At Consortium News, Robert Parry writes
Obama's Not-so-Terrible Year. An excerpt:
It has become conventional wisdom to say that President Barack Obama has suffered through a terrible year in 2013 – and if his slumping poll numbers are the only gauge, then these pundits may have a point. But much of this analysis simply marches in lockstep with the neocon view of Obama’s supposed foreign policy “failures,” which may not be failures at all.
Indeed, there’s a strong argument to be made that Obama’s fifth year in office will be viewed as a historic turning point in U.S. relations with the Middle East, albeit one the neocons and much of Official Washington detest, thus explaining the hostility in their year-end critiques.
For instance, if the neocons and the many tough guys/gals inside the Beltway had their way in 2013, the U.S. military would have pummeled Syria in retaliation for its alleged (though still unproven) role in the Aug. 21 Sarin gas incident outside Damascus. We now know that the neocons’ desired bombing campaign would have been coordinated with a ground offensive by the Saudi-Israeli-favored, Sunni-dominated jihadist rebels, possibly leading to “regime change” in Syria.
Talking roses or thorns?
The U.S. assault also would likely have destroyed hopes of a nuclear agreement with Iran, thus raising the likelihood that Obama would have been goaded into a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. At each step of these escalations, the neocons would be egging Obama on, calling him “weak” and “indecisive” if he failed to ratchet up the pressure and violence.
Amid this mounting chaos, the neocons would have demonstrated that even when they are not sitting in the Oval Office, they could still direct U.S. foreign policy through their continued dominance of the op-ed pages of major newspapers, like the Washington Post, and via their strategic positioning at leading Washington think tanks.
Across Official Washington, there was a palpable sense of disappointment and even anger last summer when Obama abruptly halted the rush toward war with Syria, first seeking congressional support for a military strike and then accepting the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin in negotiating a graceful exit from the crisis by getting the Syrian government to surrender all its chemical weapons (though still denying a role in the Aug. 21 attack).
That was followed by Obama completing a historic deal with Iran, trading some sanctions relief for additional safeguards to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program did not lead to a bomb. That tentative agreement disrupted what had been years of a carefully crafted neocon propaganda campaign to push the two sides into a military confrontation, as favored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Obama’s diplomatic offensive also has included pressing for meaningful Syrian peace talks in Geneva and pushing Iran to adopt a more constructive role in the region. All of this has infuriated the Saudi-Israeli alliance which favored escalating confrontations with the Syrian and Iranian governments. Back in the U.S., the neocons have never given up their dream of engineering multiple “regime changes.”
The mainstream U.S. news media has mostly chalked up Obama’s diplomacy with Syria and Iran as evidence of his “failures”—part of the meme about his disastrous year—but these moves could be seen as important achievements, indeed historic successes. Finally locating the keys to unlock the rigid hostility between Washington and Tehran is a diplomatic victory arguably on par with Richard Nixon’s opening to China four decades ago.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009— The Safety Net Gets A Temporary Repair:
The concept of a safety net, there for support when you're down and out and need a little help to get back on your feet, is one we don't talk enough about. For example, in yesterday's Midday Open Thread, Laura posted about the emergency room (known in most hospitals as the Emergency Department) and what it's really for. This is a topic we wrote about back in Jan, 2008, anticipating the recession to come.
Times are hard, and jobs are scarce. So while we debate and discuss health reform, don't forget about this other aspect of the safety net:
With the job outlook grim, unemployed workers received an unexpected boost this week as President Obama signed legislation authorizing a six-month extension of the COBRA health care subsidy program that was part of the economic stimulus bill passed in February. "That makes me pretty happy," says Don Hall, 56, who lives outside Sandusky, Ohio. A supervisor with an MBA at an automotive parts supplier to Ford Motor Company, Hall was laid off in October 2008. He recently sent a letter of hardship to Wells Fargo to try to save his house from foreclosure. His subsidized COBRA payment has been $258 a month and he says not having to pay an additional $500 a month for health care coverage is a godsend. "When you have to draw straws between paying the utility bills, the mortgage and health care, it's hard. |
Jobs, stimulus and health care. It's all interwoven into the safety net that Americans need. This holiday season, remember those in need, and support those politicians who remember with you.
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Tweet of the Day:
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." ~Edward Abbey
— @LCL21CE
On
today's "classic" Kagro in the Morning show, it's the December 28, 2012 show, with a look at
Slate's interactive graphic of gun deaths in America since Newtown.
Greg Dworkin shared polling data on guns & the NRA, some poignant photos of the flood of teddy bears sent to Newtown, and some suggestions for how better to support that community. Then, Twitter sensation
@RepJackKimble, author of
Profiles in Courageousness. Plus, a peek at what makes C-SPAN tick, and how your humble host helped "liberate" Congressional video.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.