Right Wing Nut House

My latest article is up at FrontPage.com and in it, I agree with John Kyl and other Republican senators that there simply isn’t enough time in the lame duck session of Congress to address the numerous questions that need clarifying before senators from both parties can make an informed judgment to advise and consent to the New START treaty.

A sample:

The problem isn’t so much with the treaty itself, but with the politics being played by Democrats and the Obama administration. The president wants to ram the treaty through the Senate before the new congress is seated in January, fearing the influx of 10 new GOP senators will make ratification more difficult. He is willing to do this while questions regarding the president’s commitment to modernizing our nuclear force, pursuing a robust missile defense program, and ensuring the Russians don’t renege are being raised even by the treaty’s GOP supporters.

On top of all this, the administration has made the strategic blunder of overselling the importance of the treaty, speaking in apocalyptic terms about the failure to ratify the document in the lame duck session. Vice President Biden, not known for his rhetorical restraint, said on Wednesday, “Failure to pass the New Start treaty this year would endanger our national security,” adding that failure to ratify the treaty would mean there would be, “no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal,” and that it might affect our relations with Russia on other, strategically vital matters such as imposing sanctions on Iran and the war in Afghanistan.

There are questions about the treaty’s verification standards, which the Obama administration has so far failed to address to the satisfaction of Kyl and other Republican senators. Some of the more robust verification procedures in the old START treaty have been scrapped while others have been altered. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, F.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy, there are major flaws in the treaty’s verification regime:

* A narrowing of the requirements for exchanging telemetry on missile tests,
* A reduction in the effectiveness of the inspections,
* Weaknesses in the ability to verify the number of deployed warheads on ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs),
* Abolition of the START verification regime governing mobile ICBMs, and
* A weakening of the verification standards governing the elimination of delivery vehicles.

The treaty is supported by our entire military establishment. Indeed, the main sections of the treaty are fine - as far as arms control treaties go. But the devil is in the details and clarifying verification issues, asking questions about our ability to continue a missile defense program, and the administration’s failure to adequately address force modernization means that there just isn’t sufficient time in the lame duck session to get it all done.

Obama’s unseemly haste in this regard has more to do with politics, his own miserable standing in the polls, and his desire to make history rather than satisfying even those GOP senators who would be inclined to vote for New START. I sincerely hope that all of these questions can be answered in the 112th Congress so that all senators can weigh the merits of the treaty in its totality, rather than submit to White House pressure to get this done quickly.

American liberals take note: This is what is meant by “speaking truth to power;”

Opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed Saturday in Myanmar after years in detention as a huge crowd presented flowers and chanted “Long Live Suu Kyi.”

Soldiers armed with rifles and tear gas launchers pushed aside the barbed-wire barriers blocking her street at 5:15 p.m., leading to a gleeful dash the final 100 yards to her gate. Twenty minutes later, the slight pro-democracy opposition figure known here simply as “the lady” popped her head over her red spiked fence to a roar from jubilant supporters.

“It’s very happy to see the people,” she said, barely audible over the chanting. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen you.”

Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for 15 of the last 21 years in a country under brutal military rule, promised to speak at greater length Sunday at the headquarters of her political party.

Standing in a room full of like minded media people and making nasty jokes about the president of the United States - while being protected by the First Amendment and the assurance you will not be arrested and thrown into jail - is not, repeat not “speaking truth to power.” Nor is making fun of Muslims in their hijab, or asking Mexicans to learn English, or opposing affirmative action in any way, shape, or form “oppression.”

This frail woman with a quavering, sing-song voice takes her life into her hands every time she opens her mouth. That, my friends on the left, is what it means by “speaking truth to power.” And the Burmese people who risk life and limb when they go into the streets to demonstrate for liberty know more about “oppression” than anyone who lives in any western democracy - minorities included.

Comparing your standard liberal loudmouth or put upon minority with Suu Kyi and the brave people of Myanmar is irrational, arrogant, and actually very silly. It cheapens the acts of enormous courage performed by Suu Kyi and her supporters to equate any supposed liberal acts of “bravery” in simply exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, or refer to being “oppressed” because many disagree with the agenda of the NAACP and other racialist organizations.

Meanwhile, Obama scolded the ruling military junta in Myanmar for “stealing” last week’s election. This, before any results have been announced or any real evidence of tampering has emerged. Then recall the aftermath of the Iranian election where the outcome was announced almost immediately after the polls closed and widespread fraud was evident. Our president’s response then was to caution against jumping to conclusions.

While there is little doubt the thugs who are running Myanmar are as guilty as the dirty necked galoots running Iran of stealing an election, it is curious our president treated the two elections so differently. Of course, at the time of the Iranian election, he was busy “reaching out” to the 13th century clerics ruling Iran, trying to convince them that the US was not a threat to their dreams of hegemony or their desire to build an atomic bomb. Perhaps if the Myanmar military was attempting to build the bomb, Obama would have given them a pass too.

It will be interesting to see how long Suu Kyi’s freedom will last, or whether the regime will allow her to live very long. She is the embodiment of hope for her people which makes her more dangerous to the junta than 10,000 rebels with arms.

My latest at FrontPage.com is a piece on the political fallout from the flooding in Pakistan.

A sample:

The first fortnight of the unfolding calamity saw a Pakistani government frozen by incompetence, lack of leadership, and bureaucratic inertia. In the first 10 days of the disaster, the government managed to deliver 10,000 food packs that fed 80,000 people out of the more than 2 million who were already destitute.

