Sailing down Costa Rica 's Tempisque River on an eco-tour , I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp
It took only a few seconds
The croc 's head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws
He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then , with just the slightest flip of his snout , swallowed the fish whole
Never saw that before
These days , visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica more than 25 percent of the country is protected area thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals
Many countries could learn a lot from this system
More than any nation I 've ever visited , Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together
It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth , one that demands that everything gets counted
So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest this is not honest growth
You have to pay for using nature
It is called `` payment for environmental services '' nobody gets to treat climate , water , coral , fish and forests as free anymore
The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica , which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans , came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity and that its economic future lay in protecting it
So it did something no country has ever done : It put energy , environment , mines and water all under one minister
`` In Costa Rica , the minister of environment sets the policy for energy , mines , water and natural resources , '' explained Carlos M. Rodr guez , who served in that post from 2002 to 2006
In most countries , he noted , `` ministers of environment are marginalized .
They are viewed as people who try to lock things away , not as people who create value
Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil
But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment , `` it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems , '' said Rodr guez , now a regional vice president for Conservation International
`` The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying : ` Look , if you want cheap energy , the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy
So let 's not think just about the next six months ; let 's think out 25 years . '
As a result , Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power , wind and geo-thermal , and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables
In 1985 , it was 50 percent hydro , 50 percent oil
More interesting , Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling so as not to pollute its politics or environment
What country bans oil drilling
Rodr guez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica , dependent on tourism and agriculture , the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for
Right now , most countries fail to account for the `` externalities '' of various economic activities
So when a factory , farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river , destroys a wetland , depletes a fish stock or silts a river making the water no longer usable that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes
Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid , because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt and that benefited dam owners , fishermen , farmers and eco-tour companies downstream
The forests also absorbed carbon
To pay for these environmental services , in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them
And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users hydro-electric dams , farmers and drinking water providers had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine
`` We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes , '' said Rodr guez
`` It has become a major source of income for poor people
It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation
We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago .
As we debate a new energy future , we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism
If government policies do n't recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature 's ability to provide them , things go haywire
We end up impoverishing both nature and people
Worse , we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases , petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids ' Visa cards to be paid by them later
Well , later is over
Later is when it will be too late
There are many differences between Iraq and Afghanistan , but they do resemble each other in one critical way
In both countries , the `` bad guys , '' the violent jihadists , are losing
And in both countries , it still is not clear if the `` good guys '' will really turn out to be good
And the big question the Obama team is facing in both countries is : Should we care
Should we care if these countries are run by decent leaders or by drug-dealing , oil-stealing extras from `` The Sopranos '' as long as we can just get out
At this stage , alas , we have to care and here 's why
I 've read a lot of analyses lately criticizing President Obama and Vice President Biden for coming down so hard on Afghan President Hamid Karzai 's corruption
Karzai 's the best we 've got , goes the argument
He 's helped us in our primary objective of degrading Al Qaeda and done good things , like opening schools for girls
Sure , he stole his election , but he is still more popular than anyone else in Afghanistan and would have won anyway
#NAME?
Never mind .
This line echoes the realist arguments during the cold war as to why we had to support various tyrants
What mattered inside their countries was not important , the argument went
What mattered is where they lined up outside in our great struggle against Soviet Communism
The Bush team took this kind of `` neo-realist '' approach to Afghanistan
It had no desire to do state-building there
Once Karzai was installed , President Bush ignored the corruption of Karzai and his cronies
All the Bush team wanted was for Karzai to hold the country together so the U.S. could use it as a base to go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Frankly , this low-key approach made a lot of sense to me because I never thought Afghanistan was that important
But , unfortunately , the Karzai government became so rotten and incapable of delivering services that many Afghans turned back to the Taliban
So the Obama team came with a new strategy : We have to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan if we are going to keep Al Qaeda in check there and in Pakistan and the only way to do that is by clearing them out of the towns and installing decent Afghan police , judges and bureaucrats i.e. , good governance in the Taliban 's wake
Obama 's view is that , to some degree , idealism is the new realism in Afghanistan : To protect our hard-core interests , to achieve even our limited goals of quashing Al Qaeda and its allies , we have to do something that looks very idealistic deliver better governance for Afghans
I still wish we had opted for a less intrusive alternative ; I 'm still skeptical about the whole thing
But I understand the logic of the Obama strategy and , given that logic , he was right to chastise Karzai even publicly
If decent governance is the key to our strategy , it is important that Afghans see and hear where we stand on these issues
Otherwise , where will they find the courage to stand up for better governance
We need to bring along the whole society
Never forget , the Karzai regime 's misgovernance is the reason we 're having to surge anew in Afghanistan
Karzai is both the cause and the beneficiary of the surge
I 'm sure the surge will beat the bad guys , but if the `` good guys '' are no better , it will all be for naught
In the cold war all that mattered was whether a country was allied with us
What matters in Obama 's war in Afghanistan is whether the Afghan people are allied with their own government and each other
Only then can we get out and leave behind something stable , decent and self-sustaining
Unlike Afghanistan , the war in Iraq was , at its core , always driven more by idealism than realism
It was sold as being about W.M.D. But , in truth , it was really a rare exercise in the revolutionary deployment of U.S. power
The immediate target was to topple Saddam 's genocidal dictatorship
But the bigger objective was to help Iraqis midwife a democratic model that could inspire reform across the Arab-Muslim world and give the youth there a chance at a better future
Again , the Iraq story is far from over , but one does have to take heart at the recent elections there and the degree to which Iraqi voters favored multiethnic , modernizing parties
So , while Obama came to office looking at both Iraq and Afghanistan as places where we need to be focused more on protecting our interests than promoting our ideals , he 's finding himself , now in office , having to promote a more idealist approach to both
The world will be a better place if it works , but it will require constant vigilance
When Karzai tries to gut an independent election commission , that matters
When the Iraqi prime minister , Nuri Kamal al-Maliki , refuses to accept a vote count certified by the U.N. that puts him in second place , that matters
As I have said before , friends do n't let friends drive drunk especially when we 're still in the back seat alongside an infant named Democracy
Maureen Dowd is off today
I 've been thinking lately of starting a new school of foreign service to train U.S. diplomats
My school , though , would be very simple
It would consist of a single classroom with a desk and a chair
At the desk would be a teacher , pretending to be a foreign leader
The student would come in and have to persuade the foreign leader to do something to pull this or that lever
At one point , the foreign leader would nod vigorously in agreement and then reach behind him and pull the lever and it would come off the wall in his hands
Or , he would nod vigorously and say , `` Yes , yes , of course , I will pull that lever , '' but then would only pretend to do so
The student would then have to figure out what to do next
... I 'm wondering if President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are n't those students , trying to deal with the leaders of Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iran and North Korea
I say that not to criticize but to sympathize
`` Mama , do n't let your children grow up to be diplomats .
This is not the great age of diplomacy
A secretary of state can broker deals only when other states or parties are ready or able to make them
In the cold war , an age of great powers , grand bargains and reasonably solid client states , there were ample opportunities for that whether in arms control with the Soviet Union or peacemaking between our respective client states around the globe
But this is increasingly an age of pirates , failed states , nonstate actors and nation-building the stuff of snipers , drones and generals , not diplomats
Hence the d j vu all over again quality of U.S. foreign policy right now the sense that when it comes to our major problems -LRB- Afghanistan and Pakistan and North Korea and Iran -RRB- , we just go around and around , buying the same carpets from the same people , over and over , but nothing changes
`` We are dealing with states and leaders who either can not deliver or will not deliver , '' notes the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy professor Michael Mandelbaum
`` The issues we have with them look less like problems that can be solved and more like conditions that we have to manage .
The ones who ca n't deliver the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan are the ones who promise to do all sorts of good things , and pull all sorts of levers , but at the end of the day the levers come off the wall because the governments in these countries have only limited powers
The ones who wo n't deliver Iran and North Korea time and again tell us : `` Yes , we need to talk .
But at the end of the day , their hostile relationships with America or the West are so central to the survival strategy of their regimes , so much at the core of their justifications for remaining in power , that it is not in their interest to deliver real reconciliation , but just to pretend to deliver it
The only thing that could change this is a greater exercise of U.S. and allied power
In the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan , that power would have to be used to actually rebuild these states from the inside into modern nations
We would literally have to build the institutions the pulleys and wheels so that when the leaders of these states pulled a lever something actually happened , and the lever would n't just break off in their hands
And in the case of the strong states Iran and North Korea we would have to generate much more effective leverage from the outside to get them to change their behavior along the lines we seek
In both cases , though , success surely would require a bigger and longer U.S. investment of money and power , not to mention allies
Instead , I fear that we are adopting a middle-ground strategy doing just enough to avoid collapse but not enough to solve the problems
If our goal in Afghanistan and Pakistan is nation-building , so they will have self-sustaining moderate governments , we surely do n't have enough troops or resources inside devoted to either
If our goal is changing regime behavior in Iran and North Korea , we surely have not generated enough leverage from outside
North Korea 's defiant missile launch and Iran 's continued development of its nuclear capability testify to that
So , in sum , we have four problem countries at the heart of U.S. foreign policy today that we do n't have the will or ability to ignore but seem to lack the leverage or the allies to decisively change
The big wild card a critical mass of people who share our aspirations inside these countries , rising up and leading the fight , which is ultimately what tipped Iraq for the better I do n't see
As such , I fear we are sliding into commitments in Afghanistan and Pakistan without a real national debate about the ends or the means or the exits
That is a recipe for trouble
Given all that is on his plate , you can not blame President Obama for looking for a middle ground not wanting to abandon progressives and women in Afghanistan and Pakistan , but not wanting to get in too deeply
But history teaches that the middle ground can be a perilous place
Think of Iraq before the surge not enough to win or lose , but just enough to be stuck
You 've heard that saying : As General Motors goes , so goes America
Thank goodness that is no longer true
I mean , I wish the new G.M. well , but our economic future is no longer tied to its fate
No , my new motto is : As EndoStim goes , so goes America
EndoStim is a little start-up I was introduced to on a recent visit to St. Louis
The company is developing a proprietary implantable medical device to treat acid reflux
I have no idea if the product will succeed in the marketplace
It 's still in testing
What really interests me about EndoStim is how the company was formed and is being run today
It is the epitome of the new kind of start-ups we need to propel our economy : a mix of new immigrants , using old money to innovate in a flat world
Here 's the short version : EndoStim was inspired by Cuban and Indian immigrants to America and funded by St. Louis venture capitalists
Its prototype is being manufactured in Uruguay , with the help of Israeli engineers and constant feedback from doctors in India and Chile
Oh , and the C.E.O. is a South African , who was educated at the Sorbonne , but lives in Missouri and California , and his head office is basically a BlackBerry
While rescuing General Motors will save some old jobs , only by spawning thousands of EndoStims thousands will we generate the kind of good new jobs to keep raising our standard of living
It all started by accident
Dr. Raul Perez , an obstetrician and gynecologist , immigrated to America from Cuba in the 1960s and came to St. Louis , where he met Dan Burkhardt , a local investor
`` Raul was unique among doctors , '' recalled Burkhardt
`` He had a real nose for medical investing and what could be profitable in a clinical environment
So we started investing together .
In 1997 , they created a medical venture fund , Oakwood Medical Investors
Perez had a problem with acid reflux and went for treatment to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona , where he was helped by an Indian-American doctor , V. K. Sharma
During his follow-ups , Dr. Sharma mentioned those four words every venture capitalist loves to hear : `` I have an idea '' use a pacemaker-like device to control the muscle that would choke off acid reflux
Burkhardt , Perez and Sharma were joined by Bevil Hogg a South African and one of the early founders of the Trek Bicycle Corporation who became C.E.O. Together , they raised the initial funds to develop the technology
Two Israelis , Shai Pollicker , a medical engineer , and Dr. Edy Soffer , a prominent gastroenterologist , joined a Seattle-based engineering team -LRB- led by an Australian -RRB- to help with the design
A company in Uruguay specializing in pacemakers is building the prototype
This kind of very lean start-up , where the principals are rarely in the same office at the same time , and which takes advantage of all the tools of the flat world teleconferencing , e-mail , the Internet and faxes to access the best expertise and low-cost , high-quality manufacturing anywhere , is the latest in venture investing
You 've heard of cloud computing
I call this `` cloud manufacturing .
`` In the aftermath of the banking crisis , access to public markets is off-limits to start-ups , '' explained Hogg , so start-ups now have to be `` much leaner , much more capital-efficient , much smarter in accessing worldwide talent and quicker to market in order to do more with less .
He added , `` $ 20 million is the new $ 100 million .
And technology is making this all possible
Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine pointed this out in a smart essay in February 's issue , entitled `` Atoms Are the New Bits . ''
` Three guys with laptops ' used to describe a Web startup , ' '' he wrote
`` Now it describes a hardware company , too '' thanks to `` the availability of common platforms , easy-to-use tools , Web-based collaboration , and Internet distribution
... Global supply chains have become scale-free , able to serve the small as well as the large , the garage inventor and Sony .
The clinical trials for EndoStim are being conducted in India and Chile
`` What they have in common , '' said Hogg , `` is superb surgeons with high levels of skill , enthusiasm for the project , an interest in research and reasonable costs .
This is also part of the new model , said Hogg : Invented and financed in the West , further developed and tested in the East and rolled out in both markets
What 's in it for America
As long as the venture money , core innovation and the key management comes from here a lot
If EndoStim works out , its tiny headquarters in St. Louis will grow much larger
St. Louis is where the best jobs top management , marketing , design and shareholders will be , said Hogg
Where innovation is sparked and capital is raised still matters
You do n't hear much about companies like this
Our national debate today is dominated by the ignorant ramblings of Sarah Palin , talk-show lunatics , tea parties and politics as sports not ESPN but PSPN
Fortunately , though , we still have risk-takers who are not paying attention to any of this nonsense , who know what world they 're living in and are just doing it
Thank goodness
Maureen Dowd is off today
I do n't expect much from the G-20 meeting this week , but if I had my wish , the leaders of the world 's 20 top economies would commit themselves to a new standard of accounting call it `` Market to Mother Nature '' accounting
Because it 's now obvious that the reason we 're experiencing a simultaneous meltdown in the financial system and the climate system is because we have been mispricing risk in both arenas producing a huge excess of both toxic assets and toxic air that now threatens the stability of the whole planet
Just as A.I.G. sold insurance derivatives at prices that did not reflect the real costs and the real risks of massive defaults -LRB- for which we the taxpayers ended up paying the difference -RRB- , oil companies , coal companies and electric utilities today are selling energy products at prices that do not reflect the real costs to the environment and real risks of disruptive climate change -LRB- so future taxpayers will end up paying the difference -RRB-
Whenever products are mispriced and do not reflect the real costs and risks associated with their usage , people go to excess
And that is exactly what happened in the financial marketplace and in the energy\/environmental marketplace during the credit bubble
Our biggest financial-services companies , some of which came to be seen as too big to fail , engaged in complex financial trading schemes that did not adequately price in the costs and risks of a market reversal
A.I.G. , for instance , was selling insurance for all kinds of financial instruments and did not have anywhere near adequate reserves to cover claims if things went badly wrong , as they did
And our biggest energy companies , utilities and auto companies became dependent on cheap hydrocarbons that spin off climate-changing greenhouse gases , and we clearly have not forced them , through a carbon tax , to price in the true risks and costs to society from these climate-changing fuels
`` When the balance sheet of a company does not capture the true costs and risks of its business activities , '' and when that company is too big to fail , `` you end up with them privatizing their gains and socializing their losses , '' Nandan Nilekani , the co-chairman of the Indian technology company Infosys , remarked to me
That is , everyone gets to rack up their private profits today and pay them out in current bonuses and dividends
But any catastrophic losses if the company is too big to fail `` get socialized and paid off by taxpayers .
This is why we need new banking regulation that reins in the leverage and speculative trading that big banks and insurance companies can undertake so they never again become simultaneously too reckless to regulate but too big fail and taxpayers are forced to pay off the toxic assets they accumulate
And this is also why we need a tax on carbon so we and our power utilities do n't become permanently addicted to cheap coal that makes for lower electricity prices today but spits out toxic greenhouse gases that have to be paid for by future generations tomorrow
That 's what `` Market to Mother Nature '' accounting is all about
It begins with the premise that the distinction between the G-20 and the Copenhagen climate change negotiations is totally artificial
They are just flip sides of the same global problem how we as a world keep raising standards of living for more and more people in ways that will not , as a byproduct , have both the Market and Mother Nature producing huge amounts of toxic assets
The old system , which has reached its financial and environmental limits , worked like this : We built more and more stores in America to sell more and more stuff , which was made in more and more Chinese factories powered by more and more coal that earned more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills that got recycled back to America in the form of cheap credit to build more and more stores and more and more houses that gave rise to more and more Chinese factories
... This system was a powerful engine of wealth creation and lifted millions out of poverty , but it relied upon the risks to the Market and to Mother Nature being underpriced and to profits being privatized in good times and losses socialized in bad times
This capitalist engine does n't need to be discarded ; it needs some fixes
For starters , we need to get back to basics accountable lending , prudent saving , reasonable leverage and , most important , more engineering of goods than just financial products
Some of our biggest financial firms got away from their original purpose to fund innovation and to finance the process of `` creative destruction , '' whereby new technologies that improve people 's lives replace old ones , said the Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati , in an interview in The American Interest
Instead , he added , too many banks got involved in exotic and incomprehensible financial innovations to simply make money out of money which ended up as `` destructive creation .
`` Destructive creation '' has wounded both the Market and Mother Nature
Smart regulation and carbon taxation can heal both
I 've been thinking about President Obama 's foreign policy lately , but first , a golf tip : I went to Dave Pelz 's famous short-game school this winter to improve my putting and chipping , and a funny thing happened my long game got better
It brings to mind something that happened to Obama
The president got health care reform passed , and it may turn out to be his single most important foreign policy achievement
In politics and diplomacy , success breeds authority and authority breeds more success
No one ever said it better than Osama bin Laden : `` When people see a strong horse and a weak horse , by nature they will like the strong horse .
Have no illusions , the rest of the world was watching our health care debate very closely , waiting to see who would be the strong horse Obama or his Democratic and Republican health care opponents
At every turn in the debate , America 's enemies and rivals were gauging what the outcome might mean for their own ability to push around an untested U.S. president
It remains to be seen whether , in the long run , America will be made physically healthier by the bill 's passage
But , in the short run , Obama definitely was made geopolitically healthier
`` When others see the president as a winner or as somebody who has real authority in his own house , it absolutely makes a difference , '' Defense Secretary Robert Gates said to me in an interview
`` All you have to do is look at how many minority or weak coalition governments there are around the world who ca n't deliver something big in their own country , but basically just teeter on the edge , because they ca n't put together the votes to do anything consequential , because of the divided electorate .
President Obama has had `` a divided electorate and was still able to muscle the thing through .
When President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia spoke by phone with Obama the morning after the health care vote to finalize the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty he began by saying that before discussing nukes , `` I want to congratulate you , Mr. President , on the health care vote , '' an administration official said
That was not just rank flattery
According to an American negotiator , all throughout the arms talks , which paralleled the health care debate , the Russians kept asking : `` Can you actually get this ratified by the Senate '' if an arms deal is cut
Winning passage of the health care bill demonstrated to the Russians that Obama could get something hard passed
Our enemies surely noticed , too
You do n't have to be Machiavelli to believe that the leaders of Iran and Venezuela shared the barely disguised Republican hope that health care would fail and , therefore , Obama 's whole political agenda would be stalled and , therefore , his presidency enfeebled
He would then be a lame duck for the next three years and America would be a lame power
Given the time and energy and political capital that was spent on health care , `` failure would have been unilateral disarmament , '' added Gates
`` Failure would have badly weakened the president in terms of dealing with others his ability to do various kinds of national security things
... You know , people made fun of Madeleine -LRB- Albright -RRB- for saying it , but I think she was dead on : most of the rest of the world does see us as the ` indispensable nation . '
Indeed , our allies often complain about a world of too much American power , but they are not stupid
They know that a world of too little American power is one they would enjoy even less
They know that a weak America is like a world with no health insurance and a lot of pre-existing conditions
Gen. James Jones , the president 's national security adviser , told me that he recently met with a key NATO counterpart , who concluded a breakfast by congratulating him on the health care vote and pronouncing : `` America is back .
But is it
While Obama 's health care victory prevented a power outage for him , it does not guarantee a power surge
Ultimately , what makes a strong president is a strong country a country whose underlying economic prowess , balance sheet and innovative capacity enable it to generate and project both military power and what the political scientist Joe Nye calls `` soft power '' being an example that others want to emulate
What matters most now is how Obama uses the political capital that health care 's passage has earned him
I continue to believe that the most important foreign policy issue America faces today is its ability to successfully engage in nation building nation building at home
Obama 's success in passing health care and the bounce it has put in his step will be nothing but a sugar high if we ca n't get our deficit under control , inspire a new generation of start-ups , upgrade our railroads and Internet and continue to attract the world 's smartest and most energetic immigrants
An effective , self-confident president with a weak country is nothing more than a bluffer
An effective , self-confident president , though , at least increases the odds of us building a stronger country
Maureen Dowd is off today
Speaking of financial crises and how they can expose weak companies and weak countries , Warren Buffett once famously quipped that `` only when the tide goes out do you find out who is not wearing a bathing suit .
So true
But what 's really unnerving is that America appears to be one of those countries that has been swimming buck naked in more ways than one
Credit bubbles are like the tide
They can cover up a lot of rot
In our case , the excess consumer demand and jobs created by our credit and housing bubbles have masked not only our weaknesses in manufacturing and other economic fundamentals , but something worse : how far we have fallen behind in K-12 education and how much it is now costing us
That is the conclusion I drew from a new study by the consulting firm McKinsey , entitled `` The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America 's Schools .
Just a quick review : In the 1950s and 1960s , the U.S. dominated the world in K-12 education
We also dominated economically
In the 1970s and 1980s , we still had a lead , albeit smaller , in educating our population through secondary school , and America continued to lead the world economically , albeit with other big economies , like China , closing in
Today , we have fallen behind in both per capita high school graduates and their quality
Consequences to follow
For instance , in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment that measured the applied learning and problem-solving skills of 15-year-olds in 30 industrialized countries , the U.S. ranked 25th out of the 30 in math and 24th in science
That put our average youth on par with those from Portugal and the Slovak Republic , `` rather than with students in countries that are more relevant competitors for service-sector and high-value jobs , like Canada , the Netherlands , Korea , and Australia , '' McKinsey noted
Actually , our fourth-graders compare well on such global tests with , say , Singapore
But our high school kids really lag , which means that `` the longer American children are in school , the worse they perform compared to their international peers , '' said McKinsey
There are millions of kids who are in modern suburban schools `` who do n't realize how far behind they are , '' said Matt Miller , one of the authors
`` They are being prepared for $ 12-an-hour jobs not $ 40 to $ 50 an hour .
It is not that we are failing across the board
There are huge numbers of exciting education innovations in America today from new modes of teacher compensation to charter schools to school districts scattered around the country that are showing real improvements based on better methods , better principals and higher standards
The problem is that they are too scattered leaving all kinds of achievement gaps between whites , African-Americans , Latinos and different income levels
Using an economic model created for this study , McKinsey showed how much those gaps are costing us
Suppose , it noted , `` that in the 15 years after the 1983 report ' A Nation at Risk ' sounded the alarm about the ` rising tide of mediocrity ' in American education , '' the U.S. had lifted lagging student achievement to higher benchmarks of performance
What would have happened
The answer , says McKinsey : If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea , United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $ 1.3 trillion and $ 2.3 trillion higher
If we had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998 , G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $ 310 billion and $ 525 billion higher
If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been narrowed , G.D.P. in 2008 would have been $ 400 billion to $ 670 billion higher
There are some hopeful signs
President Obama recognizes that we urgently need to invest the money and energy to take those schools and best practices that are working from islands of excellence to a new national norm
But we need to do it with the sense of urgency and follow-through that the economic and moral stakes demand
With Wall Street 's decline , though , many more educated and idealistic youth want to try teaching
Wendy Kopp , the founder of Teach for America , called the other day with these statistics about college graduates signing up to join her organization to teach in some of our neediest schools next year : `` Our total applications are up 40 percent
Eleven percent of all Ivy League seniors applied , 16 percent of Yale 's senior class , 15 percent of Princeton 's , 25 percent of Spellman 's and 35 percent of the African-American seniors at Harvard
In 130 colleges , between 5 and 15 percent of the senior class applied .
Part of it , said Kopp , is a lack of jobs elsewhere
But part of it is `` students responding to the call that this is a problem our generation can solve .
May it be so , because today , educationally , we are not a nation at risk
We are a nation in decline , and our nakedness is really showing
I 've been trying to understand the Tea Party Movement
Sounds like a lot of angry people who want to get the government out of their lives and cut both taxes and the deficit
Nothing wrong with that although one does wonder where they were in the Bush years
Never mind
I 'm sure like all such protest movements the Tea Partiers will get their 10 to 20 percent of the vote
But should the Tea Partiers actually aspire to break out of that range , attract lots of young people and become something more than just entertainment for Fox News , I have a suggestion : I 'd be happy to design the T-shirt logo and write the manifesto
The logo is easy
It would show young Americans throwing barrels of oil imported from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia into Boston Harbor
The manifesto is easy , too : `` We , the Green Tea Party , believe that the most effective way to advance America 's national security and economic vitality would be to impose a $ 10 `` Patriot Fee '' on every barrel of imported oil , with all proceeds going to pay down our national debt .
America now imports about 11 million barrels a day , about 57 percent of our total oil needs mostly from Canada , Mexico , Venezuela , Saudi Arabia and Nigeria
As T. Boone Pickens told Congress the other day : `` In January 2010 , our trade deficit for the month was $ 37.3 billion $ 27.5 billion of that was money we sent overseas to import oil .
If we put a Patriot Fee on all of those imported barrels , we would use less , cease enriching bad regimes , strengthen our own dollar , make the air cleaner and the climate more stable , foster the exploitation of domestic and renewable energy sources , promote electric vehicles , help bring down the global price of oil -LRB- which hurts Iran and helps poor Africa -RRB- , and we could use the revenue to shrink the deficit
It 's win , win , win , win , win , win ... Indeed , the Green Tea Party could say , `` We 've got our own health care plan a plan to make America healthy by simultaneously promoting energy security , deficit security and environmental security .
`` Think about it , '' said Carl Pope , the chairman of the Sierra Club
`` Green tea is full of antioxidants , '' which some believe help reduce cancer and heart disease
`` It 's really good for your health .
And a Green Tea Party , he added , could be good for the country 's health `` by harnessing all of its energy and unconventional politics '' to end our addiction to oil
Yes , I know , dream on
The Tea Party is heading to the hard libertarian right and would never support an energy bill that puts a fee on carbon
So if there is going to be a Green Tea Party , it will have to emerge from a different place the radical center , a center committed to a radical departure from business as usual
Acting on that impulse , Senators John Kerry , Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman had forged a bipartisan climate\/energy\/jobs bill that deserves an energetic centrist Green Tea Party to support it
This critical piece of energy legislation was supposed to be unveiled by the three senators on Monday , but it was suddenly postponed late Saturday because of Senator Graham s fury that the Senate Democratic leader , Harry Reid of Nevada , and the White House were planning to take up a highly controversial immigration measure before the energy bill
If this is what the Obama administration is doing to score a few cheap political points with Hispanics it is a travesty
The bipartisan energy bill is ready to go
It is far from perfect
Indeed , it is a shame the fossil fuel industries still have such a stranglehold on Congress
But it s the best we re going to get , and we have got to get started
However , without a centrist Green Tea Party movement one that brings the same passion to cutting emissions that the Tea Party brings to cutting deficits even this effort will never pass
This bill introduces a carbon price and other means to control the CO2 emissions of various sectors of the economy , without an economywide cap-and-trade system
The bill 's goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020
But to garner broad support , it will also expand domestic production of oil , natural gas and nuclear power and offer tax breaks to manufacturers who make their facilities more energy efficient and create green jobs
`` No bill that could pass Congress right now or in the immediate future would be sufficient to produce enough clean power to mitigate climate change at the rate we need , '' remarked the physicist Joe Romm , who writes the blog climateprogress.org and is author of an insightful new book on this subject , `` Straight Up .
`` We simply are n't sufficiently desperate to do what is needed , which is nonstop deployment of a staggering amount of low-carbon energy , including energy efficiency , for the rest of the century .
The reason a Green Tea Party should coalesce to support this bill , argued Romm , is because it will set a price on carbon pollution and help foster commercialization of clean technologies like hybrids , batteries and solar at sufficient scale to enable the U.S. to rapidly ramp up when the seriousness of climate change becomes inescapably obvious to all
In short , the bill is a step in the right direction toward reducing greenhouse gases and expanding our base of clean power technologies so we can compete with China in this newest global industry
It ai n't perfect , but it ai n't beanbag
And if we do n't start now , every solar panel , electric car and wind turbine we 'll have to buy when climate change really hits will come with instructions in Chinese
Go Green Tea Party
Note April 24 , 2010 : This column has been updated to reflect the news
It is not an exaggeration to say that the team that President Obama appointed to promote his green agenda is nothing short of outstanding a great combination of scientists and policy makers committed to building an energy economy that is efficient , clean and secure
Now there is only one vacancy left for him to fill
And it 's one that only he can fill : Green President
Is he ready to do that job with the passion and fight that will be required to transform America 's energy future
Hope so
Not sure yet
Have no doubt , the president is off to a terrific start : His stimulus package will provide an incredible boost for all forms of renewable energy
The energy bill being drafted by House Democrats Henry Waxman and Ed Markey contains unprecedented incentives for energy efficiency and clean-tech innovation
And the ruling from Mr. Obama 's Environmental Protection Agency saying that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that threatens public health was courageous and historic
But while all of that is hugely important , we must not fool ourselves , as we have done for so many years : Price matters
Without a fixed , long-term , durable price on carbon , none of the Obama clean-tech initiatives will achieve the scale needed to have an impact on climate change or make America the leader it must be in the next great industrial revolution : E.T. , or energy technology
At this stage , I 'd settle for any carbon price mechanism cap and trade , fee-bates , carbon tax and\/or gasoline tax as long as it is real and provides consumers and investors a long-term incentive to shift to clean cars , appliances and buildings
Bob Lutz , a vice chairman at General Motors , offers a useful example of why price matters
When Congress demands that Detroit make smaller , lighter , better mileage vehicles , but then refuses to put a higher price on carbon like with a gasoline tax so more consumers will want to buy these smaller cars , said Lutz , it is the equivalent of ordering all American shirtmakers to make only size smalls while never asking the American people to go on a diet
You 're not going to sell a lot of size smalls
Have no doubt : From right-wing tea parties to coal states to manufacturers , there is going to be a no-holds-barred campaign to kill any carbon price signal , including cap and trade
A vast army of lobbyists is already working against it
Only President Obama can blunt this
Only he has the platform for framing and elevating the issue properly and taking it to the American people with the passion and clarity needed to move the country
It will take more than one speech
Here 's one way to start : `` My fellow Americans , I want to speak to you about a new economic law
You 've heard of Moore 's Law in information technology
I 'd like to speak to you about the ` Law of More ' in energy technology
Americans , Indians , Chinese , Africans , we all want more more comfort in our homes , more mobility in our lives , more technologies with which to innovate
But there is only one way all 6.3 billion of us can have more and not make this an unlivable planet , and that is by living our lives and running our businesses in more sustainable ways and properly accounting for it
`` Right now we 're paying a huge price a tax for everyone trying to achieve more in an unsustainable way
But the ` More Tax ' is not imposed by the U.S. government
It is a tax imposed by the market and will continue rising indefinitely as more and more people want more and more stuff
It will steadily drive up gasoline prices , home heating prices and factory electricity prices
But because this ` More Tax ' is set by the market and not the government , many opponents contend that there 's nothing to be done : ` Oh , $ 4.50 a gallon gasoline that 's just the market at work
We ca n't do anything about that .
And then all that tax money out of your pocket goes to enrich oil companies and petro-dictators
`` My proposal is that today we fix a durable price on carbon-based fossil fuels , but set it to begin only in 2011 , after we 're out of this recession
Every home builder , air-conditioning manufacturer , gasoline refiner , carmaker will know that it 's coming and will , I believe , immediately look for ways to profit from and invest in more energy efficient systems
Yes , the cost of gasoline or kilowatt hours will rise in the short term
But in the long term , your actual bills and expenses will go down because your car , appliances and factory will become steadily more productive and give you more power for less energy
`` I call it the ` Carbon Tax Cut .
You wo n't receive the dividend in the first week or month , but you will get it soon , and it will be a permanent tax cut , a gift that will keep on giving
`` So those are our choices , folks an escalating ` More Tax ' forever , premised on immediate gratification and short-term thinking , or a ` Carbon Tax Cut ' forever , which is exactly what you 'll get from establishing a carbon price signal that shapes the market in favor of American interests and not those of our adversaries and competitors
If you 're with me , write your member of Congress and senator today .
OBAMA , BREAKING ` FROM A TROUBLED PAST , ' SEEKS BUDGET TO RESHAPE U.S. PRIORITIES -LRB- February 27 , 2009 -RRB- OBAMA TO CALL FOR HIGHER TAX ON TOP EARNERS -LRB- February 26 , 2009 -RRB- Related Searches Carbon Dioxide Get E-Mail Alerts Taxation Get E-Mail Alerts Greenhouse Gas Emissions Get E-Mail Alerts Prices -LRB- Fares , Fees and Rates -RRB- Get E-Mail
China is having a good week in America
Yes it is
I 'd even suggest that there is some high-fiving going on in Beijing
I mean , would n't you if you saw America 's Democratic and Republican leaders conspiring to ensure that America cedes the next great global industry E.T. , energy technology to China
But , before I get to that , here 's a little news item to chew on : Applied Materials , a U.S. Silicon Valley company that makes the machines that make sophisticated solar panels , opened the world 's largest commercial solar research and development center in Xian , China , in October
It initially sought applicants for 260 scientist\/technologist jobs
Howard Clabo , a company spokesman , told me that the Xian center received 26,000 Chinese applications and hired 330 people 31 percent with master 's or Ph.D. degrees
`` Roughly 50 percent of the solar panels in the world were made in China last year , '' explained Clabo
`` We need to be where the customers are .
And what kind of week is America having
After months of heroic negotiations , Senators John Kerry , Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman had forged a bipartisan climate\/energy\/jobs bill that , while far from perfect , would have , for the first time , put a long-term fixed price on carbon precisely the kind of price signal U.S. industry and consumers need to start really shifting the economy to clean-power innovations
The bill was supposed to be unveiled on Monday , but it was suddenly postponed because of Graham 's justified fury that the Senate Democratic leader , Harry Reid , had decided to push immigration reform first even though no such bill is ready in a bid to attract Hispanic voters to revive his re-election campaign in Nevada
After all the work that has gone into knitting together this bipartisan bill , which has the support of key industry players , it would be insane to let this effort fail
Fortunately , on Tuesday , Reid was hinting about a compromise
But , ultimately , the issue is n't just about introducing a bill
It 's about getting it passed
And there we are going to need the president 's sustained leadership
President Obama has done a superb job in securing stimulus money for green-technology and in using his regulatory powers to compel the auto industry to improve mileage standards to a whole new level
But he has always been rather coy when it comes to when and how much he will personally push an energy\/climate bill that would fix a price on carbon-emitting fuels
Without that price signal , you will never get sustained consumer demand for , or sustained private investment in , clean-power technologies
All you will get are hobbies
The president clearly wants this energy bill to pass , but his advisers are worried that because the bill will likely result in higher electricity or gasoline charges , Republicans will run around screaming `` carbon tax '' and hurt Democrats in the midterm elections
I appreciate the president 's dilemma
But I do n't think hanging back and letting the Senate take the lead is the right answer
This is a big leadership moment
He needs to confront it head-on , because call me crazy I think doing the right and hard thing here will actually be good politics , too
I 'd love to see the president come out , guns blazing with this message : `` Yes , if we pass this energy legislation , a small price on carbon will likely show up on your gasoline or electricity bill
I 'm not going to lie
But it is an investment that will pay off in so many ways
It will spur innovation in energy efficiency that will actually lower the total amount you pay for driving , heating or cooling
It will reduce carbon pollution in the air we breathe and make us healthier as a country
It will reduce the money we are sending to nations that crush democracy and promote intolerance
It will strengthen the dollar
It will make us more energy secure , environmentally secure and strategically secure
Sure , our opponents will scream ` carbon tax !
Well , what do you think you 're paying now to OPEC
The only difference between me and my opponents is that I want to keep any revenue we generate here to build American schools , American highways , American high-speed rail , American research labs and American economic strength
It 's just a little tick I have : I like to see our spending build our country
They do n't care
They are perfectly happy to see all the money you spend to fill your tank or heat your home go overseas , so we end up funding both sides in the war on terrorism our military and their extremists .
Much of our politics today is designed to make people stupid , confused and afraid of change
The G.O.P. has been particularly egregious on energy and climate
I believe if you talk straight to the American people on energy and climate , they will give you the right answers , and , ultimately , the support needed to trump the vested interests and lobbyists who have kept us addicted to oil
Obama has all the right instincts on this issue
He just needs to trust them
If he brings his A-game to energy legislation , Americans will follow and then maybe we can have a good century
Weighing everything , President Obama got it about as right as one could when he decided to ban the use of torture , to release the Bush torture memos for public scrutiny and to not prosecute the lawyers and interrogators who implemented the policy
But there is nothing for us to be happy about in any of this
After all , we 're not just talking about `` enhanced interrogations .
Lawrence Wilkerson , the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell , has testified to Congress that more than 100 detainees died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan , with up to 27 of those declared homicides by the military
They were allegedly kicked to death , shot , suffocated or drowned
Look , our people killed detainees , and only a handful of those deaths have resulted in any punishment of U.S. officials
The president 's decision to expose but not prosecute those responsible for this policy is surely unsatisfying ; some of this abuse involved sheer brutality that had nothing to do with clear and present dangers
Then why justify the Obama compromise
Two reasons : the first is that because justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush , Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial , which would rip our country apart ; and the other is that Al Qaeda truly was a unique enemy , and the post-9 \/ 11 era a deeply confounding war in a variety of ways
First , Al Qaeda was undeterred by normal means
Al Qaeda 's weapon of choice was suicide
Al Qaeda operatives were ready to kill themselves as they did on 9\/11 , and before that against U.S. targets in Saudi Arabia , Kenya , Tanzania and Yemen long before we could ever threaten to kill them
We could deter the Russians because they loved their children more than they hated us ; they did not want to die
The Al Qaeda operatives hated us more than they loved their own children
They glorified martyrdom and left families behind
Second , Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda aspired to deliver a devastating blow to America
They `` were involved in an extraordinarily sophisticated and professional effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction
In this case , nuclear material , '' Michael Scheuer , the former C.I.A. bin Laden expert , told `` 60 Minutes '' in 2004
`` By the end of 1996 , it was clear that this was an organization unlike any other one we had ever seen .
Third , Al Qaeda comes out of a stream in radical Islam that believes that it has religious sanction for killing absolutely anyone , including fellow Muslims
Al Qaeda in Iraq has blown up Muslims in mosques , shrines and funerals
It respects no redlines or religious constraints
One of its leaders personally severed Daniel Pearl 's head with a butcher knife on film
Finally , Al Qaeda 's tactics are designed to be used against , and to undermine , exactly what we are : an open society
By turning human beings into walking missiles and instruments from our daily lives cars , airplanes , shoes , cellphones , backpacks into bombs , Al Qaeda attacks the very feature that keeps our open society open : trust
If you have to fear that the person next to you on a plane or in a theater might blow up , there can be no open society
And therefore , the post-9 \/ 11 environment remains perilous
One more 9\/11 would close our open society another notch
One more 9\/11 and you 'll be taking off more than your shoes at the airport
We have the luxury of having this torture debate now because there was no second 9\/11 , and it was not for want of trying
Had there been , a vast majority of Americans would have told the government -LRB- and still will -RRB- : `` Do whatever it takes .
So President Obama 's compromise is the best we can forge right now : We have to enjoin those who confront Al Qaeda types every day on the frontlines to act in ways that respect who we are , but also to never forget who they are
They are not white-collar criminals
They do not care whether we torture or not bin Laden declared war on us when Bill Clinton was president
I believe that the most important reason there has not been another 9\/11 , besides the improved security and intelligence , is that Al Qaeda is primarily focused on defeating America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world particularly in Iraq
Al Qaeda knows that if it can destroy the U.S. effort -LRB- still a long shot -RRB- to build a decent , modernizing society in Iraq , it will undermine every U.S. ally in the region
Conversely , if we , with Iraqis , defeat them by building any kind of decent , pluralistic society in the heart of their world , it will be a devastating blow
Odd as it may seem , the most dangerous moment for us is if Al Qaeda is beaten in Iraq
Because that is when Al Qaeda 's remnants will try to throw a Hail Mary pass that is , try to set off a bomb in a U.S. city to obscure its defeat by moderate Arabs and Muslims in the heart of its world
So , yes , people among us who went over the line may go unpunished , because we still have enemies who respect no lines at all
In such an ugly war , you do your best
That 's what President Obama did
It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy
Unfortunately , the unifying idea is so ridiculous , so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation , it takes your breath away
Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline , 18.4 cents a gallon , for this summer 's travel season
This is not an energy policy
This is money laundering : we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks
What a way to build our country
When the summer is over , we will have increased our debt to China , increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit
No , no , no , we 'll just get the money by taxing Big Oil , says Mrs. Clinton
Even if you could do that , what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation
The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today : `` Maximize demand , minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most .
Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering
But here 's what 's scary : our problem is so much worse than you think
We have no energy strategy
If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage new , renewable energy technologies
We are doing just the opposite
Are you sitting down
Few Americans know it , but for almost a year now , Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy
The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December , it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production
Oil and gas kept all their credits , but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December
I am not making this up
At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation , we are squabbling over pennies
These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again which often happens investments in wind and solar would still be profitable
That 's how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale , so it can compete without subsidies
The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry
President Bush said he would veto that
Neither side would back down , and Mr. Bush showing not one iota of leadership refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise
Meanwhile , Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program ; Japan 12 years
Ours , at best , run two years
`` It 's a disaster , '' says Michael Polsky , founder of Invenergy , one of the biggest wind-power developers in America
`` Wind is a very capital-intensive industry , and financial institutions are not ready to take ` Congressional risk .
They say if you do n't get the -LRB- production tax credit -RRB- we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects .
It is also alarming , says Rhone Resch , the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association , that the U.S. has reached a point `` where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics '' that it would turn its back on the next great global industry clean power `` but that 's exactly what is happening .
If the wind and solar credits expire , said Resch , the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries , and $ 20 billion worth of investments that wo n't be made
While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio , no one noticed that America 's premier solar company , First Solar , from Toledo , Ohio , was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany 540 high-paying engineering jobs because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not
In 1997 , said Resch , America was the leader in solar energy technology , with 40 percent of global solar production
`` Last year , we were less than 8 percent , and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets .
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious the energy to do big things in a sustained , focused and intelligent way
We are in the midst of a national political brownout
Here 's my fun fact for the day , provided courtesy of Robert Litan , who directs research at the Kauffman Foundation , which specializes in promoting innovation in America : `` Between 1980 and 2005 , virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less , '' said Litan
`` That is about 40 million jobs
That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period .
Message : If we want to bring down unemployment in a sustainable way , neither rescuing General Motors nor funding more road construction will do it
We need to create a big bushel of new companies fast
We 've got to get more Americans working again for their own dignity and to generate the rising incomes and wealth we need to pay for existing entitlements , as well as all the new investments we 'll need to make
It was just reported that Social Security this year will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes a red line we were not expected to cross until at least 2016
But you can not say this often enough : Good-paying jobs do n't come from bailouts
They come from start-ups
And where do start-ups come from
They come from smart , creative , inspired risk-takers
How do we get more of those
There are only two ways : grow more by improving our schools or import more by recruiting talented immigrants
Surely , we need to do both , and we need to start by breaking the deadlock in Congress over immigration , so we can develop a much more strategic approach to attracting more of the world 's creative risk-takers
`` Roughly 25 percent of successful high-tech start-ups over the last decade were founded or co-founded by immigrants , '' said Litan
Think Sergey Brin , the Russian-born co-founder of Google , or Vinod Khosla , the India-born co-founder of Sun Microsystems
That is no surprise
After all , Craig Mundie , the chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft , asks : What made America this incredible engine of prosperity
It was immigration , plus free markets
Because we were so open to immigration and immigrants are by definition high-aspiring risk-takers , ready to leave their native lands in search of greater opportunities `` we as a country accumulated a disproportionate share of the world 's high-I.Q. risk-takers .
In addition , because of our vibrant and meritocratic university system , the best foreign students who wanted the best education also came here , and many of them also stayed
In its heyday , our unique system also attracted a disproportionate share of high-I.Q. risk-takers to high government service
So when you put all this together , with our free markets and democracy , it made it easy here for creative , high-I.Q. risk-takers to raise capital for their ideas and commercialize them
In short , America had a very powerful , self-reinforcing engine for growing innovative new companies
`` When you get this happy coincidence of high-I.Q. risk-takers in government and a society that is biased toward high-I.Q. risk-takers , you get these above-average returns as a country , '' argued Mundie
`` What is common to Singapore , Israel and America
They were all built by high-I.Q. risk-takers and all thrived but only in the U.S. did it happen at a large scale and with global diversity , so you had this really rich cross-section .
What is worrisome about America today is the combination of cutbacks in higher education , restrictions on immigration and a toxic public space that dissuades talented people from going into government
Together , all of these trends are slowly eating away at our differentiated edge in attracting and enabling the world 's biggest mass of smart , creative risk-takers
It is n't drastic , but it is a decline at a time when technology is allowing other countries to leverage and empower more of their own high-I.Q. risk-takers
If we do n't reverse this trend , over time , `` we could lose our most important competitive edge the only edge from which sustainable advantage accrues '' having the world 's biggest and most diverse pool of high-I.Q. risk-takers , said Mundie
`` If we do n't have that competitive edge , our standard of living will eventually revert to the global mean .
Right now we have thousands of foreign students in America and one million engineers , scientists and other highly skilled workers here on H-1B temporary visas , which require them to return home when the visas expire
That 's nuts
`` We ought to have a ` job-creators visa ' for people already here , '' said Litan
`` And once you 've hired , say , 5 or 10 American nonfamily members , you should get a green card .
We need health care , financial reform and education reform
But we also need to be thinking just as seriously and urgently about what are the ingredients that foster entrepreneurship how new businesses are catalyzed , inspired and enabled and how we enlist more people to do that so no one ever says about America what that officer says to Tom Cruise in `` Top Gun '' : `` Son , your ego 's writing checks your body ca n't cash .
While campaigning for the presidency in 1932 , in the midst of the Great Depression , Franklin Roosevelt gave a commencement address on May 22 at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta that probably describes President Obama 's strategy today and the big bet he has made as well as anything could
`` The country needs and , unless I mistake its temper , the country demands bold , persistent experimentation , '' said Roosevelt
`` It is common sense to take a method and try it
If it fails , admit it frankly and try another
But above all , try something .
When you total up all the emergency economic policies that Mr. Obama has now put in place a nearly $ 800 billion stimulus , mortgage relief , a private-public program for buying up toxic assets and a huge capital injection into the banking system by the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and expand credit they constitute one big experiment
Together , these policies call them Obama Rescue Phase I represent a huge bet that the administration can confine this economic crisis to a really nasty recession , the sort of thing that might constitute a long chapter in an economic history and not a 21st-century Depression that would trigger a whole bookshelf on the theme of : `` How Barack Obama Won an Election and Lost an Economy .
From the left , Mr. Obama is being ripped for having too much of a market-based approach and not just bowing to the inevitability of nationalizing insolvent banks
From the right , he is being ripped for too much government intervention and not letting market forces play out
My own sense is this : The Obama package represents the sum total of what was minimally necessary to prevent systemic breakdown , what was politically possible with a Congress that was in no mood to shell out another dime to bail out Wall Street , and what was operationally preferable at this time which was a strategy that did not require nationalizing Citigroup & Friends
As Obama officials put it to me : If you 're certain that you have to do some radical surgery nationalize the banks do it sooner rather than later
But if you think you might have an option , and if you think that nationalization brings with it other huge problems like who is going to run these banks and who will want to work in them if the government takes over and if you think that Congress is n't going to give you another cent , then you try other things first
Mr. Obama is betting that the totality of economic policies his team and the Federal Reserve have put in place will act , like radiation therapy , to halt the spread and reduce the size of the cancerous tumors eating away at our financial system and stimulate enough new growth and optimism so that Phase II will be small enough to get past Congress and the public
As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told ABC News , `` If we get to that point '' where more funds are needed `` we 'll go to the Congress and make the strongest case possible and help them understand why this will be cheaper over the long run to move aggressively .
Have no doubt , Phase II is coming
At best , it will require hundreds of billions of dollars more , at worst more than a trillion , to deal with more bad loans and toxic assets weakening the economy problems that Phase I ca n't fully absorb
Because unemployment is still rising ensuring that the initial spate of mortgage defaults , which came from loans to people who could never repay , will be followed by another spate of defaults from those who could repay but now ca n't because the deteriorating economy has stripped them of their jobs , their businesses or their credit lines
The Obama strategy , said Robert Hormats , the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International , `` is based on the idea of mutual reinforcement , that when you put it all together the money stimulating growth , the money relieving the credit crunch in the housing sector , the money injected by the Federal Reserve to lower rates , and the various initiatives to heal the banks without nationalization you 'll get a boost to the economy that will be greater than the sum of its parts .
The success of the president 's approach , added Hormats , will depend on everything , indeed , working together `` that the fiscal stimulus will improve the housing markets by creating more employment and growth , the improvement in housing will take pressure off banks , and less pressure on the banks will improve the availability of credit that will help housing and business job creation .
That is the president 's big bet his first big Rooseveltian experiment
If he 's wrong , Phase II of the bailout will start with a `` t , '' as in a trillion , and it will trigger a ferocious political fight in Congress
But , if he 's right , it will start with a `` b , '' as in billions , Congress will be more easily finessed , and we just might emerge from this crisis without making too much economic history
I 'm no expert on American politics , but I do know something about holes
And watching the way the Republican Party is reacting to the passage of health care , it seems to me the G.O.P. is violating the first rule of holes : `` When you 're in one , stop digging .
Yes , I know , the polls show that the G.O.P. is not being hurt by its `` just-say-no '' strategy
But there is no groundswell moving its way either
Republicans will have to come up with more than `` just-say-no-to-everything-except-lower-taxes-and-more-drilling '' to field a credible 2012 presidential candidate
Here 's why : If you step back far enough , you could argue that George W. Bush brought the Reagan Revolution with its emphasis on tax cuts , deregulation and government-as-the-problem-not-the-solution to its logical conclusion and then some
But with a soaring deficit and a banking crisis caused by an excess of deregulation , Reaganism has met its limit
Meanwhile , President Obama 's passage of health care reform has brought the New Deal-Franklin Roosevelt Revolution to its logical conclusion
There will be no more major entitlements for Americans
The bond market will make sure of that
In other words , both major parties have now completed their primary 20th - century missions , first laid down by their iconic standard-bearers
The real question is which party is going to build America 's bridge to the 21st century one that will strengthen our ability to compete in the global economy , while practicing much more fiscal discipline
Obama is at least trying to push an agenda for pursuing the American dream in these new circumstances
I do n't agree with every policy I 'd like to see a lot more emphasis on innovation and small business start-ups but he 's clearly trying
I do not get that impression from the Republicans , and especially those being led around by the Tea Partiers
Obama-ism posits that we are now in a hypercompetitive global economy , where the country that thrives will be the one that brings together the most educated , creative and diverse work force with the best infrastructure bandwidth , ports , airports , high-speed rail and good governance
And we 're in a world with a warming climate that is growing from 6.8 billion people to 9.2 billion by 2050 , so demand for clean energy is going to go through the roof
Therefore , E.T. energy technology is going to be the next great global industry
So , government matters
It needs to be incentivizing businesses to build their next factory in this country at a time when every other nation is throwing incentives their way ; it needs to be recruiting highly skilled immigrants ; it needs to be setting the highest national education standards and funding basic research ; it needs to be laying down the right energy regulations that will stimulate more clean-tech companies
And something neither Democrats nor Republicans have stepped up to yet we will need to pay for all this by simultaneously raising some taxes , cutting others and by taking away some services to pay for needed new investments in infrastructure and education
We ca n't get away anymore with a G.O.P. that wants to cut taxes but never specifies which services it plans to give up , or a Democratic party that wants to add services by taxing only the rich
`` Health care was the final act of the New Deal , '' argues Edward Goldberg , who teaches global business at Baruch College and is writing a book on globalization and U.S. politics
`` The 21st-century will require a mix of cutting , investing and innovation and entrepreneurialism beyond anything we have dreamed of .
To simply say that government is not the answer , he adds , `` when we are essentially fighting four wars Iraq , Afghanistan , the Great Recession and the retooling of the American economy '' is ludicrous
Smart government needs to be the leader or silent partner in all of these projects
One reason the G.O.P. has failed to spawn an agenda for the 21st century is that globalization has fragmented the party
Its Wall Street\/multinational corporate wing understands we need immigration , free trade , clean-tech and government support for better infrastructure and the scientific research that is the wellspring of innovation
The Tea Party wing opposes virtually all those things
All that unites the two wings is their common desire for lower taxes period
Globalization has also weakened the Democrats ' blue-collar\/union base , but the Democrats have absorbed a new constituency created by globalization what Goldberg calls the '' ` Newocracy ' which combines the multinational corporate manager , the technology entrepreneur and engineer , and the aspirational members of the meritocracy .
These `` Newocrats '' previously would have leaned Republican , but now many lean toward Obama
They do n't agree with everything he 's proposing , but they sense that he is working on that bridge to the 21st century , while today 's G.O.P. \/ Tea Party is just not in the game
Today , we have no real opposition party with its own pathway to the 21st century
We just have opposition
I am really encouraged by President Obama 's commitment to clean energy and combating climate change
I just have three worries : whether he has the right policies , the right politics and the right official to sell his program to the country
Other than that , things look great
Last week , House Democrats , with administration support , introduced a 600-page draft bill on energy and climate
At the center of it is a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through a complicated cap-and-trade system
These people have the very best of intentions , but I wish they would step back and ask again : Can cap-and-trade pass
Will it really work
And is it the best strategy , with all the bureaucracy it will require to monitor , auction emissions permits and manage the trading
Advocates of cap-and-trade argue that it is preferable to a simple carbon tax because it fixes a national cap on carbon emissions and it `` hides the ball '' it does n't use the word `` tax '' even though it amounts to one
So it can get through Congress
That was true as long as no one thought cap-and-trade could ever pass , but now that it might under Mr. Obama , opponents are not playing hide the ball anymore
In the past two weeks , you could hear a chorus of Republicans , coal-state Democrats , right-wing think tanks and enviro-skeptics all singing the same tune : `` Cap-and-trade is a tax
Obama is going to raise your taxes and sacrifice U.S. jobs to combat this global-warming charade , which many scientists think is nonsense
Worse , cap-and-trade will be managed by Wall Street
If you liked credit-default swaps , you 're going to love carbon-offset swaps .
Some of the refrains from this song have a very catchy appeal
They could easily kill this effort
So , if the Obama team cares about the `` ends '' of a stronger America and a more livable planet , as much as the `` means , '' I hope it will consider an alternative strategy , message and messenger
STRATEGY Since the opponents of cap-and-trade are going to pillory it as a tax anyway , why not go for the real thing a simple , transparent , economy-wide carbon tax
Representative John B. Larson , chairman of the House Democratic Caucus , has circulated a draft bill that would impose `` a per-unit tax on the carbon-dioxide content of fossil fuels , beginning at a rate of $ 15 per metric ton of CO2 and increasing by $ 10 each year .
The bill sets a goal , rather than a cap , on emissions at 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 , and if the goal for the first five years is not met , the tax automatically increases by an additional $ 5 per metric ton
The bill implements a fee on carbon-intensive imports , as well , to press China to follow suit
Larson would use most of the income to reduce people 's payroll taxes : We tax your carbon sins and un-tax your payroll wins
People get that and simplicity matters
Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened , breathe cleaner air and live in a more sustainable world with a stronger America
They are much less likely to support a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing , which is what cap-and-trade is all about
People wo n't support what they ca n't explain
MESSAGE Climate change is a real threat to a healthy planet Earth the only home we have
But because the worst effects are in the future , many Americans have more immediate concerns
That is why our energy policy should be focused around `` American renewal , '' not mitigating climate change
We need a price on carbon because it will stimulate massive innovation in the next great global industry E.T. energy technology
In a warming world with huge population growth , clean power systems are going to be in huge demand
The scientific research and innovation needed for America to dominate E.T. the way it did I.T. could be the foundation for a second American industrial revolution , plus it would tip the whole planet onto a greener path
So American economic renewal is the goal , but mitigating climate change would be the great byproduct
MESSENGER The Obama administration 's carbon tax spokesman the one who should sell this to the country should be the president 's national security adviser , Gen. James Jones , not the environmentalists
The imposing former head of the Marine Corps could make a powerful case that a carbon tax is vitally necessary to stimulate investments in the clean technologies that would enable the U.S. to dominate E.T. , while also shifting consumers to buy these new , more efficient and cleaner power systems , homes and cars
He could make the case that the country with the most powerful clean-technology industry in the 21st century will have the most energy security , national security , economic security , healthy environment , innovative companies and global respect
That country must be America
So let 's stop hiding the ball and have a strategy , message and messenger that tell it like it is and make it so
Despite Furor , Most N.Y. Power Operators Seem at Peace With Greenhouse-Gas Limits -LRB- April 2 , 2009
The Arctic Hotel in Ilulissat , Greenland , is a charming little place on the West Coast , but no one would ever confuse it for a Four Seasons maybe a One Seasons
But when my wife and I walked back to our room after dinner the other night and turned down our dim hallway , the hall light went on
It was triggered by an energy-saving motion detector
Our toilet even had two different flushing powers depending on how do I say this delicately what exactly you 're flushing
A two-gear toilet
I 've never found any of this at an American hotel
Oh , if only we could be as energy efficient as Greenland
A day later , I flew back to Denmark
After appointments here in Copenhagen , I was riding in a car back to my hotel at the 6 p.m. rush hour
And boy , you knew it was rush hour because 50 percent of the traffic in every intersection was bicycles
That is roughly the percentage of Danes who use two-wheelers to go to and from work or school every day here
If I lived in a city that had dedicated bike lanes everywhere , including one to the airport , I 'd go to work that way , too
It means less traffic , less pollution and less obesity
What was most impressive about this day , though , was that it was raining
No matter
The Danes simply donned rain jackets and pants for biking
If only we could be as energy smart as Denmark
Unlike America , Denmark , which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while , responded to that crisis in such a sustained , focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent
-LRB- And it did n't happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling .
What was the trick
To be sure , Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea
But despite that , Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes , CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy while barely growing their energy consumption and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today
Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind
About 1 percent
And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power
In one word , said Connie Hedegaard , Denmark 's minister of climate and energy : `` No. '' It just forced them to innovate more like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water , or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating
-LRB- There are virtually no landfills here .
There is little whining here about Denmark having $ 10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes
The shaping of the market with high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had `` a positive impact on job creation , '' added Hedegaard
`` For example , the wind industry it was nothing in the 1970s
Today , one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world come from Denmark .
In the last 10 years , Denmark 's exports of energy efficiency products have tripled
Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $ 10.5 billion in 2006 , compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole
`` It is one of our fastest-growing export areas , '' said Hedegaard
It is one reason that unemployment in Denmark today is 1.6 percent
In 1973 , said Hedegaard , `` we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East
Today it is zero .
Frankly , when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded , we look pathetic
`` I have observed that in all other countries , including in America , people are complaining about how prices of -LRB- gasoline -RRB- are going up , '' Denmark 's prime minister , Anders Fogh Rasmussen , told me
`` The cure is not to reduce the price , but , on the contrary , to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil
We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy .
Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate , Ditlev Engel , the president of Vestas Denmark 's and the world 's biggest wind turbine company told me that he simply ca n't understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America
Why should you care
`` We 've had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months , '' said Engel , `` and not one out of the U.S.
John McCain recently tried to underscore his seriousness about pushing through a new energy policy , with a strong focus on more drilling for oil , by telling a motorcycle convention that Congress needed to come back from vacation immediately and do something about America 's energy crisis
`` Tell them to come back and get to work !
McCain bellowed
Sorry , but I ca n't let that one go by
McCain knows why
It was only five days earlier , on July 30 , that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad , vitally important bill S. 3335 that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems
Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits which expire in December to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal , oil and natural gas
Unlike offshore drilling , these credits could have an immediate impact on America 's energy profile
Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30 , and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time
In fact , John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation
He has missed all eight votes over the last year which effectively counts as a no vote each time
Once , he was even in the Senate and would n't leave his office to vote
`` McCain did not show up on any votes , '' said Scott Sklar , president of The Stella Group , which tracks clean-technology legislation
Despite that , McCain 's campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize , even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power
Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either which is equally inexcusable in my book but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits
The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either do n't want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply do n't believe in renewable energy
What impact does this have
In the solar industry today there is a rush to finish any project that would be up and running by Dec. 31 when the credits expire and most everything beyond that is now on hold
Consider the Solana concentrated solar power plant , 70 miles southwest of Phoenix in McCain 's home state
It is the biggest proposed concentrating solar energy project ever
The farsighted local utility is ready to buy its power
But because of the Senate 's refusal to extend the solar tax credits , `` we can not get our bank financing , '' said Fred Morse , a senior adviser for the American operations of Abengoa Solar , which is building the project
`` Without the credits , the numbers do n't work .
Some 2,000 construction jobs are on hold
Roger Efird is president of Suntech America a major Chinese-owned solar panel maker that actually wants to build a new factory in America
They 've been scouting the country for sites , and several governors have been courting them
But Efird told me that when the solar credits failed to pass the Senate , his boss told him : `` Do n't set up any more meetings with governors
It makes absolutely no sense to do this if we do n't have stability in the incentive programs .
One of the biggest canards peddled by Big Oil is that , `` Sure , we 'll need wind and solar energy , but it 's just not cost effective yet .
They 've been saying that for 30 years
What these tax credits are designed to do is to stimulate investments by many players in solar and wind so these technologies can quickly move down the learning curve and become competitive with coal and oil which is why some people are trying to block them
As Richard K. Lester , an energy-innovation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , notes , `` The best chance we have perhaps the only chance '' of addressing the combined challenges of energy supply and demand , climate change and energy security `` is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for energy supply and use and deploy them on a very large scale .
This , he argues , will take more than a Manhattan Project
It will require a fundamental reshaping by government of the prices and regulations and research-and-development budgets that shape the energy market
Without taxing fossil fuels so they become more expensive and giving subsidies to renewable fuels so they become more competitive and changing regulations so more people and companies have an interest in energy efficiency we will not get innovation in clean power at the scale we need
That is what this election should be focusing on
Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid so bloody stupid that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they 'll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power when you did n't
If you travel long enough and far enough like by jet to Johannesburg , by prop plane to northern Botswana and then by bush plane deep into the Okavango Delta you can still find it
It is that special place that on medieval maps would have been shaded black and labeled : `` Here there be Dragons !
But in the postmodern age , it is the place where my BlackBerry , my wireless laptop and even my satellite phone all gave me the same message : `` No Service .
Yes , Dorothy , somewhere over the rainbow , there is still a `` Land of No Service '' where the only `` webs '' are made by spiders , where the only `` net '' is the one wrapped around your bed to keep out mosquitoes , where the only `` ring tones '' at dawn are the scream of African fish eagles and the bark of baboons , where the only GPS belongs to the lioness instinctively measuring the distance between herself and the antelope she hopes will be her next meal , and where `` connectivity '' refers only to the intricate food chain linking predators and prey that sustains this remarkable ecosystem
I confess , I arrived with enough devices to stay just a teensy-weensy connected to e-mail
I was n't looking for the Land of No Service
But the Okavango Delta 's managers and the Wilderness Trust a South African conservation organization that runs safaris to support its nature restoration work take the wilderness seriously
The staff at our camp on the northwestern tip of Chief 's Island , the largest island in the delta , did have a radio , but otherwise the only sounds you heard were from Mother Nature 's symphony orchestra and the only landscapes , sunsets and color combinations were painted by the hand of God
So , like it or not , coming here forces you to think about the blessings and curses of `` connectivity .
`` No Service '' is something travelers from the developed world now pay for in order to escape modernity , with its ball and chain of e-mail
For much of Africa , though , `` No Service '' is a curse because without more connectivity , its people ca n't escape poverty
Can there be a balance between the two
For the normally overconnected tourist , the first thing you notice in the Land of No Service is how quickly your hearing , smell and eyesight improve in an act of instant Darwinian evolution
It is amazing how well you can hear when you do n't have an iPod in your ears or how far you can see when you 're not squinting at a computer screen
In the wild , the difference between hearing and seeing with acuity is the difference between survival and extinction for the animals and the difference between a rewarding experience and a missed opportunity for photographers and guides
It was our guide spotting a half-eaten antelope lodged high in a tree that drew our attention to its predator , a leopard , calmly licking her paws nearby and then yawning from her midday meal
The cat 's stomach was heaving up and down , still digesting her prey
The leopard had suffocated the antelope you could still see the marks on its neck and then dragged it up the tree , holding it in her jaws , and placed the kill perfectly in the V between two branches
And there the antelope dangled , head on one side , dainty legs on the other , with half her midsection eaten away
The rest would be tomorrow 's leopard lunch , stored high above where the hyenas could not get it
But while maintaining `` No Service '' in the wild is essential for Africa 's ecotourism industry , the rest of the continent desperately needs more connectivity
Eric Cantor , who runs Grameen Foundation 's Application Laboratory in Uganda , explains what a huge difference cellphones and Internet access can make to people in Africa : `` A banana farmer previously limited to waiting for a buyer truck to pass his farm to sell the week 's harvest can now use a mobile-phone marketplace to publicize the availability of his stock or to search for buyers who might be in the market or have truck transport available to a larger market , '' said Cantor
`` They can also compare going prices to gain more power in a negotiation
Teenagers too shy to ask parents about causes and symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases can research them privately and improve their own health outcomes
A farmer with no money who needs a remedy for the pest attacking her primary crop can find one that uses locally available materials , when they need it .
Botswana , about the size of Texas , luckily has enough diamonds to be able to turn 40 percent of its land into nature preserves
Its urban connectivity with the global diamond exchanges enables it to maintain `` No Service '' in its wilderness
Zimbabwe , by contrast , has become virtually a country of `` No Service '' after decades of dictatorship by Robert Mugabe , and , as a result , both its people and wildlife are endangered species
The more African countries where `` No Service '' can be a choice , not a fate an offering for the eco-tourist to enjoy , not a condition for the entrepreneur to overcome the more hope that this continent will be able to enhance its natural wonders and its people at the same time
Over the past few weeks I 've had a chance to speak with senior economic policy makers in America and Germany and I think I 've figured out where we are
It 's like this : things are getting better , except where they are n't
The bailouts are working , except where they 're not
Things will slowly get better , unless they slowly get worse
We should know soon , unless we do n't
It is no wonder that businesses are reluctant to hire with such `` unusual uncertainty , '' as Fed chief Ben Bernanke put it
One reason it is so unusual is that we are not just trying to recover from a financial crisis triggered by crazy mortgage lending
We 're also having to deal with three huge structural problems that built up over several decades and have reached a point of criticality at the same time
And as Mohamed El-Erian , the C.E.O. of Pimco , has been repeating , `` Structural problems need structural solutions .
There are no quick fixes
In America and Europe , we are going to need some big structural fixes to get back on a sustained growth path - changes that will require a level of political consensus and sacrifice that has been sorely lacking in most countries up to now
The first big structural problem is America 's
We 've just ended more than a decade of debt-fueled growth during which we borrowed money from China to give ourselves a tax cut and more entitlements but did nothing to curtail spending or make long-term investments in new growth engines
Now our government owes more than ever and has more future obligations than ever - like expanded Medicare prescription drug benefits , expanded health care , an expanded war in Afghanistan and expanded Social Security payments -LRB- because the baby boomers are about to retire -RRB- - and less real growth to pay for it all
America will probably need some added stimulus to kick start employment , but any stimulus right now must be in growth-enabling investments that will yield more than their costs , or they just increase debt
That means investments in skill building and infrastructure plus tax incentives for starting new businesses and export promotion
To get a stimulus through Congress it must be paired with spending cuts and\/or tax increases timed for when the economy improves
Second , America 's solvency inflection point is coinciding with a technological one
Thanks to Internet diffusion , the rise of cloud computing , social networking and the shift from laptops and desktops to hand-held iPads and iPhones , technology is destroying older , less skilled jobs that paid a decent wage at a faster pace than ever while spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever
There is only one way to deal with this challenge : more innovation to stimulate new industries and jobs that can pay workers $ 40 an hour , coupled with a huge initiative to train more Americans to win these jobs over their global competitors
There is no other way
But the global economy needs a healthy Europe as well , and the third structural challenge we face is that the European Union , a huge market , is facing what the former U.S. ambassador to Germany , John Kornblum , calls its first `` existential crisis .
For the first time , he noted , the E.U. `` saw the possibility of collapse .
Germany has made clear that if the eurozone is to continue , it will be on the German work ethic not the Greek one
Will its euro-partners be able to raise their games
Keeping up with Germany wo n't be easy
A decade ago Germany was the `` sick man of Europe .
No more
The Germans pulled together
Labor gave up wage hikes and allowed businesses to improve competitiveness and worker flexibility , while the government subsidized firms to keep skilled workers on the job in the downturn
Germany is now on the rise , but also not free of structural challenges
Its growth depends on exports to China and it is the biggest financier of Greece
Still , `` Germany is no longer the country with the oldest students and youngest retirees , '' said Kornblum
By contrast , America 's two big parties still cling to their core religious beliefs as if nothing has changed
Republicans try to undermine the president at every turn and offer their nostrum of tax-cuts-will-solve-everything - without ever specifying what services they 'll give up to pay for them
Mr. Obama gave us expanded health care before expanding the economic pie to sustain it
You still do n't sense our politicians are saying , `` Wait a minute ; stop everything ; we have got to work together .
Do n't these people have 401k plans of their own and kids worried about jobs
The president needs to take America 's labor , business and Congressional leadership up to Camp David and not come back without a grand bargain for taxes , trade promotion , energy , stimulus and budget cutting that offers the market some certainty that we are moving together - not just on a bailout but on an economic rebirth for the 21st century
`` Fat chance , '' you say
Well then , I say get ready for a long phase of stubborn unemployment and anemic growth
The trove of WikiLeaks about the faltering U.S. war effort in Afghanistan has provoked many reactions , but for me it contains one clear message
It 's actually an old piece of advice your parents may have given you before you went off to college : `` If you are in a poker game and you do n't know who the sucker is , it 's probably you .
Best I can tell from the WikiLeaks documents and other sources , we are paying Pakistan 's Army and intelligence service to be two-faced
Otherwise , they would be just one-faced and 100 percent against us
The same could probably be said of Afghanistan 's president , Hamid Karzai
But then everyone out there is wearing a mask - or two
China supports Pakistan , seeks out mining contracts in Afghanistan and lets America make Afghanistan safe for Chinese companies , all while smiling at the bloody nose America is getting in Kabul because anything that ties down the U.S. military makes China 's military happy
America , meanwhile , sends its soldiers to fight in Afghanistan at the same time that it rejects an energy policy that would begin to reduce our oil consumption , which indirectly helps to fund the very Taliban schools and warriors our soldiers are fighting against
So why put up with all this duplicity
Is President Obama just foolish
It is more complicated
This double game goes back to 9\/11
That terrorist attack was basically planned , executed and funded by radical Pakistanis and Saudis
And we responded by invading Iraq and Afghanistan
The short answer is because Pakistan has nukes that we fear and Saudi Arabia has oil that we crave
So we tried to impact them by indirection
We hoped that building a decent democratizing government in Iraq would influence reform in Saudi Arabia and beyond
And after expelling Al Qaeda from Afghanistan , we stayed on to stabilize the place , largely out of fears that instability in Afghanistan could spill into Pakistan and lead to Islamist radicals taking over Islamabad and its nukes
That strategy has not really worked because Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are built on ruling bargains that are the source of their pathologies and our fears
Pakistan , 63 years after its founding , still exists not to be India
The Pakistani Army is obsessed with what it says is the threat from India - and keeping that threat alive is what keeps the Pakistani Army in control of the country and its key resources
The absence of either stable democracy in Pakistan or a decent public education system only swells the ranks of the Taliban and other Islamic resistance forces there
Pakistan thinks it must control Afghanistan for `` strategic depth '' because , if India dominated Afghanistan , Pakistan would be wedged between the two
Alas , if Pakistan built its identity around its own talented people and saw its strategic depth as the quality of its schools , farms and industry , instead of Afghanistan , it might be able to produce a stable democracy - and we would n't care about Pakistan 's nukes any more than India 's
Saudi Arabia is built around a ruling bargain between the moderate al-Saud family and the Wahhabi fundamentalist establishment : The al-Sauds get to rule and the Wahhabis get to impose on their society the most puritanical Islam - and export it to mosques and schools across the Muslim world , including to Pakistan , with money earned by selling oil to the West
So Pakistan 's nukes are a problem for us because of the nature of that regime , and Saudi Arabia 's oil wealth is a problem for us because of the nature of that regime
We have chosen to play a double game with both because we think the alternatives are worse
So we pay Pakistan to help us in Afghanistan , even though we know some of that money is killing our own soldiers , because we fear that just leaving could lead to Pakistan 's Islamists controlling its bomb
And we send Saudi Arabia money for oil , even though we know that some of it ends up financing the very people we are fighting , because confronting the Saudis over their ideological exports seems too destabilizing
-LRB- Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers .
Is there another a way
If we ca n't just walk away , we should at least reduce our bets
We should limit our presence and goals in Afghanistan to the bare minimum required to make sure that turmoil there does n't spill over into Pakistan or allow Al Qaeda to return
And we should diminish our dependence on oil so we are less impacted by what happens in Saudi Arabia , so we shrink the funds going to people who hate us and we make economic and political reform a necessity for them , not a hobby
Alas , we do n't have the money , manpower or time required to fully transform the most troubled states of this region
It will only happen when they want it to
We do , though , have the technology , necessity and innovators to protect ourselves from them - and to increase the pressure on them to want to change - by developing alternatives to oil
It is time we started that surge
I am tired of being the sucker in this game
If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event , the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister , Vladimir Putin
The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia 's president , Mikheil Saakashvili , and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams
Let 's start with us
After the collapse of the Soviet Union , I was among the group led by George Kennan , the father of `` containment '' theory , Senator Sam Nunn and the foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum that argued against expanding NATO , at that time
It seemed to us that since we had finally brought down Soviet communism and seen the birth of democracy in Russia the most important thing to do was to help Russian democracy take root and integrate Russia into Europe
Was n't that why we fought the cold war to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs , Georgians and Poles
Was n't consolidating a democratic Russia more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO
All of this was especially true because , we argued , there was no big problem on the world stage that we could effectively address without Russia particularly Iran or Iraq
Russia was n't about to reinvade Europe
And the Eastern Europeans would be integrated into the West via membership in the European Union
No , said the Clinton foreign policy team , we 're going to cram NATO expansion down the Russians ' throats , because Moscow is weak and , by the way , they 'll get used to it
Message to Russians : We expect you to behave like Western democrats , but we 're going to treat you like you 're still the Soviet Union
The cold war is over for you , but not for us
`` The Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises , '' said Mandelbaum
`` One was that Russia is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this , so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders
Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy , the belief in Russia 's eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join
The other premise was that Russia would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members , so we would never have to commit troops to defend them
It would cost us nothing
They were wrong on both counts .
The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in Russia was critical in fueling Putin 's rise after Boris Yeltsin moved on
And America 's addiction to oil helped push up energy prices to a level that gave Putin the power to act on that humiliation
This is crucial backdrop
Nevertheless , today we must support all diplomatic efforts to roll back the Russian invasion of Georgia
Georgia is a nascent free-market democracy , and we ca n't just watch it get crushed
But we also ca n't refrain from noting that Saakashvili 's decision to push his troops into Tskhinvali , the heart of Georgia 's semiautonomous pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia , gave Putin an easy excuse to exercise his iron fist
As The Washington Post 's longtime Russia watcher Michael Dobbs noted : `` On the night of Aug. 7 ... , Saakashvili ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali and sent an armored column to occupy the town
He apparently hoped that Western support would protect Georgia from major Russian retaliation , even though Russian ` peacekeepers ' were almost certainly killed or wounded in the Georgian assault
It was a huge miscalculation .
And as The Economist magazine also wrote , `` Saakashvili is an impetuous nationalist .
His thrust into South Ossetia `` was foolish and possibly criminal
But unlike Putin , he has led his country in a broadly democratic direction , curbed corruption and presided over rapid economic growth that has not relied , as Russia 's mostly does , on high oil and gas prices .
That is why the gold medal for brutishness goes to Putin
Yes , NATO expansion was foolish
Putin exploited it to choke Russian democracy
But now , petro-power-grabbing has gone to his head whether it 's invading Georgia , bullying Western financiers and oil companies working in Russia , or using Russia 's gas supplies to intimidate its neighbors
If it persists , this behavior will push every Russian neighbor to seek protection from Moscow and will push the Europeans to redouble their efforts to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas
This wo n't happen overnight , but in time it will stretch Russia 's defenses and lead it to become more isolated , more insecure and less wealthy
For all these reasons , Russia would be wise to reconsider Putin 's Georgia gambit
If it does , we would be wise to reconsider where our NATO\/Russia policy is taking us and whether we really want to spend the 21st century containing Russia the same way we spent much of the 20th containing the Soviet Union
I just saw the movie `` Invictus '' - the story of how Nelson Mandela , in his first term as president of South Africa , enlists the country 's famed rugby team , the Springboks , on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup and , through that , to start the healing of that apartheid-torn land
The almost all-white Springboks had been a symbol of white domination , and blacks routinely rooted against them
When the post-apartheid , black-led South African sports committee moved to change the team 's name and colors , President Mandela stopped them
He explained that part of making whites feel at home in a black-led South Africa was not uprooting all their cherished symbols
`` That is selfish thinking , '' Mandela , played by Morgan Freeman , says in the movie
`` It does not serve the nation .
Then speaking of South Africa 's whites , Mandela adds , `` We have to surprise them with restraint and generosity .
I love that line : `` We have to surprise them .
I was watching the movie on an airplane and scribbled that line down on my napkin because it summarizes what is missing today in so many places : leaders who surprise us by rising above their histories , their constituencies , their pollsters , their circumstances - and just do the right things for their countries
I tried to recall the last time a leader of importance surprised me on the upside by doing something positive , courageous and against the popular will of his country or party
I can think of a few : Yitzhak Rabin in signing onto the Oslo peace process
Anwar Sadat in going to Jerusalem
And , of course , Mandela in the way he led South Africa
But these are such exceptions
Look at Iraq today
Five months after its first truly open , broad-based election , in which all the major communities voted , the political elite there can not rise above Shiite or Sunni identities and reach out to the other side so as to produce a national unity government that could carry Iraq into the future
True , democracy takes a long time to grow , especially in a soil bloodied by a murderous dictator for 30 years
Nevertheless , up to now , Iraq 's new leaders have surprised us only on the downside
Will they ever surprise us the other way
Should we care now that we 're leaving
Yes , because the roots of 9\/11 are an intra-Muslim fight , which America , as an ally of one faction , got pulled into
There are at least three different intra-Muslim wars raging today
One is between the Sunni far right and the Sunni far-far right in Saudi Arabia
This was the war between Osama bin Laden -LRB- the far-far right -RRB- and the Saudi ruling family -LRB- the far right -RRB-
It is a war between those who think women should n't drive and those who think they should n't even leave the house
Bin Laden attacked us because we prop up his Saudi rivals - which we do to get their oil
In Iraq , you have the pure Sunni - versus-Shiite struggle
And in Pakistan , you have the fundamentalist Sunnis versus everyone else : Shiites , Ahmadis and Sufis
You will notice that in each of these civil wars , barely a week goes by without one Muslim faction blowing up another faction 's mosque or gathering of innocents - like Tuesday 's bombing in Baghdad , at the opening of Ramadan , which killed 61 people
In short : the key struggle with Islam is not inter-communal , and certainly not between Americans and Muslims
It is intra-communal and going on across the Muslim world
The reason the Iraq war was , is and will remain important is that it created the first chance for Arab Sunnis and Shiites to do something they have never done in modern history : surprise us and freely write their own social contract for how to live together and share power and resources
If they could do that , in the heart of the Arab world , and actually begin to ease the intra-communal struggle within Islam , it would be a huge example for others
It would mean that any Arab country could be a democracy and not have to be held together by an iron fist from above
But it will be impossible without Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Mandelas ready to let the future bury the past
As one of Mandela 's guards , watching the new president engage with South African whites , asks in the movie , `` How do you spend 30 years in a tiny cell and come out ready to forgive the people who put you there ?
It takes a very special leader
This is also why the issue of the mosque and community center near the site of 9\/11 is a sideshow
The truly important question `` is not can the different Muslim sects live with Americans in harmony , but can they live with each other in harmony , '' said Stephen P. Cohen , an expert on interfaith relations and author of `` Beyond America 's Grasp : a Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East .
Indeed , the big problem is not those Muslims building mosques in America , it is those Muslims blowing up mosques in the Middle East
And the answer to them is not an interfaith dialogue in America
It is an intrafaith dialogue - so sorely missing - in the Muslim world
Our surge in Iraq will never bear fruit without a political surge by Arabs and Muslims to heal intracommunal divides
It would be great if President Obama surprised everyone and gave another speech in Cairo - or Baghdad - saying that
Who knew that deep in Botswana 's Okavango Delta , where there are no paved roads , phones or TVs , you could find the morning paper waiting for you every day outside your tent , with the latest news , weather and sports
Who knew
True , this is no ordinary journal
The newspaper here on the Jao Flats of the northwest Okavango flood plain is published on the roads literally
The wetlands are bisected by hippo trails and narrow roads made from pure white Kalahari Desert sand
And every morning , when you set out to investigate the wilderness , it is not uncommon for a guide to lean out of his jeep , study the animal and insect tracks , and pronounce that he 's `` reading the morning news .
We were lucky to be accompanied by Map Ives the 54-year-old director of sustainability for Wilderness Safaris , which supports ecotourism in Botswana and it was fascinating to watch him read Mother Nature 's hieroglyphics
This day 's `` news , '' Ives explained , studying a stretch of road , was that some lions had run very quickly through here , which he could tell by the abnormal depth of , and distance between , their paw prints
They were in stride
The `` weather '' was windy coming out of the east , he added , pointing to which side of the paw prints had been lightly dusted away
Flood waters remained high this morning , because the nearby hyena tracks were followed by little indentations splashes of water that had come off their paws
Today 's `` sports ''
Well , over here the hyenas were dragging a `` kill , '' probably a small antelope or steinbok , which is very obvious from the smooth foot-wide path in the sand that ran some 50 yards into the bushes
Every mile you can read a different paper
It is mentally exhausting hanging with Ives , who was raised on the edge of the Okavango Delta
He points out the connections , and all the free services nature provides , every two seconds : Plants clean the air ; the papyrus and reeds filter the water
Palm trees are growing on a mound originally built by termites
Yes , thank God for termites
All of the raised islands of green in the delta were started by them
The termites keep their mounds warm
This attracts animals whose dung brings seeds and fertilizer that sprout trees , making bigger islands
Ives will be talking to you about zebras and suddenly a bird will zip by `` greater blue-eyed starling , '' he 'll blurt out in midsentence , and then go back to zebras
`` If you spend enough time in nature and allow yourself to slow down sufficiently to let your senses work , then through exposure and practice , you will start to sense the meanings in the sand , the grasses , the bushes , the trees , the movement of the breezes , the thickness of the air , the sounds of the creatures and the habits of the animals with which you are sharing that space , '' said Ives
Humans were actually wired to do this a long time ago
Unfortunately , he added , `` the speed at which humans have improved technology since the Industrial Revolution has attracted so many people to towns and cities and provided them with ` processed ' natural resources '' that our innate ability to make all these connections `` may be disappearing as fast as biodiversity .
Which leads to the point of this column
We 're trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems climate change , energy , biodiversity loss , poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet separately
The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks ; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity ; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors
They all need to go on safari together
`` We need to stop thinking about these issues in isolation each with its own champion , constituency and agenda and deal with them in an integrated way , the way they actually occur on the ground , '' argued Glenn Prickett , senior vice president with Conservation International
`` We tend to think about climate change as just an energy issue , but it 's also about land use : one-third of greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation and agriculture
So we need to preserve forests and other ecosystems to solve climate change , not only to save species .
But we also need to double food production to feed a growing population
`` So we 'll need to do that without clearing more forests and draining more wetlands , which means farmers will need new technologies and practices to grow more food on the same land they use today with less water , '' he added
`` Healthy forests , wetlands and grasslands not only preserve biodiversity and store carbon , they also help buffer the impacts of climate change
So our success in tackling climate change , poverty , food security and biodiversity loss will depend on finding integrated solutions from the land .
In short and as any reader of the Okavango daily papers will tell you we need to make sure that our policy solutions are as integrated as nature itself
Today , they are not
The Olympics may just be a sporting event , but it is hard not to read larger messages into the results , especially when you see how China and America have dominated the medals tally
Both countries can and will look at their Olympic successes as reaffirmations of their distinctly different political systems
But what strikes me is how much they could each learn from the other
This , as they say , is a teaching moment
Call it : One Olympics two systems
How so
You ca n't look at the U.S. Olympic team and not see the strength that comes from diversity , and you ca n't look at the Chinese team and not see the strength that comes from intense focus and concentrated power
Let 's start with us
Walking through the Olympic Village the other day , here 's what struck me most : the Russian team all looks Russian ; the African team all looks African ; the Chinese team all looks Chinese ; and the American team looks like all of them
This is especially true when you include the coaches
Liang Chow , the coach of the Iowa gymnast Shawn Johnson , was a popular co-caption of China 's national gymnastics team in the 1980s before he emigrated to West Des Moines
The U.S. women 's volleyball team was coached by a former Chinese player , Jenny Lang Ping , when it defeated China a few days ago
Lang , a national hero in China , led the Chinese team to a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
It would be like Michael Jordan coaching China 's basketball team to a win over America
The Associated Press reports that there are 33 foreign-born players on the U.S. Olympic team , including four Chinese-born table tennis players , a kayaker from Britain , seven members of the track-and-field team as well as Lopez Lomong , one of the Lost Boys of Sudan 's civil war , who was resettled in the U.S. by Catholic Charities , and Leo Manzano , the son of an illegal immigrant Mexican laborer
He moved to the U.S. when he was 4 but did n't gain citizenship until 2004
It is amazing that with our Noah 's Ark of an Olympic team doing so well `` that at the same time you have this rising call in America to restrict immigration , '' said Robert Hormats , vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International
`` Some people want to choke off the very thing that makes us strong and unique .
China could learn something from our Olympic team as well : the power that comes from a strong society , woven together of many strands from the bottom up
For instance , it 's hard to drive around Beijing these days and not enjoy the thinned-out traffic and blue sky which are largely the result of China ordering drivers off the roads and closing factories and not wonder how these can be sustained after the Olympics
Many Chinese I have spoken to have asked : How can we keep this
Now that we have seen how blue the sky really can be , we do n't want to give it away
The problem for China , though , is that environmentalism is a bottom-up movement in the rest of the world
While it requires a strong government to pass regulations from the top , it also ca n't work without a strong , independent civil society acting as a watchdog , spotlighting polluters and suing businesses that do not comply
China can be green for the two weeks of the Olympics from the top down , but it ca n't be green for the next 20 years without more bottom up
That said , there are some things we could learn from China , namely the ability to focus on big , long-term , nation-building goals and see them through
A Chinese academic friend tells me that the success of the Olympics is already prompting some high officials to argue that only a strong , top-down , Communist Party-led China could have organized the stunning building projects around these Olympics and the focused performance of so many different Chinese athletes
For instance , the Chinese have no tradition of rowing teams , but at these Games , out of nowhere , Beijing fielded a women 's quadruple sculls crew that won China 's first Olympic gold medal in rowing
The lesson for us is surely not that we need authoritarian government
The lesson is that we need to make our democracy work better
The American men 's basketball team did poorly in the last Olympics because it could not play as a team
So our stars were beaten by inferior players with better teamwork
Our basketball team learned its lesson
Congress has gotten worse
Our democracy feels increasingly paralyzed because collaboration in Washington has become nearly impossible whether because of money , gerrymandering , a 24-hour-news cycle or the permanent presidential campaign
And as a result , our ability to focus America 's incredible bottom-up energies outside of sports has diminished
You see it in our crumbling infrastructure and inability to shape a real energy program
China feels focused
We feel distracted
So , yes , America and China should enjoy their medals but we should each also reflect on how the other team got so many
While Washington is consumed with whether our president is secretly a Muslim , or born abroad , possibly in outer space , I 'd like to talk about some good news
But to see it , you have to stand on your head
You have to look at America from the bottom up , not from the top -LRB- Washington -RRB- down
And what you 'll see from down there is that there is a movement stirring in this country around education
From the explosion of new charter schools to the new teachers ' union contract in D.C. , which will richly reward public school teachers who get their students to improve faster and weed out those who do n't , Americans are finally taking their education crisis seriously
If you do n't want to stand on your head , then just go to a theater near you after Sept. 24 and watch the new documentary `` Waiting for Superman .
You 'll see just what I 'm talking about
Directed by Davis Guggenheim , who also directed Al Gore 's `` An Inconvenient Truth , '' `` Waiting for Superman '' takes its name from an opening interview with the remarkable Geoffrey Canada , founder of the Harlem Children 's Zone
HCZ has used a comprehensive strategy , including a prenatal Baby College , social service programs and longer days at its charter schools to forge a new highway to the future for one of New York 's bleakest neighborhoods
Canada 's point is that the only way to fix our schools is not with a Superman or a super-theory
No , it 's with supermen and superwomen pushing super-hard to assemble what we know works : better-trained teachers working with the best methods under the best principals supported by more involved parents
`` One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist , '' Canada says in the film
`` I read comic books and I just loved 'em ... 'cause even in the depths of the ghetto you just thought , ` He 's coming , I just do n't know when , because he always shows up and he saves all the good people . '
Then when he was in fourth or fifth grade , he asked , `` Ma , do you think Superman is actually -LRB- real -RRB- ?
She told him the truth : '' ` Superman is not real .
I was like : ` He 's not
What do you mean he 's not ?
` No , he 's not real .
And she thought I was crying because it 's like Santa Claus is not real
And I was crying because there was no one ... coming with enough power to save us .
`` Waiting for Superman '' follows five kids and their parents who aspire to obtain a decent public education but have to enter a bingo-like lottery to get into a good charter school , because their home schools are miserable failures
Guggenheim kicks off the film explaining that he was all for sending kids to their local public schools until `` it was time to choose a school for my own children , and then reality set in
My feelings about public education did n't matter as much as my fear of sending them to a failing school
And so every morning , betraying the ideals I thought I lived by , I drive past three public schools as I take my kids to a private school
But I 'm lucky
I have a choice
Other families pin their hopes to a bouncing ball , a hand pulling a card from a box or a computer that generates numbers in random sequence
Because when there 's a great public school there are n't enough spaces , and so we do what 's fair
We place our children and their future in the hands of luck .
It is intolerable that in America today a bouncing bingo ball should determine a kid 's educational future , especially when there are plenty of schools that work and even more that are getting better
This movie is about the people trying to change that
The film 's core thesis is that for too long our public school system was built to serve adults , not kids
For too long we underpaid and undervalued our teachers and compensated them instead by giving them union perks
Over decades , though , those perks accumulated to prevent reform in too many districts
The best ones are now reforming , and the worst are facing challenges from charters
Although the movie makes the claim that the key to student achievement is putting a great teacher in every classroom , and it is critical of the teachers ' unions and supportive of charters , it challenges all the adults who run our schools - teachers , union leaders , principals , parents , school boards , charter-founders , politicians - with one question : Are you putting kids and their education first
Because we know what works , and it 's not a miracle cure
It is the whatever-it-takes-tenacity of the Geoffrey Canadas ; it is the no-excuses-seriousness of the KIPP school -LRB- Knowledge is Power Program -RRB- founders ; it is the lead-follow-or-get-out-of-the-way ferocity of the Washington and New York City school chancellors , Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein
And it is the quiet heroism of millions of public and charter school teachers and parents who do put kids first by implementing the best ideas , and in so doing make their schools just a little bit better and more accountable every day - so no Americans ever again have to play life bingo with their kids , or pray to be rescued by Superman
Maureen Dowd is off today
After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest , I was tempted to conclude two things : `` Holy mackerel , the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled .
And , two : `` We are so cooked
Start teaching your kids Mandarin .
However , I 've learned over the years not to over-interpret any two-week event
Olympics do n't change history
They are mere snapshots a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see
But , as snapshots go , the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful and it 's one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season
China did not build the magnificent $ 43 billion infrastructure for these games , or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies , simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil
No , it was the culmination of seven years of national investment , planning , concentrated state power , national mobilization and hard work
Seven years ... Seven years ... Oh , that 's right
China was awarded these Olympic Games on July 13 , 2001 just two months before 9\/11
As I sat in my seat at the Bird 's Nest , watching thousands of Chinese dancers , drummers , singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony , I could n't help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years : China has been preparing for the Olympics ; we 've been preparing for Al Qaeda
They 've been building better stadiums , subways , airports , roads and parks
And we 've been building better metal detectors , armored Humvees and pilotless drones
The difference is starting to show
Just compare arriving at La Guardia 's dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai 's sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train , which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks , to get to town in a blink
Then ask yourself : Who is living in the third world country
Yes , if you drive an hour out of Beijing , you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China
But here 's what 's new : The rich parts of China , the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian , are now more state of the art than rich America
The buildings are architecturally more interesting , the wireless networks more sophisticated , the roads and trains more efficient and nicer
And , I repeat , they did not get all this by discovering oil
They got it by digging inside themselves
I realize the differences : We were attacked on 9\/11 ; they were not
We have real enemies ; theirs are small and mostly domestic
We had to respond to 9\/11 at least by eliminating the Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan and investing in tighter homeland security
They could avoid foreign entanglements
Trying to build democracy in Iraq , though , which I supported , was a war of choice and is unlikely to ever produce anything equal to its huge price tag
But the first rule of holes is that when you 're in one , stop digging
When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001 , under the banner of the Olympics , and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001 , under the banner of the war on terrorism , it 's clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America
We need to finish our business in Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible , which is why it is a travesty that the Iraqi Parliament has gone on vacation while 130,000 U.S. troops are standing guard
We can no longer afford to postpone our nation-building while Iraqis squabble over whether to do theirs
A lot of people are now advising Barack Obama to get dirty with John McCain
Sure , fight fire with fire
That 's necessary , but it is not sufficient
Obama got this far because many voters projected onto him that he could be the leader of an American renewal
They know we need nation-building at home now not in Iraq , not in Afghanistan , not in Georgia , but in America
Obama can not lose that theme
He can not let Republicans make this election about who is tough enough to stand up to Russia or bin Laden
It has to be about who is strong enough , focused enough , creative enough and unifying enough to get Americans to rebuild America
The next president can have all the foreign affairs experience in the world , but it will be useless , utterly useless , if we , as a country , are weak
Obama is more right than he knows when he proclaims that this is `` our '' moment , this is `` our '' time
But it is our time to get back to work on the only home we have , our time for nation-building in America
I never want to tell my girls and I 'm sure Obama feels the same about his that they have to go to China to see the future
Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats they have had over the years , replete with `` I-am-not-taking-any-more-of-your-guff '' outbursts by Obama officials at American Jewish leaders , and , yes it would n't be a real Israel-U.S. dust-up without it Israeli accusations that Jewish Obama aides are `` self-hating Jews , '' working out their identity crises by working over Israel
Having been to this play before , and knowing both families , I 'd like to offer some free marriage counseling
Here 's what Israelis need to understand : President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel
His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time
For the last 40 years , a succession of Israeli governments has misled , manipulated or persuaded na ve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory , there was no need to fight over `` insignificant '' settlements on some territory
Behind this charade , Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank , creating a huge moral , security and economic burden for Israel and its friends
As Bradley Burston , a columnist for Israel 's Haaretz newspaper , put it last week : `` The settlement movement has cost Israel some $ 100 billion
... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing , heavily subsidized social services , and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property
... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures , military directives , and government decrees in order to boost settlement , block Palestinian construction , agriculture , and access to employment , and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress .
For years , the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby , rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process , used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements
Everyone in Washington knows this , and a lot of people people who care about Israel are sick of it
The Times 's Jerusalem bureau chief , Ethan Bronner , captured the we-are-untouchable arrogance of the settlers last week when he quoted Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi , leader of a religious academy at the settlement of Nahliel , calling Mr. Obama in a speech `` that Arab they call a president .
So if Mr. Obama has bluntly pressed for a settlements freeze , he is , in fact , reflecting a broad sentiment in Congress , the Pentagon and among many Americans , Jews included
Haaretz quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as calling two Obama aides pushing the freeze `` self-hating Jews .
Bibi 's spokesman denies he said that
I hope he did n't
When you have to trot that one out , you 're really , really out of ammo
What about Mr. Obama
He has nothing to apologize for policy-wise
The president is working on a deal whereby Israel would agree to a real moratorium on settlement building , Palestinians would uproot terrorists and the Arab states would begin to normalize relations with visas for Israelis , trade missions , media visits and landing rights for El Al.
If the president can pull this off , it would be good for everyone
But going forward , if peace talks get under way , there are a few style points Mr. Obama should keep in mind
One is : Do n't get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict , which his Cairo speech veered into
Palestinians do n't believe they are to blame for this problem ; neither do Israelis
A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well : `` People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty
My mother says to me : ` Look , I am ready to give them Jerusalem , but do n't tell me that I started it . '
The other point is : Israel has real enemies
Iran 's president says the Holocaust is a myth , that Israel should be wiped away
And , he 's trying to build a nuclear bomb
Israel unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon and Gaza
Its leaving was messy , but it got out
And the first thing it got back was rockets
Israelis are like most people ; they listen through their stomachs
That is , connect with them on a gut level that says you understand where they live , and you can take them anywhere
Do n't connect on a gut level , and you ca n't take them anywhere
Bottom line : Israelis need to understand this is not the Bush administration anymore , where they had the run of the White House ; they have a real problem with America on settlements
Mr. Obama needs to understand that on Arab-Israel affairs , the less you say and the more you do , the better off you are
Every word in this conflict has its own history
Get the deal done a settlement moratorium for some normalization and that breakthrough will do the talking
I had the pleasure the other day of visiting the delightfully named Zhuhai Guohua Wonderful Wind Power Exploitation Co. in Zhuhai , on the southern coast of China
It 's a good news\/bad news story
The good news was that the Chinese engineers showed me their control room , which has a giant glass window that looks out onto their 21 wind turbines that crown the peaks of a nearby mountain
`` How nice , '' I thought
`` China 's really starting to go green .
But as my eye drifted just to the left of that mountain , I saw Macau , with its rising skyline of casino skyscrapers
The Venetian Hotel in Macau alone has some 870 gaming tables and 3,400 slot machines
So , I did a quick calculation and figured that those 21 wind turbines together might power the Venetian 's army of one-armed bandits for a few hours of green gambling
That dichotomy runs through a lot of what is going on here in Guangdong Province , where 30 years ago China began its economic opening
You 're starting to see the emergence of Chinese clean-tech companies I also visited a solar panel start-up and real environmental awareness among officials and students
But the momentum of this region 's growth , the sheer land-of-the-giants scale of the buildings , makes the renewable energy here literally a drop in the bucket
As a result , there is a dawning awareness that if China is to break its own addiction to oil , it will take a much more fundamental shift from the growth model that powered its first 30 years
That model was based on two linked ideas : 1 -RRB- energy was inexhaustible , inexpensive and benign ; and 2 -RRB- China could count on raising its living standards by forever being the world 's low-cost manufacturing workshop , based on cheap energy
In recent years , though , fossil-fuel energy has become expensive , exhaustible and toxic , and rising wages to some extent because of rising environmental considerations and social security requirements have meant that the workshops of southern China are no longer the low-cost producers in Asia
Vietnam and Western China now beckon
The only way forward , say officials , is for China to gradually develop a cleaner , knowledge-based , service\/finance economy
It has to move from `` made in China '' to `` designed in China '' to `` imagined in China .
In short , the economy here has to become greener and smarter
-LRB- Sound familiar ?
In 1992 , China 's coastal economic powerhouses hit a similar wall when they found they could not grow further without the government loosening travel restrictions to attract workers from all over China
So , more personal freedom to move around China was unleashed then
Now , these same provinces need to allow more `` mind movement '' to get to the next level
The problem for the ruling Communist Party is this : China ca n't have a greener society without empowering citizens to become watchdogs and allowing them to sue local businesses and governments that pollute , and it ca n't have a more knowledge-intensive innovation society without a freer flow of information and experimentation
What surprised me is how much the party is thinking about all this
I actually came here at the invitation of Wang Yang , the Communist Party secretary , i.e. the boss of Guangdong Province
He had read one of my books on globalization in Chinese
Wang is also a member of the Politburo in Beijing and is considered one of the most innovative thinkers in China 's leadership today
He has been given room to experiment and has begun advocating something he calls `` mind liberation '' primarily an effort to change the culture of his bureaucracy and open it up to new ways of thinking
Right now he is focused on trying to shift dirty , low-wage manufacturing out of Guangzhou to the countryside , where jobs are still scarce
And he is trying to attract clean industries and services to the city
His goal , he said , was a more `` low-carbon economy .
`` Please put it in your column that Party Secretary Wang Yang welcomes -LRB- Western -RRB- clean energy technology companies to come to Guangdong Province and use it as a laboratory to develop their products , '' he told me
`` We will be most willing to participate in the innovation and provide the services they need .
So my postcard from Guangzhou would read like this : `` Dear Mom and Dad , this place is so much more interesting than it looks from abroad
I met wind and solar companies eager for Western investment and Chinese college students who were organizing a boycott of an Indonesian paper company for despoiling their forest
An ` Institute of Civil Society ' has quietly opened at the local Sun Yat-sen University
The Communist Party is trying to break the old mold without breaking its hold
It 's quite a drama
Ca n't wait to come back next summer and see how they 're doing ...
Jorgen Peder Steffensen made me an offer I could n't refuse : `` If you come to Copenhagen , I will show you a Christmas snow a real Christmas snow , the snow that fell between 1 B.C. and 1 A.D. '' Now that 's an offer you do n't get every day
But then I do n't go to the Arctic Circle every day
`` I can also show you a sample of the very last snow that fell right at the end of the last ice age , which was 11,700 years ago , '' said Steffensen
Or , he asked me , `` How would you like to see the air samples that contain the sulfuric traces of the Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption '' that buried Pompeii in A.D. 79
Steffensen is an ice specialist and curator of the world 's most comprehensive collection of ice core samples , a kind of atmospheric DNA drilled out of the glaciers of Greenland and now preserved in refrigerated vaults in the Danish capital
The more and deeper scientists can drill the ice , the better the picture they can give of the climate in previous eras and therefore the more we will understand about climate change
Each layer of ice contains water and air bubbles that were trapped in the snow , which , when analyzed by expert scientists , reveal in great detail the temperature , the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere , the amount and origins of volcanic dust , and even the amount of sea salt in the air and therefore how close the glacier was to the ocean
Imagine for a moment a freezer filled with such revealing ice cubes
Each ice cube represents one year 's atmospheric data beginning 150,000 years ago , which is how far back the current Greenland icecap dates
Well , Steffensen , his wife , Dorthe Dahl-Jensen , both of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen , and a team of international experts are assembling precisely that kind of freezer from ice cores drilled here in the far north of Greenland in the Arctic Circle
I traveled to their newest camp with a group of experts led by Denmark 's minister of climate and energy , Connie Hedegaard , and including Rajendra Pachauri , the chairman of the U.N. 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , which shared last year 's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore
We flew in on a U.S. Air Force National Guard C-130 , which landed on skis not wheels since the landing strip was just a plowed strip of ice and snow
This is surely one of the most remarkable and isolated research stations in the world
Everywhere you look , you see a perfectly flat expanse of snow and ice stretching to the horizon
In fact , you can see so far in every direction that it feels as though you can see the curvature of the earth
The camp consists of a heated geodesic dome where the scientists eat , a dozen barely heated tents where they -LRB- and guests -RRB- sleep in insulated sleeping bags and an underground research laboratory , carved out of the ice , where they are installing the drill and ice lab equipment
Over the next three `` summers , '' they will unearth ice core samples all the way down to Greenland 's bedrock roughly 1.5 miles , or the equivalent of 150,000 years of accumulated ice layers
Their objective is to do something never done before : project a complete picture of the Greenland climate , from the ice age that lasted from 200,000 to 130,000 years ago , through the warming period known as the Eemian that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago , through the last ice age from 115,000 to 11,703 years ago , right up to the present warming period we 've been in since
-LRB- Remember : the Earth is usually an ice ball ; the warm interglacial periods are the exceptions .
Their last drilling project here , which was completed in 2004 , focused on the layers 14,500 to 11,000 years ago
That project is already causing a stir in the climate community
In an article just published in the journal Science Express , Dahl-Jensen 's team wrote about how it had discovered from the ice cores that the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland `` changed abruptly '' just as the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago
It seems to have been driven by a sudden change in monsoons in the tropics
The change was so abrupt that it warmed the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland by 10 degrees Celsius in just 50 years a dramatic increase
`` It shows that our climate system has the ability to make very abrupt changes all by itself , '' said Dahl-Jensen
Some climate-change deniers would say that this proves that mankind is not important in changing the climate
Climate change experts , like Dahl-Jensen , say it 's not so simple : The climate is always changing , sometimes very abruptly , so the last thing that mankind should be doing is adding its own forcing actions like pumping unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Because you never know you never know what will tip the balance and send us hurdling into another abrupt change ... and into another era
There are several reasons why I do n't object to a mosque being built near the World Trade Center site , but the key reason is my affection for Broadway show tunes
Let me explain
A couple weeks ago , President Obama and his wife held `` A Broadway Celebration : In Performance at the White House , '' a concert in the East Room by some of Broadway 's biggest names , singing some of Broadway 's most famous hits
Because my wife is on the board of the public TV station that organized the evening , WETA , I got to attend , but all I could think of was : I wish the whole country were here
It was n't just the great performances of Audra McDonald , Nathan Lane , Idina Menzel , Elaine Stritch , Karen Olivo , Tonya Pinkins , Brian d'Arcy James , Marvin Hamlisch and Chad Kimball , or the spirited gyrations of the students from the Joy of Motion Dance Center and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts performing `` You Ca n't Stop the Beat '' - it was the whole big , rich stew
African-American singers and Hispanic-American dancers belting out the words of Jewish and Irish immigrant composers , accompanied by white musicians whose great-great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower for all I know - all performing for America 's first black president whose middle name is Hussein
The show was so full of life , no one could begrudge Elaine Stritch , 84 , for getting a little carried away and saying to Mr. Obama , seated in the front row : `` I 'd love to get drunk with the president .
Feeling the pulsating energy of this performance was such a vivid reminder of America 's most important competitive advantage : the sheer creative energy that comes when you mix all our diverse people and cultures together
We live in an age when the most valuable asset any economy can have is the ability to be creative - to spark and imagine new ideas , be they Broadway tunes , great books , iPads or new cancer drugs
And where does creativity come from
I like the way Newsweek described it in a recent essay on creativity : `` To be creative requires divergent thinking -LRB- generating many unique ideas -RRB- and then convergent thinking -LRB- combining those ideas into the best result -RRB- .
And where does divergent thinking come from
It comes from being exposed to divergent ideas and cultures and people and intellectual disciplines
As Marc Tucker , the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy , once put it to me : `` One thing we know about creativity is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other
Intuitively , you know this is true
Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist , scientist and inventor , and each specialty nourished the other
He was a great lateral thinker
But if you spend your whole life in one silo , you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis , connect the dots , which is usually where the next great breakthrough is found .
Which brings me back to the Muslim community center\/mosque , known as Park51
It is proposed to be built two blocks north of where the twin towers stood and would include a prayer space , a 500-seat performing arts center , a swimming pool and a restaurant
The Times reported that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf , the Muslim leader behind the project , who has led services in TriBeCa since 1983 , said he wants the center to help `` bridge and heal a divide '' among Muslims and other religious groups
`` We have condemned the actions of 9\/11 , '' he said
I greatly respect the feelings of those who lost loved ones on 9\/11 - which was perpetrated in the name of Islam - and who oppose this project
Personally , if I had $ 100 million to build a mosque that promotes interfaith tolerance , I would not build it in Manhattan
I 'd build it in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan
That is where 9\/11 came from , and those are the countries that espouse the most puritanical version of Sunni Islam - a version that shows little tolerance not only for other religions but for other strands of Islam , particularly Shiite , Sufi and Ahmadiyya Islam
You can study Islam at virtually any American university , but you ca n't even build a one-room church in Saudi Arabia
That resistance to diversity , though , is not something we want to emulate , which is why I 'm glad the mosque was approved on Tuesday
Countries that choke themselves off from exposure to different cultures , faiths and ideas will never invent the next Google or a cancer cure , let alone export a musical or body of literature that would bring enjoyment to children everywhere
When we tell the world , `` Yes , we are a country that will even tolerate a mosque near the site of 9\/11 , '' we send such a powerful message of inclusion and openness
It is shocking to other nations
But you never know who out there is hearing that message and saying : `` What a remarkable country
I want to live in that melting pot , even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there .
As long as that happens , Silicon Valley will be Silicon Valley , Hollywood will be Hollywood , Broadway will be Broadway , and America , if we ever get our politics and schools fixed , will be
In 2002 , the U.N. Development Program released its first ever Arab Human Development Report , which bluntly detailed the deficits of freedom , women 's empowerment and knowledge-creation holding back the Arab world
It was buttressed with sobering statistics : Greece alone translated five times more books every year from English to Greek than the entire Arab world translated from English to Arabic ; the G.D.P. of Spain was greater than that of all 22 Arab states combined ; 65 million Arab adults were illiterate
It was a disturbing picture , bravely produced by Arab academics
Coming out so soon after 9\/11 , the report felt like a diagnosis of all the misgovernance bedeviling the Arab world , creating the pools of angry , unemployed youth , who become easy prey for extremists
Well , the good news is that the U.N. Development Program and a new group of Arab scholars last week came out with a new Arab Human Development report
The bad news : Things have gotten worse and many Arab governments do n't want to hear about it
This new report was triggered by a desire to find out why the obstacles to human development in the Arab world have `` proved so stubborn .
What the roughly 100 Arab authors of the 2009 study concluded was that too many Arab citizens today lack `` human security the kind of material and moral foundation that secures lives , livelihoods and an acceptable quality of life for the majority .
A sense of personal security economic , political and social `` is a prerequisite for human development , and its widespread absence in Arab countries has held back their progress .
