Below The Beltway

I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in, the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in, and the personal freedom that America used to believe in.

May 28, 2010

Rand Paul Is Wrong About Immigration

by Doug Mataconis @ 10:30 am. Filed under 2010 Elections, Elections, Immigration, Individual Liberty, Political Parties, Politicos & Pundits, Politics, Rand Paul, Republicans

I’m usually pretty supportive of Rand Paul, but there are some issues where he’s wrong, and immigration is one of them:

Paul recently suggested to a Russian TV station that the U.S. should abandon its policy of granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — even if they’re born on U.S. soil.

Paul also said he’s discussed instituting an “underground electrical fence” on the border to keep out unwanted elements, though he emphasized that he’s “not opposed to letting people come in and work and labor in our country.”

The real problem, Paul said, is that the U.S. “shouldn’t provide an easy route to citizenship” because of “demographics.”

According to Paul, the proportion of Mexican immigrants that register as Democrats is 3-to-1, so of course “the Democrat Party is for easy citizenship.”

He added: “We’re the only country that I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.”

Video (immigration discussion begins around 8:30 in):

There’s just one problem with Paul’s position, and it starts with Section One of the 14th Amendment:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside

Then, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court stated:

[T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.

(…)

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.

Moreover, there’s this from one of the framer’s of the 14th Amendment:

The author of the 14th Amendment, Senator Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan proposed the addition of the jurisdiction phrase and stated that it tracked what he believed was already the law of the land. As such, he stated, “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the family of ambassadors, or foreign ministers accredited to the the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

In other words, the children born in the United States are citizens regardless of the citizenship status of their parents and Rand Paul is wrong about this one.

May 21, 2010

Dalai Lama Proves, Once Again, That Religious Figures Have No Understanding Of Economics

by Doug Mataconis @ 9:53 am. Filed under Dumbasses, Economics, Foreign Affairs, In The News, Individual Liberty, Religion, Tibet

The logical contradictions in this statement from the spiritual leader of Tibet are almost too numerous too mention:

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he’s a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him.

“Still I am a Marxist,” the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures.

“(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits,” the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

However, he credited China’s embrace of market economics for breaking communism’s grip over the world’s most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to “represent all sorts of classes”.

“(Capitalism) brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people’s living standards improved,” he said.

So he’s a Marxist, but he credits capitalism with bringing freedom to a country founded on the doctrines of Karl Marx.

Think about that for a second and then explain to me why anyone should bother to take this man who pretends he was reincarnated seriously again.

And, just so we’re clear, it’s not just Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders who are totally screwed up when it comes to economics, last year Pope Benedict effectively endorsed global socialism.

Here’s an idea, you religious leaders concentrate on your theology, let the rest of us worry about the other stuff.

Arizona Immigration Law Author’s Next Plan: An Unconstitutional Effort To Ban “Anchor Babies”

by Doug Mataconis @ 7:48 am. Filed under Immigration, Individual Liberty, Politics

According to this report from a local Phoenix television station, the architect of Arizona’s immigration law has a new target in mind, and it’s one that would involve a clear effort to disregard the Constitution:

PHOENIX — E-mails to and from Ariz.state Sen. Russell Pearce reveal the immigration enforcement debate may not stop with SB 1070, the controversial immigration law.

Pearce, R-Mesa, the author of Arizona’s immigration law, has been writing to some of his constituents about what he plans to accomplish next.

In e-mails obtained by CBS 5, Pearce said he intends to push for a bill that would enable Arizona to no longer grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil.

Pearce writes in one e-mail: “I also intend to push for an Arizona bill that would refuse to accept or issue a birth certificate that recognizes citizenship to those born to illegal aliens, unless one parent is a citizen.”

(…)

In response, Pearce sent two e-mails to CBS 5 that contain some of the reasoning he used to conclude that children of illegal immigrants should not be granted citizenship. He also said he’s disappointed when people think he’s mean spirited because he stands for America.

Pearce said his new idea is not only legal but constitutional. “It’s common sense,” Pearce said. “Again – you can’t break into someone’s country and then expect to be rewarded for that. You can’t do it.”

When Pearce was shown the e-mail referring to “anchor babies” that he forwarded, he said he didn’t find anything wrong with the language. “It’s somebody’s opinion…What they’re trying to say is it’s wrong. And I agree with them. It’s wrong,” said Pearce.

Here’s video of the report:

There’s just one problem with this proposal, and it starts with Section One of the 14th Amendment:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court stated:

[T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.

(…)

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.

