Sickened at the prospect that a victory for reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the Iranian presidential election might have led to better relations with the United States, neoconservatives here and their fellow war hawks in Israel are celebrating the dubious victory of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yes, this is true: Right-wingers in America and Israel don't want peace with Iran, nor do they want anyone to get the impression that President Obama's efforts at engagement with Iran might actually work, nor do they give a damn about the Iranian people. Mad Mahmoud is the man neocons love to hate, and they're as happy as clams that their guy found a way to steal the election.

Had Mousavi won the Iranian election as many in Iran and around the world hoped, it would likely have signalled a new and more positive direction for U.S.-Iranian relations as well as providing support for the "Obama Doctrine" of engagement with Iran and others in the Muslim world with which America's relations have been troubled. Such a development would at the same time have undercut the neocon attitude of hostility and suspicion toward Iran, as well as undercutting the right-wing Israeli government's aggressive stance toward Iran. As we know, neocons can tolerate peace only when it is imposed with an iron fist or the heel of a jackboot, and the prospect of peace through diplomacy in the Greater Middle East must surely have given them nightmares the rest of us could scarcely imagine.

In the run-up to the Iranian election last week, Daniel Pipes of the right-wing Middle East Forum came right out and admitted in a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation that he would actually vote for Ahmadinejad if he were allowed to vote in Iran (video). This speech was followed by a June 12 blog post by Pipes in which he reiterated that he was "rooting for Ahmadinejad" based on the twisted logic that the fundamentalist clerics who really rule Iran will always be our enemies and it's better to have an Iranian president we can really hate than "a sweet-talking Mousavi" who lulls us into thinking we can be friends. Never mind the aspirations or even basic human rights of the Iranian people; never mind anyone's desire for peace in the Greater Middle East. I've long had a pretty strong distaste for Daniel Pipes, but following this admission I'm more convinced of his utter vileness than ever. This is, after all, a man who has publicly advocated for the profiling and internment of Muslims in America, and who considers Israeli and Palestinian existence mutually exclusive (see Sourcewatch). As we leave the age of the neocons behind, I look forward to watching Pipes and others like him slide into the bitter, drooling irrelevance and oblivion they deserve.

The American Enterprise Institute's equally malignant Michael Rubin likewise told Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review that it might be better for Ahmadinejad to win, because a Mousavi win might give Obama and the rest of us the impression that diplomacy was actually working. Painting Iran as inherently and hopelessly evil, Rubin said of the Iranian election that should Mousavi win "it would be easier for Obama to believe that Iran really was figuratively unclenching a fist when, in fact, it had its other hand hidden under its cloak, grasping a dagger." James Taranto strikes a similar tone in the Wall Street Journal, warning against the "eagerness to see Obama's feel-good foreign-policy approach succeed."

Now that the Iranian election appears to be over, right-wingers will be tripping over themselves in the rush to use Ahmadinejad's victory against Obama. In fact, once and future Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney has already piped up, saying that Ahmadinejad's win is proof that Obama's "policy of going around the world and apologizing for America is not working." These losers obviously have nothing left but the hope that Obama will fail, or can at least be said to have failed. I look forward to watching Romney and his party lose again in 2012.

Right-wingers in Israel, meanwhile, have been making noises very similar to their American bedfellows, and appear to see nothing good for themselves in any warming of relations between the U.S. and Iran, as observed by M.J. Rosenberg at TPM. From Israel in the run-up to the Iranian election Yaakov Katz wrote in the Jerusalem Post that members of the Israeli defense establishment were "silently praying" for an Ahmadinejad victory, fearing that a Mousavi win would result in decreased pressure on Iran and its nuclear program. Now that Ahmadinejad appears to have successfully stolen the election, Israeli officials and their allies in America are calling for renewed pressure on Iran. Meanwhile, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff write in Haaretz that an Ahmadinejad victory is actually preferable for Israel because a Mousavi win would only "paste an attractive mask on the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions."

I suspect we'll hear more of this in days to come from eager neocons on both sides of the Atlantic. Obama's policy of engagement will work, however, and is working, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to his Cairo speech, by the Lebanese election results, by the reform movement in Iran, and by the likelihood that Ahmadinejad kept his office only through vote-rigging, suppression, and intimidation. Obama will succeed, and once he has neocons like Daniel Pipes can take up residence in the dustbin of history where they belong.

Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

Pundits will say what they will, but the hard numbers from polls taken immediately after last night's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain show Obama the clear winner. A CNN/Research Corporation poll showed 51% of viewers thought Obama performed better in the debate overall while 38% thought McCain performed better, with higher marks for Obama also on the war Iraq, the economy, and the current financial crisis. Women in the CNN poll showed a particular preference for Obama, voting 59% for Obama to 41% for McCain. Meanwhile, a CBS News poll of uncommitted voters shows Obama won 39% to McCain's 24% with 37% saying the debate was a draw. On the economy, Obama led McCain in the CBS poll 66% to 42%. A Media Curves poll shows independent voters favoring Obama in the debate 61% to 39% overall, with independents giving Obama significantly higher marks also on foreign policy and national security as well as on the economy. An Insider Advantage poll showed a more narrow win for Obama over McCain, 42% to 41% with 17% undecided. Focus groups by GOP pollster Frank Luntz and Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg both also declared Obama the winner.

