In his latest overture to Iran, President Barack Obama has authorized U.S. embassies worldwide to invite Iranian officials to their July 4th parties. I actually attended an embassy-sponsored July 4th party in Cairo last year and can confirm that these are great social opportunities, with brief speeches on American values giving way to an evening of hot dogs, hamburgers, and beer.

Still, I wonder whether Iranian diplomats would feel comfortable at such an event for two reasons. First, since alcohol is forbidden in Islam and banned in Iran, I doubt that U.S. and Iranian emissaries will be bonding over brews. Second, Iranian diplomats’ barbecue meat of choice is typically the American flag.

Last week, I criticized the coverage of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court as remarkably lazy. Indeed, rather than undertaking a comprehensive review of Sotomayor’s seventeen years worth of judicial opinions, the media and blogosphere have focused on the easy — not to mention obvious — issue of race, with some going as far as labeling her an outright “racist” on account of her “32 words.”

But over at SCOTUS Blog, Tom Goldstein provides complete data from the 96 race-related cases aside from Ricci on which Sotomayor has decided during her long judicial career:

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions.  Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

Goldstein also observes that in one case, Pappas v. Giuliani (2002), Sotomayor dissented from the majority’s holding that the NYPD could fire a white employee for distributing racist materials.  I find the media’s insistence that Ricci — and not Pappas — is representative of Sotomayor’s judicial work deeply troubling. It only confirms my suspicion that the media has decided to make Sotomayor’s nomination about her supposed “empathy” for minorities — regardless of the skepticism that she has otherwise demonstrated towards discrimination claims the vast majority of the time.

As Peter noted, the outcome of the historic transition in journalism that we are witnessing remains entirely unknown.

So here’s one guess that I’ve been tossing around: while most newspapers will either fold or become trimmer online-only publications, a handful of bigger ones will stick around as non-profits.  Basically, they will raise tax-deductible donations from donors who value the cause of journalism — particularly the importance of a well-informed public to a functioning democracy — and support the political slant of the particular newspaper.

Of course, much would change in a non-profit world of journalism.  For starters, endorsing candidates would probably be out of the question, given the requirements of 501(c)(3) organizations.  On the other hand, the greater influence of individual donors in supporting newspapers could contribute to even more biased reporting and coverage.  Moreover, the culture of journalism might also change significantly, with reporters competing for endowed positions (The George M. Steinbrenner III Yankees Beat Reporter, anyone?), as opposed to a spot on the front page.

None of this would be particularly ideal.  But insofar as newspapers are not economically sustainable in the Internet Age, the non-profit newspaper might provide an extra-market solution.

During his first four months in office, President Barack Obama has demonstrated remarkably little leadership on Iran.  This has significantly undermined our position in the Middle East, where states have lost confidence in the Obama administration and – as a consequence – are formulating new, unilateral strategies in anticipation of continued Iranian uranium enrichment.

In this vein, Israel has issued the latest signal that it is serious about executing a preemptive strike on Iran – with or without U.S. support.  Yesterday, it launched the biggest civilian defense drill in its history, with police, local authorities, emergency services, and civilians engaging in a series of exercises to plan for a variety of attack scenarios – including non-conventional missile strikes.  The signal that Israel is trying to send to Iran – and the U.S. – is very obvious: “We are prepared for any counterstrike that might follow our own attack on Iranian nuclear sites, and therefore possess ample freedom of action for hitting Iran if we deem it necessary.”  Remember: the current Israeli government already has significant public support for attacking Iran – public support that remains quite strong even if the Obama administration maintains its opposition to such an attack.

Egypt is also planning for the likelihood that the administration won’t inhibit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  In a statement released on Sunday, a spokesperson for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that, “With regard to attempts to say Iran is a common danger, President Mubarak’s and Egypt’s priority is on the Palestinian issue.”  Egypt’s strategic thinking is clear: if Iran is to become a nuclear state, its best option is to ensure that Israel is significantly weakened via the peace process, and thereby prevented from engaging Iran in armed (and perhaps nuclear) conflict.  Or, to put it another way, Egypt is shrewdly calculating that its interests are better protected with one regional power than with two – and it has noticed that the Obama administration is more eager to take a hard line with Israel than with Iran, despite Cairo’s own distaste for the latter.

Of course, if the Obama administration actually believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more destabilizing than a nuclear Iran, it will embrace Cairo’s sudden priority on the peace process.  However, it will then have to contend with the increasing possibility that a well-prepared and determined Israel will take matters vis-à-vis Tehran into its own hands.  For this reason, the Obama administration’s lack of resolve on Iran is paving the road towards utter disaster.

Three months after Syria, Jordan, and Egypt lost substantial territory during the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab League convened in Khartoum and issued its infamous “three no’s”: no peace with Israel; no recognition of Israel; and no negotiations with Israel.  Yesterday in Cairo, an uncharacteristically defiant Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered an updated version of these no’s: “No amending the Arab peace plan; No normalization without withdrawal; and no to the Jewishness of the Israeli state.”

