“Iran deal: The European Union’s ugly options”

That’s the headline of a Deutsche Welle piece regarding the impact on Europe of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) Executive Agreement that sought to codify Iran’s “right” to obtain nuclear weapons, if Iran were to have only a little patience and wait until the Agreement’s blocks, such as they are, expire in a few years.

Then Ten Schultz, the author of the article, opened with this statement.

The United States’ withdrawal from the Iran deal, despite the personal pleadings of Europe’s most powerful politicians, has provided one more example that President Donald Trump has no hesitation in dismissing European interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.

Of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that Europe’s most powerful politicians have no hesitation in dismissing American interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.  No, of course not: those worthies are lily-pure.

Schultz then touts his false choice:

…stand up to Trump in efforts to preserve the deal…or to acquiesce to whatever Washington wants, even if it means abandoning a UN-approved agreement they brokered and believe in.

Never mind that for 16 months Trump has been trying to get those most powerful politicians to negotiate to shore up the deal and fill its glaring gaps and that those worthies have steadfastly refused to negotiate.  It’s certainly true that French President Emmanuel Macron came to DC offered pretty words about wanting to satisfy three of Trump’s four pillars that would have done the shoring up.  It’s also true that German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to DC to insist personally that the US stay with the deal.  Macron had nothing, though, other than his pretty words.  He had no concrete proposals to offer—just that willingness to keep talking in lieu of acting.  Merkel didn’t even have that much.

The UN? That’s just a debating society for politicians with nothing else to do with their countries’ payroll money.  It’s certainly been unwilling to do anything serious about Iran’s threats—and lately outright attacks—against Israel, or about Iran’s missile attacks on Saudi Arabia via their client terrorists in Yemen (itself wracked by an Iranian-caused and supported civil war).

That debating society refuses, also, to deal with Iran’s active missile development program (for which the Yemen launches serve as excellent OT&E evaluations).  Keep in mind that, for all of Iran’s future nuclear weapons—they could build dozens of them—those bombs are useless without a means of delivering them to Iran’s targets.  Missiles are a central such means.  Oh, and this: the most powerful politicians’ UN also has barred Iran from doing missile development.  Those politicians are conveniently silent about that.

And never mind that Iran has never signed the Obama Agreement.

No, it’s all Trump’s fault.  It’s all America’s fault.

We had enough of that during Obama’s eight years.  It’s about time we regained our willingness to act unilaterally when our allies won’t even talk seriously with us about joint action.

They Shouldn’t Let…

…the door hit them in the fanny on the way out.

About a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the tech giant’s involvement in Project Maven, a controversial military program that uses artificial intelligence, Gizmodo reports.

Maven is a DoD project for developing an AI capability to quickly process vast amounts of drone-generated data for human decision-makers.  Such a capability, if successfully developed, would enhance our war-fighting—and especially our war-winning—capability.

These ex-employees should consider their view of citizenship in light of their view that the US should not be allowed to take steps to defend itself.

And then they should have the moral courage to publish the results of their analysis.

The Obama Legacy

Much has been made over the last week, both favorably and unfavorably, of the magnitude of President Donald Trump’s erasure of ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) legacy.

I disagree with that coverage.  Trump has been mitigating, if not correcting, as many of Obama’s errors as he can, but he’s done nothing about Obama’s legacy, which includes the following far from exhaustive list:

  • apologizing to the world for our successes
  • bowing to world leaders, deeply on several occasions
  • alienating our friends and toadying up to our enemies
    • attacking Israel for insisting on defending itself
    • demanding that Israel accept the pre-1967 borders as the Obama administration’s price of peace
    • excusing Hamas terrorism against Israel
    • turning his back on Iraq
    • telling Great Britain to take their bust of Winston Churchill and….
    • telling Great Britain that if they leave the EU they can’t count on trade deals with the US any time soon
  • insisting that Daesh was a JV team and then refusing to confront them when they exploded over Iraq and Syria
  • drawing red lines in Syria over al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his own civilians and then ducking away from those lines
  • creating the JCPOA, to which even French President Francois Hollande objected at the time
  • his State Department’s too expensive “Reset” with Russia
  • acquiescing to Russian occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine
  • acquiescing to People’s Republic of China’s seizure of the South China Sea
  • acquiescing to northern Korea’s nuclear weapons expansion in the name of “strategic patience”
  • agreeing the Paris Climate Accord
  • passing Obamacare
  • passing Dodd-Frank
  • routinely governing by diktat Executive Order rather than working through Congress

While many of these failures have yet to be addressed, substantial progress is being made.

