Does Joe Biden Have a Plan for iran?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredrickton, NB] Daily Gleaner

The most important foreign policy decision facing incoming U.S. President Joe Biden will be his position on Iran, in particular its ongoing nuclear program.

Biden has pledged to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal with Iran negotiated by Barack Obama in 2015.

Under the accord, signed that July with a group of countries known as the P5+1 – China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the United States -- Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and allow visits by international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.

Obama’s administration expressed confidence that the JCPOA would prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapons program in secret.

Iran had insisted that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful, but many in the international community remained doubtful about Tehran’s intentions.

Iran had two facilities, Natanz and Fordo, where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most fissile isotope, U-235.

Low-enriched uranium, which has a 3-4 per cent concentration of U-235, can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. Weapons-grade uranium is 90 per cent enriched and it can be used to make reactor fuel, but also nuclear weapons.

Before July 2015, Iran had a large stockpile of enriched uranium and almost 20,000 centrifuges, enough to create eight to 10 bombs. Under the JCPOA, it was limited to installing no more than 5,060 of the oldest and least efficient centrifuges at Natanz until January 2026.

Under the deal, Iran gained access to more than $100 billion in assets frozen overseas and was able to resume selling oil on international markets and using the global financial system for trade.

Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, claiming the agreement was doing nothing to stop Tehran from moving forward with plans to gain nuclear military capability, withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018. Six months later, he reinstated all previous sanctions.

Biden has signalled his willingness for America to rejoin the nuclear deal and has offered Iran a “credible path back to diplomacy.” In an article entitled “Why America Must Lead Again,” published in the March/April 2020 issue of Foreign Affairs, he asserted that “the United States cannot be a credible voice while it is abandoning the deals it negotiated.”

Biden argued that Trump’s termination had prompted Tehran to jettison the nuclear limits established under the nuclear deal. “Tehran must return to strict compliance with the deal. If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it.”

But despite more than two years of Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure,” the Islamic Republic is closer to acquiring the technology needed for a nuclear weapon than ever. Iran has resumed some of its previously suspended nuclear-related activities and has continued, if not expanded, its missile program.

In its latest report issued mid-November, the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that Iran was enriching uranium to a purity of up to 4.5 per cent, in violation of the threshold agreed to in 2015, at advanced centrifuges that it had installed underground at its Natanz site.

It also said Iran’s explanation for the presence of this nuclear material was “not credible.” Tehran’s explanation as to how and why these particles were found by agency inspectors at the site was unsatisfactory.

The report came out two weeks after Iran revealed an elaborate tunnel network for missiles that are probably capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran already has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East and such missiles are not covered by the JCPOA.

Is the Islamic Republic challenging the incoming Biden administration? Iran’s leaders have indicated that their own policies would not change based on the result of the American presidential election. On the contrary, they have demanded compensation for economic damages incurred because of the sanctions.

Tehran keeps moving forward with its nuclear program and blatantly violates all its commitments in the JCPOA, despite the growing economic hardships and other setbacks it has suffered. Even if the next administration does manage to reinstitute the JCPOA in some form, it will likely be a rather different accord.

 

France Gets Tough on Terrorism

By Henry Srebrnik, [Frederickton, NB] Daily Gleaner

A recent series of murders has brought a hardening of French attitudes towards terrorism. President Emmanuel Macron has sought to make a critique of Islamism a signature issue before the 2022 presidential campaign.

France has faced terrorism before, most notably on Jan. 7, 2015, when terrorists forced their way into the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Incensed at the publication of a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which is prohibited by Muslim law, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others.

When Charlie Hebdo republished the caricatures this past September, it triggered a new chain of events that included two stabbings outside the newspaper’s former offices, the beheading of a teacher near Paris, and the murders of three people inside a church in Nice.

In a speech Oct. 2, Macron declared that the “ultimate goal” of Islamists is to “take complete control.” He categorized “Islamist separatism” as a “parallel society” that “leads to denial of the Republic’s laws.”

The Oct. 16 murder of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, in particular, caused an uproar. He had shown students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, as part of a lesson on free expression, while allowing Muslim students to be excused from class.

It took place in the context of the high-profile trial of accomplices of the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attackers.

The killing of a teacher at a public school was seen as an attack on the very foundation of French citizenship. Macron called him “the face of the Republic.” Paty was a strong believer in laicité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state in France.

Paty was posthumously granted France’s highest award, the Légion d’Honneur, and commemorated in a national ceremony at the Sorbonne in Paris on Oct. 21. Macron, eulogizing Paty, told his audience: “I have named the evil. The actions have been decided on. We have made them even tougher. And we will carry them to their conclusion.”

