Rep. Grijalva Urges U.S. Pressure on Coup Regime in Honduras
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, July 28, 2009

It's been a month since Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a military coup. Negotiations on restoring democracy supported by the United States broke down when the coup regime refused to accept a compromise that would allow President Zelaya to return.

The Obama Administration still says it is working for President Zelaya's return, but so far it has not responded to the call from Hondurans for increased U.S. pressure on the coup regime.

Indeed, when President Zelaya tried to increase pressure on the coup regime by threatening to return to Honduras without an agreement, Secretary of State Clinton attacked President Zelaya as "reckless," instead of expressing any concern about repression by the coup regime against President Zelaya's supporters.

Now Rep. Raul Grijalva is leading a Congressional effort to urge the Obama Administration to increase U.S. pressure on the coup regime by canceling U.S. visas and freezing bank accounts of coup leaders. Representatives McGovern, Conyers, and Serrano have signed on to Rep. Grijalva's letter to President Obama.

This isn't just about one man. It's about whether the 60% of Hondurans who live in poverty have a path to reform and redress of their grievances. President Zelaya was exiled for seeking reform of Honduras' constitution - a longstanding demand of social movements in Honduras.

It's also not just about Honduras. Many fear that if the coup in Honduras is allowed to stand it will embolden elite groups in Central and South America who might want to use military force to block political reform movements.

That's why it's so important to reverse this coup. If the Obama Administration wants to have a pro-majority policy in Latin America, it can't start off by supporting elite forces in Honduras that refuse to share power with the 60% of Hondurans who live in poverty.

Will Speaker Pelosi Stand Up to the IMF?
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, May 20, 2009

It would be an exaggeration to say that Congress has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this week to reform the policies of the International Monetary Fund. If the future is like the past, if Congress misses this opportunity, another one will come along - in about 10 years or so.

This week, House and Senate leaders are meeting in a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the supplemental appropriations bill. The Senate version of the bill is likely to include $100 billion and new authorities for the IMF, but the House version of the supplemental bill did not include funds for the IMF. The Senate is debating amendments now as I write. The conference committee will almost surely meet soon after Senate passage; the stated goal is to pass the supplemental before the Memorial Day recess.

Concrete, observable reforms of the IMF's policies in poor countries should be part of any agreement: there should be no "blank check" for the IMF. The IMF is imposing policies in developing countries we wouldn't accept in the U.S. - when we have a recession, our government spends money to help the economy recover, as we did in President Obama's stimulus package. When developing countries have a recession, the IMF demands budget cuts. With Democrats in charge in Washington, the IMF - in which the United States has overwhelming influence - should not be imposing Republican economic policies. In particular, the IMF should not be imposing Republican economic policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, since that fundamentally undermines the quest for political stability in these countries. It's the height of self-defeating absurdity to appropriate US tax dollars for reconstruction and development in these countries while with the other hand - the IMF hand - we tell them that their governments can't stimulate their economies.

What happens in the conference process is largely controlled by key leaders on particular issues. Regarding the IMF, what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Chris Dodd, and Congresswoman Nita Lowey do will greatly determine whether the IMF will get a blank check or will have to implement meaningful reforms. In the past, Pelosi, Dodd, and Lowey have been leaders on issues of World Bank and IMF reform, international debt relief, HIV/AIDS, and global health.

If you care about these things, now would be a good time to pick up the phone. If you live in Connecticut, call Senator Dodd: (202) 224-2823. If you're a constituent of Rep. Lowey in New York, call her office: 202-225-6506. Otherwise, call Speaker Pelosi's office: (202) 225-0100.

When you speak to the receptionist, you could say something like the following:

"My name is ___________ and I'm calling from _______________[city/state]. In the conference committee on the supplemental, [Speaker Pelosi /Senator Dodd/ Congresswoman Lowey] has the power to be a champion for reform of the IMF's policies which have limited access to health care and education in poor nations and poor country debt relief. I urge [Speaker Pelosi/Senator Dodd/Congresswoman Lowey] to include language in the conference report that ensures IMF agreements do not impose contractionary, recession-worsening policies as they currently are doing, which is resulting in rising unemployment and the closure of hospitals and schools. Thank you."

Foreign Army Shoots US Peace Activist; US Does Nothing
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, March 25, 2009

Here's a news awareness question you might not hear on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." (A search on the NPR website yielded no results.)

On March 13, a US citizen attending a peace demonstration was shot in the head by a soldier of a foreign army. Eyewitnesses report that the American and his companions weren't doing anything and hadn't done anything that would justify the use of force, let alone shooting him in the head.

Here's your news awareness question: name the country.

The American remains hospitalized in critical condition, reported The Independent Tuesday, describing him as "fighting for life" following three brain surgeries. He suffered a multiple fracture to his skull, severe injury to the frontal lobe of his brain, and a collapsed eye socket. Part of his right frontal lobe had to be removed.

His parents have called for a full investigation. But so far, judging from press reports, the United States government hasn't had anything to say about it. Why not?

I freely concede that I take this quite personally. I was an international peace volunteer once. When you are a US peace volunteer in an international conflict situation, you like to think that your blue passport gives you some measure of protection; foreign soldiers, you hope, are going to think twice before shooting an American, because the US government would have to make a fuss. And if the foreign army in question belongs to a government that has very friendly relations with Washington, and is highly dependent on substantial US military, economic, diplomatic and political aid from the United States, then you might think that foreign army would really go out of its way not to shoot Americans.

But, in this case, you might be wrong.

When I open my blue passport, I find a very nice letter from the Secretary of State asking everyone to gave me safe passage. It would be nice to think that text means something.

But in this case, it doesn't seem to.

Election Dirty Tricks Again in Washington and El Salvador
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, Thursday, March 13, 2009

Last week, more than 30 Members of Congress joined Rep. Raul Grijalva in asking President Obama to affirm U.S. neutrality in El Salvador's Presidential election on Sunday March 15, to stop the recycling in El Salvador of US threats when Salvadorans voted in 2004. But there has been no high-level response from the Obama Administration, Rep. Grijalva told Democracy Now! yesterday.

But right-wing Republicans in Congress have not been quiet. Upside Down News reports:

On Tuesday El Salvador's largest circulating daily, the Diario de Hoy, published news of a letter signed by over 40 Republicans in Congress, denouncing the FMLN and warning of their links to Venezuela and Cuba. The letter expresses "grave concern that a victory by the FMLN could make links between El Salvador and the regimes of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, and other states that promote terrorism, and also with other non-democratic regimes and terrorist organizations."

Meanwhile, CISPES reports:

Yesterday, two Republicans gave speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives threatening that Salvadorans living in the U.S. will lose their immigration status and be outlawed from sending money home to their families if voters in El Salvador exercise their right to elect the opposition FMLN party's candidate on Sunday.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said, "Should the pro-terrorist FMLN party replace the current government in El Salvador, the United States, in the interests of national security, would be required to reevaluate our policy toward El Salvador, including cash remittance and immigration policies to compensate for the fact there will no longer be a reliable counterpart in the Salvadoran government."

Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) stated, "Those monies that are coming from here to there I am confident will be cut, and I hope the people of El Salvador are aware of that because it will have a tremendous impact on individuals and their economy." Indeed, these threats carry considerable weight for Salvadoran voters, as 25% of the Salvadoran population lives in the U.S., and 20% of the nation's economy consists of remittances from those family members."

Why did they do this yesterday? Krista Lee, a US solidarity activist in El Salvador as an election observer, writes:

They made this statement yesterday so that it would come out on the front page of the Salvadoran papers today, just a few hours after the campaign officially closed, so the FMLN's ability to respond is severely limited.

Of course, the official US position is that the US is indeed neutral. A State Department spokesman told Inter Press Service today:

"The U.S. government reiterates its official position that it does not support either candidate in the upcoming presidential election in El Salvador on March 15th. Through our embassy in El Salvador, we have stated this position publicly and repeatedly since November of 2007.

"With regard to the letters that have been sent [by members of Congress], the separation of powers and freedom in the U.S.allow for a debate in which members of the U.S. legislature have expressed their opinions. This does not reflect the official position of the United States."

But, being low-profile, this statement will not have the same effect as the Republicans' statements, trumpeted in El Salvador's private media, which like the media in Venezuela, are tremendously biased - in this case, in favor of the right-wing government.

That's why Rep. Grijalva asked for a high-level statement from the Obama Administration. Why has it not yet come?

Here are some actions concerned Americans can take:

1. Call the State Department to ask for a US Embassy press conference in San Salvador to publicly state US neutrality in the Salvadoran presidential elections: (202) 647-4087/ (202) 647-6575 (message.)

NYT Publishes Roadmap for Taliban Talks
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, March 11, 2009

If you're interested in a "way forward" in Afghanistan that's not built around killing a bunch of innocent people for no reason, then I strongly encourage you to read and absorb every word of Carlotta Gall's report in Wednesday's New York Times, "As U.S. Weighs Taliban Negotiations, Afghans Are Already Talking."

Some key points, based on conversations with Afghan officials and Western diplomats in Kabul:

- Far from being "pie in the sky," discussions with the Taliban leadership are already underway and could be developed into more formal talks with the support of the US. The ongoing talks were actually initiated by an overture from the Taliban: the Taliban leadership council first approached the government about peace talks last year.

- Officials with contacts within the Taliban said the current discussions had been productive.

- The peace process might have made greater progress already if the Afghan government and the US had pushed it more forcefully.

- Afghan parliamentarians involved in the talks said they were waiting for President Karzai to secure guarantees of support for the process from foreign governments, in particular the United States, before they could go further.

- Negotiations should be expanded to a broad spectrum of Taliban leaders; a policy of talking only to "moderates" is doomed to failure; negotiations have to be conducted with broad consultation among the Taliban leadership and through Pashtun tribal leaders and elders.

- As part of the ongoing negotiations, the Taliban are demanding an end to house searches and arrests, and the release of Taliban detainees from Afghan jails and the US detention centers at Guantánamo and Bagram. [Those seem like negotiable demands, don't you think? It's not as if they're insisting that "The official language of Afghanistan will now be Swedish" or "Everyone has to change their underwear three times a day, and they have to wear them on the outside, so we can check."]
...
The point that the U.S. needs to go beyond endorsing negotiations with "moderate Taliban" was made forcefully by Afghan businesswoman Rangina Hamidi, interviewed Tuesday on Democracy Now!: "extremists" also have to be engaged. She noted that "almost every group that has been involved in the destruction of Afghanistan since the past thirty years" was represented in the US-organized political process for Afghanistan after 2001 - except the Taliban.

Last weekend President Obama "signaled that reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative" as part of his review of US policy in Afghanistan, the New York Times reported. This is potentially a very hopeful sign. But it is absolutely critical that the "reconciliation" in the new strategy potentially includes Taliban leaders who can actually help deliver peace, not just be a rehash of the existing "reconciliation" policy that has failed:

The problem with the reconciliation process, officials say, is that it demanded that the Taliban lay down their arms in return for security guarantees, which they did not trust either the government to enforce or the Americans to honor.

"We make reconciliation sound like surrender; where has that ever worked?" said one Western official with long experience in Afghanistan, who did not want to be identified because of the political nature of his comments. "What is required is structured engagement with all Afghan communities, including the Pashtun and therefore representatives of the Taliban, around a new political project."

Members of Congress who want the Obama Administration to succeed won't do it any favors by keeping silent about the proposed military escalation in Afghanistan. The actions of the Obama Administration so far clearly indicate that they can move in response to pressure: both good pressure and bad pressure. If there is only bad pressure, it's more than likely that policy will move in a bad direction. In announcing an increase in U.S. troops before his Afghanistan review was complete, Obama partially acceded to pressure from the military. If we don't want the military to have carte blanche, there needs to be counterpressure.

Some Members of Congress are starting to speak up. Rep. Murtha recently said he's uncomfortable with Obama's decision to increase the number of troops in the country by 17,000 before a goal was clearly defined, AP reports. Sen. Nelson is calling for clear benchmarks to measure progress in Afghanistan, and said he may try to add benchmarks to the upcoming war supplemental bill this spring, CQ Today reports.

But these individual expressions of discomfort will likely not be enough to stop the slide towards greater and greater military escalation.

Eight Members of Congress (Walter Jones, Neil Abercrombie, Roscoe Bartlett, Steve Kagen, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Ed Whitfield, and Lynn Woolsey) have initiated a letter to President Obama urging him to reconsider his support for military escalation. The letter argues that military escalation may well be counterproductive towards the goal of creating a stable government that can control Afghanistan, noting that a recent Carnegie Endowment study concluded that "the only meaningful way to halt the insurgency's momentum is to start withdrawing troops. The presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban." [You can find the letter - and ask your Representative to sign it - here.]

There is political space for challenging the logic of escalation.

Forty-two percent of Americans think troops in Afghanistan should be increased, up from 34 percent in January, CBS News reports, no doubt reflecting the largely uncritical press treatment that the proposal for military escalation has received. But the same CBS News/New York Times poll still found that more people thought that U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan should be decreased (24%) or kept the same (23%) - i.e. 47% thought troop levels should be decreased or stay the same, rather than increased.

If we want the US government to seriously pursue diplomacy, there must be serious counterpressure against sending more troops without end. If you want recycling, you have to discourage the establishment of new landfills. If you want economic development and human rights to be at the center of trade policy, you have to jam up corporate trade deals. If you want diplomacy, there has to be a significant political pushback to military escalation.

Our relations with Colombia also need to be reset. "Plan Colombia," which was supposedly going to cut the flow of Colombian cocaine into the U.S., doesn't work, neither to reduce the flow of illegal drugs, nor to promote human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Colombia. Since Plan Colombia doesn't work, it should be cut.

