To My Democratic Friends...

Passing Health Care Reform was, for your team, a historical achievement. But the President has been mostly unable to sell it to the American people. Partisans left and right hope|fear that the reform will become much more popular once enacted, but that is not likely -- Health Care Reform was far more controversial at inception than either Social Security, or Medicare. More likely, it will become even more polarizing and more bitterly fought over every election cycle on the state and federal level. As such it will be, at best, unevenly implemented.

The tragedy is that there were no shortage of "good ideas" (for example: better aligning incentives by severing insurance from employment or promoting alternatives to fee-for-service), that could have more sustainably passed with some bi-partisan support and, in-turn, built credibility toward more ambitious reform.

To hear your economists, the Stimulus program was too small to possibly succeed, but just large enough to be a political disaster for its backers.

After the financial crisis, there was a national consensus that "too big too fail" and "public risk, private reward" had to end. It is really hard to argue that Dodd-Frank accomplished either. On the contrary, the largest banks today, control more of the economy than ever, and the Government is still subsidizing bankers' bonuses.

Obama argues he is pursuing a savvy, subtle, long-game, foriegn policy. Certainly, running around the Middle East trying to impose Democracy wasn't brilliant. On the other hand, there has to be some sensible middle ground between that and policy that seems oddly complacent in the face of a world that is, in many respects, more dangerous now than it was four years ago.

To take one example: Moderate Muslims, are fighting with Islamicists for the future of their societies. According to the New York Times, "One of the principal goals of the extremists... is to pressure these transitional governments to enact and enforce strict laws against blasphemy. These laws can then be used to purge secularists and moderates." With that in mind, it is hard to see the administration's response to the youtube video protests as either savvy or subtle.

Mitt Romney ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy and to the right of Gingrich and Perry. He is a tactician, not an ideologue. As a tactician, he tracked to the right in the primaries, and back to the center in the general. In the face of conservative pressure in the primaries, he refused to jeopardize his general electibility by dis-owning "RomneyCare". While that should have given conservatives pause, it should re-assure, moderates and liberals. As President, he can be expected to be more like Clinton than Obama: refusing to jeopardize his re-electability playing to the unpopular passions of his base (in Romney's case, for example by dismantling the safety net or bomb, bomb, bombing Iran).

Finally, a Romney win will strengthen moderate Republicans in the way that Clinton's victory strengthened, for a time, "Third Way" Democrats. This would be a good thing.

Restoring America's Moral Standing

On of the key promises of Obama's candidacy was that he would "restore America's standing in the world"

The divergence between what that means to the hard left and what that means to main street America is illustrated by the Administration's in-action towards the Iranian election.

Most Americans, I think, have difficulty seeing how remaining silent, or neutral, in the face of a stolen election is a recipe for restoring, rather than undermining, our global standing.

Should Ahmadinejad steal this election with our implicit acquiescence, we can add Iran to the list of Muslim nations whose populations resent us for talking about freedom and democracy while supporting their own oppressive governments.

On the other hand, should the election turn out to have been legitimate, Obama's inaction will prove to have been wise.

On a related note, one can't but be amused by the observation that while only a few years ago, to the hard left Kissenger equaled Satan, right now, our President, who was their candidate, is pursuing "realist" policy that would make Kissenger proud.

Obama and Hamas

Drudge links to Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

There is less to this story then meets the eye. Obama is not likely to discontinue any of the policies by which Bush isolated Hamas. The idea that the current administration does not already have clandestine lines of communication with Hamas (for example: through Egypt) is silly.

The explicit 'break' from current doctrine is this: The Bush administration conducted clandestine negotiations with Hamas, as it did with Iran, clandestinely and indirectly, while Obama has advisors who would have him conduct clandestine negotiations directly and more publically. Bush's approach is based on the belief that direct and public negotiation with the United States is a diplomatic carrot -- by virtue of the legitimization it implies -- which American diplomats should not simply give away. I have a harder time understanding the rationale of the anonymous Obama advisors. Perhaps they do not see direct or public negotiation as extending implied legitimization to actors like Iran and Hamas.

The bigger question is not "how", but the "what". Bush extended clear terms -- fundamentally the same as what the US required of the PLO back in the day -- for including Hamas more directly in the conversation. Obama has given no real indication that he intends to relax these conditions. On the other hand, one doesn't have to read too deeply between the lines to sense that his anonymous advisors would have him do so.

Richard Haass, a diplomat under both Bush presidents who was named by a number of news organisations this week as Obama's choice for Middle East envoy, supports low-level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.

Another potential contender for a foreign policy role in the Obama administration suggested that the president-elect would not be bound by the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas.

"This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with critical parties on critical issues," the source said.

These are not consistent positions. As Hamas is a more critical party and the issues are more critical if there is no cease fire and no Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, the anonymous contender would not support the conditions Haass would have. Implicit in Haass' position is the supposed Bush doctrine of viewing negotiation as a reward for good behavior.

..."Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," said Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation. "You could do something through the Europeans. You could invent a structure that is multilateral. It is going to be hard for the neocons to swallow," he said. "I think it is going to happen.

This reminds me of Met fans who chant "Yankees Suck" at Shea when the Mets do well. Policy makers should have greater concerns then how well neocons are swallowing what.

...the president-elect would be wary of being seen to give legitimacy to Hamas as a consequence of the war in Gaza.

Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at George town University's school of foreign service, said it was unlikely that Obama would move to initiate contacts with Hamas unless the radical faction in Damascus was crippled by the conflict in Gaza. "This would really be dependent on Hamas's military wing having suffered a real, almost decisive, drubbing."

Even with such caveats, there is growing agreement, among Republicans as well as Democrats, on the need to engage Hamas to achieve a sustainable peace in the Middle East – even among Obama's close advisers.

The argument for engaging Hamas depends on the low likelyhood of Hamas participating in a "sustainable" peace still being greater then the likelyhood of Hamas being made irrelevant.

Hoffman's opinion is mind-bogglingly perverse. Hamas's military wing suffering a real, almost decisive, drubbing dramatically increases the likelyhood of Hamas being made irrelevant as their primary selling point is "We, better the Fatah, can stand up to Israel". To the degree that Hamas is not going away, there is some argument that it has to be dealt with. But why would anyone want America to rescue Hamas from the jaws of irrelevancy?

Which gets to a more fundamental point. In the end, negotiations with Hamas may well be a necessary evil. They ought not be something anybody is anxious to do.

Umbrella

Obama's atomic umbrella: U.S. nuclear strike if Iran nukes Israel

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.

There is good news here for those who feared Obama was the second coming of McGovern.

On the other hand, Obama, in regards to middle east policy, is far more likely to be the second coming of Clinton, which is to say: heart in the right place, but ignorant until too late about the realities of the region.

To wit: Iran is unlikely to launch a nuclear missle against Israel. Iran is far more likely to pass nuclear technology to affiliated terrorist groups. An attack by such groups will not, immediately or with certainty, be traced back to Iran. And so Israelis and Iranians know that Obama's umbrella is far from waterproof. Obama may even know that too, which is why its easy for him to offer it.

Granting Israel a nuclear guarantee essentially suggests the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran. For its part, Israel opposes any such development and similar opposition was voiced by officials in the outgoing Bush administration.

This may not be true. Extending the umbrella might well be intended to lower the value of nuclear weapons to Iran, as part of an effort to disuade Iran from pursuing them.

If it is: Given that affiliated terrorist groups will likely be Iran's vector of choice for a nuclear attack, its not clear to me that Israelis should be more afraid of a nuclear attack from Iran then we are. New York is as least as likely a target for nuclear terrorists as Haifa.