No, Obama’s legacy is intact.  It’s a legacy of deep, abject, and unbroken failure.

The Irrationality of the European Left

It’s epitomized by a carefully unsigned piece in Spiegel Online, coming only from “Der Spiegel Staff.”  After you’ve read it, you’ll see why the author(s) were too embarrassed to sign their names to it.

…Trump’s Tuesday announcement that the US was withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with Iran, one of the core pieces of international diplomacy in recent years….

Indeed it was.  And it was one of the core pieces of failure in international diplomacy.  Even the authors’ term “nuclear agreement” gives the game away.  All the JCPOA accomplished was the codifying of Iran’s right and ability to obtain nuclear weapons—the “agreement” expires, after all, in a few short years; even were Iran abiding by it, after that expiration, they would be free to develop nuclear weapons with no further hindering from the international community.  But we can’t even know Iran is abiding, since the “agreement” bars inspections, particularly of military bases, which is where weapons development occurs.  The only inspections the “agreement” allows is of sites for which Iran will give permission, and then only after the inspectors say “pretty please” some months in advance.

Oh, and we paid Iran the princely sum of $140 billion—in cash—for the privilege of being snookered by them.  American money, too, keep in mind.  France, Germany, and Great Britain paid not a cent or a pence into that fund.

The risk [from our withdrawal] is very real that the move will worsen tensions in an already unstable Middle East and lead to an American-led war against Iran.

The instability is Iran’s doing, and no one else’s.  See their recent unprovoked Quds Force attack on Israeli installations.  See their use of their militias inside Iraq to keep that nation unstable.  See their funneling of money and weapons to their client terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was quick to threaten a return to industrial-scale uranium enrichment and few doubt that such an eventuality could lead to conflict.

We don’t know that Iran isn’t already enriching apace.  See “inspections” above.

An attack on the Iran deal is an attack on the pride of European foreign policy.

This is risible.  If Europe feels like its foreign policy is under attack, it’s only their hysteria getting in the way of their thinking.  They’re united in their insistence, in the present case, on staying in the Iran nuclear weapons deal—the anonymous authors of the piece at the link brag about that.

She [EU High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini] then appealed to Iran to continue to adhere to the deal. “Stay true to your commitments, as we will stay true to ours.”

This ignores a basic fact: Iran isn’t in the deal, and it has made no commitments regarding the deal.  Iran has not signed the JCPOA.

Trump has humiliated Europe to a greater degree than any US president before him. Macron fawned over him recently in the White House, Merkel swung by for a working lunch and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also made the trip across the Atlantic in an attempt to save the deal and somehow find some kind of a compromise.

Humiliated?  Because our government, after listening very carefully to these leaders, decided no to do what they instructed him to do or asked him to do?  This is precious snowflakery at its best.

In Aachen on Tuesday, Merkel essentially repeated the sentences she uttered last year during an appearance in Bavaria: “Europe can no longer rely on the US. It must take its fate into its own hands.”

Here is Merkel joining Mogherini in foolishness.  Europe has been freeloading off the US ever since its economic and political recovery from the ravages of Europe’s roll in the wars of the mid-20th century.  Ever since that time, Europe has been at least morally obligated to see to its own fate, and they’ve been shirking their duty.

The anonymous piece goes on in that vein, but you get the idea.

Europe must, indeed, see to its own future in accordance with its own imperatives.  We’re happy to help them, and we’re happy to contribute to the political, economic, and military defense of Europe.  But that’s not helped by, for instance, Germany’s toadying up to Putin in their snit over our withdrawal from a dangerously bad “deal.”

Academic Preparedness

New York City has a program, Expanded Success Initiative, that was intended to improve the city’s K-12 “black and Latino males'” (apparently, the girls just don’t matter in New York City) performance.  It’s failing; although, the piece at the link is more optimistic than that.

Students…reported better school relationships and more fair treatment than peers in comparable schools outside the program.[]

Socialization does matter in a child’s development; however….

[A]cademic outcomes and suspension rates remained roughly similar to those in the comparison schools.

Academics are the primary purpose of schools.  ESI improved nothing important.

But here’s the kicker, completely missed by the WSJ piece:

Among the first cohort of black and Latino males in the initiative, about 71% graduated high school, 17% hit state benchmarks signifying college-readiness….

In what universe do these numbers make sense?  Leaving aside the poor graduation rate, how does a student graduate from high school without being prepared for higher education?  I’ve long disputed that college is a necessary next step for high school graduates, but a student not academically prepared for that step isn’t prepared for community college or trade school, nor is he (or she!) prepared to go straight into the work place in any job other than ditch digging or burger flipping.