An October report from the Government Accountability Office found that coca-leaf production in Colombia had increased by 15% and cocaine production had increased by 4% between 2000 and 2006, and recommended cutting funding. Plan Colombia has cost U.S. taxpayers over $6 billion.

Plan Colombia has also failed to promote human rights. Broadly speaking, the practical political meaning of Plan Colombia in the Colombian political context has been: "Washington supports the Colombian government, and therefore the Colombian government can do whatever it wants without restraint." The human consequences of this political blank check have been disastrous.

A recent report by Human Rights First found human rights defenders in Colombia are frequently accused by the government and its supporters of belonging to leftwing guerrillas, and are secretly investigated for months or years before being "illegally detained," Inter Press Service reports. "The steadfast investigation of spurious criminal complaints against defenders stands in stark contrast to the failure to investigate attacks, threats, and other forms of intimidation perpetrated against them or against civilians more generally," HRF said.

In Colombia, the government accusation of "supporting the guerrillas" can be a death sentence, since it's understood as a "seal of approval" for paramilitary violence. On February 20, Senators Brown and Murray wrote the Colombian Ambassador expressing concern at attacks made by President Uribe against human rights advocates who had testified before the House Committee on Education and Labor. Brown and Murray expressed concern for "the effect [these] comments may have on the safety of those who voluntarily testified." Uribe has publicly smeared human rights critics as members of the guerrillas' "international bloc."

Last week, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and dozens of human rights organizations and religious institutions released a letter to President Obama calling for major changes in U.S. policy toward Colombia. The groups urged the President to end the failed drug policy and to invest in drug treatment for U.S. citizens and aid for the millions of Colombians displaced by war. "Rather than ending the drug trade, the problem has increased - with more coca plants grown in Colombia, and cocaine as easily available in the United States," said Mark Johnson of FOR. "There is no better time than now to end Plan Colombia."

The letter urged the Obama Administration to end military aid to Colombia - currently the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Western Hemisphere - and called for renewed diplomatic efforts to support a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict in Colombia.

Many are looking to the Obama Administration for changed policies in Latin America. Senator Lugar has called for scrapping the Cuba embargo. Reps. Grijalva and Kaptur are asking the Obama Administration to affirm that the U.S. won't interfere in El Salvador's March 15 Presidential election and will respect the result.

"The United States government will remain neutral in El Salvador's March 15 presidential race, will respect the election results, and will work toward a positive relationship with whichever party is elected."

If you haven't been following the recent history of U.S. relations with Central America in general and El Salvador in particular, that might seem like a pretty banal statement. But in the context of the actual history of massive U.S. interference in the region's political processes, such a statement would be revolutionary.

Before El Salvador's 2004 presidential election, Bush Administration officials attempted to influence the vote by suggesting that if the opposition party won, the status of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. would be threatened and remittances sent to El Salvador by Salvadorans working in the U.S. could be ended. These remittances have been estimated to comprise 10-20% of El Salvador's GDP, likely surpassing official development assistance, foreign direct investment, and tourism as a source of foreign exchange for El Salvador. These threats were widely reported in the Salvadoran press and have contributed to a lingering belief that the U.S. will not permit the opposition to win the election - a belief currently being stoked by right-wing campaign ads in the country, which are recycling the threats from 2004.

If the U.S. makes no statement that it will remain neutral and respect the results, the practical effect will be to preserve the enduring legacy of past interference, and thereby to effectively intervene against the opposition. An official statement is needed to clarify for Salvadoran public opinion that the U.S. will remain scrupulously neutral.

Representatives Raul Grijalva and Marcy Kaptur are sending a letter this week to President Obama urging him to affirm U.S. neutrality in the election. The letter says:

U.S. immigration policy should not be made into a political instrument used to influence foreign elections. Similarly, we reject the suggestion that the US government would seek to financially punish Salvadorans, in this country or in El Salvador , for exercising their right to elect a government of their choosing. As members of Congress, we will not support any such measure.

Guadeloupe Strikes: A Warning to Obama?
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, February 22, 2009

On February 12, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress that the global economic crisis was the most serious security challenge facing the United States and that it could topple governments and trigger waves of refugees, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A week later, the French government was sending police reinforcements to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe after a month of strikes and protests over low pay and high prices followed by clashes between police and protesters. Strikers have been demanding a raise of $250 a month for low-wage workers who now make about $1,130 a month. "Underlying much of the unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique is anger within the local Afro-Caribbean community...that the vast majority of wealth and land remain in the hands of colonist descendants," noted Al Jazeera.

Across much of the world, and much of Latin America in particular, the global economic crisis is going to play out against a legacy of extreme inequality and poverty. The unrest in Guadeloupe may be a preview of what's coming worldwide if there isn't a change in Washington's priorities.

If the global economic crisis is the most serious security challenge, how come there is so little discussion of devoting more resources to addressing this challenge directly? Quite the contrary: with the purported goal of reducing the U.S. budget deficit, the Obama Administration is planning to "scale back" its promise to double foreign aid, the New York Times reports.

The notion that scaling back Obama's commitment to double foreign aid would be a reasonable way to reduce the nation's fiscal deficit can only be taken seriously as long as people aren't aware of or don't consider the relative magnitude of the numbers involved and the likely consequences of different kinds of spending.

The Times article doesn't report how much the deficit might be decreased by the threatened "scaling back." But the campaign promise was to double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012. If instead of "scaling back" the promised increase, foreign aid weren't increased at all, that would suggest a maximum saving of about $25 billion a year.

Representative Barney Frank recently wrote in The Nation:

"I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending ... Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy ... In some cases we are developing weapons -- in part because of nothing more than momentum -- that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future ... If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged."

Frank's proposal would save about $160 billion a year - more than six times the savings from not increasing foreign aid at all. Or, put another way, if instead of Frank's proposal, we only cut military spending by 4%, that would pay for the entire increase in foreign aid that President Obama promised during the campaign.

And surely it's the case, that if Representative Frank wants to cut the military budget by 25% in part because so much of the military budget has no relevance to "security" (except perhaps to the "security" of executives at military contractors in their desire to continue to live extravagantly on the public dole) then we can find 4% of cuts in the military budget that have nothing to do with "security," as most Americans would understand it. And if that 4% were reallocated to keeping Obama's promise to double foreign aid, then instead of spending it on corporate welfare for military contractors we'd be using it to address what Director of National Intelligence Blair told Congress was the most serious security challenge facing the United States.

President Obama said last summer:

"I know development assistance is not the most popular of programs, but as president, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world and increasing our own security," he said. "That's why I will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012 and use it to support a stable future in failing states and sustainable growth in Africa, to halve global poverty and to roll back disease."

