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Good Food, Good Jobs Webcast

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Good Food, Good Jobs – May 5

Watch live streaming video from progressivepolicyinstitute at livestream.com

Featured speakers:

Dr. Kathleen Merrigan – Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Tom Colicchio – Chef, Craft Restaurants and Head Judge of Bravo’s “Top Chef”

Joel Berg – Executive Director, New York City Coalition Against Hunger, author of All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? and former Coordinator of Community Food Security at USDA in the Clinton Administration

Ann Yonkers – Co-Director, FreshFarm Markets

Climate Legislation in the Balance

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Expect stern words tomorrow when President Obama speaks to the nation about BP’s failure to stop the Gulf oil spill. He should also use the occasion to deliver a strong message to the U.S. Senate.

The world’s greatest deliberative body has been flailing around energy and climate legislation since the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill last year. You’d think that, with oil still gushing into the Gulf, senators would be moved to do something serious about America’s oil addiction. Instead, the Senate seems headed toward the path of least political resistance.

It’s easy to place sole blame on BP for the spill, but ultimately insatiable American demand for oil played a role in fouling the Gulf. The key to reducing U.S. dependence on oil, and fossil fuels in general, is to put a price on carbon. That would capture both the environmental and the security costs of our thirst for oil, and provide investors with the certainty they need to put money into developing clean fuel alternatives.

An economy-wide cap-and-trade bill at this point is clearly a bridge too far for the Senate. But President Obama made it clear last week that some kind of carbon pricing is still the sine qua none of a serious energy/climate bill.

Republicans, unembarrassed by their “drill-baby-drill” demands before the BP disaster, are standing foursquare for the petro-centric status quo. “We don’t think this is a great time to be socking a national energy tax to the American people,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week.

And even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), poster boy for GOP reasonableness on capping carbon, now says: maybe next year. He’s talking up an “energy only” bill by Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) that includes subsidies for clean fuels but no carbon price to truly galvanize private investment in clean technology and energy.

Thus has the BP spill has not only done grave damage to the Gulf’s ecology and economy, it’s unraveled President Obama’s careful attempts to forge a grand bargain in which some Republicans support a carbon price in return for more support for nuclear power as well as offshore drilling (off the table, at least for now).

It would be a bitter irony if the political fallout from the BP spill wound up perpetuating America’s dependence on oil. To avert that tragedy, the president should make it clear tomorrow that he will accept no bill from the Senate that fails to put a price on carbon.

Photo credit: Valeshel’s Photostream

Is 100% American Content the Best Route for High-Speed Rail?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Obama administration’s determination to enforce 100 percent American content for high-speed train systems is roiling the rail supply industry, with some executives saying the rule would be “impossible” to achieve and others wondering how much it will slow down high-speed rail (HSR) development and add to the sticker price.

“We’re living in a global rail industry,” said an official at a large U.S. transportation manufacturer that depends on foreign parts. “Insisting on all-American content could mean losing 10 years in building our HSR supply chain.”

Karen Rae, deputy director of the Federal Railroad Administration, surprised rail advocates when she announced last month that the White House has decided to enforce the “domestic buying preference” provision of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), which authorized $8 billion in HSR grants to state governments earlier this year.

Rae said at a conference sponsored by America 2050 that the administration had determined there was “enough excess manufacturing capacity in the country” to permit HSR equipment to be made of U.S. content. As a result, the administration did not anticipate issuing exemptions from the domestic buying rule, as permitted under Section 504(2) of PRIIA.

While Rae lauded the decision as a tool “to help reenergize manufacturing in the U.S.,” executives canvassed in the railway supply business say the provision could have the opposite effect.

“We could wind up getting 100 percent of nothing,” said one executive who exchanged candor for anonymity.

Things We Don’t Make Anymore

He and others say the biggest obstacle to American content is simply that this country does not produce some critical components. Take computer chips. They are not made in the U.S. There are American-owned suppliers, such as Intel, but the product itself is manufactured in Asia.

Computer chips are everywhere in modern rail cars, controlling the electric doors, regulating the heat and air conditioning, monitoring the mechanical and electrical systems, managing the P.A. systems and customer-information signs, to say nothing of Wi-Fi and other electronics that would be required in any HSR car order.

Outside of components, the sad fact is that there has not been a builder of passenger cars since Pullman-Standard Co. completed an order for Superliner cars for Amtrak in the 1980s and then went out of business.

In place of Pullman-Standard and other former U.S. manufacturing powerhouses, such as the Budd Co., a number of foreign-based companies have developed facilities to assemble rail cars.

The German giant, Siemens, builds light-rail vehicles (streetcars) from imported parts at a factory in Sacramento. Japan’s Kawasaki assembles commuter railcars in Lincoln, Neb., and New York City subway cars in Yonkers, NY.

French-based Alstom built Surfliner shells for the state of California in Brazil, shipped them to Baltimore and trucked them to a former railroad shop in Hornell, NY, for final assembly.

Bombardier built the shells for Amtrak’s Acela trains in Quebec and then shipped them across the border to a plant in Vermont for finishing. Talgo builds in Spain, but can do final assembly in the U.S.

Morrison Knudsen tried to break into the car-building business 20 years ago, but failed when projects like the proposed “Texas Triangle” HSR line collapsed.

In short, while there are many abandoned manufacturing plants in the U.S., it would take time to convert these plants into usable spaces for HSR equipment. Even more time and treasure would be required to develop a workforce capable of building technology that has more in common with modern aviation than lumbering freight trains.

What’s Consistent with the Public Interest?

China has offered to supply the equipment and engineers to help build California’s proposed HSR line between San Diego and Sacramento. If California accepted China’s offer, would the state have to repay the $2.25 billion it was awarded in PRIIA funding?

The language of the federal law is broadly written. In carrying out a rail project “funded in whole or in part with a grant under this title,” PRIIA calls for recipients to purchase “only unmanufactured articles, material, and supplies mined or produced in the U.S.” or “articles, material, and supplies manufactured in the U.S. substantially from articles, material, and supplies mined, produced, or manufactured in the U.S.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) can waive this rule under three conditions: if the article is unreasonably expensive, if it is not produced in sufficient quantities, or if the requirement is “inconsistent with the public interest.”