The authors cite a variety of factors undermining human security in the Arab region today beginning with environmental degradation the toxic combination of rising desertification , water shortages and population explosion
In 1980 , the Arab region had 150 million people
In 2007 , it was home to 317 million people , and by 2015 its population is projected to be 395 million
Some 60 percent of this population is under the age of 25 , and they will need 51 million new jobs by 2020
Another persistent source of Arab human insecurity is high unemployment
`` For nearly two and half decades after 1980 , the region witnessed hardly any economic growth , '' the report found
Despite the presence of oil money -LRB- or maybe because of it -RRB- , there is a distinct lack of investment in scientific research , development , knowledge industries and innovation
Instead , government jobs and contracts dominate
Average unemployment in the Arab region in 2005 was 14.4 percent , compared with 6.3 percent for the rest of the world
A lot of this is because of a third source of human insecurity : autocratic and unrepresentative Arab governments , whose weaknesses `` often combine to turn the state into a threat to human security , instead of its chief support .
The whole report would have left me feeling hopeless had I not come to Ramallah , the seat of Palestinian government in the West Bank , to find some good cheer
I 'm serious
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the wider Middle East what off-Broadway is to Broadway
It is where all good and bad ideas get tested out first
Well , the Palestinian prime minister , Salam Fayyad , a former I.M.F. economist , is testing out the most exciting new idea in Arab governance ever
I call it `` Fayyadism .
Fayyadism is based on the simple but all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader 's legitimacy should be based not on slogans or rejectionism or personality cults or security services , but on delivering transparent , accountable administration and services
Fayyad , a former finance minister who became prime minister after Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 , is unlike any Arab leader today
He is an ardent Palestinian nationalist , but his whole strategy is to say : the more we build our state with quality institutions finance , police , social services the sooner we will secure our right to independence
I see this as a challenge to `` Arafatism , '' which focused on Palestinian rights first , state institutions later , if ever , and produced neither
Things are truly getting better in the West Bank , thanks to a combination of Fayyadism , improved Palestinian security and a lifting of checkpoints by Israel
In all of 2008 , about 1,200 new companies registered for licenses here
In the first six months of this year , almost 900 have registered
According to the I.M.F. , the West Bank economy should grow by 7 percent this year
Fayyad , famous here for his incorruptibility , says his approach is `` to tell people who you are , what you are about and what you intend to do and then actually do it .
At a time when all the big ideologies have failed to deliver for Arabs , Fayyad says he wants a government based on `` legitimacy by achievement .
Something quite new is happening here
And given the centrality of the Palestinian cause in Arab eyes , if Fayyadism works , maybe it could start a trend in this part of the world one that would do the most to improve Arab human security good , accountable government
Sometimes you just wish you were a photographer
I simply do not have the words to describe the awesome majesty of Greenland 's Kangia Glacier , shedding massive icebergs the size of skyscrapers and slowly pushing them down the Ilulissat Fjord until they crash into the ocean off the west coast of Greenland
There , these natural ice sculptures float and bob around the glassy waters near here
You can sail between them in a fishing boat , listening to these white ice monsters crackle and break , heave and sigh , as if they were noisily protesting their fate
You are entirely alone here amid the giant icebergs , save for the solitary halibut fisherman who floats by
Our Greenlandic boat skipper sidles up to the tiny fishing craft , where my hosts buy a few halibut right out of his nets , slice open the tender cheeks and cut me the freshest halibut sushi I 've ever tasted
`` Greenland fast food , '' quips Kim Kielsen , Greenland 's minister of the environment
We wash it down with Scotch whiskey cooled by a 5,000-year-old ice cube chipped off one of the floating glacier bits
Some countries have vintage whiskey
Some have vintage wine
Greenland has vintage ice
Alas , though , I do not work for National Geographic
This is the opinion page
And my trip with Denmark 's minister of climate and energy , Connie Hedegaard , to see the effects of climate change on Greenland 's ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion : Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day
We 've charged their future on our Visa cards
We 've added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere , for our generation 's growth , that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood , maybe all of it , just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy
And now our leaders are telling them the way out is `` offshore drilling '' for more climate-changing fossil fuels
Sheer madness
Most people assume that the effects of climate change are going to be felt through another big disaster , like Katrina
Not necessarily , says Minik Thorleif Rosing , a top geologist at Denmark 's National History Museum and one of my traveling companions
`` Most people will actually feel climate change delivered to them by the postman , '' he explains
It will come in the form of higher water bills , because of increased droughts in some areas ; higher energy bills , because the use of fossil fuels becomes prohibitive ; and higher insurance and mortgage rates , because of much more violently unpredictable weather
Remember : climate change means `` global weirding , '' not just global warming
Greenland is one of the best places to observe the effects of climate change
Because the world 's biggest island has just 55,000 people and no industry , the condition of its huge ice sheet as well as its temperature , precipitation and winds is influenced by the global atmospheric and ocean currents that converge here
Whatever happens in China or Brazil gets felt here
And because Greenlanders live close to nature , they are walking barometers of climate change
That 's how I learned a new language here : `` Climate-Speak .
It 's easy to learn
There are only three phrases
The first is : `` Just a few years ago ... '' Just a few years ago you could dogsled in winter from Greenland , across a 40-mile ice bank , to Disko Island
But for the past few years , the rising winter temperatures in Greenland have melted that link
Now Disko is cut off
Put away the dogsled
There has been a 30 percent increase in the melting of the Greenland ice sheet between 1979 and 2007 , and in 2007 , the melt was 10 percent bigger than in any previous year , said Konrad Steffen , director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado , which monitors the ice
Greenland is now losing 200 cubic kilometers of ice per year from melt and ice sliding into the ocean from outlet glaciers along its edges which far exceeds the volume of all the ice in the European Alps , he added
`` Everything is happening faster than anticipated .
The second phrase is : `` I 've never seen that before ... '' It rained in December and January in Ilulissat
This is well above the Arctic Circle
It 's not supposed to rain here in winter
Said Steffen : `` Twenty years ago , if I had told the people of Ilulissat that it would rain at Christmas 2007 , they would have just laughed at me
Today it is a reality .
The third phrase is : `` Well usually ... but now I do n't know anymore .
Traditional climate patterns that Greenland elders have known their whole lives have changed so quickly in some places that `` the accumulated experience of older people is not as valuable as before , '' said Rosing
The river that was always there is now dry
The glacier that always covered that hill has disappeared
The reindeer that were always there when the hunting season opened on Aug. 1 did n't show up
No wonder everyone here speaks climate now your kids will , too , and sooner than they think
I just saw a remarkable new documentary directed by Shlomi Eldar , the Gaza reporter for Israel 's Channel 10 news
Titled `` Precious Life , '' the film tracks the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa , a 4-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from a rare immune deficiency
Moved by the baby 's plight , Eldar helps the infant and mother go from Gaza to Israel 's Tel Hashomer hospital for lifesaving bone-marrow treatment
The operation costs $ 55,000
Eldar puts out an appeal on Israel TV and within hours an Israeli Jew whose own son was killed during military service donates all the money
The documentary takes a dramatic turn , though , when the infant 's Palestinian mother , Raida , who is being disparaged by fellow Gazans for having her son treated in Israel , blurts out that she hopes he 'll grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem
Raida tells Eldar : `` From the smallest infant , even smaller than Mohammed , to the oldest person , we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem
We feel we have the right to it
You 're free to be angry , so be angry .
Eldar is devastated by her declaration and stops making the film
But this is no Israeli propaganda movie
The drama of the Palestinian boy 's rescue at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for shelling from Gaza , which kill whole Palestinian families
Dr. Raz Somech , the specialist who treats Mohammed as if he were his own child , is summoned for reserve duty in Gaza in the middle of the film
The race by Israelis and Palestinians to save one life is embedded in the larger routine of the two communities grinding each other up
`` It 's clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified - no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets - but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side , '' Eldar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz
`` Because we were so angry at Hamas , all the Israeli public wanted was to -LRB- expletive -RRB- Gaza
... It was n't until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish - the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear - that I discovered the -LRB- Israeli -RRB- silent majority that has compassion for people , including Palestinians
I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings .
So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed 's life was saved in Israel
His raw film reflects the Middle East I know - one full of amazing compassion , even among enemies , and breathtaking cruelty , even among neighbors
I write about this now because there is something foul in the air
It is a trend , both deliberate and inadvertent , to delegitimize Israel - to turn it into a pariah state , particularly in the wake of the Gaza war
You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews , but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington
You hear Britain 's prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli `` prison camp '' and Turkey 's prime minister telling Israel 's president , `` When it comes to killing , you know very well how to kill .
You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv
If you just landed from Mars , you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war - never Hamas , never Hezbollah , never Turkey , never Iran , never Syria , never America
I 'm not here to defend Israel 's bad behavior
Just the opposite
I 've long argued that Israel 's colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy
I do n't think Israel 's friends can make that point often enough or loud enough
But there are two kinds of criticism
Constructive criticism starts by making clear : `` I know what world you are living in .
I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq , Iran kills its own voters , Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door , Turkey hammers the Kurds , and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel
I know all of that
But Israel 's behavior , at times , only makes matters worse - for Palestinians and Israelis
If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they 're living in , and then criticize , they 'll listen
Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears
It says to Israelis : There is no context that could explain your behavior , and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others
Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison , without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided - after Israel unilaterally left Gaza - to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran , Israel would have behaved differently , too
Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters , so why change
How about everybody take a deep breath , pop a copy of `` Precious Life '' into your DVD players , watch this documentary about the real Middle East , and if you still want to be a critic -LRB- as I do -RRB- , be a constructive one
A lot more Israelis and Palestinians will listen to you
Ever since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords in 2000 , and the horror-show violence that followed , there has been only one thing to say about the West Bank : Nothing ever changes here , except for the worst
That is just not the case anymore much to my surprise
For Palestinians , long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army , subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership , life has clearly started to improve a bit , thanks to a new virtuous cycle : improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce
Because the West Bank today is largely hidden from Israelis by a wall , Israelis are just starting to learn from their own press what is going on there
On July 31 , many Israelis were no doubt surprised to read this quote in the Maariv daily from Omar Hashim , deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Nablus , the commercial center of the West Bank : `` Traders here are satisfied , '' said Hashim
`` Their sales are rising
They feel that life is returning to normal
There is a strong sense of optimism .
Make no mistake : Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end , and their own state to emerge , tomorrow
That is not going to happen
But for the first time since Oslo , there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential the potential to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority , army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state
A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again
The key to this rebirth was the recruitment , training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority
Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S. , three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns : Nablus , Jericho , Hebron , Ramallah , Jenin and Bethlehem
These N.S.F. troops , who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs , have been warmly received by the locals
Recently , N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya , and took losses themselves
The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep , but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people
For the first time , I 've heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real
The Israeli Army 's chief of staff , Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi , has backed that up by taking down roughly two-thirds of the 41 manned checkpoints Israel set up around the West Bank , many since 2000 , to stifle Palestinian suicide bombers
Those checkpoints where Palestinians often had to wait for two hours to just pass from one city to the next and often could not drive their own cars through but had to go from cab to cab choked Palestinian commerce
Israel is also again letting Israeli Arabs drive their own cars into the West Bank on Saturdays to shop
`` You can feel the movement , '' said Olfat Hammad , the associate director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research , who lives in Nablus and works in Ramallah
`` It is not a burden anymore to move around to Ramallah for business meetings and social meetings .
Nablus recently opened its first multiplex , `` Cinema City , '' as well as a multistory furniture mart designed to cater to Israelis
Ramallah 's real estate prices have skyrocketed
`` I have had a 70 percent increase in sales , '' Maariv quoted a Nablus shoe store owner as saying
`` People are coming from the villages nearby , and from other cities in the West Bank and from Israel .
But men and women do not live by shoe sales alone
The only way the Palestinian leadership running this show can maintain its legitimacy is if it is eventually given political authority , not just policing powers , over the West Bank or at least a map that indicates they are on a pathway there
`` Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security , '' Prime Minister Fayyad told me
Khalil Shikaki , a leading Palestinian pollster , added that Abbas and Fayyad want `` to be seen as building a Palestinian state not security without a state .
That is why `` there has to be political progress alongside the security progress
Without it , it hurts them very much .
America must nurture this virtuous cycle : more money to train credible Palestinian troops , more encouragement for Israel 's risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints , more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contors of a Palestinian state in the West Bank
Hamas and Gaza can join later
Do n't wait for them
If we build it , they will come
As I think about our bailing out Detroit , I ca n't help but reflect on what , in my view , is the most important rule of business in today 's integrated and digitized global market , where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely distributed
It 's this : Whatever can be done , will be done
The only question is will it be done by you or to you
Just do n't think it wo n't be done
If you have an idea in Detroit or Tennessee , promise me that you 'll pursue it , because someone in Denmark or Tel Aviv will do so a second later
Why do I bring this up
Because someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit 's business model
I do n't know if this alternative to gasoline-powered cars will work , but I do know that it can be done and Detroit is n't doing it
And therefore it will be done , and eventually , I bet , it will be done profitably
And when it is , our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay
It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes
It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle
It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet
What business model am I talking about
It is Shai Agassi 's electric car network company , called Better Place
Just last week , the company , based in Palo Alto , Calif. , announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to road test its business plan there after already inking similar deals with Israel , Australia , the San Francisco Bay area and , yes , Denmark
The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy such as wind and solar as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure
This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets the first pilots were opened in Israel this week plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country
The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing
Under the Better Place model , consumers can either buy or lease an electric car from the French automaker Renault or Japanese companies like Nissan -LRB- General Motors snubbed Agassi -RRB- and then buy miles on their electric car batteries from Better Place the way you now buy an Apple cellphone and the minutes from AT&T
That way Better Place , or any car company that partners with it , benefits from each mile you drive
G.M. sells cars
Better Place is selling mobility miles
The first Renault and Nissan electric cars are scheduled to hit Denmark and Israel in 2011 , when the whole system should be up and running
On Tuesday , Japan 's Ministry of Environment invited Better Place to join the first government-led electric car project along with Honda , Mitsubishi and Subaru
Better Place was the only foreign company invited to participate , working with Japan 's leading auto companies , to build a battery swap station for electric cars in Yokohama , the Detroit of Japan
What I find exciting about Better Place is that it is building a car company off the new industrial platform of the 21st century , not the one from the 20th the exact same way that Steve Jobs did to overturn the music business
What did Apple understand first
One , that today 's technology platform would allow anyone with a computer to record music
Two , that the Internet and MP3 players would allow anyone to transfer music in digital form to anyone else
You would n't need CDs or record companies anymore
Apple simply took all those innovations and integrated them into a single music-generating , purchasing and listening system that completely disrupted the music business
What Agassi , the founder of Better Place , is saying is that there is a new way to generate mobility , not just music , using the same platform
It just takes the right kind of auto battery the iPod in this story and the right kind of national plug-in network the iTunes store to make the business model work for electric cars at six cents a mile
The average American is paying today around 12 cents a mile for gasoline transportation , which also adds to global warming and strengthens petro-dictators
Do not expect this innovation to come out of Detroit
Remember , in 1908 , the Ford Model-T got better mileage 25 miles per gallon than many Ford , G.M. and Chrysler models made in 2008
But do n't be surprised when it comes out of somewhere else
It can be done
It will be done
If we miss the chance to win the race for Car 2.0 because we keep mindlessly bailing out Car 1.0 , there will be no one to blame more than Detroit 's new shareholders : we the taxpayers
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Growing up in Minnesota , one of my favorite things was going to the state fair each summer and watching the guy who would guess your weight within 5 pounds
If you fooled him , you won a stuffed animal
Out here on the Persian Gulf , where small countries learn quickly how to survive large predators , they 've developed a similar skill : They can calculate a country 's power within 5 pounds , just by looking at it
If they 're wrong , they end up as a stuffed animal
Right now , the Arab Gulf states are all sizing up America , their protector , and are wondering just how much Uncle Sam weighs in the standoff with Iran and whether it will be enough to keep Iran at bay
I 've been at a security conference in the tiny Gulf state of Bahrain , attended by defense officials and analysts from all over the world , and all the buzz has been about the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran
It has left every Arab and European expert I 've spoken to baffled not in its conclusions , but by why those conclusions were framed in a way that is sure to reduce America 's leverage to negotiate with Tehran
The Gulf Arabs feel like they have this neighbor who has been a drug dealer for 18 years
Recently , this neighbor has been very visibly growing poppies for heroin in his backyard in violation of the law
He 's also been buying bigger and better trucks to deliver drugs
You can see them parked in his driveway
In the past year , though , because of increased police patrols and all the neighbors threatening to do something , this suspicious character has shut down the laboratory in his basement to convert poppies into heroin
In the wake of that , the police declared that he is no longer a drug dealer
`` But wait , '' say the Gulf Arabs , `` he 's still growing poppies
He was using them for heroin right up to 2003
Now he says he 's in the flower business
He 's not in the flower business
He 's dealing drugs
And he 's still expanding the truck fleet to deliver them
How can you say he 's no longer a drug dealer ?
Sorry , say the police
We have a very technical , legal definition of drug-dealing , and your neighbor no longer fits it
That 's basically what has happened between the U.S. and Iran just substitute enriched uranium for poppies
Now , Bush officials are trying to tell everyone : `` No , no , Iran is still dangerous
You have to keep the coalition together to get Tehran to stop enriching uranium .
But in a world where everyone is looking for an excuse to do business with Iran , not to sanction it , we 've lost leverage
Everyone in the neighborhood can smell it and it worries them
Said Gary Samore , director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Clinton administration expert on proliferation : `` The U.S. N.I.E. , by leading with the statement that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program , has left the misleading impression that the danger has passed .
It has not passed , he noted , because Iran is still enriching uranium in violation of U.N. proliferation rules to which Iran had agreed -LRB- and testing long-range delivery missiles -RRB-
Yes , it is still enriching below weapons grade
Iran says this is to fuel nuclear reactors to generate electricity but it has no such reactors
And to get that uranium enriched to weapons grade , all it has to do is keep running it through its centrifuges
`` That is the hardest part of building a nuclear weapon , and Iran is still doing it , '' said Mr. Samore
`` Our ability to get strong international sanctions to halt that was already weak , '' but by declaring definitively that Iran 's weapons program had been halted , the N.I.E. `` has given the Russians and Chinese a good excuse to make sanctions even weaker .
As I have said before , I 'd rather see Iran go nuclear , and contain it , than have the Bush team start another Middle East war over this issue
But I 'd much prefer a negotiated end to Iran 's enrichment
Right now there is a silly debate : Should we negotiate with Iran `` conditionally '' or `` unconditionally '' on this issue
Wrong question
The right question is should we enter such negotiations with or without leverage
If we sit down with the Iranians without the leverage of a global coalition ready to impose tighter and tighter economic sanctions should Iran not halt enrichment we 'll end up holding a stuffed animal
The peculiar -LRB- obtuse ?
way the N.I.E. on Iran was framed has deprived all who favor a negotiated settlement of leverage
`` It was the C.I.A. doing its job of collecting intelligence really well and presenting it really badly , '' said Mr. Samore
Now we have to depend on Oh , my God
President Bush to persuade the world to read the whole N.I.E. and see it in a balanced perspective
As I 've also said before : Some things are true even if George Bush believes them , but good luck getting anyone to buy that anymore
Reality Check The failed attempt by the U.S. to bribe Israel with a $ 3 billion security assistance package , diplomatic cover and advanced F-35 fighter aircraft - if Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu would simply agree to a 90-day settlements freeze to resume talks with the Palestinians - has been enormously clarifying
It demonstrates just how disconnected from reality both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaderships have become
Oil is to Saudi Arabia what unconditional American aid and affection are to Israel - and what unconditional Arab and European aid and affection are to the Palestinians : a hallucinogenic drug that enables them each to think they can defy the laws of history , geography and demography
It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers
At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America , we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded , waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest : negotiate a two-state deal
Shame on them , and shame us
You ca n't want peace more than the parties themselves , and that is exactly where America is today
The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities
It is time we left them alone to pursue them - and to live with the consequences
They just do n't get it : we 're not their grandfather 's America anymore
We have bigger problems
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators should take a minute and put the following five words into Google : `` budget cuts and fire departments .
Here 's what they 'll find : American city after city - Phoenix , Cincinnati , Austin , Washington , Jacksonville , Sacramento , Philadelphia - all having to cut their fire departments
Then put in these four words : `` schools and budget cuts .
One of the top stories listed is from The Christian Science Monitor : `` As state and local governments slash spending and federal stimulus dries up , school budget cuts for the next academic year could be the worst in a generation .
I guarantee you , if someone came to these cities and said , `` We have $ 3 billion we 'd like to give to your schools and fire departments if you 'll just do what is manifestly in your own interest , '' their only answer would be : `` Where do we sign ?
And so it should have been with Israel
Israel , when America , a country that has lavished billions on you over the last 50 years and taken up your defense in countless international forums , asks you to halt settlements for three months to get peace talks going , there is only one right answer , and it is not `` How much ?
It is : `` Yes , whatever you want , because you 're our only true friend in the world .
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas , what are you thinking
Ehud Olmert , the former Israeli prime minister , offered you a great two-state deal , including East Jerusalem - and you let it fritter away
Now , instead of chasing after Obama and telling him you 'll show up for negotiations anywhere under any conditions that the president asks , you 're also setting your own terms
Here 's some free advice : When America goes weak , if you think the Chinese will deliver Israel for you , you 're wrong
I know China well
It will sell you out for a boatload of Israeli software , drones and microchips so fast that your head will spin
I understand the problem : Israeli and Palestinian leaders can not end the conflict between each other without having a civil war within their respective communities
Netanyahu would have to take on the settlers and Abbas would have to take on Hamas and the Fatah radicals
Both men have silent majorities that would back them if they did , but neither man feels so uncomfortable with his present situation to risk that civil war inside to make peace outside
There are no Abe Lincolns out there
What this means , argues the Hebrew University philosopher Moshe Halbertal , is that the window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing
Israel will end up permanently occupying the West Bank with its 2.5 million Palestinians
We will have a one-state solution
Israel will have inside its belly 2.5 million Palestinians without the rights of citizenship , along with 1.5 million Israeli Arabs
`` Then the only question will be what will be the nature of this one state - it will either be apartheid or Lebanon , '' said Halbertal
`` We will be confronted by two horrors .
The most valuable thing that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could do now is just get out of the picture - so both leaders and both peoples have an unimpeded view of their horrible future together in one state , if they ca n't separate
We must not give them any more excuses , like : `` Here comes the secretary of state again
Be patient
Something is happening
We 're working on a deal
We 're close
If only the Americans were n't so na ve , we were just about to compromise
... Be patient .
It 's all a fraud
America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly , without any obstructions , what reckless choices their leaders are making
Make no mistake , I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace , but the initiative has to come from them
The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them
In case you have n't noticed , the U.S. economy today is actually being hit by two tsunamis at once : The Great Recession and the Great Inflection
The Great Inflection is the mass diffusion of low-cost , high-powered innovation technologies from hand-held computers to Web sites that offer any imaginable service plus cheap connectivity
They are transforming how business is done
The Great Recession you know
The `` good news '' is that the Great Recession is forcing companies to take advantage of the Great Inflection faster than ever , making them more innovative
The bad news is that credit markets and bank lending are still constricted , so many companies ca n't fully exploit their productivity gains and spin off the new jobs we desperately need
Two examples , one small , one large : The first is my childhood friend , Ken Greer , who owns a marketing agency in Minneapolis , Greer & Associates
The Great Recession has forced him to radically downsize , but the Great Inflection has made him radically more productive
He illustrated this by telling me about a film he recently made for a nonprofit
`` The budget was about 20 percent of what we normally would charge , '' said Greer
`` After one meeting with the client , almost all our communication was by e-mail
The script was developed and approved using a collaborative tool provided by www.box.net
Internally , we all could look at the script no matter where we were , make suggestions and get to a final draft with complete transparency easy , convenient and free
We did not have a budget to shoot new footage , yet we had no budget either for stock photography the old way paying royalties of $ 100 to $ 2,000 per image
We found a source , istockphoto.com , which offered great photos for as little as a few dollars
`` We could easily preview all the images , place them in our program to make sure they worked , purchase them online and download the high-resolution versions all in seconds , '' Greer added
`` We had a script that called for 4 to 5 voices
Rather than hiring local voice talent for $ 250 to $ 500 per hour we searched the Internet for high-quality voices that we could afford
We found several sites offering various forms of narration or voice-overs
We selected www.voices.com
In less than one minute , we created an account , posted our requirements and solicited bids
Within five minutes , we had 10 to 15 ` applicants ' '' charging 10 percent of what Greer would have paid live talent
`` Best part , '' he said , `` within minutes we had sample reads , which could be placed into our film to see if the voices fit
We selected our finalists , wrote them with more specific instructions and within hours had the final read delivered to us via MP3 files over the Web
We could get any accent or ethnicity we wanted
For music , we used a site called www.audiojungle.net , '' where he could sample thousands of cuts of music and sound effects with the click of a mouse , and then buy them for pennies
By being able to access all these cheap tools , Greer got to focus on his value-add : imagination
The customer got a better product for less money
But he did n't create many new jobs
For that , he needs the economy to pick up
`` If we could only borrow a buck and invest , '' said Greer , `` we 'd all be rolling again .
Farooq Kathwari , the longtime C.E.O. of Ethan Allen Interiors , had to accelerate reinvention of his company for the same reasons
In the last year , he reduced his work force by 25 percent , consolidated several U.S. manufacturing plants , including transferring all upholstery manufacturing into a large state-of-the-art facility in North Carolina , enabling Ethan Allen to substantially decrease its production time
The most labor-intensive upholstery work is done in the company 's new plant in Mexico , and the components are shipped to the North Carolina facility for completion
`` Five years ago , '' said Kathwari , `` it would take about 20 hours of labor time to make a high-quality custom sofa
Now , due to our investments in technology and a smaller work force that is more highly skilled , the labor time to make this sofa is about three hours .
Everywhere he can , Kathwari says he is leveraging technology to cut costs and improve quality to retain his competitive position in world markets
This enabled Ethan Allen to maintain sufficient cash to survive
`` We now produce all our advertising programs in-house , including national television commercials , at a fraction of the cost we spent a few years back just as your friend is doing , '' said Kathwari
`` Our associates recognize that reinvention is vital to our survival .
Given its new state of hyperefficiency , any uptick in business would really help Ethan Allen 's bottom line and stimulate hiring , but that requires credit markets to loosen for its customers and store owners
Said Kathwari , `` Credit is still a vital issue , and it is not happening at the grass-roots level or when it is , it is very expensive .
Strange times : The Great Recession and Great Inflection are making our companies ultralean , innovative and productive
But with credit still constricted , we 're like a superfit track star with a weak heart
We 've got to get credit pumping to our industrial muscles again
If there is anything I 've learned as a reporter , it 's that when you get away from `` the thing itself '' the core truth about a situation you get into trouble
Barack Obama will have to make three mammoth decisions after he takes the oath of office on cars , Kabul and banks and we have to hope that he bases those decisions on the things themselves , the core truths about each
Because many people will be trying to throw fairy dust in his eyes
The first issue will be whether to bail out Detroit
What is the core truth about Detroit
Auto executives will tell you that it 's the credit crisis , health care , retirement costs and unions
Sure , those are real
But the core truth is that for way too long Detroit made too many cars that too many people did not want to buy
As even General Motors conceded in its apology ad last week : `` At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster .
Walk through any college campus today
You do n't see a lot of Buicks
Over the years , Detroit bosses kept repeating : `` We have to make the cars people want .
That 's why they 're in trouble
Their job is to make the cars people do n't know they want but will buy like crazy when they see them
I would have been happy with my Sony Walkman had Apple not invented the iPod
Now I ca n't live without my iPod
I did n't know I wanted it , but Apple did
Same with my Toyota hybrid
The auto consultant John Casesa once noted that Detroit 's management has gone from visionaries to operators to caretakers
I would say that they have now gone from caretakers to undertakers
If they are ready to bring in some visionaries and totally restructure inside or outside of bankruptcy so they can make money selling cars that people will want to buy , then I say help them
I 'd hate to see the Detroit auto industry go under
But if all we are doing is prolonging auto undertakers , then we have to let nature take its course
After Detroit , Mr. Obama will be asked to bail out Afghanistan
Watch out
The tide has turned against us there because too many Afghans do n't want to buy our politics , or , more precisely , the politics of our ally , the corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai
That is `` the thing itself .
The main reason our Iraq bailout a k a `` the surge '' has had a positive effect is because Iraqis voted with their own guns and their own lives , taking on both Al Qaeda and pro-Iranian Shiite militants
Iraq has avoided bankruptcy for the moment a total meltdown because enough Iraqis wanted what we were selling : freedom from extremists
That is the thing itself , and right now I 'm not seeing enough of that thing in Afghanistan
Beware of a Kabul bailout
But maybe the most flagrant area where we continue to avoid looking at `` the thing itself '' is with our banks
What we are dealing with there is the effect of a credit bubble that began in the late-1980s with the advent of global securitization the chopping up and bundling into bonds of everything from home mortgages to student loans to airplane leases , and then selling them around the world
When you take this much leverage and this much globalization and this much complexity and start it in America , and then blow it up , you have a nuclear financial explosion
The deflating of this credit bubble is so wealth-destroying that even the most prudent banks have been ravaged by it
What to do
The smartest people I know in banking are praying that Obama 's Treasury Department will tackle `` the thing itself .
That is , do a real analysis of what the major banks are worth in a worst-case scenario
Then determine , if , on that basis , they have viable , survivable equity-to-asset ratios
Those that do should get more government investment
Those that are close should be forced to find new investors and merge
And those not viable should be shut down and have their bad assets bought by a government-owned body -LRB- which would sell them over time -RRB- and their deposits shifted to healthy banks to make those banks even healthier
Some experts believe we still need to close 1,000 banks
This process will be painful , but probably by the end of a year the market will clear , investors will come in , and the surviving banks will be ready to lend to each other and you and me
The `` thing itself '' here is that banks still do n't want to lend because they still do n't know the true value of their own balance sheets , let alone anyone else 's
The market has to clear
We can do it painfully and quickly , as we did with the dot-coms , or we can be Japan and drag it out
So whether it 's cars , Kabul or banks , we have to stop wishing for the worlds we want and start dealing with the things themselves
If Obama does , his first year will be excruciatingly painful , but he could have three years after that to be creative
If he does n't , I fear that cars , Kabul and banks will dog his whole presidency
We ve Only Got America A Former President Jos Mar a Figueres of Costa Rica has a saying I like : `` There is no Planet B '' - so we 'd better make Plan A work to preserve a stable environment
I feel the same way about America these days
There is no America B , so we 'd better make this one work a lot better than we 've been doing , and not only for our sake
When Britain went into decline as the globe 's stabilizing power , America was right there , ready to pick up the role
Even with all our imperfections and mistakes , the world has been a better place for it
If America goes weak , though , and can not project power the way it has , your kids wo n't just grow up in a different America
They will grow up in a different world
You will not like who picks up the pieces
Just glance at a few recent headlines
The world system is currently being challenged by two new forces : a rising superpower , called China , and a rising collection of superempowered individuals , as represented by the WikiLeakers , among others
What globalization , technological integration and the general flattening of the world have done is to superempower individuals to such a degree that they can actually challenge any hierarchy - from a global bank to a nation state - as individuals
China has put on a sound and light show these past few weeks that underscored just how much its rising economic clout can be used to warp the U.S.-led international order when it so chooses
I am talking specifically about the lengths to which China went to not only reject the Nobel Peace Prize given to one of its citizens - Liu Xiaobo , a democracy advocate who is serving an 11-year sentence in China for `` subversion of state power '' - but to intimidate China 's trading partners from even sending representatives to attend the Nobel award ceremony at Oslo 's City Hall
Mr. Liu was represented at Friday 's Nobel ceremony by an empty chair because China would not release him from prison - only the fifth time in the 109-year history of the prize that the winner was not in attendance
Under pressure from Beijing , the following countries joined China 's boycott of the ceremony : Serbia , Morocco , Pakistan , Venezuela , Afghanistan , Colombia , Ukraine , Algeria , Cuba , Egypt , Iran , Iraq , Kazakhstan , Russia , Saudi Arabia , Sudan , Tunisia , Vietnam and the Philippines
What a pathetic bunch
`` The empty chair in Oslo 's Town Hall last Friday was not only that of Liu , but of China itself , '' observed Rowan Callick , a columnist for The Australian
`` The world is still waiting for China to play its proper , full role in international affairs
The perversity of such a successful , civilized nation playing a dominant role as a backer - if sometimes merely by default - of cruel , failed or failing states is intensely frustrating .
It gets worse
The Financial Times reported that `` outside Mr. Liu 's apartment in Beijing , where his wife Liu Xia has been held under house arrest since the award was announced , large blue screens were erected , preventing television cameras from having a view of the building .
Honestly , I thought China 's leaders had more self-confidence than that
Clearly , they are feeling very insecure
Think if China had said instead : `` We disagree with this award and we will not be attending
But anytime one of our citizens is honored with a Nobel , it is an honor for all of China - and so we will pass this on to his family .
It would have been a one-day story , and China 's leaders would have looked so strong
As for the superempowered individuals - some are constructive , some are destructive
I read many WikiLeaks and learned some useful things
But their release also raises some troubling questions
I do n't want to live in a country where they throw whistle-blowers in jail
That 's China
But I also do n't want to live in a country where any individual feels entitled to just dump out all the internal communications of a government or a bank in a way that undermines the ability to have private , confidential communications that are vital to the functioning of any society
That 's anarchy
But here 's the fact : A China that can choke off conversations far beyond its borders , and superempowered individuals who can expose conversations far beyond their borders - or create posses of `` cyber-hacktivists '' who can melt down the computers of people they do n't like - are now a reality
They are rising powers
A stable world requires that we learn how to get the best from both and limit the worst ; it will require smart legal and technological responses
For that job , there is no alternative to a strong America
Critics said of the British Labor Party of the 1960s that the Britain they were trying to build was half-Sweden and half-heaven
The alternative today to a world ordered by American power is not some cuddly multipolar system - half-Sweden and half-heaven
It is half-China and half-superempowered individuals
Managing that will never be easy
But it will be a lot easier with a healthy America , committed to its core values , powerful enough to project them and successful enough that others want to follow our lead - voluntarily
The negotiators at the United Nations climate conference here in Bali came from almost 200 countries and spoke almost as many languages , but driving them all to find a better way to address climate change was one widely shared , if unspoken , sentiment : that `` later '' is over for our generation
`` Later '' was a luxury for previous generations and civilizations
It meant that you could paint the same landscape , see the same animals , eat the same fruit , climb the same trees , fish the same rivers , enjoy the same weather or rescue the same endangered species that you did when you were a kid but just do it later , whenever you got around to it
If there is one change in global consciousness that seems to have settled in over just the past couple of years , it is the notion that later is over
Later is no longer when you get to do all those same things just on your time schedule
Later is now when they 're gone when you wo n't get to do any of them ever again , unless there is some radical collective action to mitigate climate change , and maybe even if there is
There are many reasons that later is over
The fact that global warming is now having such an observable effect on pillars of our ecosystem like the frozen sea ice within the Arctic Circle , which a new study says could disappear entirely during summers by 2040 is certainly one big factor
But the other is the voracious power of today 's global economy , which has created a situation in which the world is not just getting hot , it 's getting raped
Throughout human history there was always some new part of the ocean to plunder , some new forest to devour , some new farmlands to exploit , noted Carl Pope , executive director of the Sierra Club , who came to observe the Bali conference
But `` now that economic development has become the prerogative of every country , '' he said , we 've run out of virgin oceans and lands `` for new rising economic powers to exploit .
So , too many countries are now chasing too few fish , trees and water resources , and are either devouring their own or plundering those of neighbors at alarming rates
Indeed , today 's global economy has become like a monster truck with the gas pedal stuck , and we 've lost the key so no one can stop it from wiping out more and more of the natural world , no matter what the global plan
There was a chilling essay in The Jakarta Post last week by Andrio Adiwibowo , a lecturer in environmental management at the University of Indonesia
It was about how a smart plan to protect the mangrove forests around coastal Jakarta was never carried out , leading to widespread tidal flooding last month
This line jumped out at me : `` The plan was not implemented
Instead of providing a buffer zone , development encroached into the core zone , which was covered over by concrete .
You could read that story in a hundred different developing countries today
But the fact that you read it here is one of the most important reasons that later has become extinct
Indonesia is second only to Brazil in terrestrial biodiversity and is No. 1 in the world in marine biodiversity
Just one and a half acres in Borneo contains more different tree species than all of North America not to mention animals that do n't exist anywhere else on earth
If we lose them , there will be no later for some of the rarest plants and animals on the planet
And we are losing them
Market-driven forces emanating primarily from China , Europe and America have become so powerful that Indonesia recently made the Guinness World Records for having the fastest rate of deforestation in the world
Indonesia is now losing tropical forests the size of Maryland every year , and the carbon released by the cutting and clearing much of it from illegal logging has made Indonesia the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world , after the United States and China
Deforestation actually accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world , an issue the Bali conference finally addressed
I interviewed Barnabas Suebu , the governor of the Indonesian province of Papua , home to some of its richest forests
He waxed eloquent about how difficult it is to create jobs that will give his villagers anything close to the income they can get from chopping down a tree and selling it to smugglers , who will ship it to Malaysia or China to be made into furniture for Americans or Europeans
He said his motto was , `` Think big , start small , act now before everything becomes too late .
Ditto for all of us
If you want to help preserve the Indonesian forests , think fast , start quick , act now
Just do n't say later
Let 's not fool ourselves
Whatever threat the real Afghanistan poses to U.S. national security , the `` Virtual Afghanistan '' now poses just as big a threat
The Virtual Afghanistan is the network of hundreds of jihadist Web sites that inspire , train , educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the West
Whatever surge we do in the real Afghanistan has no chance of being a self-sustaining success , unless there is a parallel surge by Arab and Muslim political and religious leaders against those who promote violent jihadism on the ground in Muslim lands and online in the Virtual Afghanistan
Last week , five men from northern Virginia were arrested in Pakistan , where they went , they told Pakistani police , to join the jihad against U.S. troops in Afghanistan
They first made contact with two extremist organizations in Pakistan by e-mail in August
As The Washington Post reported on Sunday : '' ` Online recruiting has exponentially increased , with Facebook , YouTube and the increasing sophistication of people online , ' a high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official said
... ` Increasingly , recruiters are taking less prominent roles in mosques and community centers because places like that are under scrutiny
So what these guys are doing is turning to the Internet , ' said Evan Kohlmann , a senior analyst with the U.S.-based NEFA Foundation , a private group that monitors extremist Web sites .
The Obama team is fond of citing how many `` allies '' we have in the Afghan coalition
Sorry , but we do n't need more NATO allies to kill more Taliban and Al Qaeda
We need more Arab and Muslim allies to kill their extremist ideas , which , thanks to the Virtual Afghanistan , are now being spread farther than ever before
Only Arabs and Muslims can fight the war of ideas within Islam
We had a civil war in America in the mid-19th century because we had a lot of people who believed bad things namely that you could enslave people because of the color of their skin
We defeated those ideas and the individuals , leaders and institutions that propagated them , and we did it with such ferocity that five generations later some of their offspring still have not forgiven the North
Islam needs the same civil war
It has a violent minority that believes bad things : that it is O.K. to not only murder non-Muslims `` infidels , '' who do not submit to Muslim authority but to murder Muslims as well who will not accept the most rigid Muslim lifestyle and submit to rule by a Muslim caliphate
What is really scary is that this violent , jihadist minority seems to enjoy the most `` legitimacy '' in the Muslim world today
Few political and religious leaders dare to speak out against them in public
Secular Arab leaders wink at these groups , telling them : `` We 'll arrest if you do it to us , but if you leave us alone and do it elsewhere , no problem .
How many fatwas religious edicts have been issued by the leading bodies of Islam against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda
Very few
Where was the outrage last week when , on the very day that Iraq 's Parliament agreed on a formula to hold free and fair multiparty elections unprecedented in Iraq 's modern history five explosions set off by suicide bombers hit ministries , a university and Baghdad 's Institute of Fine Arts , killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 400 , many of them kids
Not only was there no meaningful condemnation emerging from the Muslim world which was primarily focused on resisting Switzerland 's ban on new mosque minarets there was barely a peep coming out of Washington
President Obama expressed no public outrage
It is time he did
`` What Muslims were talking about last week were the minarets of Switzerland , not the killings of people in Iraq or Pakistan , '' noted Mamoun Fandy , a Middle East expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London
`` People look for red herrings when they do n't want to look inward , when they do n't want to summon the moral courage to produce the counter-fatwa that would say : stabilizing Iraq is an Islamic duty and bringing peace to Afghanistan is part of the survival of the Islamic umma , '' or community
So please tell me , how are we supposed to help build something decent and self-sustaining in Afghanistan and Pakistan when jihadists murder other Muslims by the dozens and no one really calls them out
A corrosive mind-set has taken hold since 9\/11
It says that Arabs and Muslims are only objects , never responsible for anything in their world , and we are the only subjects , responsible for everything that happens in their world
We infantilize them
Arab and Muslims are not just objects
They are subjects
They aspire to , are able to and must be challenged to take responsibility for their world
If we want a peaceful , tolerant region more than they do , they will hold our coats while we fight , and they will hold their tongues against their worst extremists
They will lose , and we will lose here and there , in the real Afghanistan and in the Virtual Afghanistan
The stranger , a Western businessman , slipped into the chair next to me at an Asia Society lunch here in Hong Kong and asked me a question that I can honestly say I 've never been asked before : `` So , just how corrupt is America ?
His question was occasioned by the arrest of the Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff on charges of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions of dollars , but it was n't only that
It 's the whole bloody mess coming out of Wall Street the financial center that Hong Kong moneymen had always looked up to
How could it be , they wonder , that such brand names as Bear Stearns , Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. could turn out to have such feet of clay
Where , they wonder , was our Securities and Exchange Commission and the high standards that we had preached to them all these years
One of Hong Kong 's most-respected bankers , who asked not to be identified , told me that the U.S.-owned investment company where he works made a mint in the last decade cleaning up sick Asian banks
They did so by importing the best U.S. practices , particularly the principles of `` know thy customers '' and strict risk controls
But now , he asked , who is there to look to for exemplary leadership
`` Previously , there was America , '' he said
`` American investors were supposed to know better , and now America itself is in trouble
Whom do they sell their banks to
It is hard for America to take its own medicine that it prescribed successfully for others
There is no doctor anymore
The doctor himself is sick .
I have no sympathy for Madoff
But the fact is , his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the `` legal '' scheme that Wall Street was running , fueled by cheap credit , low standards and high greed
What do you call giving a worker who makes only $ 14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $ 750,000 home , and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds which Moody 's or Standard & Poors rate AAA and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over
That is what our financial industry was doing
If that is n't a pyramid scheme , what is
Far from being built on best practices , this legal Ponzi scheme was built on the mortgage brokers , bond bundlers , rating agencies , bond sellers and homeowners all working on the I.B.G. principle : `` I 'll be gone '' when the payments come due or the mortgage has to be renegotiated
It is both eye-opening and depressing to look at our banking crisis from China
It is eye-opening because it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the U.S. and China are becoming two countries , one system
How so
Easy , in the wake of our massive bank bailout , one can now look at China and America and say : `` Well , China has a big-state-owned banking sector , next to a private one , and America now has a big state-owned banking sector next to a private one
China has big state-owned industries , alongside private ones , and once Washington bails out Detroit , America will have a big state-owned industry next to private ones .
Yes , an exaggeration to be sure , but the truth is the differences are starting to blur
For two decades , a parade of U.S. officials came to China and lectured Beijing on the necessity of privatizing its banks , said Qu Hongbin , the chief economist for China at HSBC
`` So , slowly we did that , and now , all of a sudden , we see everybody else nationalizing their banks .
It 's depressing because China in many ways feels more stable than America today , with a clearer strategy for working through this crisis
And while the two countries are looking more alike , they appear to be on very different historical trajectories
China went crazy in the 1970s , with its Cultural Revolution , and only after the death of Mao and the rise of Deng Xiaoping has it managed to right itself , gradually moving to a market economy
But while capitalism has saved China , the end of communism seems to have slightly unhinged America
We lost our two biggest ideological competitors Beijing and Moscow
Everyone needs a competitor
It keeps you disciplined
But once American capitalism no longer had to worry about communism , it seems to have gone crazy
Investment banks and hedge funds were leveraging themselves at crazy levels , paying themselves crazy salaries and , most of all , inventing financial instruments that completely disconnected the ultimate lenders from the original borrowers , and left no one accountable
`` The collapse of communism pushed China to the center and -LRB- America -RRB- to the extreme , '' said Ben Simpfendorfer , chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland
The Madoff affair is the cherry on top of a national breakdown in financial propriety , regulations and common sense
Which is why we do n't just need a financial bailout ; we need an ethical bailout
We need to re-establish the core balance between our markets , ethics and regulations
I do n't want to kill the animal spirits that necessarily drive capitalism but I do n't want to be eaten by them either
Maureen Dowd is off today
As readers of this column know , I have a rule that there is a simple way to test whether any Arab-Israeli peace deal is real or not : If you need a Middle East expert to explain it to you , it 's not real
I now have the same rule about global climate agreements : If you need an environmental expert to explain it to you , it 's not real
I needed 10 experts to explain to me the Bali climate agreement and I was there
I 'm still not quite sure what it adds up to
I 'm not opposed to forging a regime with 190 countries for reducing carbon emissions , but my gut tells me that both the North and South Poles will melt before we get it to work
There is a better way
Just make America the model of how a country can grow prosperous , secure , innovative and healthy by becoming the most clean , energy-efficient nation in the world and let everyone follow us
Unfortunately , the Bush team has not been able to lead on this issue for two reasons
First , its credibility is shot , even though if you add up all the clean energy , biofuel and other programs the administration has initiated over the past two years , plus the half-a-loaf energy bill spearheaded by the Democrats that the president is scheduled to sign today , they do n't add up to zero anymore
There was a revealing encounter here Thursday between the U.S. negotiating team and environmentalists that was worthy of pay-per-view
The American team was giving its big briefing
The room was packed with activists from around the world
They came loaded to carve up the Americans , who , it was just assumed , had to be stupid because they represented the Bush administration
And then something unexpected happened
For 90 minutes , Andy Karsner , who runs the Department of Energy 's renewable energy programs , James Connaughton , who heads White House climate policy , and their colleagues put on a PowerPoint performance that was riveting in its understanding of the climate problem and the technologies needed to solve it
Their mastery of the subject was so impressive that it left the room full of global activists emotionally confused : On the one hand , it was obvious that these U.S. officials really knew their stuff , yet on the other , I 'd bet not a single person there believed they reflected the true Bush policy
As if reading the minds of everyone there , Malini Mehra , the chief executive of the Centre for Social Markets , an Indian activist group , took the microphone and , in so many words , asked the Bush aides : Who are you and what planet did you come from
It could not possibly be from planet Bush
`` Anyone who has been listening to the news on climate change knows that there has been one message from this administration that any serious action on climate change threatens the U.S. economy and our way of life , '' Ms. Mehra said to me later
So to now hear these American technocrats `` present what was a thoughtful analysis that made sense , flies in the face of what we have come to know about this administration , '' she added
A lot of this is the price America is paying for the gratuitous way President Bush trashed the Kyoto treaty in 2001 , without presenting any alternative for six years
Message to world : `` Get lost
We only care about ourselves .
So now , when both Mr. Bush and Congress have moved a little , few people believe even that is for real
As Irwandi Yusuf , the governor of Indonesia 's Aceh Province , bluntly said to me : `` We do n't believe the Americans in this administration .
The other reason we ca n't be a model is that whatever the U.S. is now doing to address the global warming challenge , it is not transformational
It is an incremental approach to a scale problem that can only be solved by triggering massive innovation in clean power
And without a price signal a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system to make it profitable to invest enormous sums , long term , in new clean technologies , it will not happen at scale
The Bush team loves new technologies , but not the price signals needed to initiate them
By the way , finance or energy ministers who deal with price signals were n't even at the Bali convention , which was dominated by environmental regulators
`` This is a problem of economic transformation , not environmental regulation , '' said Glenn Prickett , senior vice president at Conservation International
-LRB- Disclosure : My wife is on its board .
`` The transformation needed will require far more than just passing one law or signing one treaty
It will require the same level of focus and initiative that the Bush administration is devoting to the war on terror
No political leader in the U.S. is approaching this issue yet with anywhere near the seriousness required .
So I still do n't know what Bali was about , but I do know that it was incremental , not transformational and incrementalism , when it comes to clean energy , is just a hobby
The U.S.S. Prius As I was saying , the thing I love most about America is that there 's always somebody here who does n't get the word - and they go out and do the right thing or invent the new thing , no matter what 's going on politically or economically
And what could save America 's energy future - at a time when a fraudulent , anti-science campaign funded largely by Big Oil and Big Coal has blocked Congress from passing any clean energy\/climate bill - is the fact that the Navy and Marine Corps just did n't get the word
Spearheaded by Ray Mabus , President Obama 's secretary of the Navy and the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia , the Navy and Marines are building a strategy for `` out-greening '' Al Qaeda , `` out-greening '' the Taliban and `` out-greening '' the world 's petro-dictators
Their efforts are based in part on a recent study from 2007 data that found that the U.S. military loses one person , killed or wounded , for every 24 fuel convoys it runs in Afghanistan
Today , there are hundreds and hundreds of these convoys needed to truck fuel - to run air-conditioners and power diesel generators - to remote bases all over Afghanistan
Mabus 's argument is that if the U.S. Navy and Marines could replace those generators with renewable power and more energy efficient buildings , and run its ships on nuclear energy , biofuels and hybrid engines , and fly its jets with bio-fuels , then it could out-green the Taliban - the best way to avoid a roadside bomb is to not have vehicles on the roads - and out-green all the petro-dictators now telling the world what to do
Unlike the Congress , which can be bought off by Big Oil and Big Coal , it is not so easy to tell the Marines that they ca n't buy the solar power that could save lives
I do n't know what the final outcome in Iraq or Afghanistan will be , but if we come out of these two wars with a Pentagon-led green revolution , I know they wo n't be a total loss
Wars that were driven partly by our oil addiction end up forcing us to break our oil addiction
Would n't that be interesting
Jackalyne Pfannenstiel , the assistant secretary of the Navy for energy , installations and environment , used to lead the California Energy Commission
She listed for me what 's going on : On April 22 , Earth Day , the Navy flew a F\/A -18 Super Hornet fighter jet powered by a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and camelina aviation biofuel made from pressed mustard seeds
It flew at Mach 1.2 and has since been tested on biofuels at Mach 1.7 - without a hiccup
I loved the quote in Biofuels Digest from Scott Johnson , general manager of Sustainable Oils , which produced the camelina : `` It was awesome to watch camelina biofuel break the sound barrier .
The Navy will use only `` third generation '' biofuels
That means no ethanol made from corn because it does n't have enough energy density
The Navy is only testing fuels like camelina and algae that do not compete with food , that have a total end-to-end carbon footprint cleaner than fossil fuels and that can be grown in ways that will ultimately be cheaper than fossil fuels
In October , the Navy launched the U.S.S. Makin Island amphibious assault ship , which is propelled by a hybrid gas turbine\/electric motor
On its maiden voyage from Mississippi to San Diego , said Mabus , it saved $ 2 million in fuel
In addition , the Navy has tested its RCB-X combat boat on a 50-50 blend of algae and diesel , and it has tested its SH-60 helicopter on a similar biofuel blend
Meanwhile , the Marines now have a `` green '' forward operating base set up in Helmand Province in Afghanistan that is testing in the field everything from LED lights in tents to solar canopies to power refrigerators and equipment - to see just how efficiently one remote base can get by without fossil fuel
When you factor in all the costs of transporting fuel by truck or air to a forward base in Afghanistan - that is , guarding it and delivering it over mountains - a single gallon of gasoline `` could cost up to $ 400 '' once it finally arrives , Mabus said
The Navy plans in 2012 to put out to sea a `` Great Green Fleet , '' a 13-ship carrier battle group powered either by nuclear energy or 50-50 blends of biofuels and with aircraft flying on 50-50 blends of biofuels
Mabus has also set a goal for the Navy to use alternative energy sources to provide 50 percent of the energy for all its war-fighting ships , planes , vehicles and shore installations by 2020
If the Navy really uses its buying power when buying power , and setting building efficiency standards , it alone could expand the green energy market in a decisive way
And , if Congress will simply refrain from forcing the Navy to use corn ethanol or liquid coal - neither of which are clean or efficient , but are located in many Congressional districts - we might really get a green revolution in the military
That could save lives , money and the planet , and might even help us win - or avoid - the next war
Go Navy
From WikiChina While secrets from WikiLeaks were splashed all over the American newspapers , I could n't help but wonder : What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America
I suspect the cable would read like this : Things are going well here for China
America remains a deeply politically polarized country , which is certainly helpful for our goal of overtaking the U.S. as the world 's most powerful economy and nation
But we 're particularly optimistic because the Americans are polarized over all the wrong things
There is a willful self-destructiveness in the air here as if America has all the time and money in the world for petty politics
They fight over things like - we are not making this up - how and where an airport security officer can touch them
They are fighting - we are happy to report - over the latest nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia
It seems as if the Republicans are so interested in weakening President Obama that they are going to scuttle a treaty that would have fostered closer U.S.-Russian cooperation on issues like Iran
And since anything that brings Russia and America closer could end up isolating us , we are grateful to Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona for putting our interests ahead of America 's and blocking Senate ratification of the treaty
The ambassador has invited Senator Kyl and his wife for dinner at Mr. Kao 's Chinese restaurant to praise him for his steadfastness in protecting America 's -LRB- read : our -RRB- interests
Americans just had what they call an `` election .
Best we could tell it involved one congressman trying to raise more money than the other -LRB- all from businesses they are supposed to be regulating -RRB- so he could tell bigger lies on TV more often about the other guy before the other guy could do it to him
This leaves us relieved
It means America will do nothing serious to fix its structural problems : a ballooning deficit , declining educational performance , crumbling infrastructure and diminished immigration of new talent
The ambassador recently took what the Americans call a fast train - the Acela - from Washington to New York City
Our bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin would have made the trip in 90 minutes
His took three hours - and it was on time
Along the way the ambassador used his cellphone to call his embassy office , and in one hour he experienced 12 dropped calls - again , we are not making this up
We have a joke in the embassy : `` When someone calls you from China today it sounds like they are next door
And when someone calls you from next door in America , it sounds like they are calling from China !
Those of us who worked in China 's embassy in Zambia often note that Africa 's cellphone service was better than America 's
But the Americans are oblivious
They travel abroad so rarely that they do n't see how far they are falling behind
Which is why we at the embassy find it funny that Americans are now fighting over how `` exceptional '' they are
Once again , we are not making this up
On the front page of The Washington Post on Monday there was an article noting that Republicans Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee are denouncing Obama for denying `` American exceptionalism .
The Americans have replaced working to be exceptional with talking about how exceptional they still are
They do n't seem to understand that you ca n't declare yourself `` exceptional , '' only others can bestow that adjective upon you
In foreign policy , we see no chance of Obama extricating U.S. forces from Afghanistan
He knows the Republicans will call him a wimp if he does , so America will keep hemorrhaging $ 190 million a day there
Therefore , America will lack the military means to challenge us anywhere else , particularly on North Korea , where our lunatic friends continue to yank America 's chain every six months so that the Americans have to come and beg us to calm things down
By the time the Americans do get out of Afghanistan , the Afghans will surely hate them so much that China 's mining companies already operating there should be able to buy up the rest of Afghanistan 's rare minerals
Most of the Republicans just elected to Congress do not believe what their scientists tell them about man-made climate change
America 's politicians are mostly lawyers - not engineers or scientists like ours - so they 'll just say crazy things about science and nobody calls them on it
It 's good
It means they will not support any bill to spur clean energy innovation , which is central to our next five-year plan
And this ensures that our efforts to dominate the wind , solar , nuclear and electric car industries will not be challenged by America
Finally , record numbers of U.S. high school students are now studying Chinese , which should guarantee us a steady supply of cheap labor that speaks our language here , as we use our $ 2.3 trillion in reserves to quietly buy up U.S. factories
In sum , things are going well for China in America
Thank goodness the Americans ca n't read our diplomatic cables
Embassy Washington
Maureen Dowd is off today
I 've long believed there are two basic strategies for dealing with climate change the `` Earth Day '' strategy and the `` Earth Race '' strategy
This Copenhagen climate summit was based on the Earth Day strategy
It was not very impressive
This conference produced a series of limited , conditional , messy compromises , which it is not at all clear will get us any closer to mitigating climate change at the speed and scale we need
Indeed , anyone who watched the chaotic way this conference was `` organized , '' and the bickering by delegates with which it finished , has to ask whether this 17-year U.N. process to build a global framework to roll back global warming is broken : too many countries 193 and too many moving parts
I leave here feeling more strongly than ever that America needs to focus on its own Earth Race strategy instead
Let me explain
The Earth Day strategy said that the biggest threat to mankind is climate change , and we as a global community have to hold hands and attack this problem with a collective global mechanism for codifying and verifying everyone 's carbon-dioxide emissions and reductions and to transfer billions of dollars in clean technologies to developing countries to help them take part
But as President Luiz In cio Lula da Silva of Brazil told this conference , this Earth Day framework only works `` if countries take responsibility to meet their targets '' and if the rich nations really help the poor ones buy clean power sources
That was never going to happen at scale in the present global economic climate
The only way it might happen is if we had `` a perfect storm '' a storm big enough to finally end the global warming debate but not so big that it ended the world
Absent such a storm that literally parts the Red Sea again and drives home to all the doubters that catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger , the domestic pressures in every country to avoid legally binding and verifiable carbon reductions will remain very powerful
Does that mean this whole Earth Day strategy is a waste
The scientific understanding about the climate that this U.N. process has generated and the general spur to action it provides is valuable
And the mechanism this conference put in place to enable developed countries and companies to offset their emissions by funding protection of tropical rain forests , if it works , would be hugely valuable
Still , I am an Earth Race guy
I believe that averting catastrophic climate change is a huge scale issue
The only engine big enough to impact Mother Nature is Father Greed : the Market
Only a market , shaped by regulations and incentives to stimulate massive innovation in clean , emission-free power sources can make a dent in global warming
And no market can do that better than America 's
Therefore , the goal of Earth Racers is to focus on getting the U.S. Senate to pass an energy bill , with a long-term price on carbon that will really stimulate America to become the world leader in clean-tech
If we lead by example , more people will follow us by emulation than by compulsion of some U.N. treaty
In the cold war , we had the space race : who could be the first to put a man on the moon
Only two countries competed , and there could be only one winner
Today , we need the Earth Race : who can be the first to invent the most clean technologies so men and women can live safely here on Earth
Maybe the best thing President Obama could have done here in Copenhagen was to make clear that America intends to win that race
All he needed to do in his speech was to look China 's prime minister in the eye and say : `` I am going to get our Senate to pass an energy bill with a price on carbon so we can clean your clock in clean-tech
This is my moon shot
Game on .
Because once we get America racing China , China racing Europe , Europe racing Japan , Japan racing Brazil , we can quickly move down the innovation-manufacturing curve and shrink the cost of electric cars , batteries , solar and wind so these are no longer luxury products for the wealthy nations but commodity items the third world can use and even produce
If you start the conversation with `` climate '' you might get half of America to sign up for action
If you start the conversation with giving birth to a `` whole new industry '' one that will make us more energy independent , prosperous , secure , innovative , respected and able to out-green China in the next great global industry you get the country
For good reason : Even if the world never warms another degree , population is projected to rise from 6.7 billion to 9 billion between now and 2050 , and more and more of those people will want to live like Americans
In this world , demand for clean power and energy efficient cars and buildings will go through the roof
An Earth Race led by America built on markets , economic competition , national self-interest and strategic advantage is a much more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of voluntary , nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference
Let the Earth Race begin
The public editor is off today
I had no idea that many of those oil paintings that hang in hotel rooms and starter homes across America are actually produced by just one Chinese village , Dafen , north of Hong Kong
And I had no idea that Dafen 's artist colony the world 's leading center for mass-produced artwork and knockoffs of masterpieces had been devastated by the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble
I should have , though
`` American property owners and hotels were usually the biggest consumers of Dafen 's works , '' Zhou Xiaohong , deputy head of the Art Industry Association of Dafen , told Hong Kong 's Sunday Morning Post
`` The more houses built in the United States , the more walls that needed our paintings
Now our business has frozen following the crash of the Western property market .
Dafen is just one of a million Chinese and American enterprises that constitute the most important economic engine in the world today what historian Niall Ferguson calls `` Chimerica , '' the de facto partnership between Chinese savers and producers and U.S. spenders and borrowers
That 30-year-old partnership is about to undergo a radical restructuring as a result of the current economic crisis , and the global economy will be highly impacted by the outcome
After all , it was China 's willingness to hold the dollars and Treasury bills it had earned from exporting to America that helped keep U.S. interest rates low , giving Americans the money they needed to keep buying shoes , flat-screen TVs and paintings from China , as well as homes in America
Americans then borrowed against those homes to consume even more one reason we enjoyed rising wealth without rising incomes
This division of labor not only nourished our respective economies , but also shaped our politics
It enabled China 's ruling Communist Party to say to its people : `` We will guarantee you ever-higher standards of living and in return you will stay out of politics and let us rule .
So China 's leaders could enjoy double-digit growth without political reform
And it enabled successive U.S. administrations , particularly the current one , to tell Americans : `` You can have guns and butter subprime mortgages with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years , ever-higher consumption and two wars , without tax increases !
It all worked until it did n't
With unemployment now soaring across the U.S. , said Stephen Roach , the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia , Americans `` the most over-extended consumer in world history '' can no longer buy so many Chinese exports
We need to save more , invest more , consume less and throw out most of our credit cards to bail ourselves out of this crisis
But as that happens , we need China to take our discarded credit cards and distribute them to its own people so they can buy more of what China produces and more imports from the rest of the world
That 's the only way Beijing can sustain the minimum 8 percent growth it needs to maintain the political bargain between China 's leaders and led not to mention pick up some of the slack in the global economy from America 's slowdown
However , if I 've learned one thing here , it 's just how hard doing that will be
China 's whole system and culture nourish saving , not spending , and changing that will require a huge `` cultural and structural '' shift , said Fred Hu , chairman for Greater China for Goldman Sachs
In China , for instance , to buy a home you have to put at least 20 percent down , and the average is 40 percent
If you try to walk away from the mortgage , the bank will come after your personal assets
Moreover , China ca n't just shift production from the U.S. market to its own consumers
Not many Chinese villagers want to buy $ 400 tennis shoes or Christmas tree ornaments
Also , China has no real Social Security , health insurance or unemployment insurance
Without that social safety net , it 's hard to see how Chinese do n't end up saving most of their stimulus
`` You open up the newspaper every day and you hear about this factory shutting down or that supplier going belly up , '' said Willie Fung , whose company , Top Form International , is the world 's leading bra maker
`` You can never be too careful in this financial climate .
As such , `` the world should not have a false hope that China can cushion the global downturn , '' by stimulating its domestic demand in a big way , said Frank Gong , head of China research for JPMorgan Chase
`` The best thing China can do is keep its own economy stable .
It 's good advice
China is not going to rescue us or the world economy
We 're going to have to get out of this crisis the old-fashioned way : by digging inside ourselves and getting back to basics improving U.S. productivity , saving more , studying harder and inventing more stuff to export
The days of phony prosperity I borrow cheap money from China to build a house and then borrow on that house to buy cheap paintings from China to decorate my walls and everybody is a winner are over
A couple of weeks ago , The Times 's Jim Yardley reported from China that the world 's last known female Yangtze giant soft-shell turtle was living in one Chinese zoo , while the planet 's only undisputed , known giant soft-shell male turtle was living in another and together this aging pair were the last hope of saving a species believed to be the largest freshwater turtles in the world
It struck me as I read that story that our generation has entered a phase that no previous generation has ever experienced : the Noah phase
With more and more species threatened with extinction by The Flood that is today 's global economic juggernaut , we may be the first generation in human history that literally has to act like Noah to save the last pairs of a wide range of species
Or as God commanded Noah in Genesis : `` And of every living thing of all flesh , you shall bring two of every sort into the ark , to keep them alive with you ; they shall be male and female .
Unlike Noah , though , we 're also the ones causing The Flood , as more and more forests , fisheries , rivers and fertile soils are gobbled up for development
`` The loss of global biological diversity is advancing at an unprecedented pace , '' Sigmar Gabriel , Germany 's environment minister , recently told the BBC
`` Up to 150 species are becoming extinct every day
... The web of life that sustains our global society is getting weaker and weaker .
The world is rightly focused on climate change
But if we do n't have a strategy for reducing global carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity , we could end up in a very bad place , like in a crazy rush into corn ethanol , and palm oil for biodiesel , without enough regard for their impact on the natural world
`` If we do n't plan well , we could find ourselves with a healthy climate on a dead planet , '' said Glenn Prickett , senior vice president of Conservation International
I met one of our generation 's Noahs here in Indonesia : Dr. Jatna Supriatna , a conservation biologist who runs Conservation International 's Indonesia programs
One of his main projects is saving the nearly extinct Javan gibbon , a beautiful primate endemic to the Indonesian island of Java
The Javan gibbon population , decimated by deforestation , is down to an estimated 400 , spread out around 20 tropical forest areas in West Java
Mr. Supriatna helps run the Javan gibbon rehabilitation center , a collection of cages embedded in the mountains of Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park , near Jakarta , where male and female gibbons which are known for their lengthy courtships , not one-night stands get to know each other over months
First , they live in forest cages side by side , then together and then , if everything works , they produce a couple of babies
But the process is so slow , and the species so endangered , we may soon be down to the last few pairs a great loss
Watching a gibbon swing from tree limbs , ropes and bars is like watching a small ape win the Olympic gold medal in gymnastics
The only way to head off species loss in Indonesia , the country with the most diverse combination of plants , animals and marine life in the world , is the old truism , `` It takes a village .
So much of his work here , said Mr. Supriatna , is trying to build coalitions by melding businesses that have an interest in preserving the forest the geothermal energy investor , for example , who needs trees to maintain the watershed for his power plant with local governments , which have an interest in preventing illegal logging , with local villagers who need forests to prevent soil erosion and provide fresh water
Environmentalists here constantly have to work against corrupt local officials , who get bought off by logging interests , and villagers who do n't understand how important the forests are to their daily lives
One of his recent projects , said Mr. Supriatna , was to pipe fresh water from the forest watershed to a nearby village so people there understood the connection
Lately , he has taken his work to the imams who run the local Muslim schools
`` We teach them that the source of the water comes from the mountain and the park , '' he said
`` And if the park is gone , they will not have the clean water they need for prayer rituals
If you influence the imam , he will influence all the kids .
For so many years , Indonesians , like many of us , have been taught that life is a trade-off : healthy people with lots of jobs or healthy forests with lots of gibbons you ca n't have both
But the truth is you have to have both
If you do n't , you 'll eventually end up with neither , and then it will be too late even for Noah
#NAME?
I will be on leave , writing a book on energy and the environment
Happy holidays !
As I listened to Denmark 's minister of economic and business affairs describe how her country used higher energy taxes to stimulate innovation in green power and then recycled the tax revenues back to Danish industry and consumers to make it easier for them to make and buy the new clean technologies , it all sounded so , well , intelligent
It sounded as if the Danes looked at themselves after the 1973 Arab oil embargo , found that they were totally dependent on Middle East oil and put in place a long-term strategy to make Denmark energy-secure and start a new industry at the same time
The more I listened to the Danish minister , Lene Espersen , the more I thought of my own country , where I 've been told time and again by U.S. politicians that proposing even a 10-cent-a-gallon increase in gasoline taxes to make America more energy independent and to stimulate fuel efficiency is `` off the table , '' an act of sure political suicide
Not in Denmark
So I asked the Danish minister : `` Tell me , what planet are you people from ?
Espersen laughed
But I did n't
How long are we Americans going to go on thinking that we can thrive in the 21st century when doing the optimal things whether for energy , health care , education or the deficit are `` off the table .
They 've been banished by an ad hoc coalition of lobbyists loaded with money , loud-mouth talk-show hosts who will flame anyone who crosses them , political consultants who warn that asking Americans to do anything important but hard makes one unelectable and a citizenry that does n't even ask for optimal anymore because it believes that optimal is impossible
Sorry , but there are no good ideas proven to work in other democratic\/capitalist societies that we can afford to shove off our table not when we need to build a knowledge economy with good jobs and everyone else is trying to do the same
`` Already the green taxes here are quite high , '' said Espersen
`` And even though we know this is not popular with business and industry , it has made all the difference for us
It forced our businesses to become more energy efficient and innovative , and this meant that , suddenly , we were inventing things nobody else was inventing because our businesses needed to be competitive .
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute , a nonpartisan research center , and the Embassy of Denmark recently held a briefing on how Denmark is working to become a low-carbon economy
Here are some highlights : Although it still generates the majority of its electricity from coal , `` since 1990 , Denmark has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent
Over the same time frame , Danish energy consumption has stayed constant and Denmark 's gross domestic product has grown by more than 40 percent
Denmark is the most energy efficient country in the E.U. ; due to carbon pricing , through energy taxes , carbon taxes , the ` cap and trade ' system , strict building codes and energy labeling programs
Renewable resources currently supply almost 30 percent of Denmark 's electricity
Wind power is the largest source of renewable electricity , followed by biomass
... Today , Copenhagen puts only 3 percent of its waste into landfills and incinerates 39 percent to generate electricity for thousands of households .
The Danish government funnels energy tax revenue `` back to industry , earmarking much of it to subsidize environmental innovation , '' wrote Monica Prasad , a faculty fellow at Northwestern University 's Institute for Policy Research , in a March 25 , 2008 , essay in this newspaper
Therefore , `` Danish firms are pushed away from carbon and pulled into environmental innovation , and the country 's economy is n't put at a competitive disadvantage .
It 's why Denmark , with only five million people , boasts some of the leading wind , biofuel and heating , cooling and efficiency companies in the world
Energy technologies are now 11 percent of Denmark 's exports
Oil exports and energy taxes also subsidize mass transit and energy efficiency , keeping bills low for Danish consumers
Where do Danish politicians get the courage to do the right things even if painful
`` We do n't have a lot of resources , '' said Ida Auken , a spokeswoman for the Danish green\/socialist party , S.F. `` We have a welfare state that we have to keep up , so we have to think forward all the time and not get stuck in the past
That is where we get the courage
And we have seen it work for 30 years
It is good business
Danish contractors are begging for strict standards on buildings because they know that if they can become efficient and meet them here , they can compete anywhere in the whole world .
My fellow Americans , the fact that the recent Copenhagen climate summit was a bust in terms of solving our energy\/climate problems does n't mean that we can ignore those problems or that we can ignore how individual countries , like Denmark , have effectively addressed them
With unemployment in Denmark at about 4 percent , compared with our 10 percent , maybe we should at least consider putting a few of its ideas on our table
I had a bad day last Friday , but it was an all-too-typical day for America
It actually started well , on Kau Sai Chau , an island off Hong Kong , where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland , static-free , using a friend 's Chinese cellphone
A few hours later , I took off from Hong Kong 's ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop
Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was , as I 've argued before , like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones
The ugly , low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped , and using a luggage cart cost $ 3
-LRB- Could n't we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart , like other major airports in the world ?
As I looked around at this dingy room , it reminded of somewhere I had been before
Then I remembered : It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport
It closed in 1998
The next day I went to Penn Station , where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented
The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II
I took the Acela , America 's sorry excuse for a bullet train , from New York to Washington
Along the way , I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span
All I could think to myself was : If we 're so smart , why are other people living so much better than us
What has become of our infrastructure , which is so crucial to productivity
Back home , I was greeted by the news that General Motors was being bailed out that 's the G.M. that Fortune magazine just noted `` lost more than $ 72 billion in the past four years , and yet you can count on one hand the number of executives who have been reassigned or lost their job .
My fellow Americans , we ca n't continue in this mode of `` Dumb as we wanna be .
We 've indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we ca n't afford , bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines , energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars , public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world 's best scientists and engineers and then , when these foreigners graduate , instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas , we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours
To top it off , we 've fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering
These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money rather than designing cars , phones , computers , teaching tools , Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions
For all these reasons , our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection
We are in much deeper trouble
In fact , we as a country have become General Motors as a result of our national drift
Look in the mirror : G.M. is us
That 's why we do n't just need a bailout
We need a reboot
We need a build out
We need a buildup
We need a national makeover
That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history
Because of the financial crisis , Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $ 1 trillion in stimulus
But we must make certain that every bailout dollar , which we 're borrowing from our kids ' future , is spent wisely
It has to go into training teachers , educating scientists and engineers , paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure without building white elephants
Generally , I 'd like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets
If we allow this money to be spent on pork , it will be the end of us
America still has the right stuff to thrive
We still have the most creative , diverse , innovative culture and open society in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage
China may have great airports , but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites
Censorship restricts your people 's imaginations
That 's really , really dumb
And that 's why for all our missteps , the 21st century is still up for grabs
John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon
Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover , rebuild and reinvent our own backyard
Merry Christmas
Maureen Dowd is off today
Cut Here
Invest There
As I 'm about to start a four-month book leave , I need to get a few things off my chest : President Obama understood , rightly , that our economy needed more stimulus , so , given the G.O.P. 's insistence on extending the Bush tax cuts for all , he struck the best deal he could
The country , we are told , is now in a better mood , seeing our two parties work together
I , alas , am not in a better mood
I 'll be in a better mood when I see our two parties cooperating to do something hard
Borrowing billions more from China to give ourselves more tax cuts does not qualify
Make no mistake , President Obama has enacted an enormous amount in two years
It 's impressive
But the really hard stuff lies ahead : taking things away
We are leaving an era where to be a mayor , governor , senator or president was , on balance , to give things away to people
And we are entering an era where to be a leader will mean , on balance , to take things away from people
It is the only way we 'll get our fiscal house in order before the market , brutally , does it for us
In my book , the leaders who will deserve praise in this new era are those who develop a hybrid politics that persuades a majority of voters to cut where we must so we can invest where we must
To survive in the 21st century , America can no longer afford a politics of irresponsible profligacy
But to thrive in the 21st century - to invest in education , infrastructure and innovation - America can not afford a politics of mindless austerity either
The politicians we need are what I 'd call `` pay-as-you-go progressives '' - those who combine fiscal prudence with growth initiatives to make their cities , their states or our country great again
Everyone knows the first rule of holes : When you 're in one , stop digging
But people often forget the second rule of holes : You can only grow your way out
You ca n't borrow your way out
One of the best of this new breed of leaders is Atlanta 's inspiring mayor , 41-year-old Kasim Reed
A former Georgia state senator , Reed won Atlanta 's mayoral race in December 2009 by 714 votes
The day he took office , Atlanta had $ 7.4 million in reserves , an out-of-control budget and was laying off so many firefighters there were only three personnel on a truck , below national standards
A year later , it has $ 58 million in reserves , and Reed has a 70 percent approval rating - which he earned the hard way
Reed started his reforms by enlisting two professionals , not cronies , to help run the city : Peter Aman , a partner at Bain & Company , a consultancy , to be his chief operating officer ; and John Mellott , a former publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , to lead a pension review panel
Atlanta has 7,000 city employees , but today , says Reed , `` you ca n't hire a receptionist '' without it `` personally being approved by Aman .
Then Reed tackled the city 's biggest problem : runaway pensions , which were eating up 20 percent of tax revenues and are rising
In the early 2000s , the police , fire and municipal workers ' unions persuaded the city to raise all their pensions - and make it retroactive
So , between 2001 and 2009 , Atlanta 's unfunded pension obligations grew from $ 321 million to $ 1.484 billion
Reed could n't cut existing pensions without lawsuits , but he cut back pensions for all new employees to pre-2000 levels and raised the vesting period to 15 years from 10
When union picketers swarmed city hall to protest , Reed invited them all into his office - in shifts - where he patiently explained , with charts , that without pension reform everyone 's pensions would go bust
By getting the city 's budget under control , Reed then had some money to invest in more police officers and , what he wanted most , to reopen the 16 recreation centers and swimming pools in the city 's most disadvantaged neighborhoods , which had been shuttered for lack of money
`` People were shooting dice in the empty pools , '' he said
Local businesses have now offered to finance after-school job-skills programs in the reopened centers
Cut here
Invest there
Reed combines a soft touch with a hard head
I like how he talks about both Atlanta and America : `` We are not going to be what we have been for the last 50 years if we do n't change , and everybody in a position to have more than two people listening to them needs to be saying that , because the time we have to make the adjustments is running out
We need to get on with it
Whether it 's the deficit , education or investing in young people or immigration - we are not tackling -LRB- them -RRB- in the fundamental ways required
We 're just doing it piecemeal
We 're just playing and surviving
And we need to be very clear where just surviving takes you : it takes you to a lifestyle of just survival .
In a recent address , Reed elaborated : `` The bottom line is that for the country to do and to be what we have been ... there must be a generation tough enough to stick out its chin and take the hit
... It is time to begin having the types of mature and honest conversations necessary to deal effectively with the new economic realities we are facing as a nation
We simply can not keep kicking the can down the road .
How many times do we have to see this play before we admit that it always ends the same way
Which play
The one where gasoline prices go up , pressure rises for more fuel-efficient cars , then gasoline prices fall and the pressure for low-mileage vehicles vanishes , consumers stop buying those cars , the oil producers celebrate , we remain addicted to oil and prices gradually go up again , petro-dictators get rich , we lose
I 've already seen this play three times in my life
Trust me : It always ends the same way badly
So I could only cringe when reading this article from CNNMoney.com on Dec. 22 : `` After nearly a year of flagging sales , low gas prices and fat incentives are reigniting America 's taste for big vehicles
Trucks and S.U.V. 's will outsell cars in December ... something that has n't happened since February
Meanwhile , the forecast finds that sales of hybrid vehicles are expected to be way down .
Have a nice day
It 's morning again in Saudi Arabia
Of course , it 's a blessing that people who have been hammered by the economy are getting a break at the pump
But for our long-term health , getting re-addicted to oil and gas guzzlers is one of the dumbest things we could do
That is why I believe the second biggest decision Barack Obama has to make the first is deciding the size of the stimulus is whether to increase the federal gasoline tax or impose an economy-wide carbon tax
Best I can tell , the Obama team has no intention of doing either at this time
I understand why
Raising taxes in a recession is a no-no
But I 've wracked my brain trying to think of ways to retool America around clean-power technologies without a price signal i.e. , a tax and there are no effective ones
-LRB- Toughening energy-effiency regulations alone wo n't do it .
Without a higher gas tax or carbon tax , Obama will lack the leverage to drive critical pieces of his foreign and domestic agendas
How so
According to AAA , U.S. gasoline prices now average about $ 1.67 a gallon
Funny , that 's almost exactly what gas cost on the morning of Sept. 11 , 2001
In the wake of 9\/11 , President Bush had the political space to impose a gasoline tax , a `` Patriot Tax , '' to weaken the very people who had funded 9\/11 and to stimulate a U.S. renewable-energy industry
But Bush wimped out and would not impose a tax when prices were low or a floor price when they got high
Today 's financial crisis is Obama 's 9\/11
The public is ready to be mobilized
Obama is coming in with enormous popularity
This is his best window of opportunity to impose a gas tax
And he could make it painless : offset the gas tax by lowering payroll taxes , or phase it in over two years at 10 cents a month
But if Obama , like Bush , wills the ends and not the means wills a green economy without the price signals needed to change consumer behavior and drive innovation he will fail
The two most important rules about energy innovation are : 1 -RRB- Price matters when prices go up people change their habits
2 -RRB- You need a systemic approach
It makes no sense for Congress to pump $ 13.4 billion into bailing out Detroit and demand that the auto companies use this cash to make more fuel-efficient cars and then do nothing to shape consumer behavior with a gas tax so more Americans will want to buy those cars
As long as gas is cheap , people will go out and buy used S.U.V. 's and Hummers
There has to be a system that permanently changes consumer demand , which would permanently change what Detroit makes , which would attract more investment in battery technology to make electric cars , which would hugely help the expansion of the wind and solar industries where the biggest drawback is the lack of batteries to store electrons when the wind is n't blowing or the sun is n't shining
A higher gas tax would drive all these systemic benefits
The same is true in geopolitics
A gas tax reduces gasoline demand and keeps dollars in America , dries up funding for terrorists and reduces the clout of Iran and Russia at a time when Obama will be looking for greater leverage against petro-dictatorships
It reduces our current account deficit , which strengthens the dollar
It reduces U.S. carbon emissions driving climate change , which means more global respect for America
And it increases the incentives for U.S. innovation on clean cars and clean-tech
Which one of these things would n't we want
A gasoline tax `` is not just win-win ; it 's win , win , win , win , win , '' says the Johns Hopkins author and foreign policy specialist Michael Mandelbaum
`` A gasoline tax would do more for American prosperity and strength than any other measure Obama could propose .
I know it 's hard , but we have got to stop `` taking off the table '' the tool that would add leverage to everything we want to do at home and abroad
We 've done that for three decades , and we know with absolute certainty how the play ends with an America that is less innovative , less wealthy , less respected and less powerful
Maureen Dowd is off today
It was 60 degrees on Thursday in Washington , well above normal , and as I slipped away for some pre-Christmas golf , I found myself thinking about a wickedly funny story that The Onion , the satirical newspaper , ran the other day : Fall Canceled after 3 Billion Seasons : Fall , the long-running series of shorter days and cooler nights , was canceled earlier this week after nearly 3 billion seasons on Earth , sources reported Tuesday
The classic period of the year , which once occupied a coveted slot between summer and winter , will be replaced by new , stifling humidity levels , near-constant sunshine and almost no precipitation for months
As much as we d like to see it stay , fall will not be returning for another season , National Weather Service president John Hayes announced during a muggy press conference Nov. 6
Fall had a great run , but sadly , times have changed
... The cancellation was not without its share of warning signs
In recent years , fall had been reduced from three months to a meager two-week stint , and its scheduled start time had been pushed back later and later each year
You should never extrapolate about global warming from your own weather , but it is becoming hard not to even for professionals
Consider the final report of the U.N. s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -LRB- I.P.C.C. -RRB- , which was just issued and got far too little attention
It concluded that since the I.P.C.C. began its study five years ago , scientists had discovered much stronger climate change trends than previously realized , such as far more extensive melting of Arctic ice , and therefore global efforts to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions have to begin immediately
What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future , said the I.P.C.C. chairman , Rajendra Pachauri
And sweet-sounding global warming doesn t really capture what s likely to happen
I prefer the term global weirding , coined by Hunter Lovins , co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute , because the rise in average global temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy things from hotter heat spells and droughts in some places , to colder cold spells and more violent storms , more intense flooding , forest fires and species loss in other places
While the Bush team came into office brain dead on the climate issue and will leave office with a perfect record of having done nothing significant to mitigate climate change , I m heartened that our country is increasingly alive on this challenge
First , Google said last week that it was going to invest millions in developing its own energy business
Google described its goal as RE Its primary focus , said Google.org s energy expert , Dan Reicher , will be to advance new solar thermal , geothermal and wind solutions across the valley of death
That is , so many good ideas work in the lab but never get a chance to scale up because they get swallowed by a lack of financing or difficulties in implementation
Do not underestimate these people
Last week , I also met with two groups of M.I.T. students who blew me away
One was the M.I.T. Energy Club , which was founded in 2004 by a few grad students discussing energy over beers at a campus bar
Today it has 600-plus members who have put on scores of events focused on building energy expertise among M.I.T. students and faculty , and fact-based analysis , including a trip to Saudi Arabia
Then I got together with three engineering undergrads who helped launch the Vehicle Design Summit a global , open-source , collaborative effort , managed by M.I.T. students , that has 25 college teams around the world , including in India and China , working together to build a plug-in electric hybrid within three years
Each team contributes a different set of parts or designs
I thought writing for my college newspaper was cool
These kids are building a hyper-efficient car , which , they hope , will demonstrate a 95 percent reduction in embodied energy , materials and toxicity from cradle to cradle to grave and provide 200 m.p.g. energy equivalency or better
The Linux of cars
They re not waiting for G.M. Their goal , they explain on their Web site vds.mit.edu is to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon and then transpose this energy , passion , focus and urgency on catalyzing a global team to build a clean car
I just love their tag line
It s what gives me hope : We are the people we have been waiting for
Let me start with the bottom line and then tell you how I got there : I ca n't agree with President Obama 's decision to escalate in Afghanistan
I 'd prefer a minimalist approach , working with tribal leaders the way we did to overthrow the Taliban regime in the first place
Given our need for nation-building at home right now , I am ready to live with a little less security and a little-less-perfect Afghanistan
I recognize that there are legitimate arguments on the other side
At a lunch on Tuesday for opinion writers , the president lucidly argued that opting for a surge now to help Afghans rebuild their army and state into something decent to win the allegiance of the Afghan people offered the only hope of creating an `` inflection point , '' a game changer , to bring long-term stability to that region
May it be so
What makes me wary about this plan is how many moving parts there are Afghans , Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work
But here is the broader context in which I assess all this : My own foreign policy thinking since 9\/11 has been based on four pillars : 1
The Warren Buffett principle : Everything I 've ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country , America , at this time with these opportunities for its citizens
It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids
Many big bad things happen in the world without America , but not a lot of big good things
If we become weak and enfeebled by economic decline and debt , as we slowly are , America may not be able to play its historic stabilizing role in the world
If you did n't like a world of too-strong-America , you will really not like a world of too-weak-America where China , Russia and Iran set more of the rules
The context within which people live their lives shapes everything from their political outlook to their religious one
The reason there are so many frustrated and angry people in the Arab-Muslim world , lashing out first at their own governments and secondarily at us and volunteering for `` martyrdom '' is because of the context within which they live their lives
That was best summarized by the U.N. 's Arab Human Development reports as a context dominated by three deficits : a deficit of freedom , a deficit of education and a deficit of women 's empowerment
The reason India , with the world 's second-largest population of Muslims , has a thriving Muslim minority -LRB- albeit with grievances but with no prisoners in Guant namo Bay -RRB- is because of the context of pluralism and democracy it has built at home
One of the main reasons the Arab-Muslim world has been so resistant to internally driven political reform is because vast oil reserves allow its regimes to become permanently ensconced in power , by just capturing the oil tap , and then using the money to fund vast security and intelligence networks that quash any popular movement
Look at Iran
Hence , post-9 \/ 11 I advocated that our politicians find sufficient courage to hike gasoline taxes and seriously commit ourselves to developing alternatives to oil
Economists agree that this would ultimately bring down the global price , and slowly deprive these regimes of the sole funding source that allows them to maintain their authoritarian societies
People do not change when we tell them they should ; they change when their context tells them they must
To me , the most important reason for the Iraq war was never W.M.D.
It was to see if we could partner with Iraqis to help them build something that does not exist in the modern Arab world : a state , a context , where the constituent communities Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds write their own social contract for how to live together without an iron fist from above
Iraq has proved staggeringly expensive and hugely painful
The mistakes we made should humble anyone about nation-building in Afghanistan
It does me
Still , the Iraq war may give birth to something important if Iraqis can find that self-sustaining formula to live together
Alas , that is still in doubt
If they can , the model would have a huge impact on the Arab world
Baghdad is a great Arab capital
If Iraqis fail , it 's religious strife , economic decline and authoritarianism as far as the eye can see the witch 's brew that spawns terrorists
Iraq was about `` the war on terrorism .
The Afghanistan invasion , for me , was about the `` war on terrorists .
To me , it was about getting bin Laden and depriving Al Qaeda of a sanctuary period
I never thought we could make Afghanistan into Norway and even if we did , it would not resonate beyond its borders the way Iraq might
To now make Afghanistan part of the `` war on terrorism '' i.e. , another nation-building project is not crazy
It is just too expensive , when balanced against our needs for nation-building in America , so that we will have the strength to play our broader global role
Hence , my desire to keep our presence in Afghanistan limited
That is what I believe
That is why I believe it
On Feb. 6 , 2006 , three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad
More such mass protests followed weeks later
When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets , even suffer death , to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark , is it fair to ask : Who in the Muslim world , who in Pakistan , is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people , not cartoon characters , right next door in Mumbai
After all , if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan , shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station , killed at least 173 people , and then , for good measure , murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son purely because they were Sunni Muslims where would we be today
The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets
So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai
India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi , and at least one , if not all 10 , were Pakistani nationals
First of all , it seems to me that the Pakistani government , which is extremely weak to begin with , has been taking this mass murder very seriously , and , for now , no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered
At the same time , any reading of the Pakistani English-language press reveals Pakistani voices expressing real anguish and horror over this incident
Take for instance the Inter Press Service news agency article of Nov. 29 from Karachi : '' ' I feel a great fear that -LRB- the Mumbai violence -RRB- will adversely affect Pakistan and India relations , ' the prominent Karachi-based feminist poet and writer Attiya Dawood told I.P.S. ' I ca n't say whether Pakistan is involved or not , but whoever is involved , it is not the ordinary people of Pakistan , like myself , or my daughters
We are with our Indian brothers and sisters in their pain and sorrow . '
But while the Pakistani government 's sober response is important , and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical , I am still hoping for more
I am still hoping just once for that mass demonstration of `` ordinary people '' against the Mumbai bombers , not for my sake , not for India 's sake , but for Pakistan 's sake
Because it takes a village
The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits , and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate , condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers and not amplify , ignore , glorify , justify or `` explain '' their activities
Sure , better intelligence is important
And , yes , better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage
But at the end of the day , terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but does n't dare do or say
That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says : `` No more
What you have done in murdering defenseless men , women and children has brought shame on us and on you .
Why should Pakistanis do that
Because you ca n't have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city , anywhere , and just murdering everyone in sight including some 40 other Muslims in a suicide-murder operation , without even bothering to leave a note
Because the act was their note , and destroying just to destroy was their goal
If you do that with enemies abroad , you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process
`` I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal , '' a Muslim woman friend wrote me
`` Those Catholics that left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile
Nor were they apologizing for Catholics , or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world
They spoke out because they wanted to influence the church
They wanted to fix a terrible problem '' in their own religious community
We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings , not just as individuals , but as a powerful collective
That is what is needed here
Because , I repeat , this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village all the good people in Pakistan , including the community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country declares , as a collective , that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell
And they do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons
Maureen Dowd is off today
There are two intelligence analyses that are relevant to the balance of power between the U.S. and Iran one is the latest U.S. assessment of Iran , which certainly gave a much more complex view of what is happening there
The other is the Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America , which my guess would read something like this : As you 'll recall , in the wake of 9\/11 , we were extremely concerned that the U.S. would develop a covert program to end its addiction to oil , which would be the greatest threat to Iranian national security
In fact , after Bush 's 2006 State of the Union , in which he decried America 's oil addiction , we had `` high confidence '' that a comprehensive U.S. clean energy policy would emerge
We were wrong
Our fears that the U.S. was engaged in a covert `` Manhattan Project '' to achieve energy independence have been `` assuaged .
America 's Manhattan Project turns out to be largely confined to the production of corn ethanol in Iowa , which , our analysts have confirmed from cellphone intercepts between lobbyists and Congressmen , is nothing more than a multibillion-dollar payoff to big Iowa farmers and agro-businesses
True , thanks to Nancy Pelosi , the U.S. Congress decided to increase the miles per gallon required of U.S. car fleets by the year 2020 which took us by surprise but we nevertheless `` strongly believe '' this will not lead to any definitive breaking of America 's oil addiction , since none of the leading presidential candidates has offered an energy policy that would include a tax on oil or carbon that could trigger a truly transformational shift in America away from fossil fuels
Therefore , it is `` very likely '' that Iran 's current level of high oil revenues will last for decades and insulate our regime from any decisive pressures from abroad or from our own people
We have to note that obtaining open-source intelligence in America has become more difficult , because traditional news shows have become more comedic and more comedic news shows more authoritative
For instance , CNN 's nightly business report is hosted by a man named `` Dobbs .
Real journalists come on his show and present transparently propagandistic stories about immigration and trade and then he fulminates about them , much the way our ayatollahs used to do about `` Satanic Americans '' on late-night Iranian TV
So viewers have no real idea what 's happening in the U.S. economy
Meanwhile , at 11 p.m. , something called `` The Daily Show , '' which appears on Comedy Central , has fake journalists presenting what turns out to be the real news
Yes , our last I.N.I.E. in 1990 concluded that after the collapse of communism , America was on track to become the world 's sole superpower and most compelling role model for Muslim youth including our own
We were wrong
We now have `` high confidence '' that America is on a path of self-destruction , for three reasons : First , 9\/11 has made America afraid and therefore stupid
The `` war on terrorism '' is now so deeply imbedded in America 's psyche that we think it is `` highly likely '' that America will continue to export more fear than hope and will continue to defend things like torture and Guant namo Bay prison and to favor politicians like Mr. Giuliani , who alienates the rest of the world
Second , at a time when America 's bridges , roads , airports and Internet bandwidth have fallen behind other industrial powers , including China , we believe that the U.S. opposition to higher taxes and the fact that the primary campaigns have focused largely on gay marriage , flag-burning and whether the Christian Bible is the literal truth means it is `` highly unlikely '' that America will arrest its decline
Third , all the U.S. presidential candidates are distancing themselves from the core values that made America such a great power and so different from us in particular America 's long commitment to free trade , open immigration and a reverence for scientific enquiry wherever it leads
Our intel analysts are baffled that the leading Democrat , Mrs. Clinton , no longer believes in globalization and the leading Republican , Mr. Huckabee , never believed in evolution
U.S. politicians seem determined to appeal either to the most nativist extremes in their respective parties or to tell voters that something Americans call `` the tooth fairy '' will make their energy , budget , educational and Social Security deficits painlessly disappear
Therefore , we conclude with `` high confidence '' that there is little likelihood that post-9 \/ 11 America will , as they say , `` get its groove back '' anytime soon
Who needs nukes when you have this kind of America
God is Great
Long Live the Iranian Revolution
The Big American Leak O.K. I admit it
I enjoy reading other people 's mail as much as the next guy , so going through the WikiLeaks cables has made for some fascinating reading
What 's between the lines in those cables , though , is another matter
It is a rather sobering message
America is leaking power
Let 's start , though , with what 's in the cables
I think I 've figured it out : Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors want the U.S. to decapitate the Iranian regime and destroy its nuclear facilities so they can celebrate in private this triumph over the hated Persians , while publicly joining with their people in the streets in burning Uncle Sam in effigy , after we carry out such an attack on Iran - which will make the Arab people furious at us
The reason the Arab people will be furious at us , even though many of them do n't like the Persians either , is because they dislike their own unelected leaders even more and protesting against the Americans , who help to keep their leaders in power , is a way of sticking it to both of us
Are you with me
While the Saudis are urging us to take out Iran 's nuclear capability , we learn from the cables that private Saudi donors today still constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide - not to mention the fundamentalist mosques , charities and schools that spawn the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan
So basically our oil payments are cycled through Saudi Arabia and end up funding the very militants whom our soldiers are fighting
But do n't think we do n't have allies
... The cables tell us about Ahmed Zia Massoud , an Afghan vice president from 2004 to 2009 , who now owns a palatial home in Dubai , where , according to one cable , he was caught by customs officials carrying $ 52 million in unexplained cash
It seems from these cables that the U.S. often has to pay leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to be two-faced - otherwise they would just be one-faced and against the U.S. in both public and private
Are you still with me
Yes , these are our allies - people whose values we do not and never will share
`` O.K. , '' our Saudi , Gulf , Afghan and Pakistani allies tell us , `` we may not be perfect , but the guys who would replace us would be much worse
The Taliban and Al Qaeda are one-faced
They say what they mean in public and private : They hate America .
That 's true , but if we are stuck supporting bad regimes because only worse would follow , why ca n't we do anything to make them reform
That brings us to the sobering message in so many of these cables : America lacks leverage
America lacks leverage in the Middle East because we are addicted to oil
We are the addicts and they are the pushers , and addicts never tell the truth to their pushers
When we import $ 28 billion a month in oil , we ca n't say to the Saudis : `` We know the guys who would come after you would be much worse , but why do we have to choose between your misrule and corruption and their brutality and intolerance ?
We 're just stuck supporting a regime that , sure , fights Al Qaeda at home , but uses our money to fund a religious ideology , schools , mosques and books that ensure that Al Qaeda will always have a rich pool of recruits in Saudi Arabia and abroad
We also lack leverage with the Chinese on North Korea , or with regard to the value of China 's currency , because we 're addicted to their credit
Geopolitics is all about leverage
We can not make ourselves safer abroad unless we change our behavior at home
But our politics never connects the two
Think how different our conversations with Saudi Arabia would be if we were in the process of converting to electric cars powered by nuclear , wind , domestic natural gas and solar power
We could tell them that if we detect one more dollar of Saudi money going to the Taliban then they can protect themselves from Iran
Think how different our conversations with China would be if we had had a different savings rate the past 30 years and China was not holding $ 900 billion in U.S. Treasury securities - but was still dependent on the U.S. economy and technology
We would not be begging them to revalue their currency , and maybe our request that China prevent North Korea from shipping ballistic missile parts to Iran via Beijing airport -LRB- also in the cables -RRB- would n't be rebuffed so brusquely
And think how much more leverage our sanctions would have on Iran if oil were $ 20 a barrel and not $ 80 - and Iran 's mullah-dictators were bankrupt
Fifty years ago , the world was shaped in a certain way , to promote certain values , because America had the leverage to shape it that way
We have been steadily losing that leverage because of our twin addictions to Middle East oil and Chinese credit - and the WikiLeaks show just what crow we have to eat because of that
I know , some problems - like how we deal with a failing state like Pakistan that also has nukes - are innately hard , and ending our oil and credit addictions alone will not solve them
But it sure would give us more leverage to do so - and more insulation from the sheer madness of the Middle East if we ca n't
President Obama certainly showed leadership mettle in going against his own party 's base and ordering a troop surge into Afghanistan
He is going to have to be even more tough-minded , though , to make sure his policy is properly executed
I 've already explained why I oppose this escalation
But since the decision has been made and I do not want my country to fail or the Obama presidency to sink in Afghanistan here are some thoughts on how to reduce the chances that this ends badly
Let 's start by recalling an insight that President John F. Kennedy shared in a Sept. 2 , 1963 , interview with Walter Cronkite : Cronkite : `` Mr. President , the only hot war we 've got running at the moment is , of course , the one in Vietnam , and we have our difficulties there .
Kennedy : `` I do n't think that unless a greater effort is made by the -LRB- Vietnamese -RRB- government to win popular support that the war can be won out there
In the final analysis , it is their war
They are the ones who have to win it or lose it
We can help them ; we can give them equipment ; we can send our men out there as advisers
But they have to win it , the people of Vietnam , against the Communists
We are prepared to continue to assist them , but I do n't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and , in my opinion , in the last two months , the -LRB- Vietnamese -RRB- government has gotten out of touch with the people
... '' Cronkite : `` Do you think this government still has time to regain the support of the people ?
Kennedy : `` I do
With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can
If it does n't make those changes , the chances of winning it would not be very good .
What J.F.K. understood , what L.B.J. lost sight of , and what B.H.O. ca n't afford to forget , is that in the end it 's not about how many troops we send or deadlines we set
It is all about our Afghan partners
Afghanistan has gone into a tailspin largely because President Hamid Karzai 's government became dysfunctional and massively corrupt focused more on extracting revenues for private gain than on governing
That is why too many Afghans who cheered Karzai 's arrival in 2001 have now actually welcomed Taliban security and justice
`` In 2001 , most Afghan people looked to the United States not only as a potential mentor but as a model for successful democracy , '' Pashtoon Atif , a former aid worker from Kandahar , recently wrote in The Los Angeles Times
`` What we got instead was a free-for-all in which our leaders profited outrageously and unapologetically from a wealth of foreign aid coupled with a dearth of regulations .
Therefore , our primary goal has to be to build with Karzai an Afghan government that is `` decent enough '' to earn the loyalty of the Afghan people , so a critical mass of them will feel `` ownership '' of it and therefore be ready to fight to protect it
Because only then will there be a `` self-sustaining '' Afghan Army and state so we can begin to get out by the president 's July 2011 deadline without leaving behind a bloodbath
Focus on those key words : `` decent enough , '' `` ownership '' and `` self-sustaining .
Without minimally decent government , Afghans will not take ownership
If they do n't take ownership , they wo n't fight for it
And if they wo n't fight for it on their own , whatever progress we make will not be self-sustaining
It will just collapse when we leave
But here is what worries me : The president 's spokesman , Robert Gibbs , said flatly : `` This ca n't be nation-building .
And the president told a columnists ' lunch on Tuesday that he wants to avoid `` mission creep '' that takes on `` nation-building in Afghanistan .
I am sorry : This is only nation-building
You ca n't train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for
But that will require a transformation by Karzai , starting with the dismissal of his most corrupt aides and installing officials Afghans can trust
This surge also depends , the president indicated , on Pakistan ending its obsession with India
That obsession has led Pakistan to support the Taliban to control Afghanistan as part of its `` strategic depth '' vis - - vis India
Pakistan fights the Taliban who attack it , but nurtures the Taliban who want to control Afghanistan
So we now need this fragile Pakistan to stop looking for strategic depth against India in Afghanistan and to start building strategic depth at home , by reviving its economy and school system and preventing jihadists from taking over there
That is why Mr. Obama is going to have to make sure , every day , that Karzai does n't weasel out of reform or Pakistan wiggle out of shutting down Taliban sanctuaries or the allies wimp out on helping us
To put it succinctly : This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man , if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we wo n't be doing at all : nation-building in Afghanistan
For America 's sake , may it all come true
Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today
I understand why they are n't
They 're so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester 's tuition
But we must not take their quietism as license to do whatever we want with this bailout cash
They are going to have to pay this money back
And therefore , we have an incredibly weighty obligation to make sure that we not only spend every stimulus dollar wisely but also with an eye to creating new technologies
We not only need to bail out industries of the past but to build up industries of the future to offer the kind of big thinking and risk-taking that transforms enormous challenges into world-changing opportunities
That is what made the Greatest Generation great
This money ca n't just go to patch up our jalopies
`` Remember , this money will not be neutral , '' said Andy Karsner , a former U.S. assistant secretary of energy
`` We are talking about directing an unprecedented volume of cash at our housing , energy , transportation and infrastructure industries
This cash will either fortify the incumbent players and calcify the energy status quo , or it will facilitate the economic transformation we seek
The stimulus will either be white blood cells that will heal us or malignant cells that will continue to sap our strength .
Let 's get specific
When it comes to Detroit , my views are clear : I think we should be talking about `` bail , '' not `` bailouts , '' regarding the people running the Big Three car companies and the lawmakers who mindlessly protected them for so long
Still , I do not want to see jobs destroyed
But if taxpayers are going to give Detroit money , we must not entrust the spending to people who have run their businesses into the ground
You want my tax dollars
Then I want to see the precise production plans and timetables for the hybridization of all your cars and trucks within 36 months
I want every bailed-out car company to move to hybrid electric drive trains , because nothing would both improve mileage and emissions more and also stimulate a whole new 21st-century , job-creating industry : batteries
Big batteries that can store electricity for transportation and wind and solar generation are the indispensable enablers of the Energy Internet of the future
Any Detroit bailout has to serve that goal
A major electrification of drive trains in U.S.-made vehicles `` would induce explosive growth and investment in a domestic battery business , '' said Karsner
Europe , Japan and China are already dominating this industry
It 's the key to clean-tech and ultimately our national competitiveness
We ca n't allow ourselves to be battery importers in the 21st century the way we were oil importers in the 20th
The same applies to Barack Obama 's plans for a green stimulus in energy efficiency and infrastructure
It makes no sense to spend money on green infrastructure or a bailout of Detroit aimed at stimulating production of more fuel-efficient cars if it is not combined with a tax on carbon that would actually change consumer buying behavior
Many people will tell Mr. Obama that taxing carbon or gasoline now is a `` nonstarter .
It is the only starter
It is the game-changer
If you want to know where postponing it has gotten us , visit Detroit
No carbon tax or increased gasoline tax meant that every time the price of gasoline went down to $ 1 or $ 2 a gallon , consumers went back to buying gas guzzlers
And Detroit just fed their addictions so it never committed to a real energy-efficiency retooling of its fleet
R.I.P. If Mr. Obama is going to oversee a successful infrastructure stimulus , then it has to include not only a tax on carbon make it revenue-neutral and rebate it all by reducing payroll taxes but also new standards that gradually require utilities and home builders in states that receive money to build dramatically more energy-efficient power plants , commercial buildings and homes
This , too , would create whole new industries
Let us not mince words : The Obama presidency will be shaped in many ways by how it spends this stimulus
I am sure he will articulate the right goals
But if the means the price signals , conditions and standards that he imposes on his stimulus are not as creative , bold and tough as his goals , it will all be for naught
In sum , our kids will remember the Obama stimulus as either the burden of their lifetime or the investment of their lifetime
Let 's hope it 's the latter
I like that book title much better
Still Digging Given where we are , this tax-cut deal with the Republicans is the best President Obama could do since raising taxes in a recession would not have been a good idea and the Republicans had the votes to prevent it
But given where we need to go , this deal is just another shot of morphine to a country that needs to do things that are big and hard and still only wants to do things that are easy and small
It still feels to me as though we 're splitting the difference between the two parties , not making a difference for the country as a whole
More than ever , America today reminds me of a working couple where the husband has just lost his job , they have two kids in junior high school , a mortgage and they 're maxed out on their credit cards
On top of it all , they recently agreed to take in their troubled cousin , Kabul , who just ca n't get his act together and keeps bouncing from relative to relative
Meanwhile , their Indian nanny , who traded room and board for baby-sitting , just got accepted to M.I.T. on a full scholarship and will be leaving them in a few months
What to do
One strategy would be to hunker down , do n't spend a dime on anything other than food , the mortgage and paying off their credit card debts
They would get by , but there 's not much future in it
Another strategy would be to borrow against their life insurance policies to make up for the loss of income , keep living like they 're living , and hope that the husband 's job comes back before his unemployment checks run out
A third strategy - the right one - would be to tell themselves : `` You know , we 're in a totally new situation
Dad 's job is n't coming back
If we want a better future , we need a plan to cut , save and invest all at the same time , and as wisely as we possibly can , because we 've got no more cushion
Instead of Disney World this year , we 'll go camping in the state park and use those savings so that dad can go back and get a master 's degree
After all , unemployment among the college-educated is only around 5 percent
We 're also going to give up buying any new gadgets , cellphone apps or video games and use those savings to pay for extra tutoring in physics and violin for our boys
And , finally , we 're going to tell cousin Kabul that he needs to get a job , move into his own place and stand on his own two feet .
Like our mythical family , we need a plan , not just more sugar treats
Surely the cynical quote of the week - courtesy of The Daily Beast - goes to Dan Bartlett , the former George W. Bush administration spokesman who was speaking about the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that Bush `` temporarily '' put in place a decade ago : `` We knew that , politically , once you get it into law , it becomes almost impossible to remove it
That 's not a bad legacy
The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good , to tell you the truth .
Bartlett offered no thoughts as to how these budget-busting tax cuts will address our country 's deficiencies today - just a high-five that in the politics of sports , the G.O.P. just scored a goal on Obama
We do n't seem to realize : We 're in a hole and still digging
Our educational attainment levels are stagnating ; our infrastructure is fraying
We do n't have enough smart incentives to foster both innovation and manufacturing ; we 're not importing enough talent in an age when we have to compete for jobs with low-wage but high-skilled Indians and Chinese - and we 're still piling up debt
Responding to all this will require a whole new hybrid politics for where to cut , where to save , where to invest , where to tax and where to untax
Shaping that new politics is a revolutionary role I still hope President Obama will play
E.J. Dionne Jr. , in his Washington Post column , quoted Representative Tom Perriello , a Democrat of Virginia , as saying that voters are less interested in `` bipartisanship '' than `` postpartisanship .
He explained : `` What they 're looking for is someone who solves the problem , not for a solution that happens to be halfway between the two parties .
Read Tuesday 's article in this paper about how international education experts were stunned by the fact that students in Shanghai outscored their counterparts in dozens of other countries , in reading as well as in math and science , according to the results of the widely respected Program for International Student Assessment , or PISA , tests , which measure learning by 15-year-old students in 65 countries
Yes , Shanghai represents the best of China , but the best of China is now scoring better than anywhere else in the world
America 's 15-year-olds ranked 14th in reading skills , 17th in science and 25th in math , below the average
Economics is not war
It can be win-win , so it 's good for the world if China is doing better
But it ca n't be good for America if every time we come to a hard choice we borrow more money from a country that is not just out-saving and out-hustling us , but is also starting to out-educate us
We need a plan
One of the most telling but little-noted ironies of the U.S.-sponsored peace summit in Annapolis , Md. , was who on the Arab side did n't attend
Syria , a country we barely talk to , was there
Saudi Arabia , which never meets with Israelis , was there
No , the two no-shows were the two Arab countries liberated by U.S. troops from the grip of Saddam Hussein : Iraq and Kuwait
That 's right Iraq and Kuwait , the two Arab countries hosting the most U.S. troops , and the two Arab countries with probably the most active elected Parliaments , were both absent
The Kuwaitis asked not to be invited , and the Iraqis were invited but declined to come
Do n't get me wrong , I think Annapolis was useful
But when you toil for a year to throw a party and some of your worst enemies R.S.V.P. , but the two people whose lives you 've once saved do n't show up , it 's beyond rude
It 's interesting
It actually reveals the core problem we 're facing in the Middle East : all of these countries are deeply internally divided , some with active civil wars Palestine , Iraq , Lebanon and Afghanistan and some with latent ones
These divisions date from when these states were shaped by colonial pens , with boundaries that rarely reflected either shared ethnicity or a shared desire to live together
For decades , they were held together by colonial powers , the cold war , oil wealth or iron-fisted military dictators and monarchs
But lately the lids have started to loosen , and in those places with real Parliaments like the Palestinian territories , Lebanon , Iraq and Kuwait they tend to expose the depth of lingering divisions rather than express , or forge , a new consensus
These are divisions about basics , like the line between religion and state , the rights of women and minorities , and the role of citizens
Kuwait 's Parliament has a liberal minority and an Islamist majority , which does not like Israel -LRB- and does n't like Palestinians much either -RRB-
The Lebanese and Palestinian Parliaments are both paralyzed by discord
And Iraq
Sitting down with Israelis was only one of many things Iraqis ca n't agree on , which is why the U.S. military surge has not yet produced an upturn in national reconciliation
On Thursday , The Associated Press reported that a shouting match erupted in the Iraqi Parliament when a top Shiite lawmaker , Bahaa al-Aaraji , said he had evidence that a leading Sunni politician , Adnan al-Dulaimi , had branded Shiites `` heretics '' and had called their murder legitimate
We 're not talking Democrats and Republicans here
What we are trying to do in Iraq is unprecedented : we are hosting the first real horizontal dialogue in modern Arab history by the constituents of an Arab country on the assumption that if Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds could actually write their own social contract , it would mean that something other than top-down , iron-fist politics was possible for this part of the world
It is hugely important and next to impossible
Each of the Arab countries and Israel has `` its own Gaza , '' said Mamoun Fandy , director of Middle East programs at London 's International Institute of Strategic Studies
`` That is , an antipeace , fundamentalist , xenophobic faction , which wants to hold back any reconciliation
... Until each country confronts its own Gaza , it will have problems .