Mitchell needs more support, because at the moment it's far from obvious whether Washington will let Mitchell be Mitchell. He's been praised for his work in the Northern Ireland peace process, but for all the difficulties Mitchell faced in Northern Ireland, there was one thing he could count on: no-one prevented him from talking to one of the key parties in the conflict. Mitchell talked to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, leaders of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, considered at the time [with obvious justification] by the British, the U.S. and the Protestant leadership in Northern Ireland to be a terrorist group. Today, Sinn Fein is part of the Northern Ireland government. But at the moment, Mitchell's not allowed to talk to Ismail Haniyeh or other members of the political leadership of Hamas, even though they won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and constitute the de facto government of Gaza.

Why should U.S. diplomacy engage Hamas? The answer is very simple. It is very likely that if the U.S. were to engage Hamas diplomatically, it would be much easier to achieve a peaceful political resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict. On the other hand, if the U.S. were to continue the Bush Administration's policy of trying to isolate Hamas, the supporters of Hamas, and the people living under Hamas jurisdiction, it is very likely that achieving a peaceful political resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict would be much more difficult.

Therefore, if the true and primary goal of U.S. policy is to promote a peaceful political resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict, then the correct U.S. policy is to diplomatically engage Hamas.

It may well be that U.S. policy, or major actors that shape U.S. policy, have other, even contradictory goals. If so, those goals should be stated and defended. But let us assume for the sake of discussion that achieving a peaceful political resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the goal of U.S. policy, and examine how engaging Hamas could contribute to that goal, and failing to engage Hamas could thwart it.

First: a political resolution of the conflict that involves Fatah and Hamas would be, in Palestinian terms, politically legitimate. Suppose that there is a political agreement between Israel and the Palestinians attempting to achieve a political resolution of the conflict, and that on the Palestinian side, both Fatah and Hamas signed off on this agreement. Taken together, Fatah and Hamas represent the overwhelming majority of Palestinian public opinion. If you have an agreement with Fatah and Hamas, you essentially have an agreement with Palestinians as a whole. No major actor would question the legitimacy of such an agreement.

Second: obviously any meaningful agreement between Israel and the Palestinians purporting to resolve the conflict is going to include, along with whatever else it concludes, a commitment from the Palestinian side to forswear violence against Israel. Obviously, the Israeli side - and third parties supporting the agreement - are going to expect that this commitment be meaningful. For such a commitment to be meaningful requires two things: it requires that the agreement be perceived as politically legitimate among Palestinians and related actors - see above - and it requires that the Palestinian side have the capacity to substantially impose the provisions of the agreement on any recalcitrant dissidents. Fatah and Hamas together have that capacity. Indeed, Hamas alone has demonstrated that it has that capacity in Gaza, when it substantially enforced its ceasefire agreement with Israel on more radical groups, even though Israel did not lift or significantly ease the blockade on Gaza, as it had been expected to do.

On the other hand, it is clear that Hamas retains the power to "disrupt" any peace process. After Israel's invasion of Gaza, no-one is even bothering to say the word "Annapolis."

You don't have to believe the story that was largely propagated in the U.S. media about the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza - that Hamas bore all or most of the responsibility for Israel's actions - to appreciate and acknowledge that Hamas played a significant role. Hamas took a deliberate choice to let the ceasefire expire and renew rocket fire in response to the Israeli government's continued economic strangulation and military attacks, knowing that this could provide a pretext for an Israeli invasion. It was taking a risk, and it was largely Palestinian civilians in Gaza that paid the price for that gamble. There were other choices. It could be argued, given the track record of effective international indifference to the suffering of Palestinian civilians, that other choices would not have been effective at lifting the blockade - but neither has the decision to facilitate the escalation of violence been effective, and now Gazans are worse off than before, with, among other things, 1300 dead. Obviously the overwhelming responsibility for the Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza lies with those who executed and paid for and supported the killing, but the responsibility of those who took actions which helped provide excuses for the killing is not zero.

So it should be clear that engagement with Hamas, if successful, could be very helpful, and continuing a policy of isolation could be very harmful.

But is there any reason to believe that a policy of engagement could be productive?

First: since a policy of engagement costs essentially nothing of concrete value, the rational threshold for engagement is low. If there is any significant probability that engagement might be useful, it should be pursued. If it fails, we have lost nothing; and indeed, if the effort is sincere, it proves to the world that the U.S. is serious, so it gains something, even if it fails. If it fails because another actor is recalcitrant, then the recalcitrant actor is exposed to criticism and pressure - including, in the case of Hamas, pressure from Palestinian and Arab public opinion.

Second: Hamas leaders have stated publicly and repeatedly that they are ready to accept a political resolution to the conflict, essentially along the lines of the international consensus and the Arab peace plan: Israel and a Palestinian state side by side, on the 1967 borders.

For example, AP reported on January 29 ("Hamas officials signal willingness to negotiate") that

Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas are indicating a willingness to negotiate a long-term truce with Israel as long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of the world. "We want to be part of the international community," Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad told The Associated Press at the Gaza-Egypt border, where he was coordinating Arab aid shipments. "I think Hamas has no interest now to increase the number of crises in Gaza or to challenge the world."
...
Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, said in comments aired Thursday that the Palestinians must heal their internal rifts and he welcomed aid for Gaza from any source. He also seemed to leave a door open for better relations with the U.S. "I think it is not in America's interest to stay in conflict with the Arab and Muslim world, considering its interests in the region," Haniyeh, who remains in hiding after Israel's onslaught, said on Al-Jazeera television. "We hope that the new American President revises all the policies of his predecessor."
...
[The] three Hamas leaders interviewed said they would accept statehood in just the West Bank and Gaza and would give up their "resistance" against Israel if that were achieved. "We accept a state in the '67 borders," said Hamad. "We are not talking about the destruction of Israel."

As former President Jimmy Carter told AFP last April 13 regarding his then-upcoming meetings with Hamas officials:

Carter said his most recent talks [with Hamas] came after the group's win in January 2006 elections. At that time, he said Hamas expressed willingness to declare a ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank and allow Abbas to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians. "I intend to find out if these are their prevailing thoughts now," he said.

What did Carter find out? On April 22, the Washington Post reported:

The armed Islamist movement Hamas is prepared to accept Israel as a neighbor if the Palestinian people approve the terms for peace, former president Jimmy Carter and the group's exiled leadership said Monday following a visit to the region that included seven hours of negotiations.
...
Carter said the group's "ultimate goal is to see Israel living in their allocated borders, the 1967 borders, and a contiguous, vital Palestinian state alongside." Carter was referring to the borders that Israel had before the 1967 Middle East war, when it captured Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. In 1982, Israel completed a pull-out from the Sinai Peninsula, another conquest of that war.
...
Carter said that in his negotiations, Hamas leaders referred to the [Hamas] charter dismissively as "an ancient document" and that they agreed to abide by any peace deal forged by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas if the Palestinian people approve it. That could be accomplished either through a referendum or by a vote of the legislative council.
...
The talks resulted in a written agreement. An English version that Carter released reads in part: "If President Abbas succeeds in negotiating a final status agreement with Israel, Hamas will accept the decision made by the Palestinian people and their will in a referendum monitored by international observers . . . even if Hamas is opposed to the agreement."