It was assumed by the supply industry that the administration would use the law’s exemption liberally in order to expedite development of HSR lines. But Rae said that DOT’s No. 2 official, John Porcari, has been working with the White House to develop plans for 100 percent content and did not plan to issue any waivers.

Unintended Consequences

According to several suppliers, the literal interpretation of PRIIA could actually discourage American companies from entering the HSR field.

“Who wants to go through all these hoops only to find out you’re disqualified because some component is not considered American by a bureaucrat,” asked an executive.

One of the clearest-cut beneficiaries of the rule would appear to be domestic steelmakers supplying new track and structural steel. But who or what is a domestic steelmaker these days? Is it a company that owns plants in the U.S., a company owned by U.S. stockholders, or a company domiciled in the U.S.?

At present, foreign-owned-and-headquartered corporations control more than 35 percent of steel produced in the U.S. What’s more, half of the steel made here originates from raw materials mined outside of the country.

Similarly, GE Transportation, based in Erie, Pa., does a brisk business selling heavy-haul freight locomotives to China, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Creating barriers for foreign suppliers may mean that overseas railroads won’t buy American in retaliation.

Getting Back on Track

The Obama administration would be wise to break free from the protectionist impulses of PRIIA and let all domestic and global rail suppliers compete for HSR contracts. Out of such competition, the best equipment and lowest prices should emerge.

A robust government policy toward high-speed rail would do wonders to revitalize entrepreneurship and encourage the private sector to enter the field.

This is the true challenge facing the Obama administration — establishing a long-term strategy for HSR, including how to finance the system. Parsing what is and isn’t “100% American” isn’t sound policy, it’s crowd-pleasing politics that will only delay the implementation of the administration’s own program.

Photo credit: Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Photostream

Money Talks in the Sunshine State

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you want to hear how loudly money can talk in politics, check out the new Quinnipiac survey in Florida. Two very rich men who leapt into statewide contests very late are doing very well.

One of them is Republican Rick Scott, a former for-profit hospital exec who was forced from his job amidst a massive fraud investigation, and then won fame by putting together national-level anti-health-reform ads. He leapt into the governor’s race very late, and now, after a $7 million barrage of ads that mostly express his support for Arizona’s immigration law, he’s leading conservative warhorse Bill McCollum — whose time finally seemed to have come this year after two unsuccessful U.S. Senate races — by a 44-31 margin.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic contest for the U.S. Senate, already roiled by the independent candidacy of Gov. Charlie Crist, billionaire real estate investor Jeff Greene, who got into the race right before the end of qualifying just over a month ago, has moved into a statistical tie with congressman Kendrick Meek. Advised by Democratic bad boys Joe Trippi and Doug Schoen, Greene is playing the outsider card as hard as he can.

Neither of these guys has held public office or has any deep roots in Florida. Both have been questioned about their business ethics. But they’ve got the loot, and while political history is littered with the wreckage of ego-driven campaigns by rich people, more than a few have succeeded. And if you are Bill McCollum or Kendrick Meek, who were both focused on the general election until their rich challengers came out of the woodwork, it’s got to feel like Sisyphus watching that rock roll back to the bottom of the hill.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: turtlemom4bacon

Primary Predictions Revisited

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In my last political memo on June 8, I made some predictions for that day’s primaries.  Let’s see how I did.

Arkansas Senate Runoff: Too Close to Call.  I questioned the CW favoring Halter over Lincoln, and in the end, Lincoln’s GOTV effort (with a little help from Big Dog Bill Clinton) was just enough.

South Carolina Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Nikki Haley Wins.  Actually, I went right over the brink and predicted that Haley would win without a runoff, and she came about as close as possible — with 49 percent of the vote — as she could. In fact, distant second-place finisher Rep. Gresham Barrett immediately came under pressure to drop out and give Haley the nomination without further ado, but it looks like he’ll roll the dice for the short two-week runoff contest, which everyone thinks Haley will easily win (unless those accusing her of sexual misbehavior finally come up with some real evidence).

South Carolina Democratic Gubernatorial Primary: Sheheen/Rex Runoff. I was right in saying that third-place finisher Rep. Robert Ford would do well enough to force a runoff, but didn’t account for one-time front-runner Jim Rex running so poorly that state Rep. Vincent Sheheen was able to romp to victory anyway.

Iowa Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Terry Branstad wins. Check, though his nine-point margin of victory over outgunned conservative Bob Vander Plaats was a lot smaller than the polls suggested, and indicates the residual strength of social conservatives in the Iowa GOP — which will be much more powerful in the context of a presidential caucus.

Nevada Republican Senate Primary: Sharron Angle wins. Check. Angle won very easily, even carrying Clark County (Las Vegas). The real surprise here is that Danny Tarkanian, whom some experts thought might pull an upset in this race, finished a poor third. So Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) got the match-up he wanted.

Nevada Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Attorney General Brian Sandoval wins. Check; the Gibbons Era is over, and Rory Reid begins the general election as an underdog.

California Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Meg Whitman wins. Yep, and she only spent about $80 per vote.

California Republican Senate Primary: Carly Fiorina wins. She even took Marin County, which should have been Tom Campbell Country if any place was.

South Dakota Republican gubernatorial primary: Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard wins.  He won more votes than all his opponents combined.

I refused to make any prediction in Maine, where “undecided” was the dominant presence in pre-election polls for both parties’ gubernatorial primaries. In the end, state senate president Libby Mitchell won the Democratic nod, and Tea Party favorite Paul LePage won the Republican nomination. But independent Eliot Cutler will be competitive in the general election.

In other significant developments, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) of South Carolina got knocked into a runoff by tea party avatar Trey Gowdy. California voters approved Prop 14, abolishing party primaries in favor of a “jungle primary” system (like Washington State’s) where the top two finishers among candidates from all or no parties advance to the general election.

The next election day is June 22, when Utah holds its primary, while North and South Carolina, Mississippi and South Dakota hold runoffs.

In Alabama, the third-place finisher in the June 1 Republican gubernatorial primary, Tim James, is pursuing a recount to see if he can overcome Robert Bentley’s 167-vote lead for a second runoff spot against Bradley Byrne. The runoff is on July 13.

