.

LFTC - ACORN Scorned

This Biggovenment.comn website (set up by online newsie Andrew Breitbart) has the videos & more on ACORN workers getting caught in several instances agreeing to abet commission of various felonies like mortgage fraud and tax evasion--and including, NOT making this up, child prostitution (a sting set up by two kids--watch the video--with the pseudo-offer of Salvadoran girls, ages 12 - 15).  Thus the Senate voted 83-7 to defund ACORN.  ACORN is now out of the 2010 Census taking project.  California's Governator Arnold is calling for a full investigation of ACORN's Golden State activities.  The White House is distancing itself from what is now a politically toxic group (formerly best pals of 44).

NRO editor Rich Lowry adds sordid (but valuable) detail, and still more ACORN background comes from the NRO editors.  WSJ ace pundit John Fund details how ACORN has "[run] off the rails" at long last, but cautions in the embedded video clip (4:02) that ACORN is a hydra-headed organization with about 200 entities, so shifting funds from ACORN to like-minded affiliates will circumvent efforts to rein ACORN in.  A WSJ editorial notes that Democrats still fund ACORN and that the Justice Department has lots of investigative work to do.  GOP Members of Congress plan to pursue matters, but with Nancy Pelosi running the House & Eric Holder as A-G, I would not look for much to happen unless public anger inflicts major political damage in the polls.

John Fund lists "the ACORN 7": Democratic senators Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Roland Burris (IL), Dick Durbin (IL), Patrick Leahy (VT) and Bob Casey (PA); plus Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent.  Mainstream media (MSM) outlets largely ignored the story and condemned--when they no longer could entirely ignore it--the "entrapment" of ACORN employees.  Michelle Malkin skewers MSM hypocrisy by chronicling some well-known media "sting" operations aimed at targets MSM likes to see take torpedoes under the waterline.  In answer to those defending ACORN as a group aiding low-income folks, Manhattan Institute scholar Steven Malanga recounts ACORN's pivotal role as muscle in enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 against recalcitrant banks, staging sit-ins at banks and harassing employees until the banks caved on mortgage loans to the financially unqualified.

LFTC - Iran: An Expert's View

On September 15 Stratfor's George Friedman published an updated assessment of the situation with Iran.  As always, his work merits a read.  It is republished with permission from Stratfor.

Misreading the Iranian Situation

By George Friedman

Related Special Topic Page

• The Iranian Nuclear Game

The Iranians have now agreed to talks with the P-5+1, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) plus Germany. These six countries decided in late April to enter into negotiations with Iran over the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons program by Sept. 24, the date of the next U.N. General Assembly meeting. If Iran refused to engage in negotiations by that date, the Western powers in the P-5+1 made clear that they would seriously consider imposing much tougher sanctions on Iran than those that were currently in place. The term “crippling” was mentioned several times.

Obviously, negotiations are not to begin prior to the U.N. General Assembly meeting as previously had been stipulated. The talks are now expected to begin Oct. 1, a week later. This gives the Iranians their first (symbolic) victory: They have defied the P-5+1 on the demand that talks be under way by the time the General Assembly meets. Inevitably, the Iranians would delay, and the P-5+1 would not make a big deal of it.

Talks About Talks and the Sanctions Challenge

Now, we get down to the heart of the matter: The Iranians have officially indicated that they are prepared to discuss a range of strategic and economic issues but are not prepared to discuss the nuclear program — which, of course, is the reason for the talks in the first place. On Sept. 14, they hinted that they might consider talking about the nuclear program if progress were made on other issues, but made no guarantees.

So far, the Iranians are playing their traditional hand. They are making the question of whether there would be talks about nuclear weapons the center of diplomacy. Where the West wanted a commitment to end uranium enrichment, the Iranians are trying to shift the discussions to whether they will talk at all. After spending many rounds of discussions on this subject, they expect everyone to go away exhausted. If pressure is coming down on them, they will agree to discussions, acting as if the mere act of talking represents a massive concession. The members of the P-5+1 that don’t want a confrontation with Iran will use Tehran’s agreement merely to talk (absent any guarantees of an outcome) to get themselves off the hook on which they found themselves back in April — namely, of having to impose sanctions if the Iranians don’t change their position on their nuclear program.