Including Iran
I 'm in Bahrain , just across the Persian Gulf from Iran , for the institute 's annual conference
A big Iranian delegation was scheduled to attend , alongside a big U.S. team
The Iranians canceled at the last minute
Internal fighting
`` All these countries are like unfinished novellas , '' said Stephen P. Cohen , author of the upcoming `` Beyond America 's Grasp , '' a history of the modern Middle East
Indeed , if you looked at just the key players Israel , Lebanon , the Palestinians , Egypt and Saudi Arabia `` their leaders who went to Annapolis were all embroiled in struggles with domestic opponents , '' which limited their room to maneuver , he said
Each one , he added , has a `` Party of God '' back home `` that believes it does n't have to pay attention to what the government says because it does n't recognize that government 's legitimacy to make big decisions .
That 's why these days big decisions get made by iron fists or they do n't get made
Power has become too fragmented
So unless there is more reconciliation within these countries , it is hard to see how there will be more reconciliation between them
Which is also why , I thought , that instead of Annapolis , the peace conference should have been held , symbolically , at Appomattox Court House , Va. , where on Palm Sunday , 1865 , Gen. R. E. Lee surrendered to Lt. Gen. U. S. Grant , ending the American Civil War and reunifying our country
Admission is only $ 4 and President Bush probably could have gotten a group rate
In 2006 , Ron Suskind published `` The One Percent Doctrine , '' a book about the U.S. war on terrorists after 9\/11
The title was drawn from an assessment by then-Vice President Dick Cheney , who , in the face of concerns that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear-weapons expertise to Al Qaeda , reportedly declared : `` If there 's a 1 % chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon , we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response .
Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat : a `` low-probability , high-impact event .
Soon after Suskind 's book came out , the legal scholar Cass Sunstein , who then was at the University of Chicago , pointed out that Mr. Cheney seemed to be endorsing the same `` precautionary principle '' that also animated environmentalists
Sunstein wrote in his blog : `` According to the Precautionary Principle , it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability , high-impact events such as climate change
Indeed , another vice president Al Gore can be understood to be arguing for a precautionary principle for climate change -LRB- though he believes that the chance of disaster is well over 1 percent -RRB- .
Of course , Mr. Cheney would never accept that analogy
Indeed , many of the same people who defend Mr. Cheney 's One Percent Doctrine on nukes tell us not to worry at all about catastrophic global warming , where the odds are , in fact , a lot higher than 1 percent , if we stick to business as usual
That is unfortunate , because Cheney 's instinct is precisely the right framework with which to think about the climate issue and this whole `` climategate '' controversy as well
`` Climategate '' was triggered on Nov. 17 when an unidentified person hacked into the e-mails and data files of the University of East Anglia 's Climatic Research Unit , one of the leading climate science centers in the world and then posted them on the Internet
In a few instances , they revealed some leading climatologists seemingly massaging data to show more global warming and excluding contradictory research
Frankly , I found it very disappointing to read a leading climate scientist writing that he used a `` trick '' to `` hide '' a putative decline in temperatures or was keeping contradictory research from getting a proper hearing
Yes , the climate-denier community , funded by big oil , has published all sorts of bogus science for years and the world never made a fuss
That , though , is no excuse for serious climatologists not adhering to the highest scientific standards at all times
That said , be serious : The evidence that our planet , since the Industrial Revolution , has been on a broad warming trend outside the normal variation patterns with periodic micro-cooling phases has been documented by a variety of independent research centers
As this paper just reported : `` Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year , which fueled claims of global cooling , a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending , according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday
The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record .
This is not complicated
We know that our planet is enveloped in a blanket of greenhouse gases that keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature
As we pump more carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases into that blanket from cars , buildings , agriculture , forests and industry , more heat gets trapped
What we do n't know , because the climate system is so complex , is what other factors might over time compensate for that man-driven warming , or how rapidly temperatures might rise , melt more ice and raise sea levels
It 's all a game of odds
We 've never been here before
We just know two things : one , the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years , so it is `` irreversible '' in real-time -LRB- barring some feat of geo-engineering -RRB- ; and two , that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash `` catastrophic '' warming
When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is `` irreversible '' and potentially `` catastrophic , '' I buy insurance
That is what taking climate change seriously is all about
If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy , but climate change turns out to be a hoax , what would be the result
Well , during a transition period , we would have higher energy prices
But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind , solar , nuclear and second-generation biofuels
We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull 's - eye on our backs ; our trade deficit would improve ; the dollar would strengthen ; and the air we breathe would be cleaner
In short , as a country , we would be stronger , more innovative and more energy independent
But if we do n't prepare , and climate change turns out to be real , life on this planet could become a living hell
And that 's why I 'm for doing the Cheney-thing on climate preparing for 1 percent
Maureen Dowd is off today
I took part in a `` qat chew '' the other day at the home of a Yemeni official
Never done that before
Qat is the mildly hallucinogenic leaf drug that Yemeni men stuff in their cheek after work and sometimes during
My hosts insisted that qat actually makes your senses sharper and that you could chew and chisel the top of a mosque minaret at the same time
I quit after 15 minutes , but the Yemeni officials , lawmakers and businessmen I was with chewed on for three hours and they made a lot of sense along the way
Most had been educated in America or had kids studying there , and they were all bemoaning how the decline of the Yemeni education system , the proliferation of exclusively religious schools here and the falloff in scholarships for Yemeni kids to study in America were producing a very different Yemeni generation than their own
They spoke fondly of U.S. schools that were based on merit , taught them to think freely and prepared them with the skills to thrive
So here is my new rule of thumb : For every Predator missile we fire at an Al Qaeda target here , we should help Yemen build 50 new modern schools that teach science and math and critical thinking to boys and girls
If we stick to something close to that ratio of targeted killings to targeted kindergartens , we have a chance to prevent Yemen from becoming an Al Qaeda breeding ground
Because right now there are some 300,000 college-educated Yemenis out of work partly because of poor training and partly because there are no jobs 15,000 schoolchildren not attending any classes , 65 percent of teachers with only high school degrees and thousands of kids learning little more than religious doctrines
And no wonder
Beginning in the 1970s , the trend in Yemen , Morocco , Egypt and the Persian Gulf `` was to Islamicize education as a way to fight the left and pro-communists with the blessing of the U.S. , '' explained Lahcen Haddad , a professor at the University of Rabat in Morocco and an expert on governance with Management Systems International , a U.S. development contractor
Then , in 1979 , after the Saudi ruling family was shaken by an attack in Mecca from its own Wahabi fundamentalists , the Saudi regime , to fend off the anger of its Wahabis , `` gave them free rein to Islamicize education and social life in Saudi Arabia and neighboring states .
`` Missions cultural and religious , semi-official and private roamed Islamic countries to spread the word , '' said Haddad
`` Cheap books followed , and students were brought to Saudi to learn from Wahabi preachers and teachers in the different religious universities that mushroomed in the '80s .
Small , economically deprived Yemen was an easy target
Uncritically accepting of the `` truths '' of Wahabism became the core curriculum in many Yemeni schools , Haddad added , and `` it destroyed the opportunity to build the basic skills necessary to train the right labor force skills like problem-solving , communication , critical thinking , debate , organization and teamwork .
America 's last great ideological foe , Soviet Marxism , produced its share of violent radicals , but it also produced Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn because it believed in science , physics , math and the classics of literature
Islamism is not producing any Sakharovs
May Yamani , the author and daughter of the former Saudi oil minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani , minced no words , writing in The Beirut Daily Star : `` Saudi Arabia exported both its Wahabism and Al Qaeda to Yemen by funding thousands of madrassas , where fanaticism is taught .
Ahmed Sofan , a Yemeni parliamentarian , told me that back in the 1970s if you visited a village in his rural constituency , most of the women would be unveiled and working alongside the men
No more , he said , `` because we now have this Wahabi sense of religious conservatism where women are supposed to be inside and be veiled .
Added Abdul Karim al-Iryani , a former prime minister : Growing up , `` we studied Darwinism in my high school without challenge .
Not anymore
`` The East Asian miracle , '' he added , `` was n't possible without women
In the Arab world , if half our society is excluded , how will we ever catch up with those new tigers ?
The Yemeni journalist Mohammed al-Qadhi reported in The National newspaper that there may be 10,000 religious-based schools educating Yemeni youth today
He quoted a top Yemeni education official as saying , `` We are now obliging these schools to teach moderation to protect our students against extremism .
In other words , we are now fighting for the Middle East of the 2020s and 2030s
Huge chunks of this generation are lost
When I went to see Yemen 's president , Ali Abdullah Saleh , at his Sana palace , he was in a reflective mood : `` I would wish that this arms race could end and instead we could have a race for development .
It is the only way Yemen will have a future
So , yes , fire those Predators where we must , but help build schools and fund scholarships to America wherever we can
And please , please , let 's end our addiction to oil , which is what gives the Saudi religious ministry and charities the money to spread anti-modernist thinking across this region
`` All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians , Chinese and Koreans , '' said Shekhar Gupta , editor of The Indian Express newspaper
`` We will buy up all the subprime homes
We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them
We will immediately improve your savings rate no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here
And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans .
While his tongue was slightly in cheek , Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best : `` Dear America , please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history
It was n't through protectionism , or state-owned banks or fearing free trade
No , the formula was very simple : build this really flexible , really open economy , tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies , pour into it the most diverse , smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat , stir and repeat , stir and repeat , stir and repeat .
While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan , the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas
Bad signal
In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have , why would we add barriers against such brainpower anywhere
That 's called `` Old Europe .
That 's spelled : S-T-U-P-I-D
`` If you do this , it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans , -LRB- because -RRB- Indians will be forced to innovate at home , '' said Subhash B. Dhar , a member of the executive council that runs Infosys , the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms
`` We protected our jobs for many years and look where it got us
Do you know that for an Indian company , it is still easier to do business with a company in the U.S. than it is to do business today with another Indian state ?
Each Indian state tries to protect its little economy with its own rules
America should not be trying to copy that
`` Your attitude , '' said Dhar , should be '' ` whoever can make us competitive and dominant , let 's bring them in . '
If there is one thing we know for absolute certain , it 's this : Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression , but it sure helped to make it `` Great .
From 1929 to 1934 , world trade plunged by more than 60 percent and we were all worse off
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy , the faster your incomes will rise
Therefore , the centerpiece of our stimulus , the core driving principle , should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores
That is the best way to create good jobs
According to research by Vivek Wadhwa , a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School , more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade
These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $ 52 billion in 2005 , said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com
He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that `` found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down , so did patent applications filed by immigrants -LRB- in the U.S. -RRB-
And when H-1B visa numbers went up , patent applications followed suit .
We do n't want to come out of this crisis with just inflation , a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs
We want to we have to come out of it with a new Intel , Google , Microsoft and Apple
I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today in the clean-energy space they 're dying like flies because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources
Newsweek had an essay this week that began : `` Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit ?
Well , yes , it could
When the best brains in the world are on sale , you do n't shut them out
You open your doors wider
We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks , and with start-ups not just bailouts
One Detroit is enough
Out of Touch , Out of Time Watching President Hosni Mubarak addressing his nation Thursday night , explaining why he would not be drummed out of office by foreigners , I felt embarrassed for him and worried for Egypt
This man is staggeringly out of touch with what is happening inside his country
This is Rip Van Winkle meets Facebook
The fact that the several hundred thousand Egyptians in Tahrir Square reacted to Mubarak 's speech by waving their shoes - they surely would have thrown them at him if he had been in range - and shouting `` go away , go away , '' pretty much sums up the reaction
Mubarak , in one speech , shifted this Egyptian democracy drama from mildly hopeful , even thrilling , to dangerous
All day here there was a drumbeat of leaks that the fix was in : Mubarak was leaving , the army leadership was meeting and Vice President Omar Suleiman would oversee the constitutional reform process
The fact that this did not turn out to be the case suggests there is some kind of a split in the leadership of the Egyptian Army , between the anti-Mubarak factions leaking his departure and the pro-Mubarak factions helping him to stay
The words of Mubarak and Suleiman directed to the democracy demonstrators could not have been more insulting : `` Trust us
We 'll take over the reform agenda now
You all can go back home , get back to work and stop letting those foreign satellite TV networks - i.e. , Al Jazeera - get you so riled up
Also , do n't let that Obama guy dictate to us proud Egyptians what to do .
This narrative is totally out of touch with the reality of this democracy uprising in Tahrir Square , which is all about the self-empowerment of a long-repressed people no longer willing to be afraid , no longer willing to be deprived of their freedom , and no longer willing to be humiliated by their own leaders , who told them for 30 years that they were not ready for democracy
Indeed , the Egyptian democracy movement is everything that Hosni Mubarak says it is not : homegrown , indefatigable and authentically Egyptian
Future historians will write about the large historical forces that created this movement , but it is the small stories you encounter in Tahrir Square that show why it is unstoppable
I spent part of the morning in the square watching and photographing a group of young Egyptian students wearing plastic gloves taking garbage in both hands and neatly scooping it into black plastic bags to keep the area clean
This touched me in particular because more than once in this column I have quoted the aphorism that `` in the history of the world no one has ever washed a rented car .
I used it to make the point that no one has ever washed a rented country either - and for the last century Arabs have just been renting their countries from kings , dictators and colonial powers
So , they had no desire to wash them
Well , Egyptians have stopped renting , at least in Tahrir Square , where a sign hung Thursday said : `` Tahrir - the only free place in Egypt .
So I went up to one of these young kids on garbage duty - Karim Turki , 23 , who worked in a skin-care shop - and asked him : `` Why did you volunteer for this ?
He could n't get the words out in broken English fast enough : `` This is my earth
This is my country
This is my home
I will clean all Egypt when Mubarak will go out .
Ownership is a beautiful thing
As I was leaving the garbage pile , I ran into three rather prosperous-looking men who wanted to talk
One of them , Ahmed Awn , 31 , explained that he was financially comfortable and even stood to lose if the turmoil here continued , but he wanted to join in for reasons so much more important than money
Before this uprising , he said , `` I was not proud to tell people I was an Egyptian
Today , with what 's been done here '' in Tahrir Square , `` I can proudly say again I am an Egyptian .
Humiliation is the single most powerful human emotion , and overcoming it is the second most powerful human emotion
That is such a big part of what is playing out here
Finally , crossing the Nile bridge away from the square , I was stopped by a well-dressed Egyptian man - a Times reader - who worked in Saudi Arabia
He was with his wife and two young sons
He told me that he came to Cairo Thursday to take his two sons to see , hear , feel and touch Tahrir Square
`` I want it seared in their memory , '' he told me
It seemed to be his way of ensuring that this autocracy never returns
These are the people whom Mubarak is accusing of being stirred up entirely by foreigners
In truth , the Tahrir movement is one of the most authentic , most human , quests for dignity and freedom that I have ever seen
But rather than bowing to that , retiring gracefully and turning over the presidency either to the army or some kind of presidency council made up of respected figures to oversee the transition to democracy , Mubarak seems determined to hang on in a way that , at best , will slow down Egypt 's evolution to democracy and , at worst , take a grass-roots , broad-based Egyptian nonviolent democracy movement and send it into a rage
They Did It In the end , President Obama made a hugely important but unintended contribution to the democracy revolution in Egypt
Because the Obama team never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over , the people in that square now know one very powerful thing : They did this all by themselves
That is so important
One of the most powerful chants I heard in the square on Friday night was : `` The people made the regime step down .
This sense of self-empowerment and authenticity - we did this for ourselves , by ourselves - is what makes Egypt 's democracy movement such a potential game-changer for the whole region
And in case other autocrats have n't picked up on that , let me share my second favorite chant from the streets of Cairo after President Hosni Mubarak resigned
It was directed at the dictator next door , Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya , and it went like this : `` We 're not leaving Tahrir until Qaddafi leaves office .
Hello , Tripoli
Cairo calling
This could get interesting - for all the region 's autocrats
Egypt 's youthful and resourceful democrats are just getting started
Up to now , the democracy movement in the Arab world was largely confined to the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq , which , because it was U.S.-led , has not been able to serve as a model for emulation
If , and it remains a big if , Egypt can now make the transition to democracy , led by its own youth and under the protection of its own armed forces , watch out
The message coming out of Cairo will be : We tried Nasserism ; we tried Islamism ; and now we 're trying democracy
But not democracy imported from Britain or delivered by America - democracy conceived , gestated and born in Tahrir Square
That will resonate among Arabs - and in Iran
Some people worry , though , that the Egyptian Army will strangle this Egyptian democracy movement in its crib
Personally , I think the army leadership is a little afraid of the Twitter-enabled Tahrir youth
The democracy movement that came out of Tahrir Square is like a tiger that has been living in a tiny cage for 30 years
Having watched it get loose , there are two things I would say about this tiger
One is that anyone who tries to put it back in that little cage will get his head bitten off
And , two , any politician who tries to ride the tiger for his own narrow interests , not for the benefit Egypt , will get eaten by it as well
Iran , the other day , issued a declaration urging the Tahrir youth to make an `` Islamic revolution , '' and none other than Egypt 's Muslim Brotherhood told Tehran to get lost because the democracy movement here is pan-Egyptian and includes Christians and Muslims
But here 's the big question in Egypt now : Can this youth-led democracy movement take the power and energy it developed in Tahrir Square , which was all focused on one goal - getting rid of Hosni Mubarak - and turn it into a sustainable transition to democracy , with a new constitution , multiple political parties and a free presidential election in a timely fashion
Here , the movement 's strength - the fact that it represented every political strain , every segment and class in Egyptian society - is also its weakness
It still has no accepted political platform or leadership
`` It is essential that the democracy movement now form its own leadership and lay down its own vision and priorities which it can hold the government to
Otherwise , all this effort can be lost , '' cautioned Rachid Mohamed Rachid , the liberal former minister of trade and industry , who declined to continue serving in Mubarak 's cabinet before the revolt happened
`` They have to have a vision of what Egyptian education should be , about agriculture policy and human rights
Getting rid of Mubarak was not the only hope
That ultimate goal is to have a new Egypt .
Ever since this revolt started , America , Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed to hope that there were two choices here - one called `` stability '' that would somehow involve Mubarak , and the other called `` instability , '' which was to be avoided
Well , let me put this as plainly as possible : Here in Egypt , stability has left the building
For which I say : good riddance
Or as Ahmed Zewail , the Egyptian-American Nobel Prize-winning chemist , put it to me : Egypt was stable these past 30 years because it had no vision , no aspiration and was `` stagnating .
That kind of stability could n't last
That 's why today Egypt has before it only two paths , and both are unstable
One is where this democracy movement falters and Egypt turns into an angry Pakistan , as it was under the generals
And the other is the necessarily unstable , up and down transition to democracy , which ends stably with Egypt looking like Indonesia or South Africa
This will be hard
Many tough days lie ahead , but they will be made much easier thanks to the self-confidence bred here among Egypt 's youth the past three weeks
Watching so many Egyptians take pride in their generally peaceful birth of freedom - to listen to them say in different ways to themselves and each other , `` I am somebody '' - was to witness one of the great triumphs of the human spirit
Visiting Yemen and watching the small band of young reformers there struggle against the forces of separatism , Islamism , autocracy and terrorism , reminded me that the key forces shaping this region today were really set in motion between 1977 and 1979 and nothing much has changed since
Indeed , one could say Middle East politics today is a struggle between 1977 and 1979 and 1979 is still winning
How so
Following the defeat of Egypt and other Arab armies by Israel in the 1967 war , Nasserism , a k a Arab nationalism , the abiding ideology of the day , was demolished
In its wake came two broad alternatives : The first , manifested by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in his 1977 trip to Israel , was a bid to cast the Arab world 's future with the West , economic liberalization , modernization and acceptance of Israel
The weakness of `` Sadatism , '' though , was that it was an elite ideology with no cultural roots
The Egyptian state made peace with Israel , but Arab societies never followed
The second Arab-Muslim response emerged in 1979
To start , there was the takeover that year of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamist extremists who challenged the religious credentials of the Saudi ruling family
The Saudi rulers responded by forging a new bargain with their Islamists : Let us stay in power and we will give you a free hand in setting social norms , relations between the sexes and religious education inside Saudi Arabia and abundant resources to spread Sunni Wahabi fundamentalism abroad
The Saudi lurch backward coincided with Iran 's revolution in 1979 , which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power
That revolution set up a competition between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia for who was the real leader of the Muslim world , and it triggered a surge in oil prices that gave both fundamentalist regimes the resources to export their brands of puritanical Islam , through mosques and schools , farther than ever
`` Islam lost its brakes in 1979 , '' said Mamoun Fandy , a Middle East expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London
And there was no moderate countertrend
Finally , also in 1979 , the Soviets invaded Afghanistan
Arab and Muslim mujahedeen fighters flocked to the cause financed by Saudi Arabia at America 's behest and in the process shifted Pakistan and Afghanistan in much more Islamist directions
Once these hard-core Muslim fighters , led by the likes of Osama bin Laden , defeated the Soviets , they turned their guns on America and its Arab allies
In a smart essay in The Wall Street Journal , titled `` The Radical Legacy of 1979 , '' the retired U.S. diplomat Edward Djerejian , who led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1979 , noted : `` Last year we celebrated the great historic achievements marked by the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent unification of Germany
But we should also remember that events in the broader Middle East of 30 years ago have left , in sharp contrast , a bitter and dangerous legacy .
In short , the Middle East we are dealing with today is the product of long-term trends dating back to 1979
And have no illusions , we propelled those trends
America looked the other way when Saudi Arabia Wahabi-fied itself
Ronald Reagan glorified the Afghan mujahedeen and the Europeans hailed the Khomeini revolution in Iran as a `` liberation '' event
I believe the only way the forces of 1979 can be rolled back would be with another equally big bang a new popular movement that is truly reformist , democratizing , open to the world , yet anchored in Muslim culture , not disconnected
Our best hopes are the fragile democratizing trends in Iraq , the tentative green revolution in Iran , plus the young reformers now coming of age in every Arab country
But it will not be easy
The young reformers today `` do not have a compelling story to tell , '' remarked Lahcen Haddad , a political scientist at Rabat University in Morocco
`` And they face a meta-narrative '' first developed by Nasser and later adopted by the Islamists `` that mobilizes millions and millions
That narrative says : ` The Arabs and Muslims are victims of an imperialist-Zionist conspiracy aided by reactionary regimes in the Arab world
It has as its goal keeping the Arabs and Muslims backward in order to exploit their oil riches and prevent them from becoming as strong as they used to be in the Middle Ages because that is dangerous for Israel and Western interests . '
Today that meta-narrative is embraced across the Arab-Muslim political spectrum , from the secular left to the Islamic right
Deconstructing that story , and rebuilding a post-1979 alternative story based on responsibility , modernization , Islamic reformation and cross-cultural dialogue , is this generation 's challenge
I think it can happen , but it will require the success of the democratizing self-government movements in Iran and Iraq
That would spawn a whole new story
I know it 's a long shot , but I 'll continue to hope for it
I 've been chewing a lot of qat lately , and it makes me dreamy
So I am attending the Energy and Resources Institute climate conference in New Delhi , and during the afternoon session two young American women along with one of their mothers proposition me
`` Hey , Mr. Friedman , '' they say , `` would you like to take a little spin around New Delhi in our car ?
Oh , I say , I 've heard that line before
Ah , they say , but you have n't seen this car before
It 's a plug-in electric car that is also powered by rooftop solar panels and the two young women , recent Yale grads , had just driven it all over India in a `` climate caravan '' to highlight the solutions to global warming being developed by Indian companies , communities , campuses and innovators , as well as to inspire others to take action
They ask me if I want to drive , but I have visions of being stopped by the cops and ending up in a New Delhi jail
Not to worry , they tell me
Indian cops have been stopping them all across India
First , they ask to see driver 's licenses , then they inquire about how the green car 's solar roof manages to provide 10 percent of its mileage and then they try to buy the car
We head off down Panchsheel Marg , one of New Delhi 's main streets
The ladies want to show me something
The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel , directly across from each other
They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy
What do I notice
Let 's see ... The U.S. Embassy 's roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear
The Chinese Embassy 's roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters
You could n't make this up
But trying to do something about it was just one of many reasons my hosts , Caroline Howe , 23 , a mechanical engineer on leave from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies , and Alexis Ringwald , a Fulbright scholar in India and now a solar entrepreneur , joined with Kartikeya Singh , who was starting the Indian Youth Climate Network , or IYCN , to connect young climate leaders in India , a country coming under increasing global pressure to manage its carbon footprint
`` India is full of climate innovators , so spread out across this huge country that many people do n't get to see that these solutions are working right now , '' said Howe
`` We wanted to find a way to bring people together around existing solutions to inspire more action and more innovation
There 's no time left to just talk about the problem .
Howe and Ringwald thought the best way to do that might be a climate solutions road tour , using modified electric cars from India 's Reva Electric Car Company , whose C.E.O. Ringwald knew
They persuaded him to donate three of his cars and to retrofit them with longer-life batteries that could travel 90 miles on a single six-hour charge and to lay on a solar roof that would extend them farther
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5 , they drove the cars on a 2,100-mile trip from Chennai to New Delhi , stopping in 15 cities and dozens of villages , training Indian students to start their own climate action programs and filming 20 videos of India 's top home-grown energy innovations
They also brought along a solar-powered band , plus a luggage truck that ran on plant oil extracted from jatropha and pongamia , plants locally grown on wasteland
A Bollywood dance group joined at different stops and a Czech who learned about their trip on YouTube hopped on with his truck that ran on vegetable-oil waste
Deepa Gupta , 21 , a co-founder of IYCN , told The Hindustan Times that the trip opened her eyes to just how many indigenous energy solutions were budding in India `` like organic farming in Andhra Pradesh , or using neem and garlic as pesticides , or the kind of recycling in slums , such as Dharavi
We saw things already in place , like the Gadhia solar plant in Valsad , Gujarat , where steam is used for cooking and you can feed almost 50,000 people in one go .
-LRB- See : www.indiaclimatesolutions.com .
At Rajpipla , in Gujarat , when they stopped at a local prince 's palace to recharge their cars , they discovered that his business was cultivating worms and selling them as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers
I met Howe and Ringwald after a tiring day , but I have to admit that as soon as they started telling me their story it really made me smile
After a year of watching adults engage in devastating recklessness in the financial markets and depressing fecklessness in the global climate talks , it 's refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act , but are starting their own projects and driving innovation
`` Why did this tour happen ?
asked Ringwald
`` Why this mad , insane plan to travel across India in a caravan of solar electric cars and jatropha trucks with solar music , art , dance and a potent message for climate solutions
Well ... the world needs crazy ideas to change things , because the conventional way of thinking is not working anymore .
Pharaoh Without a Mummy For the last 30 years , that has been the bad news
Egypt was in a state of drift and decline and , as a result , so was the Arab world at large
Egypt has now been awakened by its youth in a unique way - not to fight Israel , or America , but in a quest for personal empowerment , dignity and freedom
In this part of the world , people have very sensitive antennae for legitimacy and authenticity because they have been fed so many lies by their leaders
Because Egypt 's democracy revolution is so homegrown because the young people who led it suffered more dead to liberate Egypt than the entire Egyptian Army has suffered since the 1973 war to defend it , this movement here has enormous Arab street cred - and that is why , if it succeeds -LRB- and the odds are still long -RRB- , other young Arabs and Muslims will emulate it
Indeed , if it can move Egypt to democracy , this movement , combined with social media , will be more subversive to autocratic regimes than Nasserism , Islamism or Baathism combined
What emerged from below in Egypt is , for now , the first pan-Arab movement that is not focused on expelling someone , or excluding someone , but on universal values with the goal of overcoming the backwardness produced by all previous ideologies and leaders
I understand why Israel is worried ; a stable relationship with Hosni Mubarak has given way to a totally uncertain relationship with Egypt 's people
But Egypt 's stability under Mubarak was at the expense of those people , and they finally had had enough
There will be ugliness aplenty in the days ahead as Egyptians are free to vent
There is still a lot of pent-up fear and anger boiling here
But at least other authentic voices , with a different , more hopeful song , are also emerging
Every Israeli and Saudi should watch this video made by the youth in Tahrir - www.memritv.org/clip/en/2804.htm - about their quest to bring their country `` back from the dead .
The Arab tyrants , precisely because they were illegitimate , were the ones who fed their people hatred of Israel as a diversion
If Israel could finalize a deal with the Palestinians , it will find that a more democratic Arab world is a more stable partner
Not because everyone will suddenly love Israel -LRB- they wo n't -RRB-
But because the voices that would continue calling for conflict would have legitimate competition , and democratically elected leaders will have to be much more responsive to their people 's priorities , which are for more schools not wars
That is why the most valuable thing America could do now is to help Egypt 's democracy movement consolidate itself
And the best way to do that would be to speak its language
It would be to announce that the U.S. intends to divert $ 100 million of the $ 1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt this year to build 10 world-class science and technology high schools - from Aswan to Alexandria - in honor of all Egyptians who brought about this democratic transformation
`` Nothing would have a bigger impact here , '' said Ahmed Zewail , the Egyptian-American Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry
Nothing would have a bigger impact on youth across the Middle East
After all , the Egyptian Army has no external predators today
Egypt 's only predators today are poverty and illiteracy
Forty percent of Egyptians live on $ 2 a day and some 30 percent are illiterate
On my way back from Tahrir Square on Saturday , I ran into five young Egyptians who were trying to wipe off `` Leave Now , Mubarak '' graffiti spray-painted on a stone wall
You do n't see students removing graffiti very often , so I asked them why
`` Because he is not our president anymore , '' said a youth with the rubber gloves and solvent
They just did n't want to see his name anymore - even as the object of an insult
As I kept walking to my hotel , I realized why
When I looked down at the Nile embankment - and this was central Cairo - all I saw was garbage strewn about , a crumbling sidewalk and weeds sprouting everywhere
I thought : If this were Sydney , Singapore or Istanbul , the government would have built a beautiful walkway along the banks of the Nile where Egyptians and visitors could stroll with families in the afternoon
Not here
And that in my view was Mubarak 's greatest crime against his people
He had no vision , no high aspiration , no will for great educational attainment
He just had this wildly exaggerated sense of Egypt 's greatness based on the past
That is why I feel sorry for those Egyptians now clamoring to get back money they claim the Mubaraks stole
That is surely a crime , if true , but Mubarak is guilty of a much bigger , more profound , theft : all the wealth Egypt did not generate these past 30 years because of the poverty of his vision and the incompetence of his cronies
`` He is a pharaoh without a mummy , '' the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem said to me of Mubarak
He left little trace
`` Every Egyptian citizen is carrying inside them 100 short stories of pain and novels of grievance
Everyone has to pay for their children to take private lessons after school because the schools are so bad
Can you imagine
You prevent yourself from eating to pay for private lessons ?
At least these rebellious youth , he added , `` do n't know the rules , so they are not afraid of anything
They can do what our generation did not dare to think of .
Of the festivals of nonsense that periodically overtake American politics , surely the silliest is the argument that because Washington is having a particularly snowy winter it proves that climate change is a hoax and , therefore , we need not bother with all this girly-man stuff like renewable energy , solar panels and carbon taxes
Just drill , baby , drill
When you see lawmakers like Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina tweeting that `` it is going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries ` uncle , ' '' or news that the grandchildren of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma are building an igloo next to the Capitol with a big sign that says `` Al Gore 's New Home , '' you really wonder if we can have a serious discussion about the climate-energy issue anymore
The climate-science community is not blameless
It knew it was up against formidable forces from the oil and coal companies that finance the studies skeptical of climate change to conservatives who hate anything that will lead to more government regulations to the Chamber of Commerce that will resist any energy taxes
Therefore , climate experts ca n't leave themselves vulnerable by citing non-peer-reviewed research or failing to respond to legitimate questions , some of which happened with both the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Although there remains a mountain of research from multiple institutions about the reality of climate change , the public has grown uneasy
What 's real
In my view , the climate-science community should convene its top experts from places like NASA , America 's national laboratories , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Stanford , the California Institute of Technology and the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre and produce a simple 50-page report
They could call it `` What We Know , '' summarizing everything we already know about climate change in language that a sixth grader could understand , with unimpeachable peer-reviewed footnotes
At the same time , they should add a summary of all the errors and wild exaggerations made by the climate skeptics and where they get their funding
It is time the climate scientists stopped just playing defense
The physicist Joseph Romm , a leading climate writer , is posting on his Web site , climateprogress.org , his own listing of the best scientific papers on every aspect of climate change for anyone who wants a quick summary now
Here are the points I like to stress : 1 -RRB- Avoid the term `` global warming .
I prefer the term `` global weirding , '' because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes
The weather gets weird
The hots are expected to get hotter , the wets wetter , the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous
The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada , while Australia is having a record 13-year drought is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts : The weather will get weird ; some areas will get more precipitation than ever ; others will become drier than ever
2 -RRB- Historically , we know that the climate has warmed and cooled slowly , going from Ice Ages to warming periods , driven , in part , by changes in the earth 's orbit and hence the amount of sunlight different parts of the earth get
What the current debate is about is whether humans by emitting so much carbon and thickening the greenhouse-gas blanket around the earth so that it traps more heat are now rapidly exacerbating nature 's natural warming cycles to a degree that could lead to dangerous disruptions
3 -RRB- Those who favor taking action are saying : `` Because the warming that humans are doing is irreversible and potentially catastrophic , let 's buy some insurance by investing in renewable energy , energy efficiency and mass transit because this insurance will also actually make us richer and more secure .
We will import less oil , invent and export more clean-tech products , send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil and , most importantly , diminish the dollars that are sustaining the worst petro-dictators in the world who indirectly fund terrorists and the schools that nurture them
4 -RRB- Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear , in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050 , more and more of whom will live like Americans , demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar
It is obviously going to be the next great global industry
China , of course , understands that , which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech , efficiency and high-speed rail
It sees the future trends and is betting on them
Indeed , I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now
And Iran , Russia , Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other
Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change , and , therefore , less inclined to move toward clean-tech and , therefore , more certain to remain addicted to oil
Yes , sir , it is morning in Saudi Arabia
Maureen Dowd is off today
There are nine bodies all of them young men that have been lying in a Mumbai hospital morgue since Nov. 29
They may be stranded there for a while because no local Muslim charity is willing to bury them in its cemetery
This is good news
The nine are the Pakistani Muslim terrorists who went on an utterly senseless killing rampage in Mumbai on 26\/11 India 's 9\/11 gunning down more than 170 people , including 33 Muslims , scores of Hindus , as well as Christians and Jews
It was killing for killing 's sake
They did n't even bother to leave a note
All nine are still in the morgue because the leadership of India 's Muslim community has called them by their real name `` murderers '' not `` martyrs '' and is refusing to allow them to be buried in the main Muslim cemetery of Mumbai , the 7.5-acre Bada Kabrastan graveyard , run by the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust
`` People who committed this heinous crime can not be called Muslim , '' Hanif Nalkhande , a spokesman for the trust , told The Times of London
Eventually , one assumes , they will have to be buried , but the Mumbai Muslims remain defiant
`` Indian Muslims are proud of being both Indian and Muslim , and the Mumbai terrorism was a war against both India and Islam , '' explained M.J. Akbar , the Indian-Muslim editor of Covert , an Indian investigative journal
`` Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine
The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is ` fasad .
Terrorists are fasadis , not jihadis
In a beautiful verse , the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community
Since the ... terrorists were neither Indian nor true Muslims , they had no right to an Islamic burial in an Indian Muslim cemetery .
To be sure , Mumbai 's Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a predominantly Hindu country
Nevertheless , their in-your-face defiance of the Islamist terrorists stands out
It stands out against a dismal landscape of predominantly Sunni Muslim suicide murderers who have attacked civilians in mosques and markets from Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan but who have been treated by mainstream Arab media , like Al Jazeera , or by extremist Islamist spiritual leaders and Web sites , as `` martyrs '' whose actions deserve praise
Extolling or excusing suicide militants as `` martyrs '' has only led to this awful phenomenon where young Muslim men and women are recruited to kill themselves and others spreading wider and wider
What began in a targeted way in Lebanon and Israel has now proliferated to become an almost weekly occurrence in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan
It is a threat to any open society because when people turn themselves into bombs , they ca n't be deterred , and the measures needed to interdict them require suspecting and searching everyone at any public event
And they are a particular threat to Muslim communities
You ca n't build a healthy society on the back of suicide-bombers , whose sole objective is to wreak havoc by exclusively and indiscriminately killing as many civilians as possible
If suicide-murder is deemed legitimate by a community when attacking its `` enemies '' abroad , it will eventually be used as a tactic against `` enemies '' at home , and that is exactly what has happened in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan
The only effective way to stop this trend is for `` the village '' the Muslim community itself to say `` no more .
When a culture and a faith community delegitimizes this kind of behavior , openly , loudly and consistently , it is more important than metal detectors or extra police
Religion and culture are the most important sources of restraint in a society
That 's why India 's Muslims , who are the second-largest Muslim community in the world after Indonesia 's , and the one with the deepest democratic tradition , do a great service to Islam by delegitimizing suicide-murderers by refusing to bury their bodies
It wo n't stop this trend overnight , but it can help over time
`` The Muslims of Bombay deserve to be congratulated in taking this important decision , '' Raashid Alvi , a Muslim member of India 's Parliament from the Congress Party , said to me
`` Islam says that if you commit suicide , then even after death you will be punished .
The fact that Indian Muslims have stood up in this way is surely due , in part , to the fact that they live in , are the product of and feel empowered by a democratic and pluralistic society
They are not intimidated by extremist religious leaders and are not afraid to speak out against religious extremism in their midst
It is why so few , if any , Indian Muslims are known to have joined Al Qaeda
And it is why , as outrageously expensive and as uncertain the outcome , trying to build decent , pluralistic societies in places like Iraq is not as crazy as it seems
It takes a village , and without Arab-Muslim societies where the villagers feel ownership over their lives and empowered to take on their own extremists militarily and ideologically this trend will not go away
In its own unpredictable way , the Davos World Economic Forum usually serves as a crude barometer of the latest mood or mania on the world stage
This year did not disappoint
What has struck me is the quiet urgency that infused so many panel discussions and private conversations here between investors , politicians and social activists
To put it crudely : everyone is looking for the guy the guy who can tell you exactly what ails the world 's financial system , exactly how we get out of this mess and exactly what you should be doing to protect your savings
But here 's what 's really scary : the guy is n't here
He 's left the building
Elvis has left the mountain
Get used to it
What do I mean
First , if it is not apparent to you yet , it will be soon : there is no magic bullet for this economic crisis , no magic bailout package , no magic stimulus
We have woven such a tangled financial mess with subprime mortgages wrapped in complex bonds and derivatives , pumped up with leverage , and then globalized to the far corners of the earth that , much as we want to think this will soon be over , that is highly unlikely
We are going to have to learn to live with a lot more uncertainty for a lot longer than our generation has ever experienced
We keep pouring money into the dark banking hole of this crisis , desperately hoping that we will hear it hit bottom and start to pile up
But so far , as hard as we listen , we ca n't hear a thing
And so we keep pouring ... A broker friend told me it reminded him of when he was a teenager and his doctor first diagnosed him as unable to digest wheat products
He said to the doctor , `` Well , just give me a pill .
And the doctor told him : there is no pill
`` You mean I 'm just going to have to live with this ?
he asked
That 's us
There is no pill not for this mess
The fact that there is no single pill does n't mean there 's nothing to be done
We need a stimulus big enough to create more jobs
We need to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets
We need the Treasury to close the insolvent banks , merge the weak ones and strengthen the healthy few
And we need to do each one right
But even then , the turnaround will be neither quick nor painless
Indeed , the whispers here were that what has been an exclusively economic crisis up to now may soon morph into a domino of political crises as happened in Iceland , where the bankruptcy of the banks toppled the government on Monday
#NAME?
Answer : $ 25 .
Second , we 're going to have to get used to a loss of trust
All those rock-solid people and institutions that we trusted with our money , our pensions and our kids ' piggybank savings like Citigroup , Merrill Lynch , Bank of America do not seem trustworthy anymore
Never before in my adult life have I looked around at every bank in my town and said , `` I 'm not sure I would n't prefer to put my paycheck in a mattress .
The Bernard Madoff scandal , of course , has only reinforced that loss of trust
His degree of betrayal his alleged willingness to embezzle the life savings of people whom he had known his whole life is so coldhearted that it charts new territory in human behavior
He 's on his way to becoming an adjective
Money managers are already being asked prove to prospective new clients that their internal safeguards are `` Madoff proof .
I 've written a lot about the Indian outsourcing community , so I knew B. Ramalinga Raju , the Satyam chairman accused of embezzling $ 1 billion from his own company
What 's really sad is that I did n't get to know him through his business but through an interest in his family 's charitable work
They created India 's first 911 emergency system in their home state and call centers in Indian villages , so young people there could get service jobs
Was all that a fake , too
Or was he just an embezzler with a good heart
Do n't know
When you ca n't even trust a person 's charitable work , you 've hit a new low
`` We 're all going to have to learn to live with a lower level of trust in our lives , '' an African banker friend said to me here
But the mind recoils at that , which may explain why so many people I talked to here are hoping that President Obama will turn out to be the guy
Like Harry Truman , Obama is definitely present at the creation of something
He is arriving on the scene `` not after a war but after the same kind of shattering of institutions that a war does , '' said Peter Schwartz , chairman of the Global Business Network
`` His job is to restore confidence to these institutions that have been at the foundation of our economy .
That may be President Obama 's most important bailout task : to educate the country that there is no easy escape here , except taking our medicine , getting our fundamentals right again and working our way out of this , brick by brick , by getting back to making money what was that old Smith Barney ad
`` the old-fashioned way '' by earning it
A small news item from Tracy , Calif. , caught my eye last week
Local station CBS 13 reported : `` Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency
But there are a couple of options
Residents can pay a $ 48 voluntary fee for the year , which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary
Or there 's the option of not signing up for the annual fee
Instead they will be charged $ 300 if they make a call for help .
Yes , sir , we 've just had our 70 fat years in America , thanks to the Greatest Generation and the bounty of freedom and prosperity they built for us
And in these past 70 years , leadership whether of the country , a university , a company , a state , a charity , or a township has largely been about giving things away , building things from scratch , lowering taxes or making grants
But now it feels as if we are entering a new era , `` where the great task of government and of leadership is going to be about taking things away from people , '' said the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum
Indeed , to lead now is to trim , to fire or to downsize services , programs or personnel
We 've gone from the age of government handouts to the age of citizen givebacks , from the age of companions fly free to the age of paying for each bag
Let 's just hope our lean years will only number seven
That will depend a lot on us and whether we rise to the economic challenges of this moment
Our parents truly were the Greatest Generation
We , alas , in too many ways , have been what the writer Kurt Andersen called `` The Grasshopper Generation , '' eating through the prosperity that was bequeathed us like hungry locusts
Now we and our kids together need to be `` The Regeneration '' the generation that renews , refreshes , re-energizes and rebuilds America for the 21st century
President Obama 's bad luck was that he showed up just as we moved from the fat years to the lean years
His calling is to lead The Regeneration
He clearly understands that in his head , but he has yet to give full voice to it
Actually , the thing that most baffles me about Mr. Obama is how a politician who speaks so well , and is trying to do so many worthy things , ca n't come up with a clear , simple , repeatable narrative to explain his politics when it is so obvious
Mr. Obama won the election because he was able to `` rent '' a significant number of independent voters including Republican business types who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives because they knew in their guts that the country was on the wrong track and was desperately in need of nation-building at home and that John McCain was not the man to do it
They thought that Mr. Obama , despite his liberal credentials , had the unique skills , temperament , voice and values to pull the country together for this new Apollo program not to take us to the moon , but into the 21st century
Alas , though , instead of making nation-building in America his overarching narrative and then fitting health care , energy , educational reform , infrastructure , competitiveness and deficit reduction under that rubric , the president has pursued each separately
This made each initiative appear to be just some stand-alone liberal obsession to pay off a Democratic constituency not an essential ingredient of a nation-building strategy and , therefore , they have proved to be easily obstructed , picked off or delegitimized by opponents and lobbyists
So `` Obamism '' feels at worst like a hodgepodge , at best like a to-do list one that got way too dominated by health care instead of innovation and jobs and not the least like a big , aspirational project that can bring out America 's still vast potential for greatness
To be sure , taking over the presidency at the dawn of the lean years is no easy task
The president needs to persuade the country to invest in the future and pay for the past past profligacy all at the same time
We have to pay for more new schools and infrastructure than ever , while accepting more entitlement cuts than ever , when public trust in government is lower than ever
On top of that , the Republican Party has never been more irresponsible
Having helped run the deficit to new heights during the recent Bush years , the G.O.P. is now unwilling to take any responsibility for dealing with it if it involves raising taxes
At the same time , the rise of cable TV has transformed politics in our country generally into just another spectator sport , like all-star wrestling
C-Span is just ESPN with only two teams
We watch it for entertainment , not solutions
While it would certainly help if the president voiced a more compelling narrative , I am under no illusion that this alone would solve all his problems and ours
It comes back to us : We have to demand the truth from our politicians and be ready to accept it ourselves
We simply do not have another presidency to waste
There are no more fat years to eat through
If Obama fails , we all fail
Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd are off today
Reading the news that General Motors and Chrysler are now lining up for another $ 20 billion or so in government aid on top of the billions they 've already received or requested leaves me with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason : because they claim that their funerals would cost more than keeping them on life support
Sorry , friends , but this is not the American way
Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country , and it is not how we 'll get out of this crisis
G.M. has become a giant wealth - destruction machine possibly the biggest in history and it is time that it and Chrysler were put into bankruptcy so they can truly start over under new management with new labor agreements and new visions
When it comes to helping companies , precious public money should focus on start-ups , not bailouts
You want to spend $ 20 billion of taxpayer money creating jobs
Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America , which are short of cash today because their partners university endowments and pension funds are tapped out , and make them this offer : The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $ 1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way
If they go bust , we all lose
If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel , taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors ' upside and keep 80 percent for themselves
If we are going to be spending billions of taxpayer dollars , it ca n't only be on office-decorating bankers , over-leveraged home speculators and auto executives who year after year spent more energy resisting changes and lobbying Washington than leading change and beating Toyota
I 've been traveling all across the country on a book tour , and every evening I return to my hotel with my pockets full of business cards from inventors in clean energy
Our country is still bursting with innovators looking for capital
So , let 's make sure all the losers clamoring for help do n't drown out the potential winners who could lift us out of this
Some of our best companies , such as Intel , were started in recessions , when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring
Yes , we have to shore up the banking system , which underpins everything ; and finding a fair way to prevent hardworking people , who played by the rules , from losing their homes to foreclosure is both right and essential for stability
But beyond that , let 's think , talk and plan in more aspirational ways
We 're down , but we 're not out
As we invest taxpayer money , let 's do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech , info-tech , nanotech and clean-tech companies , with real innovators , real 21st-century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers
Our motto should be , `` Start-ups , not bailouts : nurture the next Google , do n't nurse the old G.M. 's .
To be fair , the stimulus package that the Obama team and the Democrats in Congress recently passed with virtually no Republican help goes some way toward doing just that
Hat 's off for that
Now let 's do more
The renewable-energy business wind , solar and solar thermal was almost dead in this country
Most new projects stopped last fall because they depended for their financing on selling their renewable energy tax credits to Wall Street firms
As those Wall Street firms went bust or suffered steep losses , they had no need for tax credits because they had no profits to offset
The stimulus package created a mechanism for renewable energy innovators to bypass Wall Street and monetize their tax credits directly through the U.S. Treasury , for any project that starts between now and the end of 2010
The wind and solar industries in America `` were dead in the fourth quarter , '' said John Woolard , chief executive of BrightSource Energy , which builds and operates cutting-edge solar-thermal plants in the Mojave Desert
Almost five gigawatts of new solar-thermal projects the equivalent of five big nuclear plants at various stages of permitting were being held up because of a lack of financing
`` All of these projects will now go ahead , '' said Woolard
`` You are talking about thousands of jobs ... We really got something right in this legislation .
These jobs will be in engineering , constructing and operating huge solar systems and wind farms and manufacturing new photovoltaics
Together they will drive innovation in all these areas and move wind and solar technology down the cost-volume learning curve so they can compete against fossil fuels and become export industries at the `` ChinIndia price , '' that is the price at which they can scale in China and India
That is how taxpayer money should be used to stimulate : limited financing , for a limited time , targeted on an industry bristling with new technology start-ups that , with a little push from Uncle Sam , wo n't just survive this crisis but help us thrive when it is over
We need , and the world needs , an America that is thriving not just surviving
If Not Now , When
What 's unfolding in the Arab world today is the mother of all wake-up calls
And what the voice on the other end of the line is telling us is clear as a bell : `` America , you have built your house at the foot of a volcano
That volcano is now spewing lava from different cracks and is rumbling like it 's going to blow
Move your house !
In this case , `` move your house '' means `` end your addiction to oil .
No one is rooting harder for the democracy movements in the Arab world to succeed than I am
But even if things go well , this will be a long and rocky road
The smart thing for us to do right now is to impose a $ 1-a-gallon gasoline tax , to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012 , with all the money going to pay down the deficit
Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future , notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder , would trigger a shift in buying and investment well before the tax kicks in
With one little gasoline tax , we can make ourselves more economically and strategically secure , help sell more Chevy Volts and free ourselves to openly push for democratic values in the Middle East without worrying anymore that it will harm our oil interests
Yes , it will mean higher gas prices , but prices are going up anyway , folks
Let 's capture some it for ourselves
It is about time
For the last 50 years , America -LRB- and Europe and Asia -RRB- have treated the Middle East as if it were just a collection of big gas stations : Saudi station , Iran station , Kuwait station , Bahrain station , Egypt station , Libya station , Iraq station , United Arab Emirates station , etc.
Our message to the region has been very consistent : `` Guys -LRB- it was only guys we spoke with -RRB- , here 's the deal
Keep your pumps open , your oil prices low , do n't bother the Israelis too much and , as far as we 're concerned , you can do whatever you want out back
You can deprive your people of whatever civil rights you like
You can engage in however much corruption you like
You can preach whatever intolerance from your mosques that you like
You can print whatever conspiracy theories about us in your newspapers that you like
You can keep your women as illiterate as you like
You can create whatever vast welfare-state economies , without any innovative capacity , that you like
You can undereducate your youth as much as you like
Just keep your pumps open , your oil prices low , do n't hassle the Jews too much - and you can do whatever you want out back .
It was that attitude that enabled the Arab world to be insulated from history for the last 50 years - to be ruled for decades by the same kings and dictators
Well , history is back
The combination of rising food prices , huge bulges of unemployed youth and social networks that are enabling those youths to organize against their leaders is breaking down all the barriers of fear that kept these kleptocracies in power
But fasten your seat belts
This is not going to be a joy ride because the lid is being blown off an entire region with frail institutions , scant civil society and virtually no democratic traditions or culture of innovation
The United Nations ' Arab Human Development Report 2002 warned us about all of this , but the Arab League made sure that that report was ignored in the Arab world and the West turned a blind eye
But that report - compiled by a group of Arab intellectuals led by Nader Fergany , an Egyptian statistician - was prophetic
It merits re-reading today to appreciate just how hard this democratic transition will be
The report stated that the Arab world is suffering from three huge deficits - a deficit of education , a deficit of freedom and a deficit of women 's empowerment
A summary of the report in Middle East Quarterly in the Fall of 2002 detailed the key evidence : the gross domestic product of the entire Arab world combined was less than that of Spain
Per capita expenditure on education in Arab countries dropped from 20 percent of that in industrialized countries in 1980 to 10 percent in the mid-1990s
In terms of the number of scientific papers per unit of population , the average output of the Arab world per million inhabitants was roughly 2 percent of that of an industrialized country
When the report was compiled , the Arab world translated about 330 books annually , one-fifth of the number that Greece did
Out of seven world regions , the Arab countries had the lowest freedom score in the late 1990s in the rankings of Freedom House
At the dawn of the 21st century , the Arab world had more than 60 million illiterate adults , the majority of whom were women
Yemen could be the first country in the world to run out of water within 10 years
This is the vaunted `` stability '' all these dictators provided - the stability of societies frozen in time
Seeing the Arab democracy movements in Egypt and elsewhere succeed in modernizing their countries would be hugely beneficial to them and to the world
We must do whatever we can to help
But no one should have any illusions about how difficult and convulsive the Arabs ' return to history is going to be
Let 's root for it , without being in the middle of it
From the very beginning of the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the effort to build some kind of democracy there , a simple but gnawing question has lurked in the background : Was Iraq the way Iraq was -LRB- a dictatorship -RRB- because Saddam was the way Saddam was , or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq was the way Iraq was a collection of warring sects incapable of self-rule and only governable with an iron fist
Alas , some seven years after the U.S. toppled Saddam 's government , a few weeks before Iraq 's second democratic national election , and in advance of the pullout of American forces , this question still has not been answered
Will Iraq 's new politics triumph over its cultural divides , or will its cultural\/sectarian divides sink its fledgling democracy
We still do n't know
In many ways , Iraq is a test case for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 's dictum that `` the central conservative truth is that it is culture , not politics , that determines the success of a society
The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself .
Ironically , though , it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture did n't matter in Iraq , and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past
While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet 's nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there ; it was a place where the past would always bury the future
But stick we did , and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do : freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together
With elections set for March 7 , with America slated to shrink to 50,000 troops by September and down to zero by the end of 2011 Iraqis will have to decide how they want to exploit this opportunity
I met last week with Gen. Ray Odierno , the overall U.S. commander in Iraq , who along with Vice President Joe Biden has done more to coach , coax , cajole and occasionally shove Iraqis away from the abyss than anyone else
I found the general hopeful but worried
He was hopeful because he has seen Iraqis go to the brink so many times and then pull back , but worried because sectarian violence is steadily creeping back ahead of the elections and certain Shiite politicians , like the former Bush darling Ahmed Chalabi whom General Odierno indicated is clearly `` influenced by Iran '' and up to no good have been trying to exclude some key Sunni politicians from the election
It is critical , said Odierno , that `` Iraqis feel that the elections are credible and legitimate '' and that the democratic process is working
`` I do n't want the campaigning to lead to a sectarian divide again , '' he added
`` I worry that some elements will feel politically isolated and will not have the ability to influence and participate .
How might this play out
The ideal but least likely scenario is that we see the emergence of an Iraqi Shiite Nelson Mandela
The Shiites , long suppressed by Iraq 's Baathist-led Sunni minority , are now Iraq 's ruling majority
Could Iraq produce a Shiite politician , who , like Mandela , would be a national healer someone who would use his power to lead a real reconciliation instead of just a Shiite dominion
So far , no sign of it
Even without a Mandela , Iraq could still hold together , and thrive , if its rival Sunni , Shiite and Kurdish communities both recognize the new balance of power that the Shiites are now the dominant community in Iraq and , ultimately , will have the biggest say and the new limits of power
No community can assert its will by force and , therefore , sectarian disputes have to be resolved politically
The two scenarios you do n't want to see are : 1 -RRB- Iraq 's tribal culture triumphing over politics and the country becoming a big Somalia with oil ; or 2 -RRB- as America fades away , Iraq 's Shiite government aligning itself more with Iran , and Iran becoming the kingmaker in Iraq the way Syria has made itself in Lebanon
Why should we care when we 're leaving
Quite simply , so much of the turmoil in the region was stoked over the years by Saddam 's Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini 's Iran , both financed by billions in oil revenues
If , over time , a decent democratizing regime could emerge in Iraq and a similar one in Iran so that oil wealth was funding reasonably decent regimes rather than retrograde ones the whole Middle East would be different
The odds , though , remain very long
In the end , it will come back to that nagging question of politics versus culture
Personally , I 'm a believer in the argument Lawrence Harrison makes in his book `` The Central Liberal Truth '' culture matters , a lot more than we think , but cultures can change , a lot more than we expect
But such change takes time , leadership and often pain
Which is why , I suspect , Iraqis will surprise us for good and for ill a lot more before they finally answer the question : Who are we and how do we want to live together
Maureen Dowd is off today
It is very useful to come to Asia to be reminded about America 's standing in the world these days
For all the talk in recent years about America 's inevitable decline , all eyes are not now on Tokyo , Beijing , Brussels or Moscow nor on any other pretenders to the world heavyweight crown
All eyes are on Washington to pull the world out of its economic tailspin
At no time in the last 50 years have we ever felt weaker , and at no time in the last 50 years has the world ever seen us as more important
While it is true that since the end of the cold war global leaders and intellectuals often complained about a world of too much American power , one does n't hear much of that grumbling today when most people recognize that only an economically revitalized America has the power to prevent the world economy from going into a global depression
It was always easy to complain about a world of too much American power as long as you did n't have to live in a world of too little American power
And right now , that is the danger : a world of too little American power
Somewhere in the back of their minds , a lot of people seem to be realizing that the alternative to a U.S.-dominated world is not a world dominated by someone else or someone better
It is a leaderless world
Neither Russia nor China has the will or the way to provide the global public goods that America at its best consistently has
The European Union right now is so split that it can not even agree on an effective stimulus package
No wonder then that even though this economic crisis began in America , with American bad borrowing and bad lending practices , people have nevertheless fled to the U.S. dollar
Case in point : South Korea 's currency has lost roughly 40 percent against the dollar in just the last six months
`` No other country can substitute for the U.S. , '' a senior Korean official remarked to me
`` The U.S. is still No. 1 in military , No. 1 in economy , No. 1 in promoting human rights and No. 1 in idealism
Only the U.S. can lead the world
No other country can
China ca n't
The E.U. is too divided , and Europe is militarily far behind the U.S.
So it is only the United States ... We have never had a more unipolar world than we have today .
Yes , many Asians resent the fact that Americans scolded them about their banking crisis in the 1990s , and now we 've made many of the same mistakes
But that schadenfreude does n't last long
In random conversations here in Seoul with Korean and Asian thinkers , journalists and business executives , I found people really worried : Could it be , they ask , that the Americans do n't know what they are doing , or , worse , that they know what they are doing but the problem is just so much bigger than anything we 've ever seen
This is a region where Western brands carry great weight , and for people to see giant U.S. financial brands like Citigroup and A.I.G. teetering is deeply unnerving
The big trading nations , like South Korea , are particularly nervous that America will succumb to economic protectionism , which would undermine the global trading system
`` There is no one who can replace America
Without American leadership , there is no leadership , '' said Lee Hong-koo , South Korea 's former ambassador to Washington
`` That puts a tremendous burden on the American people to do something positive
You ca n't be tempted by the usual nationalism
When things do n't go well , most people become nationalistic
And in the economic world , that is protectionism ... We are pleased to see President Obama is not doing that
Americans , as a people , should realize how many hopes and expectations other people are putting on their shoulders .
And that 's just on economics
President Obama 's first big security test could come here and soon
North Korea has gotten crazier than ever ; it has been made even poorer by the global economic crisis and by the withdrawal of aid by the new South Korean government
Now the North is threatening to test one of its Taepodong-2 long-range missiles , which may have the capacity to hit Hawaii , Alaska or beyond
The North last tried such a test in 2006 , but the rocket exploded 40 seconds after its launch
If the North does test such an intercontinental ballistic missile again , American forces will have to consider blowing it up on the launch pad or shooting it out of the sky
We never should have allowed the North to get a nuclear warhead ; we certainly do n't want it testing a long-range missile that could deliver that nuclear warhead to our shores , or anywhere else
Never more inward-looking , never more in demand : that 's America today
This moment recalls a point raised by the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum in his book , `` The Case for Goliath .
When it comes to the way other countries view America 's pre-eminent role in the world , he wrote , `` whatever its life span , three things can be safely predicted : they will not pay for it ; they will continue to criticize it ; and they will miss it when it is gone .
It is early evening on Capitol Hill , and I am sitting with Senator Lindsey Graham , the South Carolina Republican , who , along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman , is trying to craft a new energy bill one that could actually win 60 votes
What is interesting about Graham is that he has been willing courageously in my view to depart from the prevailing G.O.P. consensus that the only energy policy we need is `` drill , baby , drill .
What brought you around , I ask
Graham 's short answer : politics , jobs and legacy
We start with politics
The Republican Party today has a major outreach problem with two important constituencies , `` Hispanics and young people , '' Graham explains : `` I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate
It 's a value
These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment and the world will be better off for it
They are not brainwashed
... From a Republican point of view , we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them
You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change , but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party 's future with younger people
You can have a legitimate dispute about how to solve immigration , but when you start focusing on the last names of people the demographics will pass you by .
So Graham 's approach to bringing around his conservative state has been simple : avoid talking about `` climate change , '' which many on the right do n't believe
Instead , frame our energy challenge as a need to `` clean up carbon pollution , '' to `` become energy independent '' and to `` create more good jobs and new industries for South Carolinians .
He proposes `` putting a price on carbon , '' starting with a very focused carbon tax , as opposed to an economywide cap-and-trade system , so as to spur both consumers and industries to invest in and buy new clean energy products
He includes nuclear energy , and insists on permitting more offshore drilling for oil and gas to give us more domestic sources , as we bridge to a new clean energy economy
`` Cap-and-trade as we know it is dead , but the issue of cleaning up the air and energy independence should not die and you will never have energy independence without pricing carbon , '' Graham argues
`` The technology does n't make sense until you price carbon
Nuclear power is a bet on cleaner air
Wind and solar is a bet on cleaner air
You make those bets assuming that cleaning the air will become more profitable than leaving the air dirty , and the only way it will be so is if the government puts some sticks on the table not just carrots
The future economy of America and the jobs of the future are going to be tied to cleaning up the air , and in the process of cleaning up the air this country becomes energy independent and our national security is greatly enhanced .
Remember , he adds : `` We are more dependent on foreign oil today than after 9\/11
That is political malpractice , and every member of Congress is responsible .
This is n't just for the next generation , says Graham : `` As you talk about the future , if you forget the people who live in the present , you will have no future politically
You have to get the people in the present to buy into the future
I tell my voters : ` If we try to clean up the air and become energy independent , we will create more jobs than anything I can do as a senator .
General Electric makes all the turbines for the G.E. windmills in Greenville , South Carolina .
He also is pushing to make his state a manufacturing center for nuclear reactor components and biomass from plants and timber
What would most help him bring around his G.O.P. colleagues
The business lobby
`` The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers need to tell my colleagues it is O.K. to price carbon , if you do it smartly , '' he says
Sure , Graham 's strategy will give many greens heartburn
I do n't agree with every point
But if there is going to be a clean energy bill , greens and Democrats will have to recruit some Republicans
Graham says he 's ready to meet them in the middle
`` We 've got to get started , '' he says , `` because once we do , every C.E.O. will adopt a carbon strategy , no matter what the law actually requires .
And for those Republicans who think this is only a loser , Senator Graham says think again : `` What is our view of carbon as a party
Are we the party of carbon pollution forever in unlimited amounts
Pricing carbon is the key to energy independence , and the byproduct is that young people look at you differently .
Look at how he is received in colleges today
`` Instead of being just one more short , white Republican over 50 , '' says Graham , `` I am now semicool
There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different .
Five more G.O.P. senators like him and we could have a real energy bill
`` We ca n't be a nation that always tries and fails , '' Graham concludes
`` We have to eventually get some hard problem right .
B.E. , Before Egypt
A.E. , After Egypt
I 'm meeting a retired Israeli general at a Tel Aviv hotel
As I take my seat , he begins the conversation with : `` Well , everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant .
That pretty much sums up the disorienting sense of shock and awe that the popular uprising in Egypt has inflicted on the psyche of Israel 's establishment
The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years , and now it 's gone
It 's as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day
`` Everything that once anchored our world is now unmoored , '' remarked Mark Heller , a Tel Aviv University strategist
`` And it is happening right at a moment when nuclearization of the region hangs in the air .
This is a perilous time for Israel , and its anxiety is understandable
But I fear Israel could make its situation even more perilous if it succumbs to the argument one hears from a number of senior Israeli officials today that the events in Egypt prove that Israel ca n't make a lasting peace with the Palestinians
It 's wrong and dangerous
To be sure , Hosni Mubarak , Israel 's longtime ally , deserves all the wrath being directed at him
The best time to make any big , hard decision is when you are at your maximum strength
You 'll always think and act more clearly
For the last 20 years , President Mubarak has had all the leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt 's economy and build a moderate , legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood
But Mubarak deliberately maintained the political vacuum between himself and the Islamists so that he could always tell the world , `` It 's either me or them .
Now he is trying to reform in a panic with no leverage
Too late
But Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is in danger of becoming the Mubarak of the peace process
Israel has never had more leverage vis - - vis the Palestinians and never had more responsible Palestinian partners
But Netanyahu has found every excuse for not putting a peace plan on the table
The Americans know it
And thanks to the nasty job that Qatar 's Al Jazeera TV just did in releasing out of context all the Palestinian concessions - to embarrass the Palestinian leadership - it 's now obvious to all how far the Palestinians have come
No , I do not know if this Palestinian leadership has the fortitude to close a deal
But I do know this : Israel has an overwhelming interest in going the extra mile to test them
With the leaders of both Egypt and Jordan scrambling to shuffle their governments in an effort to stay ahead of the street , two things can be said for sure : Whatever happens in the only two Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel , the moderate secularists who had a monopoly of power will be weaker and the previously confined Muslim Brotherhood will be stronger
How much remains to be seen
As such , it is virtually certain that the next Egyptian government will not have the patience or room that Mubarak did to maneuver with Israel
Same with the new Jordanian cabinet
Make no mistake : The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has nothing to do with sparking the demonstrations in Egypt and Jordan , but Israeli-Palestinian relations will be impacted by the events in both countries
If Israel does not make a concerted effort to strike a deal with the Palestinians , the next Egyptian government will `` have to distance itself from Israel because it will not have the stake in maintaining the close relationship that Mubarak had , '' said Khalil Shikaki , a Palestinian pollster
With the big political changes in the region , `` if Israel remains paranoid and messianic and greedy it will lose all its Arab friends .
To put it bluntly , if Israelis tell themselves that Egypt 's unrest proves why Israel can not make peace with the Palestinian Authority , then they will be talking themselves into becoming an apartheid state - they will be talking themselves into permanently absorbing the West Bank and thereby laying the seeds for an Arab majority ruled by a Jewish minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River
What the turmoil in Egypt also demonstrates is how much Israel is surrounded by a huge population of young Arabs and Muslims who have been living outside of history - insulated by oil and autocracy from the great global trends
But that 's over
`` Today your legitimacy has to be based on what you deliver , '' the Palestinian prime minister , Salam Fayyad , explained to me in his Ramallah office
`` Gone are the days when you can say , ` Deal with me because the other guys are worse . '
I had given up on Netanyahu 's cabinet and urged the U.S. to walk away
But that was B.E. - Before Egypt
Today , I believe President Obama should put his own peace plan on the table , bridging the Israeli and Palestinian positions , and demand that the two sides negotiate on it without any preconditions
It is vital for Israel 's future - at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state - that it disentangle itself from the Arabs ' story as much as possible
There is a huge storm coming , Israel
Get out of the way
One of the few pleasant surprises of 2009 was that the world 's biggest economies were able to concentrate on healing themselves without any major wars or world-shaking political or geopolitical disruptions
What are the odds that 2010 will be so benign
I 'd say quite low
No question , the world 's major economies badly need 2010 to be another quiet year politically and geopolitically , but that will require , at a minimum , that three major struggles the banks vs. President Obama , China vs. Google & friends , and the world vs. Iran can be defused with win-win compromises rather than win-lose confrontations
Let 's look at all three
Banks are like the heart that pumps blood credit to our country 's corporate muscles
If that heart is malfunctioning , any recovery will be anemic
But heart surgery is a very complex thing
You would n't want yours done by a plumber or a politician
After all , a year ago there was a great clamor to nationalize some major banks ; that would not have been a good idea
Moreover , our financial crisis was the result of a broad national breakdown in ethics from borrowers to lenders to rating agencies to lawmakers
Do n't think for a second that bank reform alone is a cure-all
We need a new banking regulatory regime that reduces recklessness without reducing risk-taking , which is the key to capitalism
It 's complicated
If the leading banks had any brains , they would take the initiative and offer their own ideas
Surely , they ca n't argue everything is just fine given the number of bank failures
Let the administration and other leading central banks also offer their ideas , and then let 's try to forge something smart
What the public has seen instead , though , are clueless bankers giving themselves bonuses after being rescued by taxpayers , while instructing the lobbyists and lawmakers they own to resist any serious reforms
At the same time , we 've had President Obama introducing his bank proposal , after his party 's Massachusetts defeat , in a way that seemed less intended to promote an intelligent discussion and more like an effort to use bank-bashing to boost sagging poll ratings
The administration did n't even bother to prebrief other central bankers about its ideas
A senior British Treasury official told me at a background briefing in Davos : `` Even America is n't big enough to solve this problem on its own
... This is a global problem
... Be sure you understand the problem before you fix it .
Banking reform has to be done carefully so that we end up with stronger banks lending more money
If the bankers want to be pigheaded and turn this into a war with the president , or the president wants to use bank-bashing to get his mojo back , there are a few things I can absolutely guarantee : more uncertainty , less lending , a slower recovery and fewer new jobs
While the struggle between China and Google appears , on the surface , to be about Internet freedom , beneath the surface is a much deeper problem
As this newspaper reported last week , 34 American corporations have recently been targets of hacking attacks traceable to China
The C.E.O. of one of the technology companies that was hit , who asked not to be identified because he is still debating whether to keep doing business in China , said that in his case the attacks involved attempts to vacuum up source codes , designs , business plans , and anything else they could get their hands on
This industrial espionage emanating from China , the C.E.O. told me , `` was the worst we have seen in 25 years .
As one U.S. official described it : `` The penetration was very extensive and deeply troubling .
Memo to China : You are playing with fire
Sure , the U.S. also has its hackers , but industrial espionage on this scale is not coming out of the U.S.
If this continues , China will see more than Google pull up stakes
And how many U.S. companies in the future will ever want to buy Chinese-made software or computer systems , which might only make it easier for Beijing to penetrate their businesses
This hacking story is huge and brewing
If it explodes , at a time of rising tensions over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan , fasten your seat belts
Finally , the U.S. and its allies are about to ratchet up pressure on Iran by unveiling a new economic-sanctions resolution at the U.N. aimed at Iran 's Revolutionary Guards Corps and the vast network of financial institutions it controls inside Iran
If the U.N. will not act , the U.S. and key allies intend to impose the sanctions on their own
The Revolutionary Guards have become the regime 's primary tool for suppressing the popular uprising there and for protecting Iran 's nuclear program
If these sanctions prove incapable of getting Iran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program , the chances for a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran will grow very high before the end of this year
Here in the Persian Gulf , apprehension is off the charts
The economics of recovery were always hard , but in 2010 politics and geopolitics could make them even harder
Pray that cooler heads prevail
In recent days , some have questioned whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was making a big mistake in appointing so many `` special envoys , '' such as George Mitchell , to handle key trouble spots , like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
I think they are right to question Mrs. Clinton about this plethora of envoys
But I do n't think the problem is that she has too many ; it 's that she does n't have enough
In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , she may need at least a half-dozen envoys
Actually , this conflict is now broken into so many different pieces it may take a whole State Department of its own to resolve it
In addition to Mitchell , Hillary may want to enlist Bill and Chelsea to take a crack at solving this one , definitely Jim Baker and Jimmy Carter , too
Why , heck , she might want to even ask some perfect strangers she meets in the halls at Foggy Bottom : `` Hey , would you like a free trip to the Middle East ?
Sure , it helps to know some history , but a grasp of biology now is even more useful like how an amoeba reproduces by constantly splitting itself in half
Where to begin
Palestinians are now divided between the West Bank and Gaza , with a secular Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah in the West Bank and a fundamentalist Hamas government based in Gaza
But Hamas is further divided between a military and political wing , and the political wing is further divided between a Gaza-based leadership and a Damascus-based leadership , with the latter taking orders from both Syria and Iran
Are you still with me
Best I can tell , the Palestinians from Gaza are simultaneously negotiating a cease-fire with Israel in Cairo , pursuing war-crimes charges against Israel in Europe , digging new tunnels in the Sinai to smuggle more rockets into Gaza to hit Tel Aviv and trying to raise money for reconstruction from Iran
Meanwhile , the West Bank Palestinian leaders are busy publicly collecting food and blankets to help all those Palestinian civilians brutalized by the Israeli incursion into Gaza , while privately demanding to know from senior Israeli officials why they wimped out and did n't wipe Hamas in Gaza off the face of earth casualties be damned
Israel , meanwhile , has a government in which the prime minister , foreign minister and defense minister each has a different peace plan , war strategy and cease-fire conditions for Gaza , and the foreign minister and defense minster are running against each other in Israel 's election on Tuesday
Speaking of that election , a whole new party , Yisrael Beiteinu , led by Avigdor Lieberman , which has been accused of having `` fascist , '' viciously anti-Arab leanings , appears headed to make the biggest gains and possibly become the kingmaker of Israel 's next government
The other day , the Labor Party leader , Ehud Barak , was quoted in the newspaper Haaretz as criticizing Lieberman as a lamb in hawk 's clothing , asking : `` When has he ever shot anyone ?
How did this conflict get so fragmented
For starters , it 's gone on way too long
The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads , checkpoints and fences to separate Israel 's crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin , here in the northern West Bank , to Hebron in the south
Another reason is that every idea has been tried and has failed
For the Palestinians , Pan-Arabism , Communism , Islamism have all come and gone , with none having delivered statehood or prosperity
As a result , more and more Palestinians have fallen back on family , clan , town and tribal loyalties
In Israel , Peace Now 's two-state solution was blown up with the crash of the Oslo peace accords , the rising Palestinian birthrate made any plans to annex the West Bank a mortal threat to Israel 's Jewish character , and the rockets that followed Israel 's withdrawals from both Lebanon and Gaza made a mockery of those who said unilateral pullouts were the solution
All of this has led to a resurgence of religiosity
According to Haaretz , the following questions were posed by a well-known rabbi in one of the pamphlets distributed by the Israeli Army 's Office of Chief Rabbi before the latest Gaza fighting : `` Is it possible to compare today 's Palestinians to the Philistines of the past
And if so , is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of Samson and David
A comparison is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and had invaded from a foreign land .
Who in the world would want to try to repair this
I 'd rather herd cats , or become John Thain 's image adviser , or have a colonoscopy , or become chairman of the `` bad bank '' that President Obama might create to hold all the toxic mortgages
Surely , any of those would be more fun
If Mitchell is still up for it , well , then God bless him
My next column will look at some ways we might just start over
China , Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids Anyone who 's long followed the Middle East knows that the six most dangerous words after any cataclysmic event in this region are : `` Things will never be the same .
After all , this region absorbed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Google without a ripple
But traveling through Israel , the West Bank and Jordan to measure the shock waves from Egypt , I 'm convinced that the forces that were upholding the status quo here for so long - oil , autocracy , the distraction of Israel , and a fear of the chaos that could come with change - have finally met an engine of change that is even more powerful : China , Twitter and 20-year-olds
Of course , China per se is not fueling the revolt here - but China and the whole Asian-led developing world 's rising consumption of meat , corn , sugar , wheat and oil certainly is
The rise in food and gasoline prices that slammed into this region in the last six months clearly sharpened discontent with the illegitimate regimes - particularly among the young , poor and unemployed
This is why every government out here is now rushing to increase subsidies and boost wages - even without knowing how to pay for it , or worse , taking it from capital budgets to build schools and infrastructure
King Abdullah II of Jordan just gave every soldier and civil servant a $ 30-a-month pay raise , along with new food and gasoline subsidies
Kuwait 's government last week announced a `` gift '' of about $ 3,500 to each of Kuwait 's 1.1 million citizens and about $ 850 million in food subsidies
But China is a challenge for Egypt and Jordan in other ways
Several years ago , I wrote about Egyptian entrepreneurs who were importing traditional lanterns for Ramadan - with microchips in them that played Egyptian folk songs - from China
When China can make Egyptian Ramadan toys more cheaply and appealingly than low-wage Egyptians , you know there is problem of competitiveness
Egypt , Jordan , Yemen , Tunisia today are overflowing with the most frustrated cohort in the world - `` the educated unemployables .
They have college degrees on paper but really do n't have the skills to make them globally competitive
I was just in Singapore
Its government is obsessed with things as small as how to better teach fractions to third graders
That has not been Hosni Mubarak 's obsession
I look at the young protesters who gathered in downtown Amman today , and the thousands who gathered in Egypt and Tunis , and my heart aches for them
So much human potential , but they have no idea how far behind they are - or maybe they do and that 's why they 're revolting
Egypt 's government has wasted the last 30 years - i.e. , their whole lives - plying them with the soft bigotry of low expectations : `` Be patient
Egypt moves at its own pace , like the Nile .
Well , great
Singapore also moves at its own pace , like the Internet
The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29 , many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job , buy an apartment and get married
That is trouble
Add in rising food prices , and the diffusion of Twitter , Facebook and texting , which finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other , and you have a very powerful change engine
I have not been to Jordan for a while , but my ears are ringing today with complaints about corruption , frustration with the king and queen , and disgust at the enormous gaps between rich and poor
King Abdullah , who sacked his cabinet last week and promised real reform and real political parties , has his work cut out for him
And given some of the blogs that my friends here have shared with me from the biggest local Web site , Ammonnews.net , the people are not going to settle for the same-old , same-old
They say so directly now , dropping the old pretense of signing antigovernment blog posts as `` Mohammed living in Sweden .
Jordan is not going to blow up - today
The country is balanced between East Bank Bedouin tribes and West Bank Palestinians , who fought a civil war in 1970
`` There is no way that the East Bankers would join with the Palestinians to topple the Hashemite monarchy , '' a retired Jordanian general remarked to me
But this balance also makes reform difficult
The East Bankers overwhelmingly staff the army and government jobs
They prefer the welfare state , and hate both `` privatization '' and what they call `` the digitals , '' the young Jordanian techies pushing for reform
The Palestinians dominate commerce but also greatly value the stability the Hashemite monarchy provides
Yemen 's former prime minister , Abdul Karim al-Iryani , got right to the point when I arrived at his Sana home for dinner : `` So , Thomas , did it take Abdulmutallab to finally get you here ?
Yes , it is true , I admitted , because that young Nigerian , trained in Yemen by Al Qaeda , tried to blow up a Northwest jetliner on Christmas Day , I decided I had to see Yemen firsthand
I further confessed to Iryani : `` I was a bit worried coming here
I half expected to be met at the bottom of the stairs from my Qatar Airways flight by Osama bin Laden himself .
Fortunately , though , I found that Sana is not Kabul , and Yemen is not Afghanistan not yet
The Walled Old City of Sana , a U.N. World Heritage site with its mud-brick buildings adorned with geometric shapes , was bustling with coffee shops at night and vendors by day
Walking through its streets with a Yemeni friend , we came upon four bearded , elderly Yemeni men traditional daggers tucked into their belts discussing a poster taped to a stone wall urging `` fathers and mothers '' to send their girls to school
When I asked what they thought of that idea , the oldest said he was `` ready to give up part of a meal each day so that my girls can learn to read .
Moreover , he added , the poster had just fallen down and he had just taped it back up for others to see
Not what I expected
Nor did I expect to find civil society organizations here staffed with young American volunteers and , in the case of The Yemen Observer , an English-language newspaper , a whole newsroom full of them
All I could do was look around at these American college students and wonder : `` Do your parents know you 're here ?
They just laughed
Every shopkeeper I spoke to in Old Sana spat out the words `` Al Qaeda , '' which they blamed for killing tourism
Who knew Yemen had tourists
No , this is not Afghanistan
But this ai n't Denmark , either
Al Qaeda is like a virus
When it appears en masse , it indicates something is wrong with a country 's immune system
And something is wrong with Yemen 's
A weak central government in Sana rules over a patchwork of rural tribes , using an ad hoc system of patronage , co-optation , corruption and force
Vast areas of the countryside remain outside government control , particularly in the south and east , where 300 to 500 Qaeda fighters have found sanctuary
This `` Yemeni Way '' has managed to hold the country together and glacially nudge it forward , despite separatist movements in the North and the South
But that old way and pace of doing things can no longer keep pace with the negative trends
Consider a few numbers : Yemen 's population growth rate is close to 3.5 percent , one of the highest in the world , with 50 percent of Yemen 's 23 million people under the age of 15 and 75 percent under 29
Unemployment is 35 to 40 percent , in part because Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states booted out a million Yemeni workers after Yemen backed Saddam Hussein in the 1990 gulf war
Thanks to bad planning and population growth , Yemen could be the first country to run out of water in 10 to 15 years
Already many Yemenis experience interrupted water service , like electricity blackouts , which they also have constantly
In the countryside today , women sometimes walk up to four hours a day to find a working well
The water table has fallen so low in Sana that you need oil-drilling equipment to find it
This is n't helped by the Yemeni tradition of chewing qat , a mild hallucinogenic leaf drug , the cultivation of which consumes 40 percent of Yemen 's water supply each year
Roughly 65 percent of Yemeni schoolteachers have only high school degrees
Most people live on less than $ 2 a day except those who do n't
A Rolls Royce was recently sold in Sana for the first time
More than 70 percent of government income comes from dwindling oil exports , while 70 percent of Yemenis are illiterate and 15 percent of kids are not in school
Yet , at the same time , this country has some of the most interesting journalists , social activists and politicians I have met in the Arab world
I spent a morning at the Media Women Forum , an N.G.O. that trains Yemeni female journalists and promotes press freedom part of the `` young guard '' of idealistic Yemeni reformers who want to serve their people but , so far , have not really been empowered by the old leadership
Founded by a Yemeni press-freedom sparkplug , Rahma Hugaira , the office was bustling with girls , whose hunger to speak their minds filtered right through the black robes that covered all but their eyes
It 's not a secret how to fix this country , argued Mohammed al-Asaadi , a media consultant who sat in with us : `` We need a revolution against the status quo
We need to build capacity , institutionalize the rule of law and build a culture of ownership and responsibility .
Added Murad Hashim , the Al Jazeera bureau chief here : `` We need more education , but we have not used our educated people .
Indeed , Yemen has the resources to save itself , but they need to be mobilized by better governance
Without that , the trend lines will eventually overwhelm everything and the Qaeda virus , still controllable , will spread
Visiting Israel , I 've been peppered with questions from Israelis and Palestinians about where their peace process will fit in among President Obama 's priorities
My guess , I 've answered , is that President Obama has three immediate priorities : banks , banks and banks and none of them are the West Bank
That said , once Obama is able to think afresh about the Middle East , he will find that the Bush team has left an interesting legacy here : 140,000 U.S. soldiers doing nation-building in Iraq and one U.S. soldier actually a three-star U.S. Army general doing nation-building in the West Bank
We need a better balance
Those U.S. soldiers in Iraq can take pride in the recent Iraqi elections , which have strengthened the more secular and centrist parties
But we have to wait and see if the losers in this election take their defeat peacefully and whether the winners can actually produce better governance
The Iraqi elections , though , are a rare example of Arabs getting a chance to build their own future from the bottom up , and I continue to root for them
Palestinians need the same chance
You ca n't have a two-state solution without two states , and today the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank , which still supports a two-state deal , does n't have the institutions of a state , particularly an effective police force
Therefore , my hope is that Obama will focus not only on peace plans from the top down , but also on institution-building from the bottom up
The best way to isolate Hamas in Gaza is to build the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank into a decent government with steadily expanding control over its territory
That 's exactly what the one U.S. Army officer in the West Bank , Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton , is up to
I accompanied him and his little team to Jenin once the most violent city in the West Bank to see their work
It was quite a scene : I watched a company of newly trained , proud and professional-looking Palestinian Authority troops , standing at attention , AK-47 assault rifles at their side , listening with obvious respect to the American general telling them : `` What you 've done has done more to advance the Palestinian national project than anything else ... You took care of your people at a difficult time
That is how the security forces of a country behave .
No , you do n't see that every day
General Dayton was addressing the Second Special Battalion of the Palestinian National Security Force , or N.S.F.
It was trained by the Jordanian police in a program overseen by the U.S. Security Coordinator a k a Dayton
He was originally assigned to help reform Palestinian security by the Bush team in 2005 , but only got the funds to do so after Hamas took over Gaza in 2007
Some 1,600 Palestinian N.S.F. troops have since graduated , and 500 are now in training
Schooled in everything from riot control to human rights , the N.S.F. is the only truly professional force controlled by the Palestinian president , Mahmoud Abbas
The Israeli Army , originally dubious about the Dayton mission , has come to respect it and is now allowing it to expand to Hebron
What really got Israel 's attention was that during the three-week Israel-Hamas war in Gaza , the West Bank never blew up , largely because N.S.F. troops allowed widespread protests but kept Palestinian demonstrators from clashing with Israeli soldiers
`` General Dayton is our friend , '' said Col. Radi Abu Asida of the N.S.F. `` Now we have excellent training
Now we have professionalism in our security work
We told the people during the Gaza demonstrations , ` You can protest , but you must do it in a modern way . '
Unfortunately , funding for Dayton 's work secured by two farsighted U.S. House members , Nita Lowey and Gary Ackerman runs out soon
That would be a tragedy
Before the N.S.F. was deployed `` there was chaos here , '' said Mohammed Abu Bakr , a Jenin wedding shop owner , referring to the security vacuum after the collapse of the Arafat regime
`` Everyone wanted to fight with everyone else
Now everything is organized .
The Dayton mission a rare bright spot in a broken landscape is the ground floor we need to build upon
`` The issue is not just territory , but how we fill that territory , '' said Gidi Grinstein , the president of the Israeli think tank , the Reut Institute
`` Jenin is important
This is the beginning of capacity-building , which leads to institution-building , which leads to state-building , which leads to independence .
But the legitimacy of the Palestinian police depends on the peace process moving forward and Palestinians being ceded control , by Israel , over more territory as they prove themselves , he added
`` Otherwise , they are seen as a tool to promote the occupation and will be delegitimized and attacked .
So it is important to have George Mitchell , the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East , steadily pushing the diplomacy from above , but nothing will happen without vastly increasing U.S. efforts from below to help West Bankers build a credible governing capacity
Do that , and everything is possible
Do n't do it , and nothing is possible
Speakers Corner on the Nile I 'm in Tahrir Square , and of all the amazing things one sees here the one that strikes me most is a bearded man who is galloping up and down , literally screaming himself hoarse , saying : `` I feel free
I feel free !
Gathered around him are Egyptians of all ages , including a woman so veiled that she has only a slit for her eyes , and they 're all holding up cellphones taking pictures and video of this man , determined to capture the moment in case it never comes again
Are n't we all
In 40 years of writing about the Middle East , I have never seen anything like what is happening in Tahrir Square
In a region where the truth and truth-tellers have so long been smothered under the crushing weight of oil , autocracy and religious obscurantism , suddenly the Arab world has a truly free space - a space that Egyptians themselves , not a foreign army , have liberated - and the truth is now gushing out of here like a torrent from a broken hydrant
What one hears while strolling around are all the pent-up hopes , aspirations and frustrations of Egyptians for the last 50 years
I know the `` realist '' experts believe this will all be shut down soon
Maybe it will
But for one brief shining moment , forget the experts and just listen
You have not heard this before
It is the sound of a people so long kept voiceless , finally finding , testing and celebrating their own voices
`` We got a message from Tunis , '' Hosam Khalaf , a 50-year-old engineer stopped me to say
`` And the message was : Do n't burn yourself up ; burn up the fear that is inside you
That is what happened here
This was a society in fear , and the fear has been burned .
Khalaf added that he came here with his wife and daughter for one reason : `` When we meet God , we will at least be able to say : ` We tried to do something . '
This is not a religious event here , and the Muslim Brotherhood is not running the show
This is an Egyptian event
That is its strength and its weakness - no one is in charge and everyone in the society is here
You see secular girls in fashionable dress sitting with veiled women
You see parents pushing their babies wearing `` Mubarak must leave '' signs
You see students in jeans and peasants in robes
What unites all of them is a fierce desire to gain control of their future
`` This is the first time in my life I get to say what I think in public , '' said Remon Shenoda , a software engineer
`` And what is common here is that everyone wants to say something .
Indeed , there is a powerful sense of theft here , that this regime and its cronies not only stole wealth , but they stole something so much more precious : the future of an entire generation of Egyptians , whom they refused to empower or offer any inspiring vision worthy of this great civilization
`` All Egyptian people believe that their country is a great country with very deep roots in history , but the Mubarak regime broke our dignity in the Arab world and in the whole world , '' said Mohamed Serag , a professor at Cairo University
By the way , everyone here wants to give you their name and make sure you spell it right
Yes , the fear is gone
Referring to Egypt 's backward public education system that depends so much on repetition , one young girl was wearing a sign urging Mubarak to leave quickly
It said : `` Make it short
This is history , and we will have to memorize it at school .
Grievances abound
An elderly woman in a veil is shouting that she has three daughters who graduated from the college of commerce and none of them can find jobs
There are signs everywhere asking about Mubarak , a former Air Force chief
Questions such as : `` Hey Mr. Pilot , where did you get that $ 17 billion ?
You almost never hear the word `` Israel , '' and the pictures of `` martyrs '' plastered around the square are something rarely seen in the Arab world - Egyptians who died fighting for their own freedom not against Israel
When you enter the square now , one row of volunteers checks your ID , another frisks you for weapons and then you walk through a long gauntlet of men clapping and singing an Egyptian welcome song
I confess , as I walked through , my head had a wrestling match going on inside
My brain was telling me : `` Sober up - remember , this is not a neighborhood with happy endings
Only bad guys win here .
And my eyes were telling me : `` Just watch and take notes
This is something totally new .
And the this is a titanic struggle and negotiation between the tired but still powerful , top-down 1952 Egyptian Army-led revolution and a vibrant , new , but chaotic , 2011 , people-led revolution from the bottom-up - which has no guns but enormous legitimacy
I hope the Tahrir Square protesters can get organized enough to negotiate a new constitution with the army
There will be setbacks
But whatever happens , they have changed Egypt
After we walked from Tahrir Square across the Nile bridge , Professor Mamoun Fandy remarked to me that there is an old Egyptian poem that says : '' ` The Nile can bend and turn , but what is impossible is that it would ever dry up .
The same is true of the river of freedom that is loose here now
Maybe you can bend it for a while , or turn it , but it is not going to dry up .
Up With Egypt Just when you think the Egyptian uprising is dying down , more Egyptians than ever waited in long lines on Tuesday to get into Tahrir Square to ask President Hosni Mubarak 's regime to go
One reason the lines get so long is that everyone has to funnel through a single makeshift Egyptian Army checkpoint , which consists of an American-made tank on one side and barbed wire on the other
I can never tell whether that tank is there to protect the protesters or to limit the protesters
And that may be the most important question in Egypt today : Whose side is the army on
Right now Egypt 's respected army is staying neutral - protecting both Mubarak 's palace and the Tahrir revolutionaries - but it ca n't last
This is a people 's army
The generals have to heed where the public is going - and today so many Egyptians voted with their feet to go into Tahrir Square that a friend of mine said : `` It was like being on the hajj in Mecca .
The army could stick by Mubarak , whose only strategy seems to be to buy time and hope that the revolt splinters or peters out
Or the army could realize that what is happening in Tahrir Square is the wave of the future
And , therefore , if it wants to preserve the army 's extensive privileges , it will force Mubarak to go on vacation and establish the army as the guarantor of a peaceful transition to democracy - which would include forming a national unity cabinet that writes a new constitution and eventually holds new elections , once new parties have formed
I hope it is the latter , and I hope President Obama is pressing the Egyptian Army in this direction - as do many people here
For that to unfold , both the Egyptian Army and the Obama team will have to read what is happening in Tahrir Square through a new lens
Mubarak wants everyone to believe this is Iran 1979 all over , but it just does not feel that way
This uprising feels post-ideological
The Tahrir Square uprising `` has nothing to do with left or right , '' said Dina Shehata , a researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies
`` It is about young people rebelling against a regime that has stifled all channels for their upward mobility
They want to shape their own destiny , and they want social justice '' from a system in which a few people have gotten fantastically rich , in giant villas , and everyone else has stagnated
Any ideological group that tries to hijack these young people today will lose
One of the best insights into what is happening here is provided by a 2009 book called `` Generation in Waiting , '' edited by Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef , which examined how young people are coming of age in eight Arab countries
It contends that the great game that is unfolding in the Arab world today is not related to political Islam but is a `` generational game '' in which more than 100 million young Arabs are pressing against stifling economic and political structures that have stripped all their freedoms and given them in return one of the poorest education systems in the world , highest unemployment rates and biggest income gaps
China deprives its people of political rights , but at least it gives them a rising standard of living
Egypt deprived its people of political rights and gave them a declining standard of living
That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead
The good news is that many Egyptians know where they are , and they do n't want to waste another day
The sad news is how hard catching up will be
The Arab world today , Mohamed ElBaradei , the Egyptian opposition leader and Nobel laureate , remarked to me , is now `` a collection of failed states who add nothing to humanity or science '' because `` people were taught not to think or to act , and were consistently given an inferior education
That will change with democracy .
It will unlock all the talent of this remarkable civilization
Indeed , it is no surprise that the emerging spokesman for this uprising is Wael Ghonim - a Google marketing executive who is Egyptian
He opened a Facebook page called `` We are all Khaled Said , '' named for an activist who was allegedly beaten to death by police in Alexandria
And that page helped spark the first protests here
Ghonim was abducted by Egyptian security officials on Jan. 28 , and he was released on Monday
On Monday night , he gave an emotional TV interview that inspired many more people to come into the square on Tuesday
And when he spoke there in the afternoon , he expressed the true essence of this uprising
`` This country , I have said for a long time , this country is our country , and everyone has a right to this country , '' Ghonim declared
`` You have a voice in this country
This is not the time for conflicting ideas , or factions , or ideologies
This is the time for us to say one thing only , ` Egypt is above all else . '
That is what makes this revolt so interesting
Egyptians are not asking for Palestine or for Allah
They are asking for the keys to their own future , which this regime took away from them
They are not inspired by `` down with '' America or Israel
They are inspired by `` Up with Egypt '' and `` Up with me .
C. H. Tung , the first Chinese-appointed chief executive of Hong Kong after the handover in 1997 , offered me a three-sentence summary the other day of China 's modern economic history : `` China was asleep during the Industrial Revolution
She was just waking during the Information Technology Revolution
She intends to participate fully in the Green Revolution .
I 'll say
Being in China right now I am more convinced than ever that when historians look back at the end of the first decade of the 21st century , they will say that the most important thing to happen was not the Great Recession , but China 's Green Leap Forward
The Beijing leadership clearly understands that the E.T. Energy Technology revolution is both a necessity and an opportunity , and they do not intend to miss it
We , by contrast , intend to fix Afghanistan
Have a nice day
O.K. , that was a cheap shot
But here 's one that is n't : Andy Grove , co-founder of Intel , liked to say that companies come to `` strategic inflection points , '' where the fundamentals of a business change and they either make the hard decision to invest in a down cycle and take a more promising trajectory or do nothing and wither
The same is true for countries
The U.S. is at just such a strategic inflection point
We are either going to put in place a price on carbon and the right regulatory incentives to ensure that America is China 's main competitor\/partner in the E.T. revolution , or we are going to gradually cede this industry to Beijing and the good jobs and energy security that would go with it
Is President Obama going to finish health care and then put aside the pending energy legislation and carbon pricing that Congress has already passed in order to get through the midterms without Republicans screaming `` new taxes ?
Or is he going to seize this moment before the midterms possibly his last window to put together a majority in the Senate , including some Republicans , for a price on carbon and put in place a real U.S. engine for clean energy innovation and energy security
I 've been stunned to learn about the sheer volume of wind , solar , mass transit , nuclear and more efficient coal-burning projects that have sprouted in China in just the last year
Here 's e-mail from Bill Gross , who runs eSolar , a promising California solar-thermal start-up : On Saturday , in Beijing , said Gross , he announced `` the biggest solar-thermal deal ever
It 's a 2 gigawatt , $ 5 billion deal to build plants in China using our California-based technology
China is being even more aggressive than the U.S.
We applied for a -LRB- U.S. Department of Energy -RRB- loan for a 92 megawatt project in New Mexico , and in less time than it took them to do stage 1 of the application review , China signs , approves , and is ready to begin construction this year on a 20 times bigger project !
Yes , climate change is a concern for Beijing , but more immediately China 's leaders know that their country is in the midst of the biggest migration of people from the countryside to urban centers in the history of mankind
This is creating a surge in energy demand , which China is determined to meet with cleaner , homegrown sources so that its future economy will be less vulnerable to supply shocks and so it does n't pollute itself to death
In the last year alone , so many new solar panel makers emerged in China that the price of solar power has fallen from roughly 59 cents a kilowatt hour to 16 cents , according to The Times 's bureau chief here , Keith Bradsher
Meanwhile , China last week tested the fastest bullet train in the world 217 miles per hour from Wuhan to Guangzhou
As Bradsher noted , China `` has nearly finished the construction of a high-speed rail route from Beijing to Shanghai at a cost of $ 23.5 billion
Trains will cover the 700-mile route in just five hours , compared with 12 hours today
By comparison , Amtrak trains require at least 18 hours to travel a similar distance from New York to Chicago .
China is also engaged in the world 's most rapid expansion of nuclear power
It is expected to build some 50 new nuclear reactors by 2020 ; the rest of the world combined might build 15
`` By the end of this decade , China will be dominating global production of the whole range of power equipment , '' said Andrew Brandler , the C.E.O. of the CLP Group , Hong Kong 's largest power utility
In the process , China is going to make clean power technologies cheaper for itself and everyone else
But even Chinese experts will tell you that it will all happen faster and more effectively if China and America work together with the U.S. specializing in energy research and innovation , at which China is still weak , as well as in venture investing and servicing of new clean technologies , and with China specializing in mass production
This is a strategic inflection point
It is clear that if we , America , care about our energy security , economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation
We ca n't afford to be asleep with an invigorated China wide awake
Over the next couple of years , two very big countries , America and China , will give birth to something very important
They 're each going to give birth to close to $ 1 trillion worth of economic stimulus in the form of tax cuts , infrastructure , highways , mass transit and new energy systems
But a lot is riding on these two babies
If China and America each give birth to a pig a big , energy-devouring , climate-spoiling stimulus hog our kids are done for
It will be the burden of their lifetimes
If they each give birth to a gazelle a lean , energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes
So here 's hoping that our new administration and Congress will be guided in shaping the stimulus by reading John Maynard Keynes in one hand to get as much money injected as quickly as possible and by reading `` Rising Above the Gathering Storm : Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future '' with the other
`` Gathering Storm '' was the outstanding 2005 report produced by our National Academies on how to keep America competitive by vastly improving math and science education , investing in long-term research , recruiting top students from abroad and making U.S. laws the most conducive in the world for innovation
You see , even before the current financial crisis , we were already in a deep competitive hole a long period in which too many people were making money from money , or money from flipping houses or hamburgers , and too few people were making money by making new stuff , with hard-earned science , math , biology and engineering skills
The financial crisis just made the hole deeper , which is why our stimulus needs to be both big and smart , both financially and educationally stimulating
It needs to be able to produce not only more shovel-ready jobs and shovel-ready workers , but more Google-ready jobs and Windows-ready and knowledge-ready workers
If we spend $ 1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges and not a new Google , Apple , Intel or Microsoft your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs
Barack Obama gets it , but I 'm not sure Congress does
`` Yes , '' Mr. Obama said on Thursday , `` we 'll put people to work repairing crumbling roads , bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned , worthy and needed infrastructure projects
But we 'll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy .
Sure that means more smart grids and broadband highways , he added , but it also `` means investing in the science , research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs , new discoveries and entire new industries .
But clean-tech projects like intelligent grids and broadband take a long time to implement
Can we stimulate both our economy and our people in time
Maybe rather than just giving everyone a quick $ 1,500 to hit the mall to buy flat-screen TVs imported from China , or creating those all-important green-collar jobs for low-skilled workers to put people to work installing solar panels and insulating homes we should also give everyone who is academically eligible and willing a quick $ 5,000 to go back to school
Universities today are the biggest employers in many Congressional districts , and they 're all having to downsize
My wife teaches public school in Montgomery County , Md. , where more and more teachers ca n't afford to buy homes near the schools where they teach , and now have long , dirty commutes from distant suburbs
One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers
I 'd also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers , staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years
J.F.K. took us to the moon
Let B.H.O. take America back to school
But that will take time
There 's simply no shortcut for a stimulus that stimulates minds not just salaries
`` You can bail out a bank ; you ca n't bail out a generation , '' says the great American inventor , Dean Kamen , who has designed everything from the Segway to artificial limbs
`` You can print money , but you ca n't print knowledge
It takes 12 years .
Sure , we 'll waste some money doing that
That will happen with bridges , too
But a bridge is just a bridge
Once it 's up , it stops stimulating
A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab , or a scientist who gets the funding for new research , is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates
They create good jobs for years
Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression , but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity
Reading The Herald Tribune over breakfast in Hong Kong harbor last week , my eye went to the front-page story about how James Chanos reportedly one of America 's most successful short-sellers , the man who bet that Enron was a fraud and made a fortune when that proved true and its stock collapsed is now warning that China is `` Dubai times 1,000 or worse '' and looking for ways to short that country 's economy before its bubbles burst
China 's markets may be full of bubbles ripe for a short-seller , and if Mr. Chanos can find a way to make money shorting them , God bless him
But after visiting Hong Kong and Taiwan this past week and talking to many people who work and invest their own money in China , I 'd offer Mr. Chanos two notes of caution
First , a simple rule of investing that has always served me well : Never short a country with $ 2 trillion in foreign currency reserves
Second , it is easy to look at China today and see its enormous problems and things that it is not getting right
For instance , low interest rates , easy credit , an undervalued currency and hot money flowing in from abroad have led to what the Chinese government Sunday called `` excessively rising house prices '' in major cities , or what some might call a speculative bubble ripe for the shorting
In the last few days , though , China 's central bank has started edging up interest rates and raising the proportion of deposits that banks must set aside as reserves precisely to head off inflation and take some air out of any asset bubbles
And that 's the point
I am reluctant to sell China short , not because I think it has no problems or corruption or bubbles , but because I think it has all those problems in spades and some will blow up along the way -LRB- the most dangerous being pollution -RRB-
But it also has a political class focused on addressing its real problems , as well as a mountain of savings with which to do so -LRB- unlike us -RRB-
And here is the other thing to keep in mind
Think about all the hype , all the words , that have been written about China 's economic development since 1979
It 's a lot , right
What if I told you this : `` It may be that we have n't seen anything yet .
Why do I say that
All the long-term investments that China has made over the last two decades are just blossoming and could really propel the Chinese economy into the 21st-century knowledge age , starting with its massive investment in infrastructure
Ten years ago , China had a lot bridges and roads to nowhere
Well , many of them are now connected
It is also on a crash program of building subways in major cities and high-speed trains to interconnect them
China also now has 400 million Internet users , and 200 million of them have broadband
Check into a motel in any major city and you 'll have broadband access
America has about 80 million broadband users
Now take all this infrastructure and mix it together with 27 million students in technical colleges and universities the most in the world
With just the normal distribution of brains , that 's going to bring a lot of brainpower to the market , or , as Bill Gates once said to me : `` In China , when you 're one-in-a-million , there are 1,300 other people just like you .
Equally important , more and more Chinese students educated abroad are returning home to work and start new businesses
I had lunch with a group of professors at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , or HKUST , who told me that this year they will be offering some 50 full scholarships for graduate students in science and technology
Major U.S. universities are sharply cutting back
Tony Chan , a Hong Kong-born mathematician , recently returned from America after 20 years to become the new president of HKUST
What was his last job in America
Assistant director of the U.S. National Science Foundation in charge of the mathematical and physical sciences
He 's one of many coming home
One of the biggest problems for China 's manufacturing and financial sectors has been finding capable middle managers
The reverse-brain drain is eliminating that problem as well
Finally , as Liu Chao-shiuan , Taiwan 's former prime minister , pointed out to me : when Taiwan moved up the value chain from low-end , labor-intensive manufacturing to higher , value-added work , its factories moved to China or Vietnam
It lost them
In China , low-end manufacturing moves from coastal China to the less developed Western part of the country and becomes an engine for development there
In Taiwan , factories go up and out
In China , they go East to West
`` China knows it has problems , '' said Liu
`` But this is the first time it has a chance to actually solve them .
Taiwanese entrepreneurs now have more than 70,000 factories in China
They know the place
So I asked several Taiwanese businessmen whether they would `` short '' China
They vigorously shook their heads no as if I 'd asked if they 'd go one on one with LeBron James
But , hey , some people said the same about Enron
Still , I 'd rather bet against the euro
Shorting China today
Well , good luck with that , Mr. Chanos
Let us know how it works out for you
I have only one question about Israel 's military operation in Gaza : What is the goal
Is it the education of Hamas or the eradication of Hamas
I hope that it 's the education of Hamas
Let me explain why
I was one of the few people who argued back in 2006 that Israel actually won the war in Lebanon started by Hezbollah
You need to study that war and its aftermath to understand Gaza and how it is part of a new strategic ballgame in the Arab-Israel arena , which will demand of the Obama team a new approach
What Hezbollah did in 2006 in launching an unprovoked war across the U.N.-recognized Israel-Lebanon border , after Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Lebanon was to both upend Israel 's longstanding peace strategy and to unveil a new phase in the Hezbollah-Iran war strategy against Israel
There have always been two camps in Israel when it comes to the logic of peace , notes Gidi Grinstein , president of the Israeli think tank , the Reut Institute : One camp says that all the problems Israel faces from the Palestinians or Lebanese emanate from occupying their territories
`` Therefore , the fundamental problem is staying and the fundamental remedy is leaving , '' says Grinstein
The other camp argues that Israel 's Arab foes are implacably hostile and leaving would only invite more hostility
Therefore , at least when it comes to the Palestinians , Israel needs to control their territories indefinitely
Since the mid-1990s , the first camp has dominated Israeli thinking
This led to the negotiated and unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank , Lebanon and Gaza
Hezbollah 's unprovoked attack from Lebanon into Israel in 2006 both undermined the argument that withdrawal led to security and presented Israel with a much more vexing military strategy aimed at neutralizing Israel 's military superiority
Hezbollah created a very `` flat '' military network , built on small teams of guerrillas and mobile missile-batteries , deeply embedded in the local towns and villages
And this Hezbollah force , rather than confronting Israel 's Army head-on , focused on demoralizing Israeli civilians with rockets in their homes , challenging Israel to inflict massive civilian casualties in order to hit Hezbollah fighters and , when Israel did strike Hezbollah and also killed civilians , inflaming the Arab-Muslim street , making life very difficult for Arab or European leaders aligned with Israel
Israel 's counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and , while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined , to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large
It was not pretty , but it was logical
Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor , Hezbollah , nested among civilians , the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians the families and employers of the militants to restrain Hezbollah in the future
Israel 's military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat
It was focused on the morning after the morning after , when all the real business happens in the Middle East
That 's when Lebanese civilians , in anguish , said to Hezbollah : `` What were you thinking
Look what destruction you have visited on your own community
For what
For whom ?
Here 's what Hassan Nasrallah , Hezbollah 's leader , said the morning after the morning after about his decision to start that war by abducting two Israeli soldiers on July 12 , 2006 : `` We did not think , even 1 percent , that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude
You ask me , if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war , would I do it
I say no , absolutely not .
That was the education of Hezbollah
Has Israel seen its last conflict with Hezbollah
I doubt it
But Hezbollah , which has done nothing for Hamas , will think three times next time
That is probably all Israel can achieve with a nonstate actor
In Gaza , I still ca n't tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to `` educate '' Hamas , by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population
If it is out to destroy Hamas , casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos
If it is out to educate Hamas , Israel may have achieved its aims
Now its focus , and the Obama team 's focus , should be on creating a clear choice for Hamas for the world to see : Are you about destroying Israel or building Gaza
But that requires diplomacy
Israel de facto recognizes Hamas 's right to rule Gaza and to provide for the well-being and security of the people of Gaza which was actually Hamas 's original campaign message , not rocketing Israel
And , in return , Hamas has to signal a willingness to assume responsibility for a lasting cease-fire and to abandon efforts to change the strategic equation with Israel by deploying longer and longer range rockets
That 's the only deal
Let 's give it a try
Dick Cheney says President Obama is `` trying to pretend that we are not at war '' with terrorists
There is only one thing I have to say about that : I sure hope so
Frankly , if I had my wish , we would be on our way out of Afghanistan not in , we would be letting Pakistan figure out which Taliban they want to conspire with and which ones they want to fight , we would be letting Israelis and Palestinians figure out on their own how to make peace , we would be taking $ 100 billion out of the Pentagon budget to make us independent of imported oil nothing would make us more secure and we would be reducing the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden to exactly what he 's worth : 10 cents and an autographed picture of Dick Cheney
Am I going isolationist
No , but visiting the greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong , Taiwan and China , who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations than my president , whose agenda can be derailed at any moment by a jihadist death cult using exploding underpants
Could we just walk away
No , but we must change our emphasis
The `` war on terrorists '' has to begin by our challenging the people and leaders over there
If they 're not ready to take the lead , to speak out and fight the madness in their midst , for the future of their own societies , there is no way we can succeed
We 'll exhaust ourselves trying
We 'd be better off just building a higher wall
As the terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman noted in an essay in The Washington Post : `` In the wake of the global financial crisis , Al Qaeda has stepped up a strategy of economic warfare
` We will bury you , ' Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev promised Americans 50 years ago
Today , Al Qaeda threatens : ` We will bankrupt you . '
And they will
Our presence , our oil dependence , our endless foreign aid in the Middle East have become huge enablers of bad governance there and massive escapes from responsibility and accountability by people who want to blame all their troubles on us
Let 's get out of the way and let the moderate majorities there , if they really exist , face their own enemies on their own
It is the only way they will move
We can be the wind at their backs , but we ca n't be their sails
There is some hope for Iraq and Iran today because their moderates are fighting for themselves
Has anyone noticed the most important peace breakthrough on the planet in the last two years
It 's right here : the new calm in the Strait of Taiwan
For decades , this was considered the most dangerous place on earth , with Taiwan and China pointing missiles at each other on hair triggers
Well , over the past two years , China and Taiwan have reached a quiet rapprochement on their own
No special envoys or shuttling secretaries of state
Yes , our Navy was a critical stabilizer
But they worked it out
They realized their own interdependence
The result : a new web of economic ties , direct flights and student exchanges
A key reason is that Taiwan has no oil , no natural resources
It 's a barren rock with 23 million people who , through hard work , have amassed the fourth-largest foreign currency reserves in the world
They got rich digging inside themselves , unlocking their entrepreneurs , not digging for oil
They took responsibility
They got rich by asking : `` How do I improve myself ?
Not by declaring : `` It 's all somebody else 's fault
Give me a handout .