You may wonder where a feckless, powerless, and unpopular leader of a non-state entity gets off setting the ground rules for future negotiations with the elected government of a regional power.  As Jonathan has pointed out, the Obama White House has thrown its support so strongly behind Abbas – and issued such a strong condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion – that the Palestinian leader can hardly contain his newfound confidence.

Let this be a lesson to those who insist that a more “even-handed” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would produce faster peace dividends.  If anything, Abbas’s sudden bravado indicates that tilting against Israel makes its adversaries less compromising and makes peace prospects more hopeless.  Consider for a moment that two of Abbas’s three no’s – his refusal to amend the Arab peace plan and vocal opposition to Israel’s Jewish character – can be collapsed into one: an insistence on Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel proper.  This is a stipulation that no Israeli government would ever accept, while Obama rejected the “right of return” explicitly as “not an option” during his presidential campaign.

In short, chalk up another failure for President Obama’s ongoing experimentation with American foreign policy.

President Barack Obama’s forthcoming address to the Muslim world in Cairo will be next week’s headline-hogging foreign policy event. Yet as far as long-term U.S. strategy in the Middle East is concerned, Obama’s address will be second fiddle to a far more consequential — even if less publicized — event: his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. For the administration, this will be a critical opportunity for assessing Mubarak’s physical health and, in turn, the probability of political upheaval in Egypt in the near future.

Since the sudden death of his 12-year-old grandson on May 18^th, Mubarak has made only one televised appearance, with reports indicating that he looked ill. (The cause of the boy’s death is unknown, with reports claiming that he fell off a horse, suffered from food poisoning, or died of a heart attack.) Neither Mubarak nor his wife attended the funeral, nor have any new photographs of the Egyptian leader been printed in the state-run press. Mubarak further canceled his trip to Washington, which had been scheduled for earlier this week, and hasn’t met with any foreign leaders in nearly two weeks.  To say the least, it is a rare period of public absence for the Egyptian strongman.

This has fueled speculation within the always-active Cairo rumor mill. One theory claims that Mubarak suffered a heart attack upon hearing of the death of his grandson. Meanwhile, a source has claimed to have “insider information” through a chain of doctors that Mubarak and his wife are both hospitalized.

Confirming or refuting these rumors will be the most important outcome of Obama’s short stopover in Egypt. If Mubarak is healthy — and his current absence is merely the consequence of understandable grieving — Obama will probably partner with the regime (human rights be damned) in pushing some variant of the Saudi peace plan as his major Middle Eastern foreign policy project (stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities be damned).

But if Obama finds an unhealthy Mubarak, all bets are off. The administration will have to confront the real possibility of imminent instability within the most populous Arab state — particularly the likelihood of a power struggle among factions within the regime and security forces. It will have to find the right balance between pleasing these regime-based factions and promoting liberal reforms; between promoting liberal reforms and constraining Islamists; and between short-term stability and a long-term push for democratization. Make no mistake: pushing for a smooth, post-Mubarak transition in Egypt could easily become the Obama administration’s top challenge in the Middle East.

For the moment, of course, this is all speculation. This is why Obama’s meeting with Mubarak — and the insight that this encounter will give the administration regarding Mubarak’s physical health — is so crucial.

In the aftermath of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the media has focused most centrally on one thing: that she’s Hispanic. And this fascination with Sotomayor’s cultural heritage is hardly limited to the New York Times editorial board, which referenced Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican roots as a key reason for supporting her confirmation only a day after she was nominated.

Indeed, this blatant foray into identity politics is coming just as strongly from the right. In this vein, check out yesterday’s Wall Street Journal front-page headline, which blared, “Hispanic Picked for Top Court” — not “Sotomayor Picked for Top Court” (doesn’t her last name imply her heritage for those interested?); nor “Second Circuit Judge Picked for Top Court.” Or check out Karl Rove downplaying Sotomayor as a Hispanic trailblazer in the op-ed that Jen referenced:

… Judge Sotomayor will become the second Hispanic (Benjamin Cardozo was Sephardic) …

(Calling Cardozo Hispanic is misleading, if not incorrect: Cardozo’s family resettled in Holland after the Spanish Inquisition — not somewhere in Latin America, which is the broad region to which most people are referring by the term “Hispanic.”)

Ultimately, the emphasis on Sotomayor’s heritage in analyzing her nomination and confirmation prospects can be traced to one common cause: journalistic laziness.  After all, Sotomayor has served as a federal judge since 1992 and has issued perhaps thousands of rulings — yet it is far easier to discuss the superficial than to attempt any comprehensive analysis of her plethora of prior decisions. Indeed, it is much easier to call her a “racist” for one misguided remark claiming that a “wise Latina woman” would make a better judge than a white male — or to cast her off as a strict “identity politics” pick — than it is to assemble a representative sample of her judicial work.

So here’s one suggestion for the next time we have a judicial nomination: force the nominee to appear in public with a convenient American Bar Association rating stamped on his or her forehead. This will simplify talking heads’ jobs considerably, allowing them to evaluate the most central question regarding new Supreme Court justices: how will they affect the court’s ideological — not its cultural or gender — balance?