Russia, one of the main members of the P-5+1, already has made clear it opposes sanctions under any circumstances. The Russians have no intention of helping solve the American problem with Iran while the United States maintains its stance on NATO expansion and bilateral relations with Ukraine and Georgia. Russia regards the latter two countries as falling within the Russian sphere of influence, a place where the United States has no business meddling.

To this end, Russia is pleased to do anything that keeps the United States bogged down in the Middle East, since this prevents Washington from deploying forces in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltics, Georgia or Ukraine. A conflict with Iran not only would bog down the United States even further, it would divide Europe and drive the former Soviet Union and Central Europe into viewing Russia as a source of aid and stability. The Russians thus see Iran as a major thorn in Washington’s side. Obtaining Moscow’s cooperation on removing the thorn would require major U.S. concessions — beyond merely bringing a plastic “reset” button to Moscow. At this point, the Russians have no intention of helping remove the thorn. They like it right where it is.

In discussing crippling sanctions, the sole obvious move would be blocking gasoline exports to Iran. Iran must import 40 percent of its gasoline needs. The United States and others have discussed a plan for preventing major energy companies, shippers and insurers from supplying that gasoline. The subject, of course, becomes moot if Russia (and China) refuses to participate or blocks sanctions. Moscow and Beijing can deliver all the gasoline Tehran wants. The Russians could even deliver gasoline by rail in the event that Iranian ports are blocked. Therefore, if the Russians aren’t participating, the impact of gasoline sanctions is severely diminished, something the Iranians know well.

Tehran and Moscow therefore are of the opinion that this round of threats will end where other rounds ended. The United States, the United Kingdom and France will be on one side; Russia and China will be on the other; and Germany will vacillate, not wanting to be caught on the wrong side of the Russians. In either case, whatever sanctions are announced would lose their punch, and life would go on as before.

There is, however, a dimension that indicates that this crisis might take a different course.

The Israeli Dimension

After the last round of meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, the Israelis announced that the United States had agreed that in the event of a failure in negotiations, the United States would demand — and get — crippling sanctions against Iran, code for a gasoline cutoff. In return, the Israelis indicated that any plans for a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be put off. The Israelis specifically said that the Americans had agreed on the September U.N. talks as the hard deadline for a decision on — and implementation of — sanctions.

Our view always has been that the Iranians are far from acquiring nuclear weapons. This is, we believe, the Israeli point of view. But the Israeli point of view also is that, however distant, the Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons represents a mortal danger to Israel — and that, therefore, Israel would have to use military force if diplomacy and sanctions don’t work.

For Israel, the Obama guarantee on sanctions represented the best chance at a nonmilitary settlement. If it fails, it is not clear what could possibly work. Given that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has gotten his regime back in line, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently has emerged from the recent Iranian election crisis with expanded clout over Iran’s foreign policy, and that the Iranian nuclear program appears to be popular among Iranian nationalists (of whom there are many), there seems no internal impediment to the program. And given the current state of U.S.-Russian relations and that Washington is unlikely to yield Moscow hegemony in the former Soviet Union in return for help on Iran, a crippling sanctions regime is unlikely.

Obama’s assurances notwithstanding, there accordingly is no evidence of any force or process that would cause the Iranians to change their minds about their nuclear program. With that, the advantage to Israel of delaying a military strike evaporates.

And the question of the quality of intelligence must always be taken into account: The Iranians may be closer to a weapon than is believed. The value of risking delays disappears if nothing is likely to happen in the intervening period that would make a strike unnecessary.

Moreover, the Israelis have Obama in a box. Obama promised them that if Israel did not take a military route, he would deliver them crippling sanctions against Iran. Why Obama made this promise — and he has never denied the Israeli claim that he did — is not fully clear. It did buy him some time, and perhaps he felt he could manage the Russians better than he has. Whatever Obama’s motivations, having failed to deliver, the Israelis can say that they have cooperated with the United States fully, so now they are free by the terms of their understanding with Washington to carry out strikes — something that would necessarily involve the United States.

The calm assumptions in major capitals that this is merely another round in interminable talks with Iran on its weapons revolves around the belief that the Israelis are locked into place by the Americans. From where we sit, the Israelis have more room to maneuver now than they had in the past, or than they might have in the future. If that’s true, then the current crisis is more dangerous than it appears.