In the most interesting poll to be released in the last few days, Quinnipiac finds two self-funding candidates making a big splash in Florida. Former health care exec Rick Scott has ridden a batch of ads (mostly expressing his fondness for Arizona’s new immigration law) to a stunning lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican gubernatorial primary; McCollum had been presumed to be the certain nominee until now. And in the Democratic Senate primary, billionaire Jeff Greene has pulled nearly even with congressman Kendrick Meek.

In more general polling news, DailyKos has terminated its relationship with the Research 2000 polling firm, which had been doing a lot of state ads for DKos. And in a very related development, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver released an updated version of his comprehensive rating of pollsters for accuracy.

Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday

No Quick Fixes

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“At this point, there are no good solutions — only a choice among painful and distasteful ones.”

Steven Pearlstein’s words in today’s Post make for a glum start to the day, but there’s no better time than the morning to ring the alarm. And when it comes to our economy, you can’t sound the warnings often enough.

Pearlstein notes the infuriating lack of consensus among experts about our economic predicament. Do we spend more stimulus, or start cutting back on spending? Do we worry about deflation or inflation? Do we encourage more consumer spending to speed up the recovery, or should we orient our economy toward more saving and sustainable growth?

There’s confusion on where to go – but everyone can agree on how we came to this pass:

The controlling reality is that the global economic system is rebalancing itself after years in which the United States was not only allowed but encouraged to live beyond its means, consuming more than it produced and investing more than it saved. Now the bill for that is finally coming due — all the clever and seemingly painless ways for postponing that day of reckoning have pretty much been played out.

Pearlstein’s diagnosis brings to mind a headline from last week: “Save Us, Millennials.” Timothy Egan’s blog post covered a Pew survey on millennials, which painted a picture of a generation that is “confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.”

If any generation had a right to be steamed at their predicament, it would be the millennials. Their parents may have given them cars and paid for their tuition, but they also left the kids with crippling obligations. They join an American economy that will be less generous to the children than it was to the parents. And yet the millennials, according to Pew, are “more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures as well as about the overall state of the nation.” (The audacity of hope!)

They’ll need that sunny disposition to weather the coming storm. Egan’s plea seems jokey, but there’s more than a hint of justified desperation there. If we are to emerge from this economic mess, it’s the younger generation that will have to carry us. The bill has come due, and they will have to pay it.

There are no good solutions, as Pearlstein says, and a culture weaned on the happy ending has been throwing tantrums for the past year and a half. There has been not a hint of reflection, no acknowledgment that the American disconnect between what it expects from government and what it expects to be taxed is to blame for our problems. Instead we’ve been treated to a nonstop primal scream session. Thank god the kids are acting like grown-ups.

Photo credit: Lamtastic’s Photostream

Did Nikki Haley Help Kill Cap-and-Trade?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The big development in non-election news from Washington this week has been the collapse of bipartisan negotiations for cap-and-trade legislation, caused by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s defection. Said defection has been a long time in the making; earlier Graham broke off longstanding negotiations with Sens. Kerry and Lieberman on climate change, allegedly because he was angry with Harry Reid for hinting that immigration reform might come first in the Senate. Now that Reid’s backed off that idea, Graham’s been forced to more or less flip-flop entirely on climate change, and is now backing a far less ambitious bill introduced by Richard Lugar that would have no cap on carbon emissions.

The CW has suggested that Graham’s happy feet on climate change is the product of pressure from his Republican colleagues in Congress who don’t want any “cap-and-tax” bill and basically don’t want any cooperation with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. But I think the problem may be a little closer to home for Graham.

Earlier this year, a couple of Republican county committees down in South Carolina raised eyebrows with censure resolutions aimed at Graham for his support for cap-and-trade, comprehensive immigration reform, and TARP. One of those committees was from Lexington County, which happens to be the residence of Nikki Haley, who then became the only gubernatorial candidate to embrace Graham’s censure for ideological heresy.

Now maybe it’s a coincidence that Graham threw in the towel on cap-and-trade the day after Haley became a national political rock star in the wake of her strong (49%) performance in the SC Republican gubernatorial primary, but maybe it’s not. Graham won’t be up for re-election until 2014, but as Bob Dylan once said (though not in the context of climate change): “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

I bring this up in part as a reminder to progressives who are naturally sympathetic to Haley as a woman and as a minority member who has been accused without much evidence of being a cheat and a liar, and called a “raghead” to boot. That’s all well and good, but don’t forget she is also a serious hard-core conservative who eagerly identifies herself with the Jim DeMint, take-no-prisoners wing of her party, and who may have just played a role in blowing up what was once a promising effort to deal with one of the most important challenges facing the country and the world. To be sure, she should be judged on her ideas and record and not subjected to gender-based double standards or sexual innuendo. But make no mistake, her “ideas” are really bad from any progressive point of view. She’s only a breath of fresh air in SC politics if you think, like she does, that the good ol’ boys who’ve been running things are dangerously liberal.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: World Economic Forum’s Photostream

A Look at the New U.N. Sanctions on Iran

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The new United Nations Security Council has adopted a new round of sanctions against Iran. And they have some bite. But how and if they’ll truly be effective remains an open question.

Let’s start with the nuts and bolts. The sanctions compel Iran to comply with international inspections and to cease uranium enrichment. Failure to do so gets them this:

  • A strengthened arms embargo, prohibiting nations from exporting to Iran battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles or missile systems.
  • The resolution imposes financial and travel sanctions on specific Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) individuals and companies involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile program.
  • Nations are authorized to inspect suspicious Iranian air and sea cargo for illicit items, interdict shipments in port and on the high seas, and confiscate any banned items found.
  • The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) is sanctioned for its role in transferring nuclear and missile program components. IRISL vessels have also been repeatedly caught exporting weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah.

But it’s never that straightforward. Let’s take a look at what’s going on underneath the surface.

The Security Council resolution was adopted by a 12-2 vote, with an abstention from Lebanon, whose divided government includes members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah. The two “no” votes came from Turkey and Brazil, countries that had negotiated a uranium-exporting deal with Iran. Unfortunately, as you can read here, that deal fell woefully short of what the U.S. and rest of the international community needed to feel comfortable.

