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This Is What Advanced International Studies Teaches?

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [told] Congress this month [...] that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. [However, t]he Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating.

[...]

National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?

[...]

What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality.

[...]

Sanctions may have induced Iran to enter negotiations, but they have not persuaded it to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons. Nor would the stiffer sanctions that Netanyahu advocates bring a different result.

[...]

Sanctions have never stopped a nuclear drive anywhere.

Does this mean that our only option is war? Yes, although an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would entail less need for boots on the ground than the war Obama is waging against the Islamic State, which poses far smaller a threat than Iran does.

  WaPo – Joshua Muravchik

I have to stop here. This may be trivial, but the practice of asking oneself a question and then answering it is a pet peeve of mine. Actually, I hate it. Just say what you have to say. In my recollection, that practice came in vogue with Donald Rumsfeld. Does this mean there wasn’t anyone before him who did it? No.

See what I mean? I could have said, “This doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone before him who did it.” And sounded a lot less infantile or condescending doing it. It’s done so often in political speech, it’s practically de riguer. And it’s bleeding over into other areas. Just stop it before it goes the way of Valley Girl inflection. Whatever. Like, you know. Everybody talks that way.

Okay. I’m done. Just don’t do it. You’re about to get a huuuuuuge dose here.

Wouldn’t an attack cause ordinary Iranians to rally behind the regime? Perhaps, but military losses have also served to undermine regimes.”

[...]

Wouldn’t destroying much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure merely delay its progress? Perhaps, but we can strike as often as necessary.

”As often as necessary”? Perhaps we should just calendar them in for an annual bombing.

Of course, Iran would try to conceal and defend the elements of its nuclear program, so we might have to find new ways to discover and attack them. Surely the United States could best Iran in such a technological race.

How old is the author, do you think?

Much the same may be said in reply to objections that airstrikes might not reach all the important facilities and that Iran would then proceed unconstrained by inspections and agreements. The United States would have to make clear that it will hit wherever and whenever necessary to stop Iran’s program.

So, okay, maybe we have to calendar biannual strikes.

And finally, wouldn’t Iran retaliate by using its own forces or proxies to attack Americans — as it has done in Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — with new ferocity? Probably.

"Probably."

Thank God for “finally”. And I’m sure we could do something as amazingly vague as simply “besting Iran in a technological race” to prevent retaliation.,,

We could attempt to deter this by warning that we would respond by targeting other military and infrastructure facilities.

Oh, we could “attempt” deterrence with a “warning”. That should work. I mean, considering Iran is “violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States” and “is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any ‘good deal’ or by cheating,” a warning sounds a little mild.  Iran cheats. Surely a warning would not be sufficient. I think perhaps we should just include all military and infrastructure facilities in our biannual bombing. In fact, why don’t we just carpet bomb the whole country twice a year – make it three times.

Nonetheless, we might absorb some strikes. Wrenchingly, that might be the price of averting the heavier losses that we and others would suffer in the larger Middle Eastern conflagration that is the likely outcome of Iran’s drive to the bomb.

Well, if we get on that tri-annual bombing campaign quickly enough, we shouldn’t have to worry about that.

Were Iran, which is already embroiled in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, further emboldened by becoming a “nuclear threshold state,” it would probably overreach, kindling bigger wars — with Israel, Arab states or both. The United States would probably be drawn in, just as we have been in many other wars from which we had hoped to remain aloof.

The “probably” just flies around here, and since all policy should be made according to what we imagine might be probable in our minds, clearly we need to do something, because God forbid we should be drawn into a war. We sure hate it when that happens. We're not in any now, and we don’t ever go looking for one ourselves. We are the most war-reticent country in the history of the world.

(P.S. I just looked. Joshua Muravchik is 67 years old. For the love of God, Joshua, pull your head out before it’s too late.)

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Iran Answers the Republicans

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif has issued a response on behalf of Iran regarding the open letter sent to the Islamic Republic of Iran and drafted by Republican Senator Tom Cotton and signed by 46 other Republican Senators.

  Addicting Info

Zarif said he was astonished by the letter, saying it suggests the U.S. lawmakers "not only do not understand international law" — a subject in which he is a professor — "but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy," according to Iran's Foreign Ministry.

The Iranian minister said that "in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy."

  NPR

Which is all they ever meant it to be. (I hope.)

The letter seemed to strike a nerve for Zarif, who moved to the U.S. as a teenager and holds a doctorate and two other advanced degrees from American universities.

[...]

Zarif, noting that negotiations are ongoing and haven't yielded an agreement, said the U.S. lawmakers' "unconventional methods" show that they "are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content."

Saying he hopes to "enrich the knowledge of the authors," Zarif said:

"I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations."