Netanyahu appears to have made a secret trip to Moscow (though it didn’t stay secret very long) to meet with the Russian leadership. Based on our own intelligence and this analysis, it is reasonable to assume that Netanyahu was trying to drive home to the Russians the seriousness of the situation and Israel’s intent. Russian-Israeli relations have deteriorated on a number of issues, particularly over Israeli military and intelligence aid to Ukraine and Georgia. Undoubtedly, the Russians demanded that Israel abandon this aid.

As mentioned, the chances of the Russians imposing effective sanctions on Iran are nil. This would get them nothing. And if not cooperating on sanctions triggers an Israeli airstrike, so much the better. This would degrade and potentially even effectively eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability, which in the final analysis is not in Russia’s interest. It would further enrage the Islamic world at Israel. It would put the United States in the even more difficult position of having to support Israel in the face of this hostility. And from the Russian point of view, it would all come for free. (That said, in such a scenario the Russians would lose much of the leverage the Iran card offers Moscow in negotiations with the United States.)

Ramifications of an Israeli Strike

An Israeli airstrike would involve the United States in two ways. First, it would have to pass through Iraqi airspace controlled by the United States, at which point no one would believe that the Americans weren’t complicit. Second, the likely Iranian response to an Israeli airstrike would be to mine the Strait of Hormuz and other key points in the Persian Gulf — something the Iranians have said they would do, and something they have the ability to do.

Some have pointed out that the Iranians would be hurting themselves as much as the West, as this would cripple their energy exports. And it must be remembered that 40 percent of globally traded oil exports pass through Hormuz. The effect of mining the Persian Gulf would be devastating to oil prices and to the global economy at a time when the global economy doesn’t need more grief. But the economic pain Iran would experience from such a move could prove tolerable relative to the pain that would be experienced by the world’s major energy importers. Meanwhile, the Russians would be free to export oil at extraordinarily high prices.

Given the foregoing, the United States would immediately get involved in such a conflict by engaging the Iranian navy, which in this case would consist of small boats with outboard motors dumping mines overboard. Such a conflict would be asymmetric warfare, naval style. Indeed, given that the Iranians would rapidly respond — and that the best way to stop them would be to destroy their vessels no matter how small before they have deployed — the only rational military process would be to strike Iranian boats and ships prior to an Israeli airstrike. Since Israel doesn’t have the ability to do that, the United States would be involved in any such conflict from the beginning. Given that, the United States might as well do the attacking. This would increase the probability of success dramatically, and paradoxically would dampen the regional reaction compared to a unilateral Israeli strike.

When we speak to people in Tehran, Washington and Moscow, we get the sense that they are unaware that the current situation might spin out of control. In Moscow, the scenario is dismissed because the general view is that Obama is weak and inexperienced and is frightened of military confrontation; the assumption is that he will find a way to bring the Israelis under control.

It isn’t clear that Obama can do that, however. The Israelis don’t trust him, and Iran is a core issue for them. The more Obama presses them on settlements the more they are convinced that Washington no longer cares about Israeli interests. And that means they are on their own, but free to act.

It should also be remembered that Obama reads intelligence reports from Moscow, Tehran and Berlin. He knows the consensus about him among foreign leaders, who don’t hold him in high regard. That consensus causes foreign leaders to take risks; it also causes Obama to have an interest in demonstrating that they have misread him.

We are reminded of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis only in this sense: We get the sense that everyone is misreading everyone else. In the run-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Americans didn’t believe the Soviets would take the risks they did and the Soviets didn’t believe the Americans would react as they did. In this case, the Iranians believe the United States will play its old game and control the Israelis. Washington doesn’t really understand that Netanyahu may see this as the decisive moment. And the Russians believe Netanyahu will be controlled by an Obama afraid of an even broader conflict than he already has on his hands.

The current situation is not as dangerous as the Cuban Missile Crisis was, but it has this in common: Everyone thinks we are on a known roadmap, when in reality, one of the players — Israel — has the ability and interest to redraw the roadmap. Netanyahu has been signaling in many ways that he intends to do just this. Everyone seems to believe he won’t. We aren’t so sure.

LFTC - Index 9/16/09

2 posts: (1) Security Update: Team Obama in Retreat--Us v. Them; (2) A Hero's Unnecessary Death--MSM Murders.

