Daniel Lubetzky

Afshin Ellian wrote an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal.  He concludes it with:

The emergence of a democratic Iran is therefore not only a moral imperative but should be the foreign policy priority of every cold-hearted realist as well as multicultural engager. That’s why it is so incomprehensible that the Obama Administration still prefers dialogue with the apocalyptic ayatollahs over uncompromising support for the people crying out for freedom.

If the protesters shake off the yoke of theocracy and savagery, their success could herald the failure of political Islam way beyond Iran. At this turning point in history the West has no logical alternative but to unequivocally support the Green Revolution. The fate of this movement far outweighs the useless nuclear talks that will only buy the regime time and undeserved international legitimacy. The demonstrators in Iran on Dec. 7 rightfully exclaimed: "Obama, are you with them [the regime] or with us?" History will not judge him lightly if he chooses the wrong side.

For years I have wondered how so many diplomats (including many who are esteemed friends that I admire) delude themselves into believing they can actually get the Iranian regime to drop their quest for nuclear weapons.  Never mind that the regime has invested its entire reputation into asserting that the nuclear option is its G’d-given right.  And never mind that their entire geo-strategic existence relies on nuclear hegemony, not to mention the scary messianic imperatives they seem to want to accelerate with nuclear holocaust, as Ahmadinejad himself explicitly avowed.  If history teaches us anything is that we should take people in power at their word when they proclaim threatening visions in the public fora.

Several years ago, pundits dismissed "regime change" as naive and advocated nuclear containment with Iran instead.  I remember thinking they all had it upside down.  Nuclear containment is unlikely with the present regime.  Admittedly it may also be difficult with a future Iranian leadership.  But at least we won’t have apocalyptic messianics holding on to the red button.  Now that a viable grassroots opposition has risen in Iran demanding freedom and democracy, it will be devastating if they are not given all forms of global support, moral AND otherwise.

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This fascinating article doesn’t directly address global governance. But the increasing uses of information and technology at the municipal level portend positively for models for global governance for the 21st century. And at all levels, this trend hints at the sweeping changes that will come in how we leverage data.

My father taught me a very important lesson when I was a girl growing up in East Germany. He said, “Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.”

-as told to Bono (U2) and captured by him in a New York Times opinion piece.

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My wife is a Doctor and she often shares stories about how the medical “system” leads to unsavory paths, often including terminally-ill elderly & infirm patients who are dragged through the indecency of two extra weeks of herculean efforts to keep them alive when it is pretty clear they are victims of technology and bureaucracy gone awry.  They would have much rather died a dignified death than be dragged through it.  But their families would of course want to know they did everything in their power for them. 

I have also heard that the costs of health care in the last two weeks of one’s life tend to account for between 50% and 75% of one’s lifetime expenses.    This data point may exaggerate the problem because obviously before you pass on it makes sense that a lot will be invested in to saving you.  But it does point to the challenge we need to confront in modern society: just because technology now exists that could “prolong” our lives does not follow that every instance we should deploy every available technology.

This is why it struck me that the campaign to scare people with the government’s “death panels” was a red herring – a silly distraction from a serious issue that our society needs to confront.

US Congressman Earl Blumenauer recently wrote the inside account of the “Death Panel” miscommunication campaign here. It is recommended reading not just to health care legislation aficionados, but to all who need to know about the sobering way in which our legislative system works.

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Interesting article about a pious ayatollah who challenges the “Islamic” claim of the Iranian regime.

As this article illustrates, looks like OneVoice could be a positive and missing ingredient in Lebanese soil.

Interesting and provocative article from Hoover fellow – Victor Davis Hanson – re Obama foreign policy as lacking in toughness from real politik.

Inspiring article…

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This article provides some proof that, Putin’s KGBesque bravado aside, Russia’s economy is a house of cards waiting to fall.

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Last night I listened to Anderson Cooper on CNN as he analyzed the Netanyahu speech at the UN.  He asked if Netanyahu had naively bitten Ahmadinejad’s bait, and he introduces an excerpt where Netanyahu appears to angrily overreach by attacking every member of the UN for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, saying:

I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?

My immediate reaction as I listened to this edited piece was, man, this is dumb.  Netanyahu should not attack all members of the UN.  After all, the body at the UN is designed for ALL nations – even those ruled by oppressive regimes – to have a forum to speak (as David Gergen explained, pointing to Netanyahu’s moral clarity but criticizing him for not recognizing this).  And how dare Netanyahu say he represents all the Jewish people? I don’t think he represents me – certainly not on how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But something felt wrong.  I may disagree with him on many policy issues but Netanyahu is a smart man with strong diplomatic and public speaking skills.  Was this the real story?

So today I read the entire transcript of Netanyahu’s speech.  And I was shocked at how bad CNN/Anderson Cooper had framed the issue! I’ve written about how FOX over-does the spin in the right-wing direction.  But CNN and Cooper should be embarrassed about how they handled this.  And one of my favorite commentators and real statesmen – David Gergen (perhaps the only excellent one left among dozens of mini-opinionators) probably did not even listen to the speech in full, and certainly did not frame things clearly.  The other commentator (Reza Ezlan?) was way way off.

Here is a quote within context from Netanyahu’s speech:

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.  To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you.  You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.
But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?  A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace!  What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Now, of course that in the age of twitter, you need to keep things brief.  But Cooper/CNN could have easily introduced the segment of Netanyahu by explaining that he criticized not the entire UN audience, but those who stayed to listen to Ahmadinejad.  Denying even monsters like Ahmadinejad the podium is not an option at the UN.  But every nation has a right to get up and walk out – to exercise its right not to be subjected to his vitriolic hate-mongering, and this was a valid position for Netanyahu to take.

With this post I do not mean to endorse all of Netanyahu’s foreign policy positions – quite the opposite, in some areas I feel he harms Israeli and Palestinian interests alike. But as a student of the media, following on my prior post about editorial spin, I am yet again alarmed at how dangerous unchecked news sources can be.  Indeed, a big part of why the Middle East and the world are in the shape they are is because partisan media feeds each audience what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear, and they don’t constructively engage audiences to better understand each other.

For students of oratory and for students of history, Netanyahu’s speech is actually constructed extremely well, and will probably become a historical piece that others will study for decades.  The transcript is provided below in full for those who want to examine it for themselves:

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