Zarif also noted that many previous international agreements the U.S. has been a party to have been "mere executive agreements," and not full treaties that received Senate ratification.

He said any deal on sanctions and Iran's nuclear program would not be bilateral; would require approval by the U.N. and the U.N. Security Council [which is comprised of various nations]; and would not be subject to modification by Congress.

He added, "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law."

Boy, he doesn’t know Americans very well, does he? International law? We laugh at international law.

Read Zarif's complete statement here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Business As Usual

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted overwhelmingly to advance a cybersecurity bill meant to expand information-sharing between the private sector and the government, though privacy advocates contend it only strengthens domestic surveillance programs.

Dubbed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), the bill cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee by a 14-1 vote, with outspoken civil liberties advocate Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) casting the lone vote against the proposal. It’s not clear when the bill will come up for a full vote in the Senate, but it could happen as soon as April. [...]If passed into law, CISA would implement further protections for companies to gather threat-related data from their customers and allow them to share that information directly with federal intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency.

  RT

Ed Snowden is right - if we are to have any privacy protections, they will come from technology, not policy.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Black Lives Matter on the US Terrorist Organizations List?

Members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force tracked the time and location of a Black Lives Matter protest last December at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, email obtained by The Intercept shows.

[...]

Activists had planned the protest at the mall to call attention to police brutality against African Americans.

[...]

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are based in 104 U.S. cities and are made up of approximately 4,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The FBI characterizes them as “our nation’s front line on terrorism.”

[...]

The FBI has been criticized in the recent past for its actions regarding domestic advocacy groups. A 2010 report by the Department of Justice Inspector General found the FBI opened investigations connected to organizations such as Greenpeace and the Catholic Worker movement that classified possible “trespassing or vandalism” as domestic terrorism cases. The report also found the FBI’s National Press Office “made false and misleading statements” when questioned by the media about documents obtained by public records requests.

[...]

Documents stolen from an FBI field office in 1971 showed the Bureau was keeping literally every black student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania under surveillance.

[...]

As reported by the Star Tribune, emails released earlier this week reveal apparent coordination between Sandra Johnson, the Bloomington city attorney, and Kathleen Allen, the Mall of America’s corporate counsel. [...] Johnson emailed to Allen two days after the protest, encouraging the mall company to wait for a criminal charge from the city before pursuing its own lawsuit. “Agree — we would defer any civil action depending on how the criminal charges play out,” Allen wrote back.

“That’s pretty unprecedented to use a criminal proceeding for a corporation to collect their costs, costs for policing and protest,” said [Jordan Kushner, one of the activists’ defense attorneys]. “It’s not like people stole from them or damaged belongings.”

  The Intercept

But highly likely collectible, I imagine.

...and hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UK Oversight May Set the Bar Even Lower Than US Congressional Oversight

The intelligence and security committee is a watchdog that rarely barks. Indeed, its members have sometimes kept their harshest words for those who raise the alarm while they doze. Before Edward Snowden blew the whistle, the ISC never used its privileged access to the intelligence agencies to interrogate the bulk harvesting of communications data, or even to reveal that it happened. Perhaps it never knew. After all, it was – until he was caught chatting cheerfully about his light workload – chaired by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Its members are nominated by the prime minister, and the technical expertise that it draws on often comes from former intelligence insiders.

In the week that the foreign secretary has said that it’s time to “move on” from Snowden, this slumbering scrutineer has finally got around to acknowledging the systematic trawling of web traffic and call records. This must be counted as progress – of a very British sort.

  Guardian

Glenn Greenwald weighs in.

Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled “torture” with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand “mass surveillance” as “bulk collection” in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal).

[...]

The Committee actually acknowledged for the first time (which Snowden documents log ago proved) that GCHQ maintains what it calls “Bulk Personal Datasets” that contain “millions of records,” and even said about pro-privacy witnesses who testified before it: “we recognise their concerns as to the intrusive nature of bulk collection.” That is the very definition of “mass surveillance,” yet the Committee simply re-labelled it “bulk collection,” purported to distinguish it from “mass surveillance,” and thus insist that it was all perfectly legal.

[...]

One of the many facts that made the re-defining of “torture” so corrupt and indisputably invalid was that there was long-standing law making clear that exactly these interrogation techniques used by the U.S. government were torture and thus illegal. The same is true of this obscene attempt to re-define “mass surveillance” as nothing more than mere innocent “bulk collection.”

[...]

By itself, common sense should prevent any of these governments from claiming that sweeping up, storing, and analyzing much of the internet – literally examining billions of communications activities every week of entire populations – is something other than “mass surveillance.” Yet this has now become the coordinated defense from the governments in the U.S., the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

  Glenn Greenwald

And as a British reporter found out, you simply cannot take on Glenn Greenwald. Don’t try. You’ll just look like the idiot you probably are.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Last night, I was on the BBC program Newsnight to discuss the new report. As usual, they decided to interview me first, and then interview a security services official after me, so that I could not respond to what the official said. In this case, the interviewee after me was former GCHQ director David Omand.

