E.J. Dionne Jr at the Washington Post writes—A nuclear end to denial:
What happened on Nuclear Thursday has more to do with the rise of an activist conservative judiciary than with the norms of the Senate. From the moment that five conservative justices issued their ruling in Bush v. Gore, liberals and Democrats realized they were up against forces willing to achieve their purposes by using power at every level of government. When the Bush v. Gore majority insisted that the principles invoked to decide the 2000 election in George W. Bush’s favor could not be used in any other case, they effectively admitted their opportunism. Dec. 12, 2000, led inexorably to Nov. 21, 2013.
Yves Smith at
The New York Times writes on NAFTA as part of a pro and con selection in—:
Nafta has been effective at helping major corporations at the expense of ordinary American citizens. Most critics have focused on Nafta-related job losses. But they miss the true significance of this and subsequent mislabeled “trade” agreements.
Most of Nafta’s text was devoted to investments, specifically the granting investors rights relative to what Nafta defined as investments. The premise of these provisions in Nafta and similar treaties was that some of the signatory nations had legal systems that might authorize the expropriation of assets, like factories, so foreign investors need recourse to safe venues to obtain compensation. Provisions of this type have been included in subsequent American free trade agreements and are expected to be increased considerably in the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Robert Dreyfuss at
The Nation writes—
Historic US-Iran Deal Is First Step Toward Peace:
The substance of the accord reached in Geneva is a breakthrough, but the politics of the agreement is equally important. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry signed the deal in explicit, full-frontal defiance of American hawks, neoconservatives and hardliners, the Israel lobby, and anti-Iran partisans in Congress. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his team, backed by President Hassan Rouhani—elected in June with a mandate to do exactly this—have similarly defied their own country’s hardliners and skeptics, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and by what Zarif calls Iran’s own Tea Party. And the United States struck the deal despite outright hostility, bordering on hysteria, from its two chief allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Uri Friedman at
The Atlantic writes—
This Is Bigger Than a Nuclear Deal:
The way the news cycle works these days, we take it for granted that Kerry is now in Geneva celebrating a diplomatic breakthrough with Zarif. But the frenzied diplomacy this fall has truly been exceptional. As the Ploughshares Fund’s Joe Cirincione remarked after nuclear talks collapsed earlier this month, Kerry and Zarif “spent more time [together] in the last 24 hours than they have in 34 years.”
Nothing drives this point home more than David Crist’s The Twilight War, which chronicles America’s failures, over three decades, to communicate with Iran—and the grave risks this state of affairs has posed for war by miscalculation. “With no diplomatic ties and only occasional meetings in dark corners of hotel bars and through shadowy intermediaries, neither side has an accurate view of the other,” Crist, a Pentagon historian, wrote. In other words, we’ve been living through another cold war—but one without a proverbial “red phone.”
Excerpts from more pundits can be found beneath the fold.
Amir Owen at Haaretz writes—Geneva deal seals Netanyahu’s legacy: An ineffectual leader:
The facts prove that all along, Netanyahu erred in his assessments and his policy. Those who said Iran would not have nuclear weapons before 2014 were right, as were those who strived to stop Iranian nuclear armament through non-military means — a mixture of dialogue and sanctions. If Netanyahu and Barak's plans between spring 2010 and spring 2011 had succeeded, Israel would now be dealing with the wounds of the first Iranian war and preparing for the second, while Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb would be about to finish restoring their nuclear program. [...]
The agreement with Iran will be carried out, over Netanyahu’s objections, because that is what the superpowers want. John Kerry, encouraged by the diplomatic success that began with Syria’s chemical disarmament, will not let go regarding the Israeli-Palestinian talks. The Likud leadership anticipates a diplomatic and political crisis next spring, with a divided party that will try to tie Netanyahu’s hands. If he wants to run again, as his ministers believe he does, he will have to become even more extreme and speed toward Obama on a collision course.
This morning, in Switzerland, Netanyahu had his toy gun taken away. In Basel, Herzl founded the state of the Jews, and in Geneva, Obama ended Netanyahu’s era.