Representative Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce a resolution in the House soon calling for an immediate ceasefire. There are a number of whereases in the draft, recounting the human toll of the war and the blockade, but the punchline is very simple:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives calls on the Government of Israel and representatives of Hamas to implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and to allow unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza.

"A resolution has co-sponsors," a Kucinich staffer once said. It's great that Dennis is on the floor of the House telling the truth. But it's terrible for the prospects of changing disastrous U.S. policies towards the Palestinians for Dennis to be standing alone. Who will co-sponsor the Kucinich ceasefire resolution?

So far the original cosponsors include John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Maurice Hinchey, Marcy Kaptur, Jim McDermott, Nick Rahall, Diane Watson, and Lynn Woolsey.

When the House voted on AIPAC's resolution endorsing the war, five people voted no: Dennis Kucinich, Gwen Moore, Ron Paul, Nick Rahall, and Maxine Waters. Twenty-two Democrats voted "present," including many who had spoken strongly against the resolution and/or against the war: Neil Abercrombie, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, John Dingell, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Sam Farr, Raul Grijalva, Maurice Hinchey, Hank Johnson, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, Jim McDermott, George Miller, Jim Moran, John Olver, Donald Payne, Loretta Sanchez, Pete Stark, Diane Watson, and Lynn Woolsey.

On July 19, 2006, Kucinich introduced a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. That resolution was co-sponsored by: Neil Abercrombie, Tammy Baldwin, Wm. Lacy Clay, Emanuel Cleaver, John Conyers, Danny Davis, Peter DeFazio, Lloyd Doggett, Bob Filner, Raul Grijalva, Maurice Hinchey, Michael Honda, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Marcy Kaptur, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, Jim McDermott, Cynthia McKinney, Gregory Meeks, George Miller, Gwen Moore, James Moran, John Olver, Major Owens, Nick Rahall, Charles Rangel, Bobby Rush, Louise Slaughter, Hilda Solis, Pete Stark, Nydia Velazquez, Maxine Waters, and Lynn Woolsey.

On July 25, 2006, Sheila Jackson-Lee introduced a bill calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. That received 18 co-sponsors: John Conyers, Elijah Cummings, Danny Davis, Lloyd Doggett, Al Green, Raul Grijalva, Maurice Hinchey, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Marcy Kaptur, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott, Gwen Moore, John Olver, Nick Rahall, Diane Watson, and Lynn Woolsey.

If everyone listed above who is currently a Member of Congress co-sponsored the Kucinich resolution, the resolution would have about fifty sponsors. And that would be a good start. It would give a very different message to the world than five people voting no on the AIPAC resolution. And it would encourage other Members of Congress to take a first step away from the disastrous policies that Congress has been supporting.

Of course every Member of Congress should be hearing from their constituents.

But, if your Member of Congress is on the above list, you have a special responsibility to act now to ask your Representative to co-sponsor the Kucinich resolution. You can use the link here for calling and the link here for writing.

Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (Jan. 2): "the United States must work actively for an immediate ceasefire that ends the violence, stops the rockets, and removes the blockade of Gaza."

Congressman Joe Sestak (Jan. 2):  "...beginning with bringing a swift end to this ongoing conflict..."

Congresswoman Lois Capps (Dec. 29): "...the current military operation in Gaza represents a vastly disproportionate response that will further destabilize the region... The numbers of dead and injured in Gaza, and the televised images of the humanitarian crisis now unfolding are truly shocking... I believe an immediate ceasefire is necessary."

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (Dec. 30): "I was particularly discouraged that the U.S. did not try to broker an extension of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas or improve the humanitarian situation on the ground... I strongly urge all parties to usher in the New Year with a renewed ceasefire agreement."

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (Dec. 31):"The time has come for both sides to end the rockets, end the bombings, and end the restrictions on food, medicine and fuel - all of which inflict intolerable harm on innocent civilians on both sides."

Congressman Keith Ellison (Dec. 31): "I believe the following actions must be taken at once... restore the ceasefire... The Israeli and Egyptian borders must be opened at once to allow the innocent civilians caught in this violence to seek refuge, and for the flow of food, water and medical supplies into Gaza.... I agree with those who demand strict observance of international humanitarian law, which must be observed immediately and without exception."

"The attacks on civilians represent collective punishment, which is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention... Israel is leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law... The attack aggravated a humanitarian crisis wrought by the Israeli-imposed blockade of food, fuel, and medical supplies."

We have seen this movie before. In the summer of 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon. Replace "Hizbullah" with "Hamas" and "Lebanon" with "Gaza," and much we have seen in the last few days is depressingly familiar. Once again, the Israeli military assault is justified on the basis of the need to stop rocket attacks on Israel, even though it is widely conceded that this will not be the result. Once again, establishment voices in Washington give carte blanche to the military action, even though few believe it will accomplish its stated objectives, and everyone understands that it will impose a huge political cost for the United States around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world.

But, although one can only be sick at the repeated, completely unnecessary loss of life, there is a silver lining to the Lebanon precedent: international outrage in 2006 effectively forced the United States government into a corner, in which it finally could no longer resist a ceasefire. And there is no reason to believe that what happened in 2006 can not and will not happen again now.

The question is then how long it will take international outrage to build to the level necessary to force the US government to stop backing the Israeli military action, and therefore how many Palestinians and Israelis will needlessly die in the meantime.

In some ways we have a head start over 2006. No-one can now plausibly claim that there is something intrinsically wrong with a ceasefire, or that there is something intrinsically wrong with negotiating with Hamas to achieve a new ceasefire. After all, just over six months ago, Israel and Hamas negotiated a ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, with the active encouragement of the United States. There was never any daylight between Israel and Hamas on whether a ceasefire was desirable; what was in dispute, and remained in dispute, was what the parameters of the ceasefire would be. Israel wanted the ceasefire limited to military calm-for-calm across the Israel-Gaza border. Hamas wanted the ceasefire to include significant easing of the economic blockade on Gaza and also to extend to the West Bank. These differences were finessed in the ceasefire agreement at the time, leading many to conclude that the disagreements would eventually explode the ceasefire agreement, as they now have.

But if you know this history, then you know that the statement "Israel had to act to protect its citizens from rocket attacks" is sorely lacking. Of course Hamas rocket attacks generated political pressure in Israel for a response. But was this the only possible response? If it was not the only possible response, was it the most effective response towards the stated goal? Among possible responses, was it moral and just?

