New York Times Editorial, "A Baffling, Hard-line Choice in Israel": How About Looking at Ploughshares?

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In a New York Times homepage lead-in to an editorial entitled "A Baffling, Hard-line Choice in Israel," we are told "Benjamin Netanyahu selected a defense minister badly suited to the Obama administration and to forging peace in the Middle East."

Whoa! I am indeed disturbed by Netanyahu's decision to replace former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon with Avigdor Lieberman, a former IDF corporal, as defense minister, but Lieberman is "badly suited to the Obama administration"? An Israeli defense minister need not be suited to Obama; rather, he/she needs to be the person best suited to keeping the State of Israel safe in the face of death threats from "moderate" Iranian mullahs.

Let us also not forget Obama's appointment of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense. The appointment of Hagel, known for his hostility to Israel, was supported by Iran.

In addition, Hagel had been a director of the Ploughshares Fund. According to a Daily Caller article entitled "Revealed: Iran Deal Propaganda Money Made Its Way All Around Washington" by Russ Read:

"Ploughshares also provided over $280,000 to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) for its work supporting the Iran deal, some of which went directly towards sending NIAC staff to the nuclear negotiations in Vienna. NIAC was accused of engaging in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Islamic Republic around 2007, which led to the organization’s president Trita Parsi bringing suit against journalist Hassan Daioleslam for defamation. Parsi eventually lost the protracted legal battle."

Trita Parsi, NIAC's president? As reported by Michael Rubin in a Commentary article entitled "Ploughshares: The Money Behind the Iran Deal" (my emphasis in red):

"It is a theme supporters of the Iran deal have picked up. Trita Parsi, an Iranian-Swede who leads the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and once declared that everything he does, he does for Iran, marked Senator Harry Reid’s endorsement of the deal by declaring it a defeat for big money, a silly statement given Reid’s own partisanship and acceptance of myriad campaign contributions from lobbying groups. 'The Iran Project,' likewise reported, 'In efforts to sway Iran debate, big-money donors are heard.' The news media has played along. 'Big Money and Ads Clash Over Iran Nuclear Deal,' USA Today reported.

The irony, however, is that many of the staunchest proponents of the Iran nuclear deal feed from the same trough of cash supplied by the Ploughshares Fund, a multimillion-dollar group which defines itself as a foundation seeking nuclear disarmament but which has, for several years, taken a consistently apologetic line toward Iran. Now, too often analysts throw around discussion of funding to cast aspersions on those who disagree with them in the policy debate. Often, this is nonsense. Few analysts on either the left or the right are blank slates that simply follow the money. Those staffing NIAC, for example, have always sought an end to sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Wait! There's more!  Earlier this month, in a New York Times Magazine article entitled "The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru," David Samuels quoted Ben Rhodes, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, as saying that "We created an echo chamber" to support Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Iran. More specifically, Samuels wrote (my emphasis in red):

"When I suggested that all this dark metafictional play seemed a bit removed from rational debate over America’s future role in the world, Rhodes nodded. 'In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this,' he said. 'We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.' He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. 'We drove them crazy,' he said of the deal’s opponents."

And what did Ploughshares do? Ploughshares ploughed $576,500 to J Street to support the nuclear deal with Iran, i.e. cause Congress to believe that the deal had the backing of those who purportedly care about Israel's security.

Yes, it's time for a Congressional inquiry!

Paul Krugman, "Inequality and the City": Establish a New Federal Agency?

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Inequality and the City," Paul Krugman praises the amenities of New York City, while deploring the rising price of housing, which is becoming unaffordable for the less affluent. Krugman writes:

"New York, New York, a helluva town. The rents are up, but the crime rate is down. The food is better than ever, and the cultural scene is vibrant. Truly, it’s a golden age for the town I recently moved to — if you can afford the housing. But more and more people can’t.

And it’s not just New York. The days when dystopian images of urban decline were pervasive in popular culture — remember the movie 'Escape from New York'? — are long past. The story for many of our iconic cities is, instead, one of gentrification, a process that’s obvious to the naked eye, and increasingly visible in the data."

Krugman's concludes:

"New York City can’t do much if anything about soaring inequality of incomes, but it could do a lot to increase the supply of housing, and thereby ensure that the inward migration of the elite doesn’t drive out everyone else."

Okay, New York City has grown expensive, but what about Detroit? In a July 30, 2015 CNBC article entitled "Detroit: A tale of two housing markets," Diana Olick writes:

"Bidding wars, more competition, better listings—Detroit housing is having a banner summer, Detroit suburban housing that is. Unlike so many other major metropolitan markets, Detroit's downtown is seeing no renaissance at all, at least not yet.