[...]

Omand literally demands that there be no more surveillance disclosures or debate because The Committee Has Spoken (also a clearly coordinated message).

  Glenn Greenwald

Bin Laden Files

Palm oil cultivation in West Africa, climate change, and how to kill Americans more effectively than cigarettes. These were the issues on Osama bin Laden’s mind in his final years as he struggled to direct the terrorist group’s activities from his hideout in Pakistan, according to newly released files retrieved from the compound where he was killed.

Direct communications between the al Qaeda leader and his inner circle were entered as evidence in a terrorism trial recently concluded in Brooklyn, New York, effectively doubling the amount of publicly available documents recovered from bin Laden’s final hideout. Together the newly disclosed documents paint a picture of a man who, despite being holed up for years in his high-walled compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, maintained a hands-on role managing al Qaeda in the face of a crippling “espionage war” and mounting bureaucratic obstacles.

[...]

DOWNRANGE, an online forum managed by Kronos Advisory, a firm specializing in terrorism investigations, obtained and published the full set of files.

[...]

In a handwritten letter scrawled on crumpled notebook paper, bin Laden’s chief of external operations admitted losing contact with operatives sent to carry out attacks in Britain, Russia and Europe. He cited shortcomings in the commitment of his personnel, communications challenges, lack of necessary travel documents and a failure to execute operations as key problems.

[...]

Bin Laden’s general manager, meanwhile, offered a detailed account of al Qaeda’s challenges in Pakistan, chief among them: the CIA’s drone war.

[...]

The official described how al Qaeda was “constantly uncovering and destroying spies’ networks […] But that has not kept airstrikes from hitting us repeatedly because we continue to make mistakes, and for other reasons.”

The group was working hard to find ways to jam or hack the drones, but “no results so far,” he wrote. “However, they are continuing.”

[...]

In communications back to his subordinates, bin Laden was given to long-winded and detailed replies. Describing his vision for operations in Somalia, he advised sending “a delegation of trusted Somali tribal leaders” to meet with businessmen in the Persian Gulf and “brief them about the living conditions of Muslims in Somalia and how their children are dying of extreme poverty, to remind them of their responsibilities towards their Muslim brothers.”

He also devoted an entire paragraph to the potential value of Palm Oil trees in the region; “It should be known that the income generated by one acre of palm oil trees was seven hundred and fifty dollars a few years ago, and it is supposed to have gone up now.”

The terrorist leader was particularly concerned with climate change, noting in one communication, “Attached is a report about climate change, especially the floods in Pakistan. Please send it to AI-Jazeera.”

The newly disclosed documents reflect bin Laden’s acute attention to operational security, revealing the al Qaeda leader was aware of his adversaries’ electronic surveillance capabilities years before Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. “[J]ust because something can be encrypted doesn’t make it suitable for use,” bin Laden wrote. “As you know, this science is not ours and is not our invention. That means we do not know much about it. Based on this, I see that sending any dangerous matter via encrypted email is a risky thing.”

  The Intercept

Smarter than most US Congressmen.

The Mountain Will Go to Mohammed

They've been insisting Assange come to them.

 

Obviously, they could have.

This seems like evidence that the Swedes are less willing to cowtow to the US than they were four years ago, likely due to all the Snowden leaks.  Another, perhaps less likely, possibility is that the US has quit pressuring them on the Assange issue.

In a statement, [the Swedish prosecutor] said the reason for her change of mind was that the statute of limitations on several of the crimes of which he is suspected runs out in August 2015.

  

Guardian

Or maybe that.

Swedish prosecutors are expected to question Julian Assange in his London refuge after the lead prosecutor bowed to pressure from his lawyers, Swedish legal opinion and the courts to attempt to break the deadlock in the case.

[...]

Assange’s lawyers, who are appealing against his arrest warrant in Sweden’s highest court, have complained bitterly about the prosecutor’s refusal to travel to London to speak to him – an essential step under Swedish jurisprudence to establish whether Assange can be formally charged.

[...]

Rejecting Assange’s appeal in November, a lower court directed sharp criticism at the prosecutor for failing to move the case forward.

[...]

[The Swedish prosecutor] has argued that interrogating Assange abroad would be complicated and have little point because he would still have to travel to Sweden for trial, should sufficient grounds emerge. However, she is obliged to drop the case against him unless she believes there are “reasonable grounds” for suspicion of his guilt.

