Climate Change… “an American National Security Challenge” Sen. Kerry.
Filed under: Domestic Politics, Energy, Environment, Uncategorized
An appeal to self-interest from the Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator John Kerry decided to send another salvo across the bow today and penned a passionate op-ed in the The Hill newspaper in support of climate change legislation. Stalled in Congress, the legislation suffers from attacks by corporate lobbyists, conservative think tanks and right wing talk radio hosts who debate the scientific realities of global warming. As many supporters of Congressional efforts to reduce carbon emissions know, defending the science and consequences of climate change against the fictitious and greedy attacks of the opposition can be a futile cause. So Kerry went another way.
Instead of arguing the science of the bill, he laid out the simple and stark geopolitical and national security threats that face this country if we fail to place a price on the cost of carbon. ”Climate change injects a new major source of chaos, tension and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and staggering human displacement. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us,” he wrote. Shining a light on the critically shared Himalayan glacier water resources of India and Pakistan which are melting away, and the growing threats of famine, drought, and pandemics across the globe Senator Kerry hoped he could soften some intransigent opinions.
Channeling Hans Morenghtau he ended with the article with a clear message. “Here’s one fact that should awaken every rock-ribbed defense hawk to the stakes: There will always be excuses to wait, but every day that Washington fails to price carbon and embrace clean energy, America sends another $100 million to Iran. That’s not a choice America can afford., he wrote”.
I encourage you to read the whole letter in The Hill newspaper and then read the Senate’s bill S. 1733: Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.
Israeli Settlement Expansion Frustrates Peace
By: Adam B. Kozicharow
Over the past 2 weeks the Netanyahu government has once again undermined U.S. efforts to jump-start the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The decision to authorize construction of new housing units in East Jerusalem could not have been more counter-productive or ill-timed. Coming on the heels of the Arab league decision to endorse indirect negotiations with Israel, while U.S. special envoy George Mitchell was in the region laying the groundwork for renewed peace talks, and coinciding with Vice President Biden’s visit intended to reaffirm America’s close support of Israel, the announcement was a blatant slap in the face to both allies and adversaries alike. It exposed the arrogance of the present Israeli government and its apparent insincerity in committing to a lasting peace with the Palestinians.
After a meeting between Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon and the Turkish ambassador, Israel apologized to Turkey for what it called a breach of diplomatic manners (Photo Lior Mizrahi)
This heavy-handed, cynical pursuit of foreign policy has been a hallmark of the Netanyahu government. In their first substantive interaction with the new American administration, Netanyahu rejected an explicit request from President Obama to halt settlement construction as a confidence building measure. The purpose of Obama’s request was to rebuild trust and mutual understanding in an effort to restart the moribund peace process following the war in Gaza. Earlier this year, a similar lack of political acumen and decorum towards a key ally was evinced when deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon treated the Turkish ambassador in a demeaning manner publically over the issue of anti-Israeli TV programming in Turkey. Ayalon refused to shake the ambassador’s hand, pointed out to journalists that the ambassador was seated in a shorter chair, and that there was no Turkish flag on display. Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, was even more provocative in his own statements regarding the probable collapse of the Assad regime in the event Syria and Israel resume hostilities.
The Israeli settlement of Har Homar near Jerusalem was expanded on disputed land confiscated from Palestinian owners in the West Bank town of Bethlehem (photo: Magnus Johansson/MaanImages)
The arrogance of Israeli foreign policy since the election of Netanyahu and the formation of a governing coalition composed of right wing parties has been consistently harmful to moderates on both sides of the conflict. The new government has marginalized the majority of the Israeli public that desires peace while at the same time undermining Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas that are the very “partners in peace” Israeli officials have consistently claimed they are looking for. The quiescence of the West Bank during the hostilities in Gaza and since, along with the lack of any reciprocal peace building measures on the part of the Israeli government, makes it appear as if it is radicals in Israel that have become the real obstacle to peace and not those in the territories. This is an undesirable and untenable situation for Israel because international public opinion is turning against the country. There are even signs in the US that public support for Israel may be eroding.