When I look at America from here , I worry
China is now our main economic partner and competitor
Sure , China has big problems
Nevertheless , I hope Americans see China 's rise as the 21st-century equivalent of Russia launching the Sputnik satellite a challenge to which we responded with a huge national effort that revived our education , infrastructure and science and propelled us for 50 years
Unfortunately , the Cheneyites want to make fighting Al Qaeda our Sputnik
Others want us to worry about some loopy remark Senator Harry Reid made about the shade of Obama 's skin
Well , what is our national project going to be
Racing China , chasing Al Qaeda or parsing Harry
Of course , to a degree , we need to both race China and confront Al Qaeda but which will define us
`` Our response to Sputnik made us better educated , more productive , more technologically advanced and more ingenious , '' said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum
`` Our investments in science and education spread throughout American society , producing the Internet , more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation .
And what does the war on terror give us
Better drones , body scanners and a lot of desultory T.S.A. security jobs at airports
`` Sputnik spurred us to build a highway to the future , '' added Mandelbaum
`` The war on terror is prompting us to build bridges to nowhere .
We just keep thinking we can do it all be focused , frightened and frivolous
We ca n't
We do n't have the money
We do n't have the time
I was walking by a TV the other day and CNN was on , airing a hearing of what seemed to be a banking committee in Congress debating whether to release more bailout money
CNN did n't identify the lawmaker who was speaking
He had a bit of a Southern drawl
But I burst out laughing when he said something like : `` I remember a time when banks lent money to people
Now it 's the other way around .
Yes , kids , those were the days when banks lent money to the people not the people to the banks
Many commentators have suggestions for Barack Obama on what should be his first meeting at the White House
Here is mine : Mr. Obama and his economic team should convene the 300 leading bank presidents in the East Room and the president should say to each one of them something like this : `` Ladies and gentlemen , this crisis started with you , the bankers , engaging in reckless practices , and it will only end when we clean up your mess and start afresh
The banking system is the heart of our economy
It pumps blood to our industrial muscles , and right now it 's not pumping
We all know that in the past six months you 've gone from one extreme to another
You 've gone from lending money to anyone who could fog up a knife to now treating all potential borrowers , no matter how healthy , as bankrupt until proven innocent
And , therefore , you 're either not lending to them or lending under such onerous terms that the economy ca n't get any liftoff
No amount of stimulus will work without a healthy banking system
`` So here 's what we 're going to do : we 're going to unclog the arteries
My banking experts have analyzed each of your balance sheets
You will tell us if we 're right
Those of you who are insolvent , we will nationalize and shut down
We will auction off your viable assets and will hold the toxic ones in a government reconstruction fund and sell them later when the market rebounds
Those of you who are weak will be merged
And those of you who are strong will receive added capital for your balance sheets , after you write down all your remaining toxic waste
I am not going to continue rewarding the losers and dimwits amongst you with handouts .
Without this sort of come-to-Jesus strategy , we 're going to continue to just limp along
We 'll never quite confront the real problem because we do n't want to take the upfront pain
Therefore , the market will never clear meaning start-ups in need of capital will be choked in their cribs and profit-making firms wo n't be able to grow as they should
`` Right now , '' said David Smick , author of `` The World Is Curved , '' `` the bankers are sitting on mountains of cash , including our bailout money , because they know their true balance sheets are a disaster far worse than publicly stated .
The situation will likely worsen as delinquent consumer and auto loans are piled atop bad mortgages
`` Obama needs to inject some truth serum into the banking discussion
No one trusts the banks , and even the bankers do n't trust each other .
Bringing clarity to bank balance sheets , said Smick , `` is the first step to fixing America 's bank lending problem .
Only after we bring full transparency to the bank balance sheets will we see private capital buying into banks again at scale
But have no illusions
There are still real balance sheet problems that have to be surmounted
This is not just a psychological crisis
`` I wish people would stop saying that this is a crisis of confidence , '' said Steven Eisman , a portfolio manager and banking expert at FrontPoint Partners
`` The loss of confidence is just a symptom of bad credit and over-leverage
The banks are not lending because they know their balance sheets are loaded with future losses and they do n't have enough capital
The TARP gave them preferred equity , which is nothing more than a bridge loan
We need the government to force the banks to write down all their bad assets now and then recapitalize themselves , preferably with private capital
Those banks that can not raise sufficient capital should be seized and their deposits sold off .
For too long the government has been taking the banks at their own words , which is one reason we keep getting surprised with demands for more bailout cash
The Treasury needs to be doing its own brutal , burn-down analysis of every major bank 's balance sheet and then acting accordingly
In recent years , `` whenever other countries Russia , Thailand , Indonesia , South Korea or Mexico got themselves into an economic crisis , we lectured them about how they had to adopt ` shock therapy , ' '' said Mois s Na m , editor of Foreign Policy magazine
`` But now that we are the ones in crisis and in need of shock therapy , everyone is preaching gradualism .
A stimulus package that does not also unclog the arteries of our banking system will never stimulate sufficiently
Mr. Obama should take the pain early , blame it all on George Bush and then reap the benefits down the road
Postpone the pain , postpone the recovery
Last week , I wrote a column suggesting that while some overheated Chinese markets , like real estate , may offer shorting opportunities , I 'd be wary of the argument that China 's economy today is just one big short-inviting bubble , la Dubai
Your honor , I 'd like to now revise and amend my remarks
There is one short position , one big short , that does intrigue me in China
I am not sure who makes a market in this area , but here goes : If China forces out Google , I 'd like to short the Chinese Communist Party
Here is why : Chinese companies today are both more backward and more advanced than most Americans realize
There are actually two Chinese economies today
There is the Communist Party and its affiliates ; let 's call them Command China
These are the very traditional state-owned enterprises
Alongside them , there is a second China , largely concentrated in coastal cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong
This is a highly entrepreneurial sector that has developed sophisticated techniques to generate and participate in diverse , high-value flows of business knowledge
I call that Network China
What is so important about knowledge flows
This , for me , is the key to understanding the Google story and why one might decide to short the Chinese Communist Party
John Hagel , the noted business writer and management consultant argues in his recently released `` Shift Index '' that we 're in the midst of `` The Big Shift .
We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks the sum total of what we know at any point in time , which is now depreciating at an accelerating pace into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows , which are constantly being renewed
`` Finding ways to connect with people and institutions possessing new knowledge becomes increasingly important , '' says Hagel
`` Since there are far more smart people outside any one organization than inside .
And in today 's flat world , you can now access them all
Therefore , the more your company or country can connect with relevant and diverse sources to create new knowledge , the more it will thrive
And if you do n't , others will
I would argue that Command China , in its efforts to suppress , curtail and channel knowledge flows into politically acceptable domains that will indefinitely sustain the control of the Communist Party i.e. , censoring Google is increasingly at odds with Network China , which is thriving by participating in global knowledge flows
That is what the war over Google is really all about : It is a proxy and a symbol for whether the Chinese will be able to freely search and connect wherever their imaginations and creative impulses take them , which is critical for the future of Network China
Have no doubt , China has some world-class networked companies that are `` in the flow '' already , such as Li & Fung , a $ 14 billion apparel company with a network of 10,000 specialized business partners , and Dachangjiang , the motorcycle maker
The flows occurring on a daily basis in the networks of these Chinese companies to do design , product innovation and supply-chain management and to pool the best global expertise `` are unlike anything that U.S. companies have figured out , '' said Hagel
The orchestrators of these networks , he added , `` encourage participants to gather among themselves in an ad hoc fashion to address unexpected performance challenges , learn from each other and pull in outsiders as they need them
More traditional companies driven by a desire to protect and exploit knowledge stocks carefully limit the partners they deal with .
Command China has thrived up to now largely by perfecting the 20th-century model for low-cost manufacturing based on mining knowledge stocks and limiting flows
But China will only thrive in the 21st century and the Communist Party survive in power if it can get more of its firms to shift to the 21st-century model of Network China
That means enabling more and more Chinese people , universities and companies to participate in the world 's great knowledge flows , especially ones that connect well beyond the established industry and market boundaries
Alas , though , China seems to be betting that it can straddle three impulses control flows for political reasons , maintain 20th-century Command Chinese factories for employment reasons and expand 21st-century Network China for growth reasons
But the contradictions within this straddle could undermine all three
The 20th-century Command model will be under pressure
The future belongs to those who promote richer and ever more diverse knowledge flows and develop the institutions and practices required to harness them
So there you have it : Command China , which wants to censor Google , is working against Network China , which thrives on Google
For now , it looks as if Command China will have its way
If that turns out to be the case , then I 'd like to short the Communist Party
For one day , for one hour , let us take a bow as a country
Nearly 233 years after our founding , 144 years after the close of our Civil War and 46 years after Martin Luther King 's `` I Have a Dream '' speech , this crazy quilt of immigrants called Americans finally elected a black man , Barack Hussein Obama , as president
Walking back from the inauguration , I saw an African-American street vendor wearing a home-stenciled T-shirt that pretty well captured the moment and then some
It said : `` Mission Accomplished .
But we can not let this be the last mold we break , let alone the last big mission we accomplish
Now that we have overcome biography , we need to write some new history one that will reboot , revive and reinvigorate America
That , for me , was the essence of Obama 's inaugural speech and I hope we and he are really up to it
Indeed , dare I say , I hope Obama really has been palling around all these years with that old Chicago radical Bill Ayers
I hope Obama really is a closet radical
Not radical left or right , just a radical , because this is a radical moment
It is a moment for radical departures from business as usual in so many areas
We ca n't thrive as a country any longer by coasting on our reputation , by postponing solutions to every big problem that might involve some pain and by telling ourselves that dramatic new initiatives like a gasoline tax , national health care or banking reform are too hard or `` off the table .
So my most fervent hope about President Obama is that he will be as radical as this moment that he will put everything on the table
Opportunities for bold initiatives and truly new beginnings are rare in our system in part because of the sheer inertia and stalemate designed into our Constitution , with its deliberate separation of powers , and in part because of the way lobbying money , a 24-hour news cycle and a permanent presidential campaign all conspire to paralyze big changes
`` The system is built for stalemate , '' said Michael J. Sandel , the Harvard University political theorist
`` In ordinary times , the energy and dynamism of American life reside in the economy and society , and people view government with suspicion or indifference
But in times of national crisis , Americans look to government to solve fundamental problems that affect them directly
These are the times when presidents can do big things
These moments are rare
But they offer the occasion for the kind of leadership that can recast the political landscape , and redefine the terms of political argument for a generation .
In the 1930s , the Great Depression enabled Franklin Roosevelt to launch the New Deal and redefine the role of the federal government , he added , while in the 1960s , the assassination of John F. Kennedy and `` the moral ferment of the civil rights movement '' enabled Lyndon Johnson to enact his Great Society agenda , including Medicare , the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act
`` These presidencies did more than enact new laws and programs , '' concluded Sandel
`` They rewrote the social contract , and redefined what it means to be a citizen
Obama 's moment , and his presidency , could be that consequential .
George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9 \/ 11 moment to summon the country to a dramatic new rebuilding at home
This has left us in some very deep holes
These holes and the broad awareness that we are at the bottom of them is what makes this a radical moment , calling for radical departures from business as usual , led by Washington
That is why this voter is hoping Obama will swing for the fences
But he also has to remember to run the bases
George Bush swung for some fences , but he often failed at the most basic element of leadership competent management and follow-through
President Obama will have to decide just how many fences he can swing for at one time : grand bargains on entitlement and immigration reform
A national health care system
A new clean-energy infrastructure
The nationalization and repair of our banking system
Will it be all or one
Some now and some later
It is too soon to say
But I do know this : while a crisis is a terrible thing to waste , so too is a great politician , with a natural gift for oratory , a rare knack for bringing people together , and a nation , particularly its youth , ready to be summoned and to serve
So , in sum , while it is impossible to exaggerate what a radical departure it is from our past that we have inaugurated a black man as president , it is equally impossible to exaggerate how much our future depends on a radical departure from our present
As Obama himself declared from the Capitol steps : `` Our time of standing pat , of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions that time has surely passed .
We need to get back to work on our country and our planet in wholly new ways
The hour is late , the project could n't be harder , the stakes could n't be higher , the payoff could n't be greater
The most striking feature of Barack Obama 's campaign for the presidency was the amazing , young , Internet-enabled , grass-roots movement he mobilized to get elected
The most striking feature of Obama 's presidency a year later is how thoroughly that movement has disappeared
In part , it disappeared because the Obama team let it disappear , as Obama moved to pass what was necessary the economic stimulus and what he aspired to health care by exclusively playing inside baseball with Congress
The president seems to have thought that his majorities in the Senate and the House were so big that he never really had to mobilize `` the people '' to drive his agenda
Obama turned all his supporters into spectators of The Harry and Nancy Show
And , at the same time , that grass-roots movement went dormant on its own , apparently thinking that just getting the first African-American elected as president was the moon shot of this generation , and nothing more was necessary
Well , here 's my free advice to Obama , post-Massachusetts
If you think that the right response is to unleash a populist backlash against bankers , you 're wrong
Please , please re-regulate the banks in a smart way
But remember : in the long run , Americans do n't rally to angry politicians
They do not bring out the best in us
We rally to inspirational , hopeful ones
They bring out the best in us
And right now we need to be at our best
Obama should launch his own moon shot
What the country needs most now is not more government stimulus , but more stimulation
We need to get millions of American kids , not just the geniuses , excited about innovation and entrepreneurship again
We need to make 2010 what Obama should have made 2009 : the year of innovation , the year of making our pie bigger , the year of `` Start-Up America .
Obama should make the centerpiece of his presidency mobilizing a million new start-up companies that wo n't just give us temporary highway jobs , but lasting good jobs that keep America on the cutting edge
The best way to counter the Tea Party movement , which is all about stopping things , is with an Innovation Movement , which is all about starting things
Without inventing more new products and services that make people more productive , healthier or entertained that we can sell around the world we 'll never be able to afford the health care our people need , let alone pay off our debts
Obama should bring together the country 's leading innovators and ask them : `` What legislation , what tax incentives , do we need right now to replicate you all a million times over '' and make that his No. 1 priority
Inspiring , reviving and empowering Start-up America is his moon shot
And to reignite his youth movement , he should make sure every American kid knows about two programs that he has already endorsed : The first is National Lab Day
Introduced last November by a coalition of educators and science and engineering associations , Lab Day aims to inspire a wave of future innovators , by pairing veteran scientists and engineers with students in grades K-12 to inspire thousands of hands-on science projects around the country
Any teacher in America , explains the entrepreneur Jack Hidary , the chairman of N.L.D. , can go to the Web site NationalLabDay.org and enter the science project he or she is interested in teaching , or get an idea for one
N.L.D. will match teachers with volunteer scientists and engineers in their areas for mentoring
`` As soon as you have a match , the scientists and the students communicate directly or via Skype and collaborate on a project , '' said Hidary
`` We have a class in Chicago asking for civil engineers to teach them how to build a bridge
In Idaho , a class is asking for a scientist to help them build a working river delta inside their classroom .
The president should also vow to bring the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship , or NFTE , to every low-income neighborhood in America
NFTE works with middle - and high-school teachers to help them teach entrepreneurship
The centerpiece of its program is a national contest for start-ups with 24,000 kids participating
Each student has to invent a product or service , write up a business plan and then do it
NFTE -LRB- www.NFTE.com -RRB- works only in low-income areas , so many of these new entrepreneurs are minority kids
In November , a documentary movie `` Ten9Eight '' was released that tracked a dozen students all the way through to the finals of the NFTE competition
Obama should arrange for this movie to be shown in every classroom in America
It is the most inspirational , heartwarming film you will ever see
You can obtain details about it at www.ten9eight.com
This year 's three finalists , said Amy Rosen , the chief executive of NFTE , `` were an immigrant 's son who took a class from H&R Block and invented a company to do tax returns for high school students , a young woman who taught herself how to sew and designed custom-made dresses , and the winner was an African-American boy who manufactured socially meaningful T-shirts .
You want more good jobs , spawn more Steve Jobs
Obama should have focused on that from Day 1
He must focus on that for Year 2
Stop me if you 've heard this one before
`` Guy walks into a bar ... '' No , not that one this one : `` This is the most critical year ever for Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy
It is five minutes to midnight
If we do n't get diplomacy back on track soon , it will be the end of the two-state solution .
I 've heard that line almost every year for the last 20 , and I 've never bought it
Well , today , I 'm buying it
We 're getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution , because the two chief window-closers Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank have been in the driver 's seats
Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable , while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible
If Hamas continues to obtain and use longer - and longer-range rockets , there is no way any Israeli government can or will tolerate independent Palestinian control of the West Bank , because a rocket from there can easily close the Tel Aviv airport and shut down Israel 's economy
And if the Jewish settlers continue with their `` natural growth '' to devour the West Bank , it will also be effectively off the table
No Israeli government has mustered the will to take down even the `` illegal , '' unauthorized settlements , despite promises to the U.S. to do so , so it 's getting hard to see how the `` legal '' settlements will ever be removed
What is needed from Israel 's Feb. 10 elections is a centrist , national unity government that can resist the blackmail of the settlers , and the rightist parties that protect them , to still implement a two-state solution
Because without a stable two-state solution , what you will have is an Israel hiding behind a high wall , defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza , a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah
Have a nice day
So if you believe in the necessity of a Palestinian state or you love Israel , you 'd better start paying attention
This is not a test
We 're at a hinge of history
What makes it so challenging for the new Obama team is that Mideast diplomacy has been transformed as a result of the regional disintegration since Oslo in three key ways
First , in the old days , Henry Kissinger could fly to three capitals , meet three kings , presidents or prime ministers and strike a deal that could hold
No more
Today a peacemaker has to be both a nation-builder and a negotiator
The Palestinians are so fragmented politically and geographically that half of U.S. diplomacy is going to be about how to make peace between Palestinians , and build their institutions , so there is a coherent , legitimate decision-making body there before we can make peace between Israelis and Palestinians
Second , Hamas now has a veto over any Palestinian peace deal
It 's true that Hamas just provoked a reckless war that has devastated the people of Gaza
But Hamas is not going away
It is well armed and , despite its suicidal behavior of late , deeply rooted
The Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank will not make any compromise deal with Israel as long as it fears that Hamas , from outside the tent , would denounce it as traitorous
Therefore , Job 2 for the U.S. , Israel and the Arab states is to find a way to bring Hamas into a Palestinian national unity government
As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen says , `` It is not enough for Israel that the world recognize that Hamas criminally mismanaged its responsibility to its people
Israel 's longer-term interest is to be sure that it has a Palestinian partner for negotiations , which will have sufficient legitimacy among its own people to be able to sign agreements and fulfill them
Without Hamas as part of a Palestinian decision , any Israeli-Palestinian peace will be meaningless .
But bringing Hamas into a Palestinian unity government , without undermining the West Bank moderates now leading the Palestinian Authority , will be tricky
We 'll need Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buy , cajole and pressure Hamas into keeping the cease-fire , supporting peace talks and to give up rockets while Iran and Syria will be tugging Hamas the other way
And that leads to the third new factor Iran as a key player in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy
The Clinton team tried to woo Syria while isolating Iran
President Bush tried to isolate both Iran and Syria
The Obama team , as Martin Indyk argues in `` Innocent Abroad : An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East , '' `` needs to try both to bring in Syria , which would weaken Hamas and Hezbollah , while also engaging Iran .
So , just to recap : It 's five to midnight and before the clock strikes 12 all we need to do is rebuild Fatah , merge it with Hamas , elect an Israeli government that can freeze settlements , court Syria and engage Iran while preventing it from going nuclear just so we can get the parties to start talking
Whoever lines up all the pieces of this diplomatic Rubik 's Cube deserves two Nobel Prizes
Maybe it 's just me , but I 've found the last few weeks in American politics particularly unnerving
Our economy is still very fragile , yet you would never know that by the way the political class is acting
We 're like a patient that just got out of intensive care and is sitting up in bed for the first time when , suddenly , all the doctors and nurses at bedside start bickering
One of them throws a stethoscope across the room ; someone else threatens to unplug all the monitors unless the hospital bills are paid by noon ; and all the while the patient is thinking : `` Are you people crazy
I am just starting to recover
Do you realize how easily I could relapse
Are n't there any adults here ?
Sometimes you wonder : Are we home alone
Obviously , the political and financial elites to whom we give authority often act on the basis of personal interests
But we still have a long way to go to get out of the mess we are in , and if our elites do not behave with a greater sense of the common good we could find our economy doing a double dip with a back flip
Dov Seidman , the C.E.O. of LRN , which helps companies build ethical cultures , likes to talk about two kinds of values : `` situational values '' and `` sustainable values .
Leaders , companies or individuals guided by situational values do whatever the situation will allow , no matter the wider interests of their communities
A banker who writes a mortgage for someone he knows ca n't make the payments over time is acting on situational values , saying : `` I 'll be gone when the bill comes due .
People inspired by sustainable values act just the opposite , saying : `` I will never be gone
I will always be here
Therefore , I must behave in ways that sustain my employees , my customers , my suppliers , my environment , my country and my future generations .
Lately , we 've seen an explosion of situational thinking
I support the broad proposals President Obama put forth last week to prevent banks from becoming too big to fail and to protect taxpayers from banks that get in trouble by speculating and then expect us to bail them out
But the way the president unveiled his proposals `` if those folks want a fight , it 's a fight I 'm ready to have '' left me feeling as though he was looking for a way to bash the banks right after the Democrats ' loss in Massachusetts , in order to score a few cheap political points more than to initiate a serious national discussion about an incredibly complex issue
President Obama is so much better when he takes a heated , knotty issue , like civil rights or banking reform , and talks to the country like adults
He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier
Going to war with the banks for a quick political sugar high after an electoral loss will just work against him and us
It will spook the banks into lending even less and slow the recovery even more
That said , part of me ca n't blame the president
The behavior of some leading Wall Street banks , particularly Goldman Sachs , has been utterly selfish
U.S. taxpayers saved Goldman by saving one of its big counterparties , A.I.G. By any fair calculation , the U.S. Treasury should own a slice of Goldman today
Goldman has been the poster boy for banks behaving by `` situational values '' exploiting whatever the situation , or rules that it helped to write , allowed
Also , President Obama tried to create a bipartisan commission to come up with a plan to reduce the national debt a plan that would inflict pain on both parties by cutting some programs and raising some taxes
But the Republican leader , Senator Mitch McConnell , said the G.O.P. would not cooperate with any commission that proposes raising taxes
And some liberal Democrats rejected cutting their favorite programs
Way to take one for the country , guys
Then let 's look at the unions hardly paragons of sustainable thinking for the country
We all know they got more than their fair share in the General Motors settlement and in the Obama health care proposals because they could shake down the Democrats in return for votes
And , finally , do n't forget both the Democratic and Republican senators who have decided to get a quick populist boost by turning one of the few adults we have left Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke into a pi ata
No , Mr. Bernanke is not blameless for the 2008 crisis
But since then he has helped steer the country back from the brink and kept us out of a depression
He absolutely deserves reappointment
No doubt , this is a lousy season to be the leader of any institution
We are in the midst of a long period of austerity , where all that most leaders will be able to do is cut , fire and trim
It is so easy to play populism and run against them
But this time is different
When our government is this deeply involved in propping up our economy , and the economy is this fragile , politics as usual will kill us
We badly need leaders inspired by sustainable values , not situational ones
Without that , we 'll just be digging our hole deeper and making the reckoning , when it comes , that much more ferocious
In February 2002 , I traveled to Saudi Arabia and interviewed the then crown prince , now king , Abdullah , at his Riyadh horse farm
I asked him why the next Arab summit would n't just propose to Israel full peace and normalization of relations , by all 22 Arab states , for full withdrawal from all occupied lands and creation of a Palestinian state
Abdullah said that I had read his mind -LRB- `` Have you broken into my desk ?
he asked me -RRB- and that he was about to propose just that , which he later did , giving birth to the `` Abdullah peace plan .
Unfortunately , neither the Bush team nor Israel ever built upon the Abdullah plan
And the Saudi leader always stopped short of presenting his ideas directly to the Israeli people
Since then , everything has deteriorated
So , I 've wondered lately what King Abdullah would propose if asked to update his plan
I 've even probed whether he 'd like to do another interview , but he is apparently reticent
Not one to be deterred , I 've decided to do the next best thing : read his mind again
Here is my guess at the memo King Abdullah has in his drawer for President Obama
I 'd call it : `` Abdullah II : The Five-State Solution for Arab-Israeli peace .
Dear President Obama , Congratulations on your inauguration and for quickly dispatching your new envoy , George Mitchell , a good man , to the Middle East
I wish Mitchell could resume where he left off eight years ago , but the death of Arafat , the decline of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank , the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war in Lebanon , the 2009 Hamas-Israel war in Gaza , the continued expansion of colonial Israeli settlements and the deepening involvement of Iran with Hamas and Hezbollah have all created a new reality
Specifically , the Palestinian Authority is in no position today to assume control of the West Bank , Hamas is incapable of managing Gaza and the introduction of rockets provided by Iran to Hamas has created a situation whereby Israel wo n't turn over the West Bank to any Palestinians now because it fears Hamas would use it to launch rockets on Israel 's international airport
But if we do nothing , Zionist settlers would devour the rest of the West Bank and holy Jerusalem
What can be done
I am proposing what I would call a five-state solution : 1
Israel agrees in principle to withdraw from every inch of the West Bank and Arab districts of East Jerusalem , as it has from Gaza
Any territories Israel might retain in the West Bank for its settlers would have to be swapped inch for inch with land from Israel proper
The Palestinians Hamas and Fatah agree to form a national unity government
This government then agrees to accept a limited number of Egyptian troops and police to help Palestinians secure Gaza and monitor its borders , as well as Jordanian troops and police to do the same in the West Bank
The Palestinian Authority would agree to five-year `` security assistance programs '' with Egypt in Gaza and with Jordan in the West Bank
With Egypt and Jordan helping to maintain order , Palestinians could focus on building their own credible security and political institutions to support their full independence at the end of five years
Israel would engage in a phased withdrawal over these five years from all of its settlements in the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem except those agreed to be granted to Israel as part of land swaps at the same pace that the Palestinians meet the security and governance metrics agreed to in advance by all the parties
The U.S. would be the sole arbiter of whether the metrics have been met by both sides
Saudi Arabia would pay all the costs of the Egyptian and Jordanian trustees , plus a $ 1 billion a year service fee to each country as well as all the budgetary needs of the Palestinian Authority
The entire plan would be based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 and blessed by the U.N. Security Council
The virtues of this five-state solution Palestine , Egypt , Jordan , Israel and Saudi Arabia are numerous : Egypt and Jordan , the Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel , would act as transition guarantors that any Israeli withdrawal would not leave a security vacuum in the West Bank , Gaza or Arab Jerusalem that could threaten Israel
Israel would have time for a phased withdrawal of its settlements , and Palestinians would have the chance to do nation-building in an orderly manner
This would be an Arab solution that would put a stop to Iran 's attempts to Persianize the Palestinian issue
President Obama , too much has been broken to go straight back to the two-state solution
It would be like trying to build a house with bricks but no cement
There 's no trust and no framework to build it
Israelis and Palestinians need the kind of cement that only Egypt , Saudi Arabia and Jordan can provide
It would give Israelis security and Palestinians a clear pathway to an independent state
I hope you will give careful consideration to the five-state solution
Peace be upon you , Abdullah bin Abdul
Serious in Singapore I am in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School in a middle-class neighborhood of Singapore , and the principal , A. W. Ai Ling , has me visiting a fifth-grade science class
All the 11-year-old boys and girls are wearing junior white lab coats with their names on them
Outside in the hall , yellow police tape has blocked off a `` crime scene '' and lying on a floor , bloodied , is a fake body that has been murdered
The class is learning about DNA through the use of fingerprints , and their science teacher has turned the students into little C.S.I. detectives
They have to collect fingerprints from the scene and then break them down
I missed that DNA lesson when I was in fifth grade
When I asked the principal whether this was part of the national curriculum , she said no.
She just had a great science teacher , she said , and was aware that Singapore was making a big push to expand its biotech industries and thought it would be good to push her students in the same direction early
A couple of them checked my fingerprints
I was innocent - but impressed
This was just an average public school , but the principal had made her own connections between `` what world am I living in , '' `` where is my country trying to go in that world '' and , therefore , `` what should I teach in fifth-grade science .
I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in U.S. politics today
Republicans favor deep cuts in government spending , while so far exempting Medicare , Social Security and the defense budget
Not only is that not realistic , but it basically says that our nation 's priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama
President Obama just laid out a smart and compelling vision of where our priorities should be
But he did not spell out how and where we will have to both cut and invest - really intelligently and at a large scale - to deliver on his vision
Singapore is tiny and by no means a U.S.-style democracy
Yet , like America , it has a multiethnic population - Chinese , Indian and Malay - with a big working class
It has no natural resources and even has to import sand for building
But today its per capita income is just below U.S. levels , built with high-end manufacturing , services and exports
The country 's economy grew last year at 14.7 percent , led by biomedical exports
If Singapore has one thing to teach America , it is about taking governing seriously , relentlessly asking : What world are we living in and how do we adapt to thrive
`` We 're like someone living in a hut without any insulation , '' explained Tan Kong Yam , an economist
`` We feel every change in the wind or the temperature and have to adapt
You Americans are still living in a brick house with central heating and do n't have to be so responsive .
And we have not been
Singapore probably has the freest market in the world ; it does n't believe in import tariffs , minimum wages or unemployment insurance
But it believes regulators need to make sure markets work properly - because they ca n't on their own - and it subsidizes homeownership and education to give everyone a foundation to become self-reliant
Singapore copied the German model that strives to put everyone who graduates from high school on a track for higher education , but only about 40 percent go to universities
Others are tracked to polytechnics or vocational institutes , so the vast majority graduate with the skills to get a job , whether it be as a plumber or a scientist
Explained Ravi Menon , the Permanent Secretary of Singapore 's Ministry of Trade and Industry : `` The two ` isms ' that perhaps best describe Singapore 's approach are : pragmatism - an emphasis on what works in practice rather than abstract theory ; and eclecticism - a willingness to adapt to the local context best practices from around the world .
It is a sophisticated mix of radical free-market and nanny state that requires sophisticated policy makers to implement , which is why politics here is not treated as sports or entertainment
Top bureaucrats and cabinet ministers have their pay linked to top private sector wages , so most make well over $ 1 million a year , and their bonuses are tied to the country 's annual G.D.P. growth rate
It means the government can attract high-quality professionals and corruption is low
America never would or should copy Singapore 's less-than-free politics
But Singapore has something to teach us about `` attitude '' - about taking governing seriously and thinking strategically
We used to do that and must again because our little brick house with central heating is not going to be resistant to the storms much longer
`` There is real puzzlement here about America today , '' said Kishore Mahbubani , dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy , `` because we learned all about what it takes to build a well-functioning society from you
Many of our top officials are graduates of the Kennedy School at Harvard
They just came back home and applied its lessons vigorously .
As a political barometer , the Davos World Economic Forum usually offers up some revealing indicators of the global mood , and this year is no exception
I heard of a phrase being bandied about here by non-Americans about the United States that I can honestly say I 've never heard before : `` political instability .
`` Political instability '' was a phrase normally reserved for countries like Russia or Iran or Honduras
But now , an American businessman here remarked to me , `` people ask me about ` political instability ' in the U.S. We 've become unpredictable to the world .
Mind you , people at international conferences love to criticize America , poke fun at America and complain about America
It is the only global sport more popular than soccer
But in the past , it was always done knowing that America was this global bedrock that could always be counted upon to lead
But this year is different
This year , Asians and Europeans , in particular , pull you aside and ask you some version of : `` Tell me , what 's going on in your country ?
We 're making people nervous
Banks , multinationals and hedge funds often hire foreign policy experts to do `` political risk analysis '' before they invest in places like , say , Kazakhstan or Argentina
They may soon have to add the United States to their watch lists
You can understand why foreigners are uneasy
They look at America and see a president elected by a solid majority , coming into office riding a wave of optimism , controlling both the House and the Senate
Yet , a year later , he ca n't win passage of his top legislative priority : health care
`` Our two-party political system is broken just when everything needs major repair , not minor repair , '' said K.R. Sridhar , the founder of Bloom Energy , a fuel cell company in Silicon Valley , who is attending the forum
`` I am talking about health care , infrastructure , education , energy
We are the ones who need a Marshall Plan now .
Indeed , speaking of phrases I 've never heard here before , another goes like this : `` Is the ` Beijing Consensus ' replacing the ` Washington Consensus ? '
Washington Consensus is a term coined after the cold war for the free-market , pro-trade and globalization policies promoted by America
As Katrin Bennhold reported in The International Herald Tribune this week , developing countries everywhere are looking `` for a recipe for faster growth and greater stability than that offered by the now tattered ` Washington Consensus ' of open markets , floating currencies and free elections .
And as they do , `` there is growing talk about a ` Beijing Consensus . '
The Beijing Consensus , says Bennhold , is a `` Confucian-Communist-Capitalist '' hybrid under the umbrella of a one-party state , with a lot of government guidance , strictly controlled capital markets and an authoritarian decision-making process that is capable of making tough choices and long-term investments , without having to heed daily public polls
Personally , I would n't give up on the Washington Consensus so fast
The reason it is ailing is not because of its principles promoting economic openness and trade , many of which China is practicing better than we are lately
It is failing more because of , well , Washington
It was hard to read President Obama 's eloquent State of the Union address and not feel torn between his vision for the coming years and the awareness that the forces of inertia and special interests blocking him not to mention the whole Republican Party make the chances of his implementing that vision highly unlikely
That is the definition of `` stuck .
And right now we are stuck
The sad and frustrating thing is , we are so close to being unstuck
If there were just six or eight Republican senators a few more Judd Greggs and Lindsey Grahams ready to meet Obama somewhere in the middle on deficit reduction , energy , health care and banking reform , I believe that in the wake of the Massachusetts wake-up call the president would indeed meet them in that middle ground to forge not just incremental compromises , but substantial ones on these key issues
But so far , the Republicans are having a good year politically by just being the Party of No.
It is a shame because here we are as a country scrounging around for a few billion more dollars of stimulus to help our unemployed and small businesses when the biggest stimulus of all is hiding in plain sight
And that is ending our political paralysis and the pall of uncertainty it is casting over everything from the cost of my health care to the cost of my energy to the way our biggest banks can do business
If the two parties could get together and remove the clouds of uncertainty over those issues , remove the growing sense that our country is politically paralyzed , you would not need another dime of stimulus money
Investment and lending would take off on their own
If , however , the two parties continue with their duel-to-the-death paralysis , no amount of stimulus will give us the sustained growth and employment we need
Surely , the most important , interesting and , yes , heroic figure in the whole Christmas Day Northwest airliner affair was the would-be bomber 's father , the Nigerian banker Alhaji Umaru Mutallab
Mutallab did something that , as far as we know , no other parent of a suicide bomber has done : He went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria and warned us that text messages from his son revealed that he was in Yemen and had become a fervent , and possibly dangerous , radical
We are turning ourselves inside out over how our system broke down and surely it did in allowing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the would-be suicide bomber , to board that airliner
But his father , in effect , told us something else : `` My family system , our village system , broke down
My own son fell under the influence of a jihadist version of Islam that I do not recognize and have reason to fear .
The Times , quoting a cousin , said the son had sent the father a text message from Yemen in which he declared that `` he had found a new religion , the real Islam '' and that he was never coming home again
A Feb. 20 , 2005 , Internet posting attributed to the son and quoted by The Associated Press said : `` I imagine how the great jihad will take place , how the Muslims will win ... and rule the whole world , and establish the greatest empire once again ! ! !
Finding people with the courage to confront that breakdown the one identified by the father , the one that lures young Muslims away from the mainstream into a willingness to commit suicide against innocent civilians as part of some jihadist power fantasy is what matters most right now
Yes , we need to fix our intelligence
Yes , we absolutely must live up to our own ideals , as President Obama is trying to do in banning torture and closing Guant namo Bay
We ca n't let this `` war on terrorism '' consume us
We ca n't let our country become just The United States of Fighting Terrorism and nothing more
We are the people of July 4th not Sept. 11th
But even if we do all that , no laws or walls we put up will ever be sufficient to protect us unless the Arab and Muslim societies from whence these suicide bombers emerge erect political , religious and moral restraints as well starting by shaming suicide bombers and naming their actions `` murder , '' not `` martyrdom .
I keep saying : It takes a village
The father , Alhaji Umaru Mutallab , saw himself as part of a global community , based on shared values , and that is why he rang the alarm bell
Bless him for that
Unless more Muslim parents , spiritual leaders , political leaders the village are ready to publicly denounce suicide bombing against innocent civilians theirs and ours this behavior will not stop
Just last Friday , for example , a suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden vehicle in the midst of a volleyball tournament in the Pakistani village of Shah Hassan Khel , killing more than 100 people
Most were youngsters
No surprise
When suicide bombing becomes legitimate to use against non-Muslim `` infidels '' abroad it becomes legitimate to use against Muslim opponents at home
And what becomes `` legitimate '' and `` illegitimate '' in a community is so much more important than any government regulation
All too often , though , Arab and Muslim governments arrest their jihadis at home , denounce them privately to us , but say nothing in public
The global leadership of Islam like the king of Saudi Arabia or the Organization of the Islamic Conference rarely take on jihadist actions and ideology openly with the kind of passion , consistency and mass protests that we have seen them do , for example , against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
President Obama should not hesitate to call for it respectfully but publicly
If he only presses for more effective airport security , which he must , it 's a cop-out
`` When you want to foster more responsible behavior in people , you ca n't just legislate more rules and regulations , '' said Dov Seidman , the C.E.O. of LRN , which helps companies build ethical cultures , and the author of the book `` How .
`` You have to enlist and inspire people in a set of values
People need to be governed both from the outside , through compliance with rules , and from the inside , inspired by shared values
That is why shame is so important
When we call a banker ' a fat cat ' for taking too big a bonus , we 're actually being inspirational leaders because we are telling them , ` You are behaving beneath how a responsible human being should behave .
We need to inspire the village to shame those who betray our common values .
Every faith has its violent extreme
The West is not immune
It 's all about how the center deals with it
Does it tolerate it , isolate it or shame it
The jihadists are a security problem for our system
But they are a political and moral problem for the Arab-Muslim system
If they wo n't address this problem for us , I truly hope they will do it for themselves
Eventually , we 'll find a way to keep most jihadists off our planes and out of our volleyball games but they will have to live with them
Maureen Dowd is off today
The fighting , death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch
But it 's all too familiar
It 's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East , which , if I were to give it a title , would be called : `` Who owns this hotel
Can the Jews have a room
And should n't we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque ?
That is , Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948 : 1 -RRB- Who is going to be the regional superpower Egypt
Saudi Arabia
2 -RRB- Should there be a Jewish state in the Middle East and , if so , on what Palestinian terms
And 3 -RRB- Who is going to dominate Arab society Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future , with an Arab-Muslim face
Let 's look at each
WHO OWNS THIS HOTEL
The struggle for hegemony over the modern Arab world is as old as Nasser 's Egypt
But what is new today is that non-Arab Iran is now making a bid for primacy challenging Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Iran has deftly used military aid to both Hamas and Hezbollah to create a rocket-armed force on Israel 's northern and western borders
This enables Tehran to stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will and to paint itself as the true protector of the Palestinians , as opposed to the weak Arab regimes
`` The Gaza that Israel left in 2005 was bordering Egypt
The Gaza that Israel just came back to is now bordering Iran , '' said Mamoun Fandy , director of Middle East programs at the International Institute of Strategic Studies
`` Iran has become the ultimate confrontation state
I am not sure we can talk just about ` Arab-Israeli peace ' or the ` Arab peace initiative ' anymore
We may be looking at an ` Iranian initiative . '
In short , the whole notion of Arab-Israeli peacemaking likely will have to change
CAN THE JEWS HAVE A ROOM HERE
Hamas rejects any recognition of Israel
By contrast , the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority , which controls the West Bank , has recognized Israel and vice versa
If you believe , as I do , that the only stable solution is a two-state one , with the Palestinians getting all of the West Bank , Gaza and Arab sectors of East Jerusalem , then you have to hope for the weakening of Hamas
Because nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers
Because nothing would set back a peace deal more than if Hamas 's call to replace Israel with an Islamic state became the Palestinian negotiating position
And because Hamas 's attacks on towns in southern Israel is destroying a two-state solution , even more than Israel 's disastrous and reckless West Bank settlements
Israel has proved that it can and will uproot settlements , as it did in Gaza
Hamas 's rocket attacks pose an irreversible threat
They say to Israel : `` From Gaza , we can hit southern Israel
If we get the West Bank , we can rocket , and thereby close , Israel 's international airport anytime , any day , from now to eternity .
How many Israelis will risk relinquishing the West Bank , given this new threat
SHOULD N'T WE BLOW UP THE BAR AND REPLACE IT WITH A MOSQUE
Hamas 's overthrow of the more secular Fatah organization in Gaza in 2007 is part of a regionwide civil war between Islamists and modernists
In the week that Israel has been slicing through Gaza , Islamist suicide bombers have killed almost 100 Iraqis first , a group of tribal sheikhs in Yusufiya , who were working on reconciliation between Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds , and , second , mostly women and children gathered at a Shiite shrine
These unprovoked mass murders have not stirred a single protest in Europe or the Middle East
Gaza today is basically ground zero for all three of these struggles , said Martin Indyk , the former Clinton administration 's Middle East adviser whose incisive new book , `` Innocent Abroad : An Intimate Account of American Diplomacy in the Middle East , '' was just published
`` This tiny little piece of land , Gaza , has the potential to blow all of these issues wide open and present a huge problem for Barack Obama on Day 1 .
Obama 's great potential for America , noted Indyk , is also a great threat to Islamist radicals because his narrative holds tremendous appeal for Arabs
For eight years Hamas , Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have been surfing on a wave of anti-U.S. anger generated by George W. Bush
And that wave has greatly expanded their base
No doubt , Hamas , Hezbollah and Iran are hoping that they can use the Gaza conflict to turn Obama into Bush
They know Barack Hussein Obama must be -LRB- am -RRB- Bushed to keep America and its Arab allies on the defensive
Obama has to keep his eye on the prize
His goal America 's goal has to be a settlement in Gaza that eliminates the threat of Hamas rockets and opens Gaza economically to the world , under credible international supervision
That 's what will serve U.S. interests , moderate the three great struggles and earn him respect
I was on vacation when the story broke that 11 Russians had been charged as sleeper agents planted in America by Moscow 's spy agency to gather intelligence on the United States and to recruit moles who could gain access to our top secrets
My first reaction was : This may be the greatest gift to America by a foreign country since France gave us the Statue of Liberty
Someone still wants to spy on us
Just when we were feeling down and out , the Russians show up and tell us that it 's still worth briefcases of money to plant people in our think tanks
Subprime crisis or not , some people think we 've still got the right stuff
Thank you , Vladimir Putin
Upon reflection , though , it occurred to me that this is actually a good news\/bad news story
The good news is that someone still wants to spy on us
The bad news is that it 's the Russians
Look , if you had told me that we had just arrested 11 Finns who were spying on our schools , then I 'd really have felt good - since Finland 's public schools always score at the top of the world education tables
If you had told me that 11 Singaporeans were arrested spying on how our government works , then I 'd really have felt good - since Singapore has one of the cleanest , well-run bureaucracies in the world and pays its cabinet ministers $ 1 million-plus a year
If you had told me that 11 Hong Kong Chinese had been arrested studying how we regulate our financial markets , then I 'd really have felt good - since that is something Hong Kong excels at
And if you had told me that 11 South Koreans were arrested studying our high-speed bandwidth penetration , then I 'd really have felt good - because we 've been lagging them for a long time
But the Russians
Who wants to be spied on by them
Were it not for oil , gas and mineral exports , Russia 's economy would be contracting even more than it has
Moscow 's most popular exports today are probably what they were under Khrushchev : vodka , Matryoshka dolls and Kalashnikov rifles
No , this whole spy story has the feel of one of those senior tennis tournaments - John McEnroe against Jimmy Connors , long after their primes - or maybe a rematch between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston in their 60s
You almost want to avert your eyes
You also want to say to Putin : Do you mean you still do n't get it
Everything the Russians should want from us - the true source of our strength - does n't require a sleeper cell to penetrate
All it requires is a tourist guide to Washington , D.C. , which you can buy for under $ 10
Most of it 's in the National Archives : the Bill of Rights , the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence
And the rest is in our culture and can be found everywhere from Silicon Valley to Route 128 near Boston
It is a commitment to individual freedom , free markets , rule of law , great research universities and a culture that celebrates immigrants and innovators
Now if the Russians start to find all that and take it home , then we 'd have to start taking them more seriously as competitors
But there is little indication of that
Indeed , as Leon Aron , director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute , noted in a recent essay , President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia just announced plans to build an `` Innovation City '' in Skolkovo , outside Moscow
This `` technopolis '' is planned as a free-enterprise zone to attract the world 's best talent
There is just one problem , notes Aron : `` Importing ideas and technology from the West has been a key element in Russia 's ` modernizations ' since at least Peter the Great in the early 18th century
... But Russia has tightly controlled what it imported : Machines and engineers , yes
A spirit of free inquiry , a commitment to innovation free from bureaucratic ` guidance ' and , most important , encouragement of brave , even brash , entrepreneurs who can be confident they will own the results of their work - most certainly no.
Peter and his successors sought to produce fruit without cultivating the roots
... Only a man or woman free from fear and overseers can build a Silicon Valley
And such men and women are harder and harder to come by in Russia today
... Disgusted and scared by the lawlessness and rampant corruption
... Russian entrepreneurs are investing very little in their country beyond their immediate production needs .
No , everything the Russians should want from us is everything they do n't have to steal
It is also everything we should be celebrating and preserving but lately have not : open immigration , educational excellence , a culture of innovation and a financial system designed to promote creative destruction , not `` destructive creation , '' as the economist Jagdish Bhagwati called it
So , yes , let 's swap their spies for ours
But let 's also remember that being spied on by the Russians today is not an honor
It 's just an old habit
Because they are no longer our peers , except in nuclear weapons unlikely to ever be used
The countries we need to be worried about are the ones whose teachers , bureaucrats , savers , investors and innovators - not spies - are beating us in broad daylight at our own game
I 'm in the provincial headquarters building in downtown Kirkuk the oil-rich district of northern Iraq that is the most disputed corner of this country
The provincial leaders Sunnis , Kurds , Turkmen and Christians have come to meet America 's top military officer , Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , with whom I am tagging along
All 11 Iraqi leaders are seated on one side of a conference table and local U.S. officials have provided me a color-coded guide , identifying each Iraqi politician , their political tendencies and religious affiliation
Each Iraqi leader tells the admiral , through an Arabic translator , why his or her community deserves to have this or that slice of Kirkuk , until it comes to a Kurdish representative , who announces in English : `` I want to tell a joke .
It 's my lucky day
`` After Saddam was ousted in 2003 , '' said Deputy Provincial Council Chairman Rebwar Talabani , `` there was an elderly citizen who wanted to write a letter to the new government to explain all his sufferings from the Saddam era to get compensation
But he was illiterate
As you may know , outside our government offices we have professional letter-writers for illiterate people
So the man told the letter-writer all of his problems
` In the '50s , they destroyed my house , ' he said
` In the '60s , they killed two of my sons
In the '70s , they confiscated my properties , ' and so on , right up to today
The letter-writer wrote it all down
When he was done , the man asked the letter-writer to read it back to him before he handed it to the governor
So the letter-writer read it aloud
When he got done , the man hit himself on the head and said , ` That is so beautifully done
I had no idea all this happened to me . '
Talabani 's joke seemed to have been directed as much to his fellow Iraqis as to Admiral Mullen
My translation : `` Everyone here has a history , and it 's mostly painful
We Iraqis love to tell our histories
And the more we do , the better they get
But with you Americans leaving , we need to decide : Do we keep telling our stories , or do we figure out how to settle our differences ?
And that is my take-away from this visit : Iraqis know who they were , and they do n't always like it , but they still have not figured out whom they want to be as a country
They are exhausted from years of civil strife and really do n't want to go there again
Yet on the big unresolved issues how will power be shared in Kirkuk , how will the Sunnis who joined the `` awakening '' be absorbed into the government , how will oil wealth and power be shared between provinces and the central government the different ethnic communities still do n't want to compromise much either
I am amazed in talking to U.S. Army officers here as to how much they 've learned from and about Iraqis
It has taken way too long , but our soldiers understand this place
But what about Iraqis
There are now many Iraqis embedded with U.S. forces in Kirkuk
In the dining hall on the main base , I like to watch the Iraqi officers watching the melting pot of U.S. soldiers around them men , women , blacks , whites , Asians , Hispanics and wonder : What have they learned from us
We left some shameful legacies here of torture and Abu Ghraib , but we also left a million acts of kindness and a profound example of how much people of different backgrounds can accomplish when they work together
We are going to find out just what Iraqis have learned soon
As Admiral Mullen told the Iraqi leaders around that table : `` The U.S. is not going to solve '' Iraq 's problems
That is the job `` of a sovereign nation .
So Iraqis better get to work , because `` on the current withdrawal plan , coalition forces will not be here in 18 months .
That 's an important message otherwise Iraqis will delay forever resolving their big , nation-shaping disputes
We ca n't do it for them but our diplomats could do more to help them forge those compromises
We have special envoys for Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan and Arab-Israeli affairs , but for Iraq a country key to the Middle East in which we have lost so many lives and are spending a trillion dollars there is no special envoy , or secretary of state , totally focused on securing a decent outcome here
Vice President Joe Biden is overseeing Iraq policy , but he has too many other things to do
Iraq needs a big , tough , full-time mediator
Senior Iraqi officials are too proud to ask for our help and would probably publicly resist it , but privately Iraqis will tell you that they want it and need it
We are the only trusted player here even by those who hate us
They need a U.S. mediator so they can each go back to their respective communities and say : `` I never would have made these concessions , but those terrible Americans made me do it .
After we invaded and stabilized Bosnia , we did n't just toss their competing factions the keys
President Bill Clinton organized the Dayton peace talks and Richard Holbrooke brokered a deal that has lasted to this day
Why are we not doing in Iraq what we did in Bosnia when the outcome here is 100 times more important
Much ink has been spilled lately decrying the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush
Polls tell us how China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States
I am sure there is truth to these polls
We should have done better in Iraq
An America that presides over Abu Ghraib , torture and Guant namo Bay deserves a thumbs-down
But America is not and never has been just about those things , which is why I also find some of these poll results self-indulgent , knee-jerk and borderline silly
Friday 's vote at the U.N. on Zimbabwe reminded me why
Maybe Asians , Europeans , Latin Americans and Africans do n't like a world of too much American power `` Mr. Big '' got a little too big for them
But how would they like a world of too little American power
With America 's overextended military and overextended banks , that is the world into which we may be heading
Welcome to a world of too much Russian and Chinese power
I am neither a Russia-basher nor a China-basher
But there was something truly filthy about Russia 's and China 's vetoes of the American-led U.N. Security Council effort to impose targeted sanctions on Robert Mugabe 's ruling clique in Zimbabwe
The U.S. put forward a simple Security Council resolution , calling for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe , the appointment of a U.N. mediator , plus travel and financial restrictions on the dictator Mugabe and 13 top military and government officials for stealing the Zimbabwe election and essentially mugging an entire country in broad daylight
In the first round of Zimbabwe 's elections , on March 29 , the opposition leader , Morgan Tsvangirai , won nearly 48 percent of the vote compared with 42 percent for Mugabe
This prompted Mugabe and his henchmen to begin a campaign of killing and intimidation against Tsvangirai supporters that eventually forced the opposition to pull out of the second-round runoff vote just to stay alive
Even before the runoff , Mugabe declared that he would disregard the results if his ZANU-PF party lost
Or as he put it : `` We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X '' on some paper ballot
And so , of course , Mugabe `` won '' in one of the most blatantly stolen elections ever in a country already mired in misrule , unemployment , hunger and inflation
Some 25 percent of Zimbabwe 's people have now taken refuge in neighboring states
-LRB- I have close friends from Zimbabwe , and one of my daughters worked there in an H.I.V.-AIDS community center in January .
The Associated Press reported in May from Zimbabwe `` that annual inflation rose this month to 1,063,572 percent , based on prices of a basket of basic foodstuffs .
Zimbabwe 's currency has become so devalued , the A.P. explained , that `` a loaf of bread now costs what 12 new cars did a decade ago .
No matter
Vitaly Churkin , Russia 's U.N. ambassador , argued that the targeted sanctions that the U.S. and others wanted to impose on Mugabe 's clique exceeded the Security Council 's mandate
`` We believe such practices to be illegitimate and dangerous , '' he said , describing the resolution as one more obvious `` attempt to take the Council beyond its charter prerogatives .
Mugabe 's campaign of murder and intimidation did n't strike Churkin as `` illegitimate and dangerous '' only the U.N. resolution to bring a halt to it was `` illegitimate and dangerous .
Meanwhile , China is hosting the Olympics , a celebration of the human spirit , while defending Mugabe 's right to crush his own people 's spirit
But when it comes to pure , rancid moral corruption , no one can top South Africa 's president , Thabo Mbeki , and his stooge at the U.N. , Dumisani Kumalo
They have done everything they can to prevent any meaningful U.N. pressure on the Mugabe dictatorship
As The Times reported , America 's U.N. ambassador , Zalmay Khalilzad , `` accused South Africa of protecting the ` horrible regime in Zimbabwe , ' '' calling this particularly disturbing given that it was precisely international economic sanctions that brought down South Africa 's apartheid government , which had long oppressed that country 's blacks
So let us now coin the Mbeki Rule : When whites persecute blacks , no amount of U.N. sanctions is too much
And when blacks persecute blacks , any amount of U.N. sanctions is too much
Which brings me back to America
Perfect we are not , but America still has some moral backbone
There are travesties we will not tolerate
The U.N. vote on Zimbabwe demonstrates that this is not true for these `` popular '' countries called Russia or China or South Africa that have no problem siding with a man who is pulverizing his own people
So , yes , we 're not so popular in Europe and Asia anymore
I guess they would prefer a world in which America was weaker , where leaders with the values of Vladimir Putin and Thabo Mbeki had a greater say , and where the desperate voices for change in Zimbabwe would , well , just shut up
On July 7 , CNN fired its senior editor of Middle East affairs , Octavia Nasr , after she published a Twitter message saying , `` Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah , '' one of the most prominent Lebanese Shiite spiritual leaders who was involved in the founding of the Hezbollah militia
Nasr described him as `` one of Hezbollah 's giants I respect a lot .
I find Nasr 's firing troubling
Yes , she made a mistake
Reporters covering a beat should not be issuing condolences for any of the actors they cover
It undermines their credibility
But we also gain a great deal by having an Arabic-speaking , Lebanese-Christian female journalist covering the Middle East for CNN , and if her only sin in 20 years is a 140-character message about a complex figure like Fadlallah , she deserved some slack
She should have been suspended for a month , but not fired
It 's wrong on several counts
To begin with , what has gotten into us
One misplaced verb now and within hours you can have a digital lynch mob chasing after you - and your bosses scrambling for cover
A journalist should lose his or her job for misreporting , for misquoting , for fabricating , for plagiarizing , for systemic bias - but not for a message like this one
What signal are we sending young people
Trim your sails , be politically correct , do n't say anything that will get you flamed by one constituency or another
And if you ever want a job in government , national journalism or as president of Harvard , play it safe and do n't take any intellectual chances that might offend someone
In the age of Google , when everything you say is forever searchable , the future belongs to those who leave no footprints
Then there is the Middle East angle
If there is one thing that we should have learned from our interventions in Lebanon , Afghanistan and Iraq , it is how few Americans understand these places
We need interpreters alive to their nuances
I was in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion and met these young Bush appointees who , as Rajiv Chandrasekaran notes in his book `` Imperial Life in the Emerald City , '' were often chosen because they were 100 percent loyal to Bush , even if they were 100 percent ignorant of Iraq
Their ignorance helped fuel our failure there
`` Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority -LRB- in Iraq -RRB- said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade , '' Chandrasekaran wrote
I 've never met Octavia Nasr or Fadlallah
Fadlallah clearly hated Israel , supported attacks on Israelis and opposed the U.S. troops in Lebanon and Iraq
But he also opposed Hezbollah 's choking dogmatism and obedience to Iran ; he wanted Lebanon 's Shiites to be independent and modern , and he built a regional following through his social commentaries
Augustus Richard Norton , of Boston University , a Shiite expert , said this about Fadlallah , whom he knew : `` He argued that women should have equal opportunities to men and be well educated
He even argued that women have a right to hit their husband back because it was not appropriate for a spouse to be beaten by their husbands
He was not afraid to speak about sexuality , and he even once gave -LRB- a mosque sermon -RRB- about sexual urges and female masturbation
It was common to find young people who followed his writings all over the region .
Indeed , Nasr later explained that her tweet about Fadlallah was because he took a `` contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on women 's rights .
Michael Tomasky , the editor of `` Democracy : A Journal of Ideas , '' pointed out an essay by the liberal secular Shiite Lebanese journalist Hanin Ghaddar - on the Web site Now Lebanon - recalling how Fadlallah intervened with her conservative father to allow her to live alone in Beirut , telling her father in a letter that he `` had no right to tell me what to do , as I was an independent and sane and adult woman .
Ghaddar said she came to understand that `` only figures like Fadlallah could change the status quo
People who position themselves as anti-Hezbollah , critics of resistance , or atheists , will rarely be heard within the Shia community , because people will not listen to them
... Fadlallah on the other hand could reach out to the people because he was one of them
... People like him , if strengthened , can bring about real change
He is one of those rare people whom Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership feared ... because people liked him and respected him .
Of course , Fadlallah was not just a social worker
He had some dark side
People at CNN tell me Nasr knew both
But here 's what I know : The Middle East has to change in order to thrive , and that change has to come from within , from change agents who are seen as legitimate and rooted in their own cultures
They may not be America 's cup of tea
But we need to know about them , and understand where our interests converge - not just demonize them all
That 's why I prefer to get my news from a CNN reporter who can actually explain why thousands of men and women are mourning an aged Shiite cleric - whom we consider nothing more than a terrorist - than a reporter who does n't know at all , or worse , does n't dare to say
I confess , I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask : Why are we here
Who cares about the Taliban
Al Qaeda is gone
And if its leaders come back , well , that 's why God created cruise missiles
But every time I start writing that column , something stills my hand
This week it was something very powerful
I watched Greg Mortenson , the famed author of `` Three Cups of Tea , '' open one of his schools for girls in this remote Afghan village in the Hindu Kush mountains
I must say , after witnessing the delight in the faces of those little Afghan girls crowded three to a desk waiting to learn , I found it very hard to write , `` Let 's just get out of here .
Indeed , Mortenson 's efforts remind us what the essence of the `` war on terrorism '' is about
It 's about the war of ideas within Islam a war between religious zealots who glorify martyrdom and want to keep Islam untouched by modernity and isolated from other faiths , with its women disempowered , and those who want to embrace modernity , open Islam to new ideas and empower Muslim women as much as men
America 's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were , in part , an effort to create the space for the Muslim progressives to fight and win so that the real engine of change , something that takes nine months and 21 years to produce a new generation can be educated and raised differently
Which is why it was no accident that Adm. Mike Mullen , the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spent half a day in order to reach Mortenson 's newest school and cut the ribbon
Getting there was fun
Our Chinook helicopter threaded its way between mountain peaks , from Kabul up through the Panjshir Valley , before landing in a cloud of dust at the village of Pushghar
Imagine if someone put a new , one-story school on the moon , and you 'll appreciate the rocky desolateness of this landscape
But there , out front , was Mortenson , dressed in traditional Afghan garb
He was surrounded by bearded village elders and scores of young Afghan boys and girls , who were agog at the helicopter , and not quite believing that America 's `` warrior chief '' as Admiral Mullen 's title was loosely translated into Urdu was coming to open the new school
While the admiral passed out notebooks , Mortenson told me why he has devoted his life to building 131 secular schools for girls in Pakistan and another 48 in Afghanistan : `` The money is money well spent
These are secular schools that will bring a new generation of kids that will have a broader view of the world
We focus on areas where there is no education
Religious extremism flourishes in areas of isolation and conflict
`` When a girl gets educated here and then becomes a mother , she will be much less likely to let her son become a militant or insurgent , '' he added
`` And she will have fewer children
When a girl learns how to read and write , one of the first things she does is teach her own mother
The girls will bring home meat and veggies , wrapped in newspapers , and the mother will ask the girl to read the newspaper to her and the mothers will learn about politics and about women who are exploited .
It is no accident , Mortenson noted , that since 2007 , the Taliban and its allies have bombed , burned or shut down more than 640 schools in Afghanistan and 350 schools in Pakistan , of which about 80 percent are schools for girls
This valley , controlled by Tajik fighters , is secure , but down south in Helmand Province , where the worst fighting is today , the deputy minister of education said that Taliban extremists have shut 75 of the 228 schools in the last year
This is the real war of ideas
The Taliban want public mosques , not public schools
The Muslim militants recruit among the illiterate and impoverished in society , so the more of them the better , said Mortenson
This new school teaches grades one through six
I asked some girls through an interpreter what they wanted to be when they grow up : `` Teacher , '' shouted one
`` Doctor , '' shouted another
Living here , those are the only two educated role models these girls encounter
Where were they going to school before Mortenson 's Central Asia Institute and the U.S. State Department joined with the village elders to get this secular public school built
`` The mosque , '' the girls said
Mortenson said he was originally critical of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan , but he 's changed his views : `` The U.S. military has gone through a huge learning curve
They really get it
It 's all about building relationships from the ground up , listening more and serving the people of Afghanistan .
So there you have it
In grand strategic terms , I still do n't know if this Afghan war makes sense anymore
I was dubious before I arrived , and I still am
But when you see two little Afghan girls crouched on the front steps of their new school , clutching tightly with both arms the notebooks handed to them by a U.S. admiral as if they were their first dolls it 's hard to say : `` Let 's just walk away .
Not yet
There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate
It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others
A simple , straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption
It is pathetic that we could n't do better
It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters
It stinks
It 's a mess
I detest it
Now let 's get it passed in the Senate and make it law
Because , for all its flaws , this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions
Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere
More important , my gut tells me that if the U.S. government puts a price on carbon , even a weak one , it will usher in a new mind-set among consumers , investors , farmers , innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference much like the first warnings that cigarettes could cause cancer
The morning after that warning no one ever looked at smoking the same again
Ditto if this bill passes
Henceforth , every investment decision made in America about how homes are built , products manufactured or electricity generated will look for the least-cost low-carbon option
And weaving carbon emissions into every business decision will drive innovation and deployment of clean technologies to a whole new level and make energy efficiency much more affordable
That ai n't beanbag
Now that the bill is heading for the Senate , though , we must , ideally , try to improve it , but , at a minimum , guard against diluting it any further
To do that we need the help of the three parties most responsible for how weak the bill already is : the Republican Party , President Barack Obama and We the People
This bill is not weak because its framers , Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey , wanted it this way
`` They had to make the compromises they did , '' said Dan Becker , director of the Safe Climate Campaign , `` because almost every House Republican voted against the bill and did nothing to try to improve it
So to get it passed , they needed every coal-state Democrat , and that meant they had to water it down to bring them on board .
What are Republicans thinking
It is not as if they put forward a different strategy , like a carbon tax
Does the G.O.P. want to be the party of sex scandals and polluters or does it want to be a partner in helping America dominate the next great global industry : E.T. energy technology
How could Republicans become so anti-environment , just when the country is going green
Historically speaking , `` Republicans can claim as much credit for America 's environmental leadership as Democrats , '' noted Glenn Prickett , senior vice president at Conservation International
`` The two greatest environmental presidents in American history were Teddy Roosevelt , who created our national park system , and Richard Nixon , whose administration gave us the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency .
George Bush Sr. signed the 1993 Rio Treaty , to preserve biodiversity
Yes , this bill 's goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change
But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs , to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon
We need Republicans who believe in fiscal conservatism and conservation joining this legislation in the Senate
We want a bill that transforms the whole country not one that just threads a political needle
I hope they start listening to green Republicans like Dick Lugar , George Shultz and Arnold Schwarzenegger
I also hope we will hear more from President Obama
Something feels very calculating in how he has approached this bill , as if he does n't quite want to get his hands dirty , as if he is ready to twist arms in private , but not so much that if the bill goes down he will get tarnished
That is no way to fight this war
He is going to have to mobilize the whole country to pressure the Senate by educating Americans , with speech after speech , about the opportunities and necessities of a serious climate\/energy bill
If he is not ready to risk failure by going all out , failure will be the most likely result
And then there is We the People
Attention all young Americans : your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol , where the coal lobby holds huge sway
You want to make a difference
Then get out of Facebook and into somebody 's face
Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon
That will get the Senate 's attention
Play hardball or do n't play at all
I am reliably told by a Bush administration official that there is an old saying in Texas that goes like this : `` If all you ever do is all you 've ever done , then all you 'll ever get is all you ever got .
Could anyone possibly come up with a better description of President Bush 's energy policy
America is in the midst of its worst energy crisis in years and what is the big decision our Decider has decided
Drum roll , please : Our Decider decided to lift the executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country 's shoreline even though he knew this was a meaningless gesture because a Congressional moratorium on drilling passed in 1981 remains in force
The economist Paul Romer once said to me that `` a crisis is a terrible thing to waste .
President Bush is well on his way to being remembered as the leader who wasted not one but two crises : 9\/11 and 4\/11
The average price of gasoline in the U.S. last week , according to the Energy Information Administration , was $ 4.11
After 9\/11 , Mr. Bush had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on breaking our addiction to oil
Instead , he told us to go shopping
After gasoline prices hit $ 4.11 last week , he had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on clean energy
Instead , he told us to go drilling
Neither shopping nor drilling is the solution to our problems
What does n't the Bush crowd get
It 's this : We do n't have a `` gasoline price problem .
We have an addiction problem
We are addicted to dirty fossil fuels , and this addiction is driving a whole set of toxic trends that are harming our nation and world in many different ways
It is intensifying global warming , creating runaway global demand for oil and gas , weakening our currency by shifting huge amounts of dollars abroad to pay for oil imports , widening `` energy poverty '' across Africa , destroying plants and animals at record rates and fostering ever-stronger petro-dictatorships in Iran , Russia and Venezuela
When a person is addicted to crack cocaine , his problem is not that the price of crack is going up
His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body
The cure is not cheaper crack , which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating
The cure is to break the addiction
Ditto for us
Our cure is not cheaper gasoline , but a clean energy system
And the key to building that is to keep the price of gasoline and coal our crack higher , not lower , so consumers are moved to break their addiction to these dirty fuels and inventors are moved to create clean alternatives
I understand why consumers think we have a gasoline price problem because they are immediately hurt by higher gas prices and the pump is where most people touch our energy system
They tend not to see the bigger picture
But that is why you have a president : to explain that and lay out a response
Alas , we have a president and a vice president who deny that climate change is hurting our environmental body , who refuse to see the connection between the dollars we are shifting abroad and the rise of petro-dictators , who do not care about biodiversity loss and who are apparently untroubled by the sharp decline in the dollar , partly because of all the money we are paying for oil imports
So , they have chosen to define this as a `` gasoline price crisis '' not an-addiction-to-a-fuel-that-is-badly-hurting-us-as-a-nation crisis
If you want to know what an alternative strategy might look like , read the speech that Al Gore delivered on Thursday to the bipartisan Alliance for Climate Protection
Gore , the alliance 's chairman , called for a 10-year plan the same amount of time John F. Kennedy set for getting us to the moon to shift the entire country to `` renewable energy and truly clean , carbon-free sources '' to power our homes , factories and even transportation
Mr. Gore proposed dramatically improving our national electricity grid and energy efficiency , while investing massively in clean solar , wind , geothermal and carbon-sequestered coal technologies that we know can work but just need to scale
To make the shift , he called for taxing carbon and offsetting that by reducing payroll taxes : Let 's `` tax what we burn , not what we earn , '' he said
Whether you agree or not with Gore 's plan , at least he has a plan for dealing with the real problem we face a multifaceted , multigenerational energy\/environment\/geopolitical problem
This moment $ 4.11 represents Bush 's last chance for a legacy
It amazes me how inadequate his response has been
By hectoring the nation to simply drill for more oil , he has profoundly underestimated the challenges we face , misread the scale of the solutions required , underappreciated the American people 's willingness to sacrifice if presented with a real plan , and ignored the greatness that would accrue to our country if we led the world in clean power
The hour is late , but there is still a sliver of time to pass a serious energy bill out of this Congress
To do so , though , would require President Obama to rustle up votes with a passion that he has failed to exhibit up to now , and , more importantly , it would require at least seven Republican senators to put the national interest above party and politics
Yes , I know that is all unlikely
You can laugh now
But just remember this : If we do n't get a serious energy bill out of this Congress , and Republicans retake the House and Senate , we may not have another shot until the next presidential term or until we get a `` perfect storm '' - a climate or energy crisis that is awful enough to finally end our debate on these issues but not so awful as to end the world
But , hey , by 2012 , China should pretty much own the clean-tech industry and we 'll at least be able to get some good deals on electric cars
The energy bill now being discussed in the Senate - which would raise energy-efficiency standards , require utilities to get 15 percent or more of their power from renewable sources , like wind and solar , and create a limited cap on carbon emissions from power plants - is already watered down just to get 53 or so Democratic votes
But at least it gets us started on ending our addiction to oil and mitigating climate change
Unfortunately , right now it is not clear that a single Republican senator will even vote for this watered-down bill
That is pathetic
Rather than think seriously about our endless dependence on oil , the G.O.P. has focused its energies on making `` climate change '' a four-letter word and labeling any Democrat who supports legislation that would in any way raise energy prices to diminish our dependence on oil as a `` carbon taxer .
Unfortunately , Obama and the Democrats never effectively fought back
They should have said : `` O.K. , you Republicans do n't believe in global warming
Forget about global warming
That 's between you and your beach house
How about this
Do you believe in population growth
Do you believe in the American dream
Because , according to the U.N. , the world 's population is going to grow from roughly 6.7 billion people today to about 9.2 billion by 2050
And in today 's integrated world , more and more of those 9.2 billion will aspire to , and be able to , live like Americans - with American-size cars , homes and Big Macs
In that world , demand for fossil fuels is going to go through the roof - and all the bad things that go with it
`` If we take that threat seriously now and pass an energy bill that begins to end our oil addiction , we can shrink the piles of money we send to the worst regimes in the world , strengthen our dollar by keeping more at home , clean up our air , take away money from the people who finance the mosques and madrassas that keep many Muslim youths backward , angry and anti-American and stimulate a whole new industry - one China is already leapfrogging us on - clean-tech
Nothing would improve our economic and national security more , yet Republicans wo n't lift one finger to make it happen
`` They would rather we send more Americans to fight terrorism in the Middle East , let petro-states hostile to our interests get richer and let China take the lead in the next great global industry than ask Americans to pay a little more for the gas they use or the carbon pollution they put into the air
If OPEC , China and Russia could vote , they would be 100 percent supportive of the Republicans
`` How about we stop honoring our soldiers and our military families and start helping them
The Republican view of fighting the war on terrorism is that rather than ask all of us to make a small sacrifice to weaken our foes and buttress our troops , we should ask only a few of us to make the ultimate sacrifice
And that 's called being tough ?
It gets worse
As Fred Krupp , the president of Environmental Defense Fund , notes : U.S. utility companies today `` are sitting on billions of dollars in job-creating capital - but they will not invest in new energy projects until they have certainty on what their future carbon obligations will be
In just one state , Indiana , there are 25 power plants 50 years old or older
The fleet needs to be modernized , and Senate paralysis is keeping it from happening
A recent study from the Peterson Institute projects annual investment in the sector in the next 10 years would rise by 50 percent as a result of climate legislation - an increase of nearly $ 11 billion a year .
That 's new employment from a private sector stimulus
Can you imagine how high the stock market would soar and how easy a compromise with Democrats would become if Republicans offered an energy policy consistent with their values and our interests
What if the G.O.P. said : We will support a carbon tax provided one-third of the revenue goes toward cutting corporate taxes , one-third toward cutting payroll taxes for every working American and one-third toward paying down the deficit
The G.O.P. would actually help us get a better energy policy
Surely there are seven Republican senators who can see this
Are n't there
I 'm here in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan
This is the most dangerous part of the country
It 's where mafia and mullah meet
This is where the Taliban harvest the poppies that get turned into heroin that funds their insurgency
That 's why when President Obama announced the more than doubling of U.S. troops in Afghanistan , this is where the Marines landed to take the fight to the Taliban
It is 115 degrees in the sun , and Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , is addressing soldiers in a makeshift theater
`` Let me see a show of hands , '' says Admiral Mullen , `` how many of you are on your first deployment ?
A couple dozen hands go up
`` Second deployment ?
More hands go up
`` Third deployment ?
Still lots of hands are raised
`` Fourth deployment ?
A good dozen hands go up
`` Fifth deployment ?
Still hands go up
`` Sixth deployment ?
One hand goes up
Admiral Mullen asks the soldier to step forward to shake his hand
This scene is a reason for worry , for optimism and for questioning everything we are doing in Afghanistan
It is worrying because between the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan , we are grinding down our military
I do n't know how these people and their families put up with it
Never have so many asked so much of so few
The reason for optimism
All those deployments have left us with a deep cadre of officers with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan , now running both wars from generals to captains
They know every mistake that has been made , been told every lie , saw their own soldiers killed by stupidity , figured out solutions and built relationships with insurgents , sheikhs and imams on the ground that have given the best of them a granular understanding of the `` real '' Middle East that would rival any Middle East studies professor
I 've long argued that there should be a test for any officer who wants to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan just one question : `` Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line ?
If you answer `` yes , '' you can go to Germany , South Korea or Japan , but not to Iraq or Afghanistan
Well , this war has produced a class of officers who are very out-of-the-box thinkers
They learned everything the hard way not in classes at Annapolis or West Point , but on the streets of Fallujah and Kandahar
I call them : `` The Class Too Dumb to Quit .
I say that with affection and respect
When all seemed lost in Iraq , they were just too stubborn to quit and figured out a new anti-insurgency strategy
It has not produced irreversible success yet and may never
But it has kept the hope of a decent outcome alive
The same people are now trying to do the same thing in Afghanistan
Their biggest strategic insight
`` We do n't count enemy killed in action anymore , '' one of their officers told me
Early in both Iraq and Afghanistan our troops did body counts , la Vietnam
But the big change came when the officers running these wars understood that R.B. 's -LRB- `` relationships built '' -RRB- actually matter more than K.I.A. 's
One relationship built with an Iraqi or Afghan mayor or imam or insurgent was worth so much more than one K.I.A. Relationships bring intelligence ; they bring cooperation
One good relationship can save the lives of dozens of soldiers and civilians
One reason torture and Abu Ghraib got out of control was because our soldiers had built so few relationships that they tried to beat information out of people instead
But relationship-building is painstaking
And that leads to my unease
America has just adopted Afghanistan as our new baby
The troop surge that President Obama ordered here early in his tenure has taken this mission from a limited intervention , with limited results , to a full nation-building project that will take a long time to succeed if ever
We came here to destroy Al Qaeda , and now we 're in a long war with the Taliban
Is that really a good use of American power
At least The Class Too Dumb to Quit is in charge , and they have a strategy : Clear areas of the Taliban , hold them in partnership with the Afghan Army , rebuild these areas by building relationships with district governors and local assemblies to help them upgrade their ability to deliver services to the Afghan people particularly courts , schools and police so they will support the Afghan government
The bad news
This is State-Building 101 , and our partners , the current Afghan police and government , are so corrupt that more than a few Afghans prefer the Taliban
With infinite time , money , soldiers and aid workers , we can probably reverse that
But we have none of these
I feel a gap building between our ends and our means and our time constraints
My heart says : Mission critical help those Afghans who want decent government
My head says : Mission impossible
Does Mr. Obama understand how much he 's bet his presidency on making Afghanistan a stable country
Too late now
So , here 's hoping that The Class Too Dumb to Quit can take all that it learned in Iraq and help rebuild The Country That 's Been Too Broken to Work
I know this is not an easy time for him
When you have been beaten up for four years because of your support for the Iraq war , and then you get something big right your support for the surge you want to be able to savor that for a while
You want to make your rightness on that issue the issue of this election
McCain was right about the surge
It has helped to stabilize Iraq and create a better chance there for political reconciliation
But Iraq has always been a story full of surprises
And one of the most important political surprises is how quickly the surge has made Iraq safe for Barack Obama 's foreign policy and for the election policy of the Iraqi prime minister , Nuri Kamal al-Maliki
Do not believe for a second that there was any mistranslation when Maliki blurted out to the German magazine Der Spiegel recently that Obama 's withdrawal timetable for U.S. combat troops from Iraq 16 months after the next U.S. president is sworn in `` could be suitable .
Maliki was quite specific : `` Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq .
He was speaking a deep truth : the modicum of stability produced by the surge has changed the political dynamics of the Iraq story not irreversibly yet , not as much as necessary yet , but enough to have important ramifications
U.S. officials in Iraq tell me that the success of the Sunni tribes in beating back Al Qaeda in their regions and the success of the mainstream Shiites in beating back Moktada al-Sadr 's militia and other pro-Iranian elements in Baghdad and Basra has Iraqis looking at themselves differently and therefore at America 's presence in Iraq differently
More and more mainstream Iraqi politicians believe they are able to run their own affairs , and fewer and fewer mainstream Americans believe we are able to devote another presidency to Iraq
`` Americans are looking forward to the post-Iraq phase of U.S. politics , and Iraqis are now looking forward to the post-American phase of Iraqi politics , '' said Michael Mandelbaum , a foreign policy expert at Johns Hopkins University
That is the reality of post-surge Iraq and post-subprime America and any leader in either country who ignores that reality does so at his or her peril
Forget about our narrative on this war how we `` liberated Iraq .
Think about the Iraqi narrative
No one likes to be liberated or occupied by someone else
It is humiliating
France still has n't gotten over the fact that it had to be liberated by the Allies
What is important is how , with the help of the surge , Iraqis have finally started to liberate themselves the Sunnis from their extremists and the Shiites from their extremists
The question in Iraq is : Can these parallel liberation movements actually merge into a single national liberation\/unity movement
I do n't know
But I do know this : While we would like an Iraqi national movement binding Shiites , Kurds and Sunnis to coalesce , we do n't want it coalescing in opposition to us
Running against the continued U.S. presence in Iraq will be a very tempting campaign theme for Iraqi politicians in both the upcoming Iraqi provincial and parliamentary elections if Iraq continues to stabilize
So Prime Minister Maliki was actually sending us two important messages via Der Spiegel : He was telling us that to the extent that the Iraqi Army and state continue to get on their feet , the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq is going to become an issue in Iraqi politics and no politician particularly Maliki is going to let himself be outdone by rivals in calling for the Americans to go
And he was also telling us to remember something : Iraq is an Arab country
It is the heart of the Arab world
It is not Germany
It is not Japan
To the extent that it comes together as a country , it will not tolerate a prolonged , highly visible U.S. military presence
So McCain , who called the surge right , may get little credit , because the story now is about post-surge Iraq
McCain 's post-surge view which also may be right is that Iraqis still do not have the military force capable of protecting their homeland and need more U.S. help in nation-building
Meanwhile , Obama , who was not a surge supporter and simply stuck to his 16-month withdrawal timetable , finds himself by luck or smarts in perfect harmony with the post-surge mood in Iraq
His timetable may be too short , but Obama can worry about that later
All of which suggests that the right position on Iraq today is probably `` McBama '' stick to a clear withdrawal timetable because post-surge Iraqi and American politics will tolerate nothing else but leave yourself some wiggle room if things keep getting better , but not exactly on schedule
Always remember : the more Iraq is seen as succeeding on its own , without U.S. scaffolding , the more positive impact it will have on the neighborhood
When I first heard on Thursday that Senate Democrats were abandoning the effort to pass an energy\/climate bill that would begin to cap greenhouse gases that cause global warming and promote renewable energy that could diminish our addiction to oil , I remembered something that Joe Romm , the climateprogress.org blogger , once said : The best thing about improvements in health care is that all the climate-change deniers are now going to live long enough to see how wrong they were
Alas , so are the rest of us
I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon
I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling
I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls
I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill
But the truth is , the public , confused and stressed by the last two years , never got mobilized to press for this legislation
We will regret it
We 've basically decided to keep pumping greenhouse gases into Mother Nature 's operating system and take our chances that the results will be benign - even though a vast majority of scientists warn that this will not be so
Fasten your seat belts
As the environmentalist Rob Watson likes to say : `` Mother Nature is just chemistry , biology and physics
That 's all she is .
You can not sweet-talk her
You can not spin her
You can not tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax
No , Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry , biology and physics dictate , and `` Mother Nature always bats last , and she always bats 1.000 , '' says Watson
Do not mess with Mother Nature
But that is just what we 're doing
Since I do n't have anything else to say , I will just fill out this column with a few news stories and e-mails that came across my desk in the past few days : Just as the U.S. Senate was abandoning plans for a U.S. cap-and-trade system , this article ran in The China Daily : `` BEIJING - The country is set to begin domestic carbon trading programs during its 12th Five-Year Plan period -LRB- 2011-2015 -RRB- to help it meet its 2020 carbon intensity target
The decision was made at a closed-door meeting chaired by Xie Zhenhua , deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission ... Putting a price on carbon is a crucial step for the country to employ the market to reduce its carbon emissions and genuinely shift to a low-carbon economy , industry analysts said .
As we East Coasters know , it 's been extremely hot here this summer , with records broken
But , hey , you could be living in Russia , where ABC News recently reported that a `` heat wave , which has lasted for weeks , has Russia suffering its worst drought in 130 years
In some parts of the country , temperatures have reached 105 degrees .
Moscow 's high the other day was 93 degrees
The average temperature in July for the city is 76 degrees
The BBC reported that to keep cool `` at lakes and rivers around Moscow , groups of revelers can be seen knocking back vodka and then plunging into the water
The result is predictable - 233 people have drowned in the last week alone .
A day before the climate bill went down , Lew Hay , the C.E.O. of NextEra Energy , which owns Florida Power & Light , one of the nation 's biggest utilities , e-mailed to say that if the Senate would set a price on carbon and requirements for renewal energy , utilities like his would have the price certainty they need to make the big next-generation investments , including nuclear
`` If we invest an additional $ 3 billion a year or so on clean energy , that 's roughly 50,000 jobs over the next five years , '' said Hay
-LRB- Say goodbye to that .
Making our country more energy efficient is not some green feel-good thing
Retired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson , who was Gen. David Petraeus 's senior logistician in Iraq , e-mailed to say that `` over 1,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan hauling fuel to air-condition tents and buildings
If our military would simply insulate their structures , it would save billions of dollars and , more importantly , save lives of truck drivers and escorts
... And will take lots of big fuel trucks -LRB- a k a Taliban Targets -RRB- off the road , expediting the end of the conflict .
The last word goes to the contrarian hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham , who in his July letter to investors , noted : `` Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for ... what
Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports , by blogs and by right-wing politicians and think tanks
I have a much simpler but plausible ` conspiracy theory ' : the fossil energy companies , driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profits , encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientific results
I , for one , admire them for their P.R. skills , while wondering , as always : `` Have they no grandchildren ?
After spending a week traveling the frontline of the `` war on terrorism '' from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran , to northern Iraq , to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan I can comfortably report the following : The bad guys are losing
Yes , the dominos you see falling in the Muslim world today are the extremist Islamist groups and governments
They have failed to persuade people by either their arguments or their performances in power that their puritanical versions of Islam are the answer
Having lost the argument , though , the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels and they can for a while
Because , while the radicals have failed miserably , our allies the pro-Americans , the Muslim modernists , the Arab moderates have not really filled the void with reform and good government of their own
They are winning by default
More on that later
For now , though , it is obvious that everywhere they have won or seized power , the Islamists in Iran , Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iraq , Algeria , Lebanon or Gaza have overplayed their hands , dragged their societies into useless wars or engaged in nihilistic violence that today is producing a broad backlash from mainstream Muslims
Think of this : In the late-1970s , two leaders made historic trips President Anwar Sadat flew from Egypt to Israel and Ayatollah Khomeini flew from Paris to Tehran
For the last 30 years , politics in the Middle East and the Muslim world has , in many ways , been a struggle between their competing visions
Sadat argued that the future should bury the past and that Arabs and Muslims should build their future based on peace with Israel , integration with the West and embracing modernity
Khomeini argued that the past should bury the future and that Persians and Muslims should build their future on hostility to Israel , isolation from the West and subordinating modernity to a puritanical Islam
In 2009 , the struggle between those two trends tipped toward the Sadatists
The fact that Iran 's ruling theocrats had to steal their election to stay in power and forcibly suppress dissent by millions of Iranians according to the Committee to Protect Journalists , Iran has surpassed China as the world 's leading jailer of journalists , with 41 now behind bars is the most visible sign of this
The Taliban 's burning down of secular schools that compete with its mosques , and its peddling of heroin to raise cash , are also not exactly signs of intellectual triumph
The same day that President Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo University , Osama bin Laden released a long statement on Islamic Web sites and on Al Jazeera
As the Egyptian Middle East expert Mamoun Fandy noted : `` Obama beat Osama hands down
Ask anyone about the content of Obama 's speech and they will tell you
Ask them what Osama said and most people will say , ` Did he give a speech ? '
In Iraq 's elections last January , nationalist and moderate Muslim parties defeated the sectarian , radical religious parties , while in Lebanon , a pro-Western coalition defeated one led by Hezbollah
Here in Pakistan , the backlash against the Taliban has been building among the rising middle class
It started in March when a mobile-phone video of a teenage girl being held down and beaten outside her home by a Taliban commander in Pakistan 's Swat Valley spread virally across this country
In May , the Pakistani Army began an offensive against Taliban militants who had taken control of key towns in the North-West Frontier Province -LRB- NWFP -RRB- , and appeared to be moving toward the capital , Islamabad
I followed Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , when he visited a vast , choking-hot and dust-covered refugee tent camp in Jalozai , where some 116,000 refugees have fled the NWFP , as the Pakistani Army moved into their hometowns to smash the Taliban in a popular operation
`` People are totally against them , but the Taliban do n't care , '' a Pakistani teacher , Abdul Jalil , 41 , told me while taking a break from teaching the Urdu alphabet to young boys in a sweltering tent
`` They are very cruel
They chopped people 's heads off .
To the extent that the radical Islamists have any energy today , it comes not from the power of their ideas or examples of good governance , but by stoking sectarian feuds
In Afghanistan , the Taliban play on Pashtun nationalist grievances , and in Iraq , the Sunni jihadists draw energy from killing Shiites
The only way to really dry up their support , though , is for the Arab and Muslim modernists to actually implement better ideas by producing less corrupt and more consensual governance , with better schools , more economic opportunities and a vision of Islam that is perceived as authentic yet embracing of modernity
That is where `` our '' allies in Egypt , Palestine , Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan have so consistently failed
Until that happens , the Islamist radicals will be bankrupt , but not out of business
What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of `` Dallas '' and Carl Pope , the head of the Sierra Club
You 'd get T. Boone Pickens
What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin
You 'd get Shai Agassi
And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens , the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power , and Shai Agassi , the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world 's leader in electric cars
The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator\/investors , successful in other fields , to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell , can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power
Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai
Agassi , age 40 , is an Israeli software whiz kid who rose to the senior ranks of the German software giant SAP
He gave it all up in 2007 to help make Israel a model of how an entire country can get off gasoline and onto electric cars
He figured no country has a bigger interest in diminishing the value of Middle Eastern oil than Israel
On a visit to Israel in May , I took a spin in a parking lot on the Tel Aviv beachfront in Agassi 's prototype electric car , while his sister watched out for the cops because it is not yet licensed for Israeli roads
Agassi 's plan , backed by Israel 's government , is to create a complete electric car `` system '' that will work much like a mobile-phone service `` system , '' only customers sign up for so many monthly miles , instead of minutes
Every subscriber will get a car , a battery and access to a national network of recharging outlets all across Israel as well as garages that will swap your dead battery for a fresh one whenever needed
His company , Better Place , and its impressive team would run the smart grid that charges the cars and is also contracting for enough new solar energy from Israeli companies 2 gigawatts over 10 years to power the whole fleet
`` Israel will have the world 's first virtual oilfield in the Negev Desert , '' said Agassi
His first 500 electric cars , built by Renault , will hit Israel 's roads next year
Agassi is a passionate salesman for his vision
He could sell camels to Saudi Arabia
`` Today in Europe , you pay $ 600 a month for gasoline , '' he explained to me
`` We have an electric car that will cost you $ 600 a month '' with all the electric fuel you need and when you do n't want the car any longer , just give it back
No extra charges and no CO2 emissions
His goal , said Agassi , is to make his electric car `` so cheap , so trivial , that you wo n't even think of buying a gasoline car .
Once that happens , he added , your oil addiction will be over forever
You 'll be `` off heroin , '' he says , and `` addicted to milk .
T. Boone Pickens is 80
He 's already made billions in oil
He was involved in some ugly mischief in funding the `` Swift-boating '' of John Kerry
But now he 's opting for a different legacy : breaking America 's oil habit by pushing for a massive buildup of wind power in the U.S. and converting our abundant natural gas supplies now being used to make electricity into transportation fuel to replace foreign oil in our cars , buses and trucks
Pickens is motivated by American nationalism
Because of all the money we are shipping abroad to pay for our oil addiction , he says , `` we are on the verge of losing our superpower status .
His vision is summed up on his Web site : `` We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $ 700 billion a year ... I have been an oil man all my life , but this is one emergency we ca n't drill our way out of
If we create a renewable energy network , we can break our addiction to foreign oil .
Pickens made clear to me over breakfast last week that he was tired of waiting for Washington to produce a serious energy plan
So his company , Mesa Power , is now building the world 's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle , where he 's spent $ 2 billion buying land and 700 wind turbines from General Electric the largest single turbine order ever
The U.S. could secure 20 percent of its electricity needs from wind alone
But Pickens knows he 's unique
Unless , he says , `` Congress adopts clear , predictable policies '' with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure so thousands of investors can jump into clean power , we 'll never get the scale we need to break our addiction
For a year , Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy
They vote again next week
If only we had a Congress and president who , instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve , just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question : `` What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you ?
Then just do it , and get out of the way
It is pretty much a tossup for me : Who poses a greater long-term threat to America 's Gulf Coast ecosystem : the U.S. Senate or BP
Right now , from what I 've seen flying over the Louisiana coast at the mouth of the Mississippi , my vote is the U.S. Senate
BP at least seems to have finally gotten its act together and is cleaning up the oil spill
The Senate , in failing to pass even the most modest bill to diminish our addiction to oil and begin to mitigate climate change , has not even begun to do its job
I have to admit , I was surprised and pleased that it took us an hour of flying in our float plane over Breton Sound and Barataria Bay and across the marshes , bayous , barrier islands and open water that lie about 70 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig before we spotted any significant ribbon of oil
`` There it is , '' said our pilot , as he banked the plane for a better view of the small oil slick and as if he were pointing out a pod of whales we had been searching for all day
Here 's the good news
Thanks to : the capping of the broken oil well ; the cleanup efforts so far by a flotilla of shrimp boats converted to skimmers ; the currents that have blessedly taken a lot of the spill away from the shore ; the weathering process that is breaking down a lot of the crude into different compounds that dissolve , evaporate or get absorbed by microbes in the ocean ; and the dispersants that have broken up the biggest oil slicks , there is less and less to see here on the surface
Walking along the beach on Grand Isle , the only inhabited barrier island on Louisiana 's Gulf Coast , it appears that our worst fears have not materialized - so far
So much for the good news
The bad news is what you ca n't see that is happening under the ocean 's surface and the stuff you can see - the decades of degradation along the whole Gulf Coast from decades of unfettered development - that no one is talking about
`` From a biological perspective , we know what happens when oil hits the beach
We can see those impacts ; we can mitigate those impacts ; we can quantify those impacts , '' said Keith Ouchley , the biologist who leads the Nature Conservancy in Louisiana
`` What we do n't know are the biological impacts that occur as that oil is dispersed through the deep water columns under the ocean 's surface
We do n't know what it is doing or affecting today or in the future
There is very little experience with this scale of spill at these depths in such a biologically productive system as this .
The greatest concern , added Ouchley , is what impact the undersea oil concentrations could have on the billions of tiny larval fish , shrimp and other organisms that are at the bottom of the whole marine food chain - and we may not know that for many years
What compounds that worry is that the marshes , sea grasses , oyster beds and barrier islands that provide the nurseries for those larval fish , shrimp and other marine life - and that provide natural barriers against storm surges from hurricanes - had already been dramatically weakened long before the BP spill
That was thanks to the building of levees that have prevented the rivers ' natural flooding of life-giving freshwater and sediments into the marshes , as well as the laying of oil and gas pipelines and shipping navigation channels all across the ecosystem
`` A football field of marsh is being washed into the ocean every 30 minutes , '' said Ouchley
Bob Marshall , an environmental reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans , put the BP spill in the right context when he wrote : `` We need to remember this is a temporary problem on top of a permanent disaster
Long after BP 's oil is gone , we 'll still be fighting for survival against a much more serious enemy - our sinking , crumbling delta
Our coast is like a cancer patient who has come down with pneumonia
That 's serious , but curable
After the fever breaks , he 'll still have cancer .
That 's where the Senate has failed miserably
There are three things it should be doing for the gulf and our other vital ecosystems
First , taking out some minimal insurance against climate change by reducing our carbon emissions ; this region is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and the more intense storms that climate change will bring
Second , set us on a path to diminish our addiction to oil so we do n't have to drill in ever-deeper waters
And , finally , provide the federal funding to restore America 's critical ecosystems
The Senate abandoned the first two but is still working on the third
The Senate 's failure to act is a result of many factors , but one is that the climate-energy policy debate got disconnected from average people
We need less talk about `` climate '' and more about how conservation saves money , renewable energy creates jobs , restoring the gulf 's marshes sustains fishermen and preserving the rainforest helps poor people
Said Glenn Prickett , vice president at the Nature Conservancy : `` We have to take climate change out of the atmosphere , bring it down to earth and show how it matters in people 's everyday lives .
Last April I took a break to caddy for the former U.S. Open champion Andy North when he teamed up with Tom Watson to defend their title in the two-man Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf tournament in Savannah , Ga.
So it was with more than a casual spectator 's interest that I watched in awe on Armed Forces television from Afghanistan as Watson made his amazing run at winning the British Open at age 59
Watson likes to talk about foreign affairs more than golf
So to let him know just how many people wanted him to win , I e-mailed him before the final round : `` Even the Taliban are rooting for you .
Indeed , I have been struck at how many golfers and non-golfers got caught up in Watson 's historic performance tying for the lead after four rounds at Turnberry , but losing in a playoff to the 36-year-old Stewart Cink
I was not alone in being devastated that Watson was not able to par the last hole and clinch the win
Like millions of others , I shouted at the TV as his ball ran across the 18th green heading for trouble `` STOP
STOP !
as if I personally had something at stake
Why was that
Many reasons
For starters , Watson 's run was freaky unusual a 59-year-old man who had played his opening two rounds in this tournament with a 16-year-old Italian amateur was able to best the greatest golfers in the world at least a decade after anyone would have dreamt it possible
Watching this happen actually widened our sense of what any of us is capable of
That is , when Kobe Bryant scores 70 points , we are in awe
When Tiger Woods wins by 15 strokes , we are in awe
But when a man our own age and size whips the world 's best who are half his age we identify
Of course , Watson has unique golfing skills , but if you are a baby boomer you could not help but look at him and say something you would never say about Tiger or Kobe : `` He 's my age ; he 's my build ; he 's my height ; and he even had his hip replaced like me
If he can do that , maybe I can do something like that , too .
Neil Oxman , Watson 's caddy , who is a top Democratic political consultant in his real life , told me : `` After Thursday 's round with Tom , when we left the scoring tent I said to him , ` You know , this is a thing .
He understood what I meant
On Sunday morning , the two of us were in the corner of the locker room without another human being around , sitting in these two easy chairs facing each other behind a partition
We were chatting about stuff , and I said to him , ` For a lot of people , what you 're doing is life-affirming .
I took it from a story about when Betty Comden and Adolph Green the writers of `` Singin ' in the Rain '' showed Leonard Bernstein the famous scene of Gene Kelly
Bernstein said to them , ` That scene is an affirmation of life .
What Tom did last week was an affirmation of life .
Also , as Watson himself appreciates , the way he lost the tournament underscored why golf is the sport most like life
He hit two perfect shots on the 18th hole in the final round , and the second one bounced just a little too hard and ran through the green , leaving him a difficult chip back , which he was unable to get up and down
Had his ball stopped a foot shorter , he would have had an easy two-putt and a win
That 's the point
Baseball , basketball and football are played on flat surfaces designed to give true bounces
Golf is played on an uneven terrain designed to surprise
Good and bad bounces are built into the essence of the game
And the reason golf is so much like life is that the game like life is all about how you react to those good and bad bounces
Do you blame your caddy
Do you cheat
Do you throw your clubs
Or do you accept it all with dignity and grace and move on , as Watson always has
Hence the saying : Play one round of golf with someone and you will learn everything you need to know about his character
Golf is all about individual character
The ball is fixed
No one throws it to you
You initiate the swing , and you alone have to live with the results
There are no teammates to blame or commiserate with
Also , pro golfers , unlike baseball , football or basketball players , have no fixed salaries
They eat what they kill
If they score well , they make money
If they do n't , they do n't make money
I wonder what the average N.B.A. player 's free-throw shooting percentage would be if he had to make free throws to get paid the way golfers have to make three-foot putts
This wonderful but cruel game never stops testing or teaching you
`` The only comment I can make , '' Watson told me after , `` is one that the immortal Bobby Jones related : ` One learns from defeat , not from victory .
I may never have the chance again to beat the kids , but I took one thing from the last hole : hitting both the tee shot and the approach shots exactly the way I meant to was n't good enough
... I had to finish .
So Tom Watson got a brutal lesson in golf that he 'll never forget , but he gave us all an incredible lesson in possibilities one we 'll never forget
Sometimes in politics , particularly in campaigns , parties get wedded to slogans so wedded that no one stops to think about what they 're saying , whether the reality has changed and what the implications would be if their bumper stickers really guided policy when they took office
Today , we have two examples of that : `` Democrats for Afghanistan '' and `` Republicans for offshore drilling .
Republicans have become so obsessed with the notion that we can drill our way out of our current energy crisis that re-opening our coastal waters to offshore drilling has become their answer for every energy question
Anyone who looks at the growth of middle classes around the world and their rising demands for natural resources , plus the dangers of climate change driven by our addiction to fossil fuels , can see that clean renewable energy wind , solar , nuclear and stuff we have n't yet invented is going to be the next great global industry
It has to be if we are going to grow in a stable way
Therefore , the country that most owns the clean power industry is going to most own the next great technology breakthrough the E.T. revolution , the energy technology revolution and create millions of jobs and thousands of new businesses , just like the I.T. revolution did
Republicans , by mindlessly repeating their offshore-drilling mantra , focusing on a 19th-century fuel , remind me of someone back in 1980 arguing that we should be putting all our money into making more and cheaper IBM Selectric typewriters and forget about these things called the `` PC '' and `` the Internet .
It is a strategy for making America a second-rate power and economy
But Democrats have their analog
For many Democrats , Afghanistan was always the `` good war , '' as opposed to Iraq
I think Barack Obama needs to ask himself honestly : `` Am I for sending more troops to Afghanistan because I really think we can win there , because I really think that that will bring an end to terrorism , or am I just doing it because to get elected in America , post-9 \/ 11 , I have to be for winning some war ?
The truth is that Iraq , Afghanistan , Saudi Arabia , Lebanon and Pakistan are just different fronts in the same war
The core problem is that the Arab-Muslim world in too many places has been failing at modernity , and were it not for $ 120-a-barrel oil , that failure would be even more obvious
For far too long , this region has been dominated by authoritarian politics , massive youth unemployment , outdated education systems , a religious establishment resisting reform and now a death cult that glorifies young people committing suicide , often against other Muslims
The humiliation this cocktail produces is the real source of terrorism
Saddam exploited it
Al Qaeda exploits it
Pakistan 's intelligence services exploit it
Hezbollah exploits it
The Taliban exploit it
The only way to address it is by changing the politics
Producing islands of decent and consensual government in Baghdad or Kabul or Islamabad would be a much more meaningful and lasting contribution to the war on terrorism than even killing bin Laden in his cave
But it needs local partners
The reason the surge helped in Iraq is because Iraqis took the lead in confronting their own extremists the Shiites in their areas , the Sunnis in theirs
That is very good news although it is still not clear that they can come together in a single functioning government
The main reason we are losing in Afghanistan is not because there are too few American soldiers , but because there are not enough Afghans ready to fight and die for the kind of government we want
Take 20 minutes and read the stunning article in last Sunday 's New York Times Magazine by Thomas Schweich , a former top Bush counternarcotics official focused on Afghanistan , and dwell on his paragraph on Afghan President Hamid Karzai : `` Karzai was playing us like a fiddle : The U.S. would spend billions of dollars on infrastructure improvement ; the U.S. and its allies would fight the Taliban ; Karzai 's friends could get rich off the drug trade ; he could blame the West for his problems ; and in 2009 , he would be elected to a new term .
Then read the Afghan expert Rory Stewart 's July 17 Time magazine cover story from Kabul : `` A troop increase is likely to inflame Afghan nationalism because Afghans are more anti-foreign than we acknowledge , and the support for our presence in the insurgency areas is declining ... The more responsibility we take in Afghanistan , the more we undermine the credibility and responsibility of the Afghan government and encourage it to act irresponsibly
Our claims that Afghanistan is the ` front line in the war on terror ' and that ` failure is not an option ' have convinced the Afghan government that we need it more than it needs us
The worse things become , the more assistance it seems to receive
This is not an incentive to reform .
Before Democrats adopt `` More Troops to Afghanistan '' as their bumper sticker , they need to make sure it 's a strategy for winning a war not an election
Over the past decade , whenever I went to China and engaged Chinese on their pollution and energy problems , inevitably some young Chinese would say : `` Hey , you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years , using cheap coal and oil
Now it is our turn .
It 's a hard argument to refute
Eventually , I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following : `` You 're right
It 's your turn
Grow as dirty as you want
Take your time
Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution
Then we 're going to come over here and sell them all to you , and we are going to clean your clock how do you say ` clean your clock ' in Chinese
in the next great global industry : clean power technologies
So if you all want to give us a five-year lead , that would be great
I 'd prefer 10
So take your time
Grow as dirty as you want .
Whenever you frame it that way , Chinese are quizzical at first , and then they totally get it : Wow , this energy thing is n't just about global warming
In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof
Therefore , E.T. energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency is going to be the next great global industry , and China needs to be on board
Well , China has gotten on board big-time
Now I am worried that China will , dare I say , `` clean our clock '' in E.T. Yes , you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity
That was once true , but it is n't anymore
China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places , its people ca n't breathe , fish , swim , drive or even see because of pollution and climate change
Well , there is one thing we know about necessity : it is the mother of invention
And that is what China is doing , innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems
And when China starts to do that in a big way when it starts to develop solar , wind , batteries , nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform watch out
You wo n't just be buying your toys from China
You 'll be buying your energy future from China
`` China is moving , '' says Hal Harvey , the chief executive of ClimateWorks , which shares clean energy ideas around the world
`` They want to be leaders in green technology
China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world
It is committed to reducing the energy intensity of its economy energy used per dollar of goods produced by 20 percent in five years
They are doing this by implementing fuel efficiency standards for cars that far exceed our own and by going after their top thousand industries with very aggressive efficiency targets
And they have the most aggressive renewable energy deployment in the world , for wind , solar and nuclear , and are already beating their targets .
Here 's the key point on energy from the draft report of the president 's Economic Recovery Advisory Board : `` If the U.S. fails to adopt an economywide carbon abatement program , we will continue to cede leadership in new energy technology
The U.S. is now home to only two of the ten largest solar photovoltaic producers in the world , two of the top ten wind turbine producers and one of the top ten advanced battery manufacturers
That is , only one-sixth of the world 's top renewable energy manufacturers are based in the United States
... Sustainable technologies in solar , wind , electric vehicles , nuclear and other innovations will drive the future global economy
We can either invest in policies to build U.S. leadership in these new industries and jobs today , or we can continue with business as usual and buy windmills from Europe , batteries from Japan and solar panels from Asia .
Indeed , if you look at those top 10 lists , compiled by Lazard , the investment bank , Japanese companies have the most , then Europe , then China then us
This is a major reason I favor the climate\/energy bill passed by the House
If we do not impose on ourselves the necessity to drive innovation in clean-technology by imposing the right prices on carbon emissions and the right regulations to promote energy efficiency we will be laggards in the next great global industry
And this is why I disagree with President Obama when he signals that he has to focus on extending health care and put the energy\/climate bill now in the Senate on the backburner
Health care and the energy\/climate bill go together
We need both now
Imagine how poor we would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies
Well , if we do n't dominate the top 10 E.T. rankings , there is no way we are going to be able to afford decent health care for every American
No way
I confess
I 'm a sucker for free and fair elections
It warms my heart to watch people drop ballots in a box to express their will , especially in a region where that so rarely happens
So I came to Lebanon on Sunday to watch the Lebanese hold their national election
It was indeed free and fair not like the pretend election you are about to see in Iran , where only candidates approved by the Supreme Leader can run
No , in Lebanon it was the real deal , and the results were fascinating : President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran
O.K. , I know
Neither man was on the ballot , but there 's no question whose vision won here
First , a solid majority of Lebanese Christians voted against the list of Michel Aoun , who wanted to align their community with the Shiite Hezbollah party , and tacitly Iran , because he viewed them as being best able to protect Christian interests not the West
The Christian majority voted instead for those who wanted to preserve Lebanon 's sovereignty and independence from any regional power
Second , a solid majority of all Lebanese Muslims , Christians and Druse voted for the March 14 coalition led by Saad Hariri , the son of the slain Lebanese prime minister , Rafik Hariri
This U.S.-supported coalition sees Lebanon 's future as a state independent of Syrian and Iranian influence and committed to its pluralism , modern education , a modern economy and a progressive outlook
Saad Hariri , with 71 out of 128 seats in Parliament , is likely to be the next prime minister
He knows that his cabinet will have to include significant elements of the Aoun faction and Hezbollah
But to the extent that anyone came out of this election with the moral authority to lead the next government , it was the coalition that wants Lebanon to be run by and for the Lebanese not for Iran , not for Syria and not for fighting Israel
Alas , Lebanon is still far from having a stable government , and Hezbollah remains a powerful , armed force outside the Lebanese state
Nevertheless , something important happened here : The Lebanese mainstream , armed only with ballots , not bullets , won
`` They voted for their country and way of life , '' said the Lebanese historian Kemal Salibi
`` There was a doggedness
It was a triumph of hope and courage .
Ballots were the only weapons the March 14 coalition had against an Iran-Hezbollah-Syria alliance that is widely suspected of having been involved in murdering Rafik Hariri , as well as six progressive members of the last Parliament and two of Lebanon 's best journalists Gebran Tueni and Samir Kassir for having insisted on their country 's independence
And yet , the allies , sons and , in one case , daughter Nayla Tueni of these slain activists still stood for election and won
I watched the voting at a school in the mountain village of Brummana
People came by car , by wheelchair , by foot young , old and sick
One very elderly lady walked in hooked up to a small oxygen tank
The tube was in her nose helping her to breathe
A young man was carrying the silver oxygen canister on one side of her and a young woman was holding her steady on the other side
But , by God , she was going to vote
`` People never turned out like this before , '' Sebouh Akharjelian , 29 , a businessman in the voting line said to me
`` The stakes are very high
It is either surrender to Ahmadinejad or be in the pro-Western camp .
It was striking to me how conciliatory the leader of Hezbollah , Hassan Nasrallah , was in the concession speech on Monday
All the fiery rhetoric and threats of the previous weeks were gone
I have no doubt that he will do whatever Iran dictates
But he can no longer pretend that he has some mandate to drag Lebanon into war with Israel again
It tells you that there is a power in all those people , all the little old ladies , who voted against him , and he seemed to know it
While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election , 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents
As more than one Lebanese whispered to me : Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing this free election would not have happened
Mr. Bush helped create the space
Power matters
Mr. Obama helped stir the hope
Words also matter
`` People in this region have become so jaded by the ability of their states to dominate everything and hold sham elections , '' said Paul Salem , analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
`` And mostly the world never cared
And then here came this man -LRB- Obama -RRB- , who came to them with respect , speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity and economic progress and education , and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world
That change was possible .
Again , you do n't want to exaggerate what happened here
But in a region where extremists tend to go all the way and moderates tend to just go away , seeing moderates stand their ground and win somewhere with ballots , not bullets , no less well , that 's worth applauding
This column will probably get Barack Obama in trouble , but that 's not my problem
I can not tell a lie : Many Egyptians and other Arab Muslims really like him and hope that he wins the presidency
I have had a chance to observe several U.S. elections from abroad , but it has been unusually revealing to be in Egypt as Barack Hussein Obama became the Democrats ' nominee for president of the United States
While Obama , who was raised a Christian , is constantly assuring Americans that he is not a Muslim , Egyptians are amazed , excited and agog that America might elect a black man whose father 's family was of Muslim heritage
They do n't really understand Obama 's family tree , but what they do know is that if America despite being attacked by Muslim militants on 9\/11 were to elect as its president some guy with the middle name `` Hussein , '' it would mark a sea change in America-Muslim world relations
Every interview seems to end with the person I was interviewing asking me : `` Now , can I ask you a question
Do you think they will let him win ?
-LRB- It 's always `` let him win '' not just `` win . ''
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats ' nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America 's image abroad an image dented by the Iraq war , President Bush 's invocation of a post-9 \/ 11 `` crusade , '' Abu Ghraib , Guant namo Bay and the xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing U.S. harbors than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years
Of course , Egyptians still have their grievances with America , and will in the future no matter who is president and we 've got a few grievances with them , too
But every once in a while , America does something so radical , so out of the ordinary something that old , encrusted , traditional societies like those in the Middle East could simply never imagine that it revives America 's revolutionary `` brand '' overseas in a way that no diplomat could have designed or planned
I just had dinner at a Nile-side restaurant with two Egyptian officials and a businessman , and one of them quoted one of his children as asking : `` Could something like this ever happen in Egypt ?
And the answer from everyone at the table was , of course , `` no. '' It could n't happen anywhere in this region
Could a Copt become president of Egypt
Not a chance
Could a Shiite become the leader of Saudi Arabia
Not in a hundred years
A Bahai president of Iran
In your dreams
Here , the past always buries the future , not the other way around
These Egyptian officials were particularly excited about Obama 's nomination because it might mean that being labeled a `` pro-American '' reformer is no longer an insult here , as it has been in recent years
As one U.S. diplomat put it to me : Obama 's demeanor suggests to foreigners that he would not only listen to what they have to say but might even take it into account
They anticipate that a U.S. president who spent part of his life looking at America from the outside in as John McCain did while a P.O.W. in Vietnam will be much more attuned to global trends
My colleague Michael Slackman , The Times 's bureau chief in Cairo , told me about a recent encounter he had with a worker at Cairo 's famed Blue Mosque : `` Gamal Abdul Halem was sitting on a green carpet
When he saw we were Americans , he said : ` Hillary-Obama tied ?
in thick , broken English
He told me that he lived in the Nile Delta , traveling two hours one way everyday to get to work , and still he found time to keep up with the race
He did n't have anything to say bad about Hillary but felt that Obama would be much better because he is dark-skinned , like him , and because he has Muslim heritage
` For me and my family and friends , we want Obama , ' he said
` We all like what he is saying . '
Yes , all of this Obama-mania is excessive and will inevitably be punctured should he win the presidency and start making tough calls or big mistakes
For now , though , what it reveals is how much many foreigners , after all the acrimony of the Bush years , still hunger for the `` idea of America '' this open , optimistic , and , indeed , revolutionary , place so radically different from their own societies
In his history of 19th-century America , `` What Hath God Wrought , '' Daniel Walker Howe quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson as telling a meeting of the Mercantile Library Association in 1844 that `` America is the country of the future
It is a country of beginnings , of projects , of vast designs and expectations .