LFTC - Security Update: Team Obama in Retreat

Here are a passel of articles well worth sharing on national security matters, as Team Obama wanders about increasingly in dreamland, with rare exceptions.

Soldier-author Ralph Peters offers a laundry list of American post-9/11 retreat;Manhattan Institute scholar Judy Miller offers three fresh reminders--a major British terror trial conviction, the latest on KSM & Iran's intransigence--of the peril we remain in since 9/11; a Senate panel recommends that Lockheed Martin & the Air Force develop an export model of the F-22 Raptor, so that 3 nations--Australia, Japan & Israel--can purchase it.

Author & Mideast reporter Robin Wright argues for a creative new approach to Iran, to leverage the changes inside Iran over the summer; a German Marshall Fund poll shows that 80 percent of Europeans oppose a military strike against Iran, even if talks fail; Christopher Hitchens describes engaging Iran as "like having sex with someone who hates you" (no shrinking violet, he), and elegantly eviscerates the administration's supine diplomacy.  WSJ columnist Bret Stephens sees Obama's anti-Israel tilt pushing Israel towards striking Iran.

Two national security mavens warn of dire consequences if Team Obama sells out Western Europe on Iranian missile defense, with Russia the big gainer; Breitbart reports that Eastern Europeans are growing angry at Team Obama's slights directed at them.  A Weekly Standard piece recounts the stirring history of Polish soldiers & airmen dying while fighting on our side, from the Battle of Britain to Iraq & Afghanistan, which  makes the imminent betrayal of Poland all the more infuriating.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Syria may have more nuclear sites than previously thought.  John Bolton wonders if Team Obama simply did not care much if the Libyan intelligence agent released by the Scots would enrage PanAm 103 families.  American special forces killed a top al-Qaeda terrorist leader in Somalia.  A New York Times front-pager reports that a "Lebanese Bernie Madoff" with ties to Hezbollah has been snared in a billion-dollar pyramid scheme; Hezbollah's ties (so much for religious piety) prevent locals from complaining too much--wonder where the money went....

Gordon Chang assesses, with a gimlet eye, North Korea's recent charm offensive.

Bottom Line.  Team Obama is committed to fighting on in Afghanistan & seeing that Iraq does not disintegrate.  But otherwise, they are a 21st century Carter administration: placate your enemies in hope they come around; spite your friends, in hope that they will make the concessions to enemies that will presumably produce peace.  If this has worked in 10 millennia of human history, I missed it.

LFTC - A Hero's Unnecessary Death

Former British Army officer Tim Wilson explores how a combination of reportorial carelessness & stupidity, a newspaper's arrogance and political meddling led to the probably unnecessary death of a British soldier in Afghanistan.  It is a sad, sobering tale, well told.  The picture of the soldier who gave his life in the line of fire  shows the character of a man whose memory deserves everlasting honor--more than can be said for the reporter whose life he saved.

LFTC - Index 9/15/09

One post: (1) Sonia's First Case: More Analyses--The Home Front.

Yesterday The Fenton Report published my article, The Kennedy Clan: Camelot's Promise & Peril.

LFTC - Sonia's First Case: More Analyses

Last week's oral argument at the Supreme Court on the campaign finance First Amendment case merits more analyses.  Here are stories from Court reporters for major outlets: NY Times;Washington Post; WSJ editors.

LFTC - Index 9/14/09

2 posts: (1) Leader & the Politics of Trust--The Home Front; (2) Regulate Executive Pay?--The Home Front.

LFTC - Leaders & the Politics of Trust

The Los Angeles Times reports that health care is one reason, but not the only one, that has caused President Obama to lose the support of white voters--including Independents & Democrats.  44 is down since his 100-day mark (end-April) 11 with white Democrats, 9 with Independents & whites over 50 and 12 with white women.  Besides HC, a notable factor was 44 injecting himself into the mid-July racial controversy involving a white cop & 44's black Harvard professor friend.  White House flaps like last weeks; slow-mo easing out of Van Jones, the "green jobs" racialist crackpot have not helped either.  Perhaps worse is that 44 seems bizarrely unaware of this, pushing ahead with absurdities like trying to get schoolkids to pledge fealty to his program, as Mark Steyn notes in NRO.