In the early years of statehood, Israel attempted to portray itself in two distinct ways. To the international community it presented itself as an imperiled nation, struggling to survive the combined hostility of its enemies. With its Arab neighbors it cultivated a more marshal and intimidating image. While this dual narrative had purchase from the forties through the seventies, Israel’s economic and military predominance over the last three decades has placed this paradigm increasingly at odds with reality. It is now Israel that is widely seen as the region’s preeminent military power, violent and hostile to its neighbors and arrogant in its political demeanor. The lack of progress towards resolving the Palestinian issue over the past four decades and the growth of settlement populations over the same time period has led to growing analogies with South Africa and sporadic attempts at boycotts of Israeli institutions, most notably by British educational associations in 2002 and again in 2005. Although Israel continues to portray itself as a beleaguered nation internationally, the rest of the global community has begun to see it as tyrannical.
Israel was founded at a time when memory of the Holocaust and the mistreatment of the Jews offered the new state a certain level of moral justification. This moral support was of no small value in the country’s early struggles for survival. Now the tables have turned and world opinion is on the side of moderate Palestinians desirous of peace and a state of their own. Netanyahu and the parties in favor of the settlement policy seem either oblivious to this reality or simply feel they can ignore growing international consensus, even as things begin to change with its closest ally the United States. Continuing this course of action is the true existential threat to Israel. As both the Arab league and other Palestinian interlocutors have made plain, as Israel prevaricates, support for the two state solution wanes and calls continue to grow for a single democratic bi-national state in which Jews form a minority.
The timing of the housing expansion also destroyed any ability policymakers might have had to empower the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas. Any damage to the credibility of Hamas due to the recent disclosure that the son of a founding member worked as a spy for the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and any opportunity it presented to enhance the status of the more moderate Fatah party and PA president Abbas was squandered. The seeming futility of Abbas’s efforts at negotiating with the Netanyahu government in light of the construction announcement once again undermines the very moderates that must be nurtured in order to develop a lasting peace.
For all its missteps and provocations there is still time for Israel to alter course. Construction has not begun on the new housing units and the decision can be reversed. The Arab peace initiative put forth in Beirut in 2002 and again in Riyadh in 2007 is still ostensibly on the table for Israel to use as a basis for negotiations. This initiative offers Israel peace with all its Arab neighbors in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders. The recent statement of long time Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that the Palestinian state does not have to follow the exact 1967 borders but must include the same amount of territory as those borders is an opening that Israeli policy makers must not overlook. It is an endorsement of the land swaps that would make a majority of the settlement issues a non-factor.
Last month the world celebrated with South Africa the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. Israeli policymakers need to take note of that event and its implications with regard to growing international dissatisfaction with the continuing plight of the Palestinians. Israel must not allow radical members of its population to obstruct constructive negotiations any longer. Now is the time to build on the relative calm in the territories by pushing the peace process forward and finally removing the albatross of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Only then will the country be able to find the peace and security it so desperately desires.
Adam Kozicharow holds an MS in International Relations from New York University, an MA in Political Science from The New School for Social Research, and is currently a PhD. Candidate in Political Science and Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research. Prior to returning to academia Adam worked as a project manager in the financial services and technology fields. His research interests span International Relations, Democratic Theory and Conflict Resolution. He has lived in both Israel and America, and has traveled extensively throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Adam is a member of the American Political Science Association, and is the President and Founder of Janus Consulting Inc., a foreign policy consulting firm.
US Healthcare Bill’s $871 Billion Question.
Will this risky experiment be deemed brilliant political gamesmanship or obsession bordering on folly?
By: Freedom-Kai Phillips
They say what does not kill you, makes you stronger. The Democrats are sure hoping that to be true of their recent initiative, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R.3590). Amid widespread scepticism a myriad of potential roadblocks have been strategically overcome, and the Senate has come to a historical point in its pursuit of comprehensive healthcare reform. Yet, optimism aside, judgement must remain reserved until the practical costs – both economic and social – of this monumental piece of legislation are fully considered.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may have inspired LBJ like comparisons for his Senate mastery, but will the healthcare bill deliver real results? (AP Photo/APTN)
With the potential societal impact being so broad, this bill will prove to be a defining moment for not just the ambitious Obama administration, but the country as a whole. However, observers will not chronicle this event with the rosy undertones offered at press conferences, or the financial models put forward on the Senate floor. Nor, should one be deceived simply by the alluring proposition of increased public access to the American healthcare infrastructure. Rather, attention must be concentrated on the ramifications stemming from the fragile alliance forged to pass the bill; and herein lays the conundrum. As the requisite super-majority needed for overcoming the Republican filibuster was assembled by Senate Democrats, a delicate balance was struck to ensure the essential support of two key Senators, Ben Nelson (D-Neb), and Joe Lieberman (Ind-Ct). However, the resulting compromised bill now conflicts with the previously passed House version on the crucial issue of a “public option.” As many pundits are in agreement that the final amalgamated version will leave healthcare covered entirely by private insurers, the $871 billion question is: will this risky experiment be deemed brilliant political gamesmanship or obsession bordering on folly? Continue Reading…
Lisbon Treaty passes Irish referendum, Europe continues cohesion
Filed under: Commentary, Domestic Politics, EU, Europe, news
Geopolitical movements are like the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust. After much pressure and years of dormancy, major forces exert potential energy that reshapes boundaries – this weekend Ireland furthered Europe’s consolidation.