Moreover, there’s this from one of the framer’s of the 14th Amendment:

The author of the 14th Amendment, Senator Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan proposed the addition of the jurisdiction phrase and stated that it tracked what he believed was already the law of the land. As such, he stated, “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the family of ambassadors, or foreign ministers accredited to the the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

In other words, the children born in the United States are citizens regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.

This would be one time that Arizona would clearly and emphatically be in the wrong.

May 1, 2010

May 1st — Victims Of Communism Day

by Doug Mataconis @ 2:57 pm. Filed under History

Back in 2007, the Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin proposed that May 1st, traditionally a day that Socialist parties around the world have marked as a day celebration, be remembered instead in honor of the victims of history’s bloodiest ideology:

Today is May 1, AKA May Day. May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day. I am, of course, open to suggestions for the official name of this day of commemoration. Maybe someone will come up with a better one than I have.

And there’s quite a body count:

# 65 million in the People’s Republic of China
# 20 million in the Soviet Union
# 2 million in Cambodia
# 2 million in North Korea
# 1.7 million in Africa
# 1.5 million in Afghanistan
# 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
# 1 million in Vietnam
# 150,000 in Latin America

At least ninety-five million people either killed or deliberately starved to death by Communism.

Here’s a video from Reason on the subject:\

April 29, 2010

Republican Congressman: Deport American Citizens !

by Doug Mataconis @ 9:17 am. Filed under Congress, Immigration, In The News, Individual Liberty, Political Parties, Politics, Republicans, U.S. Constitution

California Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr. wants to deport American citizens:

Not all American citizens, mind you. Just the natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal immigrants.

At a tea party rally in Ramona in San Diego County over the weekend, Hunter fielded a question about the issue.

“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.

“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.

He continued:

You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.”We just can’t afford it anymore,” Hunter said. “That’s it. And we’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.”

“We just can’t afford it anymore,” Hunter said. “That’s it. And we’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.”

Hunter’s office did not immediately return TPM’s phone call seeking comment.

Hunter also said he thinks Arizona’s controversial new immigration law “is a fantastic starting point.”

Of course he did.

Video:

There’s just one problem with Hunter’s proposal, and it starts with Section One of the 14th Amendment:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court stated:

[T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.

(…)

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.

Moreover, there’s this from one of the framer’s of the 14th Amendment:

The author of the 14th Amendment, Senator Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan proposed the addition of the jurisdiction phrase and stated that it tracked what he believed was already the law of the land. As such, he stated, “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the family of ambassadors, or foreign ministers accredited to the the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

In other words, the children of illegal immigrants are clearly citizens under the 14th Amendment.

You really want to deport American citizens, Congressman ?

April 18, 2010

SecDef Memo Warns Obama: We Have No Strategy For Dealing With A Nuclear Iran

by Doug Mataconis @ 9:33 am. Filed under Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Politicos & Pundits, Politics

The New York Times is out this morning with a story that is sure to get Washington talking. Essentially, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned Obama in a no-longer-secret January memo that the United States has no strategy for dealing with Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail:

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

(…)

Pressed on the administration’s ambiguous phrases until now about how close the United States was willing to allow Iran’s program to proceed, a senior administration official described last week in somewhat clearer terms that there was a line Iran would not be permitted to cross.

The official said that the United States would ensure that Iran would not “acquire a nuclear capability,” a step Tehran could get to well before it developed a sophisticated weapon. “That includes the ability to have a breakout,” he said, using the term nuclear specialists apply to a country that suddenly renounces the nonproliferation treaty and uses its technology to build a small arsenal.

(…)

Mr. Gates’s memo appears to reflect concerns in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the military that the White House did not have a well-prepared series of alternatives in place in case all the diplomatic steps finally failed.

Well, that’s comforting to know, especially considering the fact that there’s never been any indication that diplomacy is going to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and sanctions aren’t going to have an impact unless all the major world powers are behind them. As the Times story indicates, though, Obama’s charm offensive hasn’t done anything to sway reluctant world opinion:

Administration officials had hoped that the revelation by Mr. Obama in September that Iran was building a new uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near Qum would galvanize other nations against Iran, but the reaction was muted. The next three months were spent in what proved to be fruitless diplomatic talks with Iran over a plan to swap much of its low-enriched uranium for fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran. By the time Mr. Gates wrote his memo, those negotiations had collapsed.

As Allahpundit, notes, though, this isn’t all Barack Obama’s fault:

Bush knew what it would mean to hand this issue off to a Democratic president and he went ahead and did it anyway. Invading Iraq necessarily left him with fewer military options against other threats; now the bill is coming due.

Translation — by bogging the United States down in a pointless war in Iraq, George Bush left us with few military options to deal with a nuclear, or near-nuclear, Iran.