WSJ pundit Dan Henninger notes that worldwide electorates have lost confidence in parties governing them, which makes comprehensive government initiatives far harder to sell.  DH sees rising debt as driving voter rebellions:

What accounts for the global electorate's growing disgust with the political overclass? Try this: No matter the ideological cast of these governments, they all hold in common one policy: the inexorable upward march of national indebtedness. It has arrived at the edge of the cliff.

Japan's gross debt is currently estimated at some 180% of its gross domestic product, the highest among the world's theoretically serious economies. Look elsewhere and one sees the same fiscal obesity.

As measured by the OECD, the growth in gross debt as a percentage of GDP since the dawn of the new century is stunning. The data isn't exactly comparable across individual countries, but the trend line is unmistakable.

In the U.S., debt as a percentage of GDP rose to 87% in 2009 from 55% in 2000. In the U.K., to 75% from 45%; Germany, to 78% from 60%; France, 86% from 66%. There are exceptions to this trend, such as Canada, New Zealand and notably Australia, whose debt has fallen to 16% of GDP from 25%. But for all the countries in the OECD's basket the claim of indebtedness on GDP grew to 92% from 69% the past nine years.

In short, the lumpen electorate works, and the lumpen bureaucratariat spends. They get away with it because they have perfected the illusion that no human hand causes these commitments. The payroll tax just happens. Entitlements are "off-budget," presumably in the hands of God. This is government without the responsibility of governance.

Unable to identify who or what has put them in hock to the horizon, national electorates are attempting accountability by voting whole parties out of power. Rasmussen recently found that 57% of voters would throw out Congress en masse if they could. Gerrymandered districts ensure that they can't.

Matthew Continetti sees a political elite in DC that is "deaf, dumb & blind" to rising popular discontent with runaway deficits & grandiose HC plans.  Charles Krauthammer, in a top-class column that should be read in full, sees a President Obama stripped of his magical aura and transformed back into a mere mortal:

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one's own image.....

Bottom Line.  Thus the political elite classes spend money and entrench themselves, while the masses begin to stir.  Stay tuned.

LFTC - Regulate Exectuive Pay?

Hudson Institute regulatory economist Irwin Stelzer offers 5 crisp pages on whether to regulate executive pay.  Highlights of an article that should be read in full:

The rationale for government intervention on the widest possible scale is simple and, to some, persuasive. Compensation systems that encourage excessive risk-taking by firms that are too big to fail are not in the public interest--they contain the seeds of systemic collapse, as almost occurred at the start of the present crisis. So the government must have a say in the structure of bonuses of all banks to prevent excessive risk-taking.
 
Note that this argument applies to the risk-inducing nature of bonuses, hence the government's relaxed attitude towards bonuses in the form of restricted shares, which cannot be sold for several years, giving employees a stake in the long-term health and performance of their firms. Note, too, that the level of compensation is not supposed to affect whether the government approves any particular scheme, a distinction that might get lost in the hurly-burly of congressional hearings and White House press conferences.
 
Nor is the government certain to be deterred, in the end, by the presence of contracts setting compensation. After all, contracts that contravene public policy--think of agreements to fix prices, or a mob contract to "hit" a member no longer considered trustworthy--have long been held to be unenforceable. It is not a great stretch for the government to argue that contracts embodying compensation plans that encourage behavior so risky as to create systemic risk are null and void. After all, the government had no compunction about negating the contractual right of Chrysler's creditors to preferential treatment when it went bankrupt, in effect transferring such preference to vote-delivering trade unions. All in the public interest, of course.
 
The reasonableness of the government's claim for a seat at the compensation committee table doesn't mean that the government will do a good job of setting executive compensation. Populist and egalitarian pressures emanating from the Hill and the Oval Office will undoubtedly mount when Congress returns, and considers--if that is the right word--its reaction to the multimillion-dollar payouts planned not only by highly profitable firms such as Goldman Sachs, but by money-losers such as Citigroup, a bank that has received $45 billion in government aid in exchange for a 34 percent share in the company. Feinberg already has approved an $8.5 million pay packet, largely in the form of stock grants, to AIG's new president. He also is likely to approve plans such as those recently adopted by Wells Fargo--increase base pay and cut bonuses that might provide incentives to reckless lending and trading. And he must consider the impact of any decision on the ability of the firm involved to retain its top guns--although if his writ runs as widely as observers believe it will, unhappy bankers might have nowhere else to go--except perhaps to the new boutique advisory firms that are already wooing away bankers eager to find a niche below the government's radar.