The country’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, describing France as fighting a “civil war” to defend the French secular and unitary Republic, announced police operations against “the enemy within, insidious and extremely well organized.”

The steps included expelling some 200 imprisoned foreigners suspected of terrorist links, carrying out raids and banning a Muslim group accused of “advocating radical Islam” and hate speech.

Macron has also bridled at criticism from the Western media. “France is fighting against Islamist separatism, never against Islam,” he wrote to the Financial Times on Nov. 4 after it published an opinion piece that Macron asserted had unfairly accused him of stigmatizing French Muslims for political purposes.

“For over five years now, and since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, France has faced a wave of attacks perpetrated by terrorists in the name of an Islam that they have distorted. Some 263 people -- police officers, soldiers, teachers, journalists, cartoonists, ordinary citizens-- have been assassinated in our homeland,” he responded in the Financial Times.

Macron also expressed irritation about American coverage of the government’s response. He pointed to the New York Times, which was highly critical of Macron’s plans, referring to a “broad government crackdown against Muslim individuals and groups” in an Oct. 21 article.

A Washington Post article of Oct. 30 also accused the government of adopting “reactionary language” and directing its rhetoric “toward criminalizing and stigmatizing France’s Muslim population.”

“Our democracy was established against the Catholic Church and the monarchy, and laicité is the way that democracy was organized in France,” sociologist Dominique Schnapper explained in the New York Times Oct. 26.

Caroline Fourest, a teacher, journalist, and co-founder of the feminist, secularist anti-racist journal ProChoix, in an article published Nov. 9 on the Tablet website, wondered “Why the American Press Keeps Getting Terror in France Wrong.”

She suggested that for them the “fight against racism required them to close their eyes to the mortal dangers of terrorism and fundamentalism -- and to ally with enemies of free speech, open debate, and other foundational values of free societies.”

Yet Macron found himself mocked by dozens of journalists. “Why is defending the principles of free speech and the separation of church and state so hard for Americans these days?” she wondered.

 

Nigerian Troubles Hit Close to Home

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

We live in a globalized world, and this is especially true if you are an academic. At UPEI, international students make up a very significant part of the student body. They bring different points of view and knowledge to the classroom.

I’m always glad that they make up a large part of my classes. But their problems are often those taking place back in their home countries.

Many Canadians are unaware of the recent spate of protests in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, revolving around police brutality.

Nigeria is home to more than 300 ethnic groups, including three dominant ones: the Igbo in the south-east, the Yoruba in the south-west, and the Hausa in the north. Northerners have ruled the country for 38 out of the last 60 years, mostly via military coups. The Igbo tried, but failed, to secede from the country in a brutal war that lasted from 1967 to 1970.

Conversations usually revolve around which ethnic group gets what, when, and how. Or how fairly a person from one group was treated compared to one from another. It’s called “getting our piece of the national cake.”

Large protests in the country began in early October, with mostly young people demanding the scrapping of a notorious police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). As the #EndSARS hashtag went viral, the demonstrations grew in size, demanding broader reforms in the way Nigeria is governed.

In an attempt to quell the unrest, the SARS unit was dissolved on Oct. 11, but the protests escalated after shootings in the nation’s biggest city, Lagos, on Oct. 20, when according to the rights group Amnesty International, security forces killed at least 12 people.

Lagos and other parts of the country saw buildings torched, shopping centres looted and prisons attacked.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called for an end to the protests in a televised speech, urging protesters to stop demonstrating and instead engage with the government "in finding solutions.” He admitted that almost 70 people had been killed in the protests against police brutality.

Officials introduced a curfew in Lagos state, and the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, published a list of 23 police officers who were charged with various offences. He indicated he had published the list to show he was “rebuilding Lagos and ending police brutality.”

President Buhari’s address to the nation missed the point, according to blogger and columnist Japheth Omojuwa. Buhari called for an end to the protests and the beginning of a dialogue, but he refused to apologize and “will be remembered for threatening Nigerians just because they asked their government to commit to justice.”

Meanwhile, I received an email from an excellent student in one of my courses, informing me that her parents, who live near Port Harcourt, in Rivers State, were in danger. The city is in the Niger Delta, the centre of Nigeria’s oil industry.

She wrote that “there is a massacre happening in my hometown right now as I type to you.” Some criminals that took advantage of the protests to end police brutality had been moving from house to house killing people and setting houses on fire, she explained. Fortunately, a few days later, her mother managed to re-establish contact and told her they were unhurt. But for days she had little else on her mind. I asked her if I could mention this in an article on Nigeria and she said yes.