Zardari only stoked the rage Pakistanis were feeling against the government when he left the country at the beginning of August — just when the floods had gone from bad, to worse, to catastrophic — to pay a visit to David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy. A trip to Great Britain and France might ordinarily give a boost to the flagging popularity of a Pakistani president, but in this case, it had the opposite effect. Zardari arrived at Heathrow dressed in casual clothing, looking for all the world like a bored tourist. And then between conferences with officials, he helicoptered off to spend a little time at his fabulous chateau in Normandy owned by him and his late wife Benazir Bhutto.

It’s no secret that both the late Mrs. Bhutto and Zardari were spectacularly corrupt politicians. Mrs. Bhutto was sacked in a military coup by General Musharraf largely because of corruption while Zardari — known in Pakistan as “Mr. Ten Percent” — who has already served 8 years in jail on corruption charges, is still under a cloud even as president.

What all this added up to was a monumental political miscalculation on the part of Zardari that if it doesn’t directly threaten the stability of the government (most observers dismiss the idea of a military coup) it nevertheless opens the door to massively increased influence by two other concerned parties in Pakistani politics; the military, and the fundamentalist Islamist parties.

As I explain, the rising popularity of the military as a result of their response to the crisis will make it more difficult for the civilian government to rein in their influence on national security and foreign policy, while complicating our own relationship with the Pakistani armed forces. We need their cooperation to not only facilitate our efforts in Afghanistan, but their behind the scenes sharing of intelligence about the Taliban and al-Qaeda has led to many successful drone strikes on enemy targets inside Pakistan.

As for the Islamists, they have their own agenda - and it doesn’t include helping the government to change people’s minds about their pitiful response to the calamity. There is some question as to whether the extremist’s success in rehabbing their image will translate into votes for the fundamentalist parties - many observers believe incompetence and corruption by the government are more of an inducement for people to look at the religious parties than any good works done by terrorist outfits. But the political messages of both are similar, and the government ignores this at their peril.

You’ve heard of “Blame America First” when it comes to the man-made problems of the world. Such may not usually be true but it sure sounds good if you’re a liberal - makes you seem smart and informed.

Bill Quigley writing in Huffington Post has taken this concept to an entirely new level; he posits the notion that what is happening in Haiti as a result of the earthquake is actually America’s fault:

In 2004, the U.S. assisted in a coup against the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide. This continues a long tradition of the U.S. deciding who will rule the poorest country in the hemisphere. No government lasts in Haiti without U.S. approval.

In 2001, when the U.S. was mad at the President of Haiti, the U.S. successfully led an effort to freeze $148 million in already-approved loans and many hundreds of millions more of potential loans from the Inter-American Development Bank to Haiti. Funds which were dedicated to improve education, public health and roads.

For much of 2001-2004, the U.S. insisted that any international funds sent to Haiti had to go through non-governmental organizations. Funds that would have provided government services were re-routed thus shrinking the ability of the government to provide aid.

For years the U.S. has helped ruin small farmers in Haiti by dumping heavily subsidized U.S. rice on their market making it extremely difficult for small farmers to survive. This was done to help U.S. farmers. Haitian farmers? They don’t vote in the U.S.

Those who visit Haiti will confirm that the biggest SUVs in Port au Prince are plastered with decals of non-governmental organizations. The biggest offices are for private groups doing the basic work of government - healthcare, education, disaster response. And all are guarded not by police but by private heavily-militarized security.

The government was systematically starved of funds. The public sector shrank away. Poor people streamed to the cities.

Thus there are no rescue units. Little public healthcare is available.

So when disaster struck, the people of Haiti were on their own. We can see them pitching in. We can see them trying. They are courageous and generous and innovative, but volunteers cannot replace government. So people suffer and die in greater numbers than necessary.

Is all of this the fault of the US?

Let’s examine what Mr. Quigley won’t tell you about much of that most helpful information he supplied. Little wonder, since if he had, he would have been forced to acknowledge that the US (with the agreement of the international community) was doing its best to assist Haiti in overcoming extraordinary hurdles just to keep the country from falling completely into an abyss of corruption and chaos.

You might immediately note that Mr. Quigley had little to say about the “democratically elected” leader of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide. If you are trying to blame the US for what is happening in Haiti, it is best not to supply too much information about the “little priest” whose thugs used to roam the streets of Port au Prince placing burning tires around the necks of his political opponents.

Aristide’s first chance at power in 1991 started out well, with the full backing of the United States. But a parliamentary crisis led to Aristide believing he could rule by decree and he was summarily ousted by the military.

Bill Clinton righted the situation by forcing the military out and reinstating him, backing the Haitian president with American troops. But all of this was simply prologue to what happened in 2000. Aristide’s campaign of massive violence against the opposition caused a boycott of the elections and when his opponents protested, they were arrested or, more often, simply killed. Aristide himself was a accused of ordering assassinations. The police were helpless as Aristide’s gangs wandered the streets with impunity.

The elections was pronounced fraudulent by the OAS, no bastion of pro-American sentiment. Finally, in 2004, Aristide angered enough people that a bloody coup occurred. He maintains to this day that he as kidnapped by the US and ended up in South Africa. If so, we did the Haitian people a monumental favor.

So much for the “democratically elected leader” of Haiti.

What about all that foreign aid we’ve cut off or funneled to NGO’s? Mr. Quigley’s screed is a little short on details. Allow me to remedy that.

