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November 2016

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Mike Pompeo’s Iran File If he honors the nuclear deal, Trump needs to enforce it vigorously.

By on November 22nd, 2016

In summer 2015 Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where they learned of two secret codicils to the Iranian nuclear deal. The Obama Administration had failed to disclose these side agreements to Congress. When pressed on the details of the codicils, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed never to have read them.

We’re reminded of this episode on news that Donald Trump has asked Congressman Pompeo to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. The Kansas Republican is being denounced by liberals as a “hardliner,” but the truth is that he has shown an independent streak that has allowed him to raise thorny questions and gather vital information that Administration officials want suppressed. Isn’t that what Americans should expect in a CIA director?

That goes double regarding the Iranian nuclear deal, which Mr. Pompeo opposed in part because of the diplomatic legerdemain he and Sen. Cotton uncovered in Vienna. Of the two secret deals, one concerned the nuclear agency’s inspection of the Parchin military facility, where the Iranians were suspected of testing components of a nuclear deal. The other concerned Iran’s non-answers to questions about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.

Both issues went to the question of whether Iran’s compliance with an agreement would be verifiable, and it’s easy to see why the Administration was so reluctant to disclose the facts. The IAEA was permitted one inspection of Parchin, where it discovered uranium traces, and the agency later issued an exculpatory report on Iran’s military work to facilitate the deal’s implementation.

We’ve since learned much more about the precise terms of the nuclear deal—including the Administration’s willingness to ignore them to placate the Iranians. That includes allowing the mullahs to build and test ballistic missiles and exceed the deal’s 300-kilo limit on low-enriched uranium. The IAEA also reported this month that Iran exceeded its heavy-water limit for the second time this year.

The scope of Iran’s violations was laid out last week in a detailed analysis from the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security. “IAEA reporting is so sparse as to confirm suspicions that compliance controversies are being deliberately omitted from the report,” note authors David Albright and Andrea Stricker. That makes the CIA’s job of investigating Iran’s nuclear programs all the more important, which is another reason to welcome Mr. Pompeo’s nomination.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-Trumpers Channel Their Inner Donald Many who decried Trump now exhibit the worst traits he was accused of. William McGurn

By on November 22nd, 2016

In a now forgotten column years back, a writer noted how times had changed in Britain since the 1960s. Back then, he wrote, it was the rock stars who filled the tabloids with their sex and excess. By contrast the British royals, raised on noblesse oblige, largely limited their public appearances to celebrations on behalf of hospitals, schools and other worthy causes.

The roles are now reversed. These days it is the British royals caught exiting nightclubs in the wee hours of the morning or captured playing naked billiards. By contrast, knighted rock stars emerge periodically from their landed estates to offer polite statements on the environment.

Something of the same has just happened this side of the Atlantic. At least since his victory speech promising to be president for all Americans—and notwithstanding the occasional tweet deriding “Saturday Night Live” as “nothing funny” or the New York Times as “failing”—Mr. Trump has mostly tried to sound positive and inclusive. Meanwhile, those who spent the 2016 campaign decrying Mr. Trump for his temperament and fascist tendencies are now exhibiting precisely those traits.
The most recent outburst came Friday night, when Mike Pence and some of his family took in a performance of the Broadway hit “Hamilton.” Having entered the theater to a mixture of cheers and boos, the vice president-elect at the end of the performance found himself lectured from the stage by the cast.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who both wrote the musical and starred in it, tweeted that he was “proud” of the moment, which he characterized as “leading with love.” As Mr. Pence pointed out, cast members have a right to say what they please. But the rest of us likewise have a right to note how boorish and self-congratulatory they were.

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America Can Invent the Next High-Tech Jobs Instead of trying to claw back workers from Asia, boost R&D and give tax credits for investment. By Henry Kressel and David P. Goldman

By on November 22nd, 2016

Americans invented the core high-technologies that enable the modern digital age, but they didn’t get a large share of the jobs created by these new industries. High-tech is dominated by Asia, where governments target its growth as vital to their economic development. The relationship between industry and the state is tight. In countries like China, Taiwan and South Korea, government-corporate partnerships provide patient capital, skilled workers and protection for intellectual property.