After all, there is every reason to believe that the ceasefire could have continued and even been strengthened if Israel - and the United States - had been willing to ease the economic blockade of Gaza and extend the ceasefire to the West Bank. Since it was at least as likely - probably much more likely - that this would have done more to reduce and perhaps eliminate rocket attacks, it is reasonable to suggest that a key goal of the military assault is to maintain the economic blockade and maintain the status quo in the West Bank.

And, when you consider that former President Carter and other luminaries have denounced the economic blockade as an "abomination," and that even Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has conceded that Israel must give up almost all of the West Bank in any political settlement, then it is extremely hard to justify the military campaign on the basis that it is necessary to defend the economic blockade, or the status quo in the West Bank.

And therefore it is likely that pressure can build more quickly now than it did in 2006, and fewer people will have to die. Already, "mainstream pro-Israel peace groups" in the US have spoken out in favor of an immediate ceasefire. Notably, J Street called not only for a ceasefire, but for lifting the blockade.

Take Concrete Steps to Engage Iran
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, December 23, 2008

President-elect Obama pledged he would engage with Iran without pre-conditions. As a recent "experts' statement" chaired by Ambassadors Pickering and Dobbins has argued, talking with Iran would lower tensions in the region; help stabilize Iraq; facilitate Iran's cooperation in helping to stabilize Afghanistan; and facilitate peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Syria. The experts say direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations are most likely to succeed, and that we should adopt policies to facilitate contacts between scholars, professionals, religious leaders, lawmakers and ordinary citizens.

The Obama Administration can take concrete steps immediately to facilitate these contacts. We can open a "U.S. interests section" - low-level diplomatic representation - in Tehran. For the first time in many years, the U.S. would have diplomatic representation in Iran. Even the outgoing Bush Administration indicated that it wanted to do this. The U.S. has an "interests section" in Cuba; Iran has an "interests section" in Washington. There is broad agreement in Washington that there should be more interaction between Iranians and Americans. If there were a "U.S. interests section" in Tehran, Iranian students would no longer have to travel outside Iran to apply for visas to study in the United States, making it easier for Iranians to study here. We can also allow direct passenger airline flights between Tehran and New York.

These steps would bring immediate benefits in making it easier for Iranian citizens to travel to the United States; they would also be first steps towards greater diplomatic engagement between Iran and the United States.

There are some troubling signs on the horizon. Reports that Dennis Ross is apparently being considered for a new position to coordinate outreach to Iran suggests that there is some magical thinking going on among some of the advisers to Obama - a belief that pursuing the failed policies of the past will produce different results.

Momentum needs to be generated for a true break, a clear indication that the U.S. is going to put real diplomacy first. Not simply a re-packaging of existing demands, but a real willingness to negotiate. Taking simple, concrete moves to thaw relations is an important first step.

Change.org is soliciting suggestions that they will present to the new Administration. You can vote for "Take Concrete Steps to Engage Iran" here.

Obama has proposed to make an early and sustained push to support peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and has pledged to talk to Iran without preconditions. A sustained push by the United States for Israeli-Palestinian peace would force on to the table fundamental issues that must be resolved, like Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. Even Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said recently that Israel must withdraw from nearly all the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians. And an early push for talks with Iran could help establish security in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But we can't assume that this is the direction that U.S. policy will move.

A November 3rd article in the New York Times noted that a report from the "Bipartisan Policy Center" explores blockading Iran's gasoline imports - an act of war - and says that "a military strike is a feasible option." The article notes that the report's authors include Dennis Ross, a "top Mideast adviser to Obama." Ross served in the first Bush Administration as well as the Clinton Administration, where he played a leading role in U.S. negotiations with the Israelis and Palestinians.

Daniel Kurtzer, also an Obama adviser, has written that American and Arab negotiators saw Ross as biased and not "an honest broker." One Arab negotiator said, "The perception always was that Dennis [Ross] started from the Israeli bottom line, that he listened to what Israel wanted and then tried to sell it to the Arabs." Aaron David Miller, who also served on the U.S. team, has written that under Clinton U.S. negotiators acted as "Israel's lawyer," rather than focusing on what would enable both sides to reach agreement.

The Jewish Chronicle reports that Palestinian leaders are optimistic about Obama, but they are looking for "new faces" on the U.S. side. Walid Awad, spokesman for the Fatah Central Media Commission, called on Obama to immediately devote his attention to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy when he takes office in January. "Bush did not deal with the conflict until it was too late and he did not pressure Israel enough to bring about a solution," Awad said. He voiced concern about reports Obama may appoint Dennis Ross to a senior foreign policy position. "He's never been fair with the Palestinians so bringing him back into the fold would be counter-productive. Obama has to bring in new faces."

I'm guessing that a lot of you, like me, received a lot of email from the Obama campaign over the last many months, urging your support. Many of you, like me, responded. You gave money, made phone calls, knocked on doors.

Now it's time to write back. The policy window is open, as the political scientists say. During his campaign, President-Elect Obama promised to repair relations between the United States and the rest of the world. Not only that, but he promised to do specific things, many of which could be quickly and easily accomplished. Right now policies are being set and senior officials chosen for the new Administration. Early input counts more: "it's always too early until it's too late," as they say in Washington. Now is the time to ask Barack to fulfill his promises to reform U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/askBarack.html

Obama promised that he would end the war in Iraq and withdraw U.S. troops. There is no obstacle to doing so besides the unfulfilled imperial fantasies of the neoconservatives. The Iraqi government itself is demanding a firm timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Obama promised to talk to Iran without pre-conditions. There is no reasons that diplomatic contacts should not begin immediately. The Bush Administration itself has proposed to open an "interests section" - low-level diplomatic representation - in Iran. This would be a good first step. Obama should publicly encourage the Bush Administration to move forward with its own good idea.

Obama promised to pay more attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of the policies he has proposed - like sending more U.S. troops, and launching attacks into Pakistan without the agreement of the Pakistani government - are of dubious merit and are likely to be harmful. But other things he has proposed, like increasing the pace and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance, are urgently needed. Obama has argued, correctly, that the U.S. should talk to everyone. This policy needs to be applied in Afghanistan and Pakistan, without delay. The official policy of the Afghan government is to seek reconciliation with the Taliban. U.S. policy should clearly support this policy of the Afghan government, not seek to sabotage it.

Obama promised to actively support efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Early indications that he seriously intends to do so could have a dramatic effect in the region. He could signal that he intends to actually implement existing U.S. policy against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a policy with which the majority of Israelis would have no dispute, and would welcome with relief.

Obama promised to improve U.S. relations with Latin America. In a campaign speech, he invoked the example of FDR, whose "Good Neighbor" policy swore off U.S. military intervention, and pledged economic and humanitarian cooperation. Great strides could be easily made in Latin America through cooperation, extending education and health care to the poor majority in a region suffering from extreme poverty and inequality. Obama could start by negotiating the return of ambassadors with Bolivia and Venezuela, and reversing the Bush Administration's decision to end Bolivia's preferential access to the U.S. market. He could fulfill his promise to lift the Bush Administration's restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, work with the bipartisan Cuba Caucus in the House to make it easier for U.S. companies to sell to Cuba, and work towards lifting completely the U.S. embargo, which the whole world is demanding. He could pledge that the U.S. will, for once, remain studiously neutral in the upcoming Salvadoran elections.