In 2006, Haiti was named the most corrupt nation on planet earth. Any foreign aid sent to Haiti had a better chance of sprouting wings and flying than ending up helping any Haitians. The elites in Haiti and family cronies make sure of that, enriching themselves by siphoning aid into ventures they control or own outright.

One thing not mentioned by Mr. Quigley; that corruption contributed to the vastness of the disaster because most of the buildings in Haiti are so poorly constructed due to short cuts taken by contractors who then pocket the difference:

The death toll in the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti Jan. 12 is expected to continue to rise in the coming days, likely in large part because of corruption and resulting shoddy construction practices in the poor Caribbean nation, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder seismologist.

[...]

Bilham said one of the chief causes of the high destruction and fatality rates in Haiti and other developing countries is due in large part to corruption in the construction industry. One of the problems is bribery, which often takes the form of corrupt awards of construction projects, corrupt issuance of permits and approval documents and corrupt inspection practices.

“It should be appalling to the people of the world that in 2009, more than 100 years after earthquake-resistant construction began to be understood and implemented by engineers, that it is possible to forecast large numbers of future earthquake fatalities from the collapse of cities,” said Bilham in his 2009 Mallet-Milne Lecture to earthquake engineers at The Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics meeting in London.

Quigley probably didn’t bring this up in the article because there’s no way to blame America for it.

Yes, but what about all that foreign aid we’ve cut off? What about allowing NGO’s to distribute the aid?

Bush critics complain that Aristide wasn’t given enough aid. By the end almost all assistance to Haiti was being funneled through nongovernmental groups, because no one trusted the government. The OAS and the European Union, especially the French, didn’t want to hand aid over to a corrupt regime. The United States withheld certain aid, but didn’t cut it off entirely ($71 million in bilateral aid last year), continuing a stream of assistance that has been generous by any standard.

Since 1994, the United States has spent $850 million on Haiti. If you count money spent on U.S. troops in the country and on repatriation of refugees, the figure is roughly $3 billion. “If that’s not a commitment to a country, I don’t know what is,” says a senior administration official.

Quigley conveniently uses the year 2004 to complain about aid cutoffs to Haiti. In fact, from 2004-06, the US sent $230 million in developmental aid to that nation. The 2008 regular foreign aid appropriation was $287 million which doesn’t include another $45 million in food aid.

The idea that the only reason we withheld aid in 2001-2004 was because we were “mad” at the Haitian president is laughably childish. People were being murdered in the streets, chaos and corruption reigned in government, and Quigley wanted to continue business as usual? It wasn’t just America, either. The international community made most of these determinations based on the realistic notion that any money sent to Haiti would be used to enrich the ruling elite and not end up helping the people. That’s the bottom line, Quigley’s ignorance - or deliberate obfuscation of the facts - notwithstanding.

And Quigley may be the only lefty in America who begrudge poor people saving a few cents per pound on rice. An unfortunate by product of this is the flight from rural areas of farmers who can’t compete. We’ve seen the same thing in Africa and Asia as globalization makes its uneven and problematic journey around the world. There may be cause for criticism for subsidizing rice growers in the US. But to make the preposterous leap of logic that more people died as a result of US policy is a monumental stretch that even a high school debater wouldn’t make. It sounds logical but there is no empirical evidence that remotely supports it.

Perhaps Mr. Quigley wrote his article as satire. Morel likely, he’s simply an ignorant twit who cherry picked information that he thought would make his case that America is to blame for the large numbers of dead as a result of this tragedy.

Trying to draw attention to yourself by using a catastrophe to make an invalid, and ultimately silly point that you know will play well with those already disposed to believe the worst about their own country may be the height of cynical self promotion. Congratulations are in order for Mr. Quigley. He lived down to all the lowered expectations we’ve come to expect from most writers at Huffington Post.

Something huge is going to have to be done in Haiti and done quickly or there will be a humanitarian catastrophe bigger than anything most of us can imagine.

Here’s the situation; 3 million people are without food, without water, without proper sewage, without shelter, and without a government that can facilitate aid that is now pouring into the stricken island nation.

What’s more, the prospects that much of this situation can be alleviated in the near future are close to zero. The earthquake has absolutely pulverized the country, paralyzed an already weak and ineffective government, and shortly, will shatter the civil compact that all societies must have if the law of the jungle is to be prevented from taking hold.

President Obama is responding magnificently - but it is not enough. How can it be when so much is needed by so many in such a short amount of time? As always, the US Navy is being called upon to deliver thousands of tons of supplies to the decimated population. But the port where they will be unloading those supplies is unusable:

What little infrastructure Haiti had before the earthquake was badly damaged, complicating relief efforts.

Supplies couldn’t come in by sea because Haiti’s main seaport was badly damaged during the quake, with the main dock partially submerged and cranes that move containers partially underwater and listing badly.

The port “has collapsed and is not operational,” said Mary Ann Kotlarich, a spokeswoman for Maersk Sea Lines, a big shipper.

The airport is, if possible, in even worst shape:

Things at the airport weren’t much better. Haitian air-traffic controllers couldn’t handle the volume of flights arriving in Port-au-Prince, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, leading to a suspension of U.S. originating aircraft for at least a few hours on Thursday. The airport has also run out of aircraft fuel, so inbound planes have to carry enough fuel to be able to leave without refueling.

Planes from Brazil, Spain and Belgium lined up outside the airport terminal. A handful of American military personnel sitting on the grass abutting the runway served as air-traffic control.