Frankly, the Obama administration mishandled Turkey and Brazil’s attempts to mediate. The White House should have cautioned the intermediaries not to go public until the deal was acceptable to the U.S. and Europe (you know, the countries Turkey is in NATO with…). American and European rejection of the deal has caused gnashing of teeth in Ankara and Brasilia (not to mention two “no” votes on the final resolution), splitting the global effort to rein in Iran.

Iran, as you might expect, remains defiant. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad continues on his rhetorical hot streak, calling the sanctions “annoying flies.” And to a certain extent, he’s right. As Thomas Erdbrink and Colum Lynch’s excellent article in yesterday’s Washington Post details, Iran does a pretty darn good job getting around them. And then there’s the possibility that Iran could use the sanctions as a domestic political tool to rally Iranians against the “American oppressors.”

But perhaps atop the list of concerns sits Beijing. Sure, China voted for the sanctions, but at what price? Check out this post to see what sort of sweetheart loopholes China secured for its energy companies in exchange for its support. Phew. It’s a lot. A confusing mess of a lot. On the one hand, it seems like the international community has passed a resolution with some teeth, but could sanctions end up being ineffective or, worse, counterproductive?

In the end, sanctions’ benefits are often indirect, subtle and not guaranteed. To get a sense of why sanctions are passed, bear in mind the Obama administration’s real goal: It’s not to inflict direct economic hardship, but rather, to raise the burden Iran must bear to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Sanctions can help the international community do so in two clear ways:

  1. Diplomatic isolation. Of course, Iran has been fairly isolated for years and years now, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce that sense of isolation from the international community on a regular basis. That’s why, incidentally, the Turkey/Brazil split and recruitment of China and Russia all matter. Getting the world on the same page against Iran sends a message of strength.
  2. When sanctions force Tehran to rearrange shipping contracts, sell vessels to front companies, move money, set up laundering and smuggling operations, stay at home from travel, etc., etc., those are all “costs.” To maintain a something close to the status quo, Iran has to invest time, money and political capital (both at home and internationally) to work around them.

The idea is that one day, Iran will wake up and say, “Huh. We’re alone in the world and working like hell to beat these things. Maybe we should sit down and talk this whole situation through.”

That day may never come, but it’s the best alternative the international community has.

Photo credit: wallyg

Coast to Coast

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For those of us in the politics biz, Tuesday night was a long night, with returns trickling out over a eight-hour period. Despite the best efforts of headline writers to impose some order on the 10 primaries, one runoff and one special-election runoff, there was no overriding pattern or big theme to these elections: just a lot of individual contests whose importance we mostly won’t even know until November. I won’t try to cover everything that happened; you can consult news sources for detailed results. But there were some pretty interesting happenings.

The biggest surprise for the chattering classes (and I’ll plead innocence on this one, since I consistently labeled it as too close to call) was the survival of Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, whose dominant performance in Pulaski County (Little Rock), her opponent’s home base, was crucial. The heavy commitment of resources by the labor movement on behalf of Bill Halter will be second-guessed for quite some time. And once again, it’s been established that you don’t mess with Bill Clinton in his old stomping grounds.

Probably the second biggest story of the night was Nikki Haley, who came within an eyelash of winning the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial nomination without a runoff. Rep. Gresham Barrett finished a distant second, and is already getting pressure to drop out save the GOP the trouble of a runoff. It’s clear in retrospect that the maelstrom of the last two weeks, in which Haley was hit with two separate poorly documented allegations of marital infidelity, gave her a significant sympathy vote and all but extinguished the ability of her opponents to get any kind of message out. Meanwhile, state rep. Vincent Sheheen scored an impressive majority win in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and can now spend his time raising money and watching future developments, if any, in the Haley saga.

The third biggest story of the night was in Nevada, where the easy victory of Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle in the Republican Senate primary gave Harry Reid the matchup he wanted for November. Angle benefitted from the implosion of longtime front-runner Sue Lowden, and from national conservative support. Third-place finisher Danny Tarkanian faded in the clutch even more than Lowden.

Speaking of the Tea Folk, their movement had a very mixed evening. Establishment Republican candidates turned back Tea Party-affiliated challengers in Virginia and New Jersey. But in South Carolina, Rep. Bob Inglis, who made the mistake of voting for TARP, was knocked into a runoff by local DA Trey Gowdy, and will be the heavy underdog going forward.

One result with significant 2012 implications was in Iowa, where as expected, former Gov. Terry Branstad beat conservative firebrand Bob Vander Plaats for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. But given his many advantages in the race, Branstad’s nine-point margin of victory was underwhelming, and should warn potential presidential candidates that the social conservative forces represented by Vander Plaats could be more formidable than ever in the 2012 caucuses. Certainly Sarah Palin, whose late endorsement of Branstad enraged some of her Iowa fans, will need to do some repair work if she’s interested in entering the contest that will begin in Iowa.

And finally, in a result that got virtually no national attention but that could prove important down the road, California voters approved Proposition 14, which abolishes party primaries in favor of a “jungle primary” in which the top two finishers, regardless of political affiliation, meet in a runoff if no candidate wins 50 percent.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

A Progressive Lesson from Reagan (Seriously)

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Peter Beinart has a must-read in the latest Foreign Policy on the mythology of Ronald Reagan — and the conservative movement that keeps perpetuating it.

As someone whose first job in D.C. was interning at a lobby firm that had — no kidding — a framed portrait of St. Ron in every office, I relish lines that tether President Reagan back to his terrestrial home, such as:

During his presidency, Reagan repeatedly invoked the prospect of an alien invasion as a reason for the United States and the Soviet Union to overcome their differences. Whenever he did, [National Security Adviser Colin] Powell would mutter, “Here come the little green men.”

That’s some delicious red meat right there.

But if we focus there — and Reagan haters are apt to do just that — we miss the real lesson. Beinart might douse ice water on the conservative narrative of Reagan, but he makes a strong case for the lesson that Obama can and should learn from The Great Communicator:

Reagan’s political genius lay in recognizing that what Americans wanted was a president who exorcised the ghost of the Vietnam War without fighting another Vietnam.