Many prominent political pundits have also called the debate for Obama. The New York Times editiorial board named Obama the winner particularly on the economy and wrote that McCain seemed out of step with the times. "Mr. McCain fumbled his way through the economic portion of the debate, while Mr. Obama seemed clear and confident," the Times observes, noting also that "McCain's talk of experience too often made him sound like a tinny echo of the 20th century." At ABC News, liberal pundit George Stephanopoulos and conservative pundit George Will both called the debate a win for Obama, as did Time's Joe Klein. "On this night," Klein writes, "Obama emerged as a candidate who was at least as knowledgeable, judicious and unflappable as McCain on foreign policy ... and more knowledgeable, and better suited to deal with the economic crisis and domestic problems the country faces." Pundits took particular issue with McCain's manner during the debate, noting his unwillingness to look Obama in the eye; a sneering, smirking attitude of apparent anger and disdain toward Obama; and a lack of grace or presidential bearing on McCain's part which contrasted sharply with the grace and bearing shown by Obama (see Washington Post, Huffington Post, BarackObama.com).

News today is dominated by the financial bailout talks in Washington and John McCain's hamfisted attempt to hijack them for political gain in the run up to  his debate tonight with Barack Obama. Nonetheless, negative commentary abounds also on Sarah Palin's interview Wednesday and Thursday with Katie Couric of CBS. Excerpts from Palin's interview with Couric that didn't go so well for her include the following:

*Palin's inability to recall even a single example of McCain's "maverick reform efforts" from his 26 years in the US Senate: "I'll try to find ya some and I'll bring them to ya."

*A repeat of her claim that Alaska's proximity to Russia should be counted as foreign affairs experience, combined with the highly provocative suggestion that Russia represents a direct military threat to the United States: "...As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska...." (In fact, the shortest route from Moscow to anywhere in the continental US is over the Atlantic, and in any case Putin would have nothing to gain by directly threatening or provoking the US).

*A call for an impossible "surge" in Afghanistan: Defense officials including Secretary Gates have made it clear that as long as current troop levels remain in Iraq no such "surge" is possible for Afghanistan.

*Following her meeting with Henry Kissinger in New York, an insistence that direct, unconditional talks with Iran would be "naive" in obvious ignorance of the fact that Kissinger himself has advocated such talks.

*Evasion on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' relationship with Freddie Mac, mouthing the same McCain talking points on Davis that have already been discredited.

*A suggestion that Barack Obama turns as political winds blow, licking her finger and dismissively sticking it in the air, that was simply tacky (and I mean trailer-park tacky).

Palin's performance with Couric is being panned by conservative as well as liberal commentators, who appear to agree that this was worse than her previous interview with Charlie Gibson: unprepared, incoherent, and utterly lacking in specifics. Palin should "bow out" of the race, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker argues at the National Review: "Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there." Conservative blogger Rod Dreher writes of Palin: "She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero." Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that "Sarah Palin is a bad joke." Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times writes that Palin's remarks seem "like an outboard motor loosened from the stern." Robert Schlesinger of U.S. News and World Report describes her statements as a "talking points machine gone out of control."

Meanwhile, John McCain's role in the bailout flap is being seen by many as disruptive and even damaging. Democrats have pounced on McCain for charging into Washington as he did, assuming the role of savior while doing little to save anything but his own flagging campaign. Many in the press, likewise, hold McCain responsible for stalling a deal on the bailout that was well on its way to being done: ABC News suggests the "Pottery Barn Rule" applies to McCain on his role in the stalled bailout deal: "You broke it, you own it." E.J. Dionne writes in The New Republic that "McCain's boisterous intervention - and particularly his grandstanding on the debate - was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away."

Like his selection of Sarah Palin as vice-presidential running mate, McCain's actions in the bailout talks appear to be just one more silly political stunt that, ultimately, may cost far more more than it benefits him. 

Yesterday, watching those poor people lining up for buses to yet again flee a hurricane, my heart broke.

With all our riches how can there still be people in America who are so obviously so impoverished and helpless?

Unfortunately, it is because our system of education is broken, failed, shameful.

How can any politician believe that property taxes from impoverished areas can pay for world class schools and world class teachers?

A factor in our broken system of education is that first, teachers are underpaid so that schools for teachers "sometimes" fail to attract the most talented people.

Second, the curricula are not teaching prospective teachers how to really teach.

I want every teacher in America to receive the same starting pay as computer programmers and engineeers.

I want better curicula for preparing teachers.

And I want 3,000,000 more, high paid, talented, dedicated teachers who are fully prepared to teach THE LOVE OF medicine, bioscience, math and engineering, starting in the first grade.

Let us all work for an America where everey child has absolutely equal and excellent education, so that in the future no American is so unprepared for life that they end up helplessly standing in line for buses to flee for their lives.

Please donate, tax deductible, to these goals at http://www.fluni.com

I cannot think of anything more consistent with the core values of our Democratic Party.

It's Biden Late Tonight CNN and the LA Times Report Obama has picked Joe Biden to be his Running mate. I called it in a recent post. I feel Biden is the Most qualified and the Best man for the job.