Adding to the chaos, thousands of victims camped out at the airport, which was also without electricity for long stretches of time. On Thursday night, planes were still circling the airport for hours, while dozens of airplanes were reported to be scattered around the damaged tarmac. U.S. officials are analyzing whether other permanent or temporary strips can be opened up to provide additional places to receive airborne assistance.

Thousands of American soldiers are being deployed to help distribute the aid and act as security for aid workers.

The rest of the world is doing what they can but, as usual, when Mother Nature goes on a bender, the world looks to America to do the heavy lifting, spend the money, supply the manpower, donate the food, water, and supplies, and eventually, take the lead in rebuilding. Meanwhile, the extraordinary generosity of the ordinary American is once again being put on display as even in the midst of a punishing recession, the nation’s churches and charity infrastructure are mobilizing a gigantic private relief effort that will dwarf the $100 million pledged by President Obama.

If I may be allowed a small political aside;much of the world may wish for an emasculated America - perhaps even some in our own government - but a world without America as she is now, with all her faults and maddening inconsistencies, would be a world where those Haitians wouldn’t have a chance. There would be hundreds of thousands of dead before much help could reach the island without the US Navy and American generosity leading the way. That’s the bottom line and maybe someday, the rest of the world will take note of this fact.

As it stands now, there is still the frightening possibility that all of the world’s labors in trying to assist Haiti will simply be inadequate due to the scale of the disaster and the conditions in Haiti itself. Since it is generally believed that buried survivors in an earthquake must be reached within 72 hours for them to have much of a chance of survival, it would seem that the heartbreaking efforts of people to try and dig their loved ones out of the rubble with their bare hands will be all the help most of those suspended in a hellish limbo between life and death can expect. Too many collapsed buildings and not enough help in the form of professional rescuers means the loss of life from the quake and its aftermath will probably be even more stunning than figures coming from the Red Cross now.

And the topper to this disaster may be that tens of thousands of Haitians will be desperate enough to climb on to rafts and leaky boats, seeking succor from the US:

In Miami’s Haitian community, leaders say they fear that the earthquake’s aftermath and political unrest could prompt people to flee Haiti on rafts and in boats.

“A large wave of people taking to the sea, I worry about it,” says Jean-Robert Lafortune, chairman of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. Political instability, even more than economic troubles, he says, is likely to lead to “a Haitian exodus.”

Officials say they aren’t gearing up to cope with a flotilla. “We’re not there yet,” says Philippe Derose, a councilman in North Miami Beach. But he and others complain that the Haitian government has failed to show leadership or organize even a morgue for the thousands feared dead.

It’s happened before. And the conditions that are forming in Haiti today probably means it will happen again.

It’s a helluva war when you can’t tell who your friends are.

That goes double for Pakistan. After creating the Taliban, they appear reluctant to annihilate them.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has resisted a direct appeal from President Obama for a rapid expansion of Pakistani military operations in tribal areas and has called on the United States to speed up military assistance to Pakistani forces and to intervene more forcefully with India, its traditional adversary.

In a written response to a letter from Obama late last month, Zardari said his government was determined to take action against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and allied insurgent groups attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan from the border area inside Pakistan. But, he said, Pakistan’s efforts would be based on its own timeline and operational needs.

The message was reinforced Monday by Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, who told Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, that the United States should not expect “a major operation in North Waziristan” in the coming months, according to a senior U.S. defense official. North Waziristan, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan border, is a sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban.

What do we get for tripling our aid to Pakistan?

In return, the United States wants Pakistan to “move on our mutual interests, which includes the Haqqani network and includes the Taliban in Pakistan,” Vice President Biden said Tuesday in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” His reference was to the North Waziristan-based faction led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Siraj, and the main Afghan Taliban organization, which are fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani counterinsurgency operations this year have primarily targeted separate but allied groups — the Pakistani Taliban based in South Waziristan and operating in the Swat Valley region — whose attacks are directed toward Pakistani government targets.

“We’re committed to this war, but we’ll fight it on our terms. . . . We will prioritize targets based on our interests. We don’t want them to be dictated to us,” a Pakistani intelligence official said. He added: “The Pakistani Taliban is the clear and present danger. They are what matters most. Once we are done with them, we will go after the Haqqani network.”

Considering the fact that for the last 7 years, they have failed to close off their own borders to Taliban incursions into Afghanistan - with enough evidence that they are if not facilitating such crossings, they are ignoring them - one might legitimately question their commitment.

And those questions include wondering whether Pakistan is being deliberately obtuse in their statements about the Afghan Taliban. After all, we are not going to be there forever. They know that now. The idea of the ISI keeping a connection to the Taliban so that they can shape a post US Afghanistan to their liking should not be ignored by the Obama administration. Bottom line: They don’t want to destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan. And they certainly don’t want to do us any favors.

And remonstrances are legitimate when it comes to the way the Pakistani government has dealt with the Taliban in Swat as well as South Waziristan in the past. From Mushrraffs Faustian bargain with them in 2006 to Zardari’s weasel deal with them earlier this year that allowed the Taliban a free hand in Swat, our urgings for the last 5 years to crack down on these thugs were met with contempt. The Pakistanis thought they could ride the tiger and not get mauled.

Recent events would seem to show them the error of their ways.