Europe's consolidation continues after Irish approve Lisbon Treaty
In a public referendum, which had been rejected 16 months earlier “Ireland’s voters have overwhelmingly approved [the Lisbon Treaty] a far-reaching treaty meant to consolidate the power of the European Union and reorganize the way it does business, the government announced Saturday. (New York Times)
“The Irish people have spoken with a clear and resounding voice,” Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who advocated the treaty’s approval at home, said in a statement to reporters in Dublin. “It is a good day for Ireland, and a good day for Europe.”
What this means – The Treaty of Lisbon signed in Lisbon on December 13th 2007 had not yet been ratified by all EU member states, as required for it to take effect. The document proposed to give Europe a President, a senior statesman with standing similar to a U.N. Secretary-General, and a united position on EU foreign policy. The Irish vote will also make the Union’s human rights charter, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, legally binding.
In his analysis for the Washington Post, Anthony Faiola writes that the treaty “would fortify the power of the European Parliament on regional issues including security, agriculture and transportation, but E.U. nations would largely remain autonomous on the vast majority of issues.”
“Instead,” he says, “many are pointing to the creation of a new leadership structure and the streamlining of E.U. decision-making, and its corps of diplomats and bureaucrats overseas, as the most important outcome of a ratified treaty”.
Washington Dispatch – Advisors counsel Obama on science and technology
Filed under: Commentary, Domestic Politics, Energy, Environment, Technology
Washington, D.C. – Today I had the opportunity to break out of New York and attend the first meeting of President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) who met to present the administration with bold proposals to answer America’s challenges. With a membership that boasts the CEO of Google, the President of Yale University, the Chief Research and Strategy Officer of Microsoft, and the President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the collective force of their advice to the President is impressive. (see full membership list)
PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists, engineers and innovators which directly advises the President and makes policy recommendations in the many areas where an understanding of science, technology, and innovation are key to strengthening the public policy of the United States. At the outset of the meeting, it was clear that the 100% attendance in the room not only impressed the meeting’s chair Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, but also the decorated researchers, CEOs and President’s who compose the council.
While the morning session focused largely on healthcare, (Google’s ceo Eric Schmidt delivered the entertaining moment of the morning, find out what it was on www.btquarterly.com) the afternoon meetings on the environment and climate change were significant for their honestly and the U.S.’s reborn engagement in the global climate change debate.
Robert Sussman, Senior Policy Counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency told PCAST that “we are at a moment of significant transition…we have a government commitment to address climate change that we have never had before,” citing support from the President and Congress. He raised the prospects of carbon capture and storage technologies, since 50% of US electricity comes from coal and these emissions are a major contributor worldwide to greenhouses gases. This technology would aim to capture the carbon dioxide before it is released into the environment, then compact it into liquid form and store it beneath the earth. Many questions whether this is a “pipe-dream or real” he said, but he stated that he believes it is our only option to continue utilizing our number one source of electric energy in this country.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu joined the meeting at 5:15 pm straight from the airport, after visiting with the editorial board of the Boston Globe and Havard’s Kennedy School. Predictably, the audience in the room swelled to over-capacity for his presentation. The Secretary’s message to the Council invited them to offer new ways to evaluate and fund research ideas for energy and technology advancements. He began by deriding the negative emphasis that Wall Street analysts have on which companies succeed and which ones flounder. Research and development endeavors take time he said, and funding mechanisms that are more visionary and encourage risk taking must be incorporated in science and technology developments.
Overall, a central theme of the day kept appearing in varied subtle forms and it certainly was not lost on the journalists in the room. The United State is eight years behind where it should be, eight years of public policy must be rewritten and we all must start working on these major challenges without a moment to spare.