Obama promised to cut unnecessary spending. The greatest opportunity for cuts is in the military budget, which is outrageously large by world standards, and much of which consists of pork barrel spending for military contractors. Representative Frank has called for a 25% cut in U.S. military spending. Let John McCain, who says he know where to cut, prepare a list of recommendations. Who will dare to say that John McCain's proposed cuts cannot be made?

It's always to early, until it's too late. Urge Barack now to reform U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/askBarack.html

Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst at Just Foreign Policy.

October 7 marks the seventh anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. To mark the occasion, the British government, our closest allies in Europe, are sending us a message on all channels: there is no military solution, there must be a political solution, and there should be talks with the Taliban. It would be a step forward for U.S. policy if both Presidential candidates would acknowledge this reality in tonight's debate.

America is somewhat preoccupied at the moment with the economic crisis and the Presidential election. But the Brits are trying to get through to us anyway, perhaps because they fear that some of the rhetoric of the Presidential campaign risks locking the U.S. into a path of military escalation, when what is needed is a political escalation.

Over the weekend, the top British military commander in Afghanistan made a number of statements that have yet to penetrate US political discourse. The Guardian reports:

"We're not going to win this war," Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said yesterday. "It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army. We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency."

He said the aim should be to change the nature of the debate in Afghanistan so that disputes were settled by negotiation and not violence. "If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this," Carleton-Smith said. "That shouldn't make people uncomfortable."

The British government supported the commander's statements, the Financial Times reports:

A spokesman said the UK's ministry of defense "did not have a problem" with warning the UK public not to expect a "decisive military victory" and to prepare instead for a possible deal with the Taliban.

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan added his voice in support, Reuters reports:

"I've always said to those that talk about the military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more political energy," Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, told a news conference in Kabul. "We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. That means political engagement."

Eide said success depended on speaking with all sides in the conflict. "If you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant. If you want to have results that matter, you must speak to those who matter," he said.

Indeed, talks between Taliban representatives and Afghan government officials took place recently in Saudi Arabia, CNN reports:

In a groundbreaking meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group, according to a source familiar with the talks. The historic four-day meeting took place during the last week of September in the Saudi city of Mecca, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.

It was the first such meeting aimed at bringing a negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict and for the first time, all parties were able to discuss their positions and objectives openly and transparently, the source said.

While Mullah Omar was not present at the talks in Mecca, the source said the Taliban leader has made it clear he is no longer allied with al Qaeda - a position that has never been publicly stated but emerged at the talks. It confirms what another source with an intimate knowledge of the Taliban and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past.

Even Defense Secretary Gates made somewhat supportive remarks. AP reports:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday endorsed efforts to reach out to members of the Taliban or other militants in Afghanistan who may be considered reconcilable, much like what has happened in Iraq.

Of course, what is really at issue here is not whether there is a policy of bringing in low-level Taliban fighters who agree to renounce violence and support the government. That policy already exists. What is at issue is initiating a process to bring in people at a higher level, a process that might involve some political accommodation. Note that the shift in strategy in Iraq after 2006 that is now called a success involved precisely this shift - bringing in not just fighters, but leaders, and making accommodation not just for individuals, but for groups with political demands, e.g integration into the Iraqi army.

Largely missing from debate has been the impact of this plan on U.S. government spending on human needs in the next Administration. And there has been almost no mention of the impact on our global commitments to help reduce illiteracy and address easily preventable disease.

Last week, world leaders met at the United Nations. UN Secretary General Ban is asking for the world's wealthy countries to contribute $72 billion per year to help the world meet the modest UN goal of reducing extreme poverty. According to the advocacy group Health Gap, the US share of this would be about 1/3, or $24 billion, based on the US share of the donor countries' wealth. Over the four years of the next Administration, that would be about $100 billion. As Inter Press Service reported, delegates to the UN meeting expressed concern that donor country commitments to reducing global poverty would now be even weaker than before.

If the Bush Administration's Wall Street bailout is enacted, we will be told that there is no money for additional spending on human needs, nationally and globally, in the next Administration - regardless of whether this is true. Already, in the first Presidential debate, moderator Jim Lehrer pressed the candidates to say what priorities they were going to give up, in light of the expected Wall Street bailout.

There are alternatives to the Bush Administration's plan that would cost the US taxpayers less, have greater chance of addressing problems in the credit market, and not politically threaten the next Administration's ability to increase spending on human needs. Congress should consider these alternatives before approving the Bush Administration's plan.

Representative Peter DeFazio has introduced a plan which would strengthen regulations to bolster the banking sector, the Nation reports. The plan is based on a proposal made by William Isaac, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation under the Reagan Administration. Isaac notes that in the 1980s Congress enacted a program which shored up the capital of banks to give them more time to resolve their problems, and the FDIC resolved a $100 billion insolvency in savings banks for a total cost of less than $2 billion.

Jim Lehrer missed an opportunity last night to help clarify for people watching the debate what is in dispute between Democrats like Barack Obama and Republicans like John McCain about U.S. policy towards Iran. For the record, this is what McCain adviser and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said about U.S. policy towards Iran, according to the transcript on CNN's website:

"I am in favor of negotiating with Iran.... But I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations."

This was at an event with five former U.S. Secretaries of State, three Republicans (Kissinger, Powell, and Baker) and two Democrats (Christopher and Albright.) All five agreed that the U.S. should negotiate with Iran, without preconditions.

What "without preconditions" means in this context is quite straightforward and well-known. The current policy of the Bush Administration has been that the United States will not enter into substantive talks with Iran unless Iran first agrees to suspend the enrichment of uranium. The five former U.S. Secretaries of State agreed that this was a mistake, and that the United States should drop this precondition for the beginning of talks.

Our former Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering, who has spent much of his adult life being paid by the United States government to be an expert on diplomacy, put it this way in an interview earlier this year:

"Certainly, there's been a lot of suspicion of Iran, I join in being concerned about Iran's nuclear program, I don't dismiss that at all, it's serious. But I think asking for a price to open talks is not a feasible way to get the conversation going, and it was not the posture of the United States when it opened talks with North Korea...my own feeling is that with Iran we should start talks with Iran without preconditions."

It's John McCain's position - the neoconservative position - that is the outlier. And besides electioneering, there's only one plausible, logical explanation for the McCain-neoconservative position: they don't want an agreement between the United States and Iran. What they fear is not that talks would be useless, but that they might be productive.

After all, as everybody knows, if the U.S. seriously pursued talks and the talks failed, it would be a huge propaganda victory for the United States. "See," the United States could say. "We tried."