Americans loved Reagan’s foreign policy for the same reason they loved the 1985 blockbuster Rambo, in which the muscle-bound hero returns to Vietnam, kicks some communist butt, and no Americans die. Reagan’s liberal critics often accused him of reviving the chest-thumping spirit that had led to Vietnam. But they were wrong. For Reagan, chest-thumping was in large measure a substitute for a new Vietnam, a way of accommodating the restraints on U.S. power while still boosting American morale.

[…]

Obama can, and should, be Reaganesque in his effort to project great strength at low risk. That means understanding that America’s foreign-policy debates are often cultural debates in disguise.

Reagan was a master of symbolic acts — like awarding the Medal of Honor to overlooked Vietnam hero Roy Benavidez — that made Americans feel as though they were exorcising Vietnam’s ghost without refighting the war. Obama must be equally shrewd at a time when he has no choice but to retreat from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan. That means more than ritual incantations about flag and country; it means rhetorically challenging those who unfairly attack the United States. From a purely foreign-policy perspective, publicly confronting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez when they malign the United States, or calling out universities that ban military recruiters from campus, might seem useless. But for U.S. presidents, there is no pure foreign-policy perspective; being effective in the world requires domestic support. [emphases added]

If Democrats are going to close the ever-elusive national security gap and strongly defend what I’ve called a sterling record on national security, they’re going to have to swallow some pride and steal one from the Gipper.

Photo credit: Fresh Conservative’s Photostream

The Turnaround Challenge: Improving Our Worst Schools

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The following is an excerpt from Will Marshall’s introductory remarks at the PPI Capital Forum – Turnaround Schools: Rising to the Challenge:

PPI has had a longstanding interest in school reform, going back to 1990, when we first started to agitate for this idea called charter schools even before the first school was opened in St. Paul, Minnesota. And throughout the years, we’ve worked on all kinds of reform issues. And we’re very happy today to talk about one that’s really heating up right now, this question of how you turn around low-performing schools in our cities and also in our rural communities.

Arne Duncan, our secretary of education, laid down a challenge last year with his Race to the Top fund. He challenged school leaders to turn around the 5,000 chronically underperforming schools in America and he’s made, I think, marvelous use of the bully pulpit of his job to leverage change around the country. It helps when you have $4 billion, too. That makes that bully pulpit all the more powerful. But really incredible changes in state legislatures and cities and contracts negotiated between school leaders and teachers’ unions, all before a whole lot of money has actually been spent, so it’s a heartening example of strong and bold political leadership.

And in the administration’s blueprint for reauthorizing ESEA, this turnaround challenge is embedded in that as well. Challenged states, states with lots of low-performing schools, are going to be required to turn around five percent of their lowest-performing schools, based on student achievement and growth and graduation rates, in order to qualify for grants from the federal government. So fortunately, in my view, we have a president and a secretary of education who are as serious as a heart attack about thoroughgoing school reform.

And we saw that in this case in Rhode Island, in Central Falls earlier this year, when the school authorities there, or the city, fired all the teachers in their local high school after they couldn’t come to an agreement about reforms there. And the president and the secretary of education, sort of, stood up for that, behind that decision. Now, they’ve since rehired the teachers because they’ve been able to work out a deal that will allow for reform to go forward there. But it was heartening to me that they didn’t flinch because this urgency is absolutely essential.

Closing the achievement gap in this country is proceeding at an agonizingly slow pace. It has been since the mid-’80s. And I think it’s really smart for our national leaders to target the worst-performing schools in the country. You know, of the bottom 5,000, 2,000 of those are responsible for 70 percent of all school dropouts, so it’s a good idea to focus on the ones that we really need to get on the triage table.

But obviously, there are some large and controversial questions about turnaround, which we want to explore today. I think there’s going to be ferocious political resistance if we start moving down this road. It’s going to make what’s gone before look like a picnic. You know, we’re talking about closing schools, the firing of many, and in some cases all, teachers in a school.

And obviously, there’s going to be blowback. Already, we’re seeing dissension on the Democratic side. This week, Rep. Judy Chu of California, a Democrat, came out with a report which is critical of the blueprint, calling it punitive. And then on the right, you have, on the conservative side, you have a lot of folks who believe it’s not punitive enough and who think that, really, the only remedy for failing schools is to close them down and reopen as charters, or maybe under private management.

So we’ve had high-profile defections from the reform camp, like Diane Ravitch, who we’ve worked with down the years. And in some respects, that’s puzzling to me, but so this question’s becoming increasingly fraught. Fortunately, we have a stellar group of folks here to talk about it today, to explore this issues….

First, let me just, you know, define the terms here because I think particularly for the non-experts, the laypeople, this whole turnaround issue’s sort of murky. What are we really talking about when we say turning around schools? Well, in the blueprint there are four models of intervention that school leaders must pursue to deal with low-performing schools, the bottom five percent. One is transformation, which entails firing principals and adopting research-based instruction and extended learning time – new governance models, structure.

The next is the redundantly named turnaround model, which entails the same things as transformation, except you can fire half of the school staff. The third model is the restart, to convert or to close down and reopen a school under a charter operator or another educational management organization. And the last and obviously most drastic is school closes and reopen – and sending kids to high-performing schools elsewhere in the district, if you can do that.

So our purpose here today is to explore the administration’s blueprint, to drill down on this question of what we know and don’t know about best practice and turnaround schools and to focus particularly on what turnaround means for Washington, D.C., which is why I’m so glad, thrilled to have Chancellor Michelle Rhee here today. Why focus on Washington? Well, one, we’re all here. This is where we work and play and I often think that Washington is an invisible city when it comes to the great national policy debates.

[…]

We want a beachhead for innovation, but we’ve still got a long way to go. We’re still on the margins of a big public school enterprise with 50 million students. And frankly, the quality in the charter sector’s been really uneven and the scale of effort is just not sufficient to what we need. So as an authorizer, I can say that our challenge is the same one that you face, Chancellor, which is to reduce the number of low-performing schools and increase the number of high-performing ones. And it’s a hell of a lot harder to do than it sounds.

And the stakes are absolutely enormous. I’m not going to go over the stats, which probably everybody in this room knows, about the achievement gap. One number just did leap out at me. It was in the Brookings Institution’s “State of Metro America” report, which said that 85 percent of black and Latino adults in the United States lack a bachelor’s degree – 85 percent. What does that tell you? That tells you that our public schools are not preparing lots of folks for success – not preparing them for college, which is increasingly a minimum passport to career success.