Their progress has been remarkable. Between 1999 and 2014, the World Bank reports, global exports of high-technology products (computers, aerospace, electrical machinery, pharmaceuticals and other “R&D intensive” products) rose by about 220%. China’s share of that soared to 26% from 3%. America’s fell to only 7% from 18%.

American innovations from the 1960s, the peak of the government’s commitment to defense and aerospace R&D, created the basis for a trillion-dollar electronics industry. Researchers with corporate and federal support invented the key components: microchips, lasers, LEDs, flat-panel displays, memory chips, imaging devices and solar-energy panels, among others. Today, these manufacturing industries employ millions of Asians but relatively few Americans.

Asia got the jobs because Asian governments set out to build innovative industries. They helped license the technology from the U.S., educated engineers and skilled workers, subsidized joint ventures with American firms that provided crucial experience, and underwrote new industries with grants and low-interest loans.

Solar energy is the latest example. As R&D made solar cells commercially viable, American venture capitalists poured money into startups. But Asian companies, with government support, moved into solar beginning around 2000. They bought German technology and by 2007 had cut market prices so low that American manufacturers couldn’t compete. When those kind of jobs move overseas, it’s largely a one-way trip. Since Asia produces most of the components, bringing solar-panel factories back to the U.S. would be difficult.

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‘Hamilton’ and the implosion of the American left by Mark Thiessen

By on November 22nd, 2016

Hey Democrats, want help to rally the country around Donald Trump? Here’s a great idea: Have a crowd of wealthy, out-of-touch Manhattan liberals (who can afford $849 tickets to “Hamilton”) boo Vice President-elect Mike Pence while the cast of the Broadway show lectures him on diversity.

The Democratic Party’s alienation from the rest of America was on full display at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Friday night. And the left seems completely oblivious to how ridiculous it looks to the rest of the United States. Professors at Yale and Columbia universities and other elite schools postpone exams and cancel classes for students who could not deal with the election results. Kids in Washington schools cut class with tacit approval from administrators to march in protest of the results of a free and fair election. School officials in Montgomery County offer grief counselors to “help students process any concerns or feelings they have about the election.” (Funny, I don’t recall anyone canceling exams or offering my kids grief counselors when Barack Obama was elected).

People in the American heartland see all this, and they shake their heads in disgust. Today’s Democrats have become a party of coastal elites completely disconnected from the rest of America. Doubt it? Take a look at a county-by-county map of the 2016 presidential election. You can drive some 3,000 miles across the entire continental United States — from sea to shining sea — without driving through a single county that voted for Hillary Clinton.

[Trump thinks artists owe him respect. They don’t.]

At the national level, the Democratic Party has been wiped out. Trump won five states that voted for Obama twice — Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — pushing Democrats even further toward the coastal peripheries. As a result, Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the White House, and (after President Trump picks a new justice to replace Antonin Scalia) there will be a restored conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

For Israel, the Task is to Work Even Harder to Keep Old Friends and Reach Out to New Ones Israel’s continued success in global affairs will disprove the deluded claim that the Jewish state is isolated in the world. It’s also the right strategy.Eran Lerman

By on November 21st, 2016

Arthur Herman’s essay, “Everybody Loves Israel,” comes as a breath of fresh air amid the pummelings being administered by the United Nations and the BDS movement and the dirge-like laments of friends about the Jewish state’s growing isolation as it courts a fate worse even than apartheid South Africa’s.