The region has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Protestors have been jailed and even murdered, among them the environmental and political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the military 25 years ago.

His "crime”? His attempts to save the land and water of his fellow Ogoni people, a very small ethnic group within Nigeria, numbering less than a million in a country of more than 200 million.

After his death, several Ogoni parties brought about lawsuits against the oil giant Shell for their role in both Saro-Wiwa’s trial and execution and in their treatment of Ogoni lands over the past decades.

Meanwhile, many Nigerians are looking forward to the 2023 presidential elections and using the lessons learnt during the recent protests to field a candidate to campaign on issues relevant to this youthful nation, where more than 60 per cent are under the age of 24.

 

America's Jewish Community Deeply Divided Over Politics

By Henry Srebrnik [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Out of the 14.5 million Jewish people now in the world, 47 per cent reside in Israel. Its Jewish population is 6,841,000. It is the only country with a Jewish majority.

American Jews, at 5,700,000 make up almost 40 per cent of world Jewry, but these numbers continue to show a slow downward trend, due, among the non-Orthodox, to low birth rates, marriages with non-Jews, and assimilation. They comprise just two per cent of the American population.

The majority of Americans, living in a liberal state based on a civic form of nationhood, view states founded on ethnicity and religion as discriminatory forms of political organization.

But ethnic democracies like Israel don’t assimilate, homogenize or try to enforce the neutrality of the public domain. They are particularistic rather than universalist, and embrace the mores and values of a specific culture. Ethnic democracies grant rights to all citizens, but only insofar as those rights don’t interfere with the goal of self-determination for the dominant group.

Today, most American Jews are already secular people, who know little about “real, existing Judaism” -- that is, a knowledge of the theology and liturgy, the ability to read Hebrew (or Yiddish), and so forth.

They have converted to the liberal American creed, and it certainly takes precedence over any lingering attachment to an Israel that is increasingly seen as an ethnocracy with even elements of “theocracy.”

So Jewish Americans are splitting between two camps: less religious “universalistic” Jews who are far less interested in, or even skeptical about, Israeli political issues and “tribal” Orthodox Jews who align more with the Jewish state.

The two groups are now dramatically diverging. The nonpartisan AP VoteCast Survey of the 2020 national electorate, conducted over several days before Nov. 3, and continuing until the polls closed, included interviews with more than 110,000 people across the U.S.

(The survey was conducted online and via telephone. The margin of error was 0.6 percentage points for voters and 0.9 percentage points for non-voters, 19 times out of 20.)

AP VoteCast found that of the three per cent of the electorate that was Jewish, 68 per cent voted for Joe Biden, and 30 per cent for Donald Trump. And the two groups are dramatically split by degree of religious observance and attitudes towards Israel and Zionism.

The former care primarily about issues in American society, like immigration, health care, or human rights, while the latter pray for the coming of the Messiah to lead Jews back to the Holy Land.

Jonathan Tobin, editor in chief of the Jewish News Syndicate noted that the 2020 campaign made us realize “that the talk of two distinct warring American Jewish tribes, that neither understand nor want much to do with each other, is not a metaphor. It is a harsh reality.”

Jews constitute some of Trump’s fiercest opponents – and his most fervent supporters. Many on the left laboured for his defeat,  while those on the right thought he was not just worthy of re-election but also Israel’s best friend. In numerous Jewish neighbourhoods across America, friends and even relatives have stopped speaking to each other.

But even those liberal Biden voters might be surprised to learn that the price of their own well-being in America might one day be to give up their support, however lukewarm, for Israel and Zionism – that is, Jewish self-determination -- altogether.

The rise of a certain kind of progressivism in some corners of the left, including among the radical members in the Democratic Congressional caucus, seeks to make support for Israel a political and moral sin, linking it, however speciously, to the evils of racism. They are committed to the view that Jews are white, and that the Jewish state is an expression of “white supremacy.”

The rise of the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in colleges and elsewhere does not bode well. Its advocates consider racism inherent in the Jewish “ethnostate” and the ideology that birthed it.

It will be increasingly difficult for most Jews in America to withstand this zeitgeist shift in their social milieu. So other than the self-contained Orthodox, it is conceivable that most secular liberal Jewish Americans will eventually be assimilated into the larger culture, and this divide will wither away. Their grandchildren won’t care, and maybe won’t even know, that they are of Jewish descent.

 

Europe is Reeling Under the Pandemic's Second Wave

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

COVID-19 has played no ideological favourites in the western world. It has proved catastrophic throughout Europe and North America, regardless of the political parties in power.

The immense death toll in the United States, in sheer number of infections and deaths, dwarfed any other country. But this may be changing, as a second wave of the pandemic is now hitting Europe full force. Will its leaders fare any better than Donald Trump did in trying to control it?