That’s a huge problem. Nothing is more important, I think, in our country right now than solving it and getting school reform right. Obviously, it’s critical to our ability to compete and win globally. But even more, it’s critical to our ability to reverse the really disconcerting tendencies towards inequality, economic inequality, that have opened up in the last decade or so, and to redeem this country’s central political promise, which is equal opportunity.

For a full transcript of the event, click here (PDF). For the video, click here.

Photo credit: WzrdsRule

Lincoln, Reid, GOP Women Top List of Primary Winners

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s hard to tease a coherent story line from yesterday’s primaries in 12 states, so some random observations will have to do:

  • Labor unions sure know how to waste their members’ money. A group of unions poured $10 million into the Arkansas U.S. Senate primary to defeat the Democratic incumbent, Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln, aided by native son Bill Clinton, staved off a challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. The bruising primary battle, however, has left her running far behind her GOP opponent, Rep. John Boozman. What was labor thinking?
  • It was a big night for Republican women, including one who wasn’t on any ballot. Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley and Sharron Angle not only won, but generally ran to the right of their opponents. Fiorina and Haley got timely assists from the endorsement of “Mama Grizzly” Sarah Palin.
  • Any child can grow up and be elected governor of California -– as long as they amass a fortune on the way. Whitman, one of eBay’s founders, spent a staggering $71 million of her own money in rolling over another Silicon Valley millionaire, Steve Poizner, who could only scrape together $24 million. Whitman will now face Jerry Brown, whose decision to devote his life to public service rather than making money has left him a relative pauper.
  • Maybe South Carolina isn’t as backward as everyone thinks. After a GOP state legislator called President Obama and Nikki Haley “ragheads,” Jon Stewart joked that South Carolinians can’t even get their racial slurs right. But in picking Haley to be their nominee for governor, Palmetto State Republicans opted not only for a woman but also the child of Sikh immigrants. First Bobby Jindal, now Haley: Are South Asians becoming the GOP’s preferred ethnic minority and answer to complaints that they lack diversity?
  • The dice came up for Sen. Harry Reid. He got his wish when Tea Party acolyte Sharron Angle beat two more moderate contenders for the Republican Senate nomination. The Reid camp figures Nevada voters, however tired they may be of him, aren’t ready for an alternative that makes Barry Goldwater look like a mushy moderate. Angle wants to shut down the federal departments of energy and education, and open Yucca Mountain to nuclear waste. And Reid’s son Rory won the Democratic nomination for governor.
  • Blogs may not be a stepping stone to higher office. L.A. gadfly Mickey Kaus won a paltry 5.3 percent of the vote in his primary challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer. However, since Kaus only spent $40,000, his dollar-per-vote efficiency may be higher than Whitman’s. And he wins a consolation prize for running the most entertaining campaign of the season.

Photo credit: PittCaleb’s Photostream

Prognosticating the Primaries

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The busiest primary day of the year has arrived, with 10 primaries, one Senate runoff and one House special election runoff on tap.

Since I’ve earlier analyzed most of these races here (and here, and here), today’s memo will focus on the bottom line: Who is likely to win in the big statewide contests?

Arkansas Senate Democratic runoff: too close to call. The CW suggests that Bill Halter will knock off Blanche Lincoln, thanks to a relatively poor showing by the incumbent in the primary, and a stalwart effort by unions on Halter’s behalf. But in a very low turnout runoff, it’s all about getting the vote out, and we’ll have to see if Halter can get voters back out in areas like southern Arkansas, where he crushed Lincoln in the primary.

South Carolina Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Nikki Haley wins. This race has been All About Nikki in recent weeks, and since primary day has arrived without any real evidence to support the two allegations of marital infidelity against Haley, the whole saga seems to have actually helped her. She’s at 43 percent in the latest PPP poll, with Rep. Gresham Barrett running 20 points behind. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the backlash against her tormenters will lift Haley to a win without a runoff.

South Carolina Democratic Gubernatorial Primary: Sheheen/Rex runoff. State Rep. Vincent Sheheen has outspent and outcampaigned early front-runner Jim Rex, but a third candidate, state Sen. Robert Ford, is strong enough to force a runoff.

Iowa Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Terry Branstad wins. Bob Vander Plaats got heavily outspent and outmaneuvered in this potentially close primary with important 2012 implications. If it were a caucus, the arch-conservative might have a chance. But it’s a primary. Sarah Palin’s surprise endorsement of Branstad simply served as the coup de grace. Yesterday a bitter Vander Plaats said: “From where I live in Sioux City, I can’t see Russia, but I can see South Dakota.”

Nevada Republican Senate Primary: Sharron Angle wins. The implosion of early front-runner Sue “Chickens for Checkups” Lowden has been the big story in this race, and she’ll probably finish third behind Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle and basketball scion Danny Tarkanian. Tark the Younger could pull an upset based on GOP voter fears that Angle is the weakest challenger to Harry Reid.

Nevada Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Brian Sandoval wins. One of America’s more colorful gubernatorial tenures will come to a close tonight, when scandalicious incumbent Jim Gibbons loses to Attorney General Brian Sandoval, a prized Latino candidate for the GOP.

California Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Meg Whitman wins. It took her $80 million, and a strategic veer to the right that will haunt her general election campaign against Jerry Brown, but eMeg finally put away Steve Poizner in the late stages of this contest. After a gazillion Whitman ads calling him a dangerous liberal, Poizner might have a future in Democratic politics.

California Republican Senate Primary: Carly Fiorina wins. It only took her about $7 million, but Fiorina closed well against cash-strapped “demon sheep” Tom Campbell and crusty conservative Chuck DeVore. But she has recently lost ground against Barbara Boxer, and her pro-life and hard-core anti-immigrant positions will not help her in the general election.

South Dakota Republican gubernatorial primary: Dennis Daugaard wins. Lt. Gov. Daugaard has been the front-runner all along, and should edge past state senator Dave Knudson for the right to face Democrat Scott Heidepriem. I have to say, the whole contest reads like the credits in an Ingmar Bergman movie.