What the neoconservatives are afraid of is that there might actually be an agreement, and that an agreement would acknowledge and accept Iran's status and interests in the region. Then the neocons would have to give up their fantasies of "regime change" in Iran and "roll back" of Iranian influence.

The neoconservatives are married to the precondition of suspension of enrichment because they believe it is a deal-breaker for the Iranian side. There is an overwhelming consensus of Iranian public opinion that Iran has and must exercise the right to its own nuclear energy program. This consensus includes every political faction with significant influence in the country's politics. So, if your real goal is to prevent any agreement between the United States and Iran, insisting that Iran abandon its nuclear program (which is how Iranians interpret the U.S. demand) as a precondition for talks is an excellent policy.

There is a proposal on the floor that would meet U.S. concerns about the future capacity of Iran to use nuclear technology for a weapons program while satisfying the demand of Iranian public opinion for an Iranian nuclear energy program. That is Ambassador Pickering's proposal for multilateral enrichment in Iran, with full transparency and vigorous inspections. This week in New York Iranian officials restated Iran's willingness to negotiate on such a proposal.

That is what is in dispute. Do we want four more years - or even eight more years - of confrontation with Iran in a McCain-Palin Administration pursuing the neoconservative policies of the early Bush Administration, or do we want to seriously pursue negotiations that could lead to an agreement that would help stabilize the whole Middle East, significantly facilitating U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and promoting stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When debate moderators are from the corporate media, they tend toreflect the worldview of their employers. And what their employers areinterested in seeing addressed may be - and often is - very differentfrom what the public would like to see addressed.

But as an employee of public broadcasting, Jim Lehrer works for us.

Will Jim Lehrer ask the candidates what they intend to do to helpbring about peace between Israelis and Palestinians? There is just onedebate between the candidates focused on foreign policy, so if thisquestion is not addressed in Friday's debate, it might not be addressedin any debate.

The U.S. government has long acknowledged - including in repeated statements by Secretary of State Rice, as recently as last month- that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a key stumbling blockto peace. The question is whether this U.S. policy of opposition willbe made a priority.

The New York Times noted last monththat in the last year Israel had nearly doubled its settlementconstruction in the West Bank, in violation of its obligations under aU.S.-backed peace plan, citing Peace Now's authoritative report.

Does Iran represent a "serious threat" to the United States of America, or even to Israel? It depends, certainly, on what you mean by "serious" and "threat." It is, of course, in the interests of McCain and the neocons to conflate two very different kinds of "threats": military threats and political challenges.

Iran, any honest and knowledgeable person would admit, does not represent, now or in the foreseeable future, a significant military threat to the United States or even to Israel. (If it did, Americans and Israelis should ask why we bother having such huge military budgets, and in the case of Israel, mandatory military service, if these things are so irrelevant.) Iran, as far as anyone outside knows, does not possess nuclear weapons, and is not in the process of acquiring any. The latter assertion in some sense cannot be proved: if Bush Administration officials are pushed, they will say that it doesn't matter if Iran is currently seeking to acquire nuclear weapons in the normal sense of actually acquiring them, because they are acquiring the capacity to enrich uranium, and the capacity to enrich uranium is very useful for building nuclear weapons. If you define "seeking nuclear weapons" this way - seeking to develop a capacity which would have the effect of making it easier for you to acquire nuclear weapons in the future, should you wish to do so - then indeed, Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. But according to this standard, Brazil and many other countries we are not threatening to attack are also "seeking nuclear weapons," and there is no provision in any international law, treaty or agreement which would justify unilateral U.S. or Israeli action against Iran on the basis of this "threat."

Even if Iran were to actually acquire a nuclear weapon - an extremely distant prospect made more likely by U.S. and Israeli threats - it's far from obvious that this would make the United States or Israel less secure in a military sense. It would still be true, for the foreseeable future after that distant and unlikely prospect, that the United States and Israel would have an absolutely overwhelming military advantage against Iran in any military confrontation, and it would also be true that everyone would know that for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against Israel would be an act of suicide. And every honest and knowledgeable person admits that Iranian leaders, like leaders elsewhere, are overwhelmingly pragmatic and rational in their actions. They may make misjudgments, they may undertake provocative acts when they see it as being in their interests to do so, but like most people everywhere, they do not want to die, and they do not want to lose power.

The primary utility, from the Iranian point of view, of having a nuclear weapon would be that the United States and Israel would have to formally abandon the fantasy of attacking Iran. That, from the point of view of the neocons, is the "threat." They don't want Iran to become another Russia, a country that you can't easily push around. (Of course, if the United States would respect international law and the UN Charter - as it demands of Russia - then the United States would have to concede this, even if the Iranians only had sticks and stones.)

And the reason they see this as a high priority is that they see Iran as a political threat. If you see yourself as bully of the schoolyard, the presence of other bullies who aren't part of your gang is a latent threat. The next seemingly defenseless person you want to bully might turn to another bully for protection. And that's a threat to your power.

But it's far from obvious why the majority of the American people should see Iran in this way. The neocons were furious that Hizbollah was able to frustrate their plans to dominate Lebanon, in part because Hizbollah has patrons in the form of Iran and Syria. But what is the interest of the majority of Americans in dominating Lebanon? Arguably, the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, even those who have no love for Hizbollah, are far better off because the neocon project failed. A new national accord was reached in Lebanon, with the participation of all major factions, including Hizbollah and the US-backed coalition, and the support of all the regional patrons, including the Gulf countries, Iran, and Syria. An imperfect agreement, no doubt, but a far, far better outcome from the point of view of the interests of the majority of Lebanese than civil war.

The neocons are also furious that Iran has helped frustrate their fantasy to turn Iraq into a U.S. client state. This fantasy would almost surely have failed eventually, given its fundamental contradiction with Iraqi nationalism, even if Iran didn't exist. But there's no question that Iran has helped accelerate the failure of the neocon project for Iraq. So it's understandable that the neocons are angry. But should we be angry? Is it in the interests of the majority of Americans to try to make Iraq into a U.S. client state? It's certainly not in the interests of the U.S. soldiers who would have to be stationed there permanently, or their families, or American taxpayers who would have to foot the bill.

When the United States leaves Iraq, Iraq will not be a U.S. client state. Neither it be an Iranian client state, for the simple reason that this would not be in the interests of the majority of Iraqis, even the majority of Iraqi Shiites. It's in the interests of the majority of Iraqis to have good relations with Iran, but it's also in the interests of the majority of Iraqis to have good relations with Turkey and Jordan and the Gulf countries, and that means they have to balance the need for good relations with Iran with the need for good relations with others. And despite the last 30 years of national disaster, and the many real and deep conflicts that still have to be worked out, they still have an Iraqi national identity, and a strong desire to be free and independent actors in the world. No outside power, or coalition of outside powers, has the resources or stomach over the long-term to frustrate the desire of the majority of Iraqis to live in an independent country.