Although the administration hasn’t announced it officially, the rumor in Egypt is that President Barack Obama will deliver his forthcoming address to the Muslim world from Cairo University. While many critics of the Mubarak regime had hoped that Obama would speak from the New Bibliotheca in Alexandria – thereby distancing himself from the regime and paying tribute to the region’s intellectual heritage – I actually think that C.U. is a good choice for a few reasons.

First, as Egypt’s largest institution of higher learning, C.U. is a location with which many Egyptian citizens are intimately familiar.  Check out the enrollment figures: the University boasts over 200,000 students and over 12,000 faculty members.  If the point is to connect with the Muslim world, then speaking from a spot that so many Egyptians have called their intellectual home makes sense.

Second, C.U. is a distinctly middle class public institution of higher learning.  Indeed, it is very different from the upper-class American University in Cairo, which was the scene of then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s infamous 2005 call for free elections in Egypt.  This bolsters the notion that Obama is coming to speak to the Muslim world, as opposed to a select group of Egyptian elites.

Third, the neighborhood in which C.U. is situated – Giza – is similarly working class, and is unaccustomed to visits from world leaders.  Indeed, most presidential visits to Egypt are closed-door affairs within government compounds, or conferences held in resort towns, such as Sharm el-Sheikh or Luxor.  In turn, the administration is ensuring that ordinary Egyptians will be uniquely engaged with Obama’s visit – a key precondition for the success of any attempt to win them over.

In short, the administration has done an admirable job in booking a suitable venue for getting its message across.  Now we await that message …

On Friday night, prominent Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour was attacked in Giza, sustaining first-degree burns to his face and losing 20% of his hair after a young assailant sprayed him with flames from a pesticide aerosol. Naturally, the immediate suspect is the Egyptian government, which has persecuted Nour and his Ghad party relentlessly since Nour finished a distant second to President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 elections. However, many analysts have been reluctant to accuse the regime of ordering the attack for three key reasons:

First, for all of the regime’s violence against opposition movements, it typically waits until its most prominent dissidents are behind bars before torturing them. Indeed, an attack on someone of Nour’s stature in broad daylight is practically unheard of. Second, the attack was remarkably rudimentary – again, the attacker used basic household items in a very sloppy assassination attempt. Third and most important, the attack would represent a stunning departure from the regime’s typically cautious modus operandi. After all, it comes barely two weeks before President Barack Obama is set to deliver a major speech to the Muslim world from Cairo — a location that was chosen, much to liberal dissidents’ consternation, as a carrot to the Mubarak regime.

Still, the regime has a clear motive for ordering an attack against Nour: since releasing Nour from political imprisonment in February, it has failed in its efforts to contain him. In this vein, despite the regime’s attempt to place his Ghad party under the control of a puppet, Egypt’s nominally independent courts have recognized Nour as the official leader. Moreover, Nour has maintained an active speaking schedule and, last week, declared his intention to run in the 2011 presidential elections. Finally, Nour recently testified via speakerphone before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, supporting a resolution that sharply criticized the Egyptian government. Looking ahead to Obama’s forthcoming speech in Cairo, the regime likely feared that Nour would get an audience with the U.S. President — a daunting prospect for Mubarak, 81 years old, as he pushes for his son’s seamless succession.

So here’s one theory: perhaps the Mubarak regime struck Nour when the international community would least suspect it of doing so — ordering an attack that did just enough damage to keep Nour out of commission, yet looked too rudimentary to be traced back to the government conclusively.

For the moment, two developments support this theory. First, according to a source, one of the key witnesses to the attack on Nour is being harassed via frequent phone calls and drop-in visits to his apartment — the regime’s typical intimidation tactics. Second, three days after the attack on Nour, the regime dropped its prison sentence against liberal dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had been convicted of criticizing the government in the foreign press. As Dina Guirguis notes, this is the regime’s classic “bait and switch” move: using one “goodwill gesture” to distract the international community from its larger abuses.

Again, it is impossible to link the Mubarak regime conclusively to the attack on Nour. Indeed, the overall lack of clarity surrounding the incident is a big part of the reason the mainstream media has been slow to report on it. But if the regime did order the attack — and there is ample circumstantial evidence to suggest it had the motive to do so — then its strategic calculations regarding the means and timing of the attack were spot-on. After all, the international community has been totally silent on Nour, who is refusing to appear in public until his face is healed. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is moving ahead with its plans for a major address in Cairo, the capital of Middle Eastern authoritarianism.

President Barack Obama has just nominated Second Circuit Justice Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Over the next few days and weeks, tons of ink will be spilled over Sotomayor, with legal pundits on every network and in every newspaper analyzing her every decision.

But before any of that commences, I would like to salute Sotomayor for one of her lesser known decisions: back in 2000, she presided over the New York City Moot Court Championships as part of a three-judge panel and declared Townsend Harris High School the winner. I don’t remember the precise questions she asked my classmate and me that day as we delivered our oral arguments, but I do remember being told that we were facing a top-notch justice who was on the rise.