The population of the European Economic Area (EEA), comprising the countries of the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom, is approximately 528 million people, some 200 million more than the American total of 328 million.

As of early November, the total death toll stemming from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in the 32 countries of the EEA was some 223,000 deaths, compared to 232,000 in the United States.

The U.K. has reported some 47,000 deaths; Italy, 39,000; France 37,500; Spain, 36,000; Belgium, 12,000; and Germany, 11,000.

While the American figure per capita is huge, at 720 deaths per million, it is actually surpassed by Belgium, with an enormous toll of 1,022 per million, and Spain, at 762 per million.

The U.K. is not far behind the U.S., with 697 deaths per million; Italy is at 644, and France at 544.5. Only Germany, with 127, is doing better.

But things are becoming dire in Europe. Most countries are reporting more infections per day than they were during the first wave last spring. Spain and France saw new records on Nov. 2 with the former reporting 55,000 new cases and the latter 52,000.

The view of health experts now is that Europe’s strategy for exiting its spring lockdowns failed. Either politicians ignored their advice, or the systems weren’t in place to implement it correctly. New measures are now being instituted.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez asked lawmakers to approve an extension until May 2021 of the country’s state of emergency. The measure puts into place a national nightly curfew and allows regions to impose more localized restrictions, such as limiting movement outside city limits on weekends.

French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a nationwide lockdown until Dec.1. People must stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical attention or use their daily one-hour allocation of exercise. They are still able to go to work if their employer deems it impossible for them to do the job from home.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a partial, month-long shutdown in England, including nonessential businesses such as restaurants, pubs, and hairdressers. People are allowed to leave home for only a short list of reasons including exercise. Travel is also discouraged.

The lockdown is supposed to end on Dec. 2, but cabinet minister Michael Gove cautioned that this couldn’t be guaranteed “with a virus this malignant, and with its capacity to move so quickly.”

Germany has adopted similar measures, with people confined to their homes, and all bars, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, gyms and other leisure facilities closed and concerts cancelled, during a four-week “wave-breaker” shutdown that seeks to force daily new infections back down to manageable levels.

Germans have been asked not to travel, and hotels are barred from accommodating tourists. Private gatherings will be limited to 10 people from a maximum of two households.

“We will do try to do everything politically so that this is limited to November,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters. But she stressed that “we are very much dependent on the majority of people simply being sensible.”

Belgian virologist and government adviser Marc Van Ranst pointed to Germany’s partial lockdown, commenting that “we should have done this six weeks ago.” The country’s surging cases forced it to move some severely ill patients to neighbouring Germany

In Italy, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte announced new restrictions, including the closure of shopping malls and museums on weekends. Movement between regions are limited and a “late-evening” curfew is in place.

“We are aware of the frustration, the sense of loss, the tiredness of citizens,” declared Conte, as he defended his government’s decision. Clearly, people are despondent, as Europe faces a long cold winter.

 

Welcome to the Kamala Harris Presidency

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

In summer 2019 I wrote a number of articles suggesting that the Democratic Party’s best chance of beating President Donald Trump would be by nominating California Senator Kamala Harris.

That didn’t happen, but, in a roundabout way, might she still become president?

After all, how is one to understand how a feeble, almost 78- year-old man, during a pandemic and crisis around white racism, could end up being the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate this year? This is someone who first sought the nomination in 1988 -- 32 years ago.

But I think I understand why Congressman Jim Clyburn, the African American kingmaker from South Carolina, turned Joe Biden’s prospects around in that state’s Democratic primary last February, and made certain Biden would get the nomination.

Though they have tried to hide it until the election was over, Biden has been fading fast. Right until the end, he spent much of his time at home in little Delaware.

Biden did little campaigning, always in front of small audiences, took almost no questions from reporters, and refused to sit down for interviews with journalists not hand-picked by his staff.

In more normal times this would have demonstrated that he was physically simply not up to the demands of the job. Fortunately for those who will catapult him to victory, this was not much of a problem in 2020, as they could point to COVID-19.

So here was the Clyburn deal: The Democratic Black caucus in Congress would back Biden and allow him to finally become president, on condition he select as vice-president the person who not too long afterwards would take over. This was Kamala Harris, a Black woman, who might on her own have lost to Trump, perhaps due to racism.

The South Carolina state Democratic Party is predominantly African American – whites in the state are largely Republicans – so Clyburn could in effect control the process.

Hence we went from a raucous primary scramble, with both Biden and Harris polling poorly and donors deserting them, to a sudden triumph for Biden almost overnight.