. . . .

The comparison is stark: The median home price in downtown is just $21,102 versus a median price of $162,900 in the suburbs, according to Realcomp, the area's multiple listing service."

Or stated otherwise, Detroit bears no resemblance to New York City.

And Baltimore? Whereas the crime rate is down in NYC, Baltimore was more akin to a warzone in April of this year, following the death of Freddie Gray.

But more to the point, if we take Krugman's argument one baby step further: Should a new government agency monitor the ebb and flow of real estate prices and mandate the construction of low income housing where the more prosperous reside, e.g., in the suburbs of Detroit, thereby bringing the less affluent closer to those same employment opportunities being offered by General Dynamics, Delphi and BorgWarner?

Just asking.

[On the subject of Krugman and income inequality, you might be interested in having a look at a July 1, 2015 Daily Caller article entitled "Paul Krugman Sticks It To Poor People With $225,000 Salary To Study Income Inequality" by Eric Owens.]

David Brooks, "The Autocracy Challenge": A Pointless Speech at West Point

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Autocracy Challenge" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/opinion/brooks-the-autocracy-challenge.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), David Brooks examines Obama's West Point speech. Regarding how the US should respond to chaos instigated by "thuggish radioactive autocracies," Brooks begins by complimenting the Obama administration:

"President Obama laid out his approach in a speech at West Point this week. He argued persuasively that the U.S. will have to do a lot more to mobilize democracies to take effective collective action against autocratic aggression. Moreover, his administration does champion democracy. On the same day Obama spoke, his ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, gave a great commencement speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government explaining why democracy promotion has to be at the core of American foreign policy."

The Obama administration champions democracy? Oh really? In his June 2009 speech at Cairo University (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09), Obama declared:

"So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other."

And indeed, Obama remained silent after Egyptian General Sisi staged a coup d'état in July 2013 and threw the democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, into prison.

Samantha Power gave a great commencement speech at Harvard concerning the promotion of democracy? Marvelous. But isn't this the same Samantha Power who wrote a book entitled "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," yet, as America's Ambassador to the United Nations, said nothing about Obama's insistence upon remaining on the sidelines as Bashar al-Assad butchered Syria's civilian population?

Brooks's conclusion:

"For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. had a two-level foreign policy. On top, American diplomats built multilateral coalitions to extend democracy. But at the bottom level, American presidents understood their responsibility as the world’s enforcer, occasionally operating according to the logic of menace and force.

If President Obama departs from that tradition and takes away that bottom level — for fear of overreach, or in a quest for normalcy, or out of an excessive belief in the limits of his own power — then he will undermine the top level that he admires. The autocrats will drag the world into an ungodly mess."

Ah yes, "menace and force," such as when Obama promised to extend "flexibility" during his second term in office to Vladimir Putin. Sorry, but Obama, who has always believed in his persuasive powers over such "misunderstood" autocrats, is incapable of acting in this manner. Moreover, the autocrats have come to understand what little lies behind Obama's "red lines."

In an editorial entitled "President Obama Misses a Chance on Foreign Affairs" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/opinion/president-obama-misses-a-chance-on-foreign-affairs.html), The New York Times was remarkably critical of Obama's West Point speech:

"President Obama and his aides heralded his commencement speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday as a big moment, when he would lay out his foreign policy vision for the remainder of his term and refute his critics. The address did not match the hype, was largely uninspiring, lacked strategic sweep and is unlikely to quiet his detractors, on the right or the left.

. . . .

[H]e provided little new insight into how he plans to lead in the next two years, and many still doubt that he fully appreciates the leverage the United States has even in a changing world. Falling back on hackneyed phrases like America is the 'indispensable nation' told us little."

The Times editorial concluded by observing "what matters ultimately is [Obama's] record in the next two and a half years." This is precisely what worries me. Without foreign policy achievements and desperate for a legacy, Obama might well seek to reach almost any agreement purportedly limiting the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. However, as reported by The Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/25/irans-supreme-leader-jihad-will-continue-until-america-is-no-more/), Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei declared earlier this week in response to a question by an Iranian member of parliament:

"Battle and jihad are endless because evil and its front continue to exist. … This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors’ front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought. … This requires a difficult and lengthy struggle and need for great strides."

How much more damage Obama can do to America's standing and deterrent power throughout the world during what remains of his time in office? When even Jimmy Carter is now saying of Obama that "He’s done the best he could under the circumstances" (http://parade.condenast.com/222330/markupdegrove/jimmy-and-rosalynn-carter-an-intimate-chat/), we know we're in trouble.