That 's the America that got swallowed by the war on terrorism
And it 's the America that many people want back
I have no idea whether Obama will win in November
Whether he does or does n't , though , the mere fact of his nomination has done something very important
We 've surprised ourselves and surprised the world and , in so doing , reminded everyone that we are still a country of new beginnings
My friend , Mark Mykleby , who works in the Pentagon , shared with me this personal letter to the editor he got published last week in his hometown paper , The Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina
It is the best reaction I 've seen to the BP oil spill - and also the best advice to President Obama on exactly whom to kick you know where
`` I 'd like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
This is n't BP 's or Transocean 's fault
It 's not the government 's fault
It 's my fault
I 'm the one to blame and I 'm sorry
It 's my fault because I have n't digested the world 's in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life
If the geopolitical , economic , and technological shifts of the 1990s did n't do it ; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 did n't do it ; if the current economic crisis did n't do it ; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me , as a citizen , to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle
` Citizen ' is the key word
It 's what we do as individuals that count
For those on the left , government regulation will not solve this problem
Government 's role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans
For those on the right , if you want less government and taxes , then decide what you 'll give up and what you 'll contribute
Here 's the bottom line : If we want to end our oil addiction , we , as citizens , need to pony up : bike to work , plant a garden , do something
So again , the oil spill is my fault
I 'm sorry
I have n't done my part
Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V. Mark Mykleby .
I think Mykleby 's letter gets at something very important : We can not fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems
We - both parties - created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people 's lives
We - both parties - created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really did n't have the means to sustain them
And we - both parties - sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price
-LRB- Of course , we expected them to take care , but when you 're drilling for oil beneath 5,000 feet of water , stuff happens .
As Pogo would say , we have met the enemy and he is us
But that means we 're also the solution - if we 're serious
Look , we managed to survive 9\/11 without letting it destroy our open society or rule of law
We managed to survive the Wall Street crash without letting it destroy our economy
Hopefully , we will survive the BP oil spill without it destroying our coastal ecosystems
But we dare not press our luck
We have to use this window of opportunity to insulate ourselves as much as possible against all the bad things we can not control and get serious about fixing the problems that we can control
We need to make our whole country more sustainable
So let 's pass an energy-climate bill that really reduces our dependence on Middle East oil
Let 's pass a financial regulatory reform bill that really reduces the odds of another banking crisis
Let 's get our fiscal house in order , as the economy recovers
And let 's pass an immigration bill that will enable us to attract the world 's top talent and remain the world 's leader in innovation
We need all the cushions we can get right now , because we are living in a world of cascading and intertwined threats that have the potential to turn our country upside down at any moment
We do not know when the next Times Square bomber might get lucky
We do n't know how long the U.S. and Israel will tolerate Iran 's nuclear program
We do n't know if Pakistan will hold together and what might happen to its nukes
We do n't know when North Korea will go nuts
We do n't know if the European Union can keep financing the debts of Greece , Hungary and Spain - and what financial contagion might be set off if it ca n't
`` It is not your imagination , '' says corporate strategy consultant Peter Schwartz - there is a lot more scary stuff hanging over the world today
Since the end of the cold war and the rise of the Internet , we 've lost the walls and the superpowers that together kept the world 's problems more contained
Today , smaller and smaller units can wreak larger and larger havoc - and whatever havoc is wreaked now gets spread faster and farther than ever before
That is why we have to solve the big problems in our control , not postpone them or pretend that more lobby-driven , lowest-common-denominator solutions are still satisfactory
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste , but a reprieve and a breathing spell - which is what we 're having right now - is a really terrible thing to waste
We do n't want to look back on this moment and say : How could we have gone back to business as usual and petty political gridlocks with all those black swans circling around us
Then we will really kick ourselves
Twenty years ago , I wrote a book about the Middle East , and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction
It was going to be very simple just one page , indeed just one line : `` Nothing has changed .
It took me two days covering the elections in Beirut to realize that I was dead wrong
No , something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new
Pull up a chair ; this is going to be interesting
What we saw in the Lebanese elections , where the pro-Western March 14 movement won a surprise victory over the pro-Iranian Hezbollah coalition , what we saw in the ferment for change exposed by the election campaign in Iran , and what we saw in the provincial elections in Iraq , where the big pro-Iranian party got trounced , is the product of four historical forces that have come together to crack open this ossified region
First is the diffusion of technology
The Internet , blogs , YouTube and text messaging via cellphones , particularly among the young 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 is giving Middle Easterners cheap tools to communicate horizontally , to mobilize politically and to criticize their leaders acerbically , outside of state control
It is also enabling them to monitor vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras
I knew something had changed when I sat down for coffee on Hamra Street in Beirut last week with my 80-year-old friend and mentor , Kemal Salibi , one of Lebanon 's greatest historians , and he told me about his Facebook group
The evening of Lebanon 's election , I went to the Beirut home of Saad Hariri , the leader of the March 14 coalition , to interview him
In a big living room , he had a gigantic wall-size television broadcasting the results
And alongside the main TV were 16 smaller flat-screen TVs with electronic maps of Lebanon
Hariri 's own election experts were working on laptops and breaking down every vote from every religious community , village by village , and projecting them on the screens
Second , for real politics to happen you need space
There are a million things to hate about President Bush 's costly and wrenching wars
But the fact is , in ousting Saddam in Iraq in 2003 and mobilizing the U.N. to push Syria out of Lebanon in 2005 , he opened space for real democratic politics that had not existed in Iraq or Lebanon for decades
`` Bush had a simple idea , that the Arabs could be democratic , and at that particular moment simple ideas were what was needed , even if he was disingenuous , '' said Michael Young , the opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star
`` It was bolstered by the presence of a U.S. Army in the center of the Middle East
It created a sense that change was possible , that things did not always have to be as they were .
When I reported from Beirut in the 1970s and 1980s , I covered coups and wars
I never once stayed up late waiting for an election result
Elections in the Arab world were a joke literally
They used to tell this story about Syria 's president , Hafez al-Assad
After a Syrian election , an aide came in and told Assad : `` Mr. President , you won 99.8 percent of the votes
It means that only two-tenths of one percent of Syrians did n't vote for you
What more could ask for ?
Assad answered : `` Their names !
Lebanese , by contrast , just waited up all night for their election results no one knew what they 'd be
Third , the Bush team opened a hole in the wall of Arab autocracy but did a poor job following through
In the vacuum , the parties most organized to seize power were the Islamists Hezbollah in Lebanon ; pro-Al Qaeda forces among Iraqi Sunnis , and the pro-Iranian Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and Mahdi Army among Iraqi Shiites ; the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan ; Hamas in Gaza
Fortunately , each one of these Islamist groups overplayed their hand by imposing religious lifestyles or by dragging their societies into confrontations the people did n't want
This alienated and frightened more secular , mainstream Arabs and Muslims and has triggered an `` awakening '' backlash among moderates from Lebanon to Pakistan to Iran
The Times 's Robert Mackey reported that in Tehran `` chants of ` Death to America ' '' at rallies for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week were answered by chants of `` Death to the Taliban in Kabul and Tehran '' at a rally for his opponent , Mir Hussein Moussavi
Finally , along came President Barack Hussein Obama
Arab and Muslim regimes found it very useful to run against George Bush
The Bush team demonized them , and they demonized the Bush team
Autocratic regimes , like Iran 's , drew energy and legitimacy from that confrontation , and it made it very easy for them to discredit anyone associated with America
Mr. Obama 's soft power has defused a lot of that
As result , `` pro-American '' is not such an insult anymore
I do n't know how all this shakes out ; the forces against change in this region are very powerful see Iran and ruthless
But for the first time in a long time , the forces for decency , democracy and pluralism have a little wind at their backs
Good for them
The public editor s column will return next week
The current global energy-food crisis is , understandably , a pocketbook issue in America
But when you come to Egypt , you see how , in a society where so many more people live close to the edge , food and fuel prices could become enormously destabilizing
If these prices keep soaring , food and fuel could reshape politics around the developing world as much as nationalism or Communism did in their days
A few years ago , Egypt 's president , Hosni Mubarak , belatedly but clearly embarked on an economic reform path that has produced 7 percent annual growth in the last three years and now all that growth is being devoured by food and fuel price increases , like a plague of locusts eating through the Nile Delta
Let 's start the day here at Hussein el-Ashri 's poultry shop in the lower-middle-class district of Shubra a shop that gives new meaning to the term `` fresh chicken .
Customers arrive , select a live chicken out of a coop
It 's slaughtered and de-feathered while you wait and handed to you in a bag with all the parts
Business had grown steadily over the years at Ashri 's shop , as Egypt 's lower-middle classes could afford more meat
But in the past six months , the price of chicken has doubled
Ashri explained : `` Everything has gone up electricity , the price of feed , gasoline , labor , the price of medicine for the chickens
Everything .
For Egypt 's poor , who make up 40 percent of the population , food makes up 60 percent of their household budget
When wheat prices double , because more U.S. farmers plant corn for biofuels , it is devastating for Egyptians , who depend on imported American wheat for their pita bread
Bread riots are now a daily occurrence here
As for chicken , all Ashri knows is that `` there are fewer customers and less traffic now .
You need to give your kids meat , complains a lady in a veil , `` but now you give them a little smaller piece .
Next to Ashri , though , the man selling potatoes from a wooden cart is doing a brisk business
`` We ca n't go out anymore for entertainment , '' says one lady , whose husband is on an army pension , as she flips through the potatoes
`` But there are people a lot worse off
Some ca n't afford food at all .
Around the corner , at a state bakery selling subsidized bread , a small crowd has gathered , waiting for their daily ration
Someone else has collected a donkey cart full of pita scraps to be sold for animal feed
Nothing wasted
A discussion breaks out between the potato man and his customers about who has `` less of a conscience '' schoolteachers in the state school system who have to be paid to give after-school lessons because they have 80 kids in their classes and no one can learn there , or doctors in the state system who have to be bribed for decent care
It is not that they 're evil ; they 're all being squeezed
What 's happening is that the basic bargain between the Egyptian regime and its people which said , `` We will guarantee you cheap food , a job , education and health care , and you will stay out of politics '' is fraying
Even with the growth of the last three years , government subsidies and wages ca n't keep up with today 's food and fuel price rises
The only part of the bargain that 's left is : `` and you will stay out of politics .
From Shubra we drive into the desert toward Alexandria
The highway is full of cars
How can all these Egyptians afford to be driving , I wonder
Answer : The government will spend almost $ 11 billion this year to subsidize gasoline and cooking fuel ; gas here is only about $ 1.30 a gallon
Sounds like a good deal for the poor only the poor have no cars , and the fuel subsidies mean less money for mass transit
Think about these numbers : This year Egypt will spend $ 6 billion on education and $ 3 billion on health care , far less than the subsidies for fuel
This is a terrible trap
The subsidies should have been phased out when food and fuel prices were lower
Now that they have soared , the pain of removing the subsidies would be politically suicidal
So education and health care get killed instead
But Egypt today is one country with two systems
Along the Alexandria highway , we pass one gated community filled with McMansions with names like `` Moon Valley , '' `` Hyde Park '' and `` Beverly Hills .
One has a 99-hole golf complex
They are populated by Egyptians who have worked hard and made money in the gulf or who are part of the globalized business class here
They are entitled to their McMansions as much as Americans
But the energy and water implications of all these new gated communities is also fueling the soaring global demand
The good news : More Egyptians today can afford to live like Americans
The bad news : Even more Egyptians ca n't even afford to live like Egyptians anymore
This is not good not for them , not for us
Turkey is a country that had me at hello
I like the people , the culture , the food and , most of all , the idea of modern Turkey - the idea of a country at the hinge of Europe and the Middle East that manages to be at once modern , secular , Muslim , democratic , and has good relations with the Arabs , Israel and the West
After 9\/11 , I was among those hailing the Turkish model as the antidote to `` Bin Ladenism .
Indeed , the last time I visited Turkey in 2005 , my discussions with officials were all about Turkey 's efforts to join the European Union
That is why it is quite shocking to come back today and find Turkey 's Islamist government seemingly focused not on joining the European Union but the Arab League - no , scratch that , on joining the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran resistance front against Israel
Now how did that happen
Wait one minute , Friedman
That is a gross exaggeration , say Turkish officials
You 're right
I exaggerate , but not that much
A series of vacuums that emerged in and around Turkey in the last few years have drawn Turkey 's Islamist government - led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan 's Justice and Development Party - away from its balance point between East and West
This could have enormous implications
Turkey 's balancing role has been one of the most important , quiet , stabilizers in world politics
You only notice it when it is gone
Being in Istanbul convinces me that we could be on our way to losing it if all these vacuums get filled in the wrong ways
The first vacuum comes courtesy of the European Union
After a decade of telling the Turks that if they wanted E.U. membership they had to reform their laws , economy , minority rights and civilian-military relations - which the Erdogan government systematically did - the E.U. leadership has now said to Turkey : `` Oh , you mean nobody told you
We 're a Christian club
No Muslims allowed .
The E.U. 's rejection of Turkey , a hugely bad move , has been a key factor prompting Turkey to move closer to Iran and the Arab world
But as Turkey started looking more South , it found another vacuum - no leadership in the Arab-Muslim world
Egypt is adrift
Saudi Arabia is asleep
Syria is too small
And Iraq is too fragile
Erdogan discovered that by taking a very hard line against Israel 's partial blockade of Hamas-led Gaza - and quietly supporting the Turkish-led flotilla to break that blockade , during which eight Turks were killed by Israel - Turkey could vastly increase its influence on the Arab street and in the Arab markets
Indeed , Erdogan today is the most popular leader in the Arab world
Unfortunately , it is not because he is promoting a synthesis of democracy , modernity and Islam , but because he is loudly bashing Israel over its occupation and praising Hamas instead of the more responsible Palestinian Authority in the West Bank , which is actually building the foundations of a Palestinian state
There is nothing wrong with criticizing Israel 's human rights abuses in the territories
Israel 's failure to apply its creativity to solving the Palestinian problem is another dangerous vacuum
But it is very troubling when Erdogan decries Israelis as killers and , at the same time , warmly receives in Ankara Sudan 's president , Omar Hassan al-Bashir , who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloodshed in Darfur , and while politely hosting Iran 's president , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , whose government killed and jailed thousands of Iranians demanding that their votes be counted
Erdogan defended his reception of Bashir by saying : `` It 's not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide .
As one Turkish foreign policy analyst said to me : `` We are not mediating between East and West anymore
We 've become spokesmen for the most regressive elements in the East .
Finally , there is a vacuum inside Turkey
The secular opposition parties have been in disarray most of the decade , the army has been cowed by wiretaps and the press has been increasingly intimidated into self-censorship because of government pressures
In September , the Erdogan government levied a tax fine of $ 2.5 billion on the largest , most influential - and most critical - media conglomerate , Dogan Holdings , to bring it to heel
At the same time , Erdogan lately has spoken with increasing vitriol about Israel in his public speeches - describing Israelis as killers - to build up his domestic support
He regularly labels his critics as `` Israel 's contractors '' and `` Tel Aviv 's lawyers .
Erdogan is smart , charismatic and can be very pragmatic
He 's no dictator
I 'd love to see him be the most popular leader on the Arab street , but not by being more radical than the Arab radicals and by catering to Hamas , but by being more of a democracy advocate than the undemocratic Arab leaders and mediating in a balanced way between all Palestinians and Israel
That is not where Erdogan is at , though , and it 's troubling
Maybe President Obama should invite him for a weekend at Camp David to clear the air before U.S.-Turkey relations get where they 're going - over a cliff
Watching events unfolding in Tehran raises three intriguing questions for me : Is Facebook to Iran 's Moderate Revolution what the mosque was to Iran 's Islamic Revolution
Is Twitter to Iranian moderates what muezzins were to Iranian mullahs
And , finally , is any of this good for the Jews particularly Israel 's prime minister , Bibi Netanyahu
Room for Debate : Where Will the Power Lie in Iran
-LRB- June 16 , 2009 -RRB- Times Topics : Iran Here is why I ask
During the past eight years , in Iraq , Lebanon , the Palestinian territories , and , to a lesser extent , Egypt , spaces were opened for more democratic elections
Good news
Unfortunately , the groups that had the most grass-roots support and mobilization capabilities and the most energized supporters to take advantage of this new space were the Islamists
That is , Hezbollah in Lebanon , Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank , the various Sunni and Shiite Islamist parties in Iraq and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The centrist mainstream was nowhere
One of the most important reasons that the Islamists were able to covertly organize and mobilize , and be prepared when the lids in their societies were loosened a bit , was because they had the mosque a place to gather , educate and inspire their followers outside the total control of the state
In almost every one of these cases , the Islamists overplayed their hands
In Lebanon , Hezbollah took the country into a disastrous and unpopular war
Ditto Hamas in Gaza
The Sunni and Shiite Islamists in Iraq tried to impose a religious lifestyle on their communities , and the mullahs in Iran quashed the reformists
In the last year , though , the hard-liners in all these countries have faced a backlash by the centrist majorities , who detest these Islamist groups
Hezbollah was defeated in the Lebanese elections
Hamas is facing an energized Fatah in the West Bank and is increasingly unpopular in Gaza
Iraqi Sunnis have ousted the jihadists thanks to the tribal Awakening movement , while the biggest pro-Iranian party in Iraq got trounced in the recent provincial runoff
And in Iran , millions of Iranians starving for more freedom rallied to the presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi , forcing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to steal the election
-LRB- If he really won the Iranian election , as Ahmadinejad claims , by a 2-to-1 margin , would n't he invite the whole world in to recount the votes
Why has n't he ?
What is fascinating to me is the degree to which in Iran today and in Lebanon the more secular forces of moderation have used technologies like Facebook , Flickr , Twitter , blogging and text-messaging as their virtual mosque , as the place they can now gather , mobilize , plan , inform and energize their supporters , outside the grip of the state
For the first time , the moderates , who were always stranded between authoritarian regimes that had all the powers of the state and Islamists who had all the powers of the mosque , now have their own place to come together and project power : the network
The Times reported that Moussavi 's fan group on Facebook alone has grown to more than 50,000 members
That 's surely more than any mosque could hold which is why the government is now trying to block these sites
But while that puts the moderate mainstream on par with the Islamists in communications terms , we should not get carried away
First , `` moderates '' is a relative term
Iraq 's prime minister , Nuri Kamal al-Maliki , while more secular and nationalist than the extreme Iraqi Islamists , nonetheless wants to centralize power and solidify his Dawa group as the ruling party
Second , even if defeated electorally , the Islamists and their regimes have a trump card : guns
Guns trump cellphones
Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet
The Sunni Awakening in Iraq succeeded because the moderates there were armed
I doubt Ahmadinejad will go peacefully
And that brings me to Netanyahu
Israel was taken by surprise by events in Lebanon and Iran
And Israeli officials have been saying they would much prefer that Ahmadinejad still wins in Iran not because Israelis really prefer him but because they believe his thuggish , anti-Semitic behavior reflects the true and immutable character of the Iranian regime
And Israelis fear that if a moderate were to take over , it would not herald any real change in Iran , or its nuclear ambitions , but simply disguise it better
But there are signals still weak that another trend may be stirring in the region
The Iranian regime appears to be splitting at the top
This could challenge Netanyahu 's security framework
Israel needs to be neither seduced by these signals nor indifferent to them
It has to be open to them and must understand that how it relates to Palestinians and settlements can help these trends at the margins
But a lot starts at the margins
`` The rise of these moderate forces , if it is real and sustained , would be the most significant long-term contribution to Israeli national security , '' argued Gidi Grinstein , the president of the Reut Institute , a think tank
`` If some of these moderate forces started to converge , then the overall status of Israeli security would improve radically .
It is still way too early to know , he said , `` but Israel needs to be alive to this process and not simply rely on its old framework .
When I was in Cairo last week , Osama Ghazali Harb , an Egyptian political analyst , told me about a speech that he had recently given at the main Coptic Cathedral there
It was a discussion about the state of Arab politics
After he had finished , he said , an Iraqi man who had come with some Egyptian friends , got up to ask a question and along the way made the following statement : There are `` only two democracies '' in the Middle East today : `` Iraq and Israel .
The audience booed
`` The audience got very angry with him , '' Harb told me apparently because he had suggested that Iraq was a democracy , and therefore in some way superior to Egypt , because he compared Iraq to Israel in a complimentary way and because he did n't acknowledge the U.S. role in `` imposing '' democracy in Iraq
Iraq has become one of those subjects that so many people now come to with so much emotional scar tissue that it is very hard to have a sober discussion about the actual situation there today
So much is colored by how you feel about George Bush or whether you were for or against the war
As a result , what we do next in Iraq how and why is barely getting discussed in the presidential campaign
Too bad , because this is going to be a really hard call one that will require sorting through three conflicting political realities
The first is the mood of the American public , which has rendered a judgment that the price we have paid in Iraq over the last five years far , far exceeds what has been achieved there to date
Therefore , whoever wins the presidency John McCain or Barack Obama will take office knowing that the American people will not tolerate another four years dominated by an open-ended commitment to Iraq
But the second is the reality on the ground in Iraq , which is no longer an unremitting horror story
Clearly , the surge has helped to dampen the internal conflict
Clearly , the Iraqi Army is performing better
Clearly , Iraq 's Prime Minister Maliki , by cracking down on rogue Shiite groups from his own community , has established himself as more of a national leader
Clearly , the Sunnis have decided to take part in the coming parliamentary elections
Clearly , Kurdistan continues to operate as an island of decency and free markets
Clearly , Al Qaeda in Iraq has been hurt
Clearly , some Arab countries are coming to terms with the changes there by reopening embassies in Baghdad
The third reality , though , is the fact that the reconciliation process inside Iraq almost five years after our invasion still has not reached a point where Iraq 's stability is self-sustaining
And Tuesday 's bombing in Baghdad , which killed more than 50 people at a bus stop in a Shiite neighborhood , only underscores that
The U.S. military is still needed as referee
It still is not clear that Iraq is a country that can be held together by anything other than an iron fist
It 's still not clear that its government is anything more than a collection of sectarian fiefs
It is this volatile swirl that will likely greet the next president : the deep desire of the U.S. public to be finished with Iraq because of the huge costs ; the glimmer of hope that a decent outcome , one that might redeem some of those costs , is still possible ; and the fact that Iraq still has not cohered as a country yet
We can continue debating the merits of the war all we want until Jan. 20 , 2009 , but from that day forward there will be only one question for the next president : In light of these three conflicting trends , what are you planning to do with the Iraq you 're inheriting
If McCain is the next commander in chief , the U.S. military will tell him on day one that we ca n't stay in Iraq at the present troop levels indefinitely because the cost to our armed forces is becoming unbearable ; if it is Obama , the Iraqis will tell him on day one that we ca n't leave Iraq precipitously because it will explode
It would be a huge mistake for McCain to give up his goal of salvaging something in Iraq
But it would also be a big mistake to assume that the public would tolerate another president 's open-ended commitment there
Similarly , it would be a huge mistake for Obama to now give up his commitment to a phased withdrawal
That is very important leverage on the Iraqis
But it would also be a big mistake not to give Iraq a fresh look and ask : can something decent still be salvaged there at an acceptable cost something that can still serve our interests , do right by Iraqis and maybe put in place the seeds of an open society that will pay long-term benefits
`` When it comes to Iraq , most Americans really want to leave , but they still do n't want to lose , '' argues Michael Mandelbaum , author of `` Democracy 's Good Name .
Navigating these conflicting moods and trends on the ground in Iraq is going to be one of the most excruciatingly difficult challenges ever handed from one president to another
It might be useful to start talking about it
Barack Obama is getting painfully close to tying himself in knots with all his explanations of the conditions under which he would unconditionally talk with America 's foes , like Iran
His latest clarification was that there is a difference between `` preparations '' and `` preconditions '' for negotiations with bad guys
Such hair-splitting word games do not inspire confidence , and they play right into the arms of his critics
The last place he wants to look uncertain is on national security
The fact is , Mr. Obama was right to say that he would talk with any foe , if it would advance U.S. interests
The Bush team negotiated with Libya to give up its nuclear program , even after Libya had accepted responsibility for blowing up Americans on Pan Am Flight 103
Those negotiations succeeded , though , not because Mr. Bush was better `` prepared , '' but because , at the time , shortly after the invasion of Iraq , Mr. Bush had leverage
Iraq had yet to fall apart
Mr. Obama would do himself a big favor by shifting his focus from the list of enemy leaders he would talk with to the list of things he would do as president to generate more leverage for America , so no matter who we have to talk with the advantage will be on our side of the table
That 's what matters
Mr. Bush was also right : talking with Iran today would be tantamount to appeasement but that 's because the Bush team has so squandered U.S. power and credibility in the Middle East , and has failed to put in place any effective energy policy , that negotiating with Iran could only end up with us on the short end
We do n't have the leverage the allies , the alternative energy , the unity at home , the credible threat of force to advance our interests diplomatically today
As I have argued before : When you have leverage , talk
When you do n't have leverage , get some
Then talk
Right now Iran & Friends Hezbollah , Hamas and Syria have a strategy that has produced leverage for them , and the next U.S. president is going to have to think afresh how to counter it
The `` Iran & Friends '' strategy is built on five principles : Principle No. 1 : Always seek `` control without responsibility .
In Lebanon , Gaza and Iraq , Iran & Friends have veto power over the politics , without being held fully responsible for the electricity
America 's allies , by contrast , tend to have `` responsibility without control .
Principle No. 2 : Always insist on being able to both run for political office and bear arms
In Lebanon , Gaza and Iraq , America 's opponents are both in the government and have their own militias
Principle No. 3 : Use suicide bombing and targeted assassinations against any opponents who get in your way
In Lebanon , Syria is widely suspected to have been behind the spate of killings of anti-Syrian journalists and parliamentarians
One suicide attack on a major official in Iraq can neutralize superior U.S. power
Principle No. 4 : Use the Internet as a free command and control system for raising money , recruiting and operations
Principle No. 5 : Cast yourself as the `` resistance '' to Israel and America , so any opposition to you is equal to support for Israel and America and so no matter how badly you are defeated the mere fact that you `` resisted '' means you did n't really lose
Do the pro-American Arab moderates have a counterstrategy with leverage
I just got the new book , `` The Arab Center , '' by Marwan Muasher , the former foreign minister of Jordan
Retired Arab statesmen do n't often write books about their time in office , but Mr. Muasher has , and his argument is a powerful one : Arab moderates have been on the defensive because they have been `` one-dimensional moderates , '' focused only on moderate proposals for making peace with Israel , while ignoring other issues important to Arab citizens : good governance , political reform , economic well-being , women 's rights and religious and cultural diversity
`` For the Arab moderates to have credibility , they have to assume more responsibility , '' says Muasher
America could help by delivering on the Arab moderates ' main issue a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal
But , ultimately , he said , if the Arab center is to shape the future and rid `` itself of the image its opponents paint of an apologist for the West or a compromiser of Arab rights , '' it will have to meet the challenge of building `` a robust , diverse , tolerant , democratic , and prosperous Arab society .
There has been some promising moderate push back against extremists in Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank lately
It 's definitely worth watching , but is still very frail
America 's leverage will be limited as long our key allies do not have a strategy , with weight , to counter the hard-liners
Here 's hoping that once the primary silly season is over , the McCain and Obama camps will stop jousting over whether to talk with our enemies which we must and will start focusing instead about how we and our friends get more chips to bargain with which we lack
I leave Istanbul with four questions that Turks asked me echoing in my head
Forget the answers , just these questions will tell you all you need to understand the situation here
The four questions , which were asked of me by different Turkish journalists , academics or businessmen , can be summarized as follows : One : Do you think we are seeing the death of the West and the rise of new world powers in the East
Two : Tom , it was great talking to you this morning , but would you mind not quoting me by name
I 'm afraid the government will retaliate against me , my newspaper or my business if you do
Three : Is it true , as Prime Minister Erdogan believes , that Israel is behind the attacks by the Kurdish terrorist group P.K.K. on Turkey
Four : Do you really think Obama can punish Turkey for voting against the U.S. at the U.N. on Iran sanctions
After all , America needs Turkey more than Turkey needs America
The question about the death of the West is really about the rise of Turkey , which is actually a wonderful story
The Turks wanted to get into the European Union and were rebuffed , but I 'm not sure Turkish businessmen even care today
The E.U. feels dead next to Turkey , which last year was right behind India and China among the fastest-growing economies in the world - just under 7 percent - and was the fastest-growing economy in Europe
Americans have tended to look at Turkey as a bridge or a base - either a cultural bridge that connects the West and the Muslim world , or as our base -LRB- Incirlik Air Base -RRB- that serves as the main U.S. supply hub for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Turks see themselves differently
`` Turkey is not a bridge
It 's a center , '' explained Muzaffer Senel , an international relations researcher at Istanbul Sehir University
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union , Turkey has become the center of its own economic space , stretching from southern Russia , all through the Balkans , the Caucasus and Central Asia , and down through Iraq , Syria , Iran and the Middle East
All you have to do is stand in the Istanbul airport and look at the departures board for Turkish Airlines , which flies to cities half of which I can not even pronounce , to appreciate what a pulsating economic center this has become for Central Asia
I met Turkish businessmen who were running hotel chains in Moscow , banks in Bosnia and Greece , road-building projects in Iraq and huge trading operations with Iran and Syria
In 1980 , Turkey 's total exports were worth $ 3 billion
In 2008 , they were $ 132 billion
There are now 250 industrial zones throughout Anatolia
Turkey 's cellphone users have gone from virtually none in the 1990s to 64 million in 2008
So Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees himself as the leader of a rising economic powerhouse of 70 million people who is entitled to play an independent geopolitical role - hence his U.N. vote against sanctioning Iran
But how Turkey rises really matters - and Erdogan definitely has some troubling Hugo Ch vez-Vladimir Putin tendencies
I 've never visited a democracy where more people whom I interviewed asked me not to quote them by name for fear of retribution by Erdogan 's circle - in the form of lawsuits , tax investigations or being shut out of government contracts
The media here is rampantly self-censored
Moreover , Erdogan has evolved from just railing against Israel 's attacks on Hamas in Gaza to spouting conspiracy theories - like the insane notion that Israel is backing the P.K.K. terrorists - as a way of consolidating his political base among conservative Muslims in Turkey and abroad
Is there anything the U.S. can do
My advice : Avoid a public confrontation that Erdogan can exploit to build more support , draw U.S. redlines in private and let Turkish democrats take the lead
Turkey is full of energy and hormones , and is trying to figure out its new identity
There is an inner struggle over that identity , between those who would like to see Turkey more aligned with the Islamic world and values and those who want it to remain more secular , Western and pluralistic
Who defines Turkey will determine a lot about whether we end up in a war of civilizations
We need to be involved but proceed delicately
This struggle is for Turks , and they are on it
Only two weeks before the Gaza flotilla incident , a leading poll showed Mr. Erdogan 's Justice and Development Party , known as the A.K.P. , trailing his main opposition - the secularist Republican People 's Party - for the first time since the A.K.P. came to office in 2002
That is surely one reason Erdogan openly took sides with one of the most radical forces in the region , Hamas - to re-energize his political base
But did he overplay his hand
Up to now , Erdogan has been very cunning , treating his opponents like frogs in a pail , always just gradually turning up the heat so they never quite knew they were boiling
But now they know
The secular and moderate Muslim forces in Turkey are alarmed ; the moderate Arab regimes are alarmed ; the Americans are alarmed
The fight for Turkey 's soul is about to be joined in a much more vigorous way
The popular uprising unfolding in Iran right now really is remarkable
It is the rarest of rare things more rare than snow in Saudi Arabia , more unlikely than finding a ham sandwich at the Wailing Wall , more unusual than water-skiing in the Sahara
It is a popular uprising in a Middle Eastern oil state
Why is this so unusual
Because in most Middle East states , power grows out of the barrel of a gun and out of a barrel of oil and that combination is very hard to overthrow
Oil is a key reason that democracy has had such a hard time emerging in the Middle East , except in one of the few states with no oil : Lebanon
Because once kings and dictators seize power , they can entrench themselves , not only by imprisoning their foes and killing their enemies , but by buying off their people and using oil wealth to build huge internal security apparatuses
There is only one precedent for an oil-funded autocrat in the Middle East being toppled by a people 's revolution , not by a military coup , and that was in ... Iran
Recall that in 1979 , when the Iranian people rose up against the shah of Iran in an Islamic Revolution spearheaded by Ayatollah Khomeini , the shah controlled the army , the Savak secret police and a vast network of oil-funded patronage
But at some point , enough people taking to the streets and defying his authority , and taking bullets as well , broke the shah 's spell
All the shah 's horses and all the shah 's men , could n't put his regime back together again
The Islamic Revolution has learned from the shah
It has used its oil wealth Iran is the world 's fifth-largest oil producer , exporting about 2.1 million barrels a day at around $ 70 a barrel to buy off huge swaths of the population with cheap housing , government jobs and subsidized food and gasoline
It 's also used its crude to erect a vast military force namely the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia to keep itself in power
Therefore , the big question in Iran today is : Can the green revolution led by Mir Hussein Moussavi , and backed by masses of street protestors , do to the Islamic regime what Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian people did to the shah 's regime break its spell so all its barrels and bullets become meaningless
Iran 's ruling mullahs were always ruthless
But they disguised it a bit with faux elections
I say faux elections because while the regime may have counted the votes accurately , it tightly controlled who could run
The choices were dark black and light black
What happened this time is that the anger at the regime had reached such a level because of near-20 percent unemployment and a rising youth population tired of seeing their life 's options limited by theocrats that given a choice between a dark black regime candidate and a light black regime candidate , millions of Iranians turned out for light black : Mr. Moussavi
The Iranian people turned the regime man into their own candidate , and he seems to have been transformed by them
That is why the regime panicked and stole the election
The playwright Tom Stoppard once observed that democracy is not the voting , `` it 's the counting .
Iran 's mullahs were always ready to allow voting , as long as the counting did n't matter , because a regime man was always going to win
But what happened this time was that in the little crack of space that the regime had to allow for even a faux election , some kind of counter-revolution was born
Yes , its leader , Mr. Moussavi , surely is less liberal than most of his followers
But just his lighter shade of black attracted and unleashed so much pent-up frustration and hope for change among many Iranians that he became an independent candidate and , thus , his votes simply could not be counted because they were not just a vote for him , but were a referendum against the entire regime
But now , having voted with their ballots , Iranians who want a change will have to vote again with their bodies
A regime like Iran 's can only be brought down or changed if enough Iranians vote as they did in 1979 in the street
That is what the regime fears most , because then it either has to shoot its own people or cede power
That is why it was no accident that the `` supreme leader , '' Ayatollah Khamenei , warned protestors in his Friday speech that `` street challenge is not acceptable .
That 's a man who knows how he got his job
And so the gauntlet is now thrown down
If the reformers want change , they are going to have to form a leadership , lay out their vision for Iran and keep voting in the streets over and over and over
Only if they keep showing up with their bodies , and by so doing saying to their regime `` we can not be bought and we will not be cowed , '' will their ballots be made to count
I am rooting for them and fearing for them
Any real moderation of Iran 's leadership would have a hugely positive effect on the Middle East
But we and the reformers must have no illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against
Two years ago , President Bush declared that America was `` addicted to oil , '' and , by gosh , he was going to do something about it
Well , now he has
Now we have the new Bush energy plan : `` Get more addicted to oil .
Actually , it 's more sophisticated than that : Get Saudi Arabia , our chief oil pusher , to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives ca n't totally take off
Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
It 's as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us : `` C'mon guys , you know you want a little more of the good stuff
One more hit , baby
Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe
I promise , next year , we 'll all go straight
I 'll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library
But for now , give me one more pop from that drill , please , baby
Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude .
It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive , fraudulent , pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is
But it gets better
The president actually had the gall to set a deadline for this drug deal : `` I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past , '' Mr. Bush said
`` Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels , I ask them to reconsider their positions
If Congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action , they will need to explain why $ 4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act .
This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers ; this from a president who 's done nothing to encourage conservation ; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program
I bet there are n't 12 readers of this newspaper who could tell you his name or identify him in a police lineup
But , most of all , this deadline is from a president who has n't lifted a finger to broker passage of legislation that has been stuck in Congress for a year , which could actually impact America 's energy profile right now unlike offshore oil that would take years to flow and create good tech jobs to boot
That bill is H.R. 6049 `` The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 , '' which extends for another eight years the investment tax credit for installing solar energy and extends for one year the production tax credit for producing wind power and for three years the credits for geothermal , wave energy and other renewables
These critical tax credits for renewables are set to expire at the end of this fiscal year and , if they do , it will mean thousands of jobs lost and billions of dollars of investments not made
`` Already clean energy projects in the U.S. are being put on hold , '' said Rhone Resch , president of the Solar Energy Industries Association
People forget , wind and solar power are here , they work , they can go on your roof tomorrow
What they need now is a big U.S. market where lots of manufacturers have an incentive to install solar panels and wind turbines because the more they do , the more these technologies would move down the learning curve , become cheaper and be able to compete directly with coal , oil and nuclear , without subsidies
That seems to be exactly what the Republican Party is trying to block , since the Senate Republicans sorry to say , with the help of John McCain have now managed to defeat the renewal of these tax credits six different times
Of course , we 're going to need oil for years to come
That being the case , I 'd prefer for geopolitical reasons that we get as much as possible from domestic wells
But our future is not in oil , and a real president would n't be hectoring Congress about offshore drilling today
He 'd be telling the country a much larger truth : `` Oil is poisoning our climate and our geopolitics , and here is how we 're going to break our addiction : We 're going to set a floor price of $ 4.50 a gallon for gasoline and $ 100 a barrel for oil
And that floor price is going to trigger massive investments in renewable energy particularly wind , solar panels and solar thermal
And we 're also going to go on a crash program to dramatically increase energy efficiency , to drive conservation to a whole new level and to build more nuclear power
And I want every Democrat and every Republican to join me in this endeavor .
That 's what a real president would do
He 'd give us a big strategic plan to end our addiction to oil and build a bipartisan coalition to deliver it
He certainly would n't be using his last days in office to threaten Congressional Democrats that if they do n't approve offshore drilling by the Fourth of July recess , they will be blamed for $ 4-a-gallon gas
That is so lame
That is an energy policy so unworthy of our Independence Day
Gen. Stanley McChrystal 's trashing of his civilian colleagues was unprofessional and may cost him his job
If so , it will be a sad end to a fine career
But no general is indispensable
What is indispensable is that when taking America surging deeper into war in Afghanistan , President Obama has to be able to answer the most simple questions at a gut level : Do our interests merit such an escalation and do I have the allies to achieve victory
President Obama never had good answers for these questions , but he went ahead anyway
The ugly truth is that no one in the Obama White House wanted this Afghan surge
The only reason they proceeded was because no one knew how to get out of it - or had the courage to pull the plug
That is not a sufficient reason to take the country deeper into war in the most inhospitable terrain in the world
You know you 're in trouble when you 're in a war in which the only party whose objectives are clear , whose rhetoric is consistent and whose will to fight never seems to diminish is your enemy : the Taliban
President Obama is not an Afghan expert
Few people are
But that could have been his strength
The three questions he needed to ask about Afghanistan were almost childlike in their simplicity
Yet Obama either failed to ask them or went ahead , nevertheless , because he was afraid he would have been called a wimp by Republicans if he had n't
The first question was hiding in plain sight : Why do we have to recruit and train our allies , the Afghan Army , to fight
That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer
If there is one thing Afghan males should not need to be trained to do , it 's to engage in warfare
That may be the only thing they all know how to do after 30 years of civil war and centuries of resisting foreign powers
After all , who is training the Taliban
They 've been fighting the U.S. Army to a draw - and many of their commanders ca n't even read
It is not about the way
It is about the will
I have said this before , and I will say it again : The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them
The Camp David peace treaty started with Israelis and Egyptians meeting in secret - without us
The Oslo peace process started with Israelis and Palestinians meeting in secret - without us
The Sunni tribal awakening in Iraq against pro-Al Qaeda forces started with them - without us
When it starts with them , when they assume ownership , our military and diplomatic support can be a huge multiplier , as we 've seen in Iraq and at Camp David
Ownership is everything in business , war and diplomacy
People will fight with sticks and stones and no training at all for a government they feel ownership of
When they - Israelis , Palestinians , Afghans , Iraqis - assume ownership over a policy choice , everything is possible , particularly the most important thing of all : that what gets built becomes self-sustaining without us
But when we want it more than they do , nothing is self-sustaining , and they milk us for all we 're worth
I simply do n't see an Afghan `` awakening '' in areas under Taliban control
And without that , at scale , nothing we build will be self-sustaining
That leads to the second question : If our strategy is to use U.S. forces to clear the Taliban and help the Afghans put in place a decent government so they can hold what is cleared , how can that be done when President Hamid Karzai , our principal ally , openly stole the election and we looked the other way
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the administration told us not to worry : Karzai would have won anyway ; he 's the best we 've got ; she knew how to deal with him and he would come around
Well , I hope that happens
But my gut tells me that when you do n't call things by their real name , you get in trouble
Karzai stole the election , and we said : No problem , we 're going to build good governance on the back of the Kabul mafia
Which brings up the third simple question , the one that made me most opposed to this surge : What do we win if we win
At least in Iraq , if we eventually produce a decent democratizing government , we will , at enormous cost , have changed the politics in a great Arab capital in the heart of the Arab Muslim world
That can have wide resonance
Change Afghanistan at enormous cost and you 've changed Afghanistan - period
Afghanistan does not resonate
Moreover , Al Qaeda is in Pakistan today - or , worse , in the soul of thousands of Muslim youth from Bridgeport , Conn. , to London , connected by `` The Virtual Afghanistan '' : the Internet
If Al Qaeda cells returned to Afghanistan , they could be dealt with by drones , or special forces aligned with local tribes
It would not be perfect , but perfect is not on the menu in Afghanistan
My bottom line : The president can bring Ulysses S. Grant back from the dead to run the Afghan war
But when you ca n't answer the simplest questions , it is a sign that you 're somewhere you do n't want to be and your only real choices are lose early , lose late , lose big or lose small
There has been a lot of worthless chatter about what President Barack Obama should say about Iran 's incipient `` Green Revolution .
Sorry , but Iranian reformers do n't need our praise
They need the one thing we could do , without firing a shot , that would truly weaken the Iranian theocrats and force them to unshackle their people
What 's that
End our addiction to the oil that funds Iran 's Islamic dictatorship
Launching a real Green Revolution in America would be the best way to support the `` Green Revolution '' in Iran
Oil is the magic potion that enables Iran 's turbaned shahs `` Shah Khamenei '' and `` Shah Ahmadinejad '' to snub their noses at the world and at many of their own people as well
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaves like someone who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple
By coincidence , he 's been president of Iran during a period of record high oil prices
So , although he presides over an economy that makes nothing the world wants , he can lecture us about how the West is in decline and the Holocaust was a `` myth .
Trust me , at $ 25 a barrel , he wo n't be declaring that the Holocaust was a myth anymore
The Obama team wants to pursue talks with Iran over its nuclear program , no matter who wins there
But the issue is not talk or no talk
The issue is leverage or no leverage
I love talking to people especially in the Middle East on one condition : that we have the leverage
As long as oil prices are high , Iran will have too much leverage and will be able to resist concessions on its nuclear program
With oil at $ 70 a barrel , our economic sanctions on Iran are an annoyance ; at $ 25 , they really hurt
`` People do not change when you tell them they should ; they change when they tell themselves they must , '' observed Michael Mandelbaum , the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy specialist
And nothing would tell Iran 's leaders that they must change more than collapsing oil prices
Mr. Obama has already started some excellent energy-saving initiatives
But we need more
Imposing an immediate `` Freedom Tax '' of $ 1 a gallon on gasoline with rebates to the poor and elderly would be a triple positive : It would stimulate more investment in renewable energy now ; it would stimulate more consumer demand for the energy-efficient vehicles that the reborn General Motors and Chrysler are supposed to make ; and , it would reduce our oil imports in a way that would surely affect the global price and weaken every petro-dictator
That is how as Bill Maher likes to say we make the bad guys `` fight all of us .
Sure , it would take time to influence the regime , but , unlike words alone , it will have an impact
I believe in `` The First Law of Petro-Politics , '' which stipulates that the price of oil and the pace of freedom in petrolist states states totally dependent on oil exports to run their economies operate in an inverse correlation
As the price of oil goes down , the pace of freedom goes up because leaders have to educate and unleash their people to innovate and trade
As the price of oil goes up , the pace of freedom goes down because leaders just have to stick a pipe in the ground to stay in power
Exhibit A : the Soviet Union
High oil prices in the 1970s suckered the Kremlin into propping up inefficient industries , overextending subsidies , postponing real economic reforms and invading Afghanistan
When oil prices collapsed to $ 15 a barrel in the late 1980s , the overextended , petrified Soviet Empire went bust
In a 2006 speech entitled `` The Collapse of an Empire : Lessons for Modern Russia , '' Yegor Gaidar , a deputy prime minister of Russia in the early 1990s , noted that `` the timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to Sept. 13 , 1985
On this date , Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani , the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia , declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically
The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices , and Saudi Arabia quickly regained its share in the world market
`` During the next six months , '' added Gaidar , `` oil production in Saudi Arabia increased fourfold , while oil prices collapsed by approximately the same amount in real terms
As a result , the Soviet Union lost approximately $ 20 billion per year , money without which the country simply could not survive .
If we could bring down the price of oil , the Islamic Republic which has been buying off its people with subsidies and jobs for years would face the same pressures
The ayatollahs would either have to start taking subsidies away from Iranians , which would only make the turbaned shahs more unpopular , or empower Iran 's human talent men and women and give them free access to the learning , science , trade and collaboration with the rest of the world that would enable this once great Persian civilization to thrive without oil
Let 's get serious : An American Green Revolution to end our oil addiction to parallel Iran 's Green Revolution to end its theocracy helps us , helps them and raises the odds that whoever wins the contest for power , there will have to be a reformer
What are we waiting for
Having recently returned from Egypt , I have the Suez Canal on my mind
And looking at Iraq from Cairo , the thought occurred to me that maybe the Iraqis have just crossed the Suez Canal
If so , that 's good news
What am I talking about
There is no way that Egypt 's President Anwar Sadat could have ever made peace with Israel had he not first launched his lightning strike across the Suez Canal on Yom Kippur , 1973
`` The crossing , '' as that surprise attack became known in Egyptian lore , was as psychologically important as it was militarily important
It wiped away Egypt 's humiliating loss in the 1967 war and gave Egyptians the dignity and self-confidence to make peace with Israel as military equals
While the military reality was more complex , Egyptians nevertheless felt they had liberated the Sinai themselves
One of the first things I realized when visiting Iraq after the U.S. invasion was that the very fact that Iraqis did not liberate themselves , but had to be liberated by Americans , was a source of humiliation to them
It 's one reason they never threw flowers
When someone else has to liberate you in your own home , that is humiliating and humiliation , I believe , is the single-most underestimated force in international relations , especially in the Middle East
That also helps explain why Iraqis initially never took ownership of their governing institutions , like the Coalition Provisional Authority , or C.P.A.
They never fought for it
It was handed to them
People have to fight and win their own freedom , and that 's what gives their institutions legitimacy
What seems to have happened in Iraq in the last few months is that the Iraqi mainstream has finally done some liberating of itself
With the help of the troop surge ordered by President Bush , the mainstream Sunni tribes have liberated themselves from the grip of Al Qaeda in their provinces
And the Shiite mainstream represented by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Iraqi Army liberated Basra , Amara and Sadr City in Baghdad from both Mahdi Army militiamen and pro-Iranian death squads
We may one day look back on this as Iraq 's real war of liberation
The one we led five years ago did n't count
And because Iraqis now have their own narrative of self-liberation , it appears to be giving more legitimacy and self-confidence to the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army and the Maliki regime
It also seems to have emboldened the Sunnis to take part in the next parliamentary elections after having largely boycotted the last round
The Kurds already liberated themselves and had that self-confidence
It helped that Al Qaeda and Iran both went too far
I 've always believed that there is only one good thing about extremists : They do n't know when to stop
Al Qaeda in Iraq went on murderous rampages against any Sunnis who opposed them , severing heads , forcing marriages , mowing down tribal leaders and slaughtering Shiites by the hundreds
Meanwhile , pro-Iranian Shiite extremists tried to impose a Taliban-like order in Basra and Baghdad from head scarves to bans on liquor on what is still a mostly secular-oriented Shiite majority
Eventually , this Muslim-on-Muslim oppression seemed to spark the `` we 're - not-going-to-take-this-anymore '' rage , which prompted both the Sunni and Shiite mainstreams to liberate themselves from their own extremists and , in so doing , actually take ownership of their own country
Oddly enough , the person who best saw this backlash coming and warned how it could backfire on Al Qaeda was Osama bin Laden 's sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri
Remember the famous letter dated July 9 , 2005 , that Zawahiri sent to the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq , Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Zawahiri warned Zarqawi to stop murdering so many Shiites , and even Sunnis , with his campaign of suicide bombing and kidnapping
`` Many of your Muslim admirers amongst the common folk are wondering about your attacks on the Shia , '' Zawahiri said in his letter
`` The sharpness of this questioning increases when the attacks are on one of their mosques ... My opinion is that this matter wo n't be acceptable to the Muslim populace , however much you have tried to explain it , and aversion to this will continue ... Among the things which the feelings of the Muslim populace who love and support you will never find palatable also are the scenes of slaughtering the hostages .
Zarqawi did n't take the advice
But be advised : These parallel wars of self-liberation still do n't amount to a single national unity movement
Civil war could still be in Iraq 's future
Not all Sunnis and Shiites have had their `` crossings .
Iraq is miles away from being healthy
And now that Iraq 's Shiite and Sunni communities are taking more responsibility for their own country , you are also going to see an intense power struggle over who dominates within each community
With oil dollars piling up , there is a lot more to fight for
But if we 're lucky , this struggle will play out primarily in the political arena
If we 're not lucky
Well , let 's just hope we 're lucky
Throughout most of their conflict , Arab and Israeli leaders have tended to oscillate between two , and only two , worldviews : I am weak ; how can I compromise
I am strong ; why should I compromise
Israel today is very much in the second mode
For Israel , these are the best of times and the worst of times
Globally , the campaign to de-legitimize Israel has never been more virulent , while locally the beaches and restaurants of Tel Aviv have never been more crowded - as suicide-bombing and rockets from Gaza and Lebanon seem like a distant memory
In noting this contrast , Ari Shavit , a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz , reported that the number of Israeli millionaires `` soared by 43 percent between 2008 and 2009 , with 2,519 new ones joining the 5,900 we already had , for a total of 8,419 Israeli millionaires
... Never has life been so good here for so wealthy an elite , as the country is poised at the brink of the abyss .
Israel 's newfound sense of security , though , was bought at a very high price - and it is not a steady state
Let me explain
The history of Israeli-Arab relations since 1948 can be summarized in one sentence : `` War , timeout , war , timeout , war , timeout , war , timeout , war , timeout
... '' What differentiates Israel from the Arabs and the Palestinians is how much more productive Israel has been during its timeouts
Israel today is enjoying another timeout because it recently won three short wars - and then encountered one pleasant surprise
The first was a war to dismantle the corrupt Arafat regime
The second was the war started by Hezbollah in Lebanon and finished by a merciless pounding of Shiite towns and Beirut suburbs by the Israeli Air Force
The third was the war to crush the Hamas missile launchers in Gaza
What is different about these three wars , though , is that Israel won them using what I call `` Hama Rules '' - which are no rules at all
`` Hama Rules '' are named after the Syrian town of Hama , where , in 1982 , then-President Hafez el-Assad of Syria put down a Muslim fundamentalist uprising by shelling and then bulldozing their neighborhoods , killing more than 10,000 of his own people
In Israel 's case , it found itself confronting enemies in Gaza and Lebanon armed with rockets , but nested among local civilians , and Israel chose to go after them without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties
As the Lebanese militia leader Bashir Gemayel was fond of saying - before he himself was blown up - `` This is not Denmark here
And it is not Norway .
The brutality of the Israeli retaliations bought this timeout with Hezbollah and Hamas , and the civilian casualties and troubling TV images bought Israel a U.N. investigation into alleged war crimes
This is important : For its first 30 years - from 1948 to 1956 , from 1956 to 1967 and from 1967 to 1973 - Israel bought its timeouts with conventional wars against conventional armies of nation states
But now that Israel 's primary foes are nonstate actors who deploy rockets nested among homes and schools , the cost of buying its timeouts has gone up dramatically
Now they include potential U.N. indictments of generals and political leaders for war crimes and corroding relations with democrats everywhere
That is why it is vital that Israel use this moment of strength , this timeout , to do precisely what Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested to the cabinet the other day - offer a `` daring and assertive political initiative '' to advance the peace process with the Palestinian Authority 's president , Mahmoud Abbas , and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
If only
... Bibi Netanyahu has been Israel 's prime minister now for 15 months
If he retired tomorrow , this term in office , like his first , would not merit a footnote to a footnote in Israel 's history
Yes , Netanyahu gave a speech in which he grudgingly accepted the idea of a two-state solution , but it was a speech addressed to Barack Obama to get him off his back
It was n't to the Palestinian people to get them on his side
`` Bibi thinks the negotiations are not about the future of Israel , but the future of U.S.-Israel relations , '' Moshe Halbertal , the Hebrew University philosopher , told me when I visited Israel last week
Which brings me to the surprise
Israeli defense officials were clear with me : The Palestinian security forces built by Abbas and Fayyad in the West Bank are the real deal , and their effectiveness is a vital stabilizer of the current timeout
But Abbas and Fayyad will not be able to sustain this timeout if Netanyahu resumes settlement-building in September , when the partial freeze expires , and if Israel does n't soon start gradually transferring control of major West Bank Palestinian towns to the Palestinian Authority
Bottom line : Israel needs to try to buy its next timeout with diplomacy , which means Netanyahu has to show some initiative
Because the risks to Israel 's legitimacy of another war in Gaza , Lebanon or the West Bank - in which Israel could be forced to kill even more civilians to squash rocket attacks launched from schoolyards by fighters who wear no uniforms - will be staggering
I was at a conference in St. Petersburg , Russia , a few weeks ago and interviewed Craig Barrett , the former chairman of Intel , about how America should get out of its current economic crisis
His first proposal was this : Any American kid who wants to get a driver 's license has to finish high school
No diploma no license
Hey , why would we want to put a kid who can barely add , read or write behind the wheel of a car
Now what does that have to do with pulling us out of the Great Recession
A lot
Historically , recessions have been a time when new companies , like Microsoft , get born , and good companies separate themselves from their competition
It makes sense
When times are tight , people look for new , less expensive ways to do old things
Necessity breeds invention
Therefore , the country that uses this crisis to make its population smarter and more innovative and endows its people with more tools and basic research to invent new goods and services is the one that will not just survive but thrive down the road
We might be able to stimulate our way back to stability , but we can only invent our way back to prosperity
We need everyone at every level to get smarter
I still believe that America , with its unrivaled freedoms , venture capital industry , research universities and openness to new immigrants has the best assets to be taking advantage of this moment to out-innovate our competition
But we should be pressing these advantages to the max right now
Russia , it seems to me , is clearly wasting this crisis
Oil prices rebounded from $ 30 to $ 70 a barrel too quickly , so the pressure for Russia to really reform and diversify its economy is off
The struggle for Russia 's post-Communist economic soul whether it is going to be more OPEC than O.E.C.D. , a country that derives more of its wealth from drilling its mines than from tapping its minds seems to be over for now
At the St. Petersburg exposition center , showing off the Russian economy , the two biggest display booths belonged to Gazprom , the state-controlled oil and gas company , and Sberbank , Russia 's largest state-owned bank
Russian companies that actually made things that the world wanted were virtually nonexistent : Two-thirds of Russia 's exports today are oil and gas
Gazprom makes the money , and Sberbank lends it out
As one Western banker put it , when oil is $ 35 a barrel , Russia `` has no choice '' but to reform , to diversify its economy and to put in place the rule of law and incentives that would really stimulate small business
But at $ 70 a barrel , it takes an act of enormous `` political will , '' which the petro-old K.G.B. alliance that dominates the Kremlin today is unlikely to summon
Too much rule of law and transparency would constrict the ruling clique 's own freedom of maneuver
China is also courting trouble
Recently in the name of censoring pornography China blocked access to Google and demanded that computers sold in China come supplied with an Internet nanny filter called Green Dam Youth Escort , starting July 1
Green Dam can also be used to block politics , not just Playboy
Once you start censoring the Web , you restrict the ability to imagine and innovate
You are telling young Chinese that if they really want to explore , they need to go abroad
We should be taking advantage
Now is when we should be stapling a green card to the diploma of any foreign student who earns an advanced degree at any U.S. university , and we should be ending all H-1B visa restrictions on knowledge workers who want to come here
They would invent many more jobs than they would supplant
The world 's best brains are on sale
Let 's buy more
Barrett argues that we should also use this crisis to : 1 -RRB- require every state to benchmark their education standards against the best in the world , not the state next door ; 2 -RRB- double the budgets for basic scientific research at the National Science Foundation , the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology ; 3 -RRB- lower the corporate tax rate ; 4 -RRB- revamp Sarbanes-Oxley so that it is easier to start a small business ; 5 -RRB- find a cost-effective way to extend health care to every American
We need to do all we can now to get more brains connected to more capital to spawn more new companies faster
As Jeff Immelt , the chief of General Electric , put it in a speech on Friday , this moment is `` an opportunity to turn financial adversity into national advantage , to launch innovations of lasting value to our country .
Sometimes , I worry , though , that what oil money is to Russia , our ability to print money is to America
Look at the billions we just printed to bail out two dinosaurs : General Motors and Chrysler
Lately , there has been way too much talk about minting dollars and too little about minting our next Thomas Edison , Bob Noyce , Steve Jobs , Bill Gates , Vint Cerf , Jerry Yang , Marc Andreessen , Sergey Brin , Bill Joy and Larry Page
Adding to that list is the only stimulus that matters
Otherwise , we 're just Russia with a printing press
Just a few months ago , the consensus view was that Barack Obama would need to choose a hard-core national-security type as his vice presidential running mate to compensate for his lack of foreign policy experience and that John McCain would need a running mate who was young and sprightly to compensate for his age
Come August , though , I predict both men will be looking for a financial wizard as their running mates to help them steer America out of what could become a serious economic tailspin
I do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the issue come November whether things get better there or worse
If they get better , we 'll ignore Iraq more ; if they get worse , the next president will be under pressure to get out quicker
I think nation-building in America is going to be the issue
It 's the state of America now that is the most gripping source of anxiety for Americans , not Al Qaeda or Iraq
Anyone who thinks they are going to win this election playing the Iraq or the terrorism card one way or another is , in my view , seriously deluded
Things have changed
Up to now , the economic crisis we 've been in has been largely a credit crisis in the capital markets , while consumer spending has kept reasonably steady , as have manufacturing and exports
But with banks still reluctant to lend even to healthy businesses , fuel and food prices soaring and home prices declining , this is starting to affect consumers , shrinking their wallets and crimping spending
Unemployment is already creeping up and manufacturing creeping down
The straws in the wind are hard to ignore : If you visit any car dealership in America today you will see row after row of unsold S.U.V. 's
And if you own a gas guzzler already , good luck
On Thursday , The Palm Beach Post ran an article on your S.U.V. options : `` Continue to spend upward of $ 100 for a fill-up
Sell or trade in the vehicle for a fraction of the original cost
Or hold out and park the truck in the driveway for occasional use in hopes the market will turn around .
Just be glad you do n't own a bus
Montgomery County , Md. , where I live , just announced that more children were going to have to walk to school next year to save money on bus fuel
On top of it all , our bank crisis is not over
Two weeks ago , Goldman Sachs analysts said that U.S. banks may need another $ 65 billion to cover more write-downs of bad mortgage-related instruments and potential new losses if consumer loans start to buckle
Since President Bush came to office , our national savings have gone from 6 percent of gross domestic product to 1 percent , and consumer debt has climbed from $ 8 trillion to $ 14 trillion
My fellow Americans : We are a country in debt and in decline not terminal , not irreversible , but in decline
Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities
We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy more than the Iraqis and Afghans
We are the ones in need of nation-building
It is our political system that is not working
I continue to be appalled at the gap between what is clearly going to be the next great global industry renewable energy and clean power and the inability of Congress and the administration to put in place the bold policies we need to ensure that America leads that industry
`` America and its political leaders , after two decades of failing to come together to solve big problems , seem to have lost faith in their ability to do so , '' Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib noted last week
`` A political system that expects failure does n't try very hard to produce anything else .
We used to try harder and do better
After Sputnik , we came together as a nation and responded with a technology , infrastructure and education surge , notes Robert Hormats , vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International
After the 1973 oil crisis , we came together and made dramatic improvements in energy efficiency
After Social Security became imperiled in the early 1980s , we came together and fixed it for that moment
`` But today , '' added Hormats , `` the political system seems incapable of producing a critical mass to support any kind of serious long-term reform .
If the old saying that `` as General Motors goes , so goes America '' is true , then folks , we 're in a lot of trouble
General Motors 's stock-market value now stands at just $ 6.47 billion , compared with Toyota 's $ 162.6 billion
On top of it , G.M. shares sank to a 34-year low last week
That 's us
We 're at a 34-year low
And digging out of this hole is what the next election has to be about and is going to be about even if it is interrupted by a terrorist attack or an outbreak of war or peace in Iraq
We need nation-building at home , and we can not wait another year to get started
Vote for the candidate who you think will do that best
Nothing else matters
As a friend of both Turkey and Israel , it has been agonizing to watch the disastrous clash between Israeli naval commandos and a flotilla of `` humanitarian '' activists seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza
Personally , I think both Israel and Turkey have gotten out of balance lately , and it is America 's job to help both get back to the center - urgently
I 've long had a soft spot for Turkey
I once even argued that if the European Union would n't admit Turkey , we should invite Turkey to join Nafta
Because I think it really matters whether Turkey is a bridge or ditch between the Judeo-Christian West and the Arab and Muslim East
Turkey 's role in balancing and interpreting East and West is one of the critical pivot points that helps keep the world stable
I also happened to be in Istanbul when the street outside one of the synagogues that was suicide-bombed there on Nov. 15 , 2003 , was reopened
Two things struck me : First , the chief rabbi of Turkey appeared at the ceremony , hand in hand with the top Muslim cleric of Istanbul and the local mayor , while crowds threw red carnations on them
Second , Turkey 's leader , Recep Tayyip Erdogan , who comes from an Islamist party , paid a visit to the chief rabbi - the first time a Turkish prime minister had ever called on the chief rabbi in his office
Since then , I have seen Turkey play an important role mediating between Israel and Syria and voting just a month ago in favor of Israel joining the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development
Therefore , it has been painful to hear the same Prime Minister Erdogan in recent years publicly lash out with ever-greater vehemence at Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza
Many see this as Turkey looking to ingratiate itself with the Muslim world after having been rebuffed by the European Union
I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel
But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel 's actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria 's involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon , by the Iranian regime 's killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted , by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it would n't force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children
That concern for Gaza and Israel 's blockade is so out of balance with these other horrific cases in the region that it is not surprising Israelis dismiss it as motivated by hatred - not the advice of friends
Turkey has a unique role to play linking the East and West
If Turkey lurches too far East , it may become more popular on some Arab streets , but it would lose a lot of its strategic relevance and , more importantly , its historic role as a country that can be Muslim , modern , democratic - and with good relations with both Israel and the Arabs
Once this crisis passes , it needs to get back in balance
Ditto Israel
There is no question that this flotilla was a setup
Israel 's intelligence failed to fully appreciate who was on board , and Israel 's leaders certainly failed to think more creatively about how to avoid the very violent confrontation that the blockade-busters wanted
At the same time , though , the Israeli partial blockade of Hamas and Gaza has been going on for some four years now
It is surely not all Israel 's fault , given the refusal of Hamas to recognize Israel or prior peace agreements , and its own repeated missile attacks on Israel
But I sure know this : It is overwhelmingly in Israel 's interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege
How long is this going to go on
Are we going to have a whole new generation grow up in Gaza with Israel counting how many calories they each get
That surely ca n't be in Israel 's interest
Israel has gotten so good at controlling the Palestinians that it could get comfortable with an arrangement that will not only erode its own moral fabric but increase its international isolation
It may be that Hamas will give Israel no other choice , but Israel could show a lot more initiative in determining if that is really so
One of my oldest Israeli friends , Victor Friedman -LRB- no relation -RRB- , an education professor from Zichron Yaacov , e-mailed me the following on Tuesday : `` It 's time we started using our wits
If we used even a tiny fraction of the brain-power and resources we put into ` defense ' into finding a way forward in terms of living with the Palestinians , we would have solved the problem long ago
The strategic situation has never been more opportune - the Arabs are scared of the Iranians , the Saudi peace plan is still on the table , and the Palestinians are beginning to act rationally
But we lack the leadership to help us make a real change .
This is a critical moment
Two of America 's best friends are out of balance and infuriatingly at each other 's throats
We have got to move quickly to get them both back to the center before this spins out of control
What 's that
It 's the P.S.E. , or Palestine Securities Exchange
Based in Nablus , in the West Bank , the Al-Quds Index has actually been having a solid year - and therein lies a tale
`` It has outperformed the stock exchanges of most Arab countries , '' said Samir Hulileh , the C.E.O. of Palestine Development and Investment , which owns the exchange
The P.S.E. was established in 1996 with 19 companies and now has 41 - and 8 more will join this year
The companies listed there include the Commercial Bank of Palestine , Nablus Surgical Center , Palestine Electric Company and Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers
`` Most are underpriced because of the political risk component , '' said Hulileh
So if you do n't mind a little volatility , there is a lot of potential upside here
Indeed , there will soon be an E.T.F. - an exchange-traded fund - that tracks the Al-Quds Index so you can sit in America and go long or short peace in Palestine
The expansion of the Al-Quds Index is part of a broader set of changes initiated in the West Bank in the last few years under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad , the former World Bank economist who has unleashed a real Palestinian `` revolution .
It is a revolution based on building Palestinian capacity and institutions not just resisting Israeli occupation , on the theory that if the Palestinians can build a real economy , a professional security force and an effective , transparent government bureaucracy it will eventually become impossible for Israel to deny the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem
`` I have to admit , we , the private sector , have changed , '' said Hulileh
`` The mood used to be all the time to complain and say there is nothing we can do
And then the politicians were trying to create this atmosphere of resistance - resistance meant no development under occupation .
Fayyad and his boss , President Mahmoud Abbas , changed that
Now the mood , said Hulileh , is that improving the Palestinian economy `` is what will enable you to resist and be steadfast
Fayyad said to us : ` You , the business community , are not responsible for ending occupation
You are responsible for employing people and getting ready for the state
And that means you have to be part of the global world , to export and import , so when the state will come you will not have a garbage yard
You will be ready . '
Meeting in his Ramallah office two weeks ago , I found Fayyad upbeat
The economist-turned-politician seems more comfortable mixing with his constituents in the West Bank , where he has quietly built his popularity by delivering water wells , new schools - so there are no more double shifts - and a waste-water treatment facility
The most senior Israeli military people told me the new security force that Fayyad has built is the real deal - real enough that Israel has taken down most of the checkpoints inside the West Bank
So internal commerce and investment are starting to flow , and even some Gazans are moving there
`` We may not be too far from a point of inflection , '' Fayyad said to me
The Abbas-Fayyad state-building effort is still fragile , and it rests on a small team of technocrats , Palestinian business elites and a new professional security force
The stronger this team grows , the more it challenges and will be challenged by some of the old-line Fatah Palestinian cadres in the West Bank , not to mention Hamas in Gaza
It is the only hope left , though , for a two-state solution , so it needs to be quietly supported
The most important thing President Obama can do when he meets Israel 's prime minister , Bibi Netanyahu , on July 6 is to nudge him to begin gradually ceding control of major West Bank Palestinian cities to the Palestinian Authority so that Fayyad can show his people , as he puts it , that what he is building is an independent state `` not an exercise in adapting to the permanence of occupation '' - and so that Israel can test if the new Palestinian security forces really can keep the peace without Israel making nighttime raids
Nothing would strengthen Fayyadism more than that
I am struck , though , at how much Fayyadism makes some Arabs and Israelis uncomfortable
For those Arabs who have fallen in love with the idea of Palestinians as permanent victims , forever engaged in a heroic `` armed struggle '' to recover Palestine and Arab dignity , Fayyad 's methodical state-building is inauthentic
Some Arabs - shamefully - dump on it , and only the United Arab Emirates has offered real financial help
And for Israelis on the right , particularly West Bank settlers , who love the notion that there are no responsible Palestinians to talk to so the status quo will never change , Fayyadism is a real threat
Akiva Eldar , a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz , described this group perfectly the other day when he wrote how they `` wo n't relinquish the Arabs ' ` no 's
Or , as the poet Constantine Cavafy wrote in ` Waiting for the Barbarians ' ... : ` And now , what 's going to happen to us without barbarians
\/ They were , those people , a kind of solution . '
During a telephone interview Tuesday with President Obama about his speech to Arabs and Muslims in Cairo on Thursday , I got to tell the president my favorite Middle East joke
It gave him a good laugh
It goes like this : There is this very pious Jew named Goldberg who always dreamed of winning the lottery
Every Sabbath , he 'd go to synagogue and pray : `` God , I have been such a pious Jew all my life
What would be so bad if I won the lottery ?
But the lottery would come and Goldberg would n't win
Week after week , Goldberg would pray to win the lottery , but the lottery would come and Goldberg would n't win
Finally , one Sabbath , Goldberg wails to the heavens and says : `` God , I have been so pious for so long , what do I have to do to win the lottery ?
And the heavens parted and the voice of God came down : `` Goldberg , give me a chance
Buy a ticket !
I told the president that joke because in reading the Arab and Israeli press this week , everyone seemed to be telling him what he needed to do and say in Cairo , but nobody was indicating how they were going to step up and do something different
Everyone wants peace , but nobody wants to buy a ticket
`` We have a joke around the White House , '' the president said
`` We 're just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East .
A key part of his message , he said , will be : `` Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly .
He then explained : `` There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the ` threat ' from Israel , but wo n't admit it .
There are a lot of Israelis , `` who recognize that their current path is unsustainable , and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution that is in their long-term interest but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly .
There are a lot of Palestinians who `` recognize that the constant incitement and negative rhetoric with respect to Israel '' has not delivered a single `` benefit to their people and had they taken a more constructive approach and sought the moral high ground '' they would be much better off today but they wo n't say it aloud
`` There are a lot of Arab states that have not been particularly helpful to the Palestinian cause beyond a bunch of demagoguery , '' and when it comes to `` ponying up '' money to actually help the Palestinian people , they are `` not forthcoming .
When it comes to dealing with the Middle East , the president noted , `` there is a Kabuki dance going on constantly
That is what I would like to see broken down
I am going to be holding up a mirror and saying : ` Here is the situation , and the U.S. is prepared to work with all of you to deal with these problems
But we ca n't impose a solution
You are all going to have to make some tough decisions .
Leaders have to lead , and , hopefully , they will get supported by their people .
It was clear from the 20-minute conversation that the president has no illusions that one speech will make lambs lie down with lions
Rather , he sees it as part of his broader diplomatic approach that says : If you go right into peoples ' living rooms , do n't be afraid to hold up a mirror to everything they are doing , but also engage them in a way that says ' I know and respect who you are .
You end up if nothing else creating a little more space for U.S. diplomacy
And you never know when that can help
`` As somebody who ordered an additional 17,000 troops into Afghanistan , '' said Mr. Obama , `` you would be hard pressed to suggest that what we are doing is not backed up by hard power
I discount a lot of that criticism
What I do believe is that if we are engaged in speaking directly to the Arab street , and they are persuaded that we are operating in a straightforward manner , then , at the margins , both they and their leadership are more inclined and able to work with us .
Similarly , the president said that if he is asking German or French leaders to help more in Afghanistan or Pakistan , `` it does n't hurt if I have credibility with the German and French people
They will still be constrained with budgets and internal politics , but it makes it easier .
Part of America 's `` battle against terrorist extremists involves changing the hearts and minds of the people they recruit from , '' he added
`` And if there are a bunch of 22 - and 25-year-old men and women in Cairo or in Lahore who listen to a speech by me or other Americans and say : ' I do n't agree with everything they are saying , but they seem to know who I am or they seem to want to promote economic development or tolerance or inclusiveness , ' then they are maybe a little less likely to be tempted by a terrorist recruiter .
I think that 's right
An Egyptian friend remarked to me : Do not underestimate what seeds can get planted when American leaders do n't just propagate their values , but visibly live them
Mr. Obama will be speaking at Cairo University
When young Arabs and Muslims see an American president who looks like them , has a name like theirs , has Muslims in his family and comes into their world and speaks the truth , it will be empowering and disturbing at the same time
People will be asking : `` Why is this guy who looks like everyone on the street here the head of the free world and we ca n't even touch freedom ?
You never know where that goes
Maureen Dowd is off today
When I reported from Israel in the mid-1980s , the big debate here was whether Israel 's settlement-building in the West Bank had passed a point of no return a point where any serious withdrawal became virtually impossible to imagine
The question was often framed as : `` Is it five minutes to midnight or five minutes after midnight ?
Well , having taken a little drive through part of the West Bank , as I always do when I visit , it strikes me more than ever that it 's not only five after midnight , it 's five after midnight and a whole week later
The West Bank today is an ugly quilt of high walls , Israeli checkpoints , `` legal '' and `` illegal '' Jewish settlements , Arab villages , Jewish roads that only Israeli settlers use , Arab roads and roadblocks
This hard and heavy reality on the ground is not going to be reversed by any conventional peace process
`` The two-state solution is disappearing , '' said Mansour Tahboub , senior editor , at the West Bank newspaper Al-Ayyam
Indeed , we are at a point now where the only thing that might work is what I would call `` radical pragmatism '' a pragmatism that is as radical and energetic as the extremism that it hopes to nullify
Without that , I fear , Israel will remain permanently pregnant with a stillborn Palestinian state in its belly
Why we need a radical departure is obvious : the business-as-usual course that Israelis and Palestinians are on right now does not have enough energy or authority to produce a solution
With the encouragement of the Bush administration , Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank are negotiating a draft peace treaty that supposedly will be put on the shelf , until the Palestinians have enough capability to implement it
I seriously doubt that the parties will reach an agreement , let alone have the energy to implement it
The Israeli-Palestinian energy shortage today is on three levels : First is the level of hope and trust
Ever since the breakdown of the Oslo agreement , the romance has gone out of the peace process
Israelis and Palestinians remind me of a couple who , after a stormy courtship , finally get married and one year after they tie the knot they each cheat on the other : Israelis kept on building settlements and the Palestinians kept on building hate
When you cheat and have war after peace , trust vanishes for a long time
The trust deficit is exacerbated by the fact that after Israel quit the Gaza Strip in 2005 , Palestinians , instead of building Singapore there , built Somalia and focused not on how to make microchips , but on how to make rockets to hit Israel
The second energy shortage comes from the fact that Israel , with the wall that it has erected around the West Bank , has so effectively shut down Palestinian suicide bombers that the Israeli public right now feels no sense of urgency , especially with the Israeli economy booming
The West Bank behind the wall might as well be in Afghanistan
`` Today , you have neither the romanticism of the peace process before Oslo fell apart nor a visible disaster knocking at the gates of Israel 's consciousness , '' noted the Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit
The third energy shortage is the fact that the political system in both Israel and among the Palestinians is so internally divided that neither one can generate the authority to take a big decision
Only the U.S. can overcome this diplomatic brownout by offering some radical pragmatism , and the logic would be this : If Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not get control over at least part of the West Bank soon , he will have no authority to sign any draft peace treaty with Israel
He will be totally discredited
But Israel can not cede control over any part of the West Bank without being assured that someone credible is in charge
Rockets from Gaza land on the remote Israeli town of Sderot
Rockets from the West Bank could hit , and close , Israel 's international airport
That is an intolerable risk
Israel has got to start ceding control over at least part of the West Bank but in a way that does n't expose the Jewish state to closure of its airport
Radical pragmatism would say that the only way to balance the Palestinians ' need for sovereignty now with Israel 's need for a withdrawal now , but without creating a security vacuum , is to enlist a trusted third party Jordan to help the Palestinians control whatever West Bank land is ceded to them
Jordan does not want to rule the Palestinians , but it , too , has a vital interest in not seeing the West Bank fall under Hamas rule
Without a radically pragmatic new approach one that gets Israel moving out of the West Bank , gets the Palestinian Authority real control and sovereignty , but one which also addresses the deep mistrust by bringing in Jordan as a Palestinian partner any draft treaty will be dead on arrival
When I covered the 1982 Lebanon war , I learned something surprising about wars : they attract all kinds of spectators , meddlers , do-gooders and do-badders
They use the conflict and the attention it generates to play out their own identity issues , passions and biases
My favorite in Beirut was a gentleman who showed up in August 1982 as the Palestinian guerrillas were sailing out of Beirut harbor
His name - I am not making this up - was Arthur Blessitt , the `` Sunset Boulevard Preacher .
He had walked to West Beirut from Israel to pray for peace , dragging a 13-foot-long wooden cross with a little wheel on the bottom
Arthur was harmless ; some of the others , though , were mendacious , which prompted me to promulgate this rule : I adore the Israelis and Palestinians , but God save me from some of their European and American friends
Their grandstanding interventions - like those blockade-busters sailing to Gaza or the wealthy American Jews who fund extremist settlers ' housing purchases in Arab East Jerusalem - often fuel the worst trends on either side and divert our energies from the only thing that is important : forging a two-state solution
So is there anything good happening in that regard
The effort by the Palestinian president , Mahmoud Abbas , and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to build the institutional foundations of a Palestinian state from the ground up - replacing the corrupt , jerry-built structure that Yasir Arafat created and Israel destroyed - is actually making progress
This matters - and must be nurtured
You see , there are two models of Arab governance
The old Nasserite model , which Hamas still practices , where leaders say : `` Judge me by how I resist Israel or America .
And : `` First we get a state , then we build the institutions .
The new model , pioneered in the West Bank by Abbas and Fayyad is : `` Judge me by how I perform - how I generate investment and employment , deliver services and pick up the garbage
First we build transparent and effective political and security institutions
Then we declare a state
That is what the Zionists did , and it sure worked for them .
The most important thing going on in this conflict today is that since 2007 the Palestinian Authority , Jordan and the U.S. have partnered to train a whole new West Bank Palestinian security force in policing , administration and even human rights
The program is advised by U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton - one of the unsung good guys
The Israeli Army has become impressed enough by the performance of the new Palestinian National Security Force , or N.S.F. , under Abbas and Fayyad that those forces are now largely responsible for law and order in all the major West Bank towns , triggering an explosion of Palestinian building , investment and commerce in those areas
Here are highlights : the Jordanians have trained and the Palestinian Authority deployed and equipped five N.S.F. battalions and one Presidential Guard unit , some 3,100 men
Plus , 65 Palestinian first-responders have been trained and are being equipped with emergency gear
A Palestinian National Training Center , with classrooms and dorms , is nearing completion in Jericho so the Palestinians themselves can take over the training
The Palestinian Authority is building a 750-man N.S.F. camp to garrison the new N.S.F. troops - including barracks , gym and parade ground - near Jenin
At the same time , the Palestinian security headquarters are all being rebuilt in every major Palestinian town , starting in Hebron
An eight-week senior leadership training course in Jericho - bringing together the Palestinian police , the N.S.F. and Presidential Guards - has graduated 280 people , including 20 women
A course for captains and below in how to handle everything from crowd control to elections has also begun
The reinvigorated Palestinian Ministry of Interior is leading the Palestinian security sector transformation , and the Canadians are helping to set up Joint Operations Centers across the West Bank so all Palestinian security services can coordinate via video conferencing
The Canadians are also helping the Palestinians to build a logistics center
Parallel with all this , Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has reduced Israel 's manned checkpoints in the West Bank from 42 to 12
This wo n't be politically sustainable for Abbas and Fayyad , though , unless Israel begins to turn full authority over to the Palestinians for their major cities - so-called area A - in the West Bank
Palestinians have to see their new security services as building their state , not cushioning Israel 's occupation
There could be a moment of truth here for Israel soon , but at least it will be based on something real
In sum , this dynamic - Palestinians building real institutions from the ground up and getting Israel to cede to them real authority - is the ballgame
Make it work across the West Bank and find a way to transfer it to Gaza -LRB- how about reopening the Israel-Gaza border and letting the new Palestinian N.S.F. control the passages to Israel ?
and a two-state solution is possible
Let it fail , and we 'll have endless conflict
Everything else is just a sideshow
It 's hard to know whether to laugh or cry after reading the reactions of analysts and officials in the Middle East to President Obama 's Cairo speech
`` It 's not what he says , but what he does , '' many said
No , ladies and gentlemen of the Middle East , it is what he says and what you do and what we do
We must help , but we ca n't want democracy or peace more than you do
What should we be doing
The follow-up to the president 's speech will have to be led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
This will be her first big test , and , for me , there is no question as to where she should be putting all her energy : on the peace process
No , not that peace process not the one between Israelis and Palestinians
That one 's probably beyond diplomacy
No , I 'm talking about the peace process that is much more strategically important the one inside Iraq
The most valuable thing that Mrs. Clinton could do right now is to spearhead a sustained effort along with the U.N. , the European Union and Iraq 's neighbors to resolve the lingering disputes between Iraqi factions before we complete our withdrawal
-LRB- We 'll be out of Iraq 's cities by June 30 and the whole country by the close of 2011 .
Because if Iraq unravels as we draw down , the Obama team will be blamed , and it will be a huge mess
By contrast , if a decent and stable political order can take hold in Iraq , it could have an extremely positive impact on the future of the Arab world and on America 's reputation
I have never bought the argument that Iraq was the bad war , Afghanistan the good war and Pakistan the necessary war
Folks , they 're all one war with different fronts
It 's a war within the Arab-Muslim world between progressive and anti-modernist forces over how this faith community is going to adapt to modernity modern education , consensual politics , the balance between religion and state and the rights of women
Any decent outcome in Iraq would bolster all the progressive forces by creating an example of something that does not exist in the Middle East today an independent , democratizing Arab-Muslim state
`` The reason there are no successful Arab democracies today is because there is no successful Arab democracy today , '' said Stanford 's Larry Diamond , the author of `` The Spirit of Democracy .
`` When there is no model , it is hard for an idea to diffuse in a region .
Rightly or wrongly , we stepped into the middle of this war of ideas in the Arab-Muslim world in 2003 when we decapitated the Iraqi regime , wiped away its authoritarian political structure and went about clumsily midwifing something that the modern Arab world has never seen before a horizontal dialogue between the constituent communities of an Arab state
In Iraq 's case , that is primarily Sunnis , Shiites and Kurds
Yes , in a region that has only known top-down monologues from kings , dictators and colonial powers , we have helped Iraqis convene the first horizontal dialogue to write their own social contract for how to share power
At first , this dialogue took place primarily through violence
Liberated from Saddam 's iron fist , each Iraqi community tested its strength against the others , saying in effect : `` Show me what you got , baby .
The violence was horrific and ultimately exhausting for all
So now we 've entered a period of negotiations over how Iraq will be governed
But it 's unfinished and violence could easily return
And that brings me to Secretary Clinton
I do not believe the argument that Iraqis will not allow us to help mediate their disputes whether over Kirkuk , oil-sharing or federalism
For years now , our president , secretary of state and secretary of defense have flown into Iraq , met the leaders for a few hours and then flown away , not to return for months
We need a more serious , weighty effort
Hate the war , hate Bush , but do n't hate the idea of trying our best to finish this right
This is important
Afghanistan is secondary
Baghdad is a great Arab and Muslim capital
Iraq has something no other Arab country has in abundance : water , oil and an educated population
It already has sprouted scores of newspapers and TV stations that operate freely
`` Afghanistan will never have any impact outside of Afghanistan
Iraq can change minds , '' said Mamoun Fandy , of the International Institute for Strategic Studies
You demonstrate that Iraqi Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds can write their own social contract , and you will tell the whole Arab world that there is a model other than top-down monologues from iron-fisted dictators
You will expose the phony democracy in Iran , and you will leave a legacy for America that will help counter Abu Ghraib and torture
Ultimately , which way Iraq goes will depend on whether its elites decide to use their freedom to loot their country or to rebuild it
That 's still unclear
But we still have a chance to push things there in the right direction , and a huge interest in doing so
Mrs. Clinton is a serious person ; this is a serious job
I hope she does it
Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich are off today
By coincidence , I heard the Iranian leader 's statement on Israel Radio just as I was leaving the headquarters of Iscar , Israel 's famous precision tool company , headquartered in the Western Galilee , near the Lebanon border
Iscar is known for many things , most of all for being the first enterprise that Buffett bought overseas for his holding company , Berkshire Hathaway
Buffett paid $ 4 billion for 80 percent of Iscar and the deal just happened to close a few days before Hezbollah , a key part of Iran 's holding company , attacked Israel in July 2006 , triggering a monthlong war
I asked Iscar 's chairman , Eitan Wertheimer , what was Buffett 's reaction when he found out that he had just paid $ 4 billion for an Israeli company and a few days later Hezbollah rockets were landing outside its parking lot
Buffett just brushed it off with a wave , recalled Wertheimer : `` He said , ` I 'm not interested in the next quarter
I 'm interested in the next 20 years . '
Wertheimer repaid that confidence by telling half his employees to stay home during the war and using the other half to keep the factory from not missing a day of work and setting a production record for the month
It helps when many of your `` employees '' are robots that move around the buildings , beeping humans out of the way
So who would you put your money on
Buffett or Ahmadinejad
I 'd short Ahmadinejad and go long Warren Buffett
From outside , Israel looks as if it 's in turmoil , largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation
But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society
The economy is exploding from the bottom up
Israel 's currency , the shekel , has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007
The reason
Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world
It has a population drawn from 100 different countries , speaking 100 different languages , with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm
While you were sleeping , Israel has gone from oranges to software , or as they say around here , from Jaffa to Java
The day I visited the Iscar campus , one of its theaters was filled with industrialists from the Czech Republic , who were getting a lecture in Czech from Iscar experts
The Czechs came all the way to the Israel-Lebanon border region to learn about the latest innovations in precision tool-making
Wertheimer is famous for staying close to his customers and the latest technologies
`` If you sleep on the floor , '' he likes to say , `` you never have to worry about falling out of bed .
That kind of hunger explains why , in the first quarter of 2008 , the top four economies after America in attracting venture capital for start-ups were : Europe $ 1.53 billion , China $ 719 million , Israel $ 572 million and India $ 99 million , according to Dow Jones VentureSource
Israel , with 7 million people , attracted almost as much as China , with 1.3 billion
Boaz Golany , who heads engineering at the Technion , Israel 's M.I.T. , told me : `` In the last eight months , we have had delegations from I.B.M. , General Motors , Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart visiting our campus
They are all looking to develop R & D centers in Israel .
Ahmadinejad professes not to care about such things
He was to put it in American baseball terms born on third base and thinks he hit a triple
Because oil prices have gone up to nearly $ 140 a barrel , he feels relaxed predicting that Israel will disappear , while Iran maintains a welfare state with more than 10 percent unemployment
Iran has invented nothing of importance since the Islamic Revolution , which is a shame
Historically , Iranians have been a dynamic and inventive people one only need look at the richness of Persian civilization to see that
But the Islamic regime there today does not trust its people and will not empower them as individuals
Of course , oil wealth can buy all the software and nuclear technology you want , or ca n't develop yourself
This is not an argument that we should n't worry about Iran
Ahmadinejad should , though
Iran 's economic and military clout today is largely dependent on extracting oil from the ground
Israel 's economic and military power today is entirely dependent on extracting intelligence from its people
Israel 's economic power is endlessly renewable
Iran 's is a dwindling resource based on fossil fuels made from dead dinosaurs
So who will be here in 20 years
I 'm with Buffett : I 'll bet on the people who bet on their people not the people who bet on dead dinosaurs
If you have a son or daughter graduating from college this year , you 've probably gotten the word
When meeting this year 's college grads it 's best not to ask : `` Hey , what are you doing next year ?
Too many recent graduates do n't have an answer
They ca n't find jobs even remotely related to their fields
This year 's graduation theme is : `` Do n't ask
Ca n't say .
We owe our young people something better - and the solution is not that complicated , although it is amazing how little it is discussed in the Washington policy debates
We need three things : start-ups , start-ups and more start-ups
Good jobs - in bulk - do n't come from government
They come from risk-takers starting businesses - businesses that make people 's lives healthier , more productive , more comfortable or more entertained , with services and products that can be sold around the world
You ca n't be for jobs and against business
Alas , though , relations today between the Obama administration and `` business '' are pretty strained
I 'm not talking about Wall Street , which deserves Obama 's lash
I 'm talking about people who actually make stuff and sell it
I am talking about entrepreneurs and innovators
A surprising number of them told me they had voted for Obama , and an equally surprising number of them now tell me they 're unhappy
A lot of their criticism is unfair
Obama has never gotten the credit he deserves for stabilizing the terrifying economy he inherited - with virtually no help from Republicans
And business is never going to like anyone who raises income taxes , especially to pay for other people 's health care - even if it is in the national interest
That said , I think part of the business community 's complaint about Obama has merit
Although there are many `` innovation '' initiatives ongoing in this administration , they are not well coordinated or a top priority or championed by knowledgeable leadership
This administration is heavily staffed by academics , lawyers and political types
There is no senior person who has run a large company or built and sold globally a new innovative product
And that partly explains why this administration has been mostly interested in pushing taxes , social spending and regulation - not pushing trade expansion , competitiveness and new company formation
Innovation and competitiveness do n't seem to float Obama 's boat
He could use a buoyant growth strategy
What might that include
I asked two of the best people on this subject , Robert Litan , vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation , which specializes in innovation , and Curtis Carlson , the chief executive of SRI International , the Silicon Valley-based innovation specialists
Carlson said he would begin by creating a cabinet position exclusively for promoting innovation and competitiveness to ensure that America remains `` the world 's new company formation leader .
`` Secretary Newco '' would be focused on pushing through initiatives - including lower corporate taxes for start-ups , reducing costly regulations -LRB- like Sarbanes-Oxley reporting for new companies -RRB- , and expanding tax breaks for research and development to make it cheaper and faster to start new firms
We need to unleash millions of entrepreneurs
Litan said he 'd staple a green card to the diploma of every foreign student who graduates from a U.S. university and push for a new meaningful entrepreneurs visa -LRB- the current one , the EB-5 , requires $ 1 million of capital that few foreign entrepreneurs have -RRB-
It would grant temporary residence to any foreigner who comes here to establish a company and permanent residency if that company generates a certain level of new full-time jobs and revenues
One of the best moves we could make , adds Litan , would be a long-term budget deal that would address the looming Social Security\/Medicare payouts for baby boomers
Proving to the bond market that we have our long-term fiscal house in order would keep long-term interest rates low and thereby `` encourage private investment more than any tax cut .
Nevertheless , I 'd also cut the capital gains tax for any profit-making venture start-up from 15 percent to 1 percent
I want our best minds to be able to make a killing from starting new companies rather than going to Wall Street and making a killing by betting against existing companies
I 'd also impose a carbon tax and balance that with a cut in payroll taxes and corporate taxes
Let 's tax what we do n't want and encourage what we do
`` Fortunately , this is the best time ever for innovation , '' said Carlson , for three reasons : `` First , although competition is increasingly intense , our global economy opens up huge new market opportunities
Second , most technologies - since they are increasingly based on ideas and bits and not on atoms and muscle - are improving at rapid , exponential rates
And third , these two forces - huge , competitive markets and rapid technological change - are opening up one major new opportunity after another
It is a time of abundance , not scarcity - assuming we do the right things with a real national growth strategy
If we do not , it rapidly becomes a world of scarcity .
Of all the pictures I saw from the Iraqi elections last weekend , my favorite was on nytimes.com : an Iraqi expatriate mother , voting in Michigan , holding up her son to let him stuff her ballot into the box
I loved that picture
Being able to freely cast a ballot for the candidate of your choice is still unusual for Iraqis and for that entire region
That mother seemed to be saying : When I was a child , I never got to vote
I want to live in a world where my child will always be able to
To say that mere voting or an election or two makes Iraq a success story would obviously be mistaken
An election does not a democracy make and Iraq 's politicians still have yet to prove that they are up to governing , nation-building and both establishing and abiding by the rule of law
But this election is a big deal because Iraqis with the help of the U.N. , the U.S. military and the Obama team , particularly Vice President Joe Biden overcame two huge obstacles
They overcame an array of sectarian disputes that repeatedly threatened to derail this election
And they came out to vote Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds despite the bombs set off by Al Qaeda and the dead-end Baathists who desperately want to keep the democracy project in Iraq from succeeding
This latter point is particularly crucial
The only way Al Qaeda , Baathism and violent Islamism will truly be defeated is when Arabs and Muslims themselves not us show they are willing to fight and die for a more democratic , tolerant and progressive future
Al Qaeda desperately wanted the U.S. project in Iraq to fail , but the Iraqi people just keep on keeping it alive
And how about you , President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran
How are you feeling today
Yes , I am sure you have your proxies in Iraq
But I am also sure you know what some of your people are quietly saying : `` How come we Iranian-Persian-Shiites who always viewed ourselves as superior to Iraqi-Arab-Shiites can only vote for a handful of pre-chewed , pre-digested , ` approved ' candidates from the supreme leader , while those lowly Iraqi Shiites , who have been hanging around with America for seven years , get to vote for whomever they want ?
Unlike in Tehran , Iraqis actually count the votes
This will subtly fuel the discontent in Iran
Yes , the U.S. 's toppling of Saddam Hussein helped Iran expand its influence into the Arab world
Saddam 's Iraq was a temporary iron-fisted bulwark against Iranian expansion
But if Iraq has any sort of decent outcome and becomes a real Shiite-majority , multiethnic democracy right next door to the phony Iranian version it will be a source of permanent pressure on the Iranian regime
It will be a constant reminder that `` Islamic democracy '' the rigged system the Iranians set up is nonsense
Real `` Islamic democracy '' is just like any other democracy , except with Muslims voting
Former President George W. Bush 's gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right
It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution
This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly
But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq , which has never known any such thing
Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs
Historians will sort that out
Personally , at this stage , I only care about one thing : that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price in lost loved ones or injured bodies , in broken homes or broken lives , be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost , it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none
That , though , will depend on Iraqis and their leaders
It was hopeful to see the strong voter turnout 62 percent and the fact that some of the largest percentage of voting occurred in regions , like Kirkuk and Nineveh Provinces , that are hotly disputed
It means people are ready to use politics to resolve disputes , not just arms
We can only hope so
President Obama has handled his Iraq inheritance deftly , but he is committed to the withdrawal timetable
As such , our influence there will be less decisive every day
We need Iraqi leaders to prove to their people that they are not just venal elites out to seize the spoils of power more than to seize this incredible opportunity to remake Iraq
We need to see real institution-builders emerge , including builders of a viable justice system and economy
And we need to be wary that too big an army and too much oil can warp any regime
Iraq will be said to have a decent outcome not just if that young boy whose mother let him cast her ballot gets to vote one day himself
It will be a decent outcome only if his life chances improve because he lives in a country with basic security , basic services , real jobs and decent governance
I wish I could say that that was inevitable
It is not
But it is no longer unattainable , and I for one will keep rooting for it to happen
It 's always great to see the stock market come back from the dead
But I am deeply worried that our political system does n't grasp how much our financial crisis can still undermine everything we want to be as a country
Friends , this is not a test
Economically , this is the big one
This is August 1914
This is the morning after Pearl Harbor
This is 9\/12
Yet , in too many ways , we seem to be playing politics as usual
Our country has congestive heart failure
Our heart , our banking system that pumps blood to our industrial muscles , is clogged and functioning far below capacity
Nothing else remotely compares in importance to the urgent need to heal our banks
Yet I read that we 're actually holding up dozens of key appointments at the Treasury Department because we are worried whether someone paid Social Security taxes on a nanny hired 20 years ago at $ 5 an hour
That 's insane
It 's as if our financial house is burning down but we wo n't let the Fire Department open the hydrant until it assures us that there is n't too much chlorine in the water
Meanwhile , the Republican Party behaves as if it would rather see the country fail than Barack Obama succeed
Rush Limbaugh , the de facto G.O.P. boss , said so explicitly , prompting John McCain to declare about President Obama to Politico : `` I do n't want him to fail in his mission of restoring our economy .
The G.O.P. is actually debating whether it wants our president to fail
Rather than help the president make the hard calls , the G.O.P. has opted for cat calls
It would be as if on the morning after 9\/11 , Democrats said they wanted no part of any war against Al Qaeda `` George Bush , you 're on your own .
As for President Obama , I like his coolness under fire , yet sometimes it feels as if he is deliberately keeping his distance from the banking crisis , while pressing ahead on other popular initiatives
I understand that he does n't want his presidency to be held hostage to the ups and downs of bank stocks , but a hostage he is
We all are
Great and difficult crises are what produce great presidents , so one thing we know for sure : Mr. Obama 's going to have his shot at greatness
This crisis is uniquely difficult in four respects
First , to get out of a crisis like this you need to let markets clear
You need to let failed companies , or homeowners , go bankrupt , unlock their dead capital and reapply it to thriving entities
That is how the dot-com bust ended , and out of that carnage emerged a whole new set of companies
The problem with this crisis is that A.I.G. , Citigroup and General Motors and your neighbor 's subprime mortgage are not Dogfood.com
You let the market clear them away , and we could all be wiped out with them
Therefore , the president has to find a way to punish bad financial actors without setting off another Lehman Brothers domino effect
Second , we need to get a market going that would bring fair value and clarity to the `` toxic mortgages '' crippling the balance sheets of our major banks
This will likely require some degree of government subsidy to private equity groups and hedge funds to get them to make the first bids for these toxic assets by guaranteeing they will not lose
This could make great policy sense , but be a nightmare to sell politically
It will strike many as another unfair giveaway to Wall Street
Unfortunately , the president may have to look the American people in the eye and explain that `` fairness is not on the menu anymore .
All that 's on the menu now is whether or not we avoid a system meltdown and this will require rewarding some new investors
Third , the president may have to make some trillion-dollar decisions like nationalizing major banks or doubling the economic stimulus with no real precedent and without knowing all the long-term ramifications
Finally , to do all this , the president has to make us realize how dangerous a moment we 're in , without creating a panic that will prompt Americans to put every dime in their mattresses and undermine the economy even more
All this will require leadership of the highest order bold decisions , persistence and persuasion
There is a huge amount of money on the sidelines eager to bet again on America
But right now , there is too much uncertainty ; no one knows what will be the new rules governing investments in our biggest financial institutions
If President Obama can produce and sell that plan , private investors , big and small , will give us a stimulus like you 've never seen
Which is why I wake up every morning hoping to read this story : `` President Obama announced today that he had invited the country 's 20 leading bankers , 20 leading industrialists , 20 top market economists and the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate to join him and his team at Camp David
` We will not come down from the mountain until we have forged a common , transparent strategy for getting us out of this banking crisis , ' the president said , as he boarded his helicopter .
Maureen Dowd is off today
I am a big Joe Biden fan
The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad
So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel , when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu 's government rubbed his nose in some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem , the vice president missed a chance to send a powerful public signal : He should have snapped his notebook shut , gotten right back on Air Force Two , flown home and left the following scribbled note behind : `` Message from America to the Israeli government : Friends do n't let friends drive drunk
And right now , you 're driving drunk
You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world , to satisfy some domestic political need , with no consequences
You have lost total contact with reality
Call us when you 're serious
We need to focus on building our country .
I think that rather than fuming and making up would have sent a very useful message for two reasons
First , what the Israelis did played right into a question a lot of people are asking about the Obama team : how tough are these guys
The last thing the president needs , at a time when he is facing down Iran and China not to mention Congress is to look like America 's most dependent ally can push him around
And second , Israel needs a wake-up call
Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank , and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem , is sheer madness
Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital
Israel 's planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem a big problem
Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank
If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy , its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits economic and security of ending the conflict
Unfortunately , that is not what happened last week
For nine months now , America 's Middle East special envoy , George Mitchell , has been trying to find a way to get any kind of peace talks going between Israelis and Palestinians
The Palestinians do n't trust Netanyahu , and Netanyahu has serious doubts as to whether the divided Palestinian leadership can deliver
Nevertheless , Mitchell was eventually able to persuade the two sides to agree on `` proximity talks '' the Palestinians would sit in Ramallah and the Israelis in Jerusalem and Mitchell would shuttle 30 minutes between them
After a decade of direct talks , this is how far things have fallen
Mitchell 's and Netanyahu 's aides struck an informal deal : If America got talks going , there would be no announcements of buildings in East Jerusalem , nothing to embarrass the Palestinians and force them to walk
Netanyahu agreed , U.S. officials say , but made clear he could n't commit to anything publicly
So what happened
Biden arrived the day after the proximity talks started and out came an announcement from Israel 's Interior Ministry that Israel had just approved plans for 1,600 new housing units in Arab East Jerusalem
Netanyahu said he was blindsided
It 's probably true in the narrow sense
The move seems to have been part of a competition between two of Netanyahu 's right-wing Sephardi ministers from the religious Shas Party over who can be the greater champion of building homes for Sephardi orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem
It is a measure of how much Israel takes our support for granted and how out of touch the Israeli religious right is with America 's strategic needs
Biden a real friend of Israel 's was quoted as telling his Israeli interlocutors : `` What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan
That endangers us and endangers regional peace .
This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment : Only a right-wing prime minister , like Netanyahu , can make a deal over the West Bank ; Netanyahu 's actual policies on the ground there have helped Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security force , which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism ; Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find ; Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza ; with the Sunni Arabs obsessed over the Iran threat , their willingness to work with Israel has never been higher , and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran 's hand
In sum , there may be a real opportunity here if Netanyahu chooses to seize it
The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to make history or once again be a footnote to it
If you hang around the renewable-energy business for long , you 'll hear a lot of tall tales
You 'll hear about someone who 's invented a process to convert coal into vegetable oil in his garage and someone else who has a duck in his basement that paddles a wheel , blows up a balloon , turns a turbine and creates enough electricity to power his doghouse
Hang around long enough and you 'll even hear that in another 10 or 20 years hydrogen-powered cars or fusion energy will be a commercial reality
If I had a dime for every time I 've heard one of those stories , I could buy my own space shuttle
No wonder cynics often say that viable fusion energy or hydrogen-powered cars are `` 20 years away and always will be .
But what if this time is different
What if a laser-powered fusion energy power plant that would have all the reliability of coal , without the carbon dioxide , all the cleanliness of wind and solar , without having to worry about the sun not shining or the wind not blowing , and all the scale of nuclear , without all the waste , was indeed just 10 years away or less
That would be a holy cow game-changer
Are we there
That is the tantalizing question I was left with after visiting the recently completed National Ignition Facility , or N.I.F. , at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , 50 miles east of San Francisco
The government-funded N.I.F. consists of 192 giant lasers which can deliver 50 times more energy than any previous fusion laser system
They 're all housed in a 10-story building the size of three football fields the rather dull cover to a vast internal steel forest of laser beams that must be what the engine room of Star Trek 's U.S.S. Enterprise space ship looked like
I began my tour there with the N.I.F. director , Edward Moses
He was holding up a tiny gold can the size of a Tylenol tablet , and inside it was plastic pellet , the size of a single peppercorn , that would be filled with frozen hydrogen
The way the N.I.F. works is that all 192 lasers pour their energy into a target chamber , which looks like a giant , spherical , steel bathysphere that you would normally use for deep-sea exploration
At the center of this target chamber is that gold can with its frozen hydrogen pellet
Once one of those pellets is heated and compressed by the lasers , it reaches temperatures over 800 million degrees Fahrenheit , `` far greater than exists at the center of our sun , '' said Moses
More importantly , each crushed pellet gives off a burst of energy that can then be harnessed to heat up liquid salt and produce massive amounts of steam to drive a turbine and create electricity for your home just like coal does today
Only this energy would be carbon-free , globally available , safe and secure and could be integrated seamlessly into our current electric grid
Last Monday at 3 a.m. , for the first time , all 192 lasers were fired at high energy precisely at once no small feat at the target chamber 's empty core
That was a major step toward `` ignition '' turning that hydrogen pellet into a miniature sun on earth
The next step which the N.I.F. expects to achieve some time in the next two to three years is to prove that it can , under lab conditions , repeatedly fire its 192 lasers at multiple hydrogen pellets and produce more energy from the pellets than the laser energy that is injected
That 's called `` energy gain .
`` That , '' explained Moses , `` is what Einstein meant when he declared that E = mc2
By using lasers , we can unleash tremendous amounts of energy from tiny amounts of mass. '' Once the lab proves that it can get energy gain from this laser-driven process , the next step -LRB- if it can secure government and private funding -RRB- would be to set up a pilot fusion energy power plant that would prove that any local power utility could have its own miniature sun on a commercial basis
A pilot would cost about $ 10 billion the same as a new nuclear power plant
I do n't know if they can pull this off ; some scientists are skeptical
Laboratory-scale nuclear fusion and energy gain is really hard
But here 's what I do know : President Obama 's stimulus package has given a terrific boost to renewable energy
It will pay lasting benefits
And we need to keep working on all forms of solar , geothermal and wind power
They work
And the more they get deployed , the more their costs will go down
But , in addition , we need to make a few big bets on potential game-changers
I am talking about systems that could give us abundant , clean , reliable electrons and drive massive innovation in big lasers , materials science , nuclear physics and chemistry that would benefit , energize and renew many U.S. industries
At the pace we 're going with the technologies we have , without some game-changers , climate change is going to have its way with us
Yes , we 'll still need coal for some time
But let 's make sure that we are n't just chasing the fantasy that we can `` clean up '' coal , when our real future depends on birthing new technologies that can replace it
Underlying the latest U.S.-Israel spat over settlements is the deeper real problem : There are five key actors in the Israeli-Palestinian equation today
Two of them the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and the alliance of Iran , Hamas and Hezbollah have clear strategies
These two are actually opposed , but one of them will shape Israeli-Palestinian relations in the coming years ; indeed , their showdown is nearing
I hope Fayyad wins
It would be good for Israel , America and the moderate Arabs
But those three need their own strategy to make it happen
Fayyad is the most interesting new force on the Arab political stage
A former World Bank economist , he is pursuing the exact opposite strategy from Yasir Arafat
Arafat espoused a blend of violence and politics ; his plan was to first gain international recognition for a Palestinian state and then build its institutions
Fayyad calls for the opposite for a nonviolent struggle , for building noncorrupt transparent institutions and effective police and paramilitary units , which even the Israeli Army says are doing a good job ; and then , once they are all up and running , declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank by 2011
The strategy of Fayyad and his boss , President Mahmoud Abbas is gaining momentum and is in `` direct conflict with the network of resistance : Iran , Hezbollah and Hamas , '' said Gidi Grinstein , the president of the Reut Institute , one of the premier Israeli policy research centers
Iran 's strategy , explains Grinstein , is simple : Destroy Israel through a combination of asymmetric warfare like Hezbollah 's war from South Lebanon and Hamas 's from Gaza ; delegitimize Israel by accusing it of war crimes when it combats Hamas and Hezbollah , who fight while nested among civilians ; `` religiousize '' the conflict by making it Muslims versus Jews , focusing on symbols like Jerusalem ; and , finally , suck Israel into `` imperial overstretch , '' e.g. , keep Israel occupying the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank , which Iran & Co. believe will lead to `` Israel 's implosion .
Therefore , today , Fayyadism , which aims to replace the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with an independent Palestinian state , is the biggest threat to Iran 's strategy
So the smart thing right now would be for the other three parties to have a clear strategy to back Fayyadism
If only
... Ever since Israel occupied the West Bank and its Palestinian population in 1967 , Israelis have faced a dilemma : Do they want a Jewish state , a democratic state and state in all of the land of Israel -LRB- Israel plus the West Bank -RRB-
In this world , they can have only two out of three
Israel can be Jewish and democratic , but not if it keeps the West Bank , because the Palestinians there plus all the Israeli Arabs will eventually outnumber the Jews
It can be Jewish and keep the West Bank , but then it ca n't be democratic ; Arabs will be the majority
It can be democratic and keep the West Bank , but then it ca n't be Jewish
I am certain that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu understands this , which is why he has accepted the principle of a two-state solution
But his government is an impossible mix of moderate Labor Party and hard-line religious and nationalist ideologues who actually believe Israel does n't have to choose two out of three but can have all three if it just hangs tough
As a result , Bibi 's government ca n't ignore the U.S. and Fayyad , but neither can it move decisively to help
The columnist Nahum Barnea of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot compared Netanyahu `` to one of those elderly drivers who straddle two lanes for fear of making a mistake , making the drivers trailing after them crazy and cause accidents
When he signals left , he turns right
When he signals right , he continues straight ahead .
Most of the pro-U.S. Arab states lack both vision and courage , so that leaves the Obama team to promote Fayyadism , which is a big idea but faces a huge structural challenge
In 2006-2007 , the Palestinian political system fractured between Hamas-controlled Gaza and a West Bank controlled by Fatah , led by Abbas and Fayyad
So , today , the Palestinian Parliament may not have the unity or legitimacy to endorse any agreement with Israel
Therefore , America must figure out how to bring about a West Bank Palestinian state next to Israel in this context
It will have to happen in phases , with the first phase being establishing a Palestinian state with `` provisional borders '' covering roughly all of the West Bank minus the current Israeli settlement blocs while postponing refugees , Jerusalem and final borders to the second phase
President Obama was 100 percent right to call out Israel on its settlement expansion , which undermines the opportunities inherent in this moment
But he also needs his own clear strategy to exploit the opportunities inherent in this moment and that has been lacking up to now from his foreign policy team
If we are going to fight with Israel or better yet , work with it let 's do so over a big U.S. strategy that we think can shape a more stable Middle East
When you hear a sitting U.S. senator call for bankers to commit suicide , you know that the anger level in the country is reaching a `` Bonfire of the Vanities , '' get-out-the-pitchforks danger level
It is dangerous for so many reasons , but most of all because this real anger about A.I.G. could overwhelm the still really difficult but critically important things we must do in the next few weeks to defuse this financial crisis
Let me be specific : If you did n't like reading about A.I.G. brokers getting millions in bonuses after their company 80 percent of which is owned by U.S. taxpayers racked up the biggest quarterly loss in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy , you 're really not going to like the bank bailout plan to be rolled out soon by the Obama team
That plan will begin by using up the $ 250 billion or so left in TARP funds to start removing the toxic assets from the banks
But ultimately , to get the scale of bank repair we need , it will likely require some $ 750 billion more
The plan makes sense , and , if done right , it might even make profits for U.S. taxpayers
But in this climate of anger , it will take every bit of political capital in Barack Obama 's piggy bank as well as Michelle 's , Sasha 's and Malia 's to sell it to Congress and the public
The job ca n't be his alone
Everyone who has a stake in stabilizing and reforming the system is going to have to suck it up
And that starts with the brokers at A.I.G. who got the $ 165 million in bonuses
They need to voluntarily return them
Everyone today is taking a haircut of some kind or another , and A.I.G. brokers surely can be no exception
We do not want the U.S. government abrogating contracts the rule of law is why everyone around the world wants to invest in our economy
But taxpayers should not sit quietly as bonuses are paid to people who were running an insurance scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff smile
The best way out is for the A.I.G. bankers to take one for the country and give up their bonuses
I live in Montgomery County , Md.