Apparently our high school principal was right.

The photographic evidence suggests that my earlier post regarding Major League Baseball’s “stars and stripes” Memorial Day caps was dead-on in at least one respect: those caps really are hideously ugly.  Moreover, because the caps are red and must be worn by every team, they look absolutely ridiculous on those teams that do not normally wear red caps or, even worse, don’t have red anywhere in their color schemes.  As my cousin Ben astutely noted regarding his (regrettably) favorite team, “It makes us look like the NY Yankees of Anaheim.”

Rarely has patriotism looked so ugly.

Reading through the former vice-president’s take-down of the Obama administration’s deeply flawed national-security policies, I am struck by the paradox that is Richard B. Cheney. On one hand, we have a brilliant man — a fantastic orator, expert national-security strategist, and first-class patriot. Check out the smart, hard punches packed into the following lines of yesterday’s speech:

The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.

[...]

The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy.There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.

[...]

The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.

Yet, on the other hand, we have an unsmiling politician with minimal charisma who exudes barely any warmth. (I remember the Republicans’ attempt to soften his image at the 2004 GOP Convention by surrounding him with his grandchildren following his keynote address — it didn’t work.) For this reason, those critical of the Obama administration’s counter-terrorism policies are in a quandary. After all, the most important arguments regarding U.S. national security are coming from a former leader who, despite his sharp intelligence and deep policy experience, lacks the political skills to win over the public.

In short, Cheney’s excellent speech discredits the notion that Republicans lack compelling ideas.  Rather, the problem for Republicans is a lack of fresh leaders — and, in particular, the absence of a consensus figure who can match President Obama’s charm in selling a proven national-security approach to Americans.

Yesterday’s top news story was the very public debate between President Barack Obama and former Vice-President Dick Cheney regarding the interrogation of captured terrorists. Indeed, it isn’t everyday that the White House engages in open ideological battle with its immediate predecessors, which is why virtually every major news outlet made it the first headline on their websites, the first item in their newscasts, and a page-A1 story in this morning’s papers.

With one major exception, that is: CNN, which reported on a former Iraqi soldier who was tortured by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison as the top news story on its website last night. Yes, you read that correctly: CNN chose as its top news item something that happened over five years ago, not even providing its readers with a single sentence explaining how this particular story was remotely newsworthy. (The article was written by Cal Perry, the Middle East correspondent who shamelessly lobbed softballs at the Syrian dictator’s wife back in January.)

There is only one logical explanation for this editorial choice: that CNN sought to deceive its viewers into believing that the debate on enhanced interrogation methods for terrorists is actually a about whether or not the U.S. should torture prisoners of war. Naturally, the latter plays into the ultimate straw-man argument, suggesting that those who oppose Obama’s views on interrogating terrorists actually support torturing other countries’ soldiers. Recognizing that straw-man arguments are the primary weapon in Obama’s rhetorical arsenal, Cheney addressed this disingenuous strategy during yesterday’s speech:

In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib with the top-secret program of enhanced interrogations.

At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulation and simple decency. For the harm they did to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice.

And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

Of course, this isn’t the first time CNN has invented the news or crafted its coverage to Obama’s distinct benefit — far from it, actually. But it is certainly its worst example of news invention to date, with CNN’s editors using old news stories to throw sand in the public’s eyes.

Jonathan, you are right to be outraged by Egyptian judge Mohamed Attia, who has ordered the minister of the interior to revoke the citizenship of Egyptians married to Israeli citizens. Indeed, as you wrote, this exemplifies the pernicious “hatred that has sustained the siege of Israel.” However, I respectfully disagree with your policy implication — namely, that this will make Israeli-Egyptian peace “a little colder.”

Actually, this judicial order has far less to do with Egyptian-Israeli peace than it does with the U.S.-Egyptian relationship. Indeed, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak’s modus operandi has long permitted people like Attia to get just close enough to power, using them to ward off American attempts to promote democratic reforms. Mubarak’s chief argument to the United States goes something like this: “It’s either me or the anti-Israel radicals. If you undermine my regime through so-called liberal reforms, be prepared for an unstable Middle East with people like Attia — if not the Muslim Brotherhood — in power.”  In order for this argument to be credible, the regime needs Attia and his ilk to say or do blatantly hateful things that make Mubarak look like a bulwark of Middle Eastern moderation by comparison.

Regrettably, Mubarak’s cynical strategy has worked like a charm: the U.S. has done little to promote democracy in Egypt in recent years, backing off entirely after the Muslim Brotherhood — with the regime’s help — won 20% of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Even pro-Israel groups have bought into Mubarak’s myth: for example, AIPAC has opposed recent efforts to condition aid to Egypt on instituting certain liberalizing reforms, seeing this as undermining a regime that is friendly toward Israel and, so the argument goes, good for regional stability.

In short, the recent Egyptian judicial order seeking to revoke the citizenship of Egyptians who marry Israelis is likely to bring Jerusalem and Cairo — under Washington’s sponsorship — more closely together. Indeed, the more vitriol Mubarak can get out of his well-placed hate-mongers, the more Israel and the U.S. believe they need him.