True, Herman’s title may be overstated, as he himself concedes, and the same can be said about some of the candidates he brings forward in support of his optimistic thesis, including Russia and China. Thus, for example, Yaakov Amidror has pointed to the approving votes cast by those two countries for UNESCO’s recent denial of a Jewish link to the city of Jerusalem: a sharp reminder of the limits of state-to-state relationships not based on moral affinities. Robert Satloff, in his own response to Herman at Mosaic, strikes a similar note of caution.

Yet, essentially, Herman is on the right track. And for me personally, as one who has been “on the scene” in Israel, serving six years (2009-2015) as deputy national-security adviser for foreign affairs, his positive assessment serves to vindicate a strategy pursued by politicians and policy makers deliberately and systematically (insofar as the latter term can ever be applied to Israeli life) for the better part of a decade, with remarkable results.

But let me start where Herman ends: none of Israel’s achievements in fashioning new partnerships on the world stage can or should in any way reduce the importance—the absolute centrality—of the U.S.-Israel bond. For the foreseeable future, Israel’s security and diplomatic support must continue to come from Washington. Whoever is in the White House, nothing is more important to Israel’s survival and prosperity than the bipartisan commitment of the world’s greatest power, which also happens to be the home of the world’s second-largest Jewish community. We Israelis must constantly be on our guard to nurture and sustain that commitment, and never take it for granted.

In this connection, what Herman does help us grasp is that Israel, for all the aid it receives, does in fact repay America for its support, and much more. Not only do we Israelis fulfill our obligation to keep our immediate vicinity safe, and to seek political and diplomatic understandings wherever we can without jeopardizing that safety, but we also accept strict limits on our trade with America’s rivals. A case in point is China, a country with which trade could long ago have reached much higher levels had Israel not been bound by its promises to the U.S.http://mosaicmagazine.com/response/2016/11/for-israel-the-task-is-to-work-even-harder-to-keep-old-friends-and-reach-out-to-new-ones/

Indeed, not just China but Asia as a whole has loomed large as a land of opportunity for Israel’s last three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, who visited India and presided over a dramatic breakthrough; Ehud Olmert, whose refugee grandfather is buried in Harbin and who led Israel’s mission to the 2010 World’s Fair in Shanghai; and Benjamin Netanyahu, who in addition has forged a strong and amicable relationship with his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe. And this is not to mention the ongoing efforts to bolster cultural as well as economic relations further with China and simultaneously to balance them by means of strong links with some relatively smaller Asian players—the population of “little” Vietnam alone stands at about 100 million—as well as a number of the truly small ones in this tense world arena.

Moving clockwise around the globe, we come to Africa. The prime minister’s visit to Uganda earlier this year was particularly redolent with symbolism. Forty years ago, a Ugandan bullet took his brother Yonatan’s life in Israel’s dramatic rescue operation at Entebbe airport. In the clash, which resulted in the rescue of 248 hostages, more than 40 Ugandan soldiers were also killed. Far from a cause of lingering rancor, however, that dramatic event has come to be seen by many in Uganda as the beginning of their salvation from Idi Amin’s demented rule. In Kampala and far beyond—Netanyahu’s itinerary also took in visits to Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia—Israel is regarded as a friend in need.

From Africa, crossing the Atlantic, we arrive in Latin America. Much reviled by Venezuela’s late Marxist-Leninist president Hugo Chávez and his ilk, Israel has had an easier time finding a place as a friendly observer at the Pacific Alliance (Alianza del Pacifico, a trading bloc comprising Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) as well as at the larger Southern Common Market (Mercosur). Winds of change are blowing elsewhere in the region as well, and new opportunities are opening up. As Israel’s curious friendship with Ecuador suggests, the heirs of Simón Bolivar are not all equally hostile, and some have come to appreciate how much Israel has to offer to countries seeking to rise through economic innovation

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

JED BABBIN: TRANSFORMATIONAL TRANSITIONS

By on November 21st, 2016

Trump’s transition has to transform the government. Obama’s people are deeply embedded and have to be replaced to restore our government’s ability to function properly. As Reagan taught us, personnel is policy.