So what does this all mean ?

Basically, it means that Iran is going to become a nuclear power whether we want them to or not. They may not take the formal step of assembling and testing a nuclear weapon right away, but they will soon be at the point where they will have all the components necessary to do so, and it wouldn’t take long for them to take those final steps.

Justin Gardner is among those who don’t seem to think this is such a bad thing:

[M]y question to all of you who think Iran will use their nuclear program to try and destroy Israel…do you really think they would risk the lives of everybody in their country?

Because, if they decide to bomb Israel, I think we all realize that Iran, as a nation, will not exist anymore. Every nuclear nation will bomb them back to the stone age…and then some.

Except, of course, there are a myriad number of ways that a nuclear Iran could be a problem without ever having to actually use it’s weapons. Just as a nuclear Pakistan and India transformed the conflict between those nations into something far more serious than it had been before (not to mention the legitimate concerns about the stability of the Pakistani government and the ties between elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Taliban and al Qaeda), and that’s exactly what a nuclear Iran could mean for the Middle East.

Israel and Iran would stare at each other across the miles, missiles and bombers at the ready, but it’s the nations in between, and most especially Iran’s immediate neighbors, that would feel the most impact of a nuclear Iran. Quite possibly, we’d see signs from nations like Saudi Arabia that they want to pursue their own nuclear program. And, the idea of a Middle East where everybody has nukes isn’t one the world should look forward to.

But there is another danger that a nuclear Iran poses, and it can be found in the history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. It was the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who, with the possible cooperation of others in the Pakistani military, transferred nuclear weapons technology to nations ranging from Iran to North Korea to Libya in exchange for missile technology and material that Pakistan needed to continue it’s nuclear weapons development. Going further back, it’s fairly clear that China provided Pakistan with technology and information necessary to the development of nuclear weapons.

Who might Iran share nuclear technology with ?

Well, we’re going to find out, because it’s long past time where we can do anything about it militarily, and the Obama Administration has proven itself incapable of mustering the necessary diplomatic cooperation to do the things that could choke the Iranian economy to the point where it would have no choice but to cooperate.

April 6, 2010

Obama’s New Nuclear Policy: Undercutting The Value Of Nuclear Deterence

by Doug Mataconis @ 9:59 am. Filed under Barack Obama, China, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Politicos & Pundits, Politics, Russia

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Last night it broke that the President would be announcing what is clearly a major change to American nuclear strategy:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

And, the specifics:

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the Cold War. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons, or launched a crippling cyberattack…

White House officials said that the new strategy will leave open the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reaches a level that makes United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting America’s most potent deterrent, and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that America would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

And boy has it brought the conservatives out of the woodwork alright. Just take a trip over to JammieWearingFool, Riehl World View, Power Line, or Fausta’s Blog to get a taste of what I mean.

Before getting to the substance of the new policy, my most immediate problem with this is quite simple —- why would we announce to the world when we would and won’t use nuclear weapons if we’re threatened or attacked ? Wouldn’t it be better to keep them guessing, keep them thinking that if they attack the American homeland with chemical, biological, or radiological weapons, or a cyberattack, they they could face the risk of a massive American response, including the possible use of nukes ? That’s what deterrence is supposed to be about isn’t it ?

As for the substance, I see problems with the idea that we would allow a WMD attack (and biological weapons are WMDs) on U.S. soil without leaving open the possibility of a response in kind. That doesn’t mean we would have to use nuclear weapons in such a case. After all, there might be a smaller scale method of retaliation that would have the same impact. However, telegraphing in advance that we might not respond to, say, a small pox attack in Denver, with massive nuclear retaliation on the country that sent it our way strikes me as a mistake simply because of the message it sends to a potential attacker.

But, does this policy really matter when it comes to what would actually happen if we ever got into a situation where using nuclear weapons would be considered necessary ?

Probably not.

I think Allahpundit makes an excellent point here:

The idea here, of course, is deterrence — comply with the NPT and you have nothing to fear — but (a) no one, least of all Iran, thinks Barack Obama’s going to use nuclear weapons against targets inside a non-nuclear state whether it’s following the NPT or not, and (b) everyone, including Iran, understands that a devastating attack on the U.S. by whatever means will create such unbearable pressure on the president to retaliate that these rules will be revisited instantly. It’s the nuclear equivalent of his interrogation protocol, essentially. America does not and will not torture captured terrorists as a matter of national policy — but if the CIA really, truly believed that a bomb was about to go off somewhere, don’t be surprised to see that policy politely ignored, to great public acclaim for Obama afterwards for having done what he needed to do to try to get the information.