Yes, they have their hands full now in the FATA. But we have every right to question their commitment to assisting us. They will be glad to take our $7.5 billion and, when we’re not looking, spend it on killing Indians rather than terrorists. Their objection to that caveat for the military aid was so strong, the brass almost started a coup against the government.

But, we need them - desperately. There is only one major supply line to our troops in Afghanistan and it runs through Pakistan. The Iranians aren’t going to help us. And Russia has been helpful at times but not to the extent that we could rely on Putin to keep the chow line open.

If we want to stay in Afghanistan we need Pakistan’s full cooperation. That, unfortunately is the way of the world at the moment.

What can you say? How often does the United States stake out a clear, unequivocal position on a major foreign policy event and then, over the course of a few months, slowly walkback from their original position to come around and embrace exactly the opposite point of view?

This is the Obama administration in all its amateurish glory. When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was invited to leave back in June, the administration took the same side as the thugs and dictators of the world, calling it a “military coup” even though the Honduran Supreme Court had ruled the action legal and the Honduran parliament had passed a resolution supporting it.

The administration then imposed severe restrictions on visas for Honduras and other punishments in order to prove to the leftist thugs in Latin America like Chavez and Eva Morales that the US was on their side in the crisis. And notably, as late as September, the US was saying that they would not support or recognize the Honduran elections which took place yesterday.

Back then, according to this Bloomberg piece by Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, the United States stood against democracy in Honduras:

The U.S. won’t recognize a scheduled November election in Honduras without a resolution to the political crisis that began with a coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in June, a State Department aide said.The U.S. has told the “de facto regime that because of the environment on the ground, we will not recognize the election,” Philip J. Crowley, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said in Washington yesterday.

On Sept. 27, the de facto government led by interim President Roberto Micheletti banned protests and suspended other civil rights for 45 days and denied entry to an Organization of American States delegation seeking to negotiate an end to the three-month standoff in the Central American nation.

At an emergency meeting of the 35-member body of the OAS in Washington yesterday, both sides were criticized for their actions.

In case you were wondering, nothing has changed since this piece was written. Zelaya snuck back into the country and is hiding in the Brazilian embassy, but no “resolution” to the crisis by the “de facto” government has been realized.

Unless you want to say that free and fair elections in which 60% of the Honduran people went to the polls and voted to elect Porfirio Lobo, an opponent of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, by a landslide.

The BBC:

The poll was held five months after Mr Zelaya was forced out at gunpoint, with an interim government taking over.

Mr Lobo is seen as a unifying figure. He won 56% of the vote, with over 60% of registered voters taking part.

A clear winner and high turnout were what the interim government were hoping for to give the election legitimacy.

But regional powers Argentina and Brazil have said they will not recognise any government installed after the election, arguing that to do so would legitimise the coup which ousted an elected president, and thus set a dangerous precedent.

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva also said that Mr Zelaya will remain in its embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa - where he has been living since he secretly returned to the country in September - until the government gave assurances for his safety.

The US, meanwhile, said it would accept the election results.

Funny how the Obama administration didn’t announce their change in policy. They allowed South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to break the good news to the American people earlier this month. DeMint had just returned from a trip to Honduras and reported on the “de facto” government’s efforts to make the election inclusive, and fair.

From MercoPress:”

I am happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections” added Senator DeMint.

“Given this commitment, which Senator DeMint has requested for months, he will lift objections on the nominations of Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs and Thomas Shannon to be US Ambassador to Brazil”.

Several Latin American countries - including, disappointingly, Brazil - will not recognize the vote. But it appears that Honduras has survived the effort to delegitimize its government by the US and other leftist bullies in the region.

The real story, of course, is the unbelievably amateurish actions of the Obama administration in not supporting democracy in Honduras in the first place. Many said at the time that the almost off the cuff reaction by the White House to Zelaya’s ouster was mishandled from the start and based on incomplete information. This view was buttressed when, in August, the Law Library of the Library of Congress issued a report by the Congressional Research Service that declared the Honduran government’s actions legal and justified. Democrats were furious and tried to get the report withdrawn - and for good reason. It made the president and his advisors look like they didn’t know what they were doing.

So Honduras has a new president, elected by 56% of the voters, and Manuel Zelaya (whose term ends on January 27) will soon be a footnote in Honduran history. And as Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal points out, it was the Honduran people and government - with no help from the US - who stood defiantly against most of the world and proved that they have what it takes to make democracy work.

Unless something monumental happens in the Western Hemisphere in the next 31 days, the big regional story for 2009 will be how tiny Honduras managed to beat back the colonial aspirations of its most powerful neighbors and preserve its constitution.

Yesterday’s elections for president and Congress, held as scheduled and without incident, were the crowning achievement of that struggle.

National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo was the favorite to win in pre-election polls. Yet the name of the victor is almost beside the point. The completion of these elections is a national triumph in itself and a win for all people who yearn for liberty.

The fact that the U.S. has said it will recognize their legitimacy shows that this reality eventually made its way to the White House. If not Hugo Chávez’s Waterloo, Honduras’s stand at least marks a major setback for the Venezuelan strongman’s expansionist agenda.

The losers in this drama also include Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Spain, which all did their level best to block the election. Egged on by their zeal, militants inside Honduras took to exploding small bombs around the country in the weeks leading to the vote. They hoped that terror might damp turnout and delegitimize the process. They failed. Yesterday’s civic participation appeared to be at least as good as it was in the last presidential election. Some polling stations reportedly even ran short, for a time, of the indelible ink used to mark voter pinkies.