Cynical marketing campaigns seem to be on the upswing in American sports. Back in March, I noted that the National Basketball Association had created more waste during its “Green Week,” producing a line of one-time-use jerseys, warm-ups, and basketballs that had everything to do with the NBA’s bottom line, and nothing to do with the environment.  Well, Major League Baseball is prepared to do something worse: for Memorial Day, it is outfitting all 30 teams with bright red “stars and stripes” caps as part of its “Welcome Back Veterans” program.  In so doing, MLB has actually tucked three insults into one.

First, and most trivially, there’s the aesthetic insult.  Check out these caps: they are ugly – actually, they might be the ugliest baseball caps to ever grace a baseball diamond.  (For the enthusiasts out there, yes, they’re definitely uglier than this, this, or this).  And, since all 30 teams must wear them, teams without red in their color schemes will suffer in particular.  In this vein, imagine this red cap with the San Diego Padres’ infamous sand-colored road uniform, or this cap with the Colorado Rockies’ purple-pinstriped jerseys.  Yikes.

Second, these caps insult the flag.  Indeed, the symbolism of Old Glory – freedom, liberty, and democracy – becomes cheapened when the stars and stripes are super-imposed in a Pittsburgh Pirates logo.  And that’s nothing against the Pirates – it’s just that a promotion intended to honor American veterans does quite the opposite when it callously re-brands the flag these brave men and women risked their lives defending.

Third, this promotion cynically uses our support for the troops as a vehicle for yet another MLB merchandising blitz.  In this vein, the $36.99 (!) red “stars and stripes” caps are the third post-9/11 iteration of “patriotic” MLB caps, succeeding the original flag-stitched cap and last year’s blue “stars and stripes” cap.  MLB is also offering a full line of $19.99 “stars and stripes” t-shirts and $119.99 (!) patriotic “fashion” jerseys.

Granted, MLB deserves some credit for donating the proceeds from the sale of the “stars and stripes” caps to charity (though an MLB spokesperson couldn’t say whether this included teams’ licensing profits).  However, the beneficiary charity is MLB’s own Welcome Back Veterans, which – naturally – puts the MLB logo front and center and, astoundingly, hasn’t updated its website in over two months.  Indeed, if the point is to help and honor veterans – and not simply push MLB’s branding into yet another frontier – why not give the proceeds to a more recognizable organization, such as VFW or the USO?  (The MLB spokesperson bristled at this question.)

Make no mistake: I am pleased that veterans will be honored on Memorial Day at ballparks across the country, and think that MLB has generally done a good job of sustaining a patriotic atmosphere at baseball games.  If anything, I fear that MLB’s latest “Welcome Back Veterans” event threatens the authenticity of this atmosphere by commercializing our support for the troops.  My advice: go back to the classy flag-stitched baseball caps; sell actual U.S. flags on national holidays and donate the proceeds to VFW; and, particularly on Memorial Day, let MLB donate $1 for every ticket sold to veterans.  In short, put veterans – and not MLB – front and center.

It’s been a while since I’ve commented on Juan Cole’s absolute ineptitude with analogies — a major shortcoming even the New York Times noticed in its otherwise positive review of his most recent book.  Well, the historical analogy he employs in his most recent blog post is so asinine I couldn’t possibly let it go:

Far rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is meeting Monday with President Barack Obama in Washington. It is the most fateful encounter of two world leaders since Kennedy met Khrushchev. And Obama absolutely must not allow himself to be cowed or misunderstood as timid by Netanyahu, who is a notorious bully and warmonger.

In the vapid analysis that follows, Cole anticipates disagreements between Obama and Netanyahu on Palestinian statehood and Iran. Of course, this begs the question: are these disagreements between the U.S. and Israel — allies, by the way — really analogous to the disagreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Does Cole actually think that the outcome of today’s Obama-Netanyahu talks can potentially impact the planet’s geostrategic outlook in the way the fateful Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in April 1961 did? Does Cole truly believe that Netanyahu might respond to a lack of toughness from Obama — whatever that might look like — by threatening the United States, much as Khrushchev responded to Kennedy’s weakness by placing nuclear missiles in Cuba?

Either way, this is scary stuff coming from a University of Michigan history professor, who has presumably read a book or two about the Cold War. Still, at least Cole isn’t a psychiatrist, because his analysis of — and prescription for — Israeli society is even worse than his analogizing:

I like Israelis, but they are understandably traumatized by all the things that have happened to them since the 1930s and have developed an unhealthy hysteria and tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.  …  Obama must impress on them that the answer to every problem is not a bombing raid. The good thing about having Rahm Emmanuel in the White House is that he will be able to phrase the instruction colorfully enough for it to be understood unambiguously.

Just to be clear: the way to treat a nervous foreign public is to have the White House chief-of-staff curse at them. Chalk up another “informed comment” for Dr. Cole!