Clyburn obviously told Biden that he could get the former vice-president over the hump on Super Tuesday if he agreed to choose Harris as his running mate.

The two other major contenders, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, immediately folded their tents and endorsed Biden. This, too, must have been part of some grand bargain.

No doubt Barack Obama was in on this all along and he’ll be part of the team behind the scenes, in what amounts to a “semi third term.” After all, American Democrats revere him, and he received the most slanted media honeymoon in history.

No previous president has been so transparently partisan. Think of the animus other ex-presidents may have felt towards their successors, but none identified himself with a political “resistance” to a sitting president.

One small piece of evidence leading to the conclusion that Harris may soon take over was a piece of news that appeared in early October. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated she wants to establish a commission to evaluate the fitness of a president under the terms of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

This wasn’t, she emphasized, just about Donald Trump. There was the need “for us to create a process for future presidents.” Was Pelosi using Trump as a stalking horse to get an early start on replacing Biden soon after he wins the election?

Mike McCormick, who worked with Biden from 2011 to 2017, in September told the Washington Free Beacon that the presidential candidate is “not the same Joe Biden. He’s lost a step and he doesn’t seem to have the same mental acuity as he did four years ago.”

McCormick noted that Biden seemed to get “lost” during interviews and no longer had the ability to smoothly go off script and connect naturally with his audience.

So maybe it was no slip of the tongue when both Biden and Harris, at separate rallies, called their campaign “Harris-Biden” while campaigning in Florida in mid-September, with Harris referring to the Democratic ticket as the “Harris administration, together with Joe Biden.”

I guess she already knew what lay ahead. Can you spell “placeholder?”

 

The U.S. Senate Races in New England

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Four of our six neighbouring New England states are holding contests for the United States Senate in this election cycle.

In our closest American state, Maine, Democratic challenger Sara Gideon will defeat U.S. Senator Susan Collins, the four-term Republican incumbent. In Massachusetts, Democrat Ed Markey, the state’s junior senator, is sailing to an easy victory over his Republican opponent, Kevin O'Connor.

New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, the sitting incumbent Democratic and a former governor, will beat Republican Corky Messner. And in Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed will easily win a fifth term in office against the Republican challenger Allen Waters. The region is a Democratic stronghold, so none of this is a surprise.

In 2014, 68 per cent of Maine voters cast a ballot for Susan Collins, and she had one of the highest state approval ratings in the Senate.

As an independent, pragmatic centrist who supports abortion access and LGBTQ rights, Collins was ranked as the most bipartisan member of the U.S. Senate in the 116th Congress. But she’s in trouble, fighting a flood of ads and rising anti-Trump fervor.

There has been a record amount of spending in this election – some $115 million in TV ads. Gideon, a four-term state senator, has proved to be a prolific fundraiser, dramatically outpacing Collins.

Issues include the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, the economy, and climate change. Criticism of Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic has helped Gideon, while Collins has campaigned around ensuring small businesses get the attention they need during the emergency.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leaving an opening on the Supreme Court, became a major issue.

Whereas most Republicans wanted Trump to have the Senate confirm a new appointee, Collins opposed holding a quick vote and opposed the nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Colins also faced backlash for voting to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and from supporting Trump during his impeachment proceedings.

In Massachusetts, the Republican candidate, Kevin O’Connor, tried to contrast Ed Markey’s liberal stance on racial issues and police brutality. Markey wants to disarm police of “weapons of war.” Ginsburg’s death also featured prominently in the contest. Markey, predictably, was firmly opposed to filling the Supreme Court opening, contending that Barrett was “a far-right, extremist judge.”

The two candidates also clashed on the issues of climate change and medical care. Markey has spent $13.8 million in his Senate re-election campaign as opposed to O’Connor’s $460,003.

In New Hampshire, polls show Jeanne Shaheen far ahead of Corky Messner. The Granite State campaign has also been affected by Ginsburg’s death. Shaheen opposed any replacement until after the election, while Messner wanted the nomination to move forward.

Shaheen has been campaigning around abortion rights. She also accused Messner of using attack ads paid for by “dark money” groups and of trying to suppress the vote.

Rhode Island will re-elect Jack Reed by a wide margin over Allen Waters, a Black Republican with conservative values. This is virtually a non-contest; Reed has raised more than $3.5 million dollars, while Waters has been running a shoestring campaign on little more than $20,000.

Reed opposed Barrett’s nomination, calling it an “unprecedented process to drag the Court down an extremist, polarized path” in order “to terminate the Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare).

Barrett was confirmed Oct. 26 – Collins was the only Republican to vote against her -- and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Nov. 10 regarding the law.