Chemi Salev at
Haaretz writes —
Battle for new sanctions could harm Israel more than Iran, now that deal is done:
It’s hard to decide what should worry Israelis more: The fact that an agreement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has depicted as “very bad and exceedingly dangerous” was signed in Geneva, or that Israel has somehow maneuvered itself into international isolation, with only Saudi sheikhs and American senators standing by its side.
And it’s not completely clear which is the more imminent danger to Israel’s national security: The possibility that Iran will exploit the new accord in order to advance its nuclear weapons program, as Jerusalem suspects, or the probability that Jerusalem will once again wage a harsh but nonetheless futile campaign against the U.S. Administration, thus exposing, for all the world to see, its growing discord with what was, is and will apparently continue to be its one and only strategic ally.
Juan Cole writes—
US-Iran War Averted by Agreement to Negotiate on Nuclear Enrichment:
The decade-long Neoconservative plot to take the United States to war against Iran appears to have been foiled. [...]
Now, the tides of war are ebbing. Assuming that the negotiations over the next six months are successful, a compromise will be reached whereby Iran’s “break-out capacity” or ability to construct a nuclear weapon will be constrained, and whereby the international blockade on Iranian commerce will be lifted. President Rouhani, elected as a mild reformist this summer, is eager to nail down a deal before his own hard liners have time to derail the negotiations. President Obama, eager for some sort of achievement for his second term, has every reason to accept a deal on Iran that involves a heavy inspection regime and gives reasonable assurance that Iran is not weaponizing its nuclear enrichment program.
Republican critics of the deal in the US Congress, who say no to everything, said no to this negotiation as well. They accused Iran of being the world’s primary backer of terrorism.
Really? The GOP backed the Mujahidin and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, the MEK in Iraq and Iran, and are backing the extremist Sunni rebels in Syria. They aren’t even skittish about allying with al-Qaeda affiliates, even today!
Max Boot, one of the neoconservatives who more than once has called for an immediate bombing of Iran and advised John McCain in his 2008 presidential campaign, writes
Iran's Rouhani: He's no Gorbachev at the
Los Angeles Times:
[The United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed's] report on Iran's human rights violations is withering, and taken with other evidence, it provides no support for the theory that [President Hassan] Rouhani and [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei are bent, as Gorbachev was, on a fundamental restructuring of a repressive system. They might be willing to temporarily suspend their nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, but there is no sign they are willing to end their cold war against the West, as Gorbachev did, which would require dismantling the entire nuclear program.
Erika Eichelberger at
Mother Jones —
The House GOP's Hypocrisy on "Too-Big-To-Fail":
The Democrat-controlled Senate has proposed several solutions to the problem, including requiring large financial institutions to have an emergency reserve cushion about five times current levels; restricting the government safety net to traditional banking operations such as savings and loans, rather than riskier investment banking activities; and splitting big banks' commercial operations off from their investment activities, which would shrink the size of future bailouts.
The GOP-controlled House, meanwhile, has passed legislation making it more likely that failing banks will get government handouts, and attempted to defund measures that would help the government wind down failing banks.
In March, [Texas Republican Rep. Jeb] Hensarling told [The Wall Street] Journal that "we have to do a better job…fire-walling" between banks' commercial activities and their risky trading activities, so that taxpayers don't have to bailout bank bad behavior. About a month later, though, he pushed a bill through the financial services committee that would do the opposite; it would increase the types of risky trading activities that taxpayers are on the hook for if there is another downturn. As Mother Jones reported, that bill was written by Citigroup lobbyists. It passed the full House last month.
Leonard Pitts Jr. at the
Miami Herald writes—
On the second killing of Trayvon Martin:
With George Zimmerman out on bail last week after his latest run-in with police, it seems an opportune time to discuss the second killing of Trayvon Martin.
The first, of course, has been discussed ad infinitum since Zimmerman shot the unarmed 17-year-old to death last year. But then Trayvon was killed again. The conservative noise machine engaged in a ritual execution of his character and worth, setting out with breathtaking indifference to facts and callous disregard for simple decency to murder the memory of a dead child. [...]
One woman forwarded a chain email depicting a tough-looking, light-skinned African-American man with tattoos on his face. It was headlined: “The Real Trayvon Martin,” which it wasn’t. It was actually a then-32-year-old rapper who calls himself The Game. But the message was clear: Trayvon was a scary black man who deserved what he got.