Presidential transitions smooth the way for the peaceful transfer of power that has always characterized our democracy. When a transition passes power within a political party it changes little but the names on the door. Even when power passes between the Democrats and Republicans a transition isn’t necessarily transformational.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition will and must be transformational because it not only passes power between the parties but is passing power from a president and administration that have intentionally and greatly weakened America to one that has as its principal objective completion of the daunting task of rebuilding America’s economic, military and political influence at home and abroad to restore its greatness.

From the beginning of his presidency, Mr. Obama has reduced our military, our intelligence capabilities and our influence abroad to such a degree that we are no longer a superpower. We are no longer able to influence the world’s important events.

Mr. Trump has to rebuild our powers and influence to regain the superpower status. It can be done, but only with the right sort of transition. As we learned in the Reagan era, personnel is policy. That’s why Mr. Trump’s team has to create a transformational transition.

The media — having done everything it could to prevent Mr. Trump from being elected — is now in full voice trying to prevent him from selecting the kind of people he needs to fill his cabinet. Consider former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose name is being floated as a possible secretary of State.

On Nov. 15, The New York Times published an editorial proclaiming that Mr. Giuliani should never be secretary of State. The Times said he had no experience as a diplomat, that his international security firm had earned millions from foreign governments and that he was insensitive at times.

The editorial reminded me of one incident that disproved all of the Times’ principal arguments.

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SYDNEY WILLIAMS: RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

By on November 21st, 2016

In the aftermath of the election, with protests led by violent and professional protesters and a cast member of “Hamilton” peremptorily lecturing the newly elected Vice President, it may seem unrealistic to suggest that differences we have are reconcilable. But I believe they are.

In the heat of a political campaign, urged on by extremists from both Parties and encouraged by a biased press, we forget that all Americans ultimately want the same things: We all want a society that is fair, civil and free; one in which success is determined by meritocracy, not based on one’s parents. We want the rule of law, and we want justice meted out by a jury of one’s peers. We want peace and prosperity. We want hope for the future, and security at home and abroad. These wants are an expected part of the American experience.

Nevertheless, it is common, at times like these, to confuse means with ends – to focus on where we are most different, rather than on what we all share. That could be seen Friday evening when Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr in the Broadway hip-hop musical “Hamilton,” felt the need to instruct Vice President-elect Michael Pence – a man who spent a dozen years in the House of Representatives and four as Governor of Indiana – on the meaning of democracy. Mr. Dixon is free to speak as he wishes; however, his remarks were disrespectful and unfair to audience members who disagreed, but were compelled to listen to his harangue. For those who voted for Clinton his words may have provided a momentary sense of schadenfreude, but for those who voted for Trump he came across as pompous and sanctimonious.

It is in how to achieve common objectives that we differ. At its most fundamental, Democrats place more faith in government, while Republicans rely more heavily on free-market capitalism. Democrats prefer redistribution over lower taxes; tighter, rather than looser, regulations. But Democrats understand the need for the private sector, and Republicans recognize that government is essential to education, commerce and civility. It is in emphasis where there is disagreement.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Donald Trump and the Return of European Anti-Americanism by Soeren Kern

By on November 21st, 2016

European anti-Americanism — which was on the wane during the presidency of Barack Obama, who steered the United States on a course of globalism rather than nationalism — is back with a vengeance.

Europe’s media establishment has greeted Donald Trump’s election victory with a vitriol not seen since the George W. Bush presidency, when anti-Americanism in Europe was at fever pitch.

Since the American election on November 9, European television, radio and print media have produced an avalanche of negative stories, editorials and commentary that seethe with rage over the outcome of the vote.

European criticism of Trump goes far beyond a simple displeasure with the man who will be the next president. The condemnation reveals a deep-seated contempt for the United States, and for American voters who democratically elected a candidate committed to restoring American economic and military strength.

If the past is any indication of the future, European anti-Americanism will be a pervasive feature of transatlantic relations during the Trump presidency.