The schoolteachers here , who make on average $ 67,000 a year , recently voted to voluntarily give up their 5 percent pay raise that was contractually agreed to for next year , saving our school system $ 89 million so programs and teachers would not have to be terminated
If public schoolteachers can take one for schoolchildren and fellow teachers , A.I.G. brokers can take one for the country
Let 's not forget , A.I.G. was basically running an unregulated hedge fund inside a AAA-rated insurance company
And like Madoff , who was selling phantom stocks A.I.G. was selling , in effect , phantom insurance against the default of bundled subprime mortgages and other debt insurance that A.I.G. had nowhere near enough capital to back up when bonds went bust
It was a hedge fund with no hedges
That 's why taxpayers have had to pay the insurance for A.I.G. so its bank and government customers wo n't tank and cause even more harm
Unfortunately , all the money we have already spent on A.I.G. and the banks was just to prevent total system failure
It was just to keep the body alive
That 's why healing the system will likely require the rest of the TARP funds , plus the $ 750 billion the administration warned Congress in the new budget that it could need
Best I can piece together , the administration 's recovery plan due out shortly will look something like this : The U.S. government will create a facility to buy the toxic mortgages off the balance sheets of the major banks
They will be bought by a public-private fund or funds in which taxpayers will , in effect , be partners with hedge funds and private equity groups
The hedge funds will be there to provide expertise in pricing and trading the assets
The taxpayers will be there to guarantee gulp that the hedge funds wo n't lose money if they take the early risks and to also lend them money to make some of the purchases
Taxpayers will benefit from any profits these partnerships make
Once the banks sell their toxic assets , many will need capital , because , while they may be carrying these assets on their books at 85 cents on the dollar , they initially may have to sell them for less
So , the government will probably have to inject capital into more banks to maintain their solvency , but once the banks begin to clear their balance sheets of those toxic assets , they will likely attract the private capital they need and relieve the government of having to put in more
Will it work
We can only hope
But I know this for sure : unless the banks are healed , the economy ca n't lift off , and that bank healing is not going to happen without another big , broad taxpayer safety net
The only person with the clout to sell something this big is President Obama
The bankers and Congress will have to help ; every citizen will have to swallow hard
But ultimately , Mr. Obama will have to persuade people that this is the least unfair and most effective solution
It will be his first big leadership test
It is coming soon , and it is coming to a theater and a bank near you
It is way too soon to say what policy breakthroughs Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be known for at the State Department
But she has already left her mark bureaucratically
She has invented new diplomatic positions that say a great deal about the state of foreign policy in these messy times
I would call them `` The Super Sub-Secretaries of State .
Times Topics : Hillary Rodham Clinton George J. Mitchell Richard C. Holbrooke Dennis B. Ross Mrs. Clinton has appointed three Super Sub-Secretaries George Mitchell to handle Arab-Israel negotiations , Richard Holbrooke to manage Afghanistan-Pakistan affairs and Dennis Ross to coordinate Iran policy
The Obama team seems to have concluded that these three problems are so intractable that they require almost full-time secretary of state-quality attention
So you need officials who have more weight and more time more weight than the normal assistant secretary of state so they will be taken seriously in their respective regions and will have a chance to move the bureaucracy , and more time to work on each of these discrete , Gordian problems than a secretary of state can devote in a week
Some scoff that this approach is a sign of weakness on Mrs. Clinton 's part
I 'd hold off on that
If she can manage this diplomatic A-team , Mrs. Clinton 's experiment could make a lot of sense
It is a much more disorderly world out there
After the 1973 Arab-Israel war , Secretary of State Henry Kissinger set the gold standard for mediation by negotiating the disengagement agreements between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Syria the first real peace accords ever struck between those parties
But Mr. Kissinger had it easy
He basically needed to forge an agreement between one pharaoh -LRB- Anwar Sadat -RRB- , one military dictator -LRB- Hafez Assad -RRB- and one overwhelmingly powerful prime minister -LRB- Golda Meir -RRB- , whose Labor Party then totally dominated Israel
All three of Kissinger 's interlocutors could speak for their people and deliver and sustain any agreements
That is not true today in the main theaters of conflict where the parties are either failing states with multiple power centers Afghanistan , Pakistan and Palestine or strong states with governments so fractious and hydra-headed that they border on paralyzed Israel and Iran
The political struggles in these societies are so virulent today that until they are defused , it will be very difficult to make any deals between them
That is why you need sub-secretaries of state
So George Mitchell is , in effect , `` Super Sub-Secretary of State for Nurturing a Coherent Palestinian Authority and a Coherent Israeli Negotiating Position So That the Two Might One Day Be Able to Strike a Deal Again .
Richard Holbrooke is `` Super Sub-Secretary of State for Bringing Coherence to the Afghan and Pakistan Governments So That They Can One Day Be Internally Stable and United Against the Taliban and Al Qaeda .
And Dennis Ross is `` Super Sub-Secretary of State for Amassing Global Leverage on the Incomprehensibly Byzantine Iranian Government So That It Will Terminate Its Nuclear Weapons Program .
In the cold war , the world was divided between East and West , and the Soviet Union could be counted on to aid , prop up and sometimes deliver the weaker states in its orbit
Today , the world is divided between `` the regions of order '' and `` the regions of disorder , '' and the regions of disorder are big enough and disorderly enough that they each require their own super sub-secretary of state to manage the chaos and mobilize the coalitions
`` The world today can be much better understood if you think of it from the perspective of regions and not states , '' said Gen. Jim Jones , President Obama 's national security adviser
And the regions of disorder are likely to multiply as the world 's economic crisis metastasizes
`` As we look at 2009 , on every issue , with the single exception of Iraq , everything is worse , '' said Ian Bremmer , co-author of `` The Fat Tail , '' about the biggest risks facing the world 's decision-makers
`` Pakistan is worse
Afghanistan is worse
Russia is worse
Emerging markets are worse
Everything big out there is worse , and some will be made even worse by the economic crisis .
There is a geopolitical storm coming , concluded Bremmer , `` and it is not priced into the market yet .
Did anyone notice that the State Department issued a travel advisory for Mexico last week , warning that `` Recent Mexican Army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat ... Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico ... During some of these incidents , U.S. citizens have been trapped .
That is Mexico , not Pakistan
`` As the effects of the economic crisis spread and viable states become weak states and weak states become failed states , it is going to produce a series of geopolitical brush fires , if we are lucky , and real conflagrations , if we are not , '' argued David Rothkopf , author of Running the World , a history of the National Security Council
`` They will each demand the attention and resources of a government that already has limited bandwidth and an empty piggybank .
No , Mrs. Clinton does n't have too many super sub-secretaries
The truth is , she may not have enough
Went to a big Washington dinner last week
You know the kind : Large hall ; black ties ; long dresses
But this was no ordinary dinner
There were 40 guests of honor
So here 's my Sunday news quiz : I 'll give you the names of most of the honorees , and you tell me what dinner I was at
O.K. All these kids are American high school students
They were the majority of the 40 finalists in the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search , which , through a national contest , identifies and honors the top math and science high school students in America , based on their solutions to scientific problems
The awards dinner was Tuesday , and , as you can see from the above list , most finalists hailed from immigrant families , largely from Asia
Indeed , if you need any more convincing about the virtues of immigration , just come to the Intel science finals
I am a pro-immigration fanatic
I think keeping a constant flow of legal immigrants into our country whether they wear blue collars or lab coats is the key to keeping us ahead of China
Because when you mix all of these energetic , high-aspiring people with a democratic system and free markets , magic happens
If we hope to keep that magic , we need immigration reform that guarantees that we will always attract and retain , in an orderly fashion , the world 's first-round aspirational and intellectual draft choices
This is n't complicated
In today 's wired world , the most important economic competition is no longer between countries or companies
The most important economic competition is actually between you and your own imagination
Because what your kids imagine , they can now act on farther , faster , cheaper than ever before as individuals
Today , just about everything is becoming a commodity , except imagination , except the ability to spark new ideas
If I just have the spark of an idea now , I can get a designer in Taiwan to design it
I can get a factory in China to produce a prototype
I can get a factory in Vietnam to mass manufacture it
I can use Amazon.com to handle fulfillment
I can use freelancer.com to find someone to do my logo and manage my backroom
And I can do all this at incredibly low prices
The one thing that is not a commodity and never will be is that spark of an idea
And this Intel dinner was all about our best sparklers
Before the dinner started , each contestant stood by a storyboard explaining their specific project
Namrata Anand , a 17-year-old from the Harker School in California , patiently explained to me her research , which used spectral analysis and other data to expose information about the chemical enrichment history of `` Andromeda Galaxy .
I did not understand a word she said , but I sure caught the gleam in her eye
My favorite chat , though , was with Amanda Alonzo , a 30-year-old biology teacher at Lynbrook High School in San Jose , Calif.
She had taught two of the finalists
When I asked her the secret , she said it was the resources provided by her school , extremely `` supportive parents '' and a grant from Intel that let her spend part of each day inspiring and preparing students to enter this contest
Then she told me this : Local San Jose realtors are running ads in newspapers in China and India telling potential immigrants to `` buy a home '' in her Lynbrook school district because it produced `` two Intel science winners .
Seriously , ESPN or MTV should broadcast the Intel finals live
All of the 40 finalists are introduced , with little stories about their lives and aspirations
Then the winners of the nine best projects are announced
And finally , with great drama , the overall winner of the $ 100,000 award for the best project of the 40 is identified
This year it was Erika Alden DeBenedictis of New Mexico for developing a software navigation system that would enable spacecraft to more efficiently `` travel through the solar system .
After her name was called , she was swarmed by her fellow competitor-geeks
Gotta say , it was the most inspiring evening I 've had in D.C. in 20 years
It left me thinking , `` If we can just get a few things right immigration , education standards , bandwidth , fiscal policy maybe we 'll be O.K. '' It left me feeling that maybe Alice Wei Zhao of North High School in Sheboygan , Wis. , chosen by her fellow finalists to be their spokeswoman , was right when she told the audience : `` Do n't sweat about the problems our generation will have to deal with
Believe me , our future is in good hands .
As long as we do n't shut our doors
I ran into an Indian businessman friend last week and he said something to me that really struck a chord : `` This is the first time I 've ever visited the United States when I feel like you 're acting like an immature democracy .
You know what he meant : We 're in a once-a-century financial crisis , and yet we 've actually descended into politics worse than usual
There do n't seem to be any adults at the top nobody acting larger than the moment , nobody being impelled by anything deeper than the last news cycle
Instead , Congress is slapping together punitive tax laws overnight like some Banana Republic , our president is getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian , and the opposition party is behaving as if its only priority is to deflate President Obama 's popularity
I saw Eric Cantor , a Republican House leader , on CNBC the other day , and the entire interview consisted of him trying to exploit the A.I.G. situation for partisan gain without one constructive thought
I just kept staring at him and thinking : `` Do you not have kids
Do you not have a pension that you 're worried about
Do you live in some gated community where all the banks will be O.K. , even if our biggest banks go under
Do you think your party automatically wins if the country loses
What are you thinking ?
If you want to guarantee that America becomes a mediocre nation , then just keep vilifying every public figure struggling to find a way out of this crisis who stumbles once like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or A.I.G. 's $ 1-a-year fill-in C.E.O. , Ed Liddy and you 'll ensure that no capable person enlists in government
You will ensure that every bank that has taken public money will try to get rid of it as fast it can , so as not to come under scrutiny , even though that would weaken their balance sheets and make them less able to lend money
And you will ensure that we 'll never get out of this banking crisis , because the solution depends on getting private money funds to team up with the government to buy up toxic assets and fund managers are growing terrified of any collaboration with government
President Obama missed a huge teaching opportunity with A.I.G. Those bonuses were an outrage
The public 's anger was justified
But rather than fanning those flames and letting Congress run riot , the president should have said : `` I 'll handle this .
He should have gone on national TV and had the fireside chat with the country that is long overdue
That 's a talk where he lays out exactly how deep the crisis we are in is , exactly how much sacrifice we 're all going to have to make to get out of it , and then calls on those A.I.G. brokers and everyone else who , in our rush to heal our banking system , may have gotten bonuses they did not deserve and tells them that their president is asking them to return their bonuses `` for the sake of the country .
Had Mr. Obama given A.I.G. 's American brokers a reputation to live up to , a great national mission to join , I 'd bet anything we 'd have gotten most of our money back voluntarily
Inspiring conduct has so much more of an impact than coercing it
And it would have elevated the president to where he belongs above the angry gaggle in Congress
`` There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause , '' said Dov Seidman , the C.E.O. of LRN , which helps companies build ethical cultures , and the author of the book `` How .
What makes a company or a government `` sustainable , '' he added , is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors
`` It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things , no matter how difficult the situation , '' said Seidman
`` Laws tell you what you can do
Values inspire in you what you should do
It 's a leader 's job to inspire in us those values .
Right now we have an absence of inspirational leadership
From business we hear about institutions too big to fail no matter how reckless
From bankers we hear about contracts too sacred to break no matter how inappropriate
And from our immature elected officials we hear about how it was all `` the other guy 's fault .
I 've never talked to more people in one week who told me , `` You know , I listen to the news , and I get really depressed .
Well , help may finally be on the way : one reason we 've been sidetracked talking about bonuses is because the big issue the real issue the president 's comprehensive plan to remove the toxic assets from our ailing banks , which is the key to our economic recovery , has taken a long time to hammer out
So all kinds of lesser issues and clowns have ballooned in importance and only confused people in the vacuum
Hopefully , that plan will be out by Monday , and hopefully the president will pull the country together behind it , and hopefully the lawmakers who have to approve it will remember that this is not a time for politics as usual and that our country , alas , is not too big to fail
President Obama 's winning passage of national health care is both exhilarating and sobering
Covering so many uninsured Americans is a historic achievement
But the president had to postpone trips , buy off companies and cut every conceivable side deal to just barely make it happen , without a single Republican vote
If the Democrats now lose seats in the midterm elections , we 're headed for even worse gridlock , even though we still have so much more nation-building for America to do from education to energy to environment to innovation to tax policy
That is why I want my own Tea Party
I want a Tea Party of the radical center
Say what
I write often about innovation in energy and education
But I 've come to realize that none of these innovations will emerge at scale until we get the most important innovation of all political innovation that will empower independents and centrists , which describes a lot of the country
Larry Diamond , a Stanford University democracy expert , put it best : `` If you do n't get governance right , it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with
We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work , because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer .
My definition of broken is simple
It is a system in which Republicans will be voted out for doing the right thing -LRB- raising taxes when needed -RRB- and Democrats will be voted out for doing the right thing -LRB- cutting services when needed -RRB-
When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things , it is broken
That is why we need political innovation that takes America 's disempowered radical center and enables it to act in proportion to its true size , unconstrained by the two parties , interest groups and orthodoxies that have tied our politics in knots
The radical center is `` radical '' in its desire for a radical departure from politics as usual
It advocates : raising taxes to close our budgetary shortfalls , but doing so with a spirit of equity and social justice ; guaranteeing that every American is covered by health insurance , but with market reforms to really bring down costs ; legally expanding immigration to attract more job-creators to America 's shores ; increasing corporate tax credits for research and lowering corporate taxes if companies will move more manufacturing jobs back onshore ; investing more in our public schools , while insisting on rising national education standards and greater accountability for teachers , principals and parents ; massively investing in clean energy , including nuclear , while allowing more offshore drilling in the transition
You get the idea
How best to promote these hybrid ideas
Break the oligopoly of our two-party system
Diamond suggests two innovations
First , let every state emulate California 's recent grass-roots initiative that took away the power to design state electoral districts from the state legislature and put it in the hands of an independent , politically neutral , Citizens Redistricting Commission
It will go to work after the 2010 census and reshape California 's state legislative districts for the coming elections
Henceforth , districts in California will not be designed to be automatically Democratic or Republican so more of them will be competitive , so more candidates will only be electable if they appeal to the center , not just cater to one party
-LRB- There is a movement pressing for the same independent commission to be given the power to redraw Congressional districts .
Second , get states to adopt `` alternative voting .
One reason independent , third-party , centrist candidates ca n't get elected is because if , in a three-person race , a Democrat votes for an independent , and the independent loses , the Democrat fears his vote will have actually helped the Republican win , or vice versa
Alternative voting allows you to rank the independent candidate your No. 1 choice , and the Democrat or Republican No. 2
Therefore , if the independent does not win , your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice , say , the Democrat
Therefore , you have no fear that in voting for an independent you might help elect your real nightmare the Republican
Nothing has held back the growth of independent , centrist candidates more , said Diamond , `` than the fear that if you vote for one of them you will be wasting your vote
Alternative voting , which Australia has , can overcome that .
Obama won the presidency by tapping the center centrist Democrats , independents and Republicans who wanted to see nation-building at home `` to make their own lives and those of others better , '' said Tim Shriver , the C.E.O. of the Special Olympics
They saw in Obama a pragmatist who could pull us together for pragmatic solutions
But hyperpartisanship has frustrated those hopes
#NAME?
There are still many conservative Blue Dog Democrats , but the liberal Rockefeller Republicans have been wiped out .
If that radical center wants to be empowered , it ca n't just whine
It needs its own grass-roots movement to promote reforms like nonpartisan redistricting and alternative voting in every state
It 's tea time for the center
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction : Correction : March 26 ,
They never come out of the box and deliver the scale of progress and change they promise not because they are cynical , but because events conspire against them and they encounter competing power centers
What distinguishes the best leaders , he says , is that they learn from their crashes , adjust , persist and succeed
President Obama has hardly crashed
He 's just getting started
And many , many people at home and abroad are rooting for him to succeed
But he definitely is navigating tumultuous times
So when Greenberg called to share the lessons from his new book , `` Dispatches from the War Room '' an insider 's account about how the world leaders for whom he polled handled their crashes I thought : `` Those insights might be very useful right now .
Greenberg kicks off with Bill Clinton
One of his most vivid memories was trying to judge how voters would react to Clinton breaking his oft-stated promise to cut middle-class taxes , right after his 1992 election
They held focus groups in New Jersey
What struck him most , said Greenberg , was that these voters `` just did n't believe any politician would cut their taxes .
That was n't how they were judging Clinton
`` They did n't care about his specific promises , '' said Greenberg
`` They wanted the new president to act in the long-term economic interests of the country
They wanted to make sure everyone was part of the solution , not like in Reagan 's years when the wealthy did n't pay their fair share
And they wanted to know that the president would n't lose his instinct to look out for ordinary people .
Lesson : `` Do n't be too literal about campaign promises , '' said Greenberg
`` There is a lot of scope for governing , if the people think you 're acting in the country 's long-term interests and that you 're working for them .
Tony Blair crashed over New Labor 's core identity as a party
Labor had been out of power for 18 years
It got back in thanks to Blair 's ability to assure voters that they could trust Labor to be fiscally prudent and , simultaneously , to upgrade Britain 's decrepit government hospitals and schools
In truth , Blair had to do these serially first fix the economy and then the hospitals and schools
But he implied that he would do them simultaneously
When , three years into his term , the lack of new investment became obvious crystallized by the story of a cancer patient who could not get a surgery scheduled and by the time she did the cancer had become inoperable Blair crashed on the issue of trust
`` Blair and New Labor were forever associated after that with being more spin than real , '' said Greenberg
Lesson : Be honest with the public early on when facing huge challenges
They will let you off the hook on a literal campaign promise if you level with them early about the difficulties and how long it will take to see progress
Ehud Barak became the prime minister of Israel in 1999 , and a pillar of his campaign was that Jerusalem must remain Israel 's eternal , undivided capital
Yet , at Camp David with President Clinton in 2000 , Barak offered the Palestinians a division of Jerusalem
What was most striking , said Greenberg , was how readily the Israeli public accepted that shift
`` A position that six months earlier was completely off the table dividing Jerusalem was now on it , '' said Greenberg
Once the taboo against even hinting at dividing Jerusalem was broken , even Likud voters polled by Greenberg started asking : `` Why should we want to keep these Palestinian neighborhoods ?
Conventional wisdom just fell apart under the logic of it
Lesson : `` Nothing , '' said Greenberg , `` is off the table for a leader who wants to make a bold move '' in the fundamental interest of the country
Finally , Nelson Mandela
Four years after he became South Africa 's president in 1994 , `` people were demoralized about the lack of change and felt that the African National Congress had betrayed its promise , '' said Greenberg
`` It had failed to deliver housing and jobs , but had delivered a lot of corruption and was at risk of losing its moral authority .
That was hard for liberation movement leaders to swallow , but the humble citizens wanted their now remote leaders to acknowledge their plight
Lesson : Mandela was humble enough to say that we have n't brought enough change that even he was disappointed without threatening the ANC 's claim to govern
`` He began to tell a compelling story that explained why advances were slow , pointed to areas of progress and allowed people to be hopeful about future changes , '' said Greenberg
The ber-lesson for presidents
You ca n't be too honest in describing big problems , too bold in offering big solutions , too humble in dealing with big missteps , too forward in re-telling your story or too gutsy in speaking the previously unspeakable
Maureen Dowd is off today
If you think this latest Israeli-American flap was just the same-old-same-old tiff over settlements , then you 're clearly not paying attention which is how I 'd describe a lot of Israelis , Arabs and American Jews today
This tiff actually reflects a tectonic shift that has taken place beneath the surface of Israel-U.S. relations
I 'd summarize it like this : In the last decade , the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for Israel has gone from being a necessity to a hobby
And in the last decade , the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for America has gone from being a hobby to a necessity
Therein lies the problem
The collapse of the Oslo peace process , combined with the unilateral Israeli pullouts from Lebanon and Gaza which were followed not by peace but by rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas on Israel decimated Israel 's peace camp and the political parties aligned with it
At the same time , Israel 's erecting of a wall around the West Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel -LRB- there have been no successful attacks since 2006 -RRB- , along with the rise of the high-tech industry in Israel which does a great deal of business digitally and over the Internet and is largely impervious to the day-to-day conflict has meant that even without peace , Israel can enjoy a very peaceful existence and a rising standard of living
To put it another way , the collapse of the peace process , combined with the rise of the wall , combined with the rise of the Web , has made peacemaking with Palestinians much less of a necessity for Israel and much more of a hobby
Consciously or unconsciously , a lot more Israelis seem to believe they really can have it all : a Jewish state , a democratic state and a state in all of the Land of Israel , including the West Bank and peace
Why not
Newsweek 's Dan Ephron wrote in the Jan. 11 , 2010 , issue : `` An improved security situation , a feeling that acceptance by Arabs no longer matters much , and a growing disaffection from politics generally have , for many Israelis , called into question the basic calculus that has driven the peace process
Instead of pining for peace , they 're now asking : who needs it
... Tourism hit a 10-year high in 2008
Astonishingly , the I.M.F. projected recently that Israel 's G.D.P. will grow faster in 2010 than that of most other developed countries
In short , Israelis are enjoying a peace dividend without a peace agreement .
Now , in the same time period , America went from having only a small symbolic number of soldiers in the Middle East to running two wars there in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a global struggle against violent Muslim extremists
With U.S. soldiers literally walking the Arab street and , therefore , more in need than ever of Muslim good will to protect themselves and defeat Muslim extremists Israeli-Palestinian peace has gone from being a post-cold-war hobby of U.S. diplomats to being a necessity
Both Vice President Joe Biden and Gen. David Petraeus have been quoted recently as saying that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict foments anti-U.S. sentiments , because of the perception that America usually sides with Israel , and these sentiments are exploited by Al Qaeda , Hamas , Hezbollah and Iran to generate anti-Americanism that complicates life for our soldiers in the region
I would n't exaggerate this , but I would not dismiss it either
The issue that should make peacemaking a necessity rather than a hobby for both the U.S. and Israel is confronting a nuclear Iran
Unfortunately , Israel sees the question of preventing Iran from going nuclear as overriding and separate from the Palestinian issue , while the U.S. sees them as integrated
At a time when the U.S. is trying to galvanize a global coalition to confront Iran , at a time when Iran uses the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict to embarrass pro-U.S. Arabs and extend its influence across the Muslim world , peace would be a strategic asset for America and Israel
Ari Shavit , a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz , last week argued that Israel should adopt a more integrated view which he calls a `` Palestine-Iran-Palestine '' strategy : Israel should take the initiative with an overture to the Palestinians , which would make progress on that front easier , which would strengthen the U.S. coalition against Iran , which could ultimately weaken Tehran and its allies , Hamas and Hezbollah , which would open the way for more progress on the Palestine-Israel front
He suggests that Israel reach an interim agreement with Palestinians on the West Bank or even consider a partial , unilateral withdrawal there
`` One way or another , '' said Shavit , `` Netanyahu should have made a genuine move on the Palestinian front that would have made genuine moves on the Iranian front possible , that would have made dealing with the core of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute possible at a later stage .
Indeed , Jerusalem , settlements , peace , Iran they 're all connected and pretending you can treat some as a hobby and one as a necessity is an illusion
While I 'm convinced that our current financial crisis is the product of both The Market and Mother Nature hitting the wall at once telling us we need to grow in more sustainable ways some might ask this : We know when the market hits a wall
It shows up in red numbers on the Dow
But Mother Nature does n't have a Dow
What makes you think she 's hitting a wall , too
And even if she is : Who cares
When my 401 -LRB- k -RRB- is collapsing , it 's hard to worry about my sea level rising
It 's true , Mother Nature does n't tell us with one simple number how she 's feeling
But if you follow climate science , what has been striking is how insistently some of the world 's best scientists have been warning in just the past few months that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago
Indeed , if Mother Nature had a Dow , you could say that it , too , has been breaking into new -LRB- scientific -RRB- lows
Consider just two recent articles : The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1 , that `` the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions , because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems , scientists said
` We are basically looking now at a future climate that 's beyond anything we 've considered seriously in climate model simulations , ' Christopher Field , director of the Carnegie Institution 's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University , said .
The physicist and climate expert Joe Romm recently noted on his blog , climateprogress.org , that in January , M.I.T. 's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change quietly updated its Integrated Global System Model that tracks and predicts climate change from 1861 to 2100
Its revised projection indicates that if we stick with business as usual , in terms of carbon-dioxide emissions , average surface temperatures on Earth by 2100 will hit levels far beyond anything humans have ever experienced
`` In our more recent global model simulations , '' explained M.I.T. , `` the ocean heat-uptake is slower than previously estimated , the ocean uptake of carbon is weaker , feedbacks from the land system as temperature rises are stronger , cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases over the century are higher , and offsetting cooling from aerosol emissions is lower
Not one of these effects is very strong on its own , and even adding each separately together would not fully explain the higher temperatures
-LRB- But , -RRB- rather than interacting additively , these different effects appear to interact multiplicatively , with feedbacks among the contributing factors , leading to the surprisingly large increase in the chance of much higher temperatures .
What to do
It would be nice to say , `` Hey , Mother Nature , we 're having a credit crisis , could you take a couple years off ?
But as the environmental consultant Rob Watson likes to say , `` Mother Nature is just chemistry , biology and physics , '' and she is going to do whatever they dictate
You ca n't sweet talk Mother Nature or the market
You have to change the economics to affect the Dow and the chemistry , biology and physics to affect Mother Nature
That 's why we need a climate bailout along with our economic bailout
Hal Harvey is the C.E.O. of a new $ 1 billion foundation , ClimateWorks , set up to accelerate the policy changes that can avoid climate catastrophe by taking climate policies from where they are working the best to the places where they are needed the most
`` There are five policies that can help us win the energy-climate battle , and each has been proven somewhere , '' Harvey explained
First , building codes : California 's energy-efficient building and appliance codes now save Californians $ 6 billion per year , '' he said
Second , better vehicle fuel-efficiency standards : `` The European Union 's fuel-efficiency fleet average for new cars now stands at 41 miles per gallon , and is rising steadily , '' he added
Third , we need a national renewable portfolio standard , mandating that power utilities produce 15 or 20 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020
Right now , only about half our states have these
`` Whenever utilities are required to purchase electricity from renewable sources , '' said Harvey , `` clean energy booms .
-LRB- See Germany 's solar business or Texas 's wind power .
The fourth is decoupling the program begun in California that turns the utility business on its head
Under decoupling , power utilities make money by helping homeowners save energy rather than by encouraging them to consume it
`` Finally , '' said Harvey , `` we need a price on carbon .
Polluting the atmosphere ca n't be free
These are the pillars of a climate bailout
Yes , some have upfront costs
But all of them would pay long-term dividends , because they would foster massive U.S. innovation in new clean technologies that would stimulate the real Dow and much lower emissions that would stimulate the Climate Dow
Frank Rich is off today
This Is Just The Start Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor , Mohamed Bouazizi , in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand , managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab\/Muslim world
We know the big causes - tyranny , rising food prices , youth unemployment and social media
But since being in Egypt , I 've been putting together my own back-of-the-envelope guess list of what I 'd call the `` not-so-obvious forces '' that fed this mass revolt
Here it is : THE OBAMA FACTOR Americans have never fully appreciated what a radical thing we did - in the eyes of the rest of the world - in electing an African-American with the middle name Hussein as president
I 'm convinced that listening to Obama 's 2009 Cairo speech - not the words , but the man - were more than a few young Arabs who were saying to themselves : `` Hmmm , let 's see
He 's young
I 'm young
He 's dark-skinned
I 'm dark-skinned
His middle name is Hussein
My name is Hussein
His grandfather is a Muslim
My grandfather is a Muslim
He is president of the United States
And I 'm an unemployed young Arab with no vote and no voice in my future .
I 'd put that in my mix of forces fueling these revolts
GOOGLE EARTH While Facebook has gotten all the face time in Egypt , Tunisia and Bahrain , do n't forget Google Earth , which began roiling Bahraini politics in 2006
A big issue in Bahrain , particularly among Shiite men who want to get married and build homes , is the unequal distribution of land
On Nov. 27 , 2006 , on the eve of parliamentary elections in Bahrain , The Washington Post ran this report from there : `` Mahmood , who lives in a house with his parents , four siblings and their children , said he became even more frustrated when he looked up Bahrain on Google Earth and saw vast tracts of empty land , while tens of thousands of mainly poor Shiites were squashed together in small , dense areas
` We are 17 people crowded in one small house , like many people in the southern district , ' he said
` And you see on Google how many palaces there are and how the al-Khalifas -LRB- the Sunni ruling family -RRB- have the rest of the country to themselves .
Bahraini activists have encouraged people to take a look at the country on Google Earth , and they have set up a special user group whose members have access to more than 40 images of royal palaces .
ISRAEL The Arab TV network Al Jazeera has a big team covering Israel today
Here are some of the stories they have been beaming into the Arab world : Israel 's previous prime minister , Ehud Olmert , had to resign because he was accused of illicitly taking envelopes stuffed with money from a Jewish-American backer
An Israeli court recently convicted Israel 's former president Moshe Katsav on two counts of rape , based on accusations by former employees
And just a few weeks ago , Israel , at the last second , rescinded the appointment of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as the army 's new chief of staff after Israeli environmentalists spurred a government investigation that concluded General Galant had seized public land near his home
-LRB- You can see his house on Google Maps !
This surely got a few laughs in Egypt where land sales to fat cats and cronies of the regime that have resulted in huge overnight profits have been the talk of Cairo this past year
When you live right next to a country that is bringing to justice its top leaders for corruption and you live in a country where many of the top leaders are corrupt , well , you notice
THE BEIJING OLYMPICS China and Egypt were both great civilizations subjected to imperialism and were both dirt poor back in the 1950s , with China even poorer than Egypt , Edward Goldberg , who teaches business strategy , wrote in The Globalist
But , today , China has built the world 's second-largest economy , and Egypt is still living on foreign aid
What do you think young Egyptians thought when they watched the dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
China 's Olympics were another wake-up call - `` in a way that America or the West could never be '' - telling young Egyptians that something was very wrong with their country , argued Goldberg
THE FAYYAD FACTOR Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad introduced a new form of government in the Arab world in the last three years , something I 've dubbed `` Fayyadism .
It said : judge me on my performance , on how I deliver government services and collect the garbage and create jobs - not simply on how I `` resist '' the West or Israel
Every Arab could relate to this
Chinese had to give up freedom but got economic growth and decent government in return
Arabs had to give up freedom and got the Arab-Israeli conflict and unemployment in return
Add it all up and what does it say
It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change
It says we 're just at the start of something huge
And it says that if we do n't have a more serious energy policy , the difference between a good day and bad day for America from here on will hinge on how the 86-year-old king of Saudi Arabia manages all this change
This newspaper carried a very troubling article on the front page on Monday
It detailed how President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan had invited Iran 's president , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , to Kabul in order to stick a thumb in the eye of the Obama administration after the White House had rescinded an invitation to Mr. Karzai to come to Washington because the Afghan president had gutted an independent panel that had discovered widespread fraud in his re-election last year
The article , written by two of our best reporters , Dexter Filkins and Mark Landler , noted that `` according to Afghan associates , Mr. Karzai recently told lunch guests at the presidential palace that he believes the Americans are in Afghanistan because they want to dominate his country and the region , and that they pose an obstacle to striking a peace deal with the Taliban .
The article added about Karzai : '' ` He has developed a complete theory of American power , ' said an Afghan who attended the lunch and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution
` He believes that America is trying to dominate the region , and that he is the only one who can stand up to them . '
That is what we 're getting for risking thousands of U.S. soldiers and having spent $ 200 billion already
This news is a flashing red light , warning that the Obama team is violating at least three cardinal rules of Middle East diplomacy
Rule No. 1 : When you do n't call things by their real name , you always get in trouble
Karzai brazenly stole last year 's presidential election
But the Obama foreign policy team turned a blind eye , basically saying , he 's the best we could get , so just let it go
See dictionary for Vietnam : Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky.
When you can steal an election , you can steal anything
How will we get this guy to curb corruption when his whole election , and previous tour in office , were built on corruption
How can we be operating a clear , build-and-hold strategy that depends on us bringing good governance to Afghans when the head of the government is so duplicitous
Our envoy in Kabul warned us of this before the election , but in his case , too , we were told to look the other way
On Nov. 6 , the ambassador , Karl Eikenberry , wrote to Washington in a cable that was leaked : `` President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner , '' he warned
`` Karzai continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden , whether defense , governance or development
He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further
They assume we covet their territory for a never-ending ` war on terror ' and for military bases to use against surrounding powers .
One reason you violate Rule No. 1 is because you 've already violated Rule No. 2 : `` Never want it more than they do .
If we want good governance in Afghanistan more than Karzai , he will sell us that carpet over and over
How many U.S. officials have flown to Kabul the latest being President Obama himself to lecture Karzai on the need to root out corruption in his administration
Do we think he has a hearing problem
Or do we think he believes he has us over a barrel and , in the end , he can and will do whatever serves his personal power needs because he believes that we believe that he is indispensable for confronting Al Qaeda
This rule applies equally to the Israeli prime minister , Bibi Netanyahu , and the Palestinian president , Mahmoud Abbas
There is something wrong when we are chasing them two men who live in biking distance from one another begging , cajoling and pressuring them to come to a peace negotiation that should ostensibly serve their interests as much as our own
Which leads to Rule No. 3 : In the Middle East , what leaders tell you in private in English is irrelevant
All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language
When Karzai believes that the way to punish America for snubbing him is by inviting Iran 's president to Kabul who delivered a virulently anti-U.S. speech from inside the presidential palace you have to pay close attention to that
It means Karzai must think that anti-Americanism plays well on the streets of Afghanistan and that by dabbling in it himself as he did during his presidential campaign he will strengthen himself politically
That is not a good sign
As Filkins and Landler noted , `` During the recent American-dominated military offensive in the town of Marja the largest of the war Mr. Karzai stood mostly in the shadows .
And if Karzai behaves like this when he needs us , when we 're there fighting for him , how is he going to treat our interests when we 're gone
We have thousands of U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan and more heading there
Love it or hate it , we 're now deep in it , so you have to want our engagement there to build something that is both decent and self-sustaining so we can get out
But I still fear that Karzai is ready to fight to the last U.S. soldier
And once we clear , hold and build Afghanistan for him , he is going to break our hearts
I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport LAX last week
Walking through its faded , cramped domestic terminal , I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply ca n't hide the wrinkles anymore
In some ways , LAX is us
We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance
China is the People 's Republic of Deferred Gratification
They save , invest and build
We spend , borrow and patch
And this contrast is playing out in the worst way just slowly enough so the crisis never seems acute enough to take urgent action
But , eventually , infrastructure , education and innovation policies matter
Businesses prefer to invest with the Jetsons more than the Flintstones , which brings me to the subject of this column
I had a chance last week to listen to Paul Otellini , the chief executive of Intel , the microchip maker and one of America 's crown jewel companies
Otellini was in Washington to talk about competitiveness at Brookings and the Aspen Institute
At a time when so much of our public policy discussion is dominated by health care and bailouts , my public service for the week is to share Mr. Otellini 's views on start-ups
While America still has the quality work force , political stability and natural resources a company like Intel needs , said Otellini , the U.S. is badly lagging in developing the next generation of scientific talent and incentives to induce big multinationals to create lots more jobs here
`` The things that are not conducive to investments here are -LRB- corporate -RRB- taxes and capital equipment credits , '' he said
`` A new semiconductor factory at world scale built from scratch is about $ 4.5 billion in the United States
If I build that factory in almost any other country in the world , where they have significant incentive programs , I could save $ 1 billion , '' because of all the tax breaks these governments throw in
Not surprisingly , the last factory Intel built from scratch was in China
`` That comes online in October , '' he said
`` And it was n't because the labor costs are lower
Yeah , the construction costs were a little bit lower , but the cost of operating when you look at it after tax was substantially lower and you have local market access .
These local incentives matter because smart , skilled labor is everywhere now
Intel can thrive today not just survive , but thrive and never hire another American
Asked if his company was being held back by weak science and math education in America 's K-12 schools , Otellini explained : `` As a citizen , I hate it
As a global employer , I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth
If I ca n't get them out of M.I.T. , I 'll get them out of Tsing Hua '' Beijing 's M.I.T. It gets worse
Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal `` ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness not great , but not bad
Yet that same study also measured what they call ` the rate of change in innovation capacity ' over the last decade in effect , how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future
The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital I.T. infrastructure , economic performance and so on
On this scale , the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations
... When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive
... we are slipping .
If the government just boosted the research and development tax credit by 5 percent and lowered corporate taxes , argued Otellini , and we `` started one or two more projects in companies around the country that made them more productive and more competitive , the government 's tax revenues are going to grow .
With the generous research and development tax credits and lower corporate taxes they receive , Intel 's chief competitors in South Korea basically have `` zero cost of money , '' said Otellini
Intel can compete against that with superior technology , but many other U.S. firms ca n't
Does the Obama team get it
Otellini compared the Obama administration to a `` diode '' an electronic device that conducts electric current in only one direction
They are very good at listening to Silicon Valley , he said , but not so good at responding
`` I 'd like to see competitiveness and education take a higher role than they are today , '' he said
`` Right now , they 're going to try to push this health care thing over the line , and , after that , deal with the next thing
God , I 'd just like this -LRB- our competitiveness -RRB- to be the next thing
Something has to pay for '' everything government is doing today
We had to do the bailouts , the buy-ups and the jobs bills to stop the bleeding
But now we need to focus on the policies that spawn new firms and keep our best at the top
`` Having run a company through a major transition , it 's a lot easier to change when you can than when you have to , '' said Otellini
`` The cost is less
You have more time
I am a little worried that by the time we wake up to the crisis we will be in the abyss .
Two signs of the times : First , a banker friend remarked to me that you know your bank is in trouble when its share price is less than the cost of taking money out of one of its A.T.M. 's
Second , go to Google and type in these four letters : m-e-r-e
Before you go any further , Google will list the possible things or people you 're searching for , and at the top of that list will be the name `` Meredith Whitney .
She comes up before `` merengue '' and `` Meredith Viera .
Who is Meredith Whitney
She is a banking analyst who became famous for declaring last year , long before others , that Citigroup was up to its neck in bad mortgages and would not likely survive in its present form
Do you know how many people have to be searching for you if all you have to do is put in four letters and your name pops up first
A lot
But I am not surprised
Our banking system is in so much trouble that everyone is searching for the silver-bullet solution and the person who can describe it
Alas , there is no silver bullet
I 'm worried
We 've just elected a talented young president with many good instincts about how to propel our country forward , extend health care to more people , make our tax code fairer and launch a green industrial revolution
But do you know what I fear
I fear that his whole first term could be eaten by Citigroup , A.I.G. , Bank of America , Merrill Lynch , and the whole housing\/subprime credit bubble we inflated these past 20 years
I hope my fears are exaggerated
But ask yourself this : Why could n't former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson solve this problem
And why does it seem as though his successor , Tim Geithner , wo n't even look us in the eye and spell out his strategy
Is it because they do n't get it
It is because they know like Roy Scheider in the movie `` Jaws , '' when he first saw the great white shark that `` we 're gonna need a bigger boat , '' and they 're too afraid to tell us just how big
This problem is more complicated than anything you can imagine
We are coming off a 20-year credit binge
As a country , too many of us stopped making money by making `` stuff '' and started making money from money consumers making money out of rising home prices and using the profits to buy flat-screen TVs from China on their credit cards , and bankers making money by creating complex securities and leverage so more and more consumers could get in on the credit game
When this huge bubble exploded , it created a crater so deep that we ca n't see the bottom because that hole is the product of two inter-related excesses
Some banks are in trouble because of the subprime mortgage securities they have on their books that are now worth only 20 cents on the dollar because of widespread defaults
And many other banks the ones that took on the most leverage like Citigroup and Bank of America are in trouble because of all the loans on their books that ca n't now be repaid , such as auto loans , commercial real estate loans , credit card loans , corporate loans
Most of the big banks have not marked down these loans yet because if they did , they would be insolvent
The subprime toxic securities will take billions to bail out ; the loans could take trillions
Climbing out of such a deep crater is going to be tricky
Any big step we try to take could trigger other problems the full dimensions of which we do n't understand
We need to create a `` bad bank '' to buy and hold the toxic mortgage assets or have the government buy the first batch and create a market , but that would likely involve bailing out banks that have behaved very recklessly
It is a price I 'd pay to save the system , but even doing that is very complicated
Buying securitized toxic mortgages is not like buying a yacht off the books of a bankrupt savings-and-loan
Nationalizing Citigroup may sound good on paper , but putting Citigroup into receivership could trigger all kinds of defaults on derivative contracts that it has written
It may be inevitable , but we 'd better understand all of Citigroup 's counterparty risks so we do n't inadvertently set off more falling dominos , la Lehman Brothers
At the moment , the Obama team seems to prefer a gradual attempt to nurse these sick banks back to health with repeated blood transfusions $ 30 billion more to A.I.G. today , another $ 40 billion to Citigroup tomorrow
And Lord only knows how much Bank of America will need after its weekend fling with Merrill Lynch has left it with Toxic Asset Disease
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury seem to be trying to give these banks enough capital to survive the next two years , as they de-leverage and de-risk their portfolios and then hope for the best
If they are right , the president -LRB- and the rest of us -RRB- will just have a wrenching first year and then be able to gradually put the banking crisis behind him
For now , though , the banks still threaten to consume the Obama presidency
Indeed , I 'm sorry to report that if you just type two letters into Google `` b-a '' the first thing that comes up is not Barack Obama
It 's `` Bank of America .
Barack Obama is third
The $ 110 Billion Question When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings , it is impossible to not ask : What are we doing spending $ 110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we 're applauding the Arab people for overthrowing
Ever since 9\/11 , the West has hoped for a war of ideas within the Muslim world that would feature an internal challenge to the violent radical Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda
That contest , though , never really materialized because the regimes we counted on to promote it found violent Muslim extremism a convenient foil , so they allowed it to persist
Moreover , these corrupt , crony capitalist Arab regimes were hardly the ideal carriers for an alternative to bin Ladenism
To the contrary , it was their abusive behavior and vicious suffocation of any kind of independent moderate centrist parties that fueled the extremism even more
Now the people themselves have taken down those regimes in Egypt and Tunisia , and they 're rattling the ones in Libya , Yemen , Bahrain , Oman and Iran
They are not doing it for us , or to answer bin Laden
They are doing it by themselves for themselves - because they want their freedom and to control their own destinies
But in doing so they have created a hugely powerful , modernizing challenge to bin Ladenism , which is why Al Qaeda today is tongue-tied
It 's a beautiful thing to watch
Al Qaeda 's answer to modern-day autocracy was its version of the seventh-century Caliphate
But the people - from Tunisia to Yemen - have come up with their own answer to violent extremism and the abusive regimes we 've been propping up
It 's called democracy
They have a long way to go to lock it in
It may yet be hijacked by religious forces
But , for now , it is clear that the majority wants to build a future in the 21st century , not the seventh
In other words , the Arab peoples have done for free , on their own and for their own reasons , everything that we were paying their regimes to do in the `` war on terrorism '' but they never did
And that brings me back to Afghanistan and Pakistan
Last October , Transparency International rated the regime of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan as the second most corrupt in the world after Somalia 's
That is the Afghan regime we will spend more than $ 110 billion in 2011 to support
And tell me that Pakistan 's intelligence service , ISI , which dominates Pakistani politics , is n't the twin of Hosni Mubarak 's security service
Pakistan 's military leaders play the same game Mubarak played with us for years
First , they whisper in our ears : `` Psst , without us , the radical Islamists will rule
So we may not be perfect , but we 're the only thing standing in the way of the devil .
In reality , though , they are nurturing the devil
The ISI is long alleged to have been fostering anti-Indian radical Muslim groups and masterminding the Afghan Taliban
Apart from radical Islam , the other pretext the Pakistani military uses for its inordinate grip on power is the external enemy
Just as Arab regimes used the conflict with Israel for years to keep their people distracted and to justify huge military budgets , Pakistan 's ISI tells itself , the Pakistani people and us that it ca n't stop sponsoring proxies in Afghanistan because of the `` threat '' from India
Here 's a secret : India is not going to invade Pakistan
It is an utterly bogus argument
India wants to focus on its own development , not owning Pakistan 's problems
India has the second-largest Muslim population on the planet , more even than Pakistan
And while Indian Muslims are not without their economic and political grievances , they are , on the whole , integrated into India 's democracy because it is a democracy
There are no Indian Muslims in Guant namo Bay
Finally , you did not need to dig very far in Egypt or Jordan to hear that one reason for the rebellion in Egypt and protests in Jordan was the in-your-face corruption and crony capitalism that everyone in the public knew about
That same kind of pillaging of assets - natural resources , development aid , the meager savings of a million Kabul Bank depositors and crony contracts - has fueled a similar anger against the regime in Afghanistan and undermined our nation-building efforts there
The truth is we ca n't do much to consolidate the democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia
They 'll have to make it work themselves
But we could do what we can , which is divert some of the $ 110 billion we 're lavishing on the Afghan regime and the Pakistani Army and use it for debt relief , schools and scholarships to U.S. universities for young Egyptians and Tunisians who had the courage to take down the very kind of regimes we 're still holding up in Kabul and Islamabad
I know we ca n't just walk out of Afghanistan and Pakistan ; there are good people , too , in both places
But our involvement in these two countries - 150,000 troops to confront Al Qaeda - is totally out of proportion today with our interests and out of all sync with our values
The thing I love most about America is that there 's always somebody who does n't get the word somebody who does n't understand that in a Great Recession you 're supposed to hunker down , downsize and just hold on for dear life
I have a couple of friends who fit that bill , who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things
They both happen to be Indian-Americans one a son of the Himalayas , who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars ; the other a son of New Delhi , who came here and found the Sun , Sun Microsystems
Both are serial innovators
Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers
They do n't know from hunkering down
They just did n't get the word
As a result , one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity ; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest , cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house
Though our country may be flagging , it 's because of innovators like these that you should never ever write us off
Let me introduce Vinod Khosla and K.R. Sridhar
Khosla , the co-founder of Sun , set out several years ago to fund energy start-ups
His favorite baby right now is a company called Calera , which was begun with the Stanford Professor Brent Constantz , who was studying how corals use CO2 to produce their calcium carbonate bones
If you combine CO2 with seawater , or any kind of briny water , you produce CaCO3 , calcium carbonate
That is not only the stuff of corals
It is also the same white , pasty goop that appears on your shower head from hard -LRB- calcium-rich -RRB- water
At its demonstration plant near Santa Cruz , Calif. , Calera has developed a process that takes CO2 emissions from a coal - or gas-fired power plant and sprays seawater into it and naturally converts most of the CO2 into calcium carbonate , which is then spray-dried into cement or shaped into little pellets that can be used as concrete aggregates for building walls or highways instead of letting the CO2 emissions go into the atmosphere and produce climate change
If this can scale , it would eliminate the need for expensive carbon-sequestration facilities planned to be built alongside coal-fired power plants and it might actually make the heretofore specious notion of `` clean coal '' a possibility
In announcing in December an alliance to build more Calera plants , Ian Copeland , president of Bechtel Renewables and New Technology a tough-minded engineering company said : `` The fundamental chemistry and physics of the Calera process are based on sound scientific principles and its core technology and equipment can be integrated with base power plants very effectively .
A source says the huge Peabody coal company will announce an investment in Calera next week
`` If this works , '' said Khosla , `` coal-fired power would become more than 100 percent clean
Not only would it not emit any CO2 , but by producing clean water and cement as a byproduct it would also be taking all of the CO2 that goes into making those products out of the atmosphere .
John Doerr , the legendary venture capitalist who financed Sun , once said of Khosla : `` The best way to get Vinod to do something is to tell him it is impossible .
Sridhar 's company , Bloom Energy , was featured last week on CBS 's `` 60 Minutes .
Several months ago , though , Sridhar took me into the parking lot behind Google 's Silicon Valley headquarters and showed me the inside of one of his Bloom Boxes , the size of a small shipping container
Inside were stacks of solid oxide fuel cells , stored in cylinders , and all kinds of whiz-bang parts that I did not understand
What I did understand , though , was that Google was already getting part of its clean-energy from these fuel cells and Wal-Mart , eBay , FedEx and Coca-Cola just announced that they are doing the same
Sridhar , Bloom 's co-founder and C.E.O. , said his fuel cells , which can run on natural gas or biogas , can generate electricity at 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour , with today 's subsidies
`` We know we can bring the price down further , '' he said , `` so Bloom power will be affordable in every energy-poor country '' Sridhar 's real dream
Attention : These technologies still have to prove that they are reliable , durable and scalable and if you Google both , you will find studies saying they are and studies that are skeptical
All I know is this : If we put a simple price on carbon , these new technologies would have a chance to blossom and thousands more would come out of innovators ' garages
America still has the best innovation culture in the world
But we need better policies to nurture it , better infrastructure to enable it and more open doors to bring others here to try it
Our politics has gotten so impossible lately , too many Americans have stopped dreaming
Not these two
They just never got the word
As Sridhar says : `` We came to America for the American dream to do good and to make good .
Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on , I ca n't resist quoting from it
Consider this faux article from June 2005 about America 's addiction to Chinese exports : FENGHUA , China Chen Hsien , an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd. , a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets , expressed his disbelief Monday over the `` sheer amount of -LRB- garbage -RRB- Americans will buy
Often , when we 're assigned a new order for , say , ` salad shooters , ' I will say to myself , ` There 's no way that anyone will ever buy these .
... One month later , we will receive an order for the same product , but three times the quantity
How can anyone have a need for such useless -LRB- garbage -RRB-
I hear that Americans can buy anything they want , and I believe it , judging from the things I 've made for them , '' Chen said
`` And I also hear that , when they no longer want an item , they simply throw it away
So wasteful and contemptible .
Let 's today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question : What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession
What if it 's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall when Mother Nature and the market both said : `` No more .
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China , powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ... We ca n't do this anymore
`` We created a way of raising standards of living that we ca n't possibly pass on to our children , '' said Joe Romm , a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org
We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks water , hydrocarbons , forests , rivers , fish and arable land and not by generating renewable flows
`` You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior , '' added Romm
`` But it has to collapse , unless adults stand up and say , ` This is a Ponzi scheme
We have not generated real wealth , and we are destroying a livable climate ... ' Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy .
Over a billion people today suffer from water scarcity ; deforestation in the tropics destroys an area the size of Greece every year more than 25 million acres ; more than half of the world 's fisheries are over-fished or fished at their limit
`` Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets , scientists are warning us that we 're living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets , '' argues Glenn Prickett , senior vice president at Conservation International
But , he cautioned , as environmentalists have pointed out : `` Mother Nature does n't do bailouts .
One of those who has been warning me of this for a long time is Paul Gilding , the Australian environmental business expert
He has a name for this moment when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once `` The Great Disruption .
`` We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder , '' he wrote me
`` No matter how wonderful the system is , the laws of physics and biology still apply .
We must have growth , but we must grow in a different way
For starters , economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero , whereby buildings , cars , factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible
Let 's grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks
Gilding says he 's actually an optimist
So am I. People are already using this economic slowdown to retool and reorient economies
Germany , Britain , China and the U.S. have all used stimulus bills to make huge new investments in clean power
South Korea 's new national paradigm for development is called : `` Low carbon , green growth .
Who knew
People are realizing we need more than incremental changes and we 're seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter , more efficient , more responsible ways
In the meantime , says Gilding , take notes : `` When we look back , 2008 will be a momentous year in human history
Our children and grandchildren will ask us , ` What was it like
What were you doing when it started to fall apart
What did you think
What did you do ?
Often in the middle of something momentous , we ca n't see its significance
But for me there is no doubt : 2008 will be the marker the year when ` The Great Disruption ' began .
The ad popped up in my e-mail the way it always has : `` 1-800-Flowers : Mother 's Day Madness 30 Tulips + FREE vase for just $ 39.99 !
I almost clicked on it , forgetting for a moment that those services would not be needed this year
My mother , Margaret Friedman , died last month at the age of 89 , and so this is my first Mother 's Day without a mom
As columnists , we appear before you twice a week on these pages as simple bylines , but , yes , even columnists have mothers
And in my case , much of the outlook that infuses my own writings was bred into me from my mom
So , for once in 13 years , I 'd like to share a little bit about her
My mom was gripped by dementia for much of the last decade , but she never lost the generous `` Minnesota nice '' demeanor that characterized her in her better days
As my childhood friend Brad Lehrman said to me at her funeral : `` She put the mensch in dementia .
My mom 's life spanned an incredible period
She was born in 1918 , just at the close of World War I. She grew up in the Depression , enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor , served her country in World War II , bought our first house with a G.I. loan and lived long enough to play bridge on the Internet with someone in Siberia
For most of my childhood , my mom appeared to be a typical suburban housewife of her generation , although I knew she was anything but typical
She sewed many of my sisters ' clothes , including both of their wedding dresses , and boy 's suits for me
And on the side , she won several national bridge tournaments
My mom left two indelible marks on me
The first was to never settle for the cards you 're dealt
My dad died suddenly when I was 19
My mom worked for a couple of years
But in 1975 , I got a scholarship to go to graduate school in Britain and my mom surprised us all one day by announcing that she was going , too
I called it the `` Jewish Mother Junior Year Abroad Program .
Most of her friends were shocked that she was n't just going to play widow
Instead , she sold our house in little St. Louis Park , Minn. , and moved to London
But what was most amazing to watch was how she used her world-class bridge skills to build new friendships , including with one couple who flew her to Paris for a bridge game
Yes , our little Margie off to Paris to play bridge
She even came to see me in Beirut once , during the civil war at age 62
The picture of her in Beirut makes me think back in amazement at what my mom might have done had she had the money to finish college and pursue her dreams the way she encouraged me to pursue mine , even when they meant I 'd be far away in some crazy place and our only communications would be through my byline
It 's so easy to overlook your mom had dreams , too
My mom 's other big influence on me you can read between the lines of virtually every column and that is a sense of optimism
She was the most uncynical person in the world
I do n't recall her ever uttering a word of cynicism
She was not na ve
She had taken her knocks
But every time life knocked her down , she got up , dusted herself off and kept on marching forward , motivated by the saying that pessimists are usually right , optimists are usually wrong , but most great changes were made by optimists
Six years ago , I was in Israel at a dinner with the editor of the Haaretz newspaper , which publishes my column in Hebrew
I asked the editor why the newspaper ran my column , and he joked : `` Tom , you 're the only optimist we have .
An Israeli general , Uzi Dayan , was seated next to me and as we walked to the table , he said : `` Tom , I know why you 're an optimist
It 's because you 're short and you can only see that part of the glass that 's half full .
Well , the truth is , I am not that short
But my mom was
And she , indeed , could only see that part of the glass that was half full
Read me , read my mom
Whenever I 've had the honor of giving a college graduation speech , I always try to end it with this story about the legendary University of Alabama football coach , Bear Bryant
Late in his career , after his mother had died , South Central Bell Telephone Company asked Bear Bryant to do a TV commercial
As best I can piece together , the commercial was supposed to be very simple just a little music and Coach Bryant saying in his tough voice : `` Have you called your mama today ?
On the day of the filming , though , he decided to ad-lib something
He reportedly looked into the camera and said : `` Have you called your mama today
I sure wish I could call mine .
That was how the commercial ran , and it got a huge response from audiences
So on this Mother 's Day , if you take one thing away from this column , take this : Call your mother
I sure wish I could call mine
The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges , but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war
Yes , the next president is going to be a cold-war president but this cold war is with Iran
That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today the struggle for influence across the region , with America and its Sunni Arab allies -LRB- and Israel -RRB- versus Iran , Syria and their non-state allies , Hamas and Hezbollah
As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it , `` In the power struggle in the Middle East , there are only two sides : Iran and the U.S. '' For now , Team America is losing on just about every front
How come
The short answer is that Iran is smart and ruthless , America is dumb and weak , and the Sunni Arab world is feckless and divided
Any other questions
The outrage of the week is the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah attempt to take over Lebanon
Hezbollah thugs pushed into Sunni neighborhoods in West Beirut , focusing particular attention on crushing progressive news outlets like Future TV , so Hezbollah 's propaganda machine could dominate the airwaves
The Shiite militia Hezbollah emerged supposedly to protect Lebanon from Israel
Having done that , it has now turned around and sold Lebanon to Syria and Iran
All of this is part of what Ehud Yaari , one of Israel 's best Middle East watchers , calls `` Pax Iranica .
In his April 28 column in The Jerusalem Report , Mr. Yaari pointed out the web of influence that Iran has built around the Middle East from the sway it has over Iraq 's prime minister , Nuri al-Maliki , to its ability to manipulate virtually all the Shiite militias in Iraq , to its building up of Hezbollah into a force with 40,000 rockets that can control Lebanon and threaten Israel should it think of striking Tehran , to its ability to strengthen Hamas in Gaza and block any U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace
`` Simply put , '' noted Mr. Yaari , `` Tehran has created a situation in which anyone who wants to attack its atomic facilities will have to take into account that this will lead to bitter fighting '' on the Lebanese , Palestinian , Iraqi and Persian Gulf fronts
That is a sophisticated strategy of deterrence
The Bush team , by contrast , in eight years has managed to put America in the unique position in the Middle East where it is `` not liked , not feared and not respected , '' writes Aaron David Miller , a former Mideast negotiator under both Republican and Democratic administrations , in his provocative new book on the peace process , titled `` The Much Too Promised Land .
`` We stumbled for eight years under Bill Clinton over how to make peace in the Middle East , and then we stumbled for eight years under George Bush over how to make war there , '' said Mr. Miller , and the result is `` an America that is trapped in a region which it can not fix and it can not abandon .
Look at the last few months , he said : President Bush went to the Middle East in January , Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went in February , Vice President Dick Cheney went in March , the secretary of state went again in April , and the president is there again this week
After all that , oil prices are as high as ever and peace prospects as low as ever
As Mr. Miller puts it , America right now `` can not defeat , co-opt or contain '' any of the key players in the region
The big debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is over whether or not we should talk to Iran
Obama is in favor ; Clinton has been against
Alas , the right question for the next president is n't whether we talk or do n't talk
It 's whether we have leverage or do n't have leverage
When you have leverage , talk
When you do n't have leverage , get some by creating economic , diplomatic or military incentives and pressures that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore
That is where the Bush team has been so incompetent vis - - vis Iran
The only weaker party is the Sunni Arab world , which is either so drunk on oil it thinks it can buy its way out of any Iranian challenge or is so divided it ca n't make a fist to protect its own interests or both
We 're not going to war with Iran , nor should we
But it is sad to see America and its Arab friends so weak they ca n't prevent one of the last corners of decency , pluralism and openness in the Arab world from being snuffed out by Iran and Syria
The only thing that gives me succor is the knowledge that anyone who has ever tried to dominate Lebanon alone Maronites , Palestinians , Syrians , Israelis has triggered a backlash and failed
`` Lebanon is not a place anyone can control without a consensus , without bringing everybody in , '' said the Lebanese columnist Michael Young
`` Lebanon has been a graveyard for people with grand projects .
In the Middle East , he added , your enemies always seem to `` find a way of joining together and suddenly making things very difficult for you .
By the time I got there last Sunday , the fire at the Marfin Egnatia Bank on Stadiou Street here had been extinguished , but the charcoal smell of the torched bank interior still wafted out onto the sidewalk through the broken windows
Ever since Greek anarchists firebombed the bank on May 5 , killing three employees who had defied a general strike , the Marfin bank has become an impromptu shrine
A huge pile of bouquets , teddy bears and scribbled condolence notes grew by the hour on the sidewalk out front , as Athenians kept on coming to pay their respects to the innocents killed inside
People would lay down a rose and then just stare at the building or read the handwritten messages pasted all over the facade
My own eye went to a colorful drawing , clearly done by a child , of a burning building and people screaming `` help , help '' from upper windows
Under it was written , in Greek : `` In what kind of a world will I grow up
Lydia , age 10 .
A good question , Lydia
The Marfin bank was ground zero for the global meltdown 10 days ago
As soon as TV footage of the bank employees trapped in the blaze hit the news channels , it sparked fears that Greece would default on its massive debts held by other European banks
That triggered a steep decline in the euro and the shares of European banks
That plunge was then exacerbated by news of the inconclusive election in Britain , and , finally , all of it together helped fuel the sudden 1,000-point drop in the Dow on Wall Street
And that is where I would start to answer Lydia : You are growing up in an increasingly integrated world where we 'll all need to be guided by the simple credo of the global nature-preservation group Conservation International , and that is : `` Lost there , felt here .
Conservation International coined that phrase to remind us that our natural world and climate constitute a tightly integrated system , and when species , forests and ocean life are depleted in one region , their loss will eventually be felt in another
And what is true for Mother Nature is true for markets and societies
When Greeks binge and rack up billions of euros of debt , Germans have to dig into their mattresses and bail them out because they are all connected in the European Union
Lost in Athens , felt in Berlin
Lost on Wall Street , felt in Iceland
Yes , such linkages have been around for years
But today so many more of us are just so much more deeply intertwined with each other and with the natural world
That is why Dov Seidman , the C.E.O. of LRN , which helps companies build ethical cultures , and author of the book `` How , '' argues that we are now in the `` Era of Behavior .
Of course , behavior always mattered
But today , notes Seidman , how each of us behaves , consumes , does business , builds or does n't build trust with others matters more than ever
Because each of us , each of our banks , each of our companies , now has the power to impact , for good or ill , so many more people 's lives through so many more channels - from day-trading to mortgage-lending to Twitter to Internet-enabled terrorism
`` As technology has made us more interconnected with others around the world , it has also made us more ethically interdependent with others around the world , '' argues Seidman
Indeed , in a world where our demand for Chinese-made sneakers produces pollution that melts South America 's glaciers , in a world where Greek tax-evasion can weaken the euro , threaten the stability of Spanish banks and tank the Dow , our values and ethical systems eventually have to be harmonized as much as our markets
To put it differently , as it becomes harder to shield yourself from the other guy 's irresponsibility , both he and you had better become more responsible
But that has n't been the trend
We 've become absorbed by shorter and shorter-term thinking - from Wall Street quarterly thinking to politician-24-hour-cable-news-cycle thinking
We 're all day-traders now
We have day-thinking politicians trying to regulate day-trading bankers , all covered by people tweeting on Twitter
So more and more of us are behaving by , what Seidman calls , `` situational values '' : I do whatever the situation allows
Think Goldman Sachs or BP
The opposite of situational values , argues Seidman , are `` sustainable values '' : values that inspire in us behaviors that literally sustain our relationships with one another , with our communities , with our institutions , and with our forests , oceans and climate
Of course , to counter this epidemic of situational thinking , we need more and better regulations , but we also need more people behaving better
Regulations only tell you what you can or ca n't do in certain situations
Sustainable values inspire you to do what you should do in every situation
How do we get more people behaving sustainably in the market and Mother Nature
That is a leadership and educational challenge
Regulations are imposed - values are inspired , celebrated and championed
They have to come from moms and dads , teachers and preachers , presidents and thought leaders
If there is another way , please write me
I 'll leave a note for Lydia
Have you heard
I have
I heard that Barack Obama once said there has to be `` an end '' to the Israeli `` occupation '' of the West Bank `` that began in 1967 .
Have you heard
I have
I heard that Barack Obama said that not only must Israel be secure , but that any peace agreement `` must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people .
Have you heard
I have
I heard that Barack Obama once said `` the establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue
The Palestinian people deserve it .
Those are the kind of rumors one can hear circulating among American Jews these days about whether Barack Obama harbors secret pro-Palestinian leanings
I confess : All of the above phrases are accurate
I did not make them up
There 's just one thing : None of them were uttered by Barack Obama
They are all direct quotes from President George W. Bush in the last two years
Mr. Bush , long hailed as a true friend of Israel , said all those things
What does that tell you
It tells me several things
The first is that America today has rightly a bipartisan approach to Arab-Israeli peace that is not going to change no matter who becomes our next president
America , whether under a Republican or Democratic administration , is now committed to a two-state solution in which the Palestinians get back the West Bank , Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem , and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank , offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel
The notion that a President Barack Obama would have a desire or ability to walk away from this consensus American position is ludicrous
But given the simmering controversy over whether Mr. Obama is `` good for Israel , '' it 's worth exploring this question : What really makes a pro-Israel president
Personally , as an American Jew , I do n't vote for president on the basis of who will be the strongest supporter of Israel
I vote for who will make America strongest
It 's not only because this is my country , first and always , but because the single greatest source of support and protection for Israel is an America that is financially and militarily strong , and globally respected
Nothing would imperil Israel more than an enfeebled , isolated America
I do n't doubt for a second President Bush 's gut support for Israel , and I think it comes from his gut
He views Israel as a country that shares America 's core democratic and free-market values
That is not unimportant
But what matters a lot more is that under Mr. Bush , America today is neither feared nor respected nor liked in the Middle East , and that his lack of an energy policy for seven years has left Israel 's enemies and America 's enemies the petro-dictators and the terrorists they support stronger than ever
The rise of Iran as a threat to Israel today is directly related to Mr. Bush 's failure to succeed in Iraq and to develop alternatives to oil
Does that mean Mr. Obama would automatically do better
I do n't know
To me , U.S. presidents succeed or fail when it comes to Arab-Israeli diplomacy depending on two criteria that have little to do with what 's in their hearts
The first , and most important , is the situation on the ground and the readiness of the parties themselves to take the lead , irrespective of what America is doing
Anwar Sadat 's heroic overture to Israel , and Menachem Begin 's response , made the Jimmy Carter-engineered Camp David peace treaty possible
The painful , post-1973 war stalemate between Israel and Egypt and Syria made Henry Kissinger 's disengagement agreements possible
The collapse of the Soviet Union and America 's defeat of Iraq in the first gulf war made possible James Baker 's success in putting the Madrid peace process together
What all three of these U.S. statesmen had in common , though and this is the second criterion was that when history gave them an opening , they seized it , by being tough , cunning and fair with both sides
I do n't want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs ' face too , or one who , as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it , `` loves Israel to death '' by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America 's interest , like building settlements all over the West Bank
It 's a tricky business
But if Israel is your voting priority , then at least ask the right questions about Mr. Obama
Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what 's in his heart on Israel -LRB- what was in Richard Nixon 's heart ?
and focus first on what kind of America you think he 'd build and second on whether you believe that as president he 'd have the smarts , steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises
Maureen Dowd is off today
I say that not because I endorse the dishonest conservative critique that the gulf oil spill is somehow Obama 's Katrina and that he is displaying the same kind of incompetence that George W. Bush did after that hurricane
To the contrary , Obama 's team has done a good job coordinating the cleanup so far
The president has been on top of it from the start
No , the gulf oil spill is not Obama 's Katrina
It 's his 9\/11 - and it is disappointing to see him making the same mistake George W. Bush made with his 9\/11
Sept. 11 , 2001 , was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times
President Bush 's greatest failure was not Iraq , Afghanistan or Katrina
It was his failure of imagination after 9\/11 to mobilize the country to get behind a really big initiative for nation-building in America
I suggested a $ 1-a-gallon `` Patriot Tax '' on gasoline that could have simultaneously reduced our deficit , funded basic science research , diminished our dependence on oil imported from the very countries whose citizens carried out 9\/11 , strengthened the dollar , stimulated energy efficiency and renewable power and slowed climate change
It was the Texas oilman 's Nixon-to-China moment - and Bush blew it
Had we done that on the morning of 9\/12 - when gasoline averaged $ 1.66 a gallon - the majority of Americans would have signed on
They wanted to do something to strengthen the country they love
Instead , Bush told a few of us to go to war and the rest of us to go shopping
So today , gasoline costs twice as much at the pump , with most of that increase going to countries hostile to our values , while China is rapidly becoming the world 's leader in wind , solar , electric cars and high-speed rail
Heck of a job
Sadly , President Obama seems intent on squandering his environmental 9\/11 with a Bush-level failure of imagination
So far , the Obama policy is : `` Think small and carry a big stick .
He is rightly hammering the oil company executives
But he is offering no big strategy to end our oil addiction
Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have unveiled their new energy bill , which the president has endorsed but only in a very tepid way
Why tepid
Because Kerry-Lieberman embraces vitally important fees on carbon emissions that the White House is afraid will be exploited by Republicans in the midterm elections
The G.O.P. , they fear , will scream carbon `` tax '' at every Democrat who would support this bill , and Obama , having already asked Democrats to make a hard vote on health care , feels he ca n't ask them for another
I do n't buy it
In the wake of this historic oil spill , the right policy - a bill to help end our addiction to oil - is also the right politics
The people are ahead of their politicians
So is the U.S. military
There are many conservatives who would embrace a carbon tax or gasoline tax if it was offset by a cut in payroll taxes or corporate taxes , so we could foster new jobs and clean air at the same time
If Republicans label Democrats `` gas taxers '' then Democrats should label them `` Conservatives for OPEC '' or `` Friends of BP .
Shill , baby , shill
Why is Obama playing defense
Just how much oil has to spill into the gulf , how much wildlife has to die , how many radical mosques need to be built with our gasoline purchases to produce more Times Square bombers , before it becomes politically `` safe '' for the president to say he is going to end our oil addiction
Indeed , where is `` The Obama End to Oil Addiction Act ''
Why does everything have to emerge from the House and Senate
What does he want
What is his vision
What are his redlines
I do n't know
But I do know that without a fixed , long-term price on carbon , none of the president 's important investments in clean power research and development will ever scale
Obama has assembled a great team that could help him make his case - John Holdren , science adviser ; Carol Browner , energy adviser ; Energy Secretary Steven Chu , a Nobel Prize winner ; and Lisa Jackson , chief of the Environmental Protection Agency
But they have been badly underutilized by the White House
I know endangered species that are seen by the public more often than them
Obama is not just our super-disaster-coordinator
`` He is our leader , '' noted Tim Shriver , the chairman of Special Olympics
`` And being a leader means telling the rest of us what 's our job , what do we need to do to make this a transformative moment .
Please do n't tell us that our role is just to hate BP or shop in Mississippi or wait for a commission to investigate
We know the problem , and Americans are ready to be enlisted for a solution
Of course we ca n't eliminate oil exploration or dependence overnight , but can we finally start
Mr. President , your advisers are wrong : Americans are craving your leadership on this issue
Are you going to channel their good will into something that strengthens our country - `` The Obama End to Oil Addiction Act '' - or are you going squander your 9\/11 , too
There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to
The real story , the next president may discover , though , is how few countries are waiting around for us to call
It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once with so few in America 's favor
Let 's start with the most profound one : More and more , I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work , as devastating as that has been
It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications the failure after 9\/11 to put in place an effective energy policy
It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour , buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our `` addiction to oil .
The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world the U.S. economy to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states from Russia to Venezuela to Iran that are reshaping global politics in their own image
If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues , power will follow
According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft , with oil at $ 200 a barrel , OPEC could `` potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production , Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days .
But that 's not all
Two compelling new books have just been published that describe two other big power shifts : `` The Post-American World , '' by Fareed Zakaria , the editor of Newsweek International , and `` Superclass '' by David Rothkopf , a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment
Mr. Zakaria 's central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets , `` the rise of the rest '' the Chinas , the Indias , the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America 's level of economic clout and self-assertion , in every realm
`` Today , India has 18 all-news channels of its own , '' notes Zakaria
`` And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media
The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative , where it is at the center .
For too long , argues Zakaria , America has taken its many natural assets its research universities , free markets and diversity of human talent and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness
`` That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing , '' argues Zakaria , but now the best of the rest are running fast , working hard , saving well and thinking long term
`` They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game , '' he said
If we do n't fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness , he added , `` the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise .
Mr. Rothkopf 's book argues that on many of the most critical issues of our time , the influence of all nation-states is waning , the system for addressing global issues among nation-states is more ineffective than ever , and therefore a power void is being created
This void is often being filled by a small group of players `` the superclass '' a new global elite , who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders
Some of this new elite `` are from business and finance , '' says Rothkopf
`` Some are members of a kind of shadow elite criminals and terrorists
Some are masters of new or traditional media ; some are religious leaders , and a few are top officials of those governments that do have the ability to project their influence globally .
The next president will have to manage these new rising states and these new rising individuals and networks , while wearing the straightjacket left in the Oval Office by Mr. Bush
`` Call it the triple deficit , '' said Mr. Rothkopf
`` A fiscal deficit that will soon have us choosing between rationed health care , sufficient education , adequate infrastructure and traditional levels of defense spending , a trade deficit that has us borrowing from our rivals to the point of real vulnerability , and a geopolitical deficit that is a legacy of Iraq , which may result in hesitancy to take strong stands where we must .
The first rule of holes is when you 're in one , stop digging
When you 're in three , bring a lot of shovels
The veteran global investor Mohamed El-Erian , who runs Pimco and has lived through many a financial crisis , recently issued a report describing the new , perilous state of today 's global economy
He described it like this : `` The world is on a journey to an unstable destination , through unfamiliar territory , on an uneven road and , critically , having already used its spare tire .
I like that image
America used its spare tire to prevent a collapse of the banking system and to stimulate the economy after the subprime market crash
The European Union used its spare tire on its own economic stimulus and then to prevent a run on European banks triggered by the meltdown in Greece
This all better work , because we 're not only living in a world without any more spares but also in a world without distance
Nations are more tightly integrated than ever before
We 're driving bumper to bumper with every other major economy today , so misbehavior or mistakes anywhere can cause a global pileup
And that leads to the real point of this column : In this kind of world , leadership at every level of government and business matters more than ever
We have no margin of error anymore , no time for politics as usual or suboptimal legislation
But what does that mean , `` leadership ''
When El-Erian says we have no spare , he means we have a much diminished pool of resources , whether to moderate the impact of markets when they go haywire or to fund better health care , schools and infrastructure for growth
So leadership today is all about taking innovative actions that generate new capabilities and resources - and being smart and disciplined about every dime we spend and invest
We just emptied our Treasury for a bailout
Did it merely provide a needed short-term jolt to the economy , or will it end up making us much fitter and more competitive so we can drive our economy farther and faster
I am still not sure
We just passed a health care bill
Will that increase our leverage and resources as a society or just add another set of liabilities that will require new credit lines from China
I am still not sure
We 're passing a new financial regulation bill
Are we just pretending to solve the problem or will this new law add to our capacity to generate the resources to cushion the next crisis and fund the next start-up
I am still not sure
A lot will depend on the execution
Similarly , in Mother Nature we are also losing our margins for error
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday that the planet 's average temperature for April was 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit , the hottest for any April on record
The more we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere , the more we expose ourselves to a sudden , unpredictable climate disruption
The more we blithely remain addicted to oil , and not face up to all its negative geopolitical and environmental consequences , the more we invite sudden catastrophes like the gulf spill
I think many Americans understand this at some intuitive level
In this economic climate , people know they need to be smarter , more frugal and make tougher choices in their private lives
They know they ca n't fake it or fool themselves anymore , so they have much less tolerance for politicians who want to do that in our public life
And I do n't think they are alone
I was in Britain for the recent election there , and I was struck at how easily they put together a rare coalition government , bringing together Conservatives and Liberal Democrats , to generate the broad political base needed to make the sacrifices and hard choices they ca n't avoid
German lawmakers on Friday voted to fund the Greek bailout
Greeks are protesting the austerity being imposed on them , but they are also taking their fiscal medicine - for now
Writing about the recent U.S. elections , the Politics Daily columnist Walter Shapiro noted : `` The hopeful message buried in all these election returns is that voters are tired of being toyed with
The problems afflicting America are too grave to tolerate the cynical , cling-to-power-at-all-costs cynicism of Arlen Specter and other Capitol Hill Machiavellis
The choices voters make in their desperate quest for authenticity are not always wise or well grounded in reality
But politicians and pundits - obsessively calculating partisan advantage like Scrooge counted shillings - will ignore at their own peril the stirrings of idealism among voters in both parties .
I really hope he is right
Winston Churchill famously observed that , `` You can always trust the Americans
In the end , they will do the right thing , after they have eliminated all the other possibilities .
Is that still true for our generation
We 're going to find out
The time for bluffing ourselves is over
Are we going to do what it takes to fix our country , or are we going to be remembered as the generation that received more poker chips from their parents than any other and then had to turn around and toss a single chip to their kids and tell them to put it on `` Lucky 21 '' - and hope for the best
Every once in a while as a journalist you see a scene that grips you and will not let go , a scene that is at once so uplifting and so cruel it 's difficult to even convey in words
I saw such a scene last weekend at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore
It was actually a lottery , but no ordinary lottery
The winners did n't win cash , but a ticket to a better life
The losers left with their hopes and lottery tickets crumpled
The event was a lottery to choose the first 80 students who will attend a new public boarding school the SEED School of Maryland based in Baltimore
I went along because my wife is on the SEED Foundation board
The foundation opened its first school 10 years ago in Washington , D.C. , as the nation 's first college-prep , public , urban boarding school
Baltimore is its second campus
The vast majority of students are African-American , drawn from the most disadvantaged and violent school districts
SEED Maryland was admitting boys and girls beginning in sixth grade
They will live in a dormitory insulated from the turmoil of their neighborhoods
In Washington , nearly all SEED graduates have gone on to four-year colleges , including Princeton and Georgetown
Because its schools are financed by both private and public funds , SEED can offer this once-in-a-lifetime , small-class-size , prep-school education for free , but it ca n't cherry-pick its students
It has to be open to anyone who applies
The problem is that too many people apply , so it has to choose them by public lottery
SEED Maryland got more than 300 applications for 80 places
The families all crowded into the Notre Dame auditorium , clutching their lottery numbers like rosaries
On stage , there were two of those cages they use in church-sponsored bingo games
Each ping-pong ball bore the lottery number of a student applicant
One by one , a lottery volunteer would crank the bingo cage , a ping-pong ball would roll out , the number would be read and someone in the audience would shriek with joy , while everyone else slumped just a little bit lower
One fewer place left ... It was impossible to watch all those balls tumbling around inside the cage and not see them as the people in that room tumbling around inside , waiting to see who would be the lucky one to slide out and be blessed
No wonder a portrait of hope and anxiety was on every face
`` I am so hopeful about the school and just so overwhelmingly anxious about what happens to the students who do n't get in , '' said Dawn Lewis , the head of the SEED Maryland school
`` During the six or seven months of recruiting , we heard all the stories of all the problems these kids are confronting in their schools , and each time -LRB- parents -RRB- would tell us , ` This kind of school is the answer the thing this child needs to be successful .
When we were completing the applications , we received so many letters from guidance counselors and teachers and principals and even pastors saying , ` Please , just exempt this kid from the lottery because without this , there is no chance for this kid , there may not be another opportunity . '
If you think that parents from the worst inner-city neighborhoods do n't aspire for something better for their kids , a lottery like this will dispel that illusion real fast
Ms. Lewis said she 's seen people on crack walking their kids to school
`` We had parents who came into our office who were clearly strung out , '' she added
`` They could not read or write , but they got themselves there and said , ' I need help on this application ' for their son or daughter
Families do want the best for their children
If they have a chance , they do n't want their kids to inherit their problems
... These aspirations are so underserved .
Ms. Lewis said that she and her colleagues would meet with parents begging to get their kids in , help them fill out the applications and then , after the parents left , go into their offices , shut the door and cry
Tony Cherry 's son Noah , an 11-year-old from Baltimore County , was one of the lucky ones whose number got pulled
`` His teacher said if he got picked they 're going to have a party for him , '' said Mr. Cherry
`` This is a good opportunity
It 's going to give him a chance
... Wish they could take all of them .
Not everyone selected was in attendance , said Carol Beck , SEED 's director of new schools development
So , on Monday SEED notified those who had won
`` We called one school counselor the next day and told her that so-and-so was chosen , '' said Ms. Beck , `` and she said : ` Thank you
You have just saved this child 's life . '
There are so many good reasons to finish our nation-building in Iraq and resume our nation-building in America , but none more than this : There 's something wrong when so much of an American child 's future is riding on the bounce of a ping-pong ball
I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Iran 's president , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , joining his Brazilian counterpart , Luiz In cio Lula da Silva , and the Turkish prime minister , Recep Tayyip Erdogan , with raised arms - after their signing of a putative deal to defuse the crisis over Iran 's nuclear weapons program - all I could think of was : Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying , vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they , too , can play at the big power table
`` For years , nonaligned and developing countries have faulted America for cynically pursuing its own interests without regard for human rights , '' observed Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment
`` As Turkey and Brazil aspire to play on the global stage , they 're going to face the same criticisms they once doled out
Lula and Erdogan 's visit to Iran came just days after Iran executed five political prisoners who were tortured into confessions
They warmly embraced Ahmadinejad as their brother , but did n't mention a word about human rights
There seems to be a mistaken assumption that the Palestinians are the only people that seek justice in the Middle East , and if you just invoke their cause you can coddle the likes of Ahmadinejad .
Turkey and Brazil are both nascent democracies that have overcome their own histories of military rule
For their leaders to embrace and strengthen an Iranian president who uses his army and police to crush and kill Iranian democrats - people seeking the same freedom of speech and political choice that Turks and Brazilians now enjoy - is shameful
`` Lula is a political giant , but morally he has been a deep disappointment , '' said Mois s Na m , editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine and a former trade minister in Venezuela
Lula , Na m noted , `` has supported the thwarting of democracy across Latin America .
He regularly praises Venezuela 's strongman Hugo Ch vez and Fidel Castro , the Cuban dictator - and now Ahmadinejad - while denouncing Colombia , one of the great democratic success stories , because it let U.S. planes use Colombian airfields to fight narco-traffickers
`` Lula has been great for Brazil but terrible for his democratic neighbors , '' said Na m. Lula , who rose to prominence as a progressive labor leader in Brazil , has turned his back on the violently repressed labor leaders of Iran
Sure , had Brazil and Turkey actually persuaded the Iranians to verifiably end their whole suspected nuclear weapons program , America would have endorsed it
But that is not what happened
Iran today has about 4,850 pounds of low-enriched uranium
Under the May 17 deal , it has supposedly agreed to send some 2,640 pounds from its stockpile to Turkey for conversion into the type of nuclear fuel needed to power Tehran 's medical reactor - a fuel that can not be used for a bomb
But that would still leave Iran with a roughly 2,200-pound uranium stockpile , which it still refuses to put under international inspection and is free to augment and continue to reprocess to the higher levels needed for a bomb
Experts say it would only take months for Iran to again amass sufficient quantity for a nuclear weapon
So what this deal really does is what Iran wanted it to do : weaken the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors , and , as a special bonus , legitimize Ahmadinejad on the anniversary of his crushing the Iranian democracy movement that was demanding a recount of Iran 's tainted June 2009 elections
In my view , the `` Green Revolution '' in Iran is the most important , self-generated , democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades
It has been suppressed , but it is not going away , and , ultimately , its success - not any nuclear deal with the Iranian clerics - is the only sustainable source of security and stability
We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal
As Abbas Milani , an Iran expert at Stanford University , put it to me : `` The only long-term solution to the impasse is for a more democratic , responsible , transparent regime in Tehran
It has been , in my view , a great con game successfully played by the clerical regime to make the nuclear issue the almost sole focal point of its relations with the U.S. and the West
The West should have always followed a two-track policy : earnest negotiations on the nuclear issue and no less earnest discussion on the issues of human rights and democracy in Iran .
I 'd prefer that Iran never get a bomb
The world would be much safer without more nukes , especially in the Middle East
But if Iran does go nuclear , it makes a huge difference whether a democratic Iran has its finger on the trigger or this current murderous clerical dictatorship
Anyone working to delay that and to foster real democracy in Iran is on the side of the angels
Anyone who enables this tyrannical regime and gives cover for its nuclear mischief will one day have to answer to the Iranian people
Imagine for a minute , just a minute , that someone running for president was able to actually tell the truth , the real truth , to the American people about what would be the best I mean really the best energy policy for the long-term economic health and security of our country
I realize this is a fantasy , but play along with me for a minute
What would this mythical , totally imaginary , truth-telling candidate say
For starters , he or she would explain that there is no short-term fix for gasoline prices
Prices are what they are as a result of rising global oil demand from India , China and a rapidly growing Middle East on top of our own increasing consumption , a shortage of `` sweet '' crude that is used for the diesel fuel that Europe is highly dependent upon and our own neglect of effective energy policy for 30 years
Cynical ideas , like the McCain-Clinton summertime gas-tax holiday , would only make the problem worse , and reckless initiatives like the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep offer to subsidize gasoline for three years for people who buy its gas guzzlers are the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers
I ca n't say it better than my friend Tim Shriver , the chairman of Special Olympics , did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post : `` So Dodge wants to sell you a car you do n't really want to buy , that is not fuel-efficient , will further damage our environment , and will further subsidize oil states , some of which are on the other side of the wars we 're currently fighting
... The planet be damned , the troops be forgotten , the economy be ignored : buy a Dodge .
No , our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way : guarantee people a high price of gasoline forever
This candidate would note that $ 4-a-gallon gasoline is really starting to impact driving behavior and buying behavior in way that $ 3-a-gallon gas did not
The first time we got such a strong price signal , after the 1973 oil shock , we responded as a country by demanding and producing more fuel-efficient cars
But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s , we let Detroit get us readdicted to gas guzzlers , and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today
We must not make that mistake again
Therefore , what our mythical candidate would be proposing , argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr. , is a `` price floor '' for gasoline : $ 4 a gallon for regular unleaded , which is still half the going rate in Europe today
Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level
If it does , it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price
To ease the burden on the less well-off , `` anyone earning under $ 80,000 a year would be compensated with a reduction in the payroll taxes , '' said Verleger
Or , he suggested , the government could use the gasoline tax to buy back gas guzzlers from the public and `` crush them .
But the message going forward to every car buyer and carmaker would be this : The price of gasoline is never going back down
Therefore , if you buy a big gas guzzler today , you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills
You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home
At the same time , if you , a manufacturer , continue building fleets of nonhybrid gas guzzlers , you are condemning yourself , your employees and shareholders to oblivion
What a cruel thing for a candidate to say
I disagree
Every decade we look back and say : `` If only we had done the right thing then , we would be in a different position today .
But no politician dared to do so
When gasoline was $ 2 a gallon , the government never would have imposed a $ 2 tax
Now that it is $ 4 a gallon , the government should at least keep it there , since it is really having the right effect
I was visiting my local Toyota dealer in Bethesda , Md. , last week to trade in one hybrid car for another
There is now a two-month wait to buy a Prius , which gets close to 50 miles per gallon
The dealer told me I was lucky
My hybrid was going up in value every day , so I did n't have to worry about waiting a while for my new car
But if it were not a hybrid , he said , he would deduct each day $ 200 from the trade-in price for every $ 1-a-barrel increase in the OPEC price of crude oil
When I saw the rows and rows of unsold S.U.V. 's parked in his lot , I understood why
We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy
Ultimately , we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars
The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change
Barack Obama had the courage to tell voters that the McCain-Clinton summer gas-giveaway plan was a fraud
Would n't it be amazing if he took the next step and put the right plan before the American people
Would n't that just be amazing
This is a strange time for U.S.-Mexico relations
The Mexican government just issued a travel advisory warning Mexicans about going to Arizona where they could get arrested by the police for no reason and the U.S. government just issued a travel advisory warning Americans about going to northern Mexico where they could get shot by drug dealers for no reason
Meanwhile , Wal-Mart de Mexico is expected to open 300 new stores in Mexico this year , thanks to growing Mexican demand for consumer goods
And Mexico 's drug cartels will probably open just as many new smuggling routes into America thanks to our growing demand for marijuana , cocaine and crystal meth
We take the Mexican-American relationship for granted
But with the drug wars in Mexico turning into Wild West shootouts on city streets and with our own immigration politics turning more heated , what 's happening in Mexico has become much more critical to American foreign policy and merits more of our attention
Mexico is not Afghanistan , but it also has not become all that it hoped to be by now
Something feels stalled here
Three groups are now wrestling to shape Mexico 's future
I 'd call them `` the Narcos , '' `` the No 's '' and `` the Naftas .
Root for the Naftas
The Narcos are the drug cartels who are now brazenly attacking each other in turf wars and challenging the state for control of towns
The success of U.S. and Colombian efforts to interdict drug trafficking through the Caribbean and north from Colombia have pushed the cartels to relocate their main smuggling up through the spine of Mexico
President Felipe Calder n is bravely trying to take them on , but the Narcos have bigger guns than the Mexican Army most smuggled in from U.S. gun stores
The Mexican daily Reforma reported last week that `` the recent wave of insecurity in Mexico has made businesses related to public security , automobile armoring , insurance , satellite positioning systems and bulletproof vests grow at an unprecedented level .
Companies in Mexico , it added , now invest between 1 percent and 3 percent of their sales in security
In 2006 , it was just 0.5 percent
While the Narcos are the rising bad-news story here , the rising good-news story is Mexico 's burgeoning middle class sort of
Mexico has two middle classes
One lives off the oil pumped and exported by the state oil company Pemex , which funds 40 percent of the government 's budget
That budget sustains a web of salaries and subsidies to teachers ' unions , national electricity company workers , farmers unions , state employees and Pemex workers
I call this group the No 's because they are the primary force opposing any reform that would involve privatizing state-owned companies , like Pemex , opening the oil or electricity sectors to foreign investors or domestic competition , or bringing best-practices and accountability to Mexican schools , where union control has kept Mexico 's public education among the worst in the world
Fortunately , though , there is another rising middle class here , which the Mexican economist Luis de la Calle describes as the `` meritocratic middle class .
It 's people who came from the countryside to work in new industries spawned by Nafta
This rising middle class has a powerful aspiration to dig out of poverty
Mexico has standardized school achievement tests , so you can see how well schools in one neighborhood stack up against another
Some of the best results , said de la Calle , can now be found in small private schools in poor Mexico City neighborhoods where the Naftas reside
What is also striking , he added , are the names of the private schools in some of these poor Mexico City districts like Iztapalapa : `` They are called John F. Kennedy , Abraham Lincoln , Isaac Newton , Winston Churchill , Carlos Marx , Van Gogh and Instituto Wisdom .
Why such names
They are appealing to the aspirations of Mexicans , about 40 percent of whom live below the poverty line but 75 percent of whom identify themselves as `` middle class '' in polls
De la Calle also studied the top 50 Mexican baby names in 2008
The most popular for girls , he said , included `` Elizabeth , Evelyn , Abigail , Karen , Marilyn and Jaqueline , and for boys Alexander , Jonathan , Kevin , Christian and Bryan .
Not only Juans
`` We have two middle classes , '' he said
`` One comes from teachers ' unions and Pemex and power companies , who milk the Mexican government
These are the middle-class conservatives , and they want to preserve the status quo
But there is a rising and far larger Mexican middle class coming up from the bottom who send their kids to the Instituto Wisdom and who have a meritocratic view of the world .
So here 's my prediction : When Mexico 's steadily falling oil production meets its rising meritocratic middle class , you will see real political\/economic reform here
That is when the No 's will no longer have the resources to maintain the status quo , and that is when the Naftas from the Instituto Wisdom will demand the reforms that will enable them to realize their full potential
It took almost the entire press conference at the White House on Thursday for President Obama to find his voice in responding to the oil disaster in the gulf - and it is probably no accident that it seemed like the only unrehearsed moment
The president was trying to convey why he takes this problem so seriously , when he noted : `` When I woke this morning and I 'm shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says , ` Did you plug the hole yet , Daddy ?
Because I think everybody understands that when we are fouling the Earth like this , it has concrete implications - not just for this generation , but for future generations
I grew up in Hawaii where the ocean is sacred
And when you see birds flying around with oil all over their feathers and turtles dying , that does n't just speak to the immediate economic consequences of this ; this speaks to how are we caring for this incredible bounty that we have
And so sometimes when I hear folks down in Louisiana expressing frustrations , I may not always think that their comments are fair
On the other hand , I probably think to myself , ` These are folks who grew up fishing in these wetlands and seeing this as an integral part of who they are .
And to see that messed up in this fashion would be infuriating .
And a child shall lead them
... This oil leak is not President Obama 's fault
Stopping the spill is BP 's responsibility ; it both caused it and it has the best access to the best technology to plug it
Of course , as the nation 's C.E.O. , Mr. Obama has to oversee the cleanup , and he has been on top of that
His most important job , though , is one he has yet to take on : shaping the long-term public reaction to the spill so that we can use it to generate the political will to break our addiction to oil
In that job , the most important thing Mr. Obama can do is react to this spill as a child would - because it is precisely that simple gut reaction , repeated over and over , speech after speech , that could change our national conversation on energy
You see , right now our energy conversation is dominated by three voices
There are the `` petro-determinists , '' who never tire of telling us that we 'll be dependent on oil for a `` long , long time .
That is true
The problem is , these same people have been telling us that ever since the first oil crisis in 1973 , and their real objective in doing so is not to help us understand that breaking our oil addiction is difficult , but to make us think that it is impossible - so do n't bother
Then there are the `` eco-pessimists , '' who argue that it is probably already too late
We are toast
Unless we rewire human beings to want less growth - not only ourselves but the millions in China and India who aspire to live like us - the end is nigh
The eco-pessimists may be right , and they are certainly sincere , but they have little respect for the power of innovation , the power of six billion minds all trying to solve one problem
Finally , we have the `` Obama realists .
These are the political pros who whisper to him every day that this is not the time to lay out a big new `` Obama End to Oil Addiction Act .
The Democrats , they contend , are suffering from `` legislative fatigue .
After casting a hard vote for health care , they do n't want to be asked to cast a supposedly hard vote for a price on carbon - the essential first step in getting off oil
And , they rightly add , the G.O.P. today is so cynical , so bought and paid for by Big Oil , that only a couple of Republican senators would have the courage and vision to vote for a price on carbon
So Democrats would be out there alone
The Obama realists make sure that the president is always careful to talk in vague terms about how he stands behind `` Waxman-Markey '' and `` Kerry-Lieberman '' - sterile Washington-speak for the House and Senate bills that attempt to put a small price on carbon
I am glad he is behind them ; I just wish he were in front of them
I am glad the president passed health care for the nation
But healthy to do what
To go where
To grasp what dream
Answering those questions is the president 's great opportunity here , but he has to think like a kid
Kids get it
They ask : Why would we want to stay dependent on an energy source that could destroy so many birds , fish , beaches and ecosystems before the next generation has a chance to enjoy them
Why are n't we doing more to create clean power and energy efficiency when so many others , even China , are doing so
And , Daddy , why ca n't you even mention the words `` carbon tax , '' when the carbon we spill into the atmosphere every day is just as dangerous to our future as the crude oil that has been spilling into the gulf
That is what a child would want to know if he or she could vote
That is the well of aspiration for a game-change on energy that Mr. Obama can tap into
And he could even rip off BP for his moon shot motto : Let 's get America `` Beyond Petroleum .
As you would say , Mr. President , this is your time , this is your moment
Seize it
A disaster is an inexcusable thing to waste
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book , I 've had my own opportunity to take the pulse , far from the campaign crowds
My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it 's this : People want to do nation-building
They really do
But they want to do nation-building in America
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan , with so little to show for it
They sense something deeper that we 're just not that strong anymore
We 're borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore
Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq , but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil
Our president 's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices
I guess there was some justice in that
When you , the president , after 9\/11 , tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil , it ends with you , the president , shopping the world for discount gasoline
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades , the Asian values of our parents ' generation work hard , study , save , invest , live within your means have given way to subprime values : `` You can have the American dream a house with no money down and no payments for two years .
That 's why Donald Rumsfeld 's infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times : `` You go to war with the army you have .
Hey , you march into the future with the country you have not the one that you need , not the one you want , not the best you could have
A few weeks ago , my wife and I flew from New York 's Kennedy Airport to Singapore
In J.F.K. 's waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit
Eighteen hours later , we landed at Singapore 's ultramodern airport , with free Internet portals and children 's play zones throughout
We felt , as we have before , like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons
If all Americans could compare Berlin 's luxurious central train station today with the grimy , decrepit Penn Station in New York City , they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II
How could this be
We are a great power
How could we be borrowing money from Singapore
Maybe it 's because Singapore is investing billions of dollars , from its own savings , into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world 's best talent including Americans
And us
Harvard 's president , Drew Faust , just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in `` downsized labs , layoffs of post docs , slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions .
Today , she added , `` China , India , Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals
Suddenly , those who train in America have significant options elsewhere .
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is `` toughening up '' Barack Obama so he 'll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks
Sorry , we do n't need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents
We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people
Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom
I 'm voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV at 8 p.m. from the White House East Room
Who will tell the people
We are not who we think we are
We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes
We still have all the potential for greatness , but only if we get back to work on our country
I do n't know if Barack Obama can lead that , but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people does n't matter is dead wrong
`` Of course , hope alone is not enough , '' says Tim Shriver , chairman of Special Olympics , `` but it 's not trivial
It 's not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else .
It is especially not trivial now , because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted enlisted to fix education , enlisted to research renewable energy , enlisted to repair our infrastructure , enlisted to help others
Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America
They want our country to matter again
They want it to be about building wealth and dignity big profits and big purposes
When we just do one , we are less than the sum of our parts
When we do both , said Shriver , `` no one can touch us .
There is only one meaningful response to the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and that is for America to stop messing around when it comes to designing its energy and environmental future
The only meaningful response to this man-made disaster is a man-made energy bill that would finally put in place an American clean-energy infrastructure that would set our country on a real , long-term path to ending our addiction to oil
That is so obviously the right thing for our environment , the right thing for our national security , the right thing for our economic security and the right thing to promote innovation
But it means that we have to stop messing around with idiotic `` drill , baby , drill '' nostrums , feel-good Earth Day concerts and the paralyzing notion that the American people are not prepared to do anything serious to change our energy mix
This oil spill is to the environment what the subprime mortgage mess was to the markets - both a wake-up call and an opportunity to galvanize a constituency for radical change that overcomes the powerful lobbies and vested interests that want to keep us addicted to oil
If President Obama wants to seize this moment , it is there for the taking
We have one of the worst environmental disasters in American history on our hands
We have a public deeply troubled by what they 've seen already - and they 've probably seen only the first reel of this gulf horror show
And we have a bipartisan climate\/energy\/jobs bill ready to be introduced in the Senate - produced by Senators John Kerry , Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham - that would set a price on carbon and begin to shift us to a system of cleaner fuels , greater energy efficiency and unlock an avalanche of private capital to the clean energy market
American industry is ready to act and is basically saying to Washington : `` Every major country in the world , starting with China , is putting in clear , long-term market rules to stimulate clean energy - except America
Just give us some clear rules , and we 'll do the rest .
The Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill is an important step in that direction
It is far from perfect
It includes support for more off-shore drilling , nuclear power and concessions to coal companies
In light of the spill , we need to make this bill better
At a minimum , we need much tighter safeguards on off-shore drilling
There is going to be a lot of pressure to go even further , but we need to remember that even if we halted all off-shore drilling , all we would be doing is moving the production to other areas outside the U.S. , probably with even weaker environmental laws
Somehow a compromise has to be found to move forward on this bill - or one like it
But even before the gulf oil spill , this bill was in limbo because the White House and Senate Democrats broke a promise to Senator Graham , the lone Republican supporting this effort , not to introduce a controversial immigration bill before energy
At the same time , President Obama has kept his support low-key , fearing that if he loudly endorses a price on carbon , Republicans will be screaming `` carbon tax '' and `` gasoline tax '' in the 2010 midterm elections
Bottom line : This bill has no chance to pass unless President Obama gets behind it with all his power , mobilizes the public and rounds up the votes
He has to lead from the front , not the rear
Responding to this oil spill could well become the most important leadership test of the Obama presidency
The president has always had the right instincts on energy , but he is going to have to decide just how much he wants to rise to this occasion - whether to generate just an emergency response that over months ends the spill or a systemic response that over time ends our addiction
Needless to say , it would be a lot easier for the president to lead if more than one Republican in the Senate was ready to lift a finger to help him
Our dependence on crude oil is not just a national-security or climate problem
Some 40 percent of America 's fish catch comes out of the gulf , whose states also depend heavily on coastal tourism
In addition , the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge
It was created by Teddy Roosevelt and is one of our richest cornucopias of biodiversity
As the energy consultant David Rothkopf likes to say , sometimes a problem reaches a point of acuity where there are just two choices left : bold action or permanent crisis
This is such a moment for our energy system and environment
If we settle for just an incremental response to this crisis - a `` Hey , that 's our democracy
What more can you expect ?
- we 'll be sorry
You ca n't fool Mother Nature
She knows when we 're just messing around
Mother Nature operates by her own iron laws
And if we violate them , there is no lobby or big donor to get us off the hook
No , what 's gone will be gone
What 's ruined will be ruined
What 's extinct will be extinct - and later , when we 're finally ready to stop messing around , it will be too late
Maureen Dowd is off today
There are two important recessions going on in the world today
One has gotten enormous attention
It 's the economic recession in America
But it will eventually pass , and the world will not be much worse for the wear
The other has gotten no attention
It 's called `` the democratic recession , '' and if it is n't reversed , it will change the world for a long time
The term `` democratic recession '' was coined by Larry Diamond , a Stanford University political scientist , in his new book `` The Spirit of Democracy .
And the numbers tell the story
At the end of last year , Freedom House , which tracks democratic trends and elections around the globe , noted that 2007 was by far the worst year for freedom in the world since the end of the cold war
Almost four times as many states 38 declined in their freedom scores as improved 10
What explains this
A big part of this reversal is being driven by the rise of petro-authoritarianism
I 've long argued that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse correlation which I call : `` The First Law of Petro-Politics .
As the price of oil goes up , the pace of freedom goes down
As the price of oil goes down , the pace of freedom goes up
`` There are 23 countries in the world that derive at least 60 percent of their exports from oil and gas and not a single one is a real democracy , '' explains Diamond
`` Russia , Venezuela , Iran and Nigeria are the poster children '' for this trend , where leaders grab the oil tap to ensconce themselves in power
But while oil is critical in blunting the democratic wave , it is not the only factor
The decline of U.S. influence and moral authority has also taken a toll
The Bush democracy-building effort in Iraq has been so botched , both by us and Iraqis , that America 's ability and willingness to promote democracy elsewhere has been damaged
The torture scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guant namo Bay also have not helped
`` There has been an enormous squandering of American soft power , and hard power , in recent years , '' said Diamond , who worked in Iraq as a democracy specialist
The bad guys know it and are taking advantage
And one place you see that most is in Zimbabwe , where President Robert Mugabe has been trying to steal an election , after years of driving his country into a ditch
I would say there is no more disgusting leader in the world today than Mugabe
The only one who rivals him is his neighbor and chief enabler and protector , South Africa 's president , Thabo Mbeki
Zimbabwe went to the polls on March 29 , and the government released the results only last week
Mugabe apparently decided that he could n't claim victory , since there was too much evidence to the contrary
So his government said that the opposition leader , Morgan Tsvangirai , had won 47.9 percent of the vote and Mugabe 42.3 percent
But since no one got 50 percent of the vote , under Zimbabwe law , there must now be a runoff
Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change claim to have won 50.3 percent of the vote and have to decide whether or not to take part in the runoff , which will be violent
Opposition figures have already been targeted by a state-led campaign of attacks and intimidation
If South Africa 's Mbeki had withdrawn his economic and political support for Mugabe 's government , Mugabe would have had to have resigned a long time ago
But Mbeki feels no loyalty to suffering Zimbabweans
His only loyalty is to his fellow anti-colonial crony , Mugabe
What was that anti-colonial movement for
So an African leader could enslave his people instead of a European one
What Mugabe has done to his country is one of the most grotesque acts of misgovernance ever
Inflation is so rampant that Zimbabweans have to carry their currency if they have any around in bags
Store shelves are bare ; farming has virtually collapsed ; crime by people just starving for food is rampant ; and the electric grid ca n't keep the lights on
What can the U.S. do
In Zimbabwe , we need to work with decent African leaders like Zambia 's Levy Mwanawasa to bring pressure for a peaceful transition
And with our Western allies , we should threaten to take Mugabe 's clique to the International Criminal Court in The Hague just as we did Serbia 's leaders if they continue to subvert the election
But we also need to do everything possible to develop alternatives to oil to weaken the petro-dictators
That 's another reason the John McCain-Hillary Clinton proposal to lift the federal gasoline tax for the summer so Americans can drive more and keep the price of gasoline up is not a harmless little giveaway
It 's not the end of civilization , either
It 's just another little nail in the coffin of democracy around the world
DEATH NOTICE : The Tooth Fairy died last night of complications related to obesity
Born Jan. 1 , 1946 , the Tooth Fairy is survived by 400 million children living largely in North America and Western Europe , known collectively as `` The Baby Boomers .
`` We 'll certainly miss the Tooth Fairy , '' one of them said following her death , which coincided with the 2010 British elections and rioting in Greece
The Tooth Fairy had only one surviving sibling who will now look after her offspring alone : Mr. Bond Market of Wall Street and the City of London
Sitting in America , it 's hard to grasp the importance of the British elections and the Greek riots
Nothing to do with us , right
Well , I 'd pay attention to the drama playing out here
It may be coming to a theater near you
The meta-story behind the British election , the Greek meltdown and our own Tea Party is this : Our parents were `` The Greatest Generation , '' and they earned that title by making enormous sacrifices and investments to build us a world of abundance
My generation , `` The Baby Boomers , '' turned out to be what the writer Kurt Andersen called `` The Grasshopper Generation .
We 've eaten through all that abundance like hungry locusts
Now we and our kids together need to become `` The Regeneration '' one that raises incomes anew but in a way that is financially and ecologically sustainable
It will take a big adjustment
We baby boomers in America and Western Europe were raised to believe there really was a Tooth Fairy , whose magic would allow conservatives to cut taxes without cutting services and liberals to expand services without raising taxes
The Tooth Fairy did it by printing money , by bogus accounting and by deluding us into thinking that by borrowing from China or Germany , or against our rising home values , or by creating exotic financial instruments to trade with each other , we were actually creating wealth
Greece , for instance , became the General Motors of countries
Like G.M. 's management , Greek politicians used the easy money and subsidies that came with European Union membership not to make themselves more competitive in a flat world , but more corrupt , less willing to collect taxes and uncompetitive
Under Greek law , anyone in certain `` hazardous '' jobs could retire with full pension at 50 for women and 55 for men including hairdressers who use a lot of chemical dyes and shampoos
In Britain , everyone over 60 gets an annual allowance to pay heating bills and can ride any local bus for free
That 's really sweet if you can afford it
But Britain , where 25 percent of the government 's budget is now borrowed , ca n't anymore
Britain and Greece are today 's poster children for the wrenching new post-Tooth Fairy politics , where baby boomers will have to accept deep cuts to their benefits and pensions today so their kids can have jobs and not be saddled with debts tomorrow
Otherwise , we 're headed for intergenerational conflict throughout the West
David Willetts , a British Conservative candidate and the author of a new book , `` The Pinch : How the baby boomers took their children 's future and how they can give it back , '' told me that the Tories ' most effective campaign ad was a poster showing a newborn baby under the headline : `` Dad 's eyes , Mum 's nose , Gordon Brown 's debt .
Beneath was the caption : `` Labour 's debt crisis : Every child in Britain is born owing 17,000
They deserve better .
What is most striking about the British election , said John Micklethwait , editor in chief of The Economist , was that it may be the first Western election `` based on pain .
All the leading candidates warned voters that `` cuts are coming , '' but none were even close to honest about how deep
Here is how The Financial Times described it on April 26 : `` The next government will have to cut public sector pay , freeze benefits , slash jobs , abolish a range of welfare entitlements and take the ax to programs such as school building and road maintenance .
Too bad no party won a majority mandate in the British elections to do this job
After 65 years in which politics in the West was , mostly , about giving things away to voters , it 's now going to be , mostly , about taking things away
Goodbye Tooth Fairy politics , hello Root Canal politics
It 's no fun
Just ask Greek parliamentarians , who , in the wake of announcing radical austerity measures , found their Parliament besieged by rioting anti-austerity protestors reportedly chanting , `` Burn it down
That brothel Parliament !
My takeaway is that U.S. and European politicians please do n't laugh are going to have to get a lot smarter and more honest
To be the Regeneration , they 'll have to figure out how to raise some taxes to increase revenues , while cutting other taxes to stimulate growth ; they 'll have to cut some services to save money , while investing in new infrastructure to grow economic capacity
We have got to use every dollar wisely now
Because we 've eaten through our reserves , because the lords of discipline , the Electronic Herd of bond traders , are back with a vengeance and because that Tooth Fairy , she be dead
Maureen Dowd is off today
Containment-Lite Do n't believe everything you read in the paper
Take this headline that appeared a couple weeks ago , when I was in New Delhi , in The Hindustan Times : `` U.S. Not Seeking to Contain China : Clinton .