Or, as Power Line puts it:

Does anyone doubt that the administration would use nukes in a heartbeat if it considered such measures necessary? I don’t. The problem is that when the time comes to actually use nuclear weapons, it is too late. The danger here is not that the Obama administration has really gone pacifist. On the contrary, the significance of today’s announcement appears to be entirely symbolic–just one more chance to preen. The problem is that our enemies understand symbolism and maybe take it too seriously. To them, today’s announcement is another sign that our government has gone soft, and one more inducement to undertake aggressive action against the United States.

In other words, if an attack happens a President will respond with nuclear weapons if they believe it’s necessary regardless of what’s in this policy paper.

It’s the “if an attack happens” part that is the problem.

My concern with this new policy is that it seems to scale back the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan of all people knew that the only way nukes “worked” is the extent to which they prevented war. If you ever get in a situation where using them is necessary, you’ve already lost, and if we ever get to the point where there has been a terrorist attack on the United States massive enough for the President to be considering nuclear retaliation, we’ve already lost. The point is to deter the attacks from happening in the first place. And the danger I see is that this policy dilutes the deterrent value of America’s nuclear arsenal.

But Obama’s policy isn’t aimed at that issue, it’s aimed at fighting the last war:

The problem is that the President is fighting the last war, not the current one. The nuclear arms race was a desperate problem of the 70s and 80s – but the nuclear problems we face today come from rogue states like Iran and North Korea and from terrorist organizations attaining a small nuclear device. The President is wasting time putting diplomatic pressure on Russia and China over a Cold War issue when he should be more worried about putting pressure on Tehran and Pyongyang.

Let’s face it, the Russians aren’t going to attack us and neither are the Chinese. The people we need to worry about are the Iranians, the North Koreans, and any other nation or terrorist group for whom the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction hasn’t quite sunk in just yet. By telegraphing in advance our plans, we’ve lost a strategic advantage, and we’ve sent a message that the world is going to interpret in ways that the President probably doesn’t want them to.

I will leave the last word, for now, to Roger L. Simon:

I detest nuclear weapons as much as the next person, but this approach seems — I hate to repeat myself, but I will — deranged. It also has very little to do with actually reducing nuclear weapons in the world. Again, it seems like the act of an extreme narcissist, someone who wants to parade himself as anti-nuke while ignoring the checks and balances that have, in fact, kept nuclear weapons in their silos for decades.

Deterrence has worked. And now Obama wants to abandon or diminish it at the very moment Russia is modernizing their arsenal. What a strange person. President Weirdo, indeed. As I said in my previous post, “good luck to us.”

Good luck indeed.

March 31, 2010

Another Confusing Report About Iran’s Nuclear Capability

by Doug Mataconis @ 11:42 am. Filed under Barack Obama, China, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Politicos & Pundits, Politics

Today, the CIA is out with a fresh report saying that Iran is capable of producing nuclear weapons:

Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.

“Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so,” the annual report to Congress states.

A U.S. official involved in countering weapons proliferation said the Iranians are “keeping the door open to the possibility of building a nuclear weapon.”

“That’s in spite of strong international pressure not to do so, and some difficulties they themselves seem to be having with their nuclear program,” the official said. “There are powerful incentives for them to close the door completely, but they are either purposefully ignoring them or are tone deaf. You almost want to shout, ‘Tune in Tehran.’”

We’ve seen this before, of course. The United States’ National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 stated that Iran had halted it’s nuclear weapons program in 2003. In February 2009, though, both the United Nations and the United States issued reports saying that the program was further along than previously believed. Less than a month later, though, the Director of National Intelligence seemed to debunk those February reports. But then, last August, we were told that Iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.

So, what exactly are we supposed to believe ?

Well, ABC’s Brian Ross reports on an intelligence coup that may help a little bit:

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.

The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, “an intelligence coup” in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran’s nuclear program.

A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment. In its declassified annual report to Congress, the CIA said, “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons.”

Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. He worked at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to the Associated Press.

“The significance of the coup will depend on how much the scientist knew in the compartmentalized Iranian nuclear program,” said former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant. “Just taking one scientist out of the program will not really disrupt it.”

(…)

According to the people briefed on the intelligence operation, Amiri’s disappearance was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect. The CIA reportedly approached the scientist in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the United States.

So does this mean the latest CIA report is more reliable ? Maybe, but even if it is, I’m not sure that it means anything or that it deserves the banner headlines that the media are giving it today. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, and it does not say that Iran has, or is close to having nuclear weapons.