Last week, I went down to Washington, D.C. to work with Egyptian pro-democracy dissidents on a series of briefings regarding Cairo’s ongoing crackdown against its liberal opponents. (My presentation before Hill appropriations staffers focused on the Mubarak regime’s infiltration of opposition parties and cooptation of liberal movements.) One evening, while discussing recent developments over coffee, the conversation suddenly shifted toward an entirely different part of the globe.

“What’s with Obama’s policy on China?” the director of a Cairo-based NGO asked.

I was a bit confused. I thought we were talking about Egypt.

“Yeah,” another democracy activist chimed in. “Hillary Clinton went to China and said that global warming is more important than human rights. How could she say something like that?” The rest of the dissidents agreed that they were deeply disappointed by Clinton’s remarks in Beijing, fearing that it signaled the Obama administration’s broader refusal to advance the cause of freedom — whether in China or in the Middle East.

Indeed, in an increasingly globalized world, a diplomatic victory for China’s leaders becomes a loss for Egyptian liberals. For this reason, the Obama administration needs to tread very carefully — too much enthusiasm for dictators anywhere easily translates into despair for pro-democratic forces everywhere.

Unfortunately, the administration is doing quite the opposite — it is chasing dictators like a desperate schoolgirl. The details of its courtships (and growing black book) read like tabloid fodder: the envoy dispatched to reassure Cairo and Damascus the very week that Obama was elected; the bow before Saudi King Abdullah; the smile with Hugo Chavez; the forthcoming visit of Hosni Mubarak; and, in the next few months, engagement with Iran — among the most repressive regimes on the planet (h/t Abe).

In turn, Egyptian dissidents — and presumably dissidents elsewhere — are quickly losing faith in our Agent of Change. Most amazingly, many of them quietly long for the Bush administration and its short-lived “freedom agenda,” which — at the very least — gave them sufficient hope to continue their struggle.

I’ve previously argued that an effective strategy vis-a-vis Iran requires Israeli strategic ambiguity. Indeed, the less the Obama administration can claim to have total control over Israel’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, the more urgent it becomes for Iran to negotiate — that is, of course, assuming that Iran is willing to negotiate seriously in the first place (that’s the administration’s assumption, not mine). Of course, insofar as Iran’s development of nuclear capabilities is time sensitive, anything that expedites forthcoming negotiations between Washington and Tehran — by threatening Tehran with significant consequences if negotiations do not yield quick results — is a good thing.

Yesterday, however, the Obama administration tossed Israeli strategic ambiguity out the window, publicly announcing it had won an assurance that Israel wouldn’t attack Iran without Washington’s prior consent. This weakens President Obama’s hand vis-à-vis Tehran in two critical ways.

First, it removes Obama’s ability to claim that Israel might (key word) attack if Iran doesn’t negotiate in good faith. After all, the Iranians are now certain Obama knows full well whether or not Israel will strike — and this greater certainty reduces the urgency of negotiations for Tehran. Indeed, expect to see a good deal of foot-dragging from the mullahs.

Second, by declaring its veto power over any future Israeli strike, Washington has tied itself inextricably to Jerusalem’s decision-making. In turn, an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would carry the American imprimatur, thereby forcing the U.S. to confront possible Iranian retaliation as much as Israel.  The stakes for any Israeli attack on Iran have thus been raised significantly — thereby undermining credibility of Israel’s military option.

Ultimately, all of this is a consequence of Obama’s policy of “engagement” — the belief that sufficient cheer and goodwill, rather than threats, can soften tyrants. We must pray it works. After all, we are increasingly running out of other options.

Ever since the November 2007 Annapolis conference, proponents of the Middle East peace process have been divided into two camps. One camp — bolstered by Annapolis — advocated immediate negotiations between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, hoping that a peace deal would strengthen Abbas at the expense of Hamas and — by extension — undercut Iran. Alternatively, the other camp believed that undercutting Iran’s regional ascendancy required prying Syria away from Tehran’s sphere of influence; in turn, the “Syria first” camp — bolstered by Turkish intermediaries — supported immediate negotiations between Jerusalem and Damascus. (I straddled this divide.)

Over the weekend, however, the “Syria first” camp was dealt three fatal blows. First, the Obama administration declared the renewal of sanctions against Syria, arguing that the Assad regime was supporting terrorism, pursuing WMD, and undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq. These charges busted one of the key myths that motivated the “Syria first” camp — namely, that Syria would make peace with Israel because it desired better relations with Washington. Indeed, despite all the prominent Hill Democrats that have made their way to Damascus, Bashar al-Assad remains quite comfortable in Iran’s pocket.

Second, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his refusal to surrender the Golan Heights, thereby taking the physical centerpiece of previous Syrian-Israeli negotiations off the table.  And, third, Netanyahu told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that negotiations with the Palestinians would be resumed “as soon as possible,” with nary a mention of negotiations with Damascus. Indeed, expect the “Palestinian first” approach to get top billing during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington next week, with the Obama administration linking progress on Palestinian statehood to stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

Of course, the “Palestinians first” approach — and its linkage to Iran’s nuclear program — to Middle East peacemaking remains just as hopeless as it was during the Annapolis conference. After all, Hamas is still the most popular Palestinian party; Abbas is actually weaker politically, because his presidential term technically expired in January; and Abbas has refused to accept Israeli administration over parts of Jerusalem’s Old City, which represents Israel’s minimum demand as far as the future status of its capital is concerned.