Although European opinion-shapers have focused much of their indignation on the threat Trump allegedly poses to global order, the president-elect will inherit a world that is significantly more chaotic and insecure than it was when Obama became president in January 2009.

The primary cause of the global disorder is the lack of American leadership — leading from behind — at home and abroad.

A series of feckless decisions by Obama to reduce American military influence abroad have created geopolitical power vacuums that are being filled by countries and ideologies that are innately hostile to Western interests and values. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and radical Islam — among many others — have all been emboldened to challenge the United States and its allies with impunity.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: JAMES MATTIS AN AMERICAN HERO

By on November 21st, 2016

My inbox is loaded with warnings from fellow Zionists about statements made by General Mattis against Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria in 2013. I share their concern and bow to no one in my support for Israeli sovereignty from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River with Jerusalem and Hebron as capitals of Israel. Americans for a Safe Israel, on whose executive committee I serve, has been the only….repeat only…. Israel support organization that opposed any inch of territorial concessions by Israel since 1973. Read OUTPOST our publication, where I contribute a monthly column for evidence.

Now, as to General Mattis. As a conservative and defense minded conservative I have gratitude to General Mattis for his service and his lifetime commitment to a strong and exceptional America. He will not set Middle East policy and as Secretary of Defense will rebuild our sagging military, restore aging ordnance and inspire recruitment. Support for Israel will come from the top- Donald Trump and Mike Pence, and be implemented by the State Department.

Our bigger problem is the Jewish left that engages with the anti-Semites on campuses and seeks to delegitimate Israel .

Please take the time to read this:

The Meaning of Their Service By James N. Mattis April 2015

A retired four-star Marine Corps general on the clarifying effect of combat experience, the poison of cynicism and how veterans can help revive American optimism.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-meaning-of-their-service-1429310859

This article was adapted from remarks for the fourth annual salute to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco on April 16:

Our country gives hope to millions around the world, and you—who knew that at one time your job was to fight well—kept that hope alive. By your service you made clear your choice about what kind of world we want for our children: The world of violent jihadist terrorists, or one defined by Abraham Lincoln when he advised us to listen to our better angels?

I searched for words to pay my respects to all of you here tonight and had to turn to others more articulate than I to convey what our service meant. Someone once said that America is like a bank: If you want to take something out, then you must be willing to put something in. CONTINUE AT SITE

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Unrepentant: Hillary, Libya, and History The debacle that will really haunt Clinton’s legacy. C. Gambill and Teri Blumenfeld

By on November 21st, 2016

Reprinted from the American Spectator.

Although Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the White House in part because of lingering public resentment over the 2012 terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, history will judge her even more harshly for her decisive role in the preceding U.S.-led military intervention in Libya.

In fact, then-Secretary of State Clinton was instrumental at three critical junctures in convincing President Obama to green-light and escalate the war to oust Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi.

First was her decisive role in the initial U.S. decision to lead a NATO air campaign in Libya. Under intense pressure from European and Arab governments to stop Qaddafi’s forces from stamping out the incipient rebellion, Obama administration officials were deeply divided. Those opposing intervention included Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Those in favor included Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

Although Secretary Clinton ostensibly took no position at first, she worked to pave the way for the intervention Power and Rice were urging by brokering an Arab League resolution calling for an internationally enforced no-fly zone. With that in hand on March 12, she flew to Paris to meet with European officials and Libyan opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril, after which she pressed Obama heavily to intervene. Gates later said that Clinton’s advocacy “put the president on the 51 side” of a “51-49” decision to intervene.

So what if the Obama administration had allowed regime forces to win? Qaddafi’s Libya was no democracy, but it was an occasional partner in the war on terror and its human rights record was steadily improving. Indeed, one of the reasons radical Islamists were so well poised to seize control of the revolt is that Qaddafi (unlike other Arab dictators) had freed the large majority of them from his prisons.

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