It was referring to a statement made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while on a swing through Asia
No , Washington is not trying to contain China the way we once did the Soviet Union , but President Obama did n't just spend three days in India to improve his yoga
His visit was intended to let China know that America knows that India knows that Beijing 's recent `` aggressiveness , '' as one Indian minister put it to me , has China 's neighbors a bit on edge
None of China 's neighbors dare mention the C-word - containment - in public
Indeed , none of them want to go there at all or intend to promote such a policy
But there 's a new whiff of anxiety in the Asian air
All of China 's neighbors want China to know , as the sign says : `` Do n't even think about parking here .
Do n't even think about using your growing economic and military clout to just impose your claims in border disputes and over oil-rich islands in the South China Sea
Because , if you do , all of China 's neighbors will be doomed to become America 's new best friends - including India
That 's why each one of China 's neighbors is eager to have a picture of their president standing with Secretary Clinton or President Obama - with the unspoken caption that reads : `` Honestly , China , we do n't want to throttle you
We do n't want an Asian cold war
We just want to trade and be on good terms
But , please , stay between the white lines
Do n't even think about parking in my space because , if you do , I have this friend from Washington , and he 's really big
... And he 's got his own tow truck .
I 'd call this `` pre-containment '' or `` containment-lite '' - triggered in the last year by a sudden upsurge in China 's assertion of claims to all of the South China Sea
It marks a stark contrast to the mood in the region just two years ago
As Christian Caryl , a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine , noted in an Aug. 4 essay : China for years was being praised by Asian experts for being so shrewd , so clever , so deft , in building cultural and economic ties with all its neighbors - and outmaneuvering the stupid , oafish Americans
But in just six months , China has cast itself in the role of bully and prompted its neighbors to roll out the red carpets for Uncle Sam
`` In recent months , '' noted Caryl , `` Beijing has elevated its claims to territory in the South China Sea to the level of a ` core national interest ' on par with Tibet or Taiwan , and that has sparked considerable anger among the other countries in the region - including Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia , the Philippines , Taiwan , and Vietnam - that claim ownership of pieces of the sea
... Then , just in case the Americans and the Southeast Asians still did n't get the message , the Chinese Navy staged large-scale maneuvers in the sea , deploying ships from all three of its fleets
Admirals watched as the ships fired off volleys of missiles at imaginary enemies - all of it shown in loving detail by Chinese television .
China has also muscled Vietnam into halting its oil exploration in what Beijing claimed were Chinese territorial waters and forced Japan to release a Chinese fishing boat captain , who was arrested after a collision with two Japanese coast guard vessels near disputed islands in the East China Sea
China got its way with Japan by halting China 's exports to Japan of rare earth elements crucial for advanced manufacturing
`` With the Chinese Communist Party increasingly dependent on the military to maintain its monopoly on power and ensure domestic order , senior military officers are overtly influencing foreign policy , '' wrote Brahma Chellaney , a defense analyst at Delhi 's Center for Policy Research
But the Indians , like their fellow Asians , really do not want to go beyond containment-lite with China - for now
Sure India and China are at odds over borders and Pakistan , but China is now India 's largest trading partner
Also , never forget that Indian foreign policy has a long history of nonalignment
`` Until a year ago , the big Indian debate was how do we deal with American hegemony , '' said the Indian strategist C. Raja Mohan
Many of India 's older elites still fear U.S. `` imperialism '' and `` neo-Liberalism .
And , finally , says the Indian defense analyst Kanti Bajpai : `` Deep down , the Indians who pay attention in the strategic community sense that the Chinese are rising and the Americans are fading - and it does n't look like the Americans are going to fix their problems any time soon .
So do n't bet the silverware on America
No , India is not going to jump into America 's arms
But we 're not asking it to
Democracy , geopolitics , geography and economics are all combining to move America and India closer together
And that 's a good thing for both
If China plays it smart , Indian-American relations will never go beyond pre-containment
But if China does n't play it smart , Obama to India could one day become the new Nixon to China : my enemy 's enemy is my new best friend
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction : In an earlier version of this column , I mistook the last name of one of the Indian analysts
It should have been Kanti Bajpai
Last Tuesday , King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican the first audience ever by the head of the Catholic Church with a Saudi monarch
The Saudi king gave the pope two gifts : a golden sword studded with jewels , and a gold and silver statue depicting a palm tree and a man riding a camel
The BBC reported that the pope admired the statue but merely touched the sword
I think it is a great thing these two men met , and that King Abdullah came bearing gifts
But what would have really caught my attention and the world s would have been if King Abdullah had presented the pope with something truly daring : a visa
You see , the king of Saudi Arabia , also known as the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina , can visit the pope in the Vatican
But the pope can t visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam Mecca
Non-Muslims are not allowed there
Moreover , it is illegal to build a church , a synagogue or a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Saudi Arabia , or to practice any of these religions publicly
As BBCnews.com noted , some Christian worship services are held secretly , but the government has been known to crack down on them , or deport Filipino workers if they hold even private services
... The Saudi authorities cite a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad that only Islam can be practiced in the Arabian Peninsula
I raise this point because the issue of diversity how and under what conditions should the other be tolerated is roiling the Muslim world today , from Lebanon to Iraq to Pakistan
More churches and mosques have been blown up in the past few years than any time I can remember
A senior French official suggested to me that maybe we in the West , rather than trying to promote democracy in the Middle East a notion tainted by its association with the very Western powers that once colonized the region should be focusing on promoting diversity , which has historical roots in the area
It s a valid point
The very essence of democracy is peaceful rotations of power , no matter whose party or tribe is in or out
But that ethic does not apply in most of the Arab-Muslim world today , where the political ethos remains Rule or Die
Either my group is in power or I m dead , in prison , in exile or lying very low
But democracy is not about majority rule ; it is about minority rights
If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities , but actually treating them with equal rights , real democracy can t take root
But respect for diversity is something that has to emerge from within a culture
We can hold a free and fair election in Iraq , but we can t inject a culture of diversity
America and Europe had to go through the most awful civil wars to give birth to their cultures of diversity
The Arab-Muslim world will have to go through the same internal war of ideas
I just returned from India , which just celebrated 60 years of democracy
Pakistan , right next door , is melting down
Yet , they are basically the same people they look alike , they eat the same food , they dress alike
But there is one overriding difference : India has a culture of diversity
India is now celebrating 60 years of democracy precisely because it is also celebrating millennia of diversity , including centuries of Muslim rule
Nayan Chanda , author of a delightful new book on globalization titled Bound Together : How Traders , Preachers , Adventurers , and Warriors Shaped Globalization , recounts the role of all these characters in connecting our world
He notes : The Muslim Emperor Akbar , who ruled India in the 16th century at the pinnacle of the Mughal Empire , had Christians , Hindus , Jain and Zoroastrians in his court
Many of his senior officials were Hindus
On his deathbed , Jesuit priests tried to convert him , but he refused
Here was a man who knew who he was , yet he had respect for all religions
Nehru , a Hindu and India s first prime minister , was a great admirer of Akbar
Akbar wasn t just tolerant
He was embracing of other faiths and ideas , which is why his empire was probably the most powerful in Indian history
Pakistan , which has as much human talent as India , could use an Akbar
Ditto the Arab world
I give King Abdullah credit , though
His path-breaking meeting with the pope surely gave many Saudi clerics heartburn
But as historic as it was , it left no trace
I wished the pope had publicly expressed a desire to visit Saudi Arabia , and that the king would now declare : Someone has to chart a new path for our region
If I can meet the pope in the Vatican , I can host Christian , Jewish , Hindu , Shiite and Buddhist religious leaders for a dialogue in our sacred house
Why not
We are secure in our own faith
Let us all meet as equals
Why not
No matter how many times you hear them , there are some statistics that just bowl you over
The one that always stuns me is this : Imagine if you took all the cars , trucks , planes , trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year
The amount of carbon dioxide , or CO2 , all those cars , trucks , planes , trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil , Indonesia and the Congo
We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year , and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change
It is going to be a long time before we transform the world 's transportation fleet so it is emission-free
But right now like tomorrow we could eliminate 17 percent of all global emissions if we could halt the cutting and burning of tropical forests
But to do that requires putting in place a whole new system of economic development one that makes it more profitable for the poorer , forest-rich nations to preserve and manage their trees rather than to chop them down to make furniture or plant soybeans
Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics , you can kiss the rainforests goodbye
The old model of economic growth will devour them
The only Amazon your grandchildren will ever relate to is the one that ends in dot-com and sells books
To better understand this issue , I 'm visiting the Tapaj s National Forest in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon on a trip organized by Conservation International and the Brazilian government
Flying in here by prop plane from Manaus , you can understand why the Amazon rainforest is considered one of the lungs of the world
Even from 20,000 feet , all you see in every direction is an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops that , from the air , looks like a vast and endless carpet of broccoli
Once on the ground , we drove from Santar m into Tapaj s , where we met with the community cooperative that manages the eco-friendly businesses here that support the 8,000 local people living in this protected forest
What you learn when you visit with a tiny Brazilian community that actually lives in , and off , the forest is a simple but crucial truth : To save an ecosystem of nature , you need an ecosystem of markets and governance
`` You need a new model of economic development one that is based on raising people 's standards of living by maintaining their natural capital , not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging , '' said Jos Mar a Silva , vice president for South America of Conservation International
Right now people protecting the rainforest are paid a pittance compared with those who strip it even though we now know that the rainforest provides everything from keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere to maintaining the flow of freshwater into rivers
The good news is that Brazil has put in place all the elements of a system to compensate its forest-dwellers for maintaining the forests
Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples
Another 19 percent of the Amazon , though , has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers
So the big question is what will happen to the other 38 percent
The more we get the Brazilian system to work , the more of that 38 percent will be preserved and the less carbon reductions the whole world would have to make
But it takes money
The residents of the Tapaj s reserve are already organized into cooperatives that sell eco-tourism on rainforest trails , furniture and other wood products made from sustainable selective logging and a very attractive line of purses made from `` ecological leather , '' a k a , rainforest rubber
They also get government subsidies
Sergio Pimentel , 48 , explained to me that he used to farm about five acres of land for subsistence , but now is using only about one acre to support his family of six
The rest of the income comes through the co-op 's forest businesses
`` We were born inside the forest , '' he added
`` So we know the importance of it being preserved , but we need better access to global markets for the products we make here
Can you help us with that ?
There are community co-ops like this all over the protected areas of the Amazon rainforest
But this system needs money money to expand into more markets , money to maintain police monitoring and enforcement and money to improve the productivity of farming on already degraded lands so people wo n't eat up more rainforest
That is why we need to make sure that whatever energy-climate bill comes out of the U.S. Congress , and whatever framework comes out of the Copenhagen conference next month , they include provisions for financing rainforest conservation systems like those in Brazil
The last 38 percent of the Amazon is still up for grabs
It is there for us to save
Your grandchildren will thank you
Last September , I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning
They were interviewing Bob Nardelli , the C.E.O. of Chrysler , and he was explaining why the auto industry , at that time , needed $ 25 billion in loan guarantees
It was n't a bailout , he said
It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation
I could not help but shout back at the TV screen : `` We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate
What business were you people in other than innovation ?
If we give you another $ 25 billion , will you also do accounting
CNBC Interview with Thomas L. Friedman : Part 1 Part 2 How could these companies be so bad for so long
Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture , visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it
It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big , gas-guzzling S.U.V. 's and trucks
Therefore , instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency , productivity and design , G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers
This included striking special deals with Congress that allowed the Detroit automakers to count the mileage of gas guzzlers as being more than they really were provided they made some cars flex-fuel capable for ethanol
It included special offers of $ 1.99-a-gallon gasoline for a year to any customer who purchased a gas guzzler
And it included endless lobbying to block Congress from raising the miles-per-gallon requirements
The result was an industry that became brain dead
Nothing typified this more than statements like those of Bob Lutz , G.M. 's vice chairman
He has been quoted as saying that hybrids like the Toyota Prius `` make no economic sense .
And , in February , D Magazine of Dallas quoted him as saying that global warming `` is a total crock of -LRB- expletive -RRB- .
These are the guys taxpayers are being asked to bail out
And please , spare me the alligator tears about G.M. 's health care costs
Sure , they are outrageous
`` But then why did G.M. refuse to lift a finger to support a national health care program when Hillary Clinton was pushing for it ?
asks Dan Becker , a top environmental lobbyist
Not every automaker is at death 's door
Look at this article that ran two weeks ago on autochannel.com : `` ALLISTON , Ontario , Canada Honda of Canada Mfg. officially opened its newest investment in Canada a state-of-the art $ 154 million engine plant
The new facility will produce 200,000 fuel-efficient four-cylinder engines annually for Civic production in response to growing North American demand for vehicles that provide excellent fuel economy .
The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives , but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate , virtually all of whom , year after year , voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote
That shielded General Motors , Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns , mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago
Indeed , if and when they do have to bury Detroit , I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers
And no one has earned the `` honor '' of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell , the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator
O.K. , now that I have all that off my chest , what do we do
I am as terrified as anyone of the domino effect on industry and workers if G.M. were to collapse
But if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit , then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia , a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper
`` In return for any direct government aid , '' he wrote , `` the board and the management -LRB- of G.M. -RRB- should go
Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity
And a government-appointed receiver someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible
That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions , dealers and suppliers , closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company ... Giving G.M. a blank check which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want , and which Washington will be tempted to grant would be an enormous mistake .
I would add other conditions : Any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability , so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol
Lastly , somebody ought to call Steve Jobs , who does n't need to be bribed to do innovation , and ask him if he 'd like to do national service and run a car company for a year
I 'd bet it would n't take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar
Two dates two numbers
Read them and weep for what could have , and should have , been
On Sept. 11 , 2001 , the OPEC basket oil price was $ 25.50 a barrel
On Nov. 13 , 2007 , the OPEC basket price was around $ 90 a barrel
In the wake of 9\/11 , some of us pleaded for a patriot tax on gasoline of $ 1 or more a gallon to diminish the transfers of wealth we were making to the very countries who were indirectly financing the ideologies of intolerance that were killing Americans and in order to spur innovation in energy efficiency by U.S. manufacturers
But no , George Bush and Dick Cheney had a better idea
And the Democrats went along for the ride
They were all going to let the market work and not let our government shape that market like OPEC does
You d think that one person , just one , running for Congress or the Senate would take a flier and say : Oh , what the heck
I m going to lose anyway
Why not tell the truth
I ll support a gasoline tax
Not one
Everyone just runs away from the T-word and watches our wealth run away to Russia , Venezuela and Iran
I can t believe that someone could not win the following debate : REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE : My Democratic opponent , true to form , wants to raise your taxes
Yes , now he wants to raise your taxes at the gasoline pump by $ 1 a gallon
Another tax-and-spend liberal who wants to get into your pocket
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE : Yes , my opponent is right
I do favor a gasoline tax phased in over 12 months
But let s get one thing straight : My opponent and I are both for a tax
I just prefer that my taxes go to the U.S. Treasury , and he s ready to see his go to the Russian , Venezuelan , Saudi and Iranian treasuries
His tax finances people who hate us
Mine would offset some of our payroll taxes , pay down our deficit , strengthen our dollar , stimulate energy efficiency and shore up Social Security
It s called win-win-win-win-win for America
My opponent s strategy is sit back , let the market work and watch America lose-lose-lose-lose-lose
If you can t win that debate , you don t belong in politics
Think about it , says Phil Verleger , an energy economist
We could have replaced the current payroll tax with a gasoline tax
Middle-class consumers would have seen increased take-home pay of between six and nine percent , even though they would have had to pay more at the pump
A stronger foundation for future economic growth would have been laid by keeping more oil revenue home , and we might not now be facing a recession
As a higher gas tax discouraged oil consumption , the Harvard University economist and former Bush adviser N. Gregory Mankiw has argued : the price of oil would fall in world markets
As a result , the price of gas to -LRB- U.S. -RRB- consumers would rise by less than the increase in the tax
Some of the tax would in effect be paid by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela
But U.S. consumers would have known that , with a higher gasoline tax locked in for good , pump prices would never be going back to the old days , adds Mr. Verleger , so they would have a much stronger incentive to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles and Detroit would have had to make more hybrids to survive
This would have put Detroit five years ahead of where it is now
It s called the America wins program , said Mr. Verleger , instead of the petro-states win program
We simply can not go on being as dumb as we wanna be
If you hate the war in Iraq , then you want a gasoline tax so you can argue that we can pull out of there without remaining dependent on an even more unstable region
If you want to see us negotiate with Iran , not bomb it , you want a gasoline tax that will give us some real leverage by helping to reduce the income of the ayatollahs
If you re a conservative and you believed that the Iraq war was necessary to drive reform in the Middle East , but the war has failed to do that and we need Plan B for the same objective , you want a gasoline tax that will reduce the flow of wealth to petrolist leaders who will never change if all they have to do is drill well holes rather than educate and empower their people
If you want to see America thrive by becoming the most energy productive economy in the world a title that now belongs to Japan , which doesn t have a drop of oil in its soil you want a gasoline tax , which will only spur U.S. innovation in energy efficiency
President Bush squandered a historic opportunity to put America on a radically different energy course after 9\/11
But considering how few Democrats or Republicans are ready to tell the people the truth on this issue , maybe we have the president we deserve
I refuse to believe that , but I m starting to doubt myself
I Believe I Can Fly Reading the headlines these days , I ca n't help but repeat this truism : If you jump off the top of an 80-story building , for 79 floors you can think you 're flying
It 's the sudden stop at the end that tells you you 're not
It 's striking to me how many leaders and nations are behaving today as though they think they can fly - and ignoring that sudden stop at the end that 's sure to come
Where to begin
Well , first there 's Israel 's prime minister , Bibi Netanyahu , who has been telling everyone how committed he is to peace with the Palestinians while refusing to halt settlement building as a prerequisite for negotiations
At a time when Israel already has 300,000 settlers in the West Bank , Bibi says he ca n't possibly take another pause in building to test whether the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas - a man Israelis say is the best Palestinian security partner Israel has ever had - can forge a safe two-state deal for Israel
The U.S. is now basically trying to bribe Bibi to reverse his position
Maybe he will , but it 's unseemly to watch and does n't bode well
Rather than take the initiative and say to Arabs and Palestinians , `` You want a settlement freeze
Here it is , now let 's see what you 're ready to agree to , '' Netanyahu toys with President Obama , makes Israel look like it wants land more than peace and risks never forging a West Bank deal - thereby permanently absorbing its 2.5 million Palestinians and eventually no longer having a Jewish majority
That 's the sudden stop at the end - unless the next war comes first
But , for now , Bibi seems to think he can fly
Closer to home , America 's climate-deniers mounted an effective disinformation campaign that made `` climate change '' a four-letter word in the Republican Party
This undermined efforts to get a clean energy bill - the sort that might break our addiction to oil and take money away from the people our soldiers are fighting in the Middle East
And all of this happened in 2010 , which is on track to be the Earth 's hottest year on record
So here 's the math : 98 climate scientists out of 100 will tell you that man 's continued carbon emissions pose the risk of disruptive climate change this century
Two out of 100 will tell you it does n't
And `` conservatives '' today tell you to bet on the two
If the climate-deniers are right - but we combat climate change anyway - we 'll have slightly higher energy prices but cleaner air , more renewable energy , a stronger dollar , more innovative industries and enemies with less money
If the deniers are wrong and we do nothing , your kids will meet the sudden stop at the end
Many of the same people working against clean energy are working to scuttle Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty that Mr. Obama signed with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev
This treaty is right in line with the previous three U.S.-Russia arms reduction deals , all negotiated by G.O.P. administrations
It leaves America secure , a world and a Russia with fewer nukes and it promotes better ties with the Kremlin
Scuttling the treaty , just to deny Mr. Obama a success , which is what some Republican senators are up to , will not only ensure that U.S.-Russian relations sour , it will also make it much less likely that the Russians - whose pressure on Iran and willingness to deny it surface-to-air missiles have been critical in slowing Iran 's nuclear program - will continue to cooperate with us on that front
But , hey , who cares about weakening Iran or U.S.-Russian ties if you can weaken your own president
We can fly
Finally , there is something deeply wrong about Mitch McConnell , the Senate G.O.P. leader , saying that `` the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president .
McConnell explained that that was not because Republicans simply crave power -LRB- heaven forbid -RRB- , but because this is the only way Republicans can achieve their goals of repealing the health care bill , ending bailouts , cutting spending and shrinking government
Where do I start
We know that these were not the Republican goals because they had eight years under George W. Bush to pursue them and did just the opposite
And even if we assume that this time they really mean it , they 've never explained what programs they would cut and how doing that now wo n't make our recession worse
But even if they did , these are the wrong priorities
Our priorities now are to mitigate the recession that was set in motion under Bush and to put the country on a path to sustainable economic growth
That will require vastly improving the education and skills of our work force and enabling them with 21st-century infrastructure so they will be smarter and more productive
We know that tax cuts alone wo n't do that ; we just had that test , too , under Bush
It requires a complex strategy for American renewal - raising some taxes , like on energy , while lowering others , like on workers and corporations ; and investing in new infrastructure , schools and research , while cutting other services
I do n't mind if Republicans win with fresh new ideas - but not with a grab bag of tired clich s. That 's just begging for a sudden stop at the end
The question was asked with eyes wide and a voice of incredulity
The person asking was Antonio Waldez G es da Silva , the governor of the Amazonian state of Amap , which has the biggest national park in the world
I had just shared with Gov. Waldez G es a recent news article in The Hill , the Congressional newspaper , which said the total cost of stationing one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year is $ 1 million
What if we kept just one soldier back from Afghanistan and gave you the money , I asked the governor
What would it buy you
Gov. Waldez G es mulled that over : `` If you kept three soldiers back , that would be enough for me to keep the State University of Amap running for one year , so 1,400 students could take different courses on sustainable development for the Amazon .
O.K. , I know
It is a bit misleading to take a war budget and assume that if it were n't spent on combat , it would all go to schools or parks
And we do have real enemies
Some wars have to be fought , no matter the cost
But such comparisons are still a useful reminder that our debate about Afghanistan is not taking place in a vacuum
We will have to make trade-offs , and there are other hugely important projects today crying out for funding , as my colleague Nick Kristof has pointed out regarding health care
Well , if America is going to assume the primary burden of fixing Central Asia , maybe , say , China , could help pick up the tab for saving what is left of the Amazon and the world 's other great tropical forests
Could President Obama raise that idea in Beijing
An intergovernmental working group for saving the rainforests estimates that for about $ 30 billion we could reduce deforestation in places like Brazil , Indonesia and the Congo by 25 percent by 2015
After that , financing from global carbon markets , plus these countries ' own resources , could save much of the rest
China now has $ 2.2 trillion in reserves
How about it , Beijing
Why do n't you step up and provide some public goods for the world for once not because you get a direct benefit , but just because it would make the world a better place for everyone
Sure , America should still lead such efforts
But China 's days as a global free-rider should be over
China should pay its fair share and more since it will benefit every bit as much as the U.S. , Europe and Japan
Indeed , the U.N. Foundation estimates that because living tropical forests are such huge storehouses of carbon which gets released when we chop the trees down if we just stop deforestation , we get a big chunk of the carbon-emissions reductions the world needs between now and 2020
`` And forest-rich developing countries , like Brazil , are now ready to do their part because they depend on the water that the rainforests provide for energy and agriculture , and because they see a new model for growth based on their natural capital , '' said Glenn Prickett , a senior vice president with Conservation International and my traveling companion here
`` Brazil has developed the science , political will and basic rules and institutions for preserving its rainforests
What Brazil and other rainforest nations like Indonesia lack , though , are the funds to take this new economic model to scale .
I was struck by how many of the building blocks for `` natural capitalism '' that Gov. Waldez G es whose state sits at the mouth of the Amazon is putting in place , so that he can have an economy based on preserving the rainforest rather than stripping it
He 's building on the three P 's creating protected forest areas , improving productivity on lands that have already been cleared so farmers there will not need more , and establishing property rights for Amazonian lands , which are a legal mess , inviting Wild West land grabs and scaring off investors in sustainable agriculture
Gov. Waldez G es has already protected 75 percent of his state as rainforest and has enacted the laws and created a technical college to provide for sustainable logging and eco-tourism and for developing medicinal and cosmetic products from rainforest plants
But he needs funds to implement and monitor at scale and prove that `` natural capitalism '' can deliver more than the extractive version
`` I am the son of a rubber tapper , '' he explains
`` I was born and raised in the jungle , so even before becoming a politician I had a strong connection to nature .
The world is facing this relentless `` development path that brings pollution and degradation and deforestation , '' he added
He and other Brazilians want to prove you can do better by bringing `` conservation and development together .
Tropical forests represent some 5 percent of the earth 's surface but harbor 50 percent of all living species
Conservation International has a motto : `` What is lost there is felt here .
If we lose what is left of the Amazon , we 'll all feel the climate effects , changing rainfall and loss of biodiversity that enriches our world
Brazil seems ready to do its part
Are we
What about you , China
Barack Obama surely has one of the toughest leadership challenges any incoming president has ever faced
We 're in the midst of a terrible economic meltdown , the current administration has lost all credibility , the House of Representatives is full of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals , and the public is being whipsawed between free-market fundamentalists preaching the virtues of just letting the market rip and left-wingers who think we can punish Wall Street while protecting Main Street
It feels like a mess with no one in charge
Now is when we need a president who has the skill , the vision and the courage to cut through this cacophony , pull us together as one nation and inspire and enable us to do the one thing we can and must do right now : Go shopping
Obama ca n't wait until Jan. 20 to weigh in on this
If we do n't stimulate the global economy fast enough and big enough , some of Obama 's inaugural balls might be held in soup kitchens
When President Bush told us to go shopping after 9\/11 , he was right
We needed to stimulate the economy then
The problem was that the Bush economic team never turned off the green light and told people to `` go saving .
So with easy credit seemingly endlessly available , American consumers saved virtually nothing and bid up housing prices to record levels
Retailers expanded stores and China expanded factories to accommodate all the shopping
It was quite a party
We had banks in America giving mortgages to people whose only qualification `` was that they could fog up a knife , '' one mortgage broker told me
But when something seems too good to be true , it usually is
When these reckless mortgages eventually blew up , it led to a credit crisis
Banks stopped lending
That soon morphed into an equity crisis , as worried investors liquidated stock portfolios
The equity crisis made people feel poor and metastasized into a consumption crisis , which is why purchases of cars , appliances , electronics , homes and clothing have just fallen off a cliff
This , in turn , has sparked more company defaults , exacerbated the credit crisis and metastasized into an unemployment crisis , as companies rush to shed workers
Governments are having a problem arresting this deflationary downward spiral maybe because this financial crisis combines four chemicals we have never seen combined to this degree before , and we do n't fully grasp how damaging their interactions have been , and may still be
Those chemicals are : 1 -RRB- massive leverage by everyone from consumers who bought houses for nothing down to hedge funds that were betting $ 30 for every $ 1 they had in cash ; 2 -RRB- a world economy that is so much more intertwined than people realized , which is exemplified by British police departments that are financially strapped today because they put their savings in online Icelandic banks to get a little better yield that have gone bust ; 3 -RRB- globally intertwined financial instruments that are so complex that most of the C.E.O. 's dealing with them did not and do not understand how they work especially on the downside ; 4 -RRB- a financial crisis that started in America with our toxic mortgages
When a crisis starts in Mexico or Thailand , we can protect ourselves ; when it starts in America , no one can
You put this much leverage together with this much global integration with this much complexity and start the crisis in America and you have a very explosive situation
If you are going to fight a global financial panic like this , you have to go at it with overwhelming force an overwhelming stimulus that gets people shopping again and an overwhelming recapitalization of the banking system that gets it lending again
I just hope the U.S. Treasury has enough money to do it
When you look at the way A.I.G. and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are eating money , you start to wonder
And that brings me back to Obama
We need a leader who can look the country in the eye and say clearly : `` We have not seen this before
There are only two choices now , folks : doing everything we can to shore up banks and homeowners or risk a systemic meltdown .
Yes , that may mean rescuing some bankers who do n't deserve rescuing , while also helping prudent bankers who were doing the right things
And , yes , that may mean rescuing reckless home buyers who never should have taken out mortgages and now ca n't pay them back , while not aiding people who saved prudently and are still meeting their mortgage payments
No , it 's not fair
But fairness is not on the menu anymore
We will deal with that later
Right now we need to throw everything we can at this problem to make sure this recession does n't spiral down into a depression
This is no time for half-measures
If you want to know where we are right now , rent the movie `` Jaws .
We 're at that moment when Roy Scheider first sets eyes on the Great White Shark and comes back and says to the skipper , with eyes wide with fear : `` You 're gonna need a bigger boat .
Too Good to Check On Nov. 4 , Anderson Cooper did the country a favor
He expertly deconstructed on his CNN show the bogus rumor that President Obama 's trip to Asia would cost $ 200 million a day
This was an important `` story .
It underscored just how far ahead of his time Mark Twain was when he said a century before the Internet , `` A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes .
But it also showed that there is an antidote to malicious journalism - and that 's good journalism
In case you missed it , a story circulated around the Web on the eve of President Obama 's trip that it would cost U.S. taxpayers $ 200 million a day - about $ 2 billion for the entire trip
Cooper said he felt impelled to check it out because the evening before he had had Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota , a Republican and Tea Party favorite , on his show and had asked her where exactly Republicans will cut the budget
Instead of giving specifics , Bachmann used her airtime to inject a phony story into the mainstream
She answered : `` I think we know that just within a day or so the president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $ 200 million a day
He 's taking 2,000 people with him
He 'll be renting over 870 rooms in India , and these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
This is the kind of over-the-top spending .
The next night , Cooper explained that he felt compelled to trace that story back to its source , since someone had used his show to circulate it
His research , he said , found that it had originated from a quote by `` an alleged Indian provincial official , '' from the Indian state of Maharashtra , `` reported by India 's Press Trust , their equivalent of our A.P. or Reuters
I say ` alleged , ' provincial official , '' Cooper added , `` because we have no idea who this person is , no name was given .
It is hard to get any more flimsy than a senior unnamed Indian official from Maharashtra talking about the cost of an Asian trip by the American president
`` It was an anonymous quote , '' said Cooper
`` Some reporter in India wrote this article with this figure in it
No proof was given ; no follow-up reporting was done
Now you 'd think if a member of Congress was going to use this figure as a fact , she would want to be pretty darn sure it was accurate , right
But there has n't been any follow-up reporting on this Indian story
The Indian article was picked up by The Drudge Report and other sites online , and it quickly made its way into conservative talk radio .
Cooper then showed the following snippets : Rush Limbaugh talking about Obama 's trip : `` In two days from now , he 'll be in India at $ 200 million a day .
Then Glenn Beck , on his radio show , saying : `` Have you ever seen the president , ever seen the president go over for a vacation where you needed 34 warships , $ 2 billion - $ 2 billion , 34 warships
We are sending - he 's traveling with 3,000 people .
In Beck 's rendition , the president 's official state visit to India became `` a vacation '' accompanied by one-tenth of the U.S. Navy
Ditto the conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage
He said , `` $ 200 million
$ 200 million each day on security and other aspects of this incredible royalist visit ; 3,000 people , including Secret Service agents .
Cooper then added : `` Again , no one really seemed to care to check the facts
For security reasons , the White House does n't comment on logistics of presidential trips , but they have made an exception this time .
He then quoted Robert Gibbs , the White House press secretary , as saying , `` I am not going to go into how much it costs to protect the president , -LRB- but this trip -RRB- is comparable to when President Clinton and when President Bush traveled abroad
This trip does n't cost $ 200 million a day .
Geoff Morrell , the Pentagon press secretary , said : `` I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd , this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy and some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier in support of the president 's trip to Asia
That 's just comical
Nothing close to that is being done .
Cooper also pointed out that , according to the Congressional Budget Office , the entire war effort in Afghanistan was costing about $ 190 million a day and that President Bill Clinton 's 1998 trip to Africa - with 1,300 people and of roughly similar duration , cost , according to the Government Accountability Office and adjusted for inflation , `` about $ 5.2 million a day .
When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything , without any fact-checking , we have a problem
It becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues - deficit reduction , health care , taxes , energy\/climate - let alone act on them
Facts , opinions and fabrications just blend together
But the carnival barkers that so dominate our public debate today are not going away - and neither is the Internet
All you can hope is that more people will do what Cooper did - so when the next crazy lie races around the world , people 's first instinct will be to doubt it , not repeat it
I have no idea who is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination , but lately I ve been wondering whether , if it is Barack Obama , he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president
No , I personally am not a Dick Cheney fan , and I know it is absurd to even suggest , but now that I have your attention , here s what s on my mind : After Iraq and Pakistan , the most vexing foreign policy issue that will face the next president will be how to handle Iran
There is a cold war in the Middle East today between America and Iran , and until and unless it gets resolved , I see Iran using its proxies , its chess pieces Hamas , Hezbollah , Syria and the Shiite militias in Iraq to stymie America and its allies across the region
And that brings me back to the Obama-Cheney ticket : When it comes to how best to deal with Iran , each has half a policy but if you actually put them together , they d add up to an ideal U.S. strategy for Iran
Dare I say , they complete each other
Vice President Cheney is the hawk-eating hawk , who regularly swoops down and declares that the U.S. will not permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon
Trust me , the Iranians take his threats seriously
But Mr. Cheney s Dr. Strangelove imitation is totally wasted with President Bush and Secretary of State Condi Rice
Because the president and secretary of state have never been able to make up their minds as to what U.S. policy toward Iran should be to bring about regime change or a change of behavior it s impossible to have any effective diplomacy
If she were taking advantage of Mr. Cheney s madness , Secretary Rice would be going to Tehran and saying to the Iranians : Look , I m ready to cut a deal with you guys , but I have to tell you , back home , I ve got Cheney on my back and he is truly craaaaazzzzy
You guys don t know the half of it
He thinks waterboarding is what you do with your grandchildren at the pool on Sunday
I m not sure how much longer I can restrain him
So maybe we should have a serious nuke talk , and , if it goes well , we ll back off regime change
Instead , we just have Mr. Cheney being Mr. Cheney , but the Bush team neither carrying out his threats nor leveraging them to drive meaningful diplomacy with Tehran
There s no good cop , it s just a bad cop\/bad cop routine a big reason our Iran policy has been a failure
It has not stopped the Iranian nuclear program or changed the regime
For coercive diplomacy to work you need to be able to threaten what the regime values most its own survival , said the Woodrow Wilson Center s Robert Litwak , author of the book Regime Change
But for coercive diplomacy to work , you also need to be ready to take yes for an answer
Mr. Obama , by contrast , has yes down pat
As he said on Meet the Press last week : I would meet directly with the leadership in Iran
I believe that we have not exhausted the diplomatic efforts that could be required to resolve some of these problems them developing nuclear weapons , them supporting terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas
I think a President Obama offering to go to Tehran would have a huge impact on that country and create lots of internal debate , especially if we made clear that America would be satisfied with a verifiable change of Iranian behavior
But Mr. Obama s stress on engaging Iran , while a useful antidote to the Bush boycott policy , is not sufficient
Mr. Obama evinces little feel for generating the leverage you d need to make such diplomacy work
When negotiating with murderous regimes like Iran s or Syria s , you want Tony Soprano by your side , not Big Bird
Mr. Obama s gift for outreach would be so much more effective with a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder , quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm
Mr. Obama would also be more effective if he not only stressed how much further he was ready to go than the Bush team to engage Iran , but also how much further he would be ready to go in bringing meaningful leverage on Iran by , say , opting for a gasoline tax that would help bring down the price of oil , or by abandoning the anti-Russia policies of the Bush team and trying to enlist Vladimir Putin , or China and India , on our side to bring real pressure on Tehran
In sum , Mr. Obama s instinct is right but he needs to dial down his inner Jimmy Carter a bit when it comes to talking to Iran , and dial up a bit more inner Dick Cheney
If Democrats want to win this election , they have to get these two in balance they have to learn how to criticize the Bush record from the right and the left , to show they can be better at engagement and coercion
Successful diplomacy requires both
Americans will want to know that Democrats can do both
My guess is that many still aren t sure
If you follow the debate around the energy\/climate bills working through Congress you will notice that the drill-baby-drill opponents of this legislation are now making two claims
One is that the globe has been cooling lately , not warming , and the other is that America simply ca n't afford any kind of cap-and-trade\/carbon tax
But here is what they also surely believe , but are not saying : They believe the world is going to face a mass plague , like the Black Death , that will wipe out 2.5 billion people sometime between now and 2050
They believe it is much better for America that the world be dependent on oil for energy a commodity largely controlled by countries that hate us and can only go up in price as demand increases rather than on clean power technologies that are controlled by us and only go down in price as demand increases
And , finally , they believe that people in the developing world are very happy being poor just give them a little running water and electricity and they 'll be fine
They 'll never want to live like us
Yes , the opponents of any tax on carbon to stimulate alternatives to oil must believe all these things because that is the only way their arguments make any sense
Let me explain why by first explaining how I look at this issue
I am a clean-energy hawk
Green for me is not just about recycling garbage but about renewing America
That is why I have been saying `` green is the new red , white and blue .
My argument is simple : I think climate change is real
You do n't
That 's your business
But there are two other huge trends barreling down on us with energy implications that you simply ca n't deny
And the way to renew America is for us to take the lead and invent the technologies to address these problems
The first is that the world is getting crowded
According to the 2006 U.N. population report , `` The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion ... passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050
This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950 , and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions , whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050 .
The energy , climate , water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed , clothe , house and transport will be staggering
And this is coming , unless , as the deniers apparently believe , a global pandemic or a mass outbreak of abstinence will freeze world population forever
Now , add one more thing
The world keeps getting flatter more and more people can now see how we live , aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live
So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050 , but many more will live like `` Americans '' with American-size homes , American-size cars , eating American-size Big Macs
`` What happens when developing nations with soaring vehicle populations get tens of millions of petroleum-powered cars at the same time as the global economy recovers and there 's no large global oil supply overhang ?
asks Felix Kramer , the electric car expert who advocates electrifying the U.S. auto fleet and increasingly powering it with renewable energy sources
What happens , of course , is that the price of oil goes through the roof unless we develop alternatives
The petro-dictators in Iran , Venezuela and Russia hope we do n't
They would only get richer
So either the opponents of a serious energy\/climate bill with a price on carbon do n't care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us , so the price of oil wo n't go up very far and , therefore , we should n't raise taxes to stimulate clean , renewable alternatives and energy efficiency
Green hawks believe otherwise
We believe that in a world getting warmer and more crowded with more `` Americans , '' the next great global industry is going to be E.T. , or energy technology based on clean power and energy efficiency
It has to be
And we believe that the country that invents and deploys the most E.T. will enjoy the most economic security , energy security , national security , innovative companies and global respect
And we believe that country must be America
If not , our children will never enjoy the standard of living we did
And we believe the best way to launch E.T. is to set a fixed , long-term price on carbon combine it with the Obama team 's impressive stimulus for green-tech and then let the free market and innovation do the rest
So , as I said , you do n't believe in global warming
You 're wrong , but I 'll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away
But if you also do n't believe the world is getting more crowded with more aspiring Americans and that ignoring that will play to the strength of our worst enemies , while responding to it with clean energy will play to the strength of our best technologies then you 're willfully blind , and you 're hurting America 's future to boot
Mrs. Clinton is a serious person
She is smart , tough , cunning , hard-working and knows the world all key qualities for a secretary of state
She would also bring a certain star quality to the top of the State Department that can be useful
I do n't know if she is the best person in America for that job right now , or if she 'll get it , but if one is just looking at qualifications , Senator Clinton certainly passes the bar
What worries me , though , is that much of the media attention today is focused on the wrong relationship question
Everyone is asking how she would manage the relationship with former President Bill Clinton and his own global speaking , fund-raising and philanthropic agendas
You have to believe that they 'll do everything they can to try to figure that out but it 's not a done deal yet
Obviously , Mr. Clinton would have to restrict some of his activities
The important question , the answer of which is not at all clear to me , is about the only relationship that matters for a secretary of state the kind of relationship he or she would have with the new president
My question : Is Obama considering Mrs. Clinton for this job in order to get her off his back or as a prelude to protecting her back
I covered a secretary of state , one of the best , James A. Baker III , for four years , and one of the things I learned during those years was that what made Baker an effective diplomat was not only his own skills as a negotiator a prerequisite for the job but the fact that his boss , President George H.W. Bush , always had Baker 's back
When foreign leaders spoke with Baker , they knew that they were speaking to President Bush , and they knew that President Bush would defend Baker from domestic rivals and the machinations of foreign governments
That backing is the most important requirement for a secretary of state to be effective
Frankly , Obama could appoint his dear mother-in-law as secretary of state , and if he let the world know she was his envoy , she would be more effective than any ex-ambassador who had no relationship with the president
Our current president never cared about this , so neither of his secretaries of state were particularly effective
Rather than having Colin Powell 's back , President Bush , Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delighted in stabbing Powell in the back , particularly when he was on the road
But being close to the president is not enough
Condoleezza Rice had a close relationship with Bush , but Bush had no coherent worldview to animate her diplomacy , so all her travels added up to less than the sum of their miles
The two most impactful secretaries of state in the last 50 years were Baker and Henry Kissinger
Both were empowered by their presidents , and both could candidly talk back to their presidents
Foreign leaders can spot daylight between a president and a secretary of state from 1,000 miles away
They know when they 're talking to the secretary of state alone and when they are talking through the secretary of state to the president
And when they think they are talking to the president , they sit up straight ; and when they think they are talking only to the secretary of state , they slouch in their chairs
When they think they are talking to the president 's `` special envoy , '' they doze off in midconversation
`` It takes America 's friends and adversaries about five minutes to figure out who really speaks for the White House and who does n't , '' wrote Aaron D. Miller , a former State Department Middle East adviser and the author of `` The Much Too Promised Land .
`` If a secretary of state falls into the latter category , he or she will have little chance of doing effective diplomacy on a big issue
More likely , they 'll be played like a finely tuned violin or simply taken for granted .
When the U.S. secretary of state walks into the room , Miller added in a recent essay in The Los Angeles Times , `` his or her interlocutors need to be on the edge of their seats , not comfortably situated in their chairs wondering how best to manipulate the secretary
If anything , they should be worried about being manipulated themselves .
My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton , given all that has gone down between them and their staffs , can have that kind of relationship , particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead , and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency
I just do n't know
Every word that is said between them in public , and every leak , will be scrutinized for what it means politically and whether there is daylight
That is not a reason not to appoint Mrs. Clinton
But it is a reason for everyone around the president-elect to take a deep breath and ask whether they are prepared to have the kind of air-tight relationship with Mrs. Clinton that is required for effective diplomacy
When it comes to appointing a secretary of state , you do not want a team of rivals
More and more lately , I find people asking me : What do you think President Obama really believes about this or that issue
I find that odd
How is it that a president who has taken on so many big issues , with very specific policies and has even been awarded a Nobel Prize for all the hopes he has kindled still has so many people asking what he really believes
I do n't think that President Obama has a communications problem , per se
He has given many speeches and interviews broadly explaining his policies and justifying their necessity
Rather , he has a `` narrative '' problem
He has not tied all his programs into a single narrative that shows the links between his health care , banking , economic , climate , energy , education and foreign policies
Such a narrative would enable each issue and each constituency to reinforce the other and evoke the kind of popular excitement that got him elected
Without it , though , the president 's eloquence , his unique ability to inspire people to get out of their seats and work for him , has been muted or lost in a thicket of technocratic details
His daring but discrete policies are starting to feel like a work plan that we have to slog through , and endlessly compromise over , just to finish for finishing 's sake not because they are all building blocks of a great national project
What is that project
What is that narrative
Quite simply it is nation-building at home
It is nation-building in America
I 've always believed that Mr. Obama was elected because a majority of Americans fear that we 're becoming a declining great power
Everything from our schools to our energy and transportation systems are falling apart and in need of reinvention and reinvigoration
And what people want most from Washington today is nation-building at home
Many people , including conservatives , voted for Barack Obama because in their hearts they felt he could pull us all together for that project better than any other candidate
Many are what I 'd call `` Warren Buffett centrists .
They are not billionaires , but they are people who believe in Mr. Buffett 's saying that whatever he achieved in life was due primarily to the fact that he was born in this country America at this time , with all of its advantages and opportunities
I believe that
And I believe that without a strong America which , at its best , can deliver more goods and goodness to its own citizens and to the world than any other nation our kids and many others around the world will not have those opportunities
I am convinced that this kind of nation-building at home is exactly what Mr. Obama is trying to deliver , and should be his unifying call : We need universal health care because it would strengthen our social fabric and enable our businesses to better compete globally
We need to upgrade our schools because no child in 21st-century America should be left behind and because we can not compete for the best new jobs without doing so
We need a greener economy , not just to mitigate climate change , but because a world growing from 6.7 billion people to 9.2 billion by 2050 is going to demand more and more clean energy and water , and the country that develops the most clean technologies is going to have the most energy security , national security , economic security , innovative companies and global respect
But to deliver this agenda requires a motivated public and a spirit of shared sacrifice
That 's where narrative becomes vital
People have to have a gut feel for why this nation-building project , with all its varied strands , is so important why it 's worth the sacrifice
One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a `` socialist '' is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged
`` Obama 's election marked a shift from a politics that celebrated privatized concerns to a politics that recognized the need for effective government and larger public purposes
Across the political spectrum , people understood that national renewal requires big ambition , and a better kind of politics , '' said the Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel , author of the new best seller `` Justice : What 's the Right Thing to Do ?
that calls for elevating our public discourse
But to deliver on that promise , Sandel added , Obama needs to carry the civic idealism of his campaign into his presidency
He needs a narrative that will get the same voters who elected him to push through his ambitious agenda against all the forces of inertia and private greed
`` You ca n't get nation-building without shared sacrifice , '' said Sandel , `` and you can not inspire shared sacrifice without a narrative that appeals to the common good a narrative that challenges us to be citizens engaged in a common endeavor , not just consumers seeking the best deal for ourselves
Obama needs to energize the prose of his presidency by recapturing the poetry of his campaign .
Watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice making repeated trips to Israel to try to broker some kind of deal between Israelis and Palestinians , while Iraq remains politically unresolved , leaves me feeling like my house is burning down and the fire department has decided to stop along the way to get two cats out of a tree
At one level , I just don t get it
It s clear that the surge by U.S. troops has really dampened violence in Iraq
So don t we now need a surge in diplomacy to finish the job
It often feels to me as if Secretary Rice just wants to keep Iraq at arm s length and hope that it will somehow end up on someone else s report card
If you were President Bush and your whole legacy was riding on the outcome of this war , wouldn t you be sending your top diplomat to Baghdad to work with Iraqis and their neighbors to broker a political settlement and not let them grow complacent that they have an open-ended commitment from the American people
-LRB- It makes you glad Democrats are still banging their drum .
But then I talk to people in Baghdad and look at what is really evolving there and I say to myself : Maybe you re missing something that Secretary Rice knows that there isn t going to be any formal political reconciliation moment in Iraq , grand bargain or White House signing ceremony
The surge has made Iraq safe , not for formal political reconciliation yet , but safe for an A.T.M. peace
That is , each of the Iraqi factions basically agrees to live and let live with the new lines drawn by the last two years of civil war and the Baghdad government serves as an A.T.M. cash machine supporting the army and local security groups and dispensing oil revenues to the provincial governors and tribal chiefs from each community
Sure , the Shiites haven t passed a law to let more Sunni Baathists into the government , but they re still letting some back
Yes , they haven t passed an oil law , but the government is still spreading around the cash
Michael Gordon , The Times s top military expert , whose history of the Iraq war , Cobra II , is one of the best books on the subject , said the phrase circulating in the military lately to describe the situation evolving in Iraq is accommodation without reconciliation
The various parties basically accept the new imbalance of power Shiites on top , but allowing the Kurds and Sunnis to have a share and the political struggle continues with lower levels of violence
It isn t irreversible
That only happens when refugees start returning in large numbers , because they see a flourishing economy , a government delivering services equitably and reliably , political alliances developing across Sunni-Shiite lines and security forces they can trust in their neighborhoods
We are still miles away from that , yet something seems to be moving
And that brings me back to Secretary Rice
Is she just keeping away from the Iraq mess to save her image , or does she know that the Iraqi politicians will not and can not seize this moment to reach a grand bargain , because making big public concessions to one another is still extremely dangerous in a country like Iraq
It is an invitation for assassination
But maybe their own very Iraqi , very ad hoc , very oil-lubricated , modus vivendi can still get us somewhere stable and decent
If that is the case , maybe the question we need to start asking is not : When do Iraqis reach a formal internal peace so we can go
But rather : Can the informal arrangements they re cobbling together reach a level of stability that would enable a major drawdown of U.S. forces next year
I don t know
My Iraq crystal ball stopped working a long time ago
I m taking this one step at a time
Right now what is indisputable is that we are seeing the first crack in years in a wall of pessimism that has been the Iraq story
It is only a crack , but it creates new possibilities
It would be reckless to ignore or exaggerate
You have to keep your mind open that something may be emerging from the ground up and yet be wary
Are the parties really working something out , or are they just tired
Is Secretary Rice wisely letting the situation ripen or deftly running from the problem
I have more questions right now than strong opinions
So I went to a source I knew I could trust my colleague James Glanz , The Times s Baghdad bureau chief who has lived through so much craziness there : There is a sense of quiet on the streets that we have not seen for a long time in Baghdad , he told me , but there is also a big question mark in the shadows of every alley
We don t know what is lurking back there , but we suspect , and evidence suggests , that it is the same set of problems that were always there
Teaching for America When I came to Washington in 1988 , the cold war was ending and the hot beat was national security and the State Department
If I were a cub reporter today , I 'd still want to be covering the epicenter of national security - but that would be the Education Department
President Obama got this one exactly right when he said that whoever `` out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow .
The bad news is that for years now we 've been getting out-educated
The good news is that cities , states and the federal government are all fighting back
But have no illusions
We 're in a hole
Here are few data points that the secretary of education , Arne Duncan , offered in a Nov. 4 speech : `` One-quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time
Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each year
... One of the more unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was the release of a report by a group of top retired generals and admirals
Here was the stunning conclusion of their report : 75 percent of young Americans , between the ages of 17 to 24 , are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school , have a criminal record , or are physically unfit .
America 's youth are now tied for ninth in the world in college attainment
`` Other folks have passed us by , and we 're paying a huge price for that economically , '' added Duncan in an interview
`` Incremental change is n't going to get us where we need to go
We 've got to be much more ambitious
We 've got to be disruptive
You ca n't keep doing the same stuff and expect different results .
Duncan , with bipartisan support , has begun several initiatives to energize reform - particularly his Race to the Top competition with federal dollars going to states with the most innovative reforms to achieve the highest standards
Maybe his biggest push , though , is to raise the status of the teaching profession
Tony Wagner , the Harvard-based education expert and author of `` The Global Achievement Gap , '' explains it this way
There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy : the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving ; the ability to communicate effectively ; and the ability to collaborate
If you look at the countries leading the pack in the tests that measure these skills -LRB- like Finland and Denmark -RRB- , one thing stands out : they insist that their teachers come from the top one-third of their college graduating classes
As Wagner put it , `` They took teaching from an assembly-line job to a knowledge-worker 's job
They have invested massively in how they recruit , train and support teachers , to attract and retain the best .
Duncan disputes the notion that teachers ' unions will always resist such changes
He points to the new `` breakthrough '' contracts in Washington , D.C. , New Haven and Hillsborough County , Fla. , where teachers have embraced higher performance standards in return for higher pay for the best performers
`` We have to reward excellence , '' he said
`` We 've been scared in education to talk about excellence
We treated everyone like interchangeable widgets
Just throw a kid in a class and throw a teacher in a class .
This ignored the variation between teachers who were changing students ' lives , and those who were not
`` If you 're doing a great job with students , '' he said , `` we ca n't pay you enough .
That is why Duncan is starting a `` national teacher campaign '' to recruit new talent
`` We have to systemically create the environment and the incentives where people want to come into the profession
Three countries that outperform us - Singapore , South Korea , Finland - do n't let anyone teach who does n't come from the top third of their graduating class
And in South Korea , they refer to their teachers as ` nation builders . '
Duncan 's view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels - by using student achievement data in calculating salaries , by increasing competition through innovation and charters - is not anti-teacher
It 's taking the profession much more seriously and elevating it to where it should be
There are 3.2 million active teachers in America today
In the next decade , half -LRB- the baby boomers -RRB- will retire
How we recruit , train , support , evaluate and compensate their successors `` is going to shape public education for the next 30 years , '' said Duncan
We have to get this right
Wagner thinks we should create a West Point for teachers : `` We need a new National Education Academy , modeled after our military academies , to raise the status of the profession and to support the R. & D. that is essential for reinventing teaching , learning and assessment in the 21st century .
All good ideas , but if we want better teachers we also need better parents - parents who turn off the TV and video games , make sure homework is completed , encourage reading and elevate learning as the most important life skill
The more we demand from teachers the more we have to demand from students and parents
That 's the Contract for America that will truly ensure our national security
President Obama 's visit to China this week inevitably invites comparisons between the world 's two leading powers
You know what they say : Britain owned the 19th century , America owned the 20th century , and , it 's all but certain that China will own the 21st century
Maybe , but I 'm not ready to cede the 21st century to China just yet
Why not
It has to do with the fact that we are moving into a hyperintegrated world in which all aspects of production raw materials , design , manufacturing , distribution , fulfillment , financing and branding have become commodities that can be accessed from anywhere by anyone
But there are still two really important things that ca n't be commoditized
Fortunately , America still has one of them : imagination
What your citizens imagine now matters more than ever because they can act on their own imaginations farther , faster , deeper and cheaper than ever before as individuals
In such a world , societies that can nurture people with the ability to imagine and spin off new ideas will thrive
The Apple iPod may be made in China , but it was dreamed up in America , and that 's where most of the profits go
America with its open , free , no-limits , immigrant-friendly society is still the world 's greatest dream machine
Who would cede a century in which imagination will have such a high value to an authoritarian society that controls its Internet and jails political prisoners
Remember what Grandma used to say : Never cede a century to a country that censors Google
But while our culture of imagination is still vibrant , the other critical factor that still differentiates countries today and is not a commodity is good governance , which can harness creativity
And that we may be losing
I am talking about the ability of a society 's leaders to think long term , address their problems with the optimal legislation and attract capable people into government
What I increasingly fear today is that America is only able to produce `` suboptimal '' responses to its biggest problems education , debt , financial regulation , health care , energy and environment
Because at least six things have come together to fracture our public space and paralyze our ability to forge optimal solutions : 1 -RRB- Money in politics has become so pervasive that lawmakers have to spend most of their time raising it , selling their souls to those who have it or defending themselves from the smallest interest groups with deep pockets that can trump the national interest
2 -RRB- The gerrymandering of political districts means politicians of each party can now choose their own voters and never have to appeal to the center
3 -RRB- The cable TV culture encourages shouting and segregating people into their own political echo chambers
4 -RRB- A permanent presidential campaign leaves little time for governing
5 -RRB- The Internet , which , at its best , provides a check on elites and establishments and opens the way for new voices and , which , at its worst provides a home for every extreme view and spawns digital lynch mobs from across the political spectrum that attack anyone who departs from their specific orthodoxy
6 -RRB- A U.S. business community that has become so globalized that it only comes to Washington to lobby for its own narrow interests ; it rarely speaks out anymore in defense of national issues like health care , education and open markets
These six factors are pushing our system , which was designed to have divided powers and to force compromises , into the realm of paralysis
To get anything big done now , we have to generate so many compromises couched in 1,000-plus-page bills with so many different interest groups that the solutions are totally suboptimal
We just get the sum of all interest groups
The miniversion of this is California , which , as others have noted , is becoming America 's biggest `` failed state .
Californians had hoped they could overcome their dysfunctional system by electing an outsider , a former movie star , Arnold Schwarzenegger
He would slay the system , like the Terminator
But he could n't
Mr. Obama was elected for similar reasons
People had hoped that his unique story , personality and speaking skills could bring the country together , overcome paralysis and deliver nation-building at home
A lot of the disappointment settling in among Obama voters today is prompted by their dawning realization that maybe , like Arnold , he ca n't
China 's leaders , using authoritarian means , still can
They do n't have to always settle for suboptimal
So what do we do
The standard answer is that we need better leaders
The real answer is that we need better citizens
We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice , even pay , yes , higher taxes , and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things
Otherwise , folks , we 're in trouble
A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will , in time , fade from being a great power no matter how much imagination it generates
Grandma said that , too
So , I have a confession and a suggestion
The confession : I go into restaurants these days , look around at the tables often still crowded with young people , and I have this urge to go from table to table and say : `` You do n't know me , but I have to tell you that you should n't be here
You should be saving your money
You should be home eating tuna fish
This financial crisis is so far from over
We are just at the end of the beginning
Please , wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home .
Now you know why I do n't get invited out for dinner much these days
If I had my druthers right now we would convene a special session of Congress , amend the Constitution and move up the inauguration from Jan. 20 to Thanksgiving Day
Forget the inaugural balls ; we ca n't afford them
Forget the grandstands ; we do n't need them
Just get me a Supreme Court justice and a Bible , and let 's swear in Barack Obama right now by choice with the same haste we did by necessity with L.B.J. in the back of Air Force One
Unfortunately , it would take too long for a majority of states to ratify such an amendment
What we can do now , though , said the Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein , co-author of `` The Broken Branch , '' is `` ask President Bush to appoint Tim Geithner , Barack Obama 's proposed Treasury secretary , immediately .
Make him a Bush appointment and let him take over next week
This is not a knock on Hank Paulson
It 's simply that we ca n't afford two months of transition where the markets do n't know who is in charge or where we 're going
At the same time , Congress should remain in permanent session to pass any needed legislation
This is the real `` Code Red .
As one banker remarked to me : `` We finally found the W.M.D. '' They were buried in our own backyard subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them
Yet , it is obvious that President Bush ca n't mobilize the tools to defuse them a massive stimulus program to improve infrastructure and create jobs , a broad-based homeowner initiative to limit foreclosures and stabilize housing prices , and therefore mortgage assets , more capital for bank balance sheets and , most importantly , a huge injection of optimism and confidence that we can and will pull out of this with a new economic team at the helm
The last point is something only a new President Obama can inject
What ails us right now is as much a loss of confidence in our financial system and our leadership as anything else
I have no illusions that Obama 's arrival on the scene will be a magic wand , but it would help
Right now there is something deeply dysfunctional , bordering on scandalously irresponsible , in the fractious way our political elite are behaving with business as usual in the most unusual economic moment of our lifetimes
They do n't seem to understand : Our financial system is imperiled
`` The unity seems to be gone
The emergency looks to be a little less pressing , '' Bill Frenzel , the former 10-term Republican congressman who is now with the Brookings Institution , was quoted by CNBC.com on Friday
I do n't want to see Detroit 's auto industry wiped out , but what are we supposed to do with auto executives who fly to Washington in three separate private jets , ask for a taxpayer bailout and offer no detailed plan for their own transformation
The stock and credit markets have n't been fooled
They have started to price financial stocks at Great Depression levels , not just recession levels
With $ 5 , you can now buy one share of Citigroup and have enough left over for a bite at McDonalds
As a result , Barack Obama is possibly going to have to make the biggest call of his presidency before it even starts
`` A great judgment has to be made now as to just how big and bad the situation is , '' says Jeffrey Garten , the Yale School of Management professor of international finance
`` This is a crucial judgment
Do we think that a couple of hundred billion more and couple of bad quarters will take care of this problem , or do we think that despite everything that we have done so far despite the $ 700 billion fund to rescue banks , the lowering of interest rates and the way the Fed has stepped in directly to shore up certain markets the bottom is nowhere in sight and we are staring at a deep hole that the entire world could fall into ?
If it 's the latter , then we need a huge catalyst of confidence and capital to turn this thing around
Only the new president and his team , synchronizing with the world 's other big economies , can provide it
`` The biggest mistake Obama could make , '' added Garten , `` is thinking this problem is smaller than it is
On the other hand , there is far less danger in overestimating what will be necessary to solve it .
Conventional wisdom says it 's good for a new president to start at the bottom
The only way to go is up
That 's true unless the bottom falls out before he starts
U.S.G. and P.T.A. For me , the most frightening news in The Times on Sunday was not about North Korea 's stepping up its nuclear program , but an article about how American kids are stepping up their use of digital devices : `` Allison Miller , 14 , sends and receives 27,000 texts in a month , her fingers clicking at a blistering pace as she carries on as many as seven text conversations at a time
She texts between classes , at the moment soccer practice ends , while being driven to and from school and , often , while studying
But this proficiency comes at a cost : She blames multitasking for the three B 's on her recent progress report
`` I 'll be reading a book for homework and I 'll get a text message and pause my reading and put down the book , pick up the phone to reply to the text message , and then 20 minutes later realize , ` Oh , I forgot to do my homework . '
I do n't want to pick on Miller
I highlight her words only because they 're integral to a much larger point : Our unemployment today is not only because of the financial crisis
There are some deeper problems
If we 're going to get more Americans back to work , we will need more stimulus from the U.S.G. - the U.S. government - from the top down
But we will also need more stimulus from the P.T.A. 's - the Parent Teacher Associations - from the bottom up
The deeper problems fostering unemployment in America today can be summarized in three paragraphs : Global competition is stiffer
Just think about two of our most elite colleges
When Harvard and Yale were all male , applicants had to compete only against a pool of white males to get in
But when Harvard and Yale admitted women and more minorities , white males had to step up their game
But when the cold war ended , globalization took hold
As Harvard and Yale started to admit more Chinese , Indians , Singaporeans , Poles and Vietnamese , both American men and women had to step up their games to get in
And as the education systems of China , India , Singapore , Poland and Vietnam continue to improve , and more of their cream rises to the top and more of their young people apply to Ivy League schools , it is only going to get more competitive for American men and women at every school
Then , just as the world was getting flattened by globalization , technology went on a rampage - destroying more low-end jobs and creating more high-end jobs faster than ever
What computers , hand-held devices , wireless technology and robots do in aggregate is empower better-educated and higher-skilled workers to be more productive - so they can raise their incomes - while eliminating many lower-skilled service and factory jobs altogether
Now the best-educated workers , capable of doing the critical thinking that machines ca n't do , get richer while the least-educated get pink slips
#NAME?
She was replaced by a micro-chip
We got voice mail .
Finally , just when globalization and technology were making the value of higher education greater than ever , and the price for lacking it more punishing than ever , America started slipping behind its peers in high school graduation rates , college graduation and global test scores in math and critical thinking
As Education Secretary Arne Duncan put it to me in an interview , 50 years ago if you dropped out , you could get a job in the stockyards or steel mill and still `` own your own home and support your family .
Today , there are no such good jobs for high school dropouts
`` They 're gone , '' said Duncan
`` That 's what we have n't adjusted to .
When kids drop out today , `` they 're condemned to poverty and social failure .
There are barely any jobs left for someone with only a high school diploma , and that 's only valuable today if it has truly prepared you to go on to higher education without remediation - the only ticket to a decent job
Beyond the recession , this triple whammy is one of the main reasons that middle-class wages have been stagnating
To overcome that , we need to enlist both the U.S.G. and the P.T.A.
We need teachers and principals who are paid better for better performance , but also valued for their long hours and dedication to students and learning
We need better parents ready to hold their kids to higher standards of academic achievement
We need better students who come to school ready to learn , not to text
And to support all of this , we need an all-society effort - from the White House to the classroom to the living room - to nurture a culture of achievement and excellence
If you want to know who 's doing the parenting part right , start with immigrants , who know that learning is the way up
Last week , the 32 winners of Rhodes Scholarships for 2011 were announced - America 's top college grads
Here are half the names on that list : Mark Jia , Aakash Shah , Zujaja Tauqeer , Tracy Yang , William Zeng , Daniel Lage , Ye Jin Kang , Baltazar Zavala , Esther Uduehi , Prerna Nadathur , Priya Sury , Anna Alekeyeva , Fatima Sabar , Renugan Raidoo , Jennifer Lai , Varun Sivaram
Do you see a pattern
I spent Sunday afternoon brooding over a great piece of Times reporting by Eric Dash and Julie Creswell about Citigroup
Maybe brooding is n't the right word
The front-page article , entitled `` Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk , '' actually left me totally disgusted
Because in searing detail it exposed using Citigroup as Exhibit A how some of our country 's best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling , or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye
But it was n't only the bankers
This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility , government regulation and financial ethics
So many people were in on it : People who had no business buying a home , with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years ; people who had no business pushing such mortgages , but made fortunes doing so ; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties , as if they were AAA bonds , but made fortunes doing so ; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA , but made fortunes doing so ; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield , but made fortunes doing so
Citigroup was involved in , and made money from , almost every link in that chain
And the bank 's executives , including , sad to see , the former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin , were clueless about the reckless financial instruments they were creating , or were so ensnared by the cronyism between the bank 's risk managers and risk takers -LRB- and so bought off by their bonuses -RRB- that they had no interest in stopping it
These are the people whom taxpayers bailed out on Monday to the tune of what could be more than $ 300 billion
We probably had no choice
Just letting Citigroup melt down could have been catastrophic
But when the government throws together a bailout that could end up being hundreds of billions of dollars in 48 hours , you can bet there will be unintended consequences many , many , many
Also check out Michael Lewis 's superb essay , `` The End of Wall Street 's Boom , '' on Portfolio.com
Lewis , who first chronicled Wall Street 's excesses in `` Liar 's Poker , '' profiles some of the decent people on Wall Street who tried to expose the credit binge including Meredith Whitney , a little known banking analyst who declared , over a year ago , that `` Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust , '' wrote Lewis
`` This woman was n't saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt , '' he added
`` She was saying they were stupid
Her message was clear
If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth , take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of borrowed money , and imagine what they 'd fetch in a fire sale ... For better than a year now , Whitney has responded to the claims by bankers and brokers that they had put their problems behind them with this write-down or that capital raise with a claim of her own : You 're wrong
You 're still not facing up to how badly you have mismanaged your business .
Lewis also tracked down Steve Eisman , the hedge fund investor who early on saw through the subprime mortgages and shorted the companies engaged in them , like Long Beach Financial , owned by Washington Mutual
`` Long Beach Financial , '' wrote Lewis , `` was moving money out the door as fast as it could , few questions asked , in loans built to self-destruct
It specialized in asking homeowners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible
In Bakersfield , Calif. , a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $ 14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $ 720,000 .
Lewis continued : Eisman knew that subprime lenders could be disreputable
`` What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism ... ` We always asked the same question , ' says Eisman
` Where are the rating agencies in all of this
And I 'd always get the same reaction
It was a smirk .
He called Standard & Poor 's and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell
The man at S. & P. could n't say ; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number
` They were just assuming home prices would keep going up , ' Eisman says .
That 's how we got here a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain , and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash
These are the wages of our sins
I used to say our kids will pay dearly for this
But actually , it 's our problem
For the next few years we 're all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services if we 're lucky
Maureen Dowd is off today
The Middle East is experiencing something we haven t seen in a long , long time : moderates getting their act together a little , taking tentative stands and pushing back on the bad guys
If all that sounds kind of , sort of , maybe , qualified , well ... it is
But in a region in which extremists go all the way and the moderates usually just go away , it s the first good news in years an oasis in a desert of despair
The only problem is that this tentative march of the moderates which got a useful boost here with the Annapolis peace gathering is driven largely by fear , not by any shared vision of a region where Sunni and Shiite , Arab and Jew , trade , interact , collaborate and compromise in the way that countries in Southeast Asia have learned to do for their mutual benefit
So far , this is the peace of the afraid , said Hisham Melhem , Washington bureau chief of Al Arabiya , a satellite news channel
Fear can be a potent motivator
Fear of Al Qaeda running their lives finally got the Sunni tribes of Iraq to rise up against the pro-Al Qaeda Sunnis , even to the point of siding with the Americans
Fear of Shiite thugs in the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army has prompted many more Shiites in Iraq to side with the pro-U.S. Iraqi government and army
Fear of a Hamas takeover has driven Fatah into a tighter working relationship with Israel
And fear of spreading Iranian influence has all the Arab states particularly Saudi Arabia , Egypt and Jordan working in even closer coordination with America and in tacit cooperation with Israel
Fear of Fatah collapsing , and of Israel inheriting responsibility for the West Bank s Palestinian population forever , has brought Israel back to Washington s negotiating table
Fear of isolation even brought Syria here
But fear of predators can only take you so far
To build a durable peace , it takes a shared agenda , a willingness by moderates to work together to support one another and help each other beat back the extremists in each camp
It takes something that has been sorely lacking since the deaths of Anwar Sadat , Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein : a certain moral courage to do something surprising
Since 2000 , the only people who have surprised us are the bad guys
Each week they have surprised us with new ways and places to kill people
The moderates , by contrast , have been surprise-free until the Sunni tribes in Iraq took on Al Qaeda
What I ll be looking for in the coming months is whether the moderates can surprise each other and surprise the extremists
The Saudi foreign minister , Prince Saud al-Faisal , announced even before he got to Annapolis that there would be no handshakes with any Israelis
Too bad
A handshake alone is not going to get Israel to give back the West Bank
But a surprising gesture of humanity , like a simple handshake from a Saudi leader to an Israeli leader , would actually go a long way toward convincing Israelis that there is something new here , that it s not just about the Arabs being afraid of Iran , but that they re actually willing to coexist with Israel
Ditto Israel
Why not surprise Palestinians with a generous gesture on prisoners or roadblocks
Has the stingy old way worked so well
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been so starved of emotional content since the Rabin assassination that it has no connection to average people anymore
It s just words a bunch of gobbledygook about road maps
The Saudis are experts at telling America that it has to be more serious
Is it too much to ask the Saudis to make our job a little easier by shaking an Israeli leader s hand
The other surprise we need to see is moderates going all the way
Moderates who are not willing to risk political suicide to achieve their ends are never going to defeat extremists who are willing to commit physical suicide
The reason that Mr. Rabin and Mr. Sadat were so threatening to extremists is because they were moderates ready to go all the way a rare breed
I understand that no leader today wants to stick his neck out
They have reason to be afraid , but they have no reason to believe they ll make history any other way
President Bush said in opening the Annapolis conference that this was not the end of something , but a new beginning of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
You won t need a Middle East expert to explain to you whether it s working
If you just read the headlines in the coming months and your eyes glaze over , then , as the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea put it to me , you ll know that Annapolis turned the ignition key on a car with four flat tires
But if you pick up the newspaper and see Arab and Israeli moderates doing things that surprise you , and you hear yourself exclaiming , Wow , I ve never seen that before
you ll know we re going somewhere
Get It Right On Nov. 19 , Rasmussen Reports published results from a national telephone poll that showed that 47 percent of America 's likely voters said the nation 's `` best days are in the past , '' 37 percent said they are in the future
Sixteen percent were undecided
Just before President Obama was inaugurated , 48 percent said our best days were still ahead and 35 percent said they had come and gone
This is a disturbing trend
What 's driving it
Let me say what 's not driving it
It is not that millions of Americans suddenly started worrying about the national debt
Seriously , do you know anyone who says : `` I could n't sleep last night
I was tossing and turning until dawn worrying that the national debt was now $ 14 trillion .
Sorry , that only happens in contrived campaign ads
I think what is driving people 's pessimism today are two intersecting concerns
The long-term concern is that people intuitively understand that what we need most now is nation-building in America
They understand it by just looking around at our crumbling infrastructure , our sputtering job-creation engines and the latest international education test results that show our peers out-educating us , which means they will eventually out-compete us
Many people understand that we are slipping as a country and what they saw in Barack Obama , or what they projected onto him , was that he had both the vision and capability to pull America together behind a plan for nation-building at home
But I think they understand something else : that we are facing a really serious moment
We have to get this plan for nation-building right because we are driving without a spare tire or a bumper
The bailouts and stimulus that we have administered to ourselves have left us without much cushion
There may be room , and even necessity , for a little more stimulus
But we have to get this moment right
We do n't get a do-over
If we fail to come together and invest , spend and cut really wisely , we 're heading for a fall - and if America becomes weak , your kids wo n't just grow up in a different country , they will grow up in a different world
We have to manage America 's foreign policy , and plan its rebuilding at home , at a time when our financial resources and our geopolitical power are more limited than ever while our commitments abroad and entitlement promises at home are more extensive than ever
That is why I believe most Americans do n't want a plan for deficit reduction
The Tea Party 's vision is narrow and uninspired
Americans want a plan to make America great again , and at some level they know that such a plan will require a hybrid politics - one that blends elements of both party 's instincts
And they will follow a president - they would even pay more taxes and give up more services - if they think he really has a plan to make America great again , not just bring him victory in 2012 by 50.1 percent
That hybrid politics will require hard choices : We need to raise gasoline and carbon taxes to discourage their use and drive the creation of a new clean energy industry , while we cut payroll and corporate taxes to encourage employment and domestic investment
We need to cut Medicare and Social Security entitlements at the same time as we make new investments in infrastructure , schools and government-financed research programs that will spawn the next Google and Intel
We need to finish our work in Iraq , which still has the potential to be a long-term game-changer in the Arab-Muslim world , but we need to get out of Afghanistan - even if it entails risks - because we ca n't afford to spend $ 190 million a day to bring its corrupt warlords from the 15th to the 19th century
Yes , President Obama inherited a huge mess from the reckless Bush team
The Onion was not far off in its satirical headline at inauguration time : `` Black Man Given Nation 's Worst Job .
Obama deserves much more credit than he has received for stabilizing the economy and reviving the auto industry
But the reason he has n't gotten it is not just because those nasty Republicans say all those nasty things about him
After all , he owns the biggest bully pulpit in the world
It 's because the 40 percent of Americans in the middle who have determined our last two elections do n't see an integrated plan for nation-building at home that includes not only more spending but hard choices
The best thing the president could do right now is declare his support for the draft recommendations on how to reduce the country 's budget deficit just laid out by the co-chairmen of the White House 's fiscal commission , Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson
In their plan , everybody takes a hit
By doing that , Obama could seize control of the debate
The president could say that he does n't agree with every cut they propose and wants to add his own investments in our future
But their hybrid approach , he could explain , is the only workable course for the country right now - one he intends to use as the basis for his plan for nation-building in America so that never again will we see polls that indicate that half the country thinks our best days are behind us
Here 's my take : Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is
But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers , about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled `` Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam , '' and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki , a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by `` The Narrative .
What is scary is that even though he was born , raised and educated in America , The Narrative still got to him
The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths , propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9\/11
Propagated by jihadist Web sites , mosque preachers , Arab intellectuals , satellite news stations and books and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam , as part of a grand `` American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy '' to keep Muslims down
Yes , after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny in Bosnia , Darfur , Kuwait , Somalia , Lebanon , Kurdistan , post-earthquake Pakistan , post-tsunami Indonesia , Iraq and Afghanistan a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving
Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan , Iraq , Afghanistan and Indonesia , you 'd never know it from listening to their world
The dominant narrative there is that 9\/11 was a kind of fraud : America 's unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the real story , and the Muslims are the real victims of U.S. perfidy
Have no doubt : we punched a fist into the Arab\/Muslim world after 9\/11 , partly to send a message of deterrence , but primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes the Taliban and the Baathists and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics
In the process , we did some stupid and bad things
But for every Abu Ghraib , our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders
The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that
It 's working
As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert , who asked to remain anonymous , said to me : `` This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world
These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and on a daily basis
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Ironically , the vast majority of the media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned mostly from the Gulf .
This narrative suits Arab governments
It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people 's grievances over why their countries are falling behind
And it suits Al Qaeda , which does n't need much organization anymore just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV , let it heat up humiliated , frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males , and one or two will open fire on their own
See : Major Hasan
`` Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to change the status quo , '' said my Jordanian friend
The only difference `` is that while we choose education , knowledge and success to bring about change , a terrorist , having bought into the narrative , has a sense of powerlessness and helplessness , which are inculcated in us from childhood , that lead him to believe that there is only one way , and that is violence .
What to do
Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West , and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves
But none of their leaders dare or care to open that discussion
In his Cairo speech last June , President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream
Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question : `` Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say , ` This is not Islam .
I believe that
But you keep telling us what Islam is n't
You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques
If this is not Islam , then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad , but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims , real people , created in the image of God
You need to explain that to us and to yourselves .
Frank Rich is off today
Here 's what strikes me this election eve : I ca n't remember a presidential campaign that was so disconnected from the actual challenges of governing that will confront the winner the morning after
When this election campaign began two years ago , the big issue was how and for how long do we continue nation-building in Iraq
As the campaign comes to a close , the big issue is how and at what sacrifice do we do nation-building in America
Unfortunately , you 'd barely know that from the presidential debates
Watching them in the context of the meltdown of the financial system was like watching a game show where the two contestants were kept off-stage in a soundproof booth and brought out to address the audience without knowing the context
Since the last debate , John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation 's financial health
But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free
McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day ; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole
Neither is true
We are all going to have to pay , because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been `` perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 , '' says Michael Mandelbaum , author of `` Democracy 's Good Name .
`` It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for
It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present .
Never has one generation spent so much of its children 's wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years
Under George W. Bush , America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts , wars and now bailouts
Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices
But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets , and the need for more bailouts , you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery
The Bush team leaves us with another debt one to Mother Nature
We have added tons more CO2 into the atmosphere these last eight years , without any mitigation effort
As a result , slowing down climate change in the next eight years is going to require even bigger changes and investments in how we use energy
Given that Times columnists are not allowed to `` formally '' endorse candidates and given that the context of this election has changed so much from the policy positions the candidates started with , all I can suggest is that you vote for the candidate with these character traits : First , we need a president who can speak English and deconstruct and navigate complex issues so Americans can make informed choices
We have paid an enormous price for having a president who could not explain and reassure us during this financial meltdown
We wasted a huge amount of time pretending that we could punish Wall Street without punishing Main Street when , in fact , they are intricately intertwined
A major money market fund Reserve Primary failed in September because the extra interest it offered customers derived , in part , from the $ 785 million in high-yielding Lehman Brothers commercial paper and notes it was holding
Depositors who told their congressmen to just let that greedy Lehman Brothers fail were shocked to discover this meant that their own money market would be frozen
No , we do n't need a president defending greed on Wall Street , but we do need one who can explain that we are all in the same boat , that a leak at one end can sink everyone and that while we must regulate , we do n't want to kill risk-taking and the rewards that go with that which are essential to growing our economy
Second , we need a president who can energize , inspire and hold the country together during what will be a very stressful recovery
We have to climb out of this financial crisis at a time when the baby boomers are about to retire and going to need their Social Security and eventually Medicare
We are all going to be paying the government more and getting less until we grow out of this hole
Third , we need a president who can rally the world to our side
We can not get out of this crisis unless China starts consuming more and unless Europe keeps lowering interest rates
Everyone is interconnected , and everyone is still looking to America to lead
So , bottom line : Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with -LRB- unless it 's to get stone cold drunk so you do n't have to think about this mess we 're in -RRB-
Vote for the person you 'd most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage
Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts , temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known
Your kids will thank you
Here 's a story you do n't see very often
Iraq 's highest court told the Iraqi Parliament last Monday that it had no right to strip one of its members of immunity so he could be prosecuted for an alleged crime : visiting Israel for a seminar on counterterrorism
The Iraqi justices said the Sunni lawmaker , Mithal al-Alusi , had committed no crime and told the Parliament to back off
That 's not all
The Iraqi newspaper Al-Umma al-Iraqiyya carried an open letter signed by 400 Iraqi intellectuals , both Kurdish and Arab , defending Alusi
That takes a lot of courage and a lot of press freedom
I ca n't imagine any other Arab country today where independent judges would tell the government it could not prosecute a parliamentarian for visiting Israel and intellectuals would openly defend him in the press
In the case of Iraq , though , the federal high court , in a unanimous decision , vacated the Parliament 's rescinding of Alusi 's immunity , with the decision delivered personally by Chief Justice Medhat al-Mahmoud
The decision explained that although a 1950s-era law made traveling to Israel a crime punishable by death , Iraq 's new Constitution establishes freedom to travel
Therefore the Parliament 's move was `` illegal and unconstitutional because the current Constitution does not prevent citizens from traveling to any country in the world , '' Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar , spokesman for the court , told The Associated Press
The judgment even made the Parliament speaker responsible for the expenses of the court and the defense counsel
I do n't think it 's reasonable to expect Iraq to have relations with Israel anytime soon , but the fact that it may be developing an independent judiciary is good news
It 's a reminder of the most important reason for the Iraq war : to try to collaborate with Iraqis to build progressive politics and rule of law in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world , a region that stands out for its lack of consensual politics and independent judiciaries
And it 's a reminder that a decent outcome may still be possible in Iraq , especially now that the Parliament has endorsed the U.S.-Iraqi plan for a 2011 withdrawal of American troops
Al Qaeda has not been fully defeated in Iraq ; suicide bombings are still an almost daily reality
But it has been dealt a severe blow , which I believe is one reason the Muslim jihadists those brave warriors who specialize in killing women and children and defenseless tourists have turned their attention to softer targets like India
Just as they tried to stoke a Shiite-Sunni civil war in Iraq , and failed , they are now trying to stoke a Hindu-Muslim civil war in India
If Iraq can keep improving still uncertain and become a place where Kurds , Sunnis and Shiites can write their own social contract and live together with a modicum of stability , it could one day become a strategic asset for the United States in the post-9 \/ 11 effort to promote different politics in the Arab-Muslim world
How so
Iraq is a geopolitical space that for the last three decades of the 20th century was dominated by a Baathist dictatorship , which , though it provided a bulwark against Iranian expansion , did so at the cost of a regime that murdered tens of thousands of its own people and attacked three of its neighbors
In 2003 , the United States , under President Bush , invaded Iraq to change the regime
Terrible postwar execution and unrelenting attempts by Al Qaeda to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war turned the Iraqi geopolitical space into a different problem a maelstrom of violence for four years , with U.S. troops caught in the middle
A huge price was paid by Iraqis and Americans
This was the Iraq that Barack Obama ran against
In the last year , though , the U.S. troop surge and the backlash from moderate Iraqi Sunnis against Al Qaeda and Iraqi Shiites against pro-Iranian extremists have brought a new measure of stability to Iraq
There is now , for the first time , a chance still only a chance that a reasonably stable democratizing government , though no doubt corrupt in places , can take root in the Iraqi political space
That is the Iraq that Obama is inheriting
It is an Iraq where we have to begin drawing down our troops because the occupation has gone on too long and because we have now committed to do so by treaty but it is also an Iraq that has the potential to eventually tilt the Arab-Muslim world in a different direction
I 'm sure that Obama , whatever he said during the campaign , will play this smart
He has to avoid giving Iraqi leaders the feeling that Bush did that he 'll wait forever for them to sort out their politics while also not suggesting that he is leaving tomorrow , so they all start stockpiling weapons
If he can pull this off , and help that decent Iraq take root , Obama and the Democrats could not only end the Iraq war but salvage something positive from it
Nothing would do more to enhance the Democratic Party 's national security credentials than that
Do Believe the Hype The Hindustan Times carried a small news item the other day that , depending on your perspective , is good news or a sign of the apocalypse
It reported that a Nepali telecommunications firm had just started providing third-generation mobile network service , or 3G , at the summit of Mount Everest , the world 's tallest mountain , to `` allow thousands of climbers and trekkers who throng the region every year access to high-speed Internet and video calls using their mobile phones .
I can hear it already : `` Hi , mom
You 'll never guess where I 'm calling from ... '' This is just one small node in what is the single most important trend unfolding in the world today : globalization - the distribution of cheap tools of communication and innovation that are wiring together the world 's citizens , governments , businesses , terrorists and now mountaintops - is going to a whole new level
In India alone , some 15 million new cellphone users are being added each month
Having traveled to both China and India in the last few weeks , here 's a scary thought I have : What if - for all the hype about China , India and globalization - they 're actually underhyped
What if these sleeping giants are just finishing a 20-year process of getting the basic technological and educational infrastructure in place to become innovation hubs and that we have n't seen anything yet
Here 's an example of why I ask these questions
It 's a typical Indian start-up I visited in a garage in South Delhi , EKO India Financial Services
Its founders , Abhishek Sinha and his brother Abhinav , began with a small insight - that low-wage Indian migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer states like Bihar had no place to put their savings and no secure way to send money home to their families
India has relatively few bank branches for a country its size , so many migrants stuff money in their mattresses or send cash home through traditional `` hawala , '' or hand-to-hand networks
The brothers had an idea
In every Indian neighborhood or village there 's usually a mom-and-pop kiosk that sells drinks , cigarettes , candy and a few groceries
Why not turn each one into a virtual bank
So they created a software program whereby a migrant worker in Delhi using his cellphone , and proof of identity , could open a bank account registered on his cellphone text system
Mom-and-pop shopkeepers would act as the friendly neighborhood local banker and do the same
Then the worker in New Delhi could give a kiosk owner in his slum 1,000 rupees -LRB- about $ 20 -RRB- , the shopkeeper would record it on his phone and text receipt of the deposit to the system 's mother bank , the State Bank of India
Then the worker 's wife back in Bihar could just go to the mom-and-pop kiosk in her village , also tied into the system , and make a withdrawal using her cellphone
The shopkeeper there would give her the 1,000 rupees sent by her husband
Each shopkeeper would earn a small fee from each transaction
Besides money transfers , workers could also use the system to bank their savings
Since opening 18 months ago , their virtual bank now has 180,000 users doing more than 7,000 transactions a day through 500 `` branches '' - mom-and-pop kiosks - in Delhi and 200 more in Bihar and Jharkhand , the hometowns of many maids and migrants
EKO gets a tiny commission from the Bank of India for each transaction and two months ago started to turn a small profit
Abhishek , who was inspired by a similar program in Brazil , said the kiosk owners `` are already trusted people in each community '' and are already in the habit of extending credit to their poor customers : `` So we said , ` Why not leverage them ?
We are the agents of the bank , and these retailers are our subagents .
The cheapest cellphone today has enough computing power to become a digital `` mattress '' and digital bank for the poor
The whole system is being run out of a little house and garage with a dozen employees , a bunch of laptops , servers and the Internet
The core idea , says Abhishek , is `` to close the last mile - the gap where government services end and the consumer begins .
There is a huge business in bridging that last mile for millions of poor Indians - who , without it , ca n't get proper health care , education or insurance
What is striking about the small EKO team is that it includes graduates from India 's most prestigious institutes of technology who were working in America but decided to come home for the action , while the chief operating officer - Matteo Chiampo - is an Italian technologist who left a good job in Boston to work here `` where the excitement is , '' he said
India today is this unusual combination of a country with millions of people making $ 2 and $ 3 a day , but with a growing economy , an increasing amount of cheap connectivity and a rising number of skilled technologists looking to make their fortune by inventing low-cost solutions to every problem you can imagine
In the next decade , I predict , we will see some really disruptive business models coming out of here - to a neighborhood near you
If you thought the rate of change was fast thanks to the garage innovators of Silicon Valley , wait until the garages of Delhi , Mumbai and Bangalore get fully up to speed
I sure hope we 're ready
India is in serious danger no , not from Pakistan or internal strife
India is in danger from an Indian-made vehicle : a $ 2,500 passenger car , the world s cheapest
India s Tata Motors recently announced that it plans to begin turning out a four-door , four-seat , rear-engine car for $ 2,500 next year and hopes to sell one million of them annually , primarily to those living at the bottom of the pyramid in India and the developing world
Welcome to one of the emerging problems of the flat world : Blessedly , many more people now have the incomes to live an American lifestyle , and the Indian and Chinese low-cost manufacturing platforms can deliver them that lifestyle at lower and lower costs
But the energy and environmental implications could be enormous , for India and the world
We have no right to tell Indians what cars to make or drive
But we can urge them to think hard about following our model , without a real mass transit alternative in place
Cheap conventional four-wheel cars , which would encourage millions of Indians to give up their two-wheel motor scooters and three-wheel motorized rickshaws , could overwhelm India s already strained road system , increase its dependence on imported oil and gridlock the country s megacities
Yes , Indian families whose only vehicle now is a two-seat scooter often make two trips back and forth to places to get their whole family around , so a car that could pack a family of four is actually a form of mini-mass transit
And yes , Tata , by striving to make a car that could sell for $ 2,500 , is forcing the entire Indian auto supply chain to become much more efficient and therefore competitive
But here s what s also true : Last week , I was driving through downtown Hyderabad and passed the dedication of a new overpass that had taken two years to build
A crowd was gathered around a Hindu priest in a multicolored robe , who was swinging a lantern fired by burning coconut shells and praying for safe travel on this new flyover , which would lift traffic off the streets below
The next morning I was reading The Sunday Times of India when my eye caught a color photograph of total gridlock , showing motor scooters , buses , cars and bright yellow motorized rickshaws knotted together
The caption : Traffic ends in bottleneck on the Greenlands flyover , which was opened in Hyderabad on Saturday
On day one , the flyover was chockablock with traffic , raising questions over the efficacy of the flyover in reducing vehicular congestion
That s the strain on India s infrastructure without a $ 2,500 car
So what should India do
It should leapfrog us , not copy us
Just as India went from no phones to 250 million cellphones skipping costly land lines and ending up with , in many ways , a better and cheaper phone system than we have it should try the same with mass transit
India can t ban a $ 2,500 car , but it can tax it like crazy until it has a mass transit system that can give people another cheap mobility option , said Sunita Narain , the dynamo who directs New Delhi s Center for Science and Environment and got India s Supreme Court to order the New Delhi bus system to move from diesel to compressed natural gas
This greatly improved New Delhi s air and forced the Indian bus makers to innovate and create a cleaner compressed natural gas vehicle , which they now export
I am not fighting the small car , Ms. Narain said
I am simply asking for many more buses and bus lanes a complete change in mobility
Because if we get the $ 2,500 car we will not solve our mobility problem , we will just add to our congestion and pollution problems
Charge high prices for parking , charge a proper road tax for driving , deploy free air-conditioned buses that reach every corner of the city , expand the existing beautiful Delhi subway system , and then let the market work , she added
Why should you care what they re driving in Delhi
Here s why : The cost of your cellphone is a lot cheaper today because India took that little Western invention and innovated around it so it is now affordable to Indians who make only $ 2 a day
India has become a giant platform for inventing cheap scale solutions to big problems
If it applied itself to green mass transit solutions for countries with exploding middle classes , it would be a gift for itself and the world
To do that it must leapfrog
If India just innovates in cheap cars alone , its future will be gridlocked and polluted
But an India that makes itself the leader in both cheap cars and clean mass mobility is an India that will be healthier and wealthier
It will also be an India that gives us cheap answers to big problems rather than cheap copies of our worst habits
In 2003 , I was on a trip to Iraq and had arranged an appointment in the Green Zone with a member of the then-Iraqi Governing Council
Security was tight
I was with my Iraqi translator , a middle-aged man who had once been a teacher
When we arrived at the council , after a long walk , I showed my ID to two young uniformed U.S. soldiers
They told me to wait , went inside and out came a man wearing civilian clothes , one of those fishing vests and an Australian bush hat
He never properly identified himself , but it was obvious that he was a `` civilian contractor '' from the logo on his shirt
When I tried to explain why we were there , he literally told me to shut my mouth until I was told to speak
Then he told my Iraqi translator to sit in the blistering heat while he escorted me the American inside to see if our Iraqi interviewee was available
I have to admit it : both my translator and I really wanted to just punch his lights out
But I kept thinking to myself : `` Who does this guy report to
If I get in his face and he comes after me , to whom do I complain ?
That was my first encounter with one of the many private security guards , service suppliers and aid workers a k a civilian contractors who have since become an integral part of the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan
Some were even used at Abu Ghraib to do `` enhanced interrogations '' a k a torture of suspected terrorists
Today , there is no operation that is too sensitive not to outsource to the private sector
As we debate how many more troops to dispatch to Afghanistan , it might be a good time to also debate just how far we 've already gone in hiring private contractors to do jobs that the State Department , Pentagon and C.I.A. once did on their own
A good place to start is with the Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger 's new book on this subject , `` One Nation Under Contract : The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy .
Every year , more and more of the core business of national security diplomacy , development , defense and even intelligence `` is being shifted into the hands of private contractors much more than our public realizes , '' Stanger said to me
One big reason why we 've been able to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with so few allies is because we 've basically hired the help
`` Afghanistan and Iraq , '' explained Stanger , `` are our first contractors ' wars , differing from previous interventions in their unprecedented reliance on the private sector for all aspects of their execution
According to the Congressional Research Service , contractors in 2009 accounted for 48 percent of the D.O.D. work force in Iraq and 57 percent in Afghanistan
And the Pentagon is not the only government agency deploying contractors ; the State Department and Usaid make extensive use of them as well
Contractors provide security for key personnel and sites , including our embassies ; feed , clothe and house our troops ; train army and police units ; and even oversee other contractors
Without a multinational contractor force to fill the gap , we would need a draft to execute these twin interventions .
Or , we would need real allies
I am not against outsourcing , improving government efficiency or hiring the best people to perform specialized tasks
But we 've fallen into a pattern of outsourcing some of the very core tasks of government interrogation , security , democracy promotion
As more and more of this government work gets contracted and then subcontracted or as Stanger puts it , `` when money and instructions change hands multiple times in a foreign country '' the public interest can get lost and abuse and corruption get invited in
We 're also building a contractor-industrial-complex in Washington that has an economic interest in foreign expeditions
Does n't make it wrong ; does make you want to be watchful
In 2008 , notes Stanger , roughly 80 percent of the State Department 's requested budget went out the door in the form of contracts and grants
The Army 's primary support contractor in Iraq , KBR , reportedly has some 17,000 direct-hire employees there
The U.S. military is now proposing a huge nation-building project for Afghanistan to replace its dysfunctional government with a state that can deliver for the Afghan people so they wo n't side with the Taliban
I might be more open to that project if we had a true global alliance to share the burden of an effort that will take decades
But we do n't
European publics do not favor this war , and our allies will only pony up just enough troops to get their official `` Frequent U.S. Ally Card '' renewed
We 'll make up the difference by hiring private contractors
The government may operate more efficiently with private contractors
And outsourcing can often deliver real innovation , especially in economic development
Still , I 'm old-fashioned : When America is acting abroad , I prefer our public services to be provided as much as possible by public servants motivated by , and schooled in , the common good and simple patriotism not profits or private ambitions
And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4 , 2008 , shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time , the American Civil War ended , as a black man Barack Hussein Obama won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States
A civil war that , in many ways , began at Bull Run , Virginia , on July 21 , 1861 , ended 147 years later via a ballot box in the very same state
For nothing more symbolically illustrated the final chapter of America 's Civil War than the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia the state that once exalted slavery and whose secession from the Union in 1861 gave the Confederacy both strategic weight and its commanding general voted Democratic , thus assuring that Barack Obama would become the 44th president of the United States
This moment was necessary , for despite a century of civil rights legislation , judicial interventions and social activism despite Brown v. Board of Education , Martin Luther King 's I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act the Civil War could never truly be said to have ended until America 's white majority actually elected an African-American as president
That is what happened Tuesday night and that is why we awake this morning to a different country
The struggle for equal rights is far from over , but we start afresh now from a whole new baseline
Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward everything really is possible in America
How did Obama pull it off
To be sure , it probably took a once-in-a-century economic crisis to get enough white people to vote for a black man
And to be sure , Obama 's better organization , calm manner , mellifluous speaking style and unthreatening message of `` change '' all served him well
But there also may have been something of a `` Buffett effect '' that countered the supposed `` Bradley effect '' white voters telling pollsters they 'd vote for Obama but then voting for the white guy
The Buffett effect was just the opposite
It was white conservatives telling the guys in the men 's grill at the country club that they were voting for John McCain , but then quietly going into the booth and voting for Obama , even though they knew it would mean higher taxes
Some did it because they sensed how inspired and hopeful their kids were about an Obama presidency , and they not only did n't want to dash those hopes , they secretly wanted to share them
Others intuitively embraced Warren Buffett 's view that if you are rich and successful today , it is first and foremost because you were lucky enough to be born in America at this time and never forget that
So , we need to get back to fixing our country we need a president who can unify us for nation-building at home
And somewhere they also knew that after the abysmal performance of the Bush team , there had to be consequences for the Republican Party
Electing McCain now would have , in some way , meant rewarding incompetence
It would have made a mockery of accountability in government and unleashed a wave of cynicism in America that would have been deeply corrosive
Obama will always be our first black president
But can he be one of our few great presidents
He is going to have his chance because our greatest presidents are those who assumed the office at some of our darkest hours and at the bottom of some of our deepest holes
`` Taking office at a time of crisis does n't guarantee greatness , but it can be an occasion for it , '' argued the Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel
`` That was certainly the case with Lincoln , F.D.R. and Truman .
Part of F.D.R. 's greatness , though , `` was that he gradually wove a new governing political philosophy the New Deal out of the rubble and political disarray of the economic depression he inherited .
Obama will need to do the same , but these things take time
`` F.D.R. did not run on the New Deal in 1932 , '' said Sandel
`` He ran on balancing the budget
Like Obama , he did not take office with a clearly articulated governing philosophy
He arrived with a confident , activist spirit and experimented
Not until 1936 did we have a presidential campaign about the New Deal
What Obama 's equivalent will be , even he does n't know
It will emerge as he grapples with the economy , energy and America 's role in the world
These challenges are so great that he will only succeed if he is able to articulate a new politics of the common good .
Remember Y2K
That was the millennium bug , the software glitch that threatened to melt down millions of computers when their internal clocks tried to roll over on Jan. 1 , 2000 , because they were not designed to handle that new date
And remember that the only country that had enough software programmers to adjust all these computers so they wouldn t go haywire , and do it at a reasonable price , was India
And remember that it was this huge operation that launched the Indian outsourcing industry which is why I have long felt that Y2K should be a national holiday in India
Well , remember this : there is an even bigger opportunity for India than Y2K waiting around the corner
I call it E2K
E2K stands , in my mind , for all the energy programming and monitoring that thousands of global companies are going to be undertaking in the early 21st century to either become carbon neutral or far more energy efficient than they are today
India is poised to get a lot of this work
I first started thinking about this when I heard Michael Dell declare that Dell Inc. would become carbon neutral in its operations by the end of 2008
He said Dell would take inventory of its total greenhouse gas outputs and then develop plans to reduce , eliminate or offset those emissions
With a carbon tax or cap-and-trade legislation looming , every day you are going to see more and more companies doing the same thing
It is going to be the next big global business transformation
And it s going to require tons of software , programming and back-room management to measure each company s carbon footprint and then monitor the various emissions-reduction and offsetting measures on an ongoing basis
Guess who s got the low-cost brainpower to do all that
Some of the smartest Indian outsourcing companies are already positioning themselves for the E2K market
What did Y2K do
asked Nandan Nilekani , the co-chairman of Infosys Technologies , one of India s premier outsourcing companies
It was a deadline imposed by the calendar , and therefore it had a huge ability to concentrate the mind
It became a drop-dead date for everyone
Making your company carbon neutral is not a date , but it is an inevitability
When Y2K came along , some companies responded tactically , doing only the minimum reprogramming to keep their computers operational after Jan. 1 , 2000
Others approached it more strategically , saying : Since we re going to have to go through all our software anyway , why not just retire all the old stuff and upgrade to the newer , simpler systems that will make us more efficient
These companies went from seeing I.T. , or information technology , as a cost to looking for ways to make money from it through data mining and using better information to cross-sell products , reduce cycle times for introducing new services and to manage inventories more efficiently
The key to winning E2K business for the Indian outsourcing firms , said Mr. Nilekani , will be showing big global companies , like a Dell , how becoming more energy efficient or carbon neutral doesn t just have to be a new cost they assume to improve their brand or satisfy regulators , but can actually be a strategic move that makes money and gives them an edge on the competition
The strategic companies will say : We are stuck with this problem why not take advantage of it and use it to revolutionize and rejigger our whole energy infrastructure , added Mr. Nilekani
They will use E.T. energy technology to reduce material costs , simplify logistics , drive down electricity charges and shorten supply chains
As they start to do this , it will require a lot of data management , which companies will want to do as cheaply as possible
Hello India
Hello E2K
My impression is that there is certainly a significant opportunity for Indian outsourcing companies , said B. Ramalinga Raju , chairman of Satyam Computer Services , another top Indian outsourcing company , adding that the precise size of that business will depend on the speed and scale at which the carbon neutral policies are adopted by the global companies
To better compete for such business , Mr. Nilekani is installing solar systems and other efficiency technologies at Infosys s Bangalore campus
Satyam is planning to do similar things with its verdant Hyderabad complex , which already has its own zoo
I.B.M. seems to be moving into this space , too
Big Blue knows that even if Indian companies do a lot of the back-room work , there will be lots of front-end jobs nearer the customers
So , mom , dad , tell your kids : if they re looking for a good stable-growth career green consultants , green designers , green builders are all going to be in huge demand
And if they can speak a little Hindi all the better
Related Searches India Energy Efficiency Computers and the Internet Carbon
Long Live Lady Luck One of the most striking things about our recent midterm elections is that foreign policy played absolutely no part in the voting - and for that we have Lady Luck , and some good intelligence work , to thank
In fact , in the past year we 've won the lottery five times in row
How often does that happen
Let 's review : We got incredibly lucky that the Al Qaeda-inspired Nigerian , Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , was unable to detonate the explosives sewn into his underpants , as his Delta airliner , with 278 passengers , was approaching the Detroit airport last Christmas Day
Ditto for Faisal Shahzad , whose homemade bomb packed into a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder failed to go off after he detonated it in a crowded Times Square on May 1
In February , thanks to good intelligence work , Najibullah Zazi , an Afghan immigrant , pleaded guilty in a New York courtroom to plotting with Al Qaeda to kill himself - and as many other people as possible - by setting off a bomb in a New York City subway near the anniversary of 9\/11
Then , last week , security teams removed packages from cargo planes in Britain and the United Arab Emirates bound for Chicago
Inside , they found bombs wired to cellphones and hidden in the toner cartridges of computer printers
The bombs , timed to go off when the planes were over America , were believed to have been built by the same Saudi jihadist , Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri , who designed the Christmas Day underwear bomb
An intelligence tip from the Saudis upset that plan
Imagine if all five had gone off
We would be checking the underwear of every airline passenger , you would have to pass through metal detectors to walk into Times Square or take the subway , and the global air cargo industry would be in turmoil , as every package would have to be sniffed by a bomb-detecting dog
So , yes , we won the lottery five times in a row - and that 's just the attempts we know about
But one of these days , our luck is going to run out because the savage madness emanating from Al Qaeda , from single individuals it inspires over the Web and from its different franchisees - like the branches in Yemen and Iraq - is only increasing
A week ago , a Baghdad church was attacked
Here is how The Associated Press described it : Seven or eight Al Qaeda-linked Muslim militants `` charged through the front doors of the church , interrupting the evening Mass service
They rushed down the aisle , brandishing their machine guns and spraying the room with bullets
They ordered the priest to call the Vatican to demand the release of Muslim women who they claimed were being held captive by the Coptic Church in Egypt
When the priest said he could not do that , the gunmen shot him and turned their guns on the congregation , killing most of those in the front pew .
When the Iraqi police moved in to rescue the worshipers , scores more were killed in the shootout
Last Friday , pro-Taliban bombers blew up two moderate mosques during Friday prayer in northwestern Pakistan , killing more than 60 worshipers
When Muslim jihadists are ready to just gun down or blow up unarmed men , women and children in the midst of prayer - Muslim or Christian - it means there are no moral , cultural or religious restraints left on the Islamic fringe
It 's anything goes
And it 's becoming routine
What to do
So many , but not all , of the suicide bombers come from failing , humiliated societies that generate huge numbers of `` sitting-around people , '' who are easy prey for recruiters offering martyrdom and significance in the next life
We need to do what we can to eliminate their sources of energy
That means finishing our business in Afghanistan and Iraq , and settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , and getting our military out of that region
But these will never be sufficient
There is a civil war in Islam today between the forces of decency and modernism and the suicidal jihadists
This stuff only stops when the Muslim forces of decency triumph - and delegitimize and crush the barbarism of Al Qaeda
It takes a village , and it 's going to take a while
Meanwhile , we need to focus on the things we can control
For starters , we 're going to have to learn to live with more insecurity
Terrorism is awful , but it is not yet an existential threat
And we ca n't let our response to it be to shut down our open society or tear ourselves apart with recriminations
Like the Israelis and Brits , we need to keep up our guard , learn from our mistakes , but also learn to bury our dead and move on
Finally , we need to dry up the funding for terrorist groups , and the mosques , schools and charities that support them
And that means working to end our addiction to oil
It is disgusting to listen to Republican politicians lecturing President Obama about how he has to stay the course in Afghanistan while they do n't have an ounce of courage to vote to increase the gasoline tax or renewable energy standards that would reduce the money we 're sending to the people our soldiers are fighting
I know
None of this seems very relevant right now
But it will - the day our luck runs out
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play
It is obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes , with the same old tired clich s and that no one believes any of it anymore
There is no romance , no sex , no excitement , no urgency not even a sense of importance anymore
The only thing driving the peace process today is inertia and diplomatic habit
Yes , the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy
It is now more of a calisthenic , like weight-lifting or sit-ups , something diplomats do to stay in shape , but not because they believe anything is going to happen
And yet , as much as we , the audience , know this to be true , we can never quite abandon hope for peace in the Holy Land
It is our habit
Indeed , as I ranted about this to a Jordanian friend the other day , he said it all reminded him of an old story
`` These two guys are watching a cowboy and Indian movie
And in the opening scene , an Indian is hiding behind a rock about to ambush the handsome cowboy , '' he explained . ''
I bet that Indian is going to kill that cowboy , ' one guy says to the other
` Never happen , ' his friend answers
` The cowboy is not going to be killed in the opening scene .
` I 'll bet you $ 10 he gets killed , ' the guy says
` I 'll take that bet , ' says his friend
`` Sure enough , a few minutes later , the cowboy is killed and the friend pays the $ 10
After the movie is over the guy says to his friend , ` Look , I have to give you back your $ 10
I 'd actually seen this movie before
I knew what was going to happen .
His friend answers : ` No , you can keep the $ 10
I 'd seen the movie , too
I just thought it would end differently this time . '
This peace process movie is not going to end differently just because we keep playing the same reel
It is time for a radically new approach
And I mean radical
I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do : Take down our `` Peace-Processing-Is-Us '' sign and just go home
Right now we want it more than the parties
They all have other priorities today
And by constantly injecting ourselves we 've become their Novocain
We relieve all the political pain from the Arab and Israeli decision-makers by creating the impression in the minds of their publics that something serious is happening
`` Look , the U.S. secretary of state is here
Look , she 's standing by my side
Look , I 'm doing something important
Take our picture
Put it on the news
We 're on the verge of something really big and I am indispensable to it .
This enables the respective leaders to continue with their real priorities which are all about holding power or pursuing ideological obsessions while pretending to advance peace , without paying any political price
Let 's just get out of the picture
Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth : `` My fellow citizens : Nothing is happening ; nothing is going to happen
It 's just you and me and the problem we own .
Indeed , it 's time for us to dust off James Baker 's line : `` When you 're serious , give us a call : 202-456-1414
Ask for Barack
Otherwise , stay out of our lives
We have our own country to fix .
The fact is , the only time America has been able to advance peace post-Yom Kippur War , Camp David , post-Lebanon war , Madrid and Oslo has been when the parties felt enough pain for different reasons that they invited our diplomacy , and we had statesmen Henry Kissinger , Jimmy Carter , George Shultz , James Baker and Bill Clinton savvy enough to seize those moments
Today , the Arabs , Israel and the Palestinians are clearly not feeling enough pain to do anything hard for peace with each other a mood best summed up by a phrase making the rounds at the State Department : The Palestinian leadership `` wants a deal with Israel without any negotiations '' and Israel 's leadership `` wants negotiations with the Palestinians without any deal .
It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank , this Palestinian Authority still ca n't decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine
If we are still begging Israel to stop building settlements , which is so manifestly idiotic , and the Palestinians to come to negotiations , which is so manifestly in their interest , and the Saudis to just give Israel a wink , which is so manifestly pathetic , we are in the wrong place
It 's time to call a halt to this dysfunctional `` peace process , '' which is only damaging the Obama team 's credibility
If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties , then I say , let them enjoy it
I just do n't want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore
We need to fix America
If and when they get serious , they 'll find us
And when they do , we should put a detailed U.S. plan for a two-state solution , with borders , on the table
Let 's fight about something big
So , I was speaking to an Iranian friend about what a mind-bending thing it must be for people in the Middle East to see Americans , seven years after 9\/11 , electing someone named Barack Hussein Obama as president
America is surely the only nation that could in the same decade go to war against a president named Hussein -LRB- Saddam of Iraq -RRB- , threaten to use force against a country whose most revered religious martyr is named Hussein -LRB- Iran -RRB- and then elect its own president who 's middle-named Hussein
Much has been written about how people all around the world are celebrating the victory of our Hussein Barack of Illinois , whose first name means `` blessing '' in Arabic
It is , indeed , a blessing that so many people in so many places see something of themselves reflected in Obama , whether in the color of his skin , the religion of his father , his African heritage , his being raised by a single mother or his childhood of poverty
And that ensures that Obama will probably have a longer than usual honeymoon with the world
But I would n't exaggerate it
The minute Obama has to exercise U.S. military power somewhere in the world , you can be sure that he will get blowback
For now , though , his biography , demeanor and willingness to at least test a regime like Iran 's with diplomacy makes him more difficult to demonize than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
`` If you 're a hard-liner in Tehran , a U.S. president who wants to talk to you presents more of a quandary than a U.S. president who wants to confront you , '' remarked Karim Sadjadpour , an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment
`` How are you going to implore crowds to chant ` Death to Barack Hussein Obama '
That sounds more like the chant of the oppressor , not the victim
Obama just does n't fit the radical Islamist narrative of a racist , blood-thirsty America , which is bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide
There 's a cognitive dissonance
It 's like Hollywood casting Sidney Poitier to play Charles Manson
It just does n't fit .
But while the world appears poised to give Obama a generous honeymoon , there lurks a much more important question : How long of a honeymoon will Obama give the world
To all those Europeans , Canadians , Japanese , Russians , Iranians , Chinese , Indians , Africans and Latin Americans who are e-mailing their American friends about their joy at having `` America back , '' now that Obama is in , I just have one thing to say : `` Show me the money !
Do n't just show me the love
Do n't just give me the smiles
Your love is fickle and , as I said , it will last about as long as the first Obama airstrike against an Al Qaeda position in Pakistan
No , no , no , show me the money
Show me that you are ready to be Obama stakeholders , not free-riders stakeholders in what will be expensive and difficult initiatives by the Obama administration to keep the world stable and free at a time when we have fewer resources
Examples : I understand any foreigner who objected to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the gross mishandling of the postwar
But surely everyone in the world has an interest in helping Obama , who opposed the war , bring it to a decent and stable end , especially now that there is a chance that Iraq could emerge as the first democracy , albeit messy , in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world
Obama was against how this Iraq war started , but he is going to be held responsible for how it ends , so why do n't all our allies now offer whatever they can money , police , aid workers , troops , diplomatic support to increase the odds of a decent end in Iraq
Ditto Afghanistan
The U.N. says it does n't want Iran to go nuclear and does n't want the U.S. to use force to prevent Iran from going nuclear
I agree
That 's why I want all those people in China , France , Russia , India and Germany who are smiling for Obama to go out and demand that their governments use their tremendous economic leverage with Iran to let the Iranians know that if Tehran continues to move toward a nuclear weapon , in opposition to U.N. resolutions , these countries will impose real economic sanctions
Nothing and I mean nothing would more help President-elect Obama to forge a diplomatic deal with Iran than having a threat of biting Chinese , Indian and E.U. economic sanctions in his holster
President Bush , because he was so easily demonized , made being a free-rider on American power easy for everyone and Americans paid the price
Obama will not make it so easy
So to everyone overseas I say : thanks for your applause for our new president
I 'm glad you all feel that America `` is back .