Still, Obama’s quick dismissal of Syria suggests he might be a quick learner — and that, in due time, the “Palestinian first” option will join its Syrian brother in peace-process purgatory. Then, perhaps a more realistic strategy against Iran will unfold — namely, one that focuses squarely on Iran.

Well, it’s official: President Barack Obama will deliver his long-rumored address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4^th. Early reports suggest that Obama chose “The City of One-Thousand Minarets” for this speech to bolster U.S.-Egyptian ties, which have been chilly ever since the Bush administration called on the Mubarak regime to hold competitive elections in 2005.

If so, the irony is astounding.  After all, showing respect for Islam and embracing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are mutually exclusive activities.  Indeed, how does one show respect to Muslims while cozying up to a dictator who represses nearly 70 million of them?  Alternatively, how does one reassure a secular Arab dictator of his relationship with Washington while also telling his citizens that the U.S. has a “stake” in their well being?

In short, if Obama believes that the choice between Muslim publics and their secular authoritarian leaders is another “false” one, he’s about to be disappointed.  Make no mistake: the moment our Agent of Change is seen standing next to Misr Stability, millions of Muslims will conclude – rightly – that Obama is no different from his Hosni-loving predecessors.  Actually, many Muslims might conclude that Obama is worse, since none of his predecessors had the temerity to claim that their relationship with Mubarak was in the name of cross-cultural respect.

This is public diplomacy at its most asinine.

A recent poll found that sixty-six percent of Israeli Jews support military action against Iran. Moreover, among those supporting military action, seventy-five percent said that they would not change their minds if the United States opposed an Israeli strike. Strategically, this could have a number of important implications.

First, broad popular support within Israel for a strike on Iran reaffirms Israel’s credibility, as Jerusalem has the public mandate for following through on any threat it might make regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Remember: public opinion is a major constraint on democratic governments’ foreign policies, and achieving broad public support is particularly important when democracies go to war. This is especially true in Israel, where virtually every citizen serves in the army and will therefore bear the burden — directly or indirectly — of any military action.

With this bolstered credibility, however, comes responsibility. Indeed, if Israeli leaders speak too liberally of possible Israeli action against Iran and then fail to deliver, the credibility of Israel’s threat will be significantly undermined. For this reason, Israeli leaders should speak in broad terms regarding military “options” of indefinite time frames, which would preserve the threat for as long as necessary.  Moreover, they should avoid statements regarding military “action,” since failure to act after a certain time would falsify the threat.

Second, a critical mass of Israelis (49.5% of those polled) supporting military action against Iran even without U.S. permission suggests that the Obama administration might not be able to prevent Israel from striking. Here, the “might” is strategically crucial: this unpredictability gives Israel the upper hand vis-à-vis Iran, as Tehran loses its ability to manipulate risks in an uncertain environment (h/t Thomas Schelling). This strengthens Obama’s bargaining position in his engagement with Iran: if negotiations fail, Obama can say — with good reason — that he can’t fully control what Israel might do. This means that the pressure will be squarely on Iran to deal in good faith and, most importantly, expediently.

Of course, one key question remains open: does Obama know how to leverage Israeli hawkishness — now backed by strong popular support within Israel — to his strategic advantage vis-à-vis Iran?

In today’s Wall Street Journal, William Marling notes the Orwellian irony of UNESCO naming Beirut, Lebanon the 2009 “World Book Capital City.” Lebanon, after all, maintains a long list of banned books: The Diary of Anne Frank (blacklisted because it portrays Jews favorably); The Da Vinci Code (protested by the Catholic Information Center); From Beirut to Jerusalem (portrays Zionism favorably); a variety of books critiquing Islam (protested by Dar al-Fatwa); and many, many more.

Of course, the books that Beirutis do read are just as important as the ones that are prohibited. In this vein, here’s a rundown of some titles that I picked up from the bookstores that surround the American University of Beirut’s campus when I studied there during the summer of 2004: How the Jews Made the Holocaust, by Norman Finkelstein; Secrets of the Wicked: The Jews, The Secret Organizations, and the Pursuit of World Dominance; The Zionist Threat to Lebanon; Iraq First: Israel’s Blitzkrieg on the Middle East’s Oil (Operation Shekhinah); and Uncle Sam’s Talmud: The Hebrew Myths Upon Which America Was Founded. (To get a sense of the flagrantly anti-Semitic imagery with which even Beirut’s best educated are inundated on a daily basis, click on the links I’ve provided, which show each book’s disturbing cover art.)

Lebanon’s exceedingly low standards for censorship — any of the country’s major sects can request that a book be banned — make it nearly impossible to challenge its pervasive prejudices. But insofar as these titles sit prominently in bookstore windows surrounding the Arab world’s top university, this seems to be the point — to protect hatred for hatred’s sake.

