Check It Out for Tuesday, April 7th
Scott Horton writes at The Daily Beast that Republicans are blackmailing Obama's picks for top legal positions.
"Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward."
Kaveh L Afrasiabi at Asia Times writes about Obama's twists and turns on Iran during his first overseas tour.
"We will support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections." Of all of United States President Barack Obama's repeated references to Iran during his near flawless, message-wise, Europea tour this week, this was undoubtedly the most important, as it signified a new willingness on the US's part to consent to Iran's controversial nuclear fuel cycle.
"But, if only Obama could remain consistent and withstand the mounting pressures from various corners, above all Israel and its supporters in the US. These aim to prevent what is increasingly appearing as a logical and necessary adjustment in the US's policy toward Iran in the absence of any evidence of the military diversion of its nuclear program.
"Close scrutiny of Obama's speeches and actions with respect to Iran during his European visit leads one to conclude that the administration's policy may be winding down, Yet it is not completely over, and that as a result it is best to describe the US's current Iran policy as a contradictory hybrid in which elements of novelty coexist uneasily with policy continuity with the past.
"What is beyond doubt, however, is that by repeatedly referring to Iran in his major foreign policy speeches, such as in Prague and in the Turkish parliament, Obama has prioritized the country and is determined to fulfill his promise of a "new beginning" in relations expressed in his new year message to Iran in March.
"A new beginning by relying on old and empirically untenable assumptions is difficult and has the potential to neutralize the new elements in the US's Iran policy. Worse, this may adversely impact US-Russia relations, soured by the US's missile shield in Eastern Europe, which is considered anathema to Russia's national-security interests.
"In other words, the fate of upcoming US-Russia strategic talks to formulate a new strategic arms reduction agreement when the existing one expires in December, may hinge on the success of Obama's Iran opening. Yet, that is unlikely to happen as long as Tehran is not convinced that real change in US foreign policy is forthcoming. Indeed, which side has the upper hand in the US's Iran policy - continuity with the past or discontinuity?
"For now, the answer to this important question is lost in a thick fog of uncertainty, in light of Obama's repeat references to Iran's "nuclear weapons ambitions" and the threats posed to America's European allies by Iran's ambitions as well as its missile capability."
Daniel Luban and Ali Gharib at IPS News write about the realities of SecDef Gates' Pentagon budget cuts.
"The changes proposed by the new budget - while significant - are far from marking a fundamental reshaping of the U.S. defence establishment, some defence analysts caution.
" 'They’re calling it a fundamental shift and that’s both true and false,' said Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. 'It’s true because their budget proposes the most ambitious set of cuts to well- entrenched weapons systems since the early 1990s.'
" 'It’s false, though, because this budget perpetuates the upward trajectory of defence spending, it’s higher than any of the Bush budgets that preceded it, and it increases funding for some programs that I think are a mistake,' Pemberton continued.
"The 534-million-dollar budget for fiscal year 2010 - which does not take into account the 'emergency supplemental' appropriations that pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - marks a slight increase over the Bush administration’s budget for the previous year.
" 'I would give the budget a B to B-minus,' said William Hartung of the New America Foundation. 'They did a little less than half of what I’d hope they’d do. But under Bush they would have done nothing or gone in the other direction.' "
Uri Avnery at Counterpunch on who is really the boss in the new, right wing Israeli government.
"ON THE first day of the new Israeli government, the fog cleared: it’s a Lieberman government.
"The day started with a celebration at the President’s office. All the members of this bloated government – 30 ministers and 8 deputy ministers – were dressed up in their best finery and posed for a group photo. Binyamin Netanyahu read an uninspired speech, which included the worn-out cliches that are necessary to set the world at ease: the government is committed to peace, it will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, bla-bla-bla.
Avigdor Lieberman hurried from there to the foreign Office, for the ceremonial change of ministers. He, too, made a speech – but it was not a routine speech at all.
" 'Si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace, prepare for war,' declared the new Foreign Minister. When a diplomat quotes this ancient Roman saying, the world pays no attention to the first part, but only to the second. Coming from the mouth of the already infamous Lieberman, it was a clear threat: the new government is entering upon a path of war, not of peace.
"With this sentence, Lieberman negated Netanyahu’s speech and made headlines around the world. He confirmed the worst apprehensions connected with the creation of this government.
"Not content with quoting the Romans, he explained specifically why he used this motto. Concessions, he said, do not bring peace, but quite the reverse. The world respected and admired Israel when it won the Six-day war..
"Two fallacies in one sentence. Returning occupied territory is not a 'concession'. When a thief is compelled to return stolen property, or when a squatter vacates an apartment that does not belong to him, that is not a 'concession'. And the admiration for Israel in 1967 came from a world that saw us as a little, valiant country that had stood up to mighty armies out to destroy us. But today’s Israel looks like a brutal Goliath, while the occupied Palestinians are now viewed as a David with his slingshot, fighting for his life.
"With this speech, Lieberman succeeded in stirring the world, but even more in humiliating Netanyahu. He exposed the peace declarations of the new Prime Minister as nothing but soap bubbles."
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