Diplomacy in Iran: Too Late for Change?

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

President Obama has changed the United States government’s rhetoric towards Iran - but what does that actually mean for foreign policy in the Middle East?

America’s stance towards Iran has never been particularly nuanced, at least not in public. Both the Ayotollah and President of Iran have changed a number of times since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but the U.S. government has never signaled a significant shift in policy towards the country. A recent article in The Economist questions what Obama’s change in tone actually means for relations between the two states, especially considering the lack of rapprochement in the past.

Iran has had a number of Presidents since 1979, and many of them have not fit the stereotype of what an enemy of the U.S. should act like. President Mohammed Khatami, who was President of Iran from 1997 to 2005, was undoubtedly the country’s most liberal President since the Revolution. He was a reformist who allowed for greater freedom of expression domestically, and also softened Iran’s stance towards the West, openly claiming that Iran had “no hostility” towards the U.S. in 1998. However, in 2003, when Khatami was still in power, U.S. President Bush called Iran a member of the Axis of Evil.

In 2005, Khatami was succeeded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current hardliner President of Iran. Some might claim that Bush’s comments affected the outcome of the election; Iranians might have seen that no matter how liberal a President they elected, the U.S. would never really respect their efforts to improve relations between the states. Others would argue that the U.S. had nothing to do with the election results, and that the reason the reformists lost was because of Khatami’s own failure to successfully enact his reforms domestically.

The question of how influential the President of Iran is in improving relations with the U.S. speaks to the immense power the Ayatollah has in Iran. Obama explicitly reached out to the Ayatollah in his statements on improving diplomacy between the two countries in large part because he knows that without the Ayatollah’s support, it is unlikely that he will be able to accomplish any changes whatsoever.

There is a Presidential election in June 2009 in Iran - Ahmadinejad is running for reelection, and Khatami recently bowed out of the race, significantly increasing the current President’s chances for victory. However, given Obama’s strategy of dealing directly with the Ayatollah, it might not even matter.

Rethinking Global Health

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

The past few weeks have produced positive results in the fight against the global proliferation of HIV/AIDS. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it has given a $7.3 million grant to Imperial College in London for the development of a rapid HIV test. While rapid HIV tests have been around for a few years, this test is unique in one way: it costs $2. That means that those developing nations (particularly the ones with a significant percentage of their population at risk for or infected with HIV) will be able to purchase the test.

In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, philanthropic foundations in the U.S. often devoted more money and resources to limit the spread of the HIV than any government was willing to commit. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Kaiser Family Foundation have been on the front lines of providing the funds necessary to combat the spread of HIV and to find a cure for AIDS. However, in recent years, many people thought that the U.S. government was finally stepping up to the plate when President Bush launched the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003.

PEPFAR has been well-received since it launched. The plan provides funding for prevention, treatment and care for those infected with HIV/AIDS. While some aspects of the plan are controversial (including the access it provides for religious organizations that preach abstinence to help in the AIDS prevention stage of the plan), Bush was commended for taking a legitimate and concrete stance in the global fight against AIDS. Since Congress reauthorized the act that provides the funding for PEPFAR in 2008, President Obama will have an enormous opportunity to expand on President Bush’s work.

However, there is a disturbing omission from PEPFAR: it has not provided funding for prevention, treatment and care for the domestic fight against HIV/AIDS. Millions are infected in the U.S., yet PEPFAR has almost exclusively focused on stopping the proliferation of AIDS in other countries. This omission in PEPFAR should be heavily criticized in light of the enormous racial disparities that exist among the HIV positive population in the U.S.; African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population, but “account for nearly half of all new HIV infections and almost half of all Americans living with HIV.”

The Obama administration has not made it clear how it will handle the worldwide HIV/AIDS crisis. Some have claimed that Obama’s proposed budget for the State Department indicates that he might be “rethinking…foreign priorities like global health,” and might want to shift his priorities (and funding) to fighting other infectious diseases like malaria or tuberculosis. If the Obama administration continues to have a vague stance on fighting HIV/AIDS, the philanthropic foundations that stepped up in the early years of the crisis might have to step up again - both internationally and domestically.