I won’t even begin to make any prediction in today’s Mystery Election, the Maine gubernatorial contest. According to the one public poll, taken just this last week, 62 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of Republicans are undecided. The “leading” candidate in the Democratic race came in at 13% percent, and the leading Republican at 17 percent. Turnout is expected to be in the teens. Perhaps in the end Meg Whitman should have moved to Maine and saved herself a whole lot of money.

There are a number of interesting House primaries today. One to watch is in South Carolina, where TARP-afflicted Republican Rep. Bob Inglis is in deep trouble against Tea Party activist Trey Gowdy, though a runoff is likely. In a special election (two Republicans made the runoff) to replace Georgia gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal in the House, another Tea Party favorite, Tom Graves, appeared to be cruising towards victory until a financial scandal erupted, and now he’s in a close race against Lee Hawkins. In California, antiwar activist Marcy Winograd is making another run against Democratic incumbent Jane Harman, though Harman is heavily favored.

In a non-candidate election matter, generally disgruntled Californians are likely to approve Proposition 14, which would create a Louisiana-style “jungle primary” system, essentially abolishing party primaries.

Book Review: The Flight of the Intellectuals by Paul Berman

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Paul Berman may be our most romantic public intellectual. His prose, febrile and epigrammatic, can be intoxicatingly lyrical. He doesn’t so much make arguments as launch crusades. He is a careful scholar, building his cases with close reading and creative exegesis, but the cool erudition barely conceals the hot idealism. “Let us be for the freedom of others,” read the last line of Terror and Liberalism, his most widely read book. Details, word choices and footnotes matter, but it is the sweeping idea that animates his work.

It’s fitting that the cover design for his latest book, The Flight of the Intellectuals, features a Minimalist array of lines, black and white. For those are the terms in which Berman thinks. It’s what makes the arrival of each new Berman book an event – you expect lines to be drawn, challenges issued. It’s also what can get him in trouble.

The Flight of the Intellectuals is a book-length elaboration of a long essay Berman wrote for The New Republic in 2007 about the Islamic philosopher Tariq Ramadan. What’s gotten Berman riled up is the admiring reception Western intelligentsia has given Ramadan, who is viewed by many as the leading reformist voice for Muslims today. Ramadan has urged Muslims in the West to participate in the social and cultural life of their new homes instead of turning inward. But to Berman, the attention he has won is undeserved, even odious. For beneath the veneer of moderation Berman spies ghosts of extremism past and present.

The first third of The Flight of the Intellectuals is vintage Berman, as he traces Ramadan’s genealogical and ideological roots. What he finds is a questionable birthright. “Tariq Ramadan is nothing if not a son, a brother, a grandson and even a great-grandson – family relations that appear to shape everything he writes and does, and that certainly shape how other people perceive what he writes and does,” he opens the second chapter. Ramadan’s grandfather was Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. His father, Said Ramadan, was al-Banna’s secretary, also a major figure in the Brotherhood. In the Brotherhood, Berman sees a wellspring of dangerous ideas: the imposition of Islamic law, the utopian restoration of the Caliphate, the cult of jihad, the veneration of martyrdom.

In Tariq Ramadan, Berman sees that strain of Islamism. He hears Ramadan’s calls for rationalism, universal values and a more modern Islam, but picks out discordant notes in the background of Ramadan’s thought. Take women’s rights. Berman homes in on Ramadan’s refusal, in a televised debate with then-French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, to condemn the Islamist practice of stoning women who commit adultery, calling instead for a more modest “moratorium.” Berman also flags Ramadan for his past statements on Jews: For instance, Ramadan in 2003 published an essay accusing six “French Jewish intellectuals” (one, in fact, was not Jewish) of abandoning their universalist principles in championing Israel – a thesis that Berman rightly lashes him for. No less troublesome for Berman is Ramadan’s whitewashing of his forefathers’ record. In Ramadan’s telling, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood is a “man of democratic temperament…committed to rational judgment and scientific truth…a peaceful man, patient and practical,” Berman recounts with raised brow.

The Lonely Rebel

Berman contrasts the adulation of Ramadan by Western intellectuals with their shabby treatment of another controversial voice: Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The Somali-born writer’s story has been rehearsed countless times: flight from a forced marriage, asylum in the Netherlands, renunciation of Islam, death threats from Muslim fanatics. Along the way, Hirsi Ali has established a reputation as a scorched-earth critic of Islam. It has earned her the adoration of the American right – and suspicion from the left, which sees her Islam-or-enlightenment stand as unhelpful.

Berman is at his most indignant here. Dubbing Hirsi Ali a “rebel soul,” he denounces the left for turning its back on someone whom he considers a true liberal voice emerged from the Islamist wasteland. Berman is appalled that Hirsi Ali, who has to travel with bodyguards because she has been marked for death by Islamists, cannot find succor in the same intelligentsia that once circled their wagons for Salman Rushdie. And it’s not just Hirsi Ali: Berman ends his book with a litany of liberals who have dared to challenge Islamist fascism and have seen their lives threatened for it. “Salman Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class,” he writes. Where are the liberal intellectuals to defend them?

That, as the title suggests, is what Berman’s book is really about. Joining Ramadan in the crosshairs are Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash, two champions of Ramadan, both critics of Hirsi Ali. But they also stand in for an entire intellectual cohort, one that Berman now finds suffering from a loss of nerve. “[I]n recounting these quarrels, I have, by the logic of my own narrative, ended up trotting out the dread word courage. This may be the heart of the matter,” he writes.

The particulars of Berman’s case against Ramadan seem, at times, to be a stretch. He gets across the point that Ramadan is a slippery figure – but others have already noted that. Upgrading the charge from slippery to sinister requires some heavy lifting and much hair-splitting on Berman’s part. All too often, Berman mistakes telling footnotes, vague wordings and conspicuous omissions for smoking guns. It’s an impressive prosecutorial performance, but it’s not enough to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Berman’s book amounts to something else: a radical’s attack on a squishy moderate. For Berman, Ramadan, who modulates his rhetoric depending on his audience, is the kind of ally we don’t need. Pick a side, stand your ground – the ambiguous, the pragmatic, the double-talkers need not apply. Berman dismisses the defense of Ramadan by intellectuals: that he is a valuable critic of Islam from within. And indeed, his indignation at Ramadan’s hedging about Islam’s problems can be contagious – you occasionally find yourself shaking your head (if not quite your fist).