The American people will not be informed of this pitiful about face by our government. But the Honduran people don’t need our State Department’s blessing or condemnation to know what they have accomplished this day.

Steve Hynd over at Newshoggers has a post up that tackles the question of the nature of the Iranian nuclear program.

The post should be read in its entirety but Mr. Hynd has a 12-point rebuttal to those who believe the Iranian program is on a “parallel fuel cycle” whose ultimate goal is to develop at least the capability of constructing a nuclear weapon.

Let’s restate it: Iran has enough LEU to hypothetically further enrich into HEU and build a bomb…but:

1) As soon as they begin doing so, the IAEA’s inspection regimen will notice and raise the red flag.

2) Iran couldn’t finish enriching that HEU for a bomb until 2013 at the earliest…even if it started tomorrow.

3) There’s no indication Iran has a working design for a weapon to put that hypothetical HEU in.

4) There’s no indication that the Iranians have the know-how to make that hypothetical bomb small enough to fit on a missile.

5) There’s no indication the Iranians have a missile good enough to throw that hypothetical small-enough bomb even as far as Israel.

6) It would still be only one bomb. Israel has hundreds and the Iranian leadership are not suicidal.

7) DNI Blair has stated that Iran has shown no sign it wishes to do all this in any case and is probably looking for a “virtual capacity” to build a bomb as a deterrent factor against external aggressors rather than looking to own nukes in truth.

The next head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, has said that he sees no sign in IAEA official documents that Iran is trying to develop a bomb.

10) Mohammed El Baradei, the current IAEA head, has said:

Nobody is sitting in Iran today developing nuclear weapons. Tehran doesn’t have an ongoing nuclear weapons program. But somehow, everyone in the West is talking about how Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world. In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped.

11) All the documentation the U.S. has provided to the IAEA showing previous Iranian weaponization attempts is dodgy. Today, El Baradei said of that documentation:

If this information is real, there is a high probability that nuclear weaponization activities have taken place,’ he said. ‘But I should underline ‘if’ three times.’

12) The conclusion from this is that any Iranian pre-2003 experiments were all lab-scale or purely theoretical and designed to forward a strategy of possessing a “virtual deterrent” such as Japan’s - the ability to build a bomb within a fairly short time frame if and only if they are attacked first. In that case, I’m simply not worried - let Iran keep its secrets.

I responded in the comments:

You have made the case against an Iranian bomb program as well as it can be made.

However, your critique - as well as any analysis that seeks to prove the opposite - is based on reading intent. Our national technical means are not capable of doing so, hence the fog surrounding the issue.

You may not have seen the NY Times piece this morning on the tremendous internal row going on at the IAEA over Iranian intent and the evidence that they are, at the least, trying to secure the capability to construct a bomb within 6 months of withdrawing from the NPT and kicking inspectors out of the country:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04nuke.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Some excellent background on the internal politics of this via the wonks:

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2484/safeguards-v-expo

Apparently, some in the IAEA who belong to the faction who thinks Iran is wanting to build a bomb have been pressing for the release of this unfinished report because it buttresses the case that the facility at Qom is the tip of the iceberg of secret sites that give the Iranians a “parallel fuel cycle” capability:

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2483/parallel-fuel-cycles-revisited

I am no expert but when arms control and non-proliferation types are worried, I think we should at least pay attention to what they’re saying.

Specifically,as to your points above, a couple of observations:

1. Correct. As long as the LEU comes from Natanz. Your entire critique, in fact, is based on the logical notion that all major nuclear work is under inspection. I hope you’re right. But the existence of the Qom facility has set off a new search for all sorts of labs and plants (as well as additional sources of processed ore). That link above to the chance of a parallel fuel cycle posits the idea that the logic of a secret enrichment facility dictates that other secret facilities exist.

2. Heh - talk about iffy. Continuing the fuel cycle to achieve 85-90% enrichment would take a lot less than 4 years - more like 18 months if the current expansion of centrifuge capacity at Natanz continues. Of course, this presupposes the IAEA being kicked out and withdrawal by Iran from the NPT.

3. How much should be assumed of the Iranian program? We wouldn’t have a clue (unless we penetrated the Iranian program) whether they are modeling bomb designs or not. Should we assume they are? Should we assume that the close relationship they had with AQ Khan means they have a Pakistani design signed, sealed, and delivered?

4. Jackpot. They are years away from marrying any weapon with the Shahab II or III.

5. Yeah, but they are improving with every test.

6. This is true assuming there are indeed “rational actors” in Iran. All depends on this, actually - Israel’s calculations as well as the west’s. If true, then containment and deterrence can work. If not? If Israel comes to the alternate conclusion, they will bomb.In a nation the size of New Jersey, one or two nukes could literally destroy them. Yes Iran would also be destroyed - but if religious fanaticism enters into policy, all bets are off.

7. Japan has all but admitted a similar “virtual capacity” as you point out later. Question: Does that make Iran any less dangerous if true?

8-11: Read the wonks post above about the internal politics at the IAEA. ElBaradei has blown hot and cold about Iranian nukes for years - as he did with Saddam’s “WMD.” The consummate bureaucrat, he has had to deal with these factions for years. If I wanted to spend the time googling, I’m sure I could come up with a statement that contradicts the one you have above.