How They Fight

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

The war between Hamas, a radical Islamist group based in Gaza, and Israel continued for several weeks. Many civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, were killed. The exact death toll remains unknown, but we know it was at least 1,200 with 5,400 wounded at the time the parties declared their own ceasefires on January 17.

There were many things about the war in Gaza that seemed eerily familiar. Back in 2006, Israel reacted in a similar way when Hezbollah, the radical Islamist group in Lebanon, captured soldiers stationed in Gaza. Rockets flew for weeks. Israel launched a massive one month assault into Beirut, killing thousands of Lebanese civilians in the process. But many Middle East experts argue that while Israel's reaction might have been warranted, it was also a huge failure.

Israel's goal in the war was to destroy Hezbollah. After the war, Hezbollah was stronger and more popular than it had been before. It maintained its political hold in Lebanon, and became particularly problematic for Israel in the conflict in Gaza. There were numerous attacks launched against Israel from Lebanon, and Israel openly worried that Hamas might convince Hezbollah to open up a two front war against Israel.

The ramifications of the latest conflict in Gaza remain unknown. There have already been op-ed pieces suggesting that Israel has been mishandling Islamist groups in the Middle East for some time and will continue to do so in the future. Only time will tell.

Financial Meltdown Hits the Highlands

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

These past few months have made it abundantly clear that the financial crisis is being felt around the world. Countries that have seen unprecedented financial gains in the past two decades are now struggling to keep their economies afloat. Developing nations who were the beneficiaries of an open global economy are now bankrupt. The world's poorest nations are left with no one offering them a helping hand.

All of these problems have seen mainstream media attention, except only recently have international news publications started examining one country that the financial meltdown has hit particularly hard: Scotland. Back in the fall, many stories detailing UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's intervention in the United Kingdom's financial collapse appeared in numerous global news sources. However, few of these stories focused on Scotland.

Scotland has always been proud of its banking. However, these days, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is giving the country little to be proud of. RBS has undoubtedly seen some tough times during these past few months. Some of the bank's problems were out of the bankers' control, and some of them were directly related to the policies the bank's executives' supported. The Financial Times is quick to point out that Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin had to move quickly from leading RBS down the path of becoming a world financial powerhouse to adapting his methods to a global economic downturn, something that is clearly no easy feat.

However, many of these articles fail to note that there is a unique element to Scotland's banks: they must adjust to different governments' finance policies. Operating in a devolved country in the United Kingdom, Scotland's banks not only have to shift their policies to meet UK Government financial goals, they must adapt to suit the needs of the Scottish Government as well. This task is difficult in and of itself, and becomes even more challenging when there are two competing political parties involved. The Labour Party runs the UK Government, and the Scottish Nationalist Party runs the Scottish Government; the two parties are political adversaries, and disagree on many things, including tax policy and the question of Scottish independence. The consequences of both political debates have significant effects on Scottish banking, and it can be challenging for the private sector to make the best economic decisions in light of uncertainty in the political arena.

Back in September, when the UK Government provided funds to facilitate the Lloyds TSB and HBOS merger, Gordon Brown was quick to point out that the deal would not have been able to happen had Scotland been independent (a statement that directly challenged Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's claims that Scotland would be able to ecomically thrive independently). Today, it was much of the same - Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray went toe to toe against the First Minister at First Minister's Questions on Thursday over the issue of RBS executive pension payouts. It is clear the bankers have made poor decisions across the globe, and Scotland is no exception - however, one must not forget the role that political parties play in framing these debates.

Venezuela Votes to End Term Limits

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

On February 15, voters in Venezuela passed a referendum overturning the law that placed term limits on the country's president. Hugo Chavez, the current President of Venezuela, had lobbied aggressively on behalf of the referendum, and its passage was a major victory for him.