I’m going to guess she’ll find suspicion enough in the end. Of course, I guessed the reason for the change of heart about going to Assange was because of the change in the world’s opinion of the United States, so don’t pay any attention to me.

“Now time is running out and I therefore believe that I have to accept a loss of quality in the investigation and take the risk that the hearing will not take the investigation forward, because no other option is available as long as Assange does not make himself available in Sweden,” she said.

The hearing might not take the investigation forward? Why is that? Maybe the statue of limitations does have less weight than the change in world opinion, and she’s laying the groundwork for an eventual dropping of the case.

Anne Ramberg, head of Sweden’s Bar Association, said she welcomed the move, but also added that “it should have been taken long before”.

Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for one of the women in the case, said she had changed her mind on questioning Assange in London. Last year she dismissed as “empty and ill-informed speculation” calls by Swedish politicians and top legal figures to do so.

The proposed interviews in London will be conducted by the deputy prosecutor in the case, Ingrid Isgren, and a police investigator. Assange’s lawyers maintain that he has already given a DNA sample to police when he was first arrested in the UK in 2010.

UPDATE: Ecuador responds

"If they had accepted Ecuador's offer to question him (at the embassy) 1,000 days ago, it would have saved us all a lot of money and trouble," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino wrote on Twitter.

"On Monday Assange will mark 1,000 days inside our embassy in London. From the first day we have offered to let (prosecutors) question him and they didn't do it," he tweeted.

"The reason for taking Assange's statement now, after 1,000 days, is the statute of limitations. And if the statute of limitations were five years?"

  The Local (Sweden)

And…from John Pilger, a financial supporter:

One of Assange's main financial supporters, Australian-born campaigning journalist John Pilger, described the Swedish prosecutor's offer as "demonstrably cynical".

"In finally agreeing to come to London to interview Julian Assange... she has waited until just before Sweden's statute of limitations nullifies her threadbare case against him," Pilger said.

"She has wasted four and a half years of Assange's life -- against whom she has never had a shred of evidence to charge him with any crime.

So Here's Really Why Your Hillbilly GOP Cousins Opposed the Net Neutrality Deal

They figured this was coming.  Any time the federal government gets control of anything, they give away stuff to poor people - and worse yet in the GOP eyes, poor black people.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to soon begin working on a proposal to subsidize Internet service for low-income consumers by expanding its Lifeline program, which is mocked by conservatives as the "Obamaphone" program.

[...]

All three Democrats on the five-member commission have publicly said they want to use federal money to help ensure that all Americans can afford to get online. Lifeline—which despite the Obamaphone nickname was created during the Reagan administration—currently only subsidizes phone service.

[...]

The money for Lifeline comes from government fees on consumers' monthly phone bills.

[...]

Lifeline subsidizes about $10 of phone service per month for qualifying consumers.

  National Journal

And, dammit, they should be thankful. But no, the undeserving poor always want more.

Under Clyburn's plan, that amount wouldn't necessarily increase, but consumers could choose to have it cover the data on their smartphone or their home broadband connection.

Smartphones?! They can afford smartphones?! Then they don’t need government handouts, do they?

Yes, you’re right. I have lived amongst the hillbilly GOP too long. I can talk their talk.

Ten whole dollars. Enough to make a Republican apoplectic, but not enough to make unaffordable broadband affordable.

More Ferguson Fallout

The chief of police in Ferguson, Mo., has resigned in the aftermath of a searing Department of Justice (DoJ) report.

[...]

Asked if all the recent resignations are an admission that the Justice Department report was valid and that the problems described in it were real, [Mayor James] Knowles reiterated that Jackson's resignation was a mutual decision and officials have not admitted wrongdoing.

[...]

He said Jackson's decision to resign was made in the best interest of the city.

  RT

And it had nothing to do with the city manager’s resignation or the DOJ’s threat to dismantle the police department if necessary.

By the way, the DOJ will NOT charge Officer Wilson with any civil rights violations. I wonder where he is.

At any rate, around midnight after Tom Jackson's resignation, two police officers were shot.  It doesn't seem to be known who did it.

“These police officers were standing there and they were shot, just because they were police officers,” said [St. Louis County police chief Jon] Belmar, who added that the officers sustained serious gunshot wounds.

The Webster Groves officer, a 32-year-old who has worked in the department for five years, was shot in the face, according to Belmar. The St Louis County officer, who is 41 and a 17-year law-enforcement veteran, was shot in the shoulder, he said.

[...]

Several protesters at the scene said the shots appeared to have been fired from a hill behind a dwindling group of demonstrators who were celebrating the resignation of Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson and were gathered across from the police department on the other side of South Florissant Road.

  MSN

Well, we assume they were shot just because they were police officers, right?  We need an investigation, don't we?

Things are not going well in Ferguson.