No wonder they hate us, indeed.

On Tuesday, my lament regarding GM’s decision to kill Pontiac brought a surprising number of car enthusiasts out of the CONTENTIONS woodwork. So, with that in mind, I present my purely aesthetic reaction to Chrysler’s declaration of bankruptcy.

My immediate — and, again, purely aesthetic — reaction is indifference. Chrysler was, after all, a car company that was hard to get excited about — mostly because it consistently failed to get its branding straight during the past two decades.

In this vein, it spent most of the 1990s producing car models that were nearly impossible to distinguish from one another — brownie points for anyone who can honestly tell the difference between a Chrysler Imperial and a Chrysler Fifth Avenue, or between a Chrysler Concorde and a Chrysler Sebring. And then there were the cars that were impossible to confuse, such as the remarkably ugly first-generation Chrysler LHS, or the please-don’t-pick-me-up-from-soccer-baseball-practice-in-that-thing Chrysler Town and Country.

Yet the company really lost me after it merged with Daimler in 1998 and began producing the popular PT Cruiser — not an ugly car per se, but a bit too German-looking for its American heritage. The briefly-produced Plymouth Prowler also seemed strangely out of place with Chrysler’s other offerings — it was almost too distinctive, particularly when it came in eggplant (and even more so when Gene Simmons was in it).

Chrysler’s Dodge division similarly suffered from inconsistent branding. Indeed, after decades of producing downright ordinary cars, such as the Stratus and Neon, Dodge finally put together a decent line-up. Check out the Caliber, Avenger, Journey, and Charger — nice-looking cars that were unified by a potentially iconic quadripartite grille. Unfortunately, it was all too late: having already jumped to equally unexciting Toyotas (zzzzz) during Dodge’s long era of boringness, Americans failed to notice Dodge’s sudden stylistic resurgence.

Of course, one Chrysler division deserves praise for its consistent excellence: Jeep, which was the first mass-market off-road vehicle and the catalyst of the SUV craze. (I have fond memories of riding in my aunt’s Grand Cherokee.) Still, Jeep suffered from a major non-aesthetic defect — poor fuel economy, which became a major liability as gas prices skyrocketed last summer.

Given Chrysler’s historic inconsistencies, it’s hard to know what we can expect now that it has merged with Fiat. Will it suddenly produce an Italian-looking model, much as it produced the German-looking PT Cruiser upon merging with Daimler? Will it still offer Jeeps? (Probably.) Will it still produce Dodge sedans? And, if it doesn’t, will anyone notice?

Preserving the military option against Iran has long been a key lynchpin of the U.S.’s effort for halting Tehran’s nuclear program. The strategic thinking is obvious: even as the Obama administration attempts to engage Iran diplomatically, it must retain the credible threat of military force so that Iran believes it faces severe consequences if diplomacy fails. Indeed, the only safe way to experiment with soft power — and that is precisely what Obama has been doing — is to reinforce it with the overt possibility of destructive hard power.

Yet yesterday, this strategy collapsed. In his remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that military action for halting Iran’s nuclear program would be ineffective, and would merely send the Iranian nuclear program further underground. Given Gates’s high rank and bipartisan domestic credibility, this amounts to a virtual declaration that America simply has no military option vis-à-vis Iran whatsoever. After all, how can Obama maintain a military option that his top defense official has declared counterproductive and wasteful?

None of this is to say that Gates’s expert opinion on the viability of the U.S.’s military option against Iran is off-base. Rather, the key point is that Gates’s position on this matter has its appropriate place — behind closed doors. When top policymakers speak openly about the limits of American power, they substantially undermine our credibility to our adversaries. In turn, our adversaries become even less likely to respond to our “soft” overtures.

For this reason, Tehran is now breathing much more easily. With the threat of U.S. military action against it discredited, it stands to lose very little if talks with Washington fail. And insofar as most Iranians support the acquisition of nuclear weapons, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are as doomed as ever.

It’s hardly surprising that Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic party – which will probably give the Obama administration a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate – has angered Republicans across the board.  But Democrats shouldn’t be jumping for joy either.  Check out Specter’s comments from earlier this morning:

I will not be an automatic 60th vote.  I would illustrate that with my position on employee choice, also known as card check. I think it’s a bad deal and I’m opposed to it. I will not vote to impose cloture. … If the Democratic Party asks too much, I will not vote with them.

Perhaps even more damaging to the Democrats, Specter admitted that his party-switch was driven primarily by his desire to keep his seat:

I was unwilling to subject my 29-year record in the U.S. Senate to the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. But I am pleased to run in the primary on the Democratic ticket and am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers in the general election.

Well, so much for the Democrats’ argument that the longtime Republican’s party-change was a matter of principle - i.e., a signal that the Republican Party has alienated moderates by moving far to the right.

Ultimately, it seems as though Specter’s decision to join the Democrats is best summarized by the chorus from Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party”: “But it’s all right now / I learned my lesson well / You see, ya can’t please everyone / So ya got to please yourself.”

It’s a great song, but a lousy political strategy.