Berman and Liberalism

But Berman’s exacting outlook is ultimately problematic. Hirsi Ali, strident and surrounded by bodyguards, is the model warrior in his war of ideas. It’s a needlessly steep standard – and a counterproductive one. Living under fatwa may be testimony to a critic’s courage, but that’s not the same as a critic’s effectiveness. If the true goal is to modernize Islam and promote liberalism, an effective critique, not just an angry one, is necessary. Berman’s impatience and his insistence on choosing sides get in the way of a clear-eyed assessment of what we need to win the war of ideas: courage, yes, and anger even, but also reason, canniness and humility.

In the years since 9/11, Berman has emerged as one of our foremost liberal hawks. He has been frequently lumped with Peter Beinart (The Good Fight), and Beinart in turn has harked back to the liberals of the Americans for Democratic Action and the anti-Communist left – Niebuhr’s liberals – as his and his intellectual allies’ forebears. But that’s not quite where Berman’s thought takes you. All you need is a minute with Berman’s urgent and certain prose to realize that there is little skepticism here and none of the ironic disposition. He is less a liberal of the Niebuhr variety than a lefty in the mold of an Irving Howe. In his words one feels the force of conviction of the Old Left, the romance of the battle, the thrill of the lonely stand. Indeed, The Flight of the Intellectuals recalls a similar challenge to the intellectual class: Howe’s “The Age of Conformity.” Like Howe, Berman sees himself as an observer and critic of the liberal intellectuals. Replace “conformity” with “cowardice,” and you have Berman’s updated critique of liberalism gone soft.

Berman’s is a necessary voice, but it’s a voice that can only be fruitful in equipoise with the skeptical one of Niebuhrian liberalism. Berman’s untrammeled moralism can leave us stranded (literally) in the dunes of endless desert. But liberal doubt can also lead us down an equally dangerous path of moral complacency and atrophy. What is Berman to liberalism and liberalism to Berman? Each in the end keeps the other honest.

Africa’s First High-Speed Railway Opens for World Cup

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The first high-speed rail service on the African continent kicked off this morning, just in time to zip World Cup fans between Johannesburg’s airport and the suburb hosting the tournament.

Construction of the first phase of Gautrain, named after the Gauteng Province it runs through, was accelerated last year so that the link would be operational for the start of the World Cup on Friday.

Still it was open to question whether the route between O. R. Tambo International Airport and Sandton would actually be ready for the soccer tournament, which is expected to attract half-a-million fans over 30 days of competition. But a certificate to operate the system was issued yesterday after several weeks of successful tests.

The line is less a true intercity railway than a souped-up transit system running at 100 mph. Top speeds have been dampened by the decision to locate stations every four to eight miles along the line.

Nevertheless, the gold-and-blue-trimmed Gautrains have caused a sensation in a country where conventional train service is slow and public-transit investment was banished for decades under apartheid policies intended to keep blacks and whites apart.

Today most middle-class South Africans drive everywhere, clogging the main highways, while the poor depend on mini-buses and foot power. To lure South Africans to the new service, the government has developed elaborate security measures, including closed-circuit cameras in the stations and trains.

The rail line slashes the travel time between the airport and Johannesburg from an hour by road to less than 15 minutes. The second phase, connecting Johannesburg with Pretoria, will be opened next year and will cut an hour from the present highway time.

The project is being constructed as a private-public partnership between the provincial government and a consortium that includes Canadian trainmaker Bombardier, South Africa’s ABSA Bank, and French contractor Bouygues.

The consortium has a 15½-year concession to operate the rail line after construction is completed in 2011.

Photo credit: DazMSmith

Iran Sends Its Own Gaza-Bound Flotilla

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Over the weekend, Iran’s foreign ministry decided it would be a peach of an idea to send an Iranian Red Crescent flotilla to Gaza. If the flotilla reaches the shores off Gaza — and check out a Middle East map and you’ll see that Tehran is going to need some “local help” so it doesn’t have to head around the Horn of Africa — it could create an international firestorm that makes the fallout from the first flotilla look like a three-year-old’s birthday party.

To the casual observer, the Iranian Red Crescent may seem like a harmless international charity intent on do-gooding. It is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the world’s largest humanitarian network.

But lest anyone think the Iranian Red Crescent is an independent charity that has made a humanitarian decision to send the flotilla to Gaza out of the goodness of its heart, click here. That’s the Google translation of the announcement of Abolhassan Faghih’s appointment as the Iranian Red Crescent’s president by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What’s more, the decision to send the flotilla was likely made within the halls of the Iranian foreign ministry in Tehran. Does that sound independent? Indeed, it’s almost certain that Ahmadinejad is using this flotilla as a direct extension of Iranian foreign policy.

And if the situation isn’t handled with extraordinary deftness, it could just spark a war.

Imagine the scenario: An Iranian-backed flotilla attempts to capitalize on the public relations “success” of last week’s tragedy. Israel, having dug its heels in on the naval blockade while sending mixed messages on the humanitarian issue, calculates that the last thing in the world it needs is to hand Iran a propaganda victory. After all, the Israel Defense Force just took out a handful of alleged terrorist divers off Gaza, which is a fair indication that the beating they’ve taken in the international press after last week isn’t going to make them back down.

In the face of impending physical confrontation, Tehran, as we’ve seen far too often over the last year, has little concern for the lives of its own citizens and encourages the flotilla onward. Israel fires. Tehran responds. The situation escalates … you can imagine the ugly fallout.

For the mullahs in Tehran, the situation is a win-win no-brainer. Either breaking the Israeli blockade or having its citizens die at Tel Aviv’s hands would be a massive propaganda victory that could potentially rally disaffected Iranians around the president. And if the situation becomes violent and Iran looks like a victim, it could decrease pressure within the UN Security Council for nuclear sanctions.

If we look purely at the strategic implications of the Red Crescent flotilla, the only way to diffuse the situation is to make aid in Gaza a non-issue. That’s why in light of the obvious humanitarian crisis afflicting Gaza’s citizens, Israel needs to facilitate a massive injection of aid into the strip.

And it better do it quickly. After all, were Iran to somehow fail, someone else would just send another flotilla soon.

Photo credit: Indigoprime’s Photostream