Stelzer notes Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg's problem with a zillionaire Citi trader:

Because Feinberg has refused to acknowledge that the provision protecting contracts signed before February 11 of this year puts them beyond his reach--the rules provide for a claw back of "any bonus based on materially inaccurate performance criteria"--he now has to deal with Citigroup's One Hundred Million Dollar Man.
 
Actually, Andrew Hall, the trader with Citigroup subsidiary Phibro, is entitled under his pre-February 11 contract only to $98 million, but a mere $2 million shouldn't be allowed to come between a fact and a good headline. Hall earned many times $100 million for Phibro and hence its parent, Citigroup, so his payout--Citigroup refers to it as a share of profits--is clearly performance-related, one of the stated goals of pay structure reformers. Absent Feinberg's ability to find some way around that contract, or a willingness by Hall to adjust his bonus (there is a rumor that he might be prepared to spread receipt over several years), Hall should whistle a happy tune en route to the bank while Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner hopes the congressional hearing at which he will be called upon to explain this provision of the law--something about constitutional protection against ex post facto legislation--does not last too long.
 
The sums involved aside, it is not unusual for loss-making banks such as Citi to feel it necessary to pay substantial bonuses to employees working in profitable divisions such as Phibro. None of this all-for-one-and-one-for-all stuff for traders, who seem to have learned their lesson from the town beggar in that great musical Fiddler on the Roof. When offered one kopek by the town butcher, the beggar demanded his usual two kopeks. On being advised by the butcher that he had a bad week, the beggar responded, "So you had a bad week--why should I suffer?"

Stelzer says incentives must align, and often do not in CEO pay, and that if taxpayers are saddled with risk they are entitled to a voice in how much executives are paid:

The argument that incentives and inclinations exist that lead to excessive risk-taking is not a moral argument, or a political one, or an argument in favor of a more equal distribution of income and wealth. It is solely an economic argument: Compensation structured as it has been in the financial sector results in an uneconomically excessive amount of risk-taking, just as a failure to make a polluter internalize the costs of pollution provides an incentive for him to produce more than if he had to pay all the costs he imposes on society.
 
Mortgage brokers have an incentive to write NINJA mortgages--no income, no job or assets--because they are paid up front, and then pass the risk on to banks. Banks immediately wrap these risky mortgages into securities, and sell them to investors who are reassured by the triple A ratings conferred by the rating agencies--who earn a fee only if the deal gets done. Everyone has an incentive to do the wrong thing--no surprise that they do just that. Not because they are law-breakers, not because they are antisocial, not because they can't wait to see the undeserving evicted from their homes. Simply because they are following the incentives embedded in the compensation packages that do not reflect the costs to society of their errors.
 
Until now, economists held that the fear of "reputational consequences" would deter such behavior. But most of these transactions that originate with a broker paid up-front are one-off--the same customer is unlikely to return, or learn soon enough the consequences of his brokers' behavior to warn others. Executives who bring down their institutions leave with golden goodbyes and access to talk shows on which they unashamedly--shame being in short supply these days--justify their actions en route to a game of golf at a country club, dues paid by the company from which they departed but at which an office and staff support are still available to make their transition to a new life friction-free.
 
I exaggerate: Not all cases fit that description. But almost all have one characteristic in common: The cost of the pursuit of the incentives contained in a compensation package, when that pursuit leads to major loss, has not been borne by the pursuer, but by thousands of people he has never met.
 
Since society bears the cost, society, as represented by its elected officials and their appointees, must have something to say about how to eliminate or at least mitigate incentives that are causing such woe to the innocent.

Bottom Line.  In principle Stelzer's argument is, so to speak, beyond argument: He is right.  If taxpayers are socializing corporate risk they should have a say in, among other matters, how much corporate managers & stars--even superstars--are paid.  In practice, as Stelzer understands full well, it means that Members of Congress like Rep. Barney Frank (Dinosaur-MA) & Chris Dodd (Dipper-CT) will stick their fingers into the pie--these same folks who excoriated private Wall Street firms for leveraging 30:1 to 40:1, whilst protecting from those seeking to apply adult supervision to Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, our financial Fric & Frac who were leveraged 75:1.

In all, it is enough to make one volunteer for the first Moon Colony mission.