In related news, it appears that President Obama may be weeks away from making a major international push for sanctions against Iran:

(Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he wanted tougher U.N. sanctions in weeks against Iran over its nuclear program, and the world’s leading industrial nations expressed optimism that China will agree on possible next ste

Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented a united front on Iran at a joint White House news conference, saying they felt it was time to move ahead with tougher sanctions that their governments have been negotiating with China, Russia, Germany and Britain.

“My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring,” Obama said. “I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks.”

The problem is that it seems incredibly unlikely to me that Obama will be able to get China on board with a tough sanctions regime simply because China is Iran’s second biggest customer for oil after Japan, and China needs oil. Without China on board, sanctions will be meaningless.

At the same time, it’s unclear what other options there are. Neoconservative dreams to the contrary, war with Iran would not be a cakewalk by any means, and it’s unclear if the U.S. military is currently capable of fighting a third war.

There’s no easy answer here.

March 26, 2010

Now We Have Obama-Induced Road Rage

by Doug Mataconis @ 1:45 pm. Filed under Barack Obama, Obama Derangement Syndrome, Political Parties, Politicos & Pundits, Politics, Republicans

Dateline Nashville, Tennessee:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Nashville man says he and his 10-year-old daughter were victims of road rage Thursday afternoon, all because of a political bumper sticker on his car.

Mark Duren told News 2 the incident happened around 4:30p.m., while he was driving on Blair Boulevard, not far from Belmont University.

He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.

Duren had just picked up his 10-year-old daughter from school and had her in the car with him.

“He pointed at the back of my car,” Duren said, “the bumper, flipped me off, one finger salute.”

But it didn’t end there.

Duren told News 2 that Weisiger honked his horn at him for awhile, as Duren stopped at a stop sign.

Once he started driving again, down Blair Boulevard, towards his home, he said, “I looked in the rear view mirror again, and this same SUV was speeding, flying up behind me, bumped me.”

Duren said he applied his brake and the SUV smashed into the back of his car.

He then put his car in park to take care of the accident, but Weisiger started pushing the car using his SUV.

Now, obviously, this idiot does not represent anyone other than himself, but I find myself agreeing with Matthew Yglesias when he says this:

Not to say that we shouldn’t have a feisty political debate in the United States, but people should consider that if they go around saying Obama is a foreign-born fascist who’s shredding the constitution, that some folks are going to take that kind of talk seriously. Overstated claims are nothing new in politics, and unfortunately America is the kind of country where sporadic violence isn’t that rare. But it behooves us all to try to be a bit more relaxed about our disputes.

Exactly.

This, my friends, is why I spent the last year and a half talking about the birthers, or the Congressman who said days after the 2008 election that he feared Obama intended to impose a Marxist dictatorship in the United States, the so-called Christians who were praying for Obama’s death, or the one’s who claimed he was a “secret Muslim,” or the death threats, or the polls showing that birther nonsense had taken hold in the GOP, or the insane overreaction to the fact that President Obama would be making a speech to schoolchildren, or the NewsMax columnist who said that Obama’s actions would precipitate a military coup, or the rumor that the White House would be flying a Chinese flag to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, or the other rumor that the White House would not have a Christmas tree.

That kind of rhetoric is not helpful to those of us who actually want to engage the opposition on the field of ideas, and it serves no other purpose other than to rile up the people like this idiot.

It’s fortunate that nobody was hurt in this situation, but that’s no reason to ignore it.

My point is simple it’s time to root out the crazies

March 22, 2010

China Warns U.S. On Trade War Threats

by Doug Mataconis @ 5:37 pm. Filed under China, Economics, Foreign Affairs

The Chinese are telling America that a tariff battle with Beijing will be very unpleasant:

BEIJING – China’s commerce minister warned the United States on Sunday that if it launches a “trade war” against China by levying punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, the United States will suffer the most.

Chen Deming also said the U.S. government’s “obsession” with China’s exchange rate could not be seriously addressed until it stopped blocking the export of high-tech products, such as supercomputers and satellites, to China. “If some congressmen insist on labeling China as a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs on Chinese products, then the [Chinese] government will find it impossible not to react,” Chen said in an interview with The Washington Post. “If the United States uses the exchange rate to start a new trade war, China will be hurt. But the American people and U.S. companies will be hurt even more.”

Chen’s comments, made during an interview Sunday, reflect the exasperation within the Chinese leadership regarding the United States’ attempt to push China to allow its currency, the yuan, to rise against the dollar. In addition, Chen’s remarks also underscore how China is seeking to use the current trade dispute with the United States to push its own agenda in Washington — to eliminate, or at least ease, the 20-year-old sanctions that limit American exports to China.

No word on whether or not the Chinese were motivated to make these comments by The Donald.

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