The New York Times emphasizes that many non-governmental agencies, particularly those that focus on election reform, have been critical of Chavez's reign. However, one might be skeptical of the United States mainstream media's coverage of Venezuela. Many news publications have painted Chavez as a indisputable dictator (despite the fact that he was democratically elected and remains extremely popular among the vast majority of Venezuelans, particularly in impoverished rural regions).

In 2002, when Chavez's government was overthrown in a military coup, many news accounts, including stories in The New York Times, implied that the interim government had support among Venezuela's population. Later news accounts disputed these claims and accused the Bush administration of being involved in the coup.

What many people do not know is that the coup was documented in a film called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Americans might be unaware of the film because it was never released in theaters in the U.S. British filmmakers (who were in Venezuela to film Chavez prior to the coup) directed the film, and emphasize the media bias against Chavez's regime, particularly on mainstream news networks like CNN. The film can be seen on Google Video - watching it might make one rethink the recent coverage of the election referendum in Venezuela.

Facebooking Gaza

Cross posted at Scoop44 and Daily Kos.

When looking for up-to-date news during an international war or conflict, one could turn to many different media sources. The traditional mainstream media outlets — The New York Times, The Washington Post and the BBC — all have online sites that provide breaking news updates. If one is unsatisfied with these outlets, one could turn to other media sources; many television networks run on-screen, breaking news updates, and some, such as CNN, publish up-to-date news coverage on their websites.

However, there is another source that people might not think to look at for up-to-date coverage of an international conflict: Facebook. Facebook has shown itself to be a legitimate news source through its coverage of the war in Gaza. However, its reporting is very different from the traditional media’s methods of reporting news updates. Facebook has at least two applications, QassamCount and War on Gaza that provide updates on specific attacks in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

It is important to note that both applications are biased. QassamCount only reports on the number of rockets fired into Israel from Palestine, giving a disproportionate image of who was committing the violence. War on Gaza, run by the anti-Isreali news station Al Jazeera, only reports on the number of Palestinians killed and ignores the Israeli civilian death toll.

Despite the fact that both applications are biased news sources, they are designed to engage people who might not otherwise pay attention to international conflicts. QassamCount asks users to “donate their status” to report on the conflict, and War on Gaza allows users to post a link to the application on their Facebook page and on Twitter, a social messaging site, at the same time. These innovative methods of news sharing connect with people who might not be watching cable news around the clock, but are checking out the new pictures their friends posted. Who knows? It might be the future of news reporting.

Thoughts on Inauguration

Cross posted on Daily Kos.



I had the privilege of going to D.C. yesterday to witness the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Instead of rehashing the details of his speech, as many have done already, I want to talk about something I think the media has not emphasized enough: the crowd.



Yes, there were a lot of African Americans at the Mall yesterday. Many more, I'm sure, than had been at any other inauguration. The population of the District of Columbia is more than 56% Black, and yet often times when we look at pictures of past inaugurations the crowd is the whitest crowd imaginable.

But honestly, what struck me most was not just the racial diversity, but all of the diversity of the crowd - age, geographic region, socioeconomic status. There were hipsters from Brooklyn and evangelicals from South Carolina (and neither group was protesting). There were five year olds in school groups and seventy five year olds in wheelchairs. There were people with $5 disposable cameras and people with $5000 video recorders.

As I looked out into the sea of people, I really appreciated Obama's unprecedented ability to bring people together. There were so many people at this inauguration that had not been at any inauguration before (myself included). There were many, many people in the crowd that booed when Bush came out from the Capital, but there were also many people that shouted "give the guy a break" and told people to be quiet - this feeling of compassion is something Obama seemed to encourage.

There was an incredible feeling of hope in Washington yesterday. Obama has a hard road ahead of him, but he had 2 million freezing people at his inauguration yesterday - that has to count for something.