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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (37319)	9/23/2009 2:51:44 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

you must have missed MOST of the last 8 years. The constant drone of hate spew made it impossible to miss. Regardless, I did very well during the period. It was not until Obamanomics really took hold in August 2009 that business started to suffer. Perhaps you drank too much of the leftwing koolaid and being strung out made you miss it. We actually had SURPLUSES in 2000 and Gore would have continued them. Impossible. Since you probably actually believe it, explain where they came from and what Gore would have done to extend them. (Don't worry the fact you believe it means you have no idea what cause the temporary illusion of surplus.) We had a BUFFER state in Iraq to keep Iran at bay in 2000. Today we have a Shiite government in Iraq that welcomes Adminajad as a good friend. Both statements are incorrect. There is not much to say about either except they are wrong. Message #37319 from RMF at 9/23/2009 1:08:14 AM Peter, if you think the country is "much stronger and better off" then you must have missed MOST of the last 8 years. In WHAT regard are we stronger and better off? We actually had SURPLUSES in 2000 and Gore would have continued them. We had a BUFFER state in Iraq to keep Iran at bay in 2000. Today we have a Shiite government in Iraq that welcomes Adminajad as a good friend. In 2000 we still had banks that were essentially solvent. I don't think I should have to tell you what those banks look like today. If you had studied bubbles like I have you would have seen it coming. Ever hear of irrational exhuberance? Read what Greenspan said for he last several years and you may notice he was hinting of the impending bubble burst for all that time. ,i>Our currency is DOWN over 30% since 2000 and we're STILL running massive trade deficits. Is Obama's record deficit supposed to cure this? Will borrowing twice as much over the next several years improve this? Government has to stop spending money on new boondoggles.

To: RMF who wrote (37319)	10/3/2009 11:49:40 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Iran Buys Time for Nuclear Program at Little Cost Jamsheed K. Choksy \| 02 Oct 2009 Despite the encouraging outcome of yesterday's talks in Geneva, the nuclear standoff with Iran is far from over. It will not end for the U.S. until there is full, ongoing compliance with all protocols of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) inspection regime. And so long as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Iran's president, it very likely will not end for Iran until breakout capability has been achieved. It should not be surprising that yesterday in Geneva, Ahmadinejad's recalcitrant regime appeared to make major concessions to the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany (P5+1). In order to ensure his own political effectiveness and legacy, Ahmadinejad may extend such compromises not only on atomic inspection, but also on counterterrorism and even Middle East peace, all in exchange for Iran's inclusion within the global economic community. Given his past words and deeds, however, the question remains whether those offers represent short-term ploys or legitimate and constructive long-term commitments. For now, though, the Iranians' smooth talk and conciliatory positions in Geneva bought the domestically autocratic and internationally adversarial Iranian government much-needed time, at little cost. Granting inspections to the recently revealed uranium enrichment plant outside Qom is not groundbreaking. The Iranian government knew full well that international inspections would occur once it notified the IAEA two weeks ago about the facility. Iran's leaders disclosed the site not simply because Western intelligence agencies knew of its existence. Iranian authorities are not naïve. They would have assumed such construction would show up on Western satellite images within a few months of breaking ground. Iran's administration notified the IAEA in order to generate a framework of trust among nations other than the U.S. and its allies prior to initiating negotiations. Agreeing to further refinement of its low-enriched uranium stockpile outside the country ensures that Iran gains a product for which it presently has only limited domestic processing facilities. Moreover, if Russia ultimately performs the enrichment, the nuclear cooperation between Moscow and Tehran will be strengthened even further. Russia has already built and provided nuclear fuel for the Bushehr reactor, and has also provided the Iranian regime with missile systems and technology. Consenting to future negotiations also pushes the dual threats of crippling sanctions against Iran's economy and military strikes upon its nuclear facilities further into the future -- when Ahmadinejad's regime will be even better prepared to withstand the negative effects of both measures. On the tactical front, Iran's Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) has continued to test-fire ballistic missile delivery systems of ever-increasing range and accuracy, to deter against military strikes. Simultaneously, on the economic front, the executive branch has been working feverishly to vitiate current and potential Western-led economic sanctions. The goal is to achieve self-sufficiency over the long term, while ensuring vital supplies in the short term from nations that are less comfortable with U.S.-led international sanctions. On the domestic political front, the Ahmadinejad administration has been acting in an increasingly authoritarian manner to quash both the democratically inclined secularists and the theologically disposed clerics. Rather than attempting to interact with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his office, the P5+1 seems to have realized, finally, that Ahmadinejad and his appointees now are the true masters of Iran. Tossing diplomatic bones to the P5+1 also diverts attention away from Iran's efforts to disseminate nuclear technology, under the guise of energy development, to the unstable regime in Myanmar (Burma) and the unsavory one in Venezuela, in addition to offering it publicly to the Arab Middle East. Ahmadinejad is a wily politician who soon may have the P5+1 and IAEA chasing nuclear proliferation around the globe, until their powers of enforcement have been spread too thin to be effective. Likewise, Iran's official presence at ongoing and seemingly productive negotiations ensures that the U.S. and its partners will tolerate Ahmadinejad's internal repression -- as those nations often do when pursuing strategic goals. Most of all, engagement with the West conferred international legitimacy upon an administration derided by many of Iran's own citizens. The "summit of heads of state" publicly called for by Ahmadinejad a day before the talks began in Geneva would serve as the ultimate imprimatur for his authority in Iran. As a result, yesterday's talks presented Ahmadinejad with a win-win situation. He has agreed in principle on a few issues while gaining much in return. The Persian language has a well-known religious term for such an approach: taqiyya or tactical deception. Iranian negotiators used smooth talk and adopted conciliatory positions to generate exactly such a mirage. It could be argued, to the contrary, that any diplomatic resolution does require the posturing and trading evidenced in Geneva. Yet the entrenched skepticism with which many will greet yesterday's outcome results from the Islamic Republic of Iran's own documented behavior. If the past is any indication, Iran's fulfillment of its international promises will remain as hollow and ephemeral as it has been for 30 years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Iranian, Central Eurasian, Indian, and Islamic studies and former director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University. He also is a member of the National Council on the Humanities at the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed here are his own. worldpoliticsreview.com