12.This is simply unknowable. Logic points to your conclusion being at least partly correct, but logic, while useful, cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the Iranian leadership. I doubt we will ever see Iran conducting a nuclear test a la North Korea. But the real possibility of a parallel fuel cycle that we don’t know about with the secret infrastructure to make a bomb happen (and a fanaticism that might make logic of any kind moot) dictates that we must assume the worst and act accordingly.

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I would add for those unfamiliar with my stand on military action, that I oppose bombing for the simple reason that it would involve consequences that not justify any temporary benefit that would accrue from slowing down the Iranian drive to go nuclear. In short, the probability that we would have to go back and bomb them again in a matter of months because we weren’t aware of important targets is very high - which is the same conclusion reached by our own military.

Iran has graciously consented to obey international law and allow inspectors into their recently revealed nuclear enrichment facility while also agreeing to allow Russia to complete the processing of a large part of their nuclear fuel.

This is an “I told you so” moment for the left…or is it? The Daily Beast:

Who knew this whole “diplomacy” idea might actually accomplish something? Mounting pressure on Iran over its nuclear program appears to be paying dividends as the U.S. engages in multilateral and direct negotiations with Iranian officials in Geneva this week. Already Iran has agreed to let U.N. inspectors into its recently revealed uranium enrichment plant and to send most of its uranium to Russia for enrichment, which would help reassure foreign powers that it is not on the path to produce nuclear weapons. The tentative arrangement could be enough to hold off a new round of sanctions on Iran, whose economy is suffering and whose government is still containing fallout from its dispute presidential election. Of course, the deal only works if Iran follows through on its word and some observers aren’t holding their breath. “This is only a start, and we shall need to see progress through some of the practical steps we have discussed today,” European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told The Washington Post.

This “whole diplomacy thing” has accomplished nothing. Nada. Zipedee Doo Da. Iran had already assured the IAEA that they would allow access to the new site. And as for completing the processing of their LEU in Russia - that too, is not much of a concession. That would be the enriched uranium from the facility at Natanz - a place that the IAEA has been watching very closely so that Iran could never turn that enriched uranium from the 5% level to the bomb grade 90% level.

The fact is, that stockpile was never a problem It was too closely watched for Iran to carry out any funny business. The real problem is that we don’t know what other facilities Iran has built, nor do we know what other steps they have taken to build a bomb that we would never be able to determine. The fact that they were hiding an enrichment facility that was much too small to enrich uranium for commercial purposes, and could easily been used for military purposes, is the real problem with the Iranian nuclear program; it’s what we don’t know and what the Iranians refuse to tell us that makes this situation so dangerous.

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk - an arms control advocate - lays out the logic of this argument:

For some time, a few of us - including Josh Pollack and Andreas Persbo - have been arguing (with little success) that the public debate is misguided in its singular focus on breakout scenarios at Natanz. Is Iran 18 months away? How much LEU does it have? These were interesting questions but, to my mind, distractions. Natanz is the most watched site in the world. If the Iranians build a bomb, they will do it someplace else. Like Qom.

Josh Pollack did a wonderful job of tackling these issues in his post, Why Iran’s Clock Keeps Resetting (August 19, 2009) and over at TotalWonkerr, where he noted “One of the shortcomings of breakout lit so far may be its emphasis on on a single site. A hidden site is also a possibility…”

The real risk was always that Iran would construct a covert site other than Natanz. As long as Iran remains under the current safeguards arrangements, I wrote to a colleague this summer, we have “no confidence that Iran is not simply trucking centrifuge components to another location, buried deep under some mountain.”

For example, we would never know (without human intelligence that would have penetrated their nuke program) whether or not the mullahs have been working on a design for a bomb. Computer modeling for such a design is impossible to detect. Nor do we know what progress the Iranians have made in warhead design so that a nuke could be married to one of their improving rockets - the Shahab II and III.

To spout nonsense about diplomacy “working” at this point is truly ignorant. Not even Obama has said anything except that this is a “constructive beginning.” And WaPo’s Glenn Kessler points out that this sudden “cooperation” by the mullahs is not unexpected:

The outcome, which President Obama in Washington called a “constructive beginning,” came after 7 1/2 hours of talks in an 18th-century villa on the outskirts of Geneva that included the highest-level bilateral meeting between the two countries since relations were severed three decades ago after the Iranian revolution. But the difficulties that lie ahead were illustrated when the chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, held a triumphant news conference at which he denounced “media terrorism,” insisted that Iran has always fully met its international commitments, and refused even to acknowledge a question from an Israeli reporter.

The sudden show of cooperation by Tehran reduces for now the threat of additional sanctions, which has been made repeatedly by the United States and others over the past week after the revelation of a secret Iranian nuclear facility. The United States will need to keep the pressure on Iran to avoid being dragged into a process without end.

Anyone who followed the EU3 talks that were carried out during the Bush Administration knows full well that the Iranians are experts at dragging negotiating partners “into a process without end.”

Meanwhile, no one can say if at some still undiscovered location in Iran - and indeed the evidence points to this being more than a possibility - centrifuges aren’t whirring away creating HEU that could be used to construct a nuclear weapon. That’s the bottom line and any celebratory nonsense about diplomacy “working” is simple, partisan blather.

Not even our own State Department is calling what occurred in Honduras over the weekend a “coup.” What’s more, Hillary Clinton’s refusal to brand the military’s legal ouster of President Zeyala a coup puts her seemingly at odds with the Obama White House.

Once again, our Keystone Kops foreign policy makes us look ridiculous when the president brands the action “illegal” while the State Department rejects that term “coup.”

Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post:

President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a “terrible precedent,” but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States government was holding off on formally branding it a coup, which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country.

Clinton’s statement appeared to reflect the U.S. government’s caution amid fast-moving events in Honduras, where Zelaya was detained and expelled by the military on Sunday. The United States has joined other countries throughout the hemisphere in condemning the coup. But leaders face a difficult task in trying to restore Zelaya to office in a nation where the National Congress, military and Supreme Court have accused him of attempting a power grab through a special referendum.

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the situation presented a dilemma for the United States and other countries. Zelaya is “fighting with all the institutions in the country,” Hakim said. “He’s in no condition really to govern. At the same time, to stand by and allow him to be pushed out by the military reverses a course of 20 years.”

As facts begin to emerge about what Zeyala was up to, it becomes crystal clear why the military, the Congress, and the Supreme Court all felt the necessity to act. Fausta Wertz has been doing a fantastic job of translating Latin American press accounts and brings us information on the reasons for the military action:

Here is more information on Mel Zelaya’s move:

• Zelaya couldn’t get the ballots printed in Honduras since the referendum had been pronounced illegal by the country’s Supreme Court AND the electoral board. Therefore, the government couldn’t print them. No private printer was willing to break the law, either. So Zelaya had the ballots printed in Venezuela and flown in.
• The Supreme Court instructed the military (who would be the ones doing the job) NOT to distribute the ballots to the polling stations.
• Zelaya then
  

  led thousands of supporters to recover the material from an air force warehouse before it could be confiscated.

  His supporters broke into the military installation where the ballots were kept.

• Zelaya’s supporters started distributing the ballots at 15,000 voting stations across the country. This act placed him in outright defiance of the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.
• When the armed forces refused to distribute the ballots, Zelaya fired the chief of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, and the defense minister, the head of the army and the air force resigned in protest. The country’s Supreme Court voted unanimously that Vásquez be reinstated.
• Tuesday last week the Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, passed a law preventing the holding of referendums or plebiscites 180 days before or after general elections.
• The Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, named a commission to investigate Zelaya. The Commission found (my translation: If you quote it, please credit me and link to this post)
  

  Zelaya acted against the mandates of legal and electoral laws, the Public Ministry, the National Congress, the Attorney General, and other institutions of the State, which had declared the poll illegal

• On Thursday (h/t GoV) the Attorney General requested that Congress impeach Zelaya
• The position of the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court, and the attorney general is that the Constitution is to be strictly adhered to.

This is the story not being told by the White House, the State Department, most of the mainstream press, and liberal blogs who have their panties in a twist and are close to apoplexy because Obama isn’t sending in the Marines to restore the Chavez stooge to power.

Roberto Lovato at the Huffington Post manages to write almost 1,000 words without once referring to any of the illegal, extra-constitutional actions taken by Zelaya and instead, refers to “street demonstrations” that Fausta reports is being led by Nicarauguan and Venezuelan bully boys. And in a burst of surrealism worthy of Salvadore Dali, Lovato compares these staged street demonstration by foreign thugs with the demonstrators in Iran:

Viewed from a distance, the streets of Honduras look, smell and sound like those of Iran: expressions of popular anger - burning vehicles, large marches and calls for justice in a non-English language - aimed at a constitutional violation of the people’s will (the coup took place on the eve of a poll of voters asking if the President’s term should be extended); protests repressed by a small, but powerful elite backed by military force; those holding power trying to cut off communications in and out of the country.

These and other similarities between the political situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras, where military and economic and political elites ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup condemned around the world, are obvious.

But when viewed from the closer physical (Miami is just 800 miles from Honduras) and historical proximity of the United States, the differences between Iran and Honduras are marked and clear in important ways: the M-16’s pointing at this very moment at the thousands of peaceful protesters are paid for with U.S. tax dollars and still carry a “Made in America” label; the military airplane in which they kidnapped and exiled President Zelaya was purchased with the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid the Honduran government has been the benefactor of since the Cold War military build-up that began in 1980’s;

That’s quite an original spin. Zeyala “kidnapped?” Late word is that he resigned and asked for safe passage out of the country. This was granted and he was flown to Costa Rica. Don’t even bother with the laughable comparison with Iran. Those demonstrators in Honduras are not being shot down in cold blood, axed to death, or even beaten within an inch of their lives.

And the dark hints that the US is to blame because we supplied M-16’s to a friendly government is beyond ludicrous. It’s loony. Perhaps if Lovato made even a small attempt to explain Zeyala’s illegal actions, he might have a smidgen of credibility. But in true leftist fashion, he leaves out the facts to spin his anti-American diatribe.

Once more, with feeling: Zeyala was removed by the military who were acting under the orders of the Supreme Court. Zeyala’s own party in Congress has now helped impeach him. Zeyala’s extra-constitutional actions threatened Honduran independence and the rule of law.

What’s so hard to understand about that? What’s “illegal” about it? A leftist stooge of Chavez has been removed. This is an event that should be cheered by an American president. Instead, Obama subsumes American interests to curry favor with leftists in Latin America and Europe.

It won’t work. They despise us anyway, no matter what Obama does. The more he apologizes and sides with them in international disputes, the more they hold him and the US in contempt.

If Obama is seeking to make the world like us, the only way that will happen is if we completely disarm, withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere), and agree to abide by whatever the UN says we should do in any international crisis.

As Dirty Harry said; ‘That’s a high price to pay for being stylish.”