If you want Obama to succeed , though , do n't just show us the love , show us the money
Show us the troops
Show us the diplomatic effort
Show us the economic partnership
Show us something more than a fresh smile
Because freedom is not free and your excuse for doing less than you could is leaving town in January
I just spent the past week visiting several colleges Auburn , the University of Mississippi , Lake Forest and Williams and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students , the more I am both baffled and impressed
I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be
I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be
One of the things I feared most after 9\/11 that my daughters would not be able to travel the world with the same carefree attitude my wife and I did at their age has not come to pass
Whether it was at Ole Miss or Williams or my alma mater , Brandeis , college students today are not only going abroad to study in record numbers , but they are also going abroad to build homes for the poor in El Salvador in record numbers or volunteering at AIDS clinics in record numbers
Not only has terrorism not deterred them from traveling , they are rolling up their sleeves and diving in deeper than ever
The Iraq war may be a mess , but I noticed at Auburn and Ole Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms
Many of those not going abroad have channeled their national service impulses into increasingly popular programs at home like Teach for America , which has become to this generation what the Peace Corps was to mine
It s for all these reasons that I ve been calling them Generation Q the Quiet Americans , in the best sense of that term , quietly pursuing their idealism , at home and abroad
But Generation Q may be too quiet , too online , for its own good , and for the country s own good
When I think of the huge budget deficit , Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation , if they are not spitting mad , well , then they re just not paying attention
And we ll just keep piling it on them
There is a good chance that members of Generation Q will spend their entire adult lives digging out from the deficits that we the Greediest Generation , epitomized by George W. Bush are leaving them
When I was visiting my daughter at her college , she asked me about a terrifying story that ran in this newspaper on Oct. 2 , reporting that the Arctic ice cap was melting to an extent unparalleled in a century or more and that the entire Arctic system appears to be heading toward a new , more watery state likely triggered by human-caused global warming
What happened to that Arctic story , Dad
my daughter asked me
How could the news media just report one day that the Arctic ice was melting far faster than any models predicted and then the story just disappeared
Why weren t any of the candidates talking about it
Didn t they understand : this has become the big issue on campuses
No , they don t seem to understand
They seem to be too busy raising money or buying votes with subsidies for ethanol farmers in Iowa
The candidates could actually use a good kick in the pants on this point
But where is it going to come from
Generation Q would be doing itself a favor , and America a favor , if it demanded from every candidate who comes on campus answers to three questions : What is your plan for mitigating climate change
What is your plan for reforming Social Security
What is your plan for dealing with the deficit so we all won t be working for China in 20 years
America needs a jolt of the idealism , activism and outrage -LRB- it must be in there -RRB- of Generation Q. That s what twentysomethings are for to light a fire under the country
But they can t e-mail it in , and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won t cut it
They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them
Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms
Activism can only be uploaded , the old-fashioned way by young voters speaking truth to power , face to face , in big numbers , on campuses or the Washington Mall
Virtual politics is just that virtual
Maybe that s why what impressed me most on my brief college swing was actually a statue the life-size statue of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi
Meredith was the first African-American to be admitted to Ole Miss in 1962
The Meredith bronze is posed as if he is striding toward a tall limestone archway , re-enacting his fateful step onto the then-segregated campus defying a violent , angry mob and protected by the National Guard
Above the archway , carved into the stone , is the word Courage
That is what real activism looks like
There is no substitute
I still find it amazing that with all the climate , security , health and financial interests America has in reducing its dependence on oil , our Congress could not work out an energy bill over the past two years - especially when China , Japan and the European Union are all hurdling ahead on clean-tech
The fact that we failed to pass an energy bill - cap-and-trade , a carbon tax , efficiency standards , I do n't care which - is actually a reflection of a broader U.S. power failure
It is the failure of our political system to unite , even in a crisis , to produce the policy responses America needs to thrive in the 21st century
As the Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib once noted : `` America and its political leaders , after two decades of failing to come together to solve big problems , seem to have lost faith in their ability to do so
A political system that expects failure does n't try very hard to produce anything else .
It is a shame because America , while often paralyzed from the top down , is alive from the bottom up
The more I travel around our country , the more I meet people who did n't get the word - that we 're supposed to be depressed and on our backs - and they 're out experimenting with education , innovating with technology and using the Web for start-ups
But our political system is not empowering , enhancing and inspiring their efforts at the speed and scale that we need
If you want to see in stark relief all the forces undermining our system 's ability to make smart , strategic , long-term decisions , read Ryan Lizza 's article in the Oct. 11 issue of The New Yorker , explaining just how the bipartisan effort by Senators John Kerry -LRB- D -RRB- , Lindsey Graham -LRB- R -RRB- , and Joseph Lieberman -LRB- I -RRB- to produce an energy-climate bill and enhance clean-tech innovation was killed this year
Entitled `` As the World Burns , '' Lizza 's piece is an X-ray of the dysfunctions eating away at our future : politicians who only know how to read polls , never change them ; media outlets serving political parties ; special interests buying senators ; mindless partisanship ; an epidemic of low expectations for our government
And us - we elected them all , and we tolerate them
Here are a few graphs from Lizza 's piece : Mindless tribal partisanship : Lizza describing what happened to Senator Graham when it became clear in his home state of South Carolina that he was supporting a clean energy bill with Democrats : `` Graham was holding a town-hall meeting in the gym of a high school in Greenville , South Carolina
His constituents were not happy
One man accused him of ` making a pact with the Devil .
Another shouted , ` No principled compromise !
One audience member asked , ` Why do you think it 's necessary to get in bed with people like John Kerry ?
Graham , dressed in a blue blazer and khakis , paced the floor , explaining that there were only forty Republicans in the Senate , which meant that he had to work with the sixty Democrats
A man in the bleachers shouted , `` You 're a traitor , Mr. Graham
You 've betrayed this nation and you 've betrayed this state ! '
A TV network acting as the political enforcer of the Republican Party : Lizza : `` Back in Washington , Graham warned Lieberman and Kerry that they needed to get as far as they could in negotiating the bill ` before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was a serious process , ' one of the people involved in the negotiations said
` He would say : The second they focus on us , it 's gonna be all cap-and-tax all the time , and it 's gonna become just a disaster for me on the airwaves
We have to move this along as quickly as possible . '
Special interests buying policy : Lizza : `` Then Newt Gingrich 's group , American Solutions , whose largest donors include coal and electric-utility interests , began targeting Graham with a flurry of online articles about the ` Kerry-Graham-Lieberman gas tax bill . '
Politicians who put their interests before the country 's : Lizza : `` Then , suddenly , there was a new problem : Harry Reid , the Senate majority leader , said that he wanted to pass immigration reform before the climate-change bill
It was a cynical ploy
Everyone in the Senate knew that there was no immigration bill
Reid was in a tough re-election , and immigration activists , influential in his home state of Nevada , were pressuring him .
A political system that can not manage multiple policy shifts at once - even though it needs to : Lizza : Obama aide Jay Heimbach attended meetings with the three sponsoring senators , `` but almost never expressed a policy preference or revealed White House thinking
` It 's a drum circle , ' one Senate aide lamented
` They come by : How are you feeling
Where do you think the votes are
What do you think we should do
It 's never : Here 's the plan , here 's what we 're doing .
Said one Obama adviser , explaining the president 's difficulty in motivating Congressional Democrats on energy : ` The horse has been ridden hard this year and just wants to go back to the barn . '
I just have one thing to add : We need to do better
The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize
As he himself acknowledged , he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way
It is not the president 's fault , though , that the Europeans are so relieved at his style of leadership , in contrast to that of his predecessor , that they want to do all they can to validate and encourage it
I thought the president showed great grace in accepting the prize not for himself but `` as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations .
All that said , I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony
Here is the speech I hope he will give : `` Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize , the highest award to which any statesman can aspire
As I said on the day it was announced , ' I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who 've been honored by this prize .
Therefore , upon reflection , I can not accept this award on my behalf at all
`` But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century the men and women of the U.S. Army , Navy , Air Force and Marine Corps
`` I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6 , 1944 , to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism
I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War
`` I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free
I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war
`` I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country , and particularly its women and girls , a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban 's religious totalitarianism
`` I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq , helping to protect Baghdad 's fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region another free and fair election
`` I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea
`` I will accept this award on behalf of all the American men and women soldiers who have gone on repeated humanitarian rescue missions after earthquakes and floods from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia
I will accept this award on behalf of American soldiers who serve in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert that has kept relations between Egypt and Israel stable ever since the Camp David treaty was signed
`` I will accept this award on behalf of all the American airmen and sailors today who keep the sea lanes open and free in the Pacific and Atlantic so world trade can flow unhindered between nations
`` Finally , I will accept this award on behalf of my grandfather , Stanley Dunham , who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day , and on behalf of my great-uncle , Charlie Payne , who was among those soldiers who liberated part of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald
`` Members of the Nobel committee , I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers , past and present , because I know and I want you to know that there is no peace without peacekeepers
`` Until the words of Isaiah are made true and lasting and nations never again lift up swords against nations and never learn war anymore we will need peacekeepers
Lord knows , ours are not perfect , and I have already moved to remedy inexcusable excesses we 've perpetrated in the war on terrorism
`` But have no doubt , those are the exception
If you want to see the true essence of America , visit any U.S. military outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan
You will meet young men and women of every race and religion who work together as one , far from their families , motivated chiefly by their mission to keep the peace and expand the borders of freedom
`` So for all these reasons and so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace , tolerance and liberty I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military : the world 's most important peacekeepers .
My friend Rob Watson , the head of EcoTech International , has a saying about Mother Nature that goes like this : `` Mother Nature is just chemistry , biology and physics
That 's all she is .
And because of that , says Rob , you can not spin Mother Nature
You can not bribe Mother Nature
You can not sweet talk her , and you can not ignore her
She 's going to do with the climate whatever chemistry , biology and physics dictate
And Mother Nature always bats last , and she always bats a thousand
There is a parallel with markets
At their core , markets are propelled by fear and greed
They 're just the balance at any given moment of those two impulses
Over the long run , you can not spin the market
You can not sweet talk it into going up or beg it not to go down
It 's going to do whatever it 's going to do whichever way greed and fear tug it
And the market always bats last and it always bats a thousand
What am I saying
We are where we are today because we went on a credit binge and we 're now paying the price
Because it was the biggest credit binge the world has ever been on , a lot of wealth is going to be wiped out
Now what you 're witnessing is the market re-evaluating and re-pricing every asset in the world , without mercy , telling each stock , bond and bank what its value is in a post-credit binge world
So why , despite the Congressional bailout , have n't banks started lending again
You have to go back to the beginning of the problem
After the fall of the Berlin Wall , virtually every economy in the world moved to a capitalist system , which eventually made the world awash with money looking for investments
It did n't take long for financial engineers to figure out how to move home mortgages and commercial loans from a transaction between you and your local bank or between your company and a syndicate of banks to something much more diffused and fragmented
While your bank may have initiated the mortgage or the corporate loan , it was quickly sold to an aggregator who turned these different loans into bonds and then sold them all over the world in small pieces to banks and money market and pension funds
The good news about this democratization of finance is that it powered enormous growth around the world
More people than ever grew out of poverty faster or got rich faster
But the process became so lucrative that people imbeciles who should not have been selling these things got into the food chain of selling them
Banks and insurance companies that should not have even nibbled on them , gorged on them
And companies that should not have been dependent on raising capital through them became dependent
So when some of these loans inevitably turned bad , the whole financial system got infected
Eventually everyone stopped lending to everyone else because no one knew what the other bank 's assets were worth
Indeed , if all the banks were really honest about the value of these toxic assets on their balance sheets , many of them would be under water
The whole story of the last few months has been about different government plans to get the banks lending again
But the market is not waiting
It just keeps saying to the big banks and insurance companies : `` We think you 're carrying a lot of junk on your books , and if you do n't mark it all the way down and re-price it to what it is really worth today , we will re-price you fairly or not .
The market is going to do what it is going to do
So what could ease this crisis
`` There is going to have to be a workout , '' said the financial strategist David Smick , author of `` The World Is Curved , '' a book about the hidden dangers in today 's global economy
`` There will have to be a restructuring of all these institutions to clean up their balance sheets and recapitalize them .
Banks and insurance companies will have to be reconstituted , merged or left to die , until these toxic assets are properly priced and off the books
The government 's job which it is still trying to figure out exactly how to do will be to provide a safety net of guarantees for the surviving banks , so they will be honest about pricing their assets , and then , once they have been , to help recapitalize them
`` Government 's other job , '' added Smick , `` is to quickly establish the new rules of the road for truth-in-lending on a global basis
We still need these kind of lending facilities if the economy is going to grow again .
This workout promises to be painful , complicated and protracted
Government will have to do its part
But it must regulate the excesses without smothering the underlying innovative , entrepreneurial and risk-taking attributes of our economy , which are what will ultimately bail us out as they always have
`` I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now , '' Warren Buffett told CNBC on Friday
`` I do know that the American economy , over a period of time , will do very well , and people who own a piece of it will do well .
Kishore Mahbubani , the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore , is over for tea and I am telling him about what I consider to be the most exciting , moon-shot-quality , high-aspiration initiative proposed by President Obama that no one has heard of
It 's a plan to set up eight innovation hubs to solve the eight biggest energy problems in the world
But I explain that the program has not been fully funded yet because Congress , concerned about every dime we spend these days , is reluctant to appropriate the full $ 25 million for each center , let alone for all eight at once , so only three are moving ahead
But Kishore interrupts me midsentence
`` You mean billion , '' he asks
`` No , '' I say
`` We 're talking about $ 25 million .
`` Billion , '' he repeats
`` No.
Million , '' I insist
The Singaporean is aghast
He simply ca n't believe that at a time when his little city-state has invested more than a billion dollars to make Singapore a biomedical science hub and attract the world 's best talent , America is debating about spending mere millions on game-changing energy research
Welcome to Tea Party America
Think small and carry a big ego
This may seem like a little issue , but it is not
Nations thrive or languish usually not because of one big bad decision , but because of thousands of small bad ones - decisions where priorities get lost and resources misallocated so that the nation 's full potential ca n't be nurtured and it ends up being less than the sum of its parts
That is my worry for America
But none of this is inevitable
So let 's start with the good news : a shout-out for Obama 's energy , science and technology team for thinking big
Soon after taking office , they proposed what Energy Secretary Steven Chu calls `` a series of mini-Manhattan projects .
In the fiscal year 2010 budget , the Department of Energy requested financing for `` Energy Innovation Hubs '' in eight areas : smart grid , solar electricity , carbon capture and storage , extreme materials , batteries and energy storage , energy efficient buildings , nuclear energy , and fuels from sunlight
In each area , universities , national labs and private industry were invited to put together teams of their best scientists and research ideas to win $ 25 million a year for five years , to , as Chu put it , `` accelerate the normal progress of science and technology for energy research '' and thereby `` discover and commercialize the energy breakthroughs we need '' and thereby spawn new jobs and industries
So far Congress has appropriated partial funding - `` up to $ 22 million '' but probably less - for three of these hubs for one year
So Penn State and two national labs will develop energy efficient building designs
Oak Ridge National Laboratory will lead a team to model new nuclear reactors , and the California Institute of Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will work on revolutionary ways to generate fuels from sunlight
Chu is now trying to persuade Congress to finance those three again for 2011 , as well as at least one more : batteries
In my view , Congress should be funding all eight right now for five years - $ 1 billion - so that we not only get graduate students , knowing the research money is there , flocking to these new energy fields but we get the benefit of all these scientists collaborating and cross-fertilizing
Chu , who holds a Nobel Prize in physics , says he understands and respects that Congress has to make tough budgeting choices today , so I can not get him to utter one word of criticism about our lawmakers ' spending priorities
But he waxes eloquent about what it would mean for American innovation if we could actually fully pay for this focused moon shot on energy
The idea behind the hubs , explained Chu , is to `` capture the same spirit '' that produced radar and the first nuclear bomb
That is , `` get Nobel Prize winners in physics working side by side with engineers '' - not to produce an academic paper but `` to solve a problem in a way that will actually be deployed '' and do it much faster than the traditional academic model of everyone working in their own silo
`` We do n't want incremental improvements , '' said Chu
`` We want real leaps - game-changing '' breakthroughs - like a 75 percent reduction in energy used in a commercial building through affordable design and software improvements
`` America has shown we can do this , '' concluded Chu
`` The scientists and engineers see the problem ; they see the opportunity ; they see what is at stake , and they want to help .
That is why we should fully fund all eight now
All of this reminds me of my favorite business quote from a consultant who had worked for the German technology giant , Siemens
He said : `` If Siemens only knew what Siemens knows , it would be a rich company .
Ditto America
We still have all the right stuff
The president 's instinct to push out the boundaries of energy science is spot on , but Congress has to think big , too , and help unlock and scale everything that America knows
Please , please : Stop lavishing money on repaving old roads and pinching pennies when it comes to pioneering new frontiers
Seeing Al Gore so deservedly share the Nobel Peace Prize , it is impossible not to note the contrast in his leadership and that of George W. Bush
Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush each faced a crucible moment
For Mr. Gore , it was winning the popular vote and having the election taken away from him by a Republican-dominated Supreme Court
For Mr. Bush , it was the shocking terrorist attack on 9\/11
Mr. Gore lost the presidency , but in the dignity and grace with which he gave up his legal fight , he united America
Then , faced with what to do with the rest of his life , he took up a personal crusade to combat climate change , even though the odds were stacked against him , his soapbox was small , his audiences were measured in hundreds , and his critics were legion
Nevertheless , Mr. Gore stuck with it and over time has played a central role in building a global consensus for action on this issue
No matter what happens , sooner or later character in leadership is revealed , said David Rothkopf , author of the upcoming Superclass : The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
Gore lost the election and had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life
He took the initiative to get the country and the world to focus on a common threat climate change
Bush won the election and for the first year really didn t know what to do with it
When , on 9\/11 , we and the world were suddenly faced with a common threat terrorism and Al Qaeda the whole world was ready to line up behind him , but time and again he just divided us at home and abroad
Indeed , Mr. Bush , rather than taking all that unity and using it to rebuild America for the 21st century , took all that unity and used it to push the narrow agenda of his base
He used all that unity to take a far-right agenda on taxes and social issues that was going nowhere on 9\/10 and drive it into a 9\/12 world
Never has so much national unity which could have been used to develop a real energy policy , reverse our coming Social Security deficit , assemble a lasting coalition to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq , maybe even get a national health care program been used to build so little
That is what historians will note most about Mr. Bush s tenure the sheer wasted opportunity of it all
Yes , Iraq was always going to be hugely difficult , but the potential payoff of erecting a decent , democratizing government in the heart of the Arab world was also enormous
Yet Mr. Bush , in his signature issue , never mobilized the country , never punished incompetence , never made the bad guys fight all of us , as Bill Maher put it , by at least pushing through a real energy policy to reduce the resources of the very people we were fighting
He thought he could change the world with 50.1 percent of the country , and he couldn t. Gore , even without the presidency , used all the modern tools of communication , the Internet , video and globalization to reach out and galvanize a global movement , Mr. Rothkopf said
Bush took the greatest platform in the world and dug himself a policy grave
Now Mr. Bush is a spent force and Mr. Gore is , apparently , not running
So we still need a president who can unify the country around meaningful action on energy and climate
Most of the Democratic candidates mouth the right words , but I don t sense much real passion
Most of the Republican candidates seem to be brain-dead on the energy\/climate challenge
And it is amazing to me how flat-out wrong some conservatives , like Rush Limbaugh , can be on this issue
They can t see what is staring us in the face that in pushing American companies to become greener , we are pushing them to become more productive , more innovative , more efficient and more competitive
You can t make a product greener without making it smarter and more in demand whether it is a refrigerator or a microchip
Just ask G.E. or Wal-Mart or Sun Microsystems
You can t make an army greener without making it more secure
Just ask the U.S. Army officers who are desperate for distributed solar power , so they won t have to depend on diesel fuel to power their bases in Iraq fuel that has to be trucked all across that country , only to get blown up by insurgents
In pushing our companies to go green we are spurring them to take the lead in the next great global industry clean power
In sum , Al Gore has been justly honored for highlighting like no one else the climate challenge
But we still need a vision , a strategy , an army and a commander in the White House who can inspire young and old not only to meet that challenge but to see in it the opportunity to make America a better , stronger and more productive nation
This is our crucible moment
If President Obama can find a way to balance the precise number of troops that will stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan , without tipping America into a Vietnam there , then he indeed deserves a Nobel Prize for physics
I have no problem with the president taking his time to figure this out
He and we are going to have to live with this decision for a long time
For my money , though , I wish there was less talk today about how many more troops to send and more focus on what kind of Afghan government we have as our partner
Because when you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign , the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals
If that government is rotten , your whole enterprise is doomed
Independent election monitors suggest that as many as one-third of votes cast in the Aug. 20 election are tainted and that President Hamid Karzai apparently engaged in massive fraud to come out on top
Yet , he is supposed to be the bridge between our troop surge and our goal of a stable Afghanistan
No way
I understand the huge stakes in stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan
Gen. Stanley McChrystal , our top commander there who is asking for thousands more troops , is not wrong when he says a lot of bad things would flow from losing Afghanistan to the Taliban
But I keep asking myself : How do we succeed with such a tainted government as our partner
I know that Jefferson was not on the ballot
But there is a huge difference between `` good enough '' and dysfunctional and corrupt
Whatever we may think , there are way too many Afghans who think our partner , Karzai and his team , are downright awful
That is why it is not enough for us to simply dispatch more troops
If we are going to make a renewed commitment in Afghanistan , we have to visibly display to the Afghan people that we expect a different kind of governance from Karzai , or whoever rules , and refuse to proceed without it
It does n't have to be Switzerland , but it does have to be good enough that is , a government Afghans are willing to live under
Without that , more troops will only delay a defeat
I am not sure Washington fully understands just how much the Taliban-led insurgency is increasingly an insurrection against the behavior of the Karzai government not against the religion or civilization of its international partners
And too many Afghan people now blame us for installing and maintaining this government
Karzai is already trying to undermine more international scrutiny of this fraudulent election and avoid any runoff
Monday his ally on the Electoral Complaints Commission , Mustafa Barakzai , resigned , alleging `` foreign interference .
That is Karzai trying to turn his people against us to prevent us from cleaning up an election that he polluted
Talking to Afghanistan experts in Kabul , Washington and Berlin , a picture is emerging : The Karzai government has a lot in common with a Mafia family
Where a `` normal '' government raises revenues from the people in the form of taxes and then disperses them to its local and regional institutions in the form of budgetary allocations or patronage , this Afghan government operates in the reverse
The money flows upward from the countryside in the form of payments for offices purchased or `` gifts '' from cronies
What flows from Kabul , the experts say , is permission for unfettered extraction , protection in case of prosecution and punishment in case the official opposes the system or gets out of line
In `` Karzai World , '' it appears , slots are either sold -LRB- to people who buy them in order to make a profit -RRB- or granted to cronies , or are given away to buy off rivals
We have to be very careful that we are not seen as the enforcers for this system
While visiting Afghanistan last July , I met a key provincial governor who every U.S. official told me was the best and most honest in Afghanistan and then , they added , `` We have to fight Karzai every day to keep him from being fired .
That is what happens to those who buck the Karzai system
This is crazy
We have been way too polite , and too worried about looking like a colonial power , in dealing with Karzai
I would not add a single soldier there before this guy , if he does win the presidency , takes visible steps to clean up his government in ways that would be respected by the Afghan people
If Karzai says no , then there is only one answer : `` You 're on your own , pal
Have a nice life with the Taliban
We ca n't and will not put more American blood and treasure behind a government that behaves like a Mafia family
If you do n't think we will leave watch this .
-LRB- Cue the helicopters .
So , please , spare me the lectures about how important Afghanistan and Pakistan are today
I get the stakes
But we ca n't want a more decent Afghanistan than the country 's own president
If we do , we have no real local partner who will be able to hold the allegiance of the people , and we will not succeed whether with more troops , more drones or more money
I have a friend who regularly reminds me that if you jump off the top of an 80-story building , for 79 stories you can actually think you 're flying
It 's the sudden stop at the end that always gets you
When I think of the financial-services boom , bubble and bust that America has just gone through , I often think about that image
We thought we were flying
Well , we just met the sudden stop at the end
The laws of gravity , it turns out , still apply
You can not tell tens of thousands of people that they can have the American dream a home , for no money down and nothing to pay for two years without that eventually catching up to you
The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters
I just hate the idea that such an ethic is more alive today in China than in America
Our financial bubble , like all bubbles , has many complex strands feeding into it called derivatives and credit-default swaps but at heart , it is really very simple
We got away from the basics from the fundamentals of prudent lending and borrowing , where the lender and borrower maintain some kind of personal responsibility for , and personal interest in , whether the person receiving the money can actually pay it back
Instead , we fell into what some people call Y.B.G. and I.B.G. lending : `` you 'll be gone and I 'll be gone '' before the bill comes due
Yes , this bubble is about us not all of us , many Americans were way too poor to play
But it is about enough of us to say it is about America
And we will not get out of this without going back to some basics , which is why I find myself re-reading a valuable book that I wrote about once before , called , `` How : Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business -LRB- and in Life -RRB- .
Its author , Dov Seidman , is the C.E.O. of LRN , which helps companies build ethical corporate cultures
Seidman basically argues that in our hyperconnected and transparent world , how you do things matters more than ever , because so many more people can now see how you do things , be affected by how you do things and tell others how you do things on the Internet anytime , for no cost and without restraint
`` In a connected world , '' Seidman said to me , `` countries , governments and companies also have character , and their character how they do what they do , how they keep promises , how they make decisions , how things really happen inside , how they connect and collaborate , how they engender trust , how they relate to their customers , to the environment and to the communities in which they operate is now their fate .
We got away from these hows
We became more connected than ever in recent years , but the connections were actually very loose
That is , we went away from a world in which , if you wanted a mortgage to buy a home , you needed to show real income and a credit record into a world where a banker could sell you a mortgage and make gobs of money upfront and then offload your mortgage to a bundler who put a whole bunch together , chopped them into bonds and sold some to banks as far afield as Iceland
The bank writing the mortgage got away from how because it was just passing you along to a bundler
And the investment bank bundling these mortgages got away from how because it did n't know you , but it knew it was lucrative to bundle your mortgage with others
And the credit-rating agency got away from `` how '' because there was just so much money to be made in giving good ratings to these bonds , why delve too deeply
And the bank in Iceland got away from how because , hey , everyone else was buying the stuff and returns were great so why not
`` UBS bank 's motto is : ` You and us .
But the world we created was actually ` You and nobody ' nobody was really connected in value terms , '' said Seidman
`` Parts of Wall Street got disconnected from investing in human endeavor helping business to scale and take up new ideas .
Instead , they started to just engineer money from money
`` So some of the smartest C.E.O. 's did not know what some of their smartest people were doing .
Charles Mackay wrote a classic history of financial crises called `` Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds , '' first published in London in 1841
`` Money ... has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes
Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers , and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper
To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the object of the present pages
Men , it has been well said , think in herds ; it will be seen that they go mad in herds , while they only recover their senses slowly , and one by one .
And so it must be with us
We need to get back to collaborating the old-fashioned way
That is , people making decisions based on business judgment , experience , prudence , clarity of communications and thinking about how not just how much
It s 3 P.M. on Wall Street
The Hungry Bear Is on the Prowl
-LRB- October 16 , 2008
Van Jones is a rare bird
He s a black social activist in Oakland , Calif. , and as green an environmentalist as they come
He really gets passionate , and funny , when he talks about what it s like to be black and green : Try this experiment
Go knock on someone s door in West Oakland , Watts or Newark and say : We gotta really big problem
They say : We do
We do
Yeah , we gotta really big problem
We do
We do
Yeah , we gotta save the polar bears
You may not make it out of this neighborhood alive , but we gotta save the polar bears
Mr. Jones then just shakes his head
You try that approach on people without jobs who live in neighborhoods where they ve got a lot better chance of getting killed by a passing shooter than a melting glacier , you re going to get nowhere and without bringing America s underclass into the green movement , it s going to get nowhere , too
We need a different on-ramp for people from disadvantaged communities , says Mr. Jones
The leaders of the climate establishment came in through one door and now they want to squeeze everyone through that same door
It s not going to work
If we want to have a broad-based environmental movement , we need more entry points
Mr. Jones , who heads the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland , which helps kids avoid jail and secure jobs , has an idea how to change that a green-collar jobs program that focuses on underprivileged youth
I would not underestimate him
Mr. Jones , age 39 and a Yale Law School grad , exudes enough energy to light a few buildings on his own
One thing spurring him in this project , he explained , was the way that the big oil companies bought ads in black-owned newspapers in California in 2006 showing an African-American woman filling her gas tank with a horrified look at the pump price
The ads were used to help bring out black votes to defeat Proposition 87
That ballot initiative proposed a tax on oil companies drilling in California , the money from which would have gone to develop alternative energy projects
The oil companies tried to scare African-Americans into thinking that the tax on the companies would be passed on at the pump
The polluters were able to stampede poor people into their camp , said Mr. Jones
I never want to see an N.A.A.C.P. leader on the wrong side of an environment issue again
Using his little center in Oakland , Mr. Jones has been on a crusade to help underprivileged African-Americans and other disadvantaged communities understand why they would be the biggest beneficiaries of a greener America
It s about jobs
The more government requires buildings to be more energy efficient , the more work there will be retrofitting buildings all across America with solar panels , insulation and other weatherizing materials
Those are manual-labor jobs that can t be outsourced
You can t take a building you want to weatherize , put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back , said Mr. Jones
So we are going to have to put people to work in this country weatherizing millions of buildings , putting up solar panels , constructing wind farms
Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college
Let s tell our disaffected youth : You can make more money if you put down that handgun and pick up a caulk gun
Remember , adds Mr. Jones , a big chunk of the African-American community is economically stranded
The blue-collar , stepping-stone , manufacturing jobs are leaving
And they re not being replaced by anything
So you have this whole generation of young blacks who are basically in economic free fall
Green-collar retrofitting jobs are a great way to catch them
To this end , Mr. Jones s group and the electrical union in Oakland created the Oakland Apollo Alliance
This year that coalition helped to raise $ 250,000 from the city government to create a union-supported training program that will teach young people in Oakland how to put up solar panels and weatherize buildings
It is the beginning of a Green for All campaign -LRB- greenforall.org -RRB- that Mr. Jones backed by other environmental activists like Majora Carter from Sustainable South Bronx is launching to get Congress to allocate $ 125 million to train 30,000 young people a year in green trades
If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now , where they can be installers today , they ll become managers in five years and owners in 10
And then they become inventors , said Mr. Jones
The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work , wealth and health to low-income people while honoring the Earth
If you can do that , you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems
We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country
There has been a lot of buzz lately about investors `` shorting '' China 's overheated real estate market , basically betting that it will go down
I say that 's peanuts
There is a much more interesting shorting opportunity in China today
It is truly `` The Big Short , '' and that is betting that China ca n't continue to grow at this pace indefinitely by only permitting its people to have economic liberty without political liberty
I 'm sure Goldman Sachs would write you a credit default swap on that , and the Chinese Communist Party would take the other side
Are you game
It seems that the Nobel Prize Committee is
I 'd be , too
The Norwegian committee just awarded its 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo , the jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist
The message to Beijing , I 'd argue , was simple : Liberty is a value in and of itself , because without it human beings can never develop their full potential
And , therefore , liberty is also an essential ingredient for any society that wants to thrive in the 21st century
Otherwise , it ca n't develop its full potential
China has thrived since Deng Xiaoping by offering its people economic freedom without political freedom
And surely one of the most intriguing political science questions in the world today is : Can China continue to prosper , while censoring the Internet , controlling its news media and insisting on a monopoly of political power by the Chinese Communist Party
I do n't think so
To be sure , China has thrived up to now - impressively - by permitting its people only economic liberty
This may have been the sole way to quickly take a vast country of 1.3 billion people from massive poverty to much-improved standards of living , basic education for all , modernized infrastructure and even riches for some urbanites
But the Nobel committee did China a favor in sending the tacit message with its peace prize : Do n't get too cocky and think that you have rewritten the laws of gravity
The `` Beijing Consensus , '' of economic liberty without political liberty , may have been a great strategy for takeoff , but it wo n't get you to the next level
So this might actually be a good time for Beijing to engage peaceful democracy advocates like Liu , who is now serving an 11-year sentence , or the 23 retired Chinese Communist Party officials who last week published an open letter challenging the government to improve speech and press freedoms
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My reason for believing China will have to open up sooner than its leadership thinks has to do with its basic challenge : It has to get rich before it gets old
Because of its one-child population-control policy China , over the next few decades , will go from a country where two sets of grandparents and one set of parents are all saving for the computer for one kid , to a country where one kid will be supporting the retirement of two parents and maybe one grandparent - with little government help
Moreover , because of the practice in some families of aborting female fetuses , there could be 20 million to 40 million more men than women in China in the next few decades , and that will force some men to go abroad to find brides
The only stable way to handle that is to raise incomes by moving more Chinese from low-wage manufacturing jobs to more knowledge - and services-based jobs , as Hong Kong did
But , and here 's the rub , today 's knowledge industries are all being built on social networks that enable open collaboration , the free sharing of ideas and the formation of productive relationships - both within companies and around the globe
The logic is that all of us are smarter than one of us , and the unique feature of today 's flat world is that you can actually tap the brains and skills of all of us , or at least more people in more places
Companies and countries that enable that will thrive more than those that do n't
Curtis Carlson , the C.E.O. of SRI International , the innovation hub in Silicon Valley , has a tongue-in-cheek way of putting it : `` In a world where so many people now have access to education and cheap tools of innovation , innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart
Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb .
As a result , says Carlson , `` On balance , the sweet spot for innovation today is moving down , not up .
As such , government 's job today is to inspire , liberate , empower and enable all that stuff coming up from below , while learning to live with and manage the chaos
But what would happen if China had 600 million villagers on Twitter
In a country that already has thousands of protests every week over land seizures and corruption , its system probably could not handle that much unrestricted bottom-up energy
It is a real problem for Beijing
China ca n't afford chaos , and China ca n't afford not to gradually unleash more bottom-up and less top-down energies
I do n't know how China 's leaders are going to balance these imperatives
Maybe they should ask Liu Xiaobo
A few weeks ago , Americans `` observed '' the eighth anniversary of 9\/11 that day in 2001 when the Twin Towers were brought down by Al Qaeda
In a few weeks , Germans will `` celebrate '' the 20th anniversary of 11\/9 that day in 1989 when the Berlin Wall was brought down by one of the greatest manifestations of people power ever seen
As the Obama team tries to figure out how to proceed vis - - vis Afghanistan , Pakistan and Iran , it is worth reflecting for a moment on why Germans are celebrating 11\/9 and we are reliving 9\/11 basically debating whether to re-invade Afghanistan to prevent it again from becoming an Al Qaeda haven and to prevent Pakistan from tipping into civil war
The most important difference between 11\/9 and 9\/11 is `` people power .
Germans showed the world how good ideas about expanding human freedom amplified by people power can bring down a wall and an entire autocratic power structure , without a shot
There is now a Dunkin' Donuts on Paris Square adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate , where all that people power was concentrated
Normally , I am horrified by American fast-food brands near iconic sites , but in the case of this once open sore between East and West , I find it something of a balm
The war over Europe is indeed over
People power won
We can stand down pass the donuts
The events of 9\/11 , by contrast , demonstrated how bad ideas amplified by a willingness of just a few people to commit suicide can bring down skyscrapers and tie a great country in knots
I toured Paris Square the other day with Ulrike Graalfs , a program director at the American Academy in Berlin , where I am a visitor , and she mentioned in passing that she was in America on 9\/11 , as a student at the University of Pennsylvania , and she was a 9-year-old schoolgirl standing on the Berlin Wall on 11\/9
I was struck by her recollections
On 9\/11 , she said , she was overwhelmed by the sense of `` anger and hurt '' that so many of the Penn students around her felt feelings so intense it made it impossible for them to see , what she , a foreign student could see , `` how much the rest of the world was standing with America that day .
By contrast , on 11\/9 , `` there were people singing and dancing and someone lifted me up on the wall , '' she said
`` I still get emotional thinking about it
I saw my father jump down on the other side
I was terrified
It was very high
I thought it was going to be the end of my father
He started debating with an East German soldier
But the soldier did n't do anything
He just stood there , stiff .
People power won , and Germany has been united and stable ever since
The problem we have in dealing with the Arab-Muslim world today is the general absence or weakness of people power there
There is a low-grade civil war going on inside the Arab-Muslim world today , only in too many cases it is `` the South versus the South '' bad ideas versus bad ideas , amplified by violence , rather than bad ideas versus good ideas amplified by people power
In places like Egypt , Syria , Saudi Arabia , Afghanistan or Pakistan you have violent religious extremist movements fighting with state security services
And while the regimes in these countries are committed to crushing their extremists , they rarely take on their extremist ideas by offering progressive alternatives
That 's largely because the puritanical Islamic ideology of the Saudi state or segments of the Pakistani military is not all that different from the ideology of the extremists
And when these extremists aim elsewhere like at India or at Shiites or at Israelis these regimes are indifferent
That is why there is no true war of ideas inside these countries just a war
These states are not promoting an inclusive , progressive and tolerant interpretation of Islam that could be the foundation of people power
And when their people do take to the streets , it is usually against another people rather than to unify their own ranks around good ideas
There have been far more marches to denounce Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad than to denounce Muslim suicide bombers who have killed innocent civilians , many of them Muslims
The most promising progressive people-power movements have been Lebanon 's Cedar Revolution , the Sunni Awakening in Iraq and the Green Revolution in Iran
But the Cedar Revolution has been stymied by Syrian might and internal divisions
The Tehran uprising has been crushed by the iron fist of the Iranian regime , fueled by petro-dollars
And it is unclear whether the Iraqis will set aside their tribalism for a shared people power
So as we try to figure out how many troops to send to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan , let 's remember : Where there is people power wedded to progressive ideas , there is hope and American power can help
Where there is people power harnessed to bad ideas , there is danger
Where there is no people power and only bad ideas , there will be no happy endings
If you 're looking for a single example of how the globalization of finance helped get us into this mess and how it will help get us out , you need look no further than British newspapers last week and their front-page articles about the number of British citizens , municipalities and universities including Cambridge that are in a tizzy today because they had savings parked in Icelandic banks , through online banking services like Icesave
co. uk
As Dave Barry would say , I 'm not makin ' this up
When I went to the Icesave Web site to see what it was all about , the headline read : `` Simple , transparent and consistently high-rate online savings accounts from Icesave .
But then , underneath in blue letters , I found the following note appended : `` We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave Internet accounts
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers .
Any `` inconvenience ?
When you ca n't withdraw savings from an online bank in Iceland , that is more than an inconvenience
That 's a reason for total panic
So what 's the story
Around 2002 , Iceland began to free its banks from state ownership
According to The Wall Street Journal , the three banks that make up almost the entire banking system in Iceland `` grew quickly on easy credit '' and `` their combined assets rose tenfold in five years .
The Icelandic banks , while not invested in U.S. subprime mortgages , had gone on their own borrowing and lending binges , wooing savers from across Europe with 5.45 percent interest savings accounts
In a flat world , money can easily seek out the highest returns , and when word got around about Iceland , deposits poured in from Britain some $ 1.8 billion
Unfortunately , though , when global credit markets closed up , and the krona fell , `` the Icelandic banks were unable to finance their debts , many of which were denominated in foreign currencies , '' The Times reported
When depositors rushed to get their money out , the Icelandic banking system had too little reserves to cover withdrawals , so all three banks melted down and were nationalized
It turns out that more than 120 British municipal governments , as well as universities , hospitals and charities had deposits stranded in blocked Icelandic bank accounts
Cambridge alone had about $ 20 million , while 15 British police forces from towns like Kent , Surrey , Sussex and Lancashire had roughly $ 170 million frozen in Iceland , The Telegraph reported
Even the bobbies were banking in Iceland
So think about it : Some mortgage broker in Los Angeles gives subprime `` liar loans '' to people who have no credit ratings so they can buy homes in Southern California
Those flimsy mortgages get globalized through the global banking system and , when they go sour , they eventually prompt banks to stop lending , fearful that every other bank 's assets are toxic , too
The credit crunch hits Iceland , which went on its own binge
Meanwhile , the police department of Northumbria , England , had invested some of its extra cash in Iceland , and , now that those accounts are frozen , it may have to reduce street patrols this weekend
And therein lies the central truth of globalization today : We 're all connected and nobody is in charge
Globalization giveth it was this democratization of finance that helped to power the global growth that lifted so many in India , China and Brazil out of poverty in recent decades
Globalization now taketh away it was this democratization of finance that enabled the U.S. to infect the rest of the world with its toxic mortgages
And now , we have to hope , that globalization will saveth
The real and sustained bailout from the crisis will happen when the strong companies buy the weak ones on a global basis
It 's starting
Last week , Credit Suisse declined a Swiss government bailout and instead raised fresh capital from Qatar , the Olayan family of Saudi Arabia and Israel 's Koor Industries
Japan 's Mitsubishi bank bought a stake in Morgan Stanley , possibly rescuing it from bankruptcy and preventing an even steeper decline in the Dow
And Spain 's Banco Santander , which was spared from the worst of this credit crisis by Spain 's conservative banking regulations , is purchasing America 's Sovereign Bankcorp
I suspect we will soon see the same happening in industry
And , once the smoke clears , I suspect we will find ourselves living in a world of globalization on steroids a world in which key global economies are more intimately tied together than ever before
It will be a world in which America will not be able to scratch its ear , let alone roll over in bed , without thinking about the impact on other countries and economies
And it will be a world in which multilateral diplomacy and regulation will no longer be a choice
It will be a reality and a necessity
We are all partners now
I was channel surfing on Monday , following the stock market 's nearly 800-point collapse , when a commentator on CNBC caught my attention
He was being asked to give advice to viewers as to what were the best positions to be in to ride out the market storm
Without missing a beat , he answered : `` Cash and fetal .
I 'm in both because I know an unprecedented moment when I see one
I 've been frightened for my country only a few times in my life : In 1962 , when , even as a boy of 9 , I followed the tension of the Cuban missile crisis ; in 1963 , with the assassination of J.F.K. ; on Sept. 11 , 2001 ; and on Monday , when the House Republicans brought down the bipartisan rescue package
But this moment is the scariest of all for me because the previous three were all driven by real or potential attacks on the U.S. system by outsiders
This time , we are doing it to ourselves
This time , it 's our own failure to regulate our own financial system and to legislate the proper remedy that is doing us in
I 've always believed that America 's government was a unique political system one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots
I was wrong
No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it
This is dangerous
We have House members , many of whom I suspect ca n't balance their own checkbooks , rejecting a complex rescue package because some voters , whom I fear also do n't understand , swamped them with phone calls
I appreciate the popular anger against Wall Street , but you ca n't deal with this crisis this way
This is a credit crisis
It 's all about confidence
What you ca n't see is how bank A will no longer lend to good company B or mortgage company C. Because no one is sure the other guy 's assets and collateral are worth anything , which is why the government needs to come in and put a floor under them
Otherwise , the system will be choked of credit , like a body being choked of oxygen and turning blue
Well , you say , `` I do n't own any stocks let those greedy monsters on Wall Street suffer .
You may not own any stocks , but your pension fund owned some Lehman Brothers commercial paper and your regional bank held subprime mortgage bonds , which is why you were able refinance your house two years ago
And your local airport was insured by A.I.G. , and your local municipality sold municipal bonds on Wall Street to finance your street 's new sewer system , and your local car company depended on the credit markets to finance your auto loan and now that the credit market has dried up , Wachovia bank went bust and your neighbor lost her secretarial job there
We 're all connected
As others have pointed out , you ca n't save Main Street and punish Wall Street anymore than you can be in a rowboat with someone you hate and think that the leak in the bottom of the boat at his end is not going to sink you , too
The world really is flat
We 're all connected
`` Decoupling '' is pure fantasy
I totally understand the resentment against Wall Street titans bringing home $ 60 million bonuses
But when the credit system is imperiled , as it is now , you have to focus on saving the system , even if it means bailing out people who do n't deserve it
Otherwise , you 're saying : I 'm going to hold my breath until that Wall Street fat cat turns blue
But he 's not going to turn blue ; you are , or we all are
We have to get this right
My rabbi told this story at Rosh Hashana services on Tuesday : A frail 80-year-old mother is celebrating her birthday and her three sons each give her a present
Harry gives her a new house
Harvey gives her a new car and driver
And Bernie gives her a huge parrot that can recite the entire Torah
A week later , she calls her three sons together and says : `` Harry , thanks for the nice house , but I only live in one room
Harvey , thanks for the nice car , but I ca n't stand the driver
Bernie , thanks for giving your mother something she could really enjoy
That chicken was delicious .
Message to Congress : Do n't get cute
Do n't give us something we do n't need
Do n't give us something designed to solve your political problems
Yes , Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke need to accept strict oversights and the taxpayer must be guaranteed a share in the upside profits from all rescued banks
But other than that , give them the capital and the flexibility to put out this fire
I always said to myself : Our government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis
But now we 've had a huge crisis , and the system still does n't seem to work
Our leaders , Republicans and Democrats , have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package , as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week , with no stake in the outcome
The story can not end here
If it does , assume the fetal position
Some of Israel 's worst critics are fond of saying that Israel behaves like America 's spoiled child
I 've always found that analogy excessive
Say what you want about Israel 's obstinacy at times , it remains the only country in the United Nations that another U.N. member , Iran , has openly expressed the hope that it be wiped off the map
And that same country , Iran , is trying to build a nuclear weapon
Israel is the only country I know of in the Middle East that has unilaterally withdrawn from territory conquered in war - in Lebanon and Gaza - only to be greeted with unprovoked rocket attacks in return
Indeed , if you want to talk about spoiled children , there is no group more spoiled by Iran and Syria than Hezbollah , the Lebanese Shiite militia
Hezbollah started a war against Israel in 2006 that brought death , injury and destruction to thousands of Lebanese - and Hezbollah 's punishment was to be rewarded with thousands more missiles and millions more dollars to do it again
These are stubborn facts
And here 's another stubborn fact : Israel today really is behaving like a spoiled child
Please spare me the nonsense that President Obama is anti-Israel
At a time when the president has made it one of his top priorities to build a global coalition to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon , he took the very logical view that if he could advance the peace process in the Middle East it would give him much greater leverage to get the Europeans and U.N. behind tougher sanctions on Iran
At the same time , Obama believed - what a majority of Israelis believe - that Israel ca n't remain a Jewish democracy in the long run if it continues to control 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank
On top of it all , while pressing Israel to stop expanding settlements for as little as 60 days , Obama ordered his vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Gen. James E. `` Hoss '' Cartwright of the Marines , to lead a U.S. team to work with Israel 's military on an unprecedented package of security assistance to enable Israel to maintain its `` qualitative edge '' over its neighbors
And , for all this , Obama is decried as anti-Israel
What utter nonsense
Given what Obama has done , and is trying to do , it is hardly an act of hostility for him to ask Israel to continue its now-expired 10-month partial moratorium on settlement-building in the West Bank in order to take away any excuse from the Palestinians to avoid peace talks
Israel 's prime minister , Bibi Netanyahu , has been either resisting this request or demanding a payoff from the U.S. for a brief continuation of the freeze
He is wrong on two counts
First - I know this is a crazy , radical idea - when America asks Israel to do something that in no way touches on its vital security but would actually enhance it , there is only one right answer : `` Yes .
It is a measure of how spoiled Israel has become that after billions and billions of dollars in U.S. aid and 300,000 settlers already ensconced in the West Bank , Israel feels no compunction about spurning an American request for a longer settlement freeze - the only purpose of which is to help the United States help Israel reach a secure peace with the Palestinians
Just one time you would like Israel to say , `` You know , Mr. President , we 're dubious that a continued settlement freeze will have an impact
But you think it will , so , let 's test it
This one 's for you .
Yes , I know , Netanyahu says that if he did that then the far right-wingers in his cabinet would walk out
He knows he ca n't make peace with some of the lunatics in his cabinet , but he tells the U.S. that he only wants to blow up his cabinet once - for a deal
But we will never get to that stage if he does n't blow it up now and construct a centrist coalition that can negotiate a deal
Second , I have no idea whether the Palestinian Authority president , Mahmoud Abbas , has the will and the guts to make peace with Israel
In fact , when you go back and look at what Ehud Olmert , Netanyahu 's predecessor , offered Abbas - a real two-state compromise , including a deal on Jerusalem - and you think that Abbas spurned that offer , and you think that Netanyahu already gave Abbas a 10-month settlement freeze and Abbas only entered serious talks in the ninth month , you have to wonder how committed he is
But the fact is that the team of Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have built a government that is the best the Palestinians have ever had , and , more importantly , a Palestinian security apparatus that the Israeli military respects and is acting as a real partner
Given this , Israel has an overwhelming interest to really test - that is all we can ask - whether this Palestinian leadership is ready for a fair and mutually secure two-state solution
That test is something the U.S. should not have to beg or bribe Israel to generate
This moment is not about Obama
He 's doing his job
It is about whether the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are up to theirs
Abbas is weak and acts weaker
Netanyahu is strong and acts weak
It is time for both to step it up
And it is time for all the outsiders who spoil them to find another hobby
People often ask : I want to get greener , what should I do
New light bulbs
A hybrid
A solar roof
Well , all of those things are helpful
But actually , the greenest thing you can do is this : Choose the right leaders
It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs
Because leaders write the rules , set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behavior across a whole city , state or country
Whatever any of us does individually matters a tiny bit
But when leaders change the rules , you get scale change across the whole marketplace
And the energy-climate challenge we face today is a huge scale problem
Without scale , all you have is a green hobby
Have no illusions , everything George Bush wouldn t do on energy after 9\/11 his resisting improved mileage for cars and actually trying to weaken air-conditioner standards swamped any good works you did
Fortunately , the vacuum in the White House is being filled by leaders from below
Take the New York City taxi story
Two years ago , David Yassky , a City Council member , sat down with one of his backers , Jack Hidary , a technology entrepreneur , to brainstorm about how to make New York City greener at scale
For starters , they checked with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to see what it would take to replace the old gas-guzzling Crown Victoria yellow cabs , which get around 10 miles a gallon , with better-mileage , low-emission hybrids
Great idea , only it turned out to be illegal , thanks to some old size regulations designed to favor Crown Vics
Recalled Mr. Hidary : When they first told me , I said , Are you serious
So he formed a nonprofit called SmartTransportation.org to help Mr. Yassky lobby the City Council to change the laws to permit hybrid taxis
They also reframed it as a health issue , with the help of Louise Vetter , president of the American Lung Association of the City of New York
New York City has among the dirtiest air in the U.S. , Ms. Vetter said
When it comes to ozone and particulate matter , New Yorkers are breathing very unhealthy air
Most of it is tailpipe emissions
And in New York City , where asthma rates are among the highest in the nation , the high ozone levels create very serious threats , especially for kids who spend a lot of time outdoors
Converting cabs from yellow to green would be a great gift to the city s children
Matt Daus , who heads the taxi commission , which is independent of the mayor , was initially reluctant , but once he learned of the health and other benefits , he joined forces with Messrs. Yassky and Hidary , and the measure passed the City Council by 50 to 0 on June 30 , 2005
Since then , more than 500 taxi drivers have converted to hybrids mostly Ford Escapes , but also Toyota Highlanders and Priuses , and others
On May 22 , Mayor Michael Bloomberg , one of the greenest mayors in America , decided to push even further , insisting on a new rule , which the taxi commission has to approve , that will not just permit but require all cabs 13,000 in all to be hybrids or other low-emission vehicles that get at least 30 miles a gallon , within five years
When it comes to health and safety and environmental issues , government should be setting standards , the mayor said
What you need are leaders who are willing to push for standards that are in society s long-term interest
When the citizens see the progress , Mr. Bloomberg added , then they start to lead
And this encourages leaders to seek even higher standards
I asked Evgeny Freidman , a top New York City fleet operator , how he liked the hybrids : Absolutely fabulous
We started out with 18 , and now we have over 200 , mostly Ford Escapes
Now we only put hybrids out there
The drivers are demanding them and the public is demanding them
It has been great economically
With gas prices as they are , the drivers are saving $ 30 dollars a shift
He said drivers who were getting 7 to 10 miles a gallon from their Crown Vics were getting 25 to 30 from their hybrids
The cost of shifting to these hybrids , he added , has not been onerous
Now Mr. Hidary is trying to get law firms and investment banks , which use gas-guzzling Town Cars 12,000 in the city to demand hybrid sedans only
This is how scale change happens
When the Big Apple becomes the Green Apple , and 40 million tourists come through every year and take at least one hybrid cab ride , they ll go back home and ask their leaders , Why don t we have hybrid cabs
So if you want to be a green college kid or a green adult , don t fool yourself : You can change lights
You can change cars
But if you don t change leaders , your actions are nothing more than an expression of , as Dick Cheney would say , personal virtue
Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee , the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington
Just before the session began , a man came up , introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about our struggling public schools was actually a critical , but unspoken , reason for the Great Recession
There 's something to that
While the subprime mortgage mess involved a huge ethical breakdown on Wall Street , it coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street precisely when technology and open borders were enabling so many more people to compete with Americans for middle-class jobs
In our subprime era , we thought we could have the American dream a house and yard with nothing down
This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education , productivity and savings , but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia
A year ago , it all exploded
Now that we are picking up the pieces , we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade , but also our public school system
Otherwise , the jobless recovery wo n't be just a passing phase , but our future
`` Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker 's global competitiveness , particularly at the middle and bottom ranges , '' argued Martin , a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor
`` This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker 's production of wealth , precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home
So over a decade , American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis - - vis their real income
When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible , it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever , but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally .
This problem will be reversed only when the decline in worker competitiveness reverses when we create enough new jobs and educated workers that are worth , say , $ 40-an-hour compared with the global alternatives
If we do n't , there 's no telling how `` jobless '' this recovery will be
A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm
I asked him who was getting axed
He said it was interesting : lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble , that flow of work just is n't there
But those who have the ability to imagine new services , new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained
They are the new untouchables
That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today
Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait
Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables to invent smarter ways to do old jobs , energy-saving ways to provide new services , new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies will thrive
Therefore , we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college more education but we need more of them with the right education
As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it : `` If you think about the labor market today , the top half of the college market , those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations , have done great
But the bottom half of the top , those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want , have done poorly
They 've been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable .
Those at the high end of the bottom half high school grads in construction or manufacturing have been clobbered by global competition and immigration , added Katz
`` But those who have some interpersonal skills the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect have done well .
Just being an average accountant , lawyer , contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be
As Daniel Pink , the author of `` A Whole New Mind , '' puts it : In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer , robot or talented foreigner faster , cheaper `` and just as well , '' vanilla does n't cut it anymore
It 's all about what chocolate sauce , whipped cream and cherry you can put on top
So our schools have a doubly hard task now not just improving reading , writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship , innovation and creativity
Bottom line : We 're not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks
The 2 is back
Last week , U.S. retail gasoline prices fell below $ 3 a gallon to an average of $ 2.91 the lowest level in almost a year
Why does this news leave me with mixed feelings
Because in the middle of this wrenching economic crisis , with unemployment rising and 401 -LRB- k -RRB- 's shrinking , it would be a real source of relief for many Americans to get a break at the pump
Today 's declining gasoline prices act like a tax cut for consumers and can save $ 15 to $ 20 a tank-full for an S.U.V.-driving family , compared with when gasoline was $ 4.11 a gallon in July
Yet , it is impossible for me to ignore the fact that when gasoline hit $ 4.11 a gallon we changed a lot
Americans drove less , polluted less , exercised more , rode more public transportation and , most importantly , overwhelmed Detroit with demands for smaller , more fuel-efficient , hybrid and electric cars
The clean energy and efficiency industries saw record growth one of our few remaining engines of real quality job creation
But with little credit available today for new energy start-ups , and lower oil prices making it harder for existing renewables like wind and solar to scale , and a weak economy making it nearly impossible for Congress to pass a carbon tax or gasoline tax that would make clean energy more competitive , what will become of our budding clean-tech revolution
This moment feels to me like a bad B-movie rerun of the 1980s
And I know how this movie ends with our re-addiction to oil and OPEC , as well as corrosive uncertainty for our economy , trade balance , security and environment
`` Is the economic crisis going to be the end of green ?
asks David Rothkopf , energy consultant and author of `` Superclass .
`` Or , could green be the way to end the economic crisis ?
It has to be the latter
We ca n't afford a financial bailout that also is n't a green buildup a buildup of a new clean energy industry that strengthens America and helps the planet
But how do we do that without any policy to affect the price signal for gasoline and carbon
Here are some ideas : First , Washington could impose a national renewable energy standard that would require every utility in the country to produce 20 percent of its power from clean , non-CO2-emitting , energy sources wind , solar , hydro , nuclear , biomass by 2025
About half the states already have these in place , but they are all different
It would create a huge domestic pull for renewable energy if we had a uniform national mandate
Second , Washington could impose a national requirement that every state move its utilities to a system of `` decoupling-plus .
This is the technical term for changing the way utilities make money shifting them from getting paid for how much electricity or gas they get you to consume to getting paid for how much electricity or gas they get you to save
Several states have already moved down this path
Third , an idea offered by Andy Karsner , former assistant secretary of energy , would be to modify the tax code so that any company that invests in new domestic manufacturing capacity for clean energy technology or procures any clean energy system or energy savings device that is made by an American manufacturer can write down the entire cost of the investment via a tax credit and\/or accelerated depreciation in the first year
`` I 'm talking about anything from energy efficient windows to water heaters to industrial boilers to solar panels , and the job creating , manufacturing facilities that produce them anything that makes us more efficient , lean and economically competitive and comes from a domestic , American source , '' said Karsner
He also suggests using some of the money from any stimulus package to directly incentivize and support states ' efforts to implement and intelligently modernize their building codes to get already well-established national `` best practices '' quickly into their marketplaces
Lastly , we need the next president to be an energy efficiency trendsetter , starting by reinventing the inaugural parade
Get rid of the black stretch limos and double-plated armored Chevy Tahoes inching down Pennsylvania Avenue
Instead , let the next president announce that he will use no vehicles on inauguration day that get less than 30 miles per gallon
He could invite all car companies to participate in the historic drive with their best available American-made , fuel-efficient , innovative vehicle
Finally , if Congress passes another stimulus package , it ca n't just be another round of $ 600 checks to go buy flat-screen TVs made in China
It has to also include bridges to somewhere targeted investments in scientific research , mass transit , domestic clean-tech manufacturing and energy efficiency that will make us a more productive and innovative society , one with more skills , more competitiveness , more productivity and better infrastructure to lead the next great industrial revolution : E.T. energy technology
Boy , am I glad we finally got out of Iraq
It was so painful waking up every morning and reading the news from there
It s just such a relief to have it out of mind and behind us
Say what
You say we re still there
But how could that be nobody in Washington is talking about it anymore
I don t know whether it was the sheer agony of the debate over Gen. David Petraeus s testimony , or the fact that the surge really has dampened casualties , or the failure by Democrats to force an Iraq withdrawal through Congress , or the fact that all the leading Democratic presidential contenders have signaled that they will not precipitously withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq , but the air has gone out of the Iraq debate
That is too bad
Neglect is not benign when it comes to Iraq because Iraq is not healthy
Iraq is like a cancer patient who was also running a high fever from an infection -LRB- Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia -RRB-
The military surge has brought down the fever , but the patient still has cancer -LRB- civil war -RRB-
And we still don t know how to treat it
Natural healers
To the extent that the surge has worked militarily , it is largely because of what Iraqis have done by themselves for themselves Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders rising up against pro-Qaeda Sunni elements , taking back control of their villages and towns , and aligning themselves with U.S. forces to do so
Some Shiites are now doing the same
There has been no equivalent surprise , though , in Iraqi politics , yet
If you see that if you see Iraqi politicians surprising you by doing things they ve never done before , like forging a self-sustaining political compromise and building the fabric of a unified country , then you can allow yourself some optimism
So far , though , too many of Iraq s leaders continue to act their part looking out for themselves , their clans , their hometowns , their militias and their sects , and using the Iraqi treasury and ministries as looting grounds for personal or sectarian gains
As a result , what you have today is more of a spotty truce , with U.S. soldiers still caught in the middle
That is a quiet strategy , not an exit strategy
Study the travel itineraries of Iraq s principal factional leaders after the Petraeus hearings
Did they all rush to Baghdad to try to work out their differences
Many of them took off for abroad
As one U.S. official in Baghdad pointed out to me last week , at no point since the testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have you had the four key Iraqi leaders in the same country at the same time
They saw the hearings as buying them more time , and so they took it
We have created a real case of moral hazard in Iraq , said Marc Lynch , a Middle East specialist at George Washington University
Because all the key players think the Americans are going to bail them out , they have no incentive to make any real concessions to one another
Indeed , I continue to believe that everyone has us where they want us in Iraq : We re holding up the floor for Iraqi politicians to do their endless tribal dance ; we are bogged down and within missile range of Iran , so if we try to use any military force to disrupt Tehran s nuclear program we will pay a huge price ; and as long as we are trapped in Iraq , we will never even think about promoting reform elsewhere in the Arab world to the relief of all Arab autocrats
No question , there has been more local cross-sectarian dialogue lately , particularly between Shiite and Sunni elders
But that seems to be the limit of Iraqi politics
People there can act as tribes , sects and clans , but not as a unified government so there is no one systematically consolidating whatever gains the surge has made
It still feels to me as if we ve made Iraq just safe enough for its politicians to be obstinate , corrupt or reckless on our dime
Even the moderate Kurds must have developed some kind of death wish , allowing their radicals to simultaneously provoke both Turkey and Iran and risking the island of real decency the Kurds have built in the north
General Petraeus s strategy is to keep trying to knit the different militias and tribal fragments in Iraq together into a national army and government so we can shrink our presence
I truly wish him well
But I don t see it happening without two things : some shock therapy like a firm U.S. withdrawal signal to spur Iraqi leaders , and a regional settlement
That is , without resolving the cold war in the Middle East that now pits America on one side and Iran and Syria on the other , I m not sure you can stabilize Iraq , Lebanon or Israel-Palestine
Letting everyone know that we re not staying there forever would be the best way to catalyze both local and regional negotiations and give us something we don t now have : leverage
Just letting Iraq recede into the back pages does not serve our interests
If we re going to just forget about Iraq , let s do it when we re gone not when we re still there
In the past two weeks , I 've taken the Amtrak Acela to the Philadelphia and New York stations
In both places there were signs on the train platforms boasting that new construction work there was being paid for by `` the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 , '' that is , the $ 787 billion stimulus
And what was that work
New `` lighting '' - so now you can see even better just how disgustingly decayed , undersized and outdated are the rail platforms and infrastructure in two of our biggest cities
If we were a serious country , this is what the midterms would be about : How do we generate the jobs needed to sustain our middle class and pay for new infrastructure
It would require a different kind of politics - one that does n't conform to either party 's platform
We will have to raise some taxes to generate revenue , like on energy or maybe a value-added tax , and lower others , on payrolls to stimulate work , and on multinational corporations to get them to bring the trillion dollars they have offshore back to the U.S. for investment
We will have to adjust some services , like Social Security , while we invest in new infrastructure , like high-speed rail and Internet bandwidth ; the U.S. ranks 22nd in the world in average connection speed
And , most of all , we will have to have an honest discussion about how we got in this rut
How we got into this rut is no secret
We compensated for years of stagnating middle-class wages the easy way
Just as baseball players in the '90s injected themselves with steroids to artificially build muscle to hit more home runs - instead of doing real bodybuilding - our two parties injected steroids , cheap credit , into Wall Street so it could go gambling and into Main Street so it could go home-buying
They both started hitting home runs , artificially - until the steroids ran dry
Now we have to rebuild America 's muscles the old-fashioned way
In the short run , we 'll probably need more stimulus to get the economy moving again so people have the confidence to buy and invest
Ultimately , though , good jobs at scale come only when we create more products and services that make people 's lives more healthy , more productive , more secure , more comfortable or more entertained - and then sell them to more people around the world
And in a global economy , we have to create those products and services with a work force that is so well trained and productive that it can leverage modern technology so that one American can do the work of 20 Chinese and , therefore , get paid the same as 20 Chinese
There is no other way
Sure , more countries can now compete with us
But that 's good
It means they 're also spawning new jobs , customers , ideas and industries where well-trained Americans can also compete
Fifteen years ago , there were no industries around Google `` search '' or `` iPhone applications .
Today , both are a source of good jobs
More will be invented next year
There is no fixed number of jobs
We just have to make sure there is no fixed number of Americans to fill them - aided by good U.S. infrastructure and smart government incentives to attract these new industries to our shores
But not everyone can write iPhone apps
What about your nurse , barber or waiter
Here I think Lawrence Katz , the Harvard University labor economist , has it right
Everyone today , he says , needs to think of himself as an `` artisan '' - the term used before mass manufacturing to apply to people who made things or provided services with a distinctive touch in which they took personal pride
Everyone today has to be an artisan and bring something extra to their jobs
For instance , says Katz , the baby boomers are aging , which will spawn many health care jobs
Those jobs can be done in a low-skilled way by cheap foreign workers and less-educated Americans or they can be done by skilled labor that is trained to give the elderly a better physical and psychological quality of life
The first will earn McWages
The second will be in high demand
The same is true for the salesperson who combines passion with a deep knowledge of fashion trends , the photo-store clerk who can teach you new tricks with your digital camera while the machine prints your film , and the pharmacist who does n't just sell pills but learns to relate to customer health needs in more compassionate and informative ways
They will all do fine
But just doing your job in an average way - in this integrated and automated global economy - will lead to below-average wages
Sadly , average is over
We 're in the age of `` extra , '' and everyone has to figure out what extra they can add to their work to justify being paid more than a computer , a Chinese worker or a day laborer
`` People will always need haircuts and health care , '' says Katz , `` and you can do that with low-wage labor or with people who acquire a lot of skills and pride and bring their imagination to do creative and customized things .
Their work will be more meaningful and their customers more satisfied
Government 's job is to help inspire , educate , enable and protect that work force
This election should have been about how
BAGHDAD , Aug. 25 , 2012 President Obama flew into Baghdad today on his end-of-term tour to highlight successes in U.S. foreign policy
At a time when the Arab-Israel negotiations remain mired in deadlock and Afghanistan remains mired in quagmire , Mr. Obama hailed the peaceful end of America 's combat presence in Iraq as his only Middle East achievement
Speaking to a gathering of Iraqi and U.S. officials under the banner `` Mission Actually Accomplished , '' written in Arabic and English , Mr. Obama took credit for helping Iraq achieve a decent albeit hugely costly end to the war initiated by President Bush
Aides said Mr. Obama would highlight the progress in Iraq in his re-election campaign
Could we actually read such a news article in three years
I would n't bet on it
But I would n't rule it out either
Six years after the U.S. invasion , Iraq continues to unnerve and tantalize
Watching Iraqi politics is like watching a tightrope artist crossing a dangerous cavern
At every step it looks as though he is going to fall into the abyss , and yet , somehow , he continues to wobble forward
Nothing is easy when trying to transform a country brutalized by three decades of cruel dictatorship
It is one step , one election , one new law , at a time
Each is a struggle
Each is crucial
This next step is particularly important , which is why we can not let Afghanistan distract U.S. diplomats from Iraq
Remember : Transform Iraq and it will impact the whole Arab-Muslim world
Change Afghanistan and you just change Afghanistan
Specifically , the Obama team needs to make sure that Iraq 's bickering politicians neither postpone the next elections , scheduled for January , nor hold them on the basis of the 2005 `` closed list '' system that is dominated by the party leaders
We must insist , with all our leverage , on an `` open list '' election , which creates more room for new faces by allowing Iraqis to vote for individual candidates and not just a party
This is what Iraq 's spiritual leader , Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani , is also demanding
It is a much more accountable system
If we can get open list voting , the next big step would be the emergence of Iraqi parties in this election running for office on the basis of nonsectarian coalitions where Sunnis , Shiites and Kurds run together
This would be significant : Iraq is a microcosm of the whole Middle East , and if Iraq 's sects can figure out how to govern themselves without an iron-fisted dictator democracy is possible in this whole region
What is tantalizing is that the Iraqi prime minister , Nuri Kamal al-Maliki , who emerged from the Shiite Dawa Party , has decided to run this time with what he calls `` The State of Law Coalition , '' a pan-Iraqi , nationalist alliance of some 40 political parties , including Sunni tribal leaders and other minorities
Mr. Maliki was in Washington last week , and I interviewed him at the Willard Hotel , primarily to ask about his new party
`` Iraq can not be ruled by one color or religion or sect , '' he explained
`` We clearly saw that sectarianism and ethnic grouping threatened our national unity
Therefore , I believe we should bring all these different colors together and establish Iraq as a country built on rule of law and equity and citizenship
The Iraqi people encouraged us
They want this
Other parties are also organizing themselves like this
No one can run anymore as a purely sectarian bloc
... Our experiment is very unique in this region .
That 's for sure
The Iranians want pro-Tehran Shiite parties to dominate Iraq
Also , the Iranian dictatorship hates the idea of `` inferior '' Iraq holding real elections while Iran limits voting to preselected candidates and then rigs the outcome
Most Arab leaders fear any real multisectarian democracy taking root in the neighborhood
`` The most dangerous thing that would threaten others is that if we really create success in building a democratic state in Iraq , '' said Maliki , whose country today now has about 100 newspapers
`` The countries whose regimes are built on one party , sect or ethnic group will feel endangered .
Maliki knows it wo n't be easy : `` Saddam ruled for more than 35 years , '' he said
`` We need one or two generations brought up on democracy and human rights to get rid of this orientation .
If this election comes off , it will still be held with U.S. combat troops on hand
The even bigger prize and test will be four years hence , if Iraq can hold an election in which multiethnic coalitions based on differing ideas of governance not sectarianism vie for power , and the reins are passed from one government to another without any U.S. military involvement
That would be the first time in modern Arab history where true multisectarian coalitions contest power , and cede power , without foreign interference
That would shake up the whole region
Yes , let 's figure out Afghanistan
But let 's not forget that something very important but so fragile and tentative is still playing out in Iraq , and we and our allies still need to help bring it to fruition
Therefore , sifting through all his steps and missteps , at home and abroad , and trying to sort out what is crazy and what might actually be true even though George Bush believes it presents an enormous challenge , particularly amid this economic crisis
I felt that very strongly when listening to President Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announce that the government was going to become a significant shareholder in the country 's major banks
Both Bush and Paulson were visibly reluctant to be taking this step
It would be easy to scoff at them and say : `` What do you expect from a couple of capitalists who hate any kind of government intervention in the market ?
But we should reflect on their reluctance
There may be an important message in their grimaces
The government had to step in and shore up the balance sheets of our major banks
But the question I am asking myself , and I think Paulson and Bush were asking themselves , is this : `` What will this government intervention do to the risk-taking that is at the heart of capitalism ?
There is a fine line between risk-taking and recklessness
Risk-taking drives innovation ; recklessness drives over a cliff
In recent years , we had way too much of the latter
We are paying a huge price for that , and we need a correction
But how do we do that without becoming so risk-averse that start-ups and emerging economies ca n't get capital because banks with the government as a shareholder become exceedingly cautious
Let 's imagine this scene : You are the president of one of these banks in which the government has taken a position
One day two young Stanford grads walk in your door
One is named Larry , and the other is named Sergey
They each are wearing jeans and a T-shirt
They tell you that they have this thing called a `` search engine , '' and they are naming it get this `` Google .
They tell you to type in any word in this box on a computer screen and get this hit a button labeled `` I 'm Feeling Lucky .
Up comes a bunch of Web sites related to that word
Their start-up , which they are operating out of their dorm room , has exhausted its venture capital
They need a loan
What are you going to say to Larry and Sergey as the president of the bank
`` Boys , this is very interesting
But I have the U.S. Treasury as my biggest shareholder today , and if you think I 'm going to put money into something called ` Google , ' with a key called ` I 'm Feeling Lucky , ' you 're fresh outta luck
Can you imagine me explaining that to a Congressional committee if you guys go bust ?
And then what happens if the next day the congressman from Palo Alto , who happens to be on the House banking committee , calls you , the bank president , and says : `` I understand you turned down my boys , Larry and Sergey
Maybe you have n't been told , but I am one of your shareholders and right now , I 'm not feeling very lucky
You get my drift ?
Maybe nothing like this will ever happen
Maybe it 's just my imagination
But maybe not ... `` Government bailouts and guarantees , while at times needed , always come with unintended consequences , '' notes the financial strategist David Smick
`` The winners : the strong , the big , the established , the domestic and the safe the folks who , relatively speaking , do n't need the money
The losers : the new , the small , the foreign and the risky emerging markets , entrepreneurs and small businesses not politically connected
After all , what banker in a Capitol Hill hearing now would want to defend a loan to an emerging market
Yet emerging economies are the big markets for American exports .
Do n't get me wrong
I am not criticizing the decision to shore up the banks
And we must prevent a repeat of the reckless bundling and securitizing of mortgages , and excessive leveraging , that started this mess
We need better regulation
But most of all , we need better management
The banks that are surviving the best today , the ones that are buying others and not being bought like JPMorgan Chase or Banco Santander , based in Spain are not surviving because they were better regulated than the banks across the street but because they were better run
Their leaders were more vigilant about their risk exposure than any regulator required them to be
Bottom line : We must not overshoot in regulating the markets just because they overshot in their risk-taking
That 's what markets do
We need to fix capitalism , not install socialism
Because , ultimately , we ca n't bail our way out of this crisis
We can only grow our way out with more innovation and entrepreneurship , which create new businesses and better jobs
So let 's keep our eyes on the prize
Save the system , install smart regulations and get the government out of the banking business as soon as possible so that the surviving banks can freely and unabashedly get back into their business : risk-taking without recklessness
I confess , I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates , mostly Republicans , leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess
Am I hearing right
Let 's have more tax cuts , unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while we 're still fighting two wars - because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small
Let 's immediately cut government spending , instead of phasing cuts in gradually , while we 're still mired in a recession - because that worked so well in the Great Depression
Let 's roll back financial regulation - because we 've learned from experience that Wall Street can police itself and average Americans will never have to bail it out
Let 's have no limits on corporate campaign spending so oil and coal companies can more easily and anonymously strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to limit pollution in the air our kids breathe
Let 's discriminate against gays and lesbians who want to join the military and fight for their country
Let 's restrict immigration , because , after all , we do n't live in a world where America 's most important competitive advantage is its ability to attract the world 's best brains
Let 's repeal our limited health care reform rather than see what works and then fix it
Let 's oppose the free-trade system that made us rich
Let 's kowtow even more to public service unions so they 'll make even more money than private sector workers , so they 'll give even more money to Democrats who will give them even more generous pensions , so not only California and New York will go bankrupt but every other state too
Let 's pay for more tax cuts by uncovering waste I ca n't identify , fraud I have n't found and abuse that I 'll get back to you on later
All that 's missing is any realistic diagnosis of where we are as a country and what we need to get back to sustainable growth
Actually , such a diagnosis has been done
A nonpartisan group of America 's most distinguished engineers , scientists , educators and industrialists unveiled just such a study in the midst of this campaign
Here is the story : In 2005 our National Academies responded to a call from a bipartisan group of senators to recommend 10 actions the federal government could take to enhance science and technology so America could successfully compete in the 21st century
Their response was published in a study , spearheaded by the industrialist Norman Augustine , titled `` Rising Above the Gathering Storm : Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future .
Charles M. Vest , the former M.I.T. president , worked on the study and noted in a speech recently that `` Gathering Storm , '' together with work by the Council on Competitiveness , led to the America Competes Act of 2007 , which increased funding for the basic science research that underlies our industrial economy
Other recommendations , like improving K-12 science education , were not substantively addressed
So , on Sept. 23 , the same group released a follow-up report : `` Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited : Rapidly Approaching Category 5 .
`` The subtitle , ` Rapidly Approaching Category 5 , ' says it all , '' noted Vest
`` The committee 's conclusion is that ` in spite of the efforts of both those in government and the private sector , the outlook for America to compete for quality jobs has further deteriorated over the past five years . '
But I thought : `` We 're number 1 !
`` Here is a little dose of reality about where we actually rank today , '' says Vest : sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness , but 40th in rate of change over the last decade ; 11th among industrialized nations in the fraction of 25 - to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school ; 16th in college completion rate ; 22nd in broadband Internet access ; 24th in life expectancy at birth ; 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering ; 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education ; and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people
`` This is not a pretty picture , and it can not be wished away , '' said Vest
The study recommended a series of steps - some that President Obama has already initiated , some that still need Congress 's support - designed to increase America 's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education , to reinforce long-term basic research , and to create the right tax and policy incentives so we can develop , recruit and retain the best and brightest students , scientists and engineers in the world
The goal is to make America the premier place to innovate and invest in innovation to create high-paying jobs
You 'll have to Google it , though
The report has n't received 1\/100th of the attention given to Juan Williams 's remarks on Muslims
A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but ca n't even discuss them rationally , let alone act on them , and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers
Why do I feel like I began my reporting career 30 years ago listening to the BBC World Service and I m going to end it glued to the Weather Channel
I flew into Los Angeles last Monday right through a gray-brown cloud of smoke from the forest fires burning in the hills east of the city
I couldn t actually see the fires from the air , only the smoke billowing out of mountain caverns , like so many smoldering volcanoes
There was something wild and prehistoric about it
It looked like either the end of the world or the beginning
As I watched from the plane window , I thought to myself , I ve never seen that before
I had had a similar thought a day earlier , playing golf in high-70s weather in Washington , D.C. , in late October
Because of the warm weather , the leaves had barely changed to fall colors
I ve never seen that before
One should never extrapolate about climate change from any single weather event or season , but it does seem that we keep having more and more weather events and seasons that are modified with the words since records have been kept as in the Los Angeles Times fire report on Monday , which noted that forecasters from the National Weather Service couldn t recall such intense winds in Southern California , a region that meteorologists said was already dealing with the driest year on record
So a question has started gnawing at us as we observe events like Katrina and the California wildfires
I asked my friend Nate Lewis , an energy chemist at the California Institute of Technology , what is that question
He thought for a moment and answered : Did we do that
Is man s cumulative impact on the climate now as responsible for the weather as Mother Nature herself
That is the question Katrina really introduced for the first time the sense that soon , if not already , what we used to call acts of God are really acts of man , Professor Lewis said
We may have introduced enough of man s economic activities enough CO2 emissions into Mother Nature s operating system that we can not determine anymore where she stopped and we started
As Professor Lewis would say : Did we make it hot or did she make it hot
Did we make that drought or did she make that drought
We don t know anymore
But we do know that the Weather Channel is slowly morphing into the news channel
Local news at 10 p.m. used to be titled , News , weather and sports
I fear that for our kids it s going to be , Weather , other news and sports
To probe this shift , I called Dr. Heidi Cullen , the climate expert at the Weather Channel and a scientist formerly with the National Center for Atmospheric Research
One thing people always loved about the Weather Channel was that it was nobody s fault , Ms. Cullen explained
We didn t point fingers
Our news was not political
And then Katrina came along , and suddenly the weather wasn t the weather anymore
It was something else
Suddenly the weather was potentially our fault
Again , she noted , one should never point to a particular weather event and say , That s what global warming looks like
What you can do , Ms. Cullen said , is look at things like the dikes and levees in New Orleans and say , That is what bad infrastructure looks like in an age when the vast majority of scientists are warning that global warming will make seas rise , storms more powerful , and droughts and heat waves longer and deeper
Getting society focused on meeting these new infrastructure needs is huge
Our creaky power grid or leaky water pipes really matter in prolonged , record-shattering droughts like the one Georgia is now experiencing
Some scientists have suggested giving droughts names , like we do hurricanes , Ms. Cullen noted
If we did , this Southeast drought would be called Katrina , and it would be about to hit Atlanta
That might get people more focused on infrastructure , which may not be sexy , she added , but it is how a society thrives , and it is going to be much more important in the age when the Weather Channel sounds like a broken record seemingly announcing every day , We just broke another record ... Yes , I really enjoyed playing golf in late October , as though it were July
But you know what
It also felt a little freaky
Should I be enjoying this
Is there some connection between this and the fires I saw burning in California the very next day
I know the answer is complicated
And that is where the dialogue should start , Ms. Cullen said
When people look at something and feel confused , that s the time to starting talking
Usually when we get an unseasonably nice day in late fall or winter , she added , we call it a gift , but now you realize you may be paying for it
It is crunch time on Afghanistan , so here 's my vote : We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way , not dig in deeper
We simply do not have the Afghan partners , the NATO allies , the domestic support , the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan
I base this conclusion on three principles
First , when I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile on my face all of them have one thing in common : America had nothing to do with it
America helped build out what they started , but the breakthrough did n't start with us
We can fan the flames , but the parties themselves have to light the fires of moderation
And whenever we try to do it for them , whenever we want it more than they do , we fail and they languish
The Camp David peace treaty was not initiated by Jimmy Carter
Rather , the Egyptian president , Anwar Sadat , went to Jerusalem in 1977 after Israel 's Moshe Dayan held secret talks in Morocco with Sadat aide Hassan Tuhami
Both countries decided that they wanted a separate peace outside of the Geneva comprehensive framework pushed by Mr. Carter
The Oslo peace accords started in Oslo in secret 1992-93 talks between the P.L.O. representative , Ahmed Qurei , and the Israeli professor Yair Hirschfeld
Israelis and Palestinians alone hammered out a broad deal and unveiled it to the Americans in the summer of 1993 , much to Washington 's surprise
The U.S. surge in Iraq was militarily successful because it was preceded by an Iraqi uprising sparked by a Sunni tribal leader , Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha , who , using his own forces , set out to evict the pro-Al Qaeda thugs who had taken over Sunni towns and were imposing a fundamentalist lifestyle
The U.S. surge gave that movement vital assistance to grow
But the spark was lit by the Iraqis
The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon , the Israeli withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon , the Green Revolution in Iran and the Pakistani decision to finally fight their own Taliban in Waziristan because those Taliban were threatening the Pakistani middle class were all examples of moderate , silent majorities acting on their own
The message : `` People do not change when we tell them they should , '' said the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum
`` They change when they tell themselves they must .
And when the moderate silent majorities take ownership of their own futures , we win
When they wo n't , when we want them to compromise more than they do , we lose
The locals sense they have us over a barrel , so they exploit our na ve goodwill and presence to loot their countries and to defeat their internal foes
That 's how I see Afghanistan today
I see no moderate spark
I see our secretary of state pleading with President Hamid Karzai to re-do an election that he blatantly stole
I also see us begging Israelis to stop building more crazy settlements or Palestinians to come to negotiations
It is time to stop subsidizing their nonsense
Let them all start paying retail for their extremism , not wholesale
Then you 'll see movement
What if we shrink our presence in Afghanistan
Wo n't Al Qaeda return , the Taliban be energized and Pakistan collapse
Maybe not
This gets to my second principle : In the Middle East , all politics everything that matters happens the morning after the morning after
Be patient
Yes , the morning after we shrink down in Afghanistan , the Taliban will celebrate , Pakistan will quake and bin Laden will issue an exultant video
And the morning after the morning after , the Taliban factions will start fighting each other , the Pakistani Army will have to destroy their Taliban , or be destroyed by them , Afghanistan 's warlords will carve up the country , and , if bin Laden comes out of his cave , he 'll get zapped by a drone
My last guiding principle : We are the world
A strong , healthy and self-confident America is what holds the world together and on a decent path
A weak America would be a disaster for us and the world
China , Russia and Al Qaeda all love the idea of America doing a long , slow bleed in Afghanistan
I do n't
The U.S. military has given its assessment
It said that stabilizing Afghanistan and removing it as a threat requires rebuilding that whole country
Unfortunately , that is a 20-year project at best , and we ca n't afford it
So our political leadership needs to insist on a strategy that will get the most security for less money and less presence
We simply do n't have the surplus we had when we started the war on terrorism after 9\/11 and we desperately need nation-building at home
We have to be smarter
Let 's finish Iraq , because a decent outcome there really could positively impact the whole Arab-Muslim world , and limit our exposure elsewhere
Iraq matters
Yes , shrinking down in Afghanistan will create new threats , but expanding there will , too
I 'd rather deal with the new threats with a stronger America
I 've always been dubious about Barack Obama 's offer to negotiate with Iran not because I did n't believe that it was the right strategy , but because I did n't believe we had enough leverage to succeed
And negotiating in the Middle East without leverage is like playing baseball without a bat
Well , if Obama does win the presidency , my gut tells me that he 's going to get a chance to negotiate with the Iranians with a bat in his hand
Have you seen the reports that Iran 's president , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , is suffering from exhaustion
It 's probably because he is not sleeping at night
I know why
Watching oil prices fall from $ 147 a barrel to $ 57 is not like counting sheep
It 's the kind of thing that gives an Iranian autocrat bad dreams
After all , it was the collapse of global oil prices in the early 1990s that brought down the Soviet Union
And Iran today is looking very Soviet to me
As Vladimir Mau , president of Russia 's Academy of National Economy , pointed out to me , it was the long period of high oil prices followed by sharply lower oil prices that killed the Soviet Union
The spike in oil prices in the 1970s deluded the Kremlin into overextending subsidies at home and invading Afghanistan abroad and then the collapse in prices in the '80s helped bring down that overextended empire
-LRB- Incidentally , this was exactly what happened to the shah of Iran : 1 -RRB- Sudden surge in oil prices
2 -RRB- Delusions of grandeur
3 -RRB- Sudden contraction of oil prices
4 -RRB- Dramatic downfall
5 -RRB- You 're toast .
Under Ahmadinejad , Iran 's mullahs have gone on a domestic subsidy binge using oil money to cushion the prices of food , gasoline , mortgages and to create jobs to buy off the Iranian people
But the one thing Ahmadinejad could n't buy was real economic growth
Iran today has 30 percent inflation , 11 percent unemployment and huge underemployment with thousands of young college grads , engineers and architects selling pizzas and driving taxis
And now with oil prices falling , Iran just like the Soviet Union is going to have to pull back spending across the board
Fasten your seat belts
The U.N. has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005 because of Iran 's refusal to halt uranium enrichment
But high oil prices minimized those sanctions ; collapsing oil prices will now magnify those sanctions
If prices stay low , there is a good chance Iran will be open to negotiating over its nuclear program with the next U.S. president
That is a good thing because Iran also funds Hezbollah , Hamas , Syria and the anti-U.S. Shiites in Iraq
If America wants to get out of Iraq and leave behind a decent outcome , plus break the deadlocks in Lebanon and Israel-Palestine , it needs to end the cold war with Iran
I do n't know , but the collapse of oil prices should give us a shot
But let 's use our leverage smartly and not exaggerate Iran 's strength
Just as I believe that we should drop the reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden from $ 50 million to one penny , plus an autographed picture of Dick Cheney we need to deflate the Iranian mullahs as well
Let them chase us
Karim Sadjadpour , an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , compares it to bargaining for a Persian carpet in Tehran
`` When you go inside the carpet shop , the first thing you are supposed to do is feign disinterest , '' he explains
`` The last thing you want to suggest is ` We are not leaving without that carpet .
` Well , ' the dealer will say , ` if you feel so strongly about it ... ' '' The other lesson from the carpet bazaar , says Sadjadpour , `` is that there is never a price tag on any carpet
The dealer is not looking for a fixed price , but the highest price he can get and the Iran price is constantly fluctuating depending on the price of oil .
Let 's now use that to our advantage
Barack Hussein Obama would present another challenge for Iran 's mullahs
Their whole rationale for being is that they are resisting a hegemonic American power that wants to keep everyone down
Suddenly , next week , Iranians may look up and see that the country their leaders call `` The Great Satan '' has just elected `` a guy whose middle name is the central figure in Shiite Islam Hussein and whose last name Obama when transliterated into Farsi , means ` He is with us , ' '' said Sadjadpour
Iran is ripe for deflating
Its power was inflated by the price of oil and the popularity of its leader , who was cheered simply because he was willing to poke America with a stick
But as a real nation-building enterprise , the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been an abject failure
`` When you ask young Arabs which leaders in the region they most admire , '' said Sadjadpour , they will usually answer the leaders of Hamas , Hezbollah and Iran
`` When you ask them where in the Middle East would you most like to live , '' he added , `` the answer is usually socially open places like Dubai or Beirut
The Islamic Republic of Iran is never in the top 10 .
Well , here 's something you do n't see every day
I was visiting an Indian village 350 miles east of Hyderabad and got to watch a very elderly Indian man undergo an EKG in a remote clinic , while a heart specialist , hundreds of miles away in Bangalore , watched via satellite TV and dispensed a diagnosis
This kind of telemedicine is the I.T. revolution at its best
But what struck me most was that just underneath the TV screen , powering the whole endeavor , were 16 car batteries the E.T. , energy technology , revolution , at its worst
Some 250 million Indians today have cellphones
Many of them are people who make just $ 2 or $ 3 a day
More and more are getting access to computers and the Internet , even in villages
But only 85 percent of Indian villages are electrified and that is being generous , since many still do n't have reliable 24\/7 quality power
If only ... If only we could make a breakthrough in clean , distributed power an E.T. revolution it could drive the I.T. revolution into every forgotten corner of the world to create jobs , light up schools and tap the innovative prowess of rural populations , like India 's 700 million villagers
There is a green Edison growing up out here if only we can give them the light to learn
To appreciate that potential , look at how much is being done with just car batteries , backup diesel generators and India 's creaky rural electricity grid
I traveled to a cluster of villages with a team from the Byrraju Foundation a truly impressive nonprofit set up by B. Ramalinga Raju and his family
Raju and his brother Rama are co-founders of one of India 's leading outsourcing companies , Satyam Computer Services
The Hyderabad-based brothers wanted to give back to their country , but they wanted it to be a hand up , not a hand out
So besides funding health clinics and computer-filled primary schools in villages in their home state of Andhra Pradesh , they tried something new : outsourcing their outsourcing to villages
Here in Ethakota , amid the banana and palm groves , 120 college-educated villagers , trained in computers and English by Satyam and connected to the world by wireless networks , are processing data for a British publisher and selling services for an Indian phone company
They run two eight-hour shifts , but could run three if only the electricity did n't go off for six hours a day
Talking to the workers at the Ethakota data center one of three Byrraju has set up you can see what a merger of I.T. and E.T. could do : enable so many more Indians to live local and act global
Suresh Varma , 30 , one of the data managers , was working for a U.S. oil company in Hyderabad and actually decided to move back to the village where his parents came from
`` I have a much higher quality of life here than in an urban area anywhere in India , '' he said
`` The city is concrete
You spend most of your time in traffic , just getting from one place to another
Here you walk to work
Here I am in touch with what is happening in the cities , but at the same time I do n't miss out on my professional aspirations
... It is like moving from a Silicon Valley to a real valley .
Unlike in the city , where outsourcing workers come and go , `` in the village , nobody gives up these jobs , '' said Verghese Jacob , who heads the Byrraju Foundation , which plans to gradually hand over ownership of the data centers to the villagers
`` They are very innovative and positive , and because some of them had never worked on a computer before , their respect for the opportunity is so much more than for a city child who takes it for granted .
When the world starts getting wired and electrified , you never know who you 'll bump into
In the village of Podagatlapalli , I met Sha Yu , a 22-year-old Chinese graduate of Beijing 's Renmin University and a Byrraju volunteer , teaching rural Indian high school students how to produce their own newspaper on a computer
`` I felt in China people do n't know so much about India , so I thought I want to come and see what is happening here , '' she explained
`` In rural India , communication is not that developed , so I started a newspaper for the high school
If I can learn something from here , and bring it back , I can give some ideas to the Chinese government
If this rural area can be empowered , it would be an amazing thing for the world .
Amazing indeed
India 's strained megacities , like Mumbai and Calcutta , ca n't keep growing
Mr. Jacob estimates that just one of his rural outsourcing centers creates the equivalent employment and salaries of 400 acres of farm land
India , in other words , could actually mint more land in the countryside , but it ca n't do it off car batteries
It will take a real energy revolution
If only ... Related Searches Hyderabad -LRB- India -RRB- Energy and
It s Morning in India This week 's award for not knowing what world you 're living in surely goes to the French high school and college students who blockaded their campuses , and snarled rail traffic , in a nationwide strike against the French government 's decision to raise its pension retirement age from 60 to 62
If those students understood the hypercompetitive and economically integrated world they were living in today , they would have taken to the streets to demand smaller classes , better teaching , more opportunities for entrepreneurship and more foreign private investment in France - so they could have the sorts of good private sector jobs that would enable them to finance retirement at age 62
France already discovered that a 35-hour workweek was impossible in a world where Indian engineers were trying to work a 35-hour day - and so , too , are pension levels not sustained by a vibrant private sector
What is most striking to me being in India this week , though , is how many Indians , young and old , expressed their concerns that America also seems at times to be running away from the world it invented and that India is adopting
With President Obama scheduled to come here next week , at a time when more than a few U.S. politicians are loudly denouncing immigration reforms , free trade expansion and outsourcing , more than a few Indian business leaders want to ask the president : `` What 's up with that ?
Did n't America export to the world all the technologies and free market dogmas that created this increasingly flat , global economic playing field - and now you 're turning against them
`` It is the Silicon Valley revolution which enabled the massive rise in tradable services and the U.S.-built telecommunication networks that allowed creation of the virtual office , '' Nayan Chanda , the editor of YaleGlobal Online , wrote in the Indian magazine Businessworld this week
`` But the U.S. seems sadly unprepared to take advantage of the revolution it has spawned
The country 's worn-out infrastructure , failing education system and lack of political consensus have prevented it from riding a new wave to prosperity .
Saurabh Srivastava , co-founder of the National Association of Software and Service Companies in India , explained that for the first 40 years of Indian independence , entrepreneurs here were looked down upon
India had lost confidence in its ability to compete , so it opted for protectionism
But when the '90s rolled around , and India 's government was almost bankrupt , India 's technology industry was able to get the government to open up the economy , in part by citing the example of America and Silicon Valley
India has flourished ever since
`` America , '' said Srivastava , `` was the one who said to us : ` You have to go for meritocracy
You do n't have to produce everything yourselves
Go for free trade and open markets .
This has been the American national anthem , and we pushed our government to tune in to it
And just when they 're beginning to learn how to hum it , you 're changing the anthem
... Our industry was the one pushing our government to open our markets for American imports , 100 percent foreign ownership of companies and tough copyright laws when it was n't fashionable .
If America turns away from these values , he added , the socialist\/protectionists among India 's bureaucrats will use it to slow down any further opening of the Indian markets to U.S. exporters
It looks , said Srivastava , as if `` what is happening in America is a loss of self-confidence
We do n't want America to lose self-confidence
Who else is there to take over America 's moral leadership
American 's leadership was never because you had more arms
It was because of ideas , imagination , and meritocracy .
If America turns away from its core values , he added , `` there is nobody else to take that leadership
Do we want China as the world 's moral leader
We desperately want America to succeed .
This is n't just so American values triumph
With a rising China on one side and a crumbling Pakistan on the other , India 's newfound friendship with America has taken on strategic importance
`` It is very worrying to live in a world that no longer has the balance of power we 've had for 60 years , '' said Shekhar Gupta , editor of The Indian Express newspaper
`` That is why everyone is concerned about America .
India and America are both democracies , a top Indian official explained to me , but emotionally they are now ships passing in the night
Because today the poorest Indian maid believes that if she can just save a few dollars to get her kid English lessons , that kid will have a better life than she does
So she is an optimist
`` But the guy in Kansas , '' he added , `` who today is enjoying a better life than that maid , is worried that he ca n't pass it on to his kids
So he 's a pessimist .
Yes , when America lapses into a bad mood , everyone notices
After asking for an explanation of the Tea Party 's politics , Gupta remarked : `` We have moved away from a politics of grievance to a politics of aspiration
Where is the American dream
Where is the optimism ?
That is all I can think watching Michigan congressmen and senators , led by Representative John Dingell , doing their best imitations of Jack Kevorkian and once again trying to water down efforts by Congress to legislate improved mileage standards for Detroit in the latest draft energy bill
Look , I get pork-barrel politics
I understand senators from oil states protecting the windfall profits of oil companies
Ditto for farm subsidies
It s an old story : Protect my winnings , and I ll reward you with campaign contributions
I get it
I get it
What I don t get is empty-barrel politics Michigan lawmakers year after year shielding Detroit from pressure to innovate on higher mileage standards , even though Detroit s failure to sell more energy-efficient vehicles has clearly contributed to its brush with bankruptcy , its loss of market share to Toyota and Honda whose fleets beat all U.S. automakers in fuel economy in 2007 and its loss of jobs
G.M. today has 73,000 working U.A.W. members , compared with 225,000 a decade ago
Last year , Toyota overtook G.M. as the world s biggest automaker
Thank you , Michigan delegation
The people of Japan thank you as well
But assisting Detroit s suicide seems to be contagious
Everyone wants to get in on it , including Toyota
Toyota , which pioneered the industry-leading , 50-miles-per-gallon Prius hybrid , has joined with the Big Three U.S. automakers in lobbying against the tougher mileage standards in the Senate version of the draft energy bill
Now why would Toyota , which has used the Prius to brand itself as the greenest car company , pull such a stunt
Is it because Toyota wants to slow down innovation in Detroit on more energy efficient vehicles , which Toyota already dominates , while also keeping mileage room to build giant pickup trucks , like the Toyota Tundra , at the gas-guzzler end of the U.S. market
Toyota wants to keep its green halo and beat G.M. in the big trucks , too , said Deron Lovaas , vehicles expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council
As the world s largest automaker and inventor of the best-selling hybrid car , Toyota has a responsibility to lead , follow or get out of the way as Congress debates the first substantial fuel-economy boost in decades
Shamefully , Toyota has joined forces with older automakers that are getting their lunch handed to them in the marketplace , in part because they ve consistently shunned fuel efficiency
Irv Miller , a Toyota vice president , used the company s corporate blog to refute charges that it is trying to move America backward on gas mileage
Nothing could be further from the truth , he said , because Toyota also favors improved mileage standards
Not so fast
Here are the facts : Thanks to the Michigan delegation , U.S. mileage standards for passenger car fleets have been frozen at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1985
Light trucks are even worse
The Senate energy bill calls for U.S. automakers to achieve a corporate average fuel economy of 35 m.p.g. by 2020
The Big Three and Toyota are lobbying to kill the Senate version and replace it with a loophole-laden increase to 32 to 35 m.p.g. by 2022
-LRB- Only the U.S. auto industry would try to postpone innovation .
The difference between the two is millions of gallons of gas
Don t be fooled
Japan and Europe already have much better mileage standards for their auto fleets than the U.S.
They both have many vehicles that could meet the U.S. goal for 2020 today , and they are committed to increasing their fleet standards toward 40 m.p.g. and above in the coming decade
So Toyota , in effect , is lobbying to keep U.S. standards in 2022 well behind what Japan s will be
Representative Edward Markey , the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming , said to me that Toyota could meet a 35 m.p.g. standard in Japan and Europe today , but here even though they bombard Americans with ads about how energy efficient Toyota is they are fighting the 35 m.p.g. standard for 2020
Mr. Markey said he has tried to persuade Toyota that a lot of people have bought Priuses or Camry hybrids to fight global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and they would be shocked to find out that Toyota is lobbying against the highest m.p.g. standards for America
If Toyota were to take the lead on this front , it could enhance its own reputation and spur the whole U.S. auto industry to become more globally competitive
Hey , Toyota , if you are going to become the biggest U.S. automaker , could you at least bring to America your best practices the ones that made you the world leader instead of prolonging our worst practices
We have enough people helping us commit suicide
A friend in the U.S. military sent me an e-mail last week with a quote from the historian Lewis Mumford 's book , `` The Condition of Man , '' about the development of civilization
Mumford was describing Rome 's decline : `` Everyone aimed at security : no one accepted responsibility
What was plainly lacking , long before the barbarian invasions had done their work , long before economic dislocations became serious , was an inner go
Rome 's life was now an imitation of life : a mere holding on
Security was the watchword - as if life knew any other stability than through constant change , or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks .
It was one of those history passages that echo so loudly in the present that it sends a shiver down my spine - way , way too close for comfort
I 've just spent a week in Silicon Valley , talking with technologists from Apple , Twitter , LinkedIn , Intel , Cisco and SRI and can definitively report that this region has not lost its `` inner go .
But in talks here and elsewhere I continue to be astounded by the level of disgust with Washington , D.C. , and our two-party system - so much so that I am ready to hazard a prediction : Barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties , there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012 , with a serious political movement behind him or her - one definitely big enough to impact the election 's outcome
There is a revolution brewing in the country , and it is not just on the right wing but in the radical center
I know of at least two serious groups , one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast , developing `` third parties '' to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation 's steady incremental decline
President Obama has not been a do-nothing failure
He has some real accomplishments
He passed a health care expansion , a financial regulation expansion , stabilized the economy , started a national education reform initiative and has conducted a smart and tough war on Al Qaeda
But there is another angle on the last two years : a president who won a sweeping political mandate , propelled by an energized youth movement and with control of both the House and the Senate - about as much power as any president could ever hope to muster in peacetime - was only able to pass an expansion of health care that is a suboptimal amalgam of tortured compromises that no one is certain will work or that we can afford -LRB- and does n't deal with the cost or quality problems -RRB- , a limited stimulus that has not relieved unemployment or fixed our infrastructure , and a financial regulation bill that still needs to be interpreted by regulators because no one could agree on crucial provisions
Plus , Obama had to abandon an energy-climate bill altogether , and if the G.O.P. takes back the House , we may not have an energy bill until 2013
Obama probably did the best he could do , and that 's the point
The best our current two parties can produce today - in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century - is suboptimal , even when one party had a huge majority
Suboptimal is O.K. for ordinary times , but these are not ordinary times
We need to stop waiting for Superman and start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now
Pretty good is not even close to good enough today
`` We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country , '' said the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond
Indeed , our two-party system is ossified ; it lacks integrity and creativity and any sense of courage or high-aspiration in confronting our problems
We simply will not be able to do the things we need to do as a country to move forward `` with all the vested interests that have accrued around these two parties , '' added Diamond
`` They can not think about the overall public good and the longer term anymore because both parties are trapped in short-term , zero-sum calculations , '' where each one 's gains are seen as the other 's losses
We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform , without worrying about offending unions ; financial reform , without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street ; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs , without worrying about offending the far left ; energy and climate reform , without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats ; and proper health care reform , without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies
`` If competition is good for our economy , '' asks Diamond , `` why is n't it good for our politics ?
We need a third party on the stage of the next presidential debate to look Americans in the eye and say : `` These two parties are lying to you
They ca n't tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests
I am not going to tell you what you want to hear
I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world 's leaders , not the new Romans .
That is what The Dallas Morning News reported about Hosam Maher Husein Smadi , the 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper
He was caught by an F.B.I. sting operation that culminated in his arrest nearly two weeks ago after Smadi parked a 2001 Ford Explorer Sport Trac , supplied by the F.B.I. , in the garage of a Dallas office tower
`` Inside the S.U.V. was a fake bomb , designed to appear similar to one used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing , '' The News wrote
`` Authorities say Smadi thought he could detonate it with a cellphone
After parking the vehicle , he got into another vehicle with one of the agents , and they drove several blocks away
An agent offered Smadi earplugs , but he declined , ` indicating that he wanted to hear the blast , ' authorities said
He then dialed the phone , thinking it would trigger the bomb
... Instead , the agents took him into custody .
If that does n't send a little shiver down your spine , how about this one
BBC.com reported that `` it has emerged that an Al Qaeda bomber who died last month while trying to blow up a Saudi prince in Jeddah had hidden the explosives inside his body .
He reportedly inserted the bomb and detonator in his rectum to elude metal detectors
My God
Or how about this
Two weeks ago in Denver , the F.B.I. arrested Najibullah Zazi , a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant , and indicted him on charges of planning to set off a bomb made of the same home-brewed explosives used in the 2005 London transit bombings
He allegedly learned how to do so on a training visit to Pakistan
The Times reported that Zazi `` had bought some bomb ingredients in beauty supply stores , the authorities said , after viewing instructions on his laptop on how to build such a bomb
When an employee of the Beauty Supply Warehouse asked about the volume of materials he was buying , he remembered Mr. Zazi answering , ' I have a lot of girlfriends . '
These incidents are worth reflecting on
They tell us some important things
First , we may be tired of this `` war on terrorism , '' but the bad guys are not
They are getting even more `` creative .
Second , in this war on terrorism , there is no `` good war '' or `` bad war .
There is one war with many fronts , including Europe and our own backyard , requiring many different tactics
It is a war within Islam , between an often too-silent Muslim mainstream and a violent , motivated , often nihilistic jihadist minority
Theirs is a war over how and whether Islam should embrace modernity
It is a war fueled by humiliation humiliation particularly among young Muslim males who sense that their faith community has fallen behind others , in terms of both economic opportunity and military clout
This humiliation has spawned various jihadists cults , including Al Qaeda , which believe they have the God-given right to kill infidels , their own secular leaders and less pious Muslims to purify Islam and Islamic lands and thereby restore Muslim grandeur
Third , the newest and maybe most active front in this war is not Afghanistan , but the `` virtual Afghanistan '' the loose network of thousands of jihadist Web sites , mosques and prayer groups that recruit , inspire and train young Muslims to kill without any formal orders from Al Qaeda
The young man in Dallas came to F.B.I. attention after espousing war on the U.S. on jihadist Web sites
Fourth , in the short run , winning this war requires effective police\/intelligence action , to kill or capture the jihadists
I call that `` the war on terrorists .
In the long run , though , winning requires partnering with Arab and Muslim societies to help them build thriving countries , integrated with the world economy , where young people do n't grow up in a soil poisoned by religious extremists and choked by petro-dictators so they can never realize their aspirations
I call this `` the war on terrorism .
It takes a long time
Our operation in Afghanistan after 9\/11 was , for me , only about `` the war on terrorists .
It was about getting bin Laden
Iraq was `` the war on terrorism '' trying to build a decent , pluralistic , consensual government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world
Despite all we 've paid , the outcome in Iraq remains uncertain
But it was at least encouraging to see last week 's decision by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to run in the next election with a nonsectarian , multireligious coalition a rare thing in the Arab world
So , what President Obama is actually considering in Afghanistan is shifting from a `` war on terrorists '' there to a `` war on terrorism , '' including nation-building
I still have serious doubts that we have a real Afghan government partner for that
But if Mr. Obama decides to send more troops , the most important thing is not the number
It is his commitment to see it through
If he seems ambivalent , no one there will stand with us and we 'll have no chance
If he seems committed , maybe maybe we 'll find enough allies
Remember , the bad guys are totally committed and they are not tired
I was talking to friend in New York City the other day about the current financial crisis , and she told me about a scene she had just witnessed in the lobby of the Warwick Hotel
Four Swedish tourists , who clearly had been on a shopping spree in Manhattan , fueled by the still cheap dollar , were trying to cram all their purchases into four suitcases
They had bought a hand-held scale one of those you just grip onto the suitcase and lift to make sure all their American goodies were not overweight for the flight home
Another friend of mine in the ship-supply business in Baltimore , Alan Kotz , told me about a German customer who recently put in double his normal order
When Alan asked him if he was aware of how much he had ordered , the German brushed his question away and laughed : `` Alan , nevermind , everything for us is half price .
And a good thing it is
Even though the dollar has strengthened a bit lately , we are going to need foreigners and sovereign wealth funds from China , Asia , Europe and the Middle East more than ever to survive this crisis and they are going to need us to be healthy as well
In the process , we are going to become even more intertwined and dependent on the rest of the world
Sarah Palin wo n't have to worry that she does n't know what the Bush doctrine is
No one really knew what it meant
But it had something to do with the unilateral exercise of American power , and the next president 's ability to act unilaterally on anything other than vital national security issues is going to be reduced
As the old saying goes : He who has the gold makes the rules
Well , we no longer have as much gold , and until we get some , we will have to pay more heed to the rules of those who lend us theirs
At a time when the U.S. government gets half its borrowings from abroad , at a time when the U.S. household savings rate is hovering around zero and China alone is already holding around $ 1 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds yes , that 's how you got that cheap subprime mortgage it ca n't be any other way
Somebody better tell John McCain : We are all Swedes now
Forget about `` Live Free or Die .
Until we get our financial act together , our motto is going to be : `` Swedish spoken here or Arabic or Chinese or German ... '' I would also bet that more and more of the foreign investors who come our way are going to want to buy hard , tangible assets skyscrapers , real estate and real companies not just mutual funds , T-bills , bank stocks or other equities
No problem
Americans own assets all over the world ; foreigners have long owned substantial positions in U.S. companies
That 's globalization and now you are going to see globalization and financial integration on steroids
It should help us , but also change us
`` The next round of capital that comes in from abroad is going to be much more demanding and move into real assets , '' argued Jeffrey Garten , professor of trade and finance at the Yale School of Management
`` Being a bigger debtor nation means losing even more of our sovereignty
It means conducting our economic policies with an eye toward whether others approve
It means bearing the advice and criticism that we have dispensed ad nauseam to other countries for over half a century
It means far more intensive consultations with other capitals on our fiscal policies and our monetary policies .
At the same time , added Garten , `` Corporate decisions will become more sensitive to international factors , in part because more non-Americans will be on the governing boards .
Ultimately , this could make American industry even more globally competitive but for those who ca n't pass global muster or enlist global collaborators , the consequences could be harsh
Of course , neither Barack Obama nor John McCain dare talk about this now
They want to pretend nothing has really changed
The minute one of them steps into the Oval Office , they will tell us otherwise
That will be the January surprise
There was a lot of talk after Russia invaded Georgia that globalization was over and we were seeing the return of `` history '' and the primacy of politics over economics
I think not
Politics and economics are always inextricably intertwined
History-making is rarely free
The Russian stock market has been hammered as a result of its invasion of Georgia , and the global slowdown has sunk Russian oil and gas earnings
No country is an island today
Making history is not simply about the will to do so
It 's also about the way the resources you have to achieve your ends
Whatever wills the next American president comes to office with , he is going to find that his ways have been diminished and restricted until we roll up our sleeves and work our way out of this mess
What has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California incensed is the fact that two Texas oil companies with two refineries each in California are financing a campaign to roll back California 's landmark laws to slow global warming and promote clean energy innovation , because it would require the refiners to install new emission-control tools
At a time when President Obama and Congress have failed to pass a clean energy bill , California 's laws are the best thing we have going to stimulate clean-tech in America
We do n't want them gutted
C'mon in
This is a fight worth having
Here are the basics : Next month Californians will vote on `` Prop 23 , '' a proposal to effectively kill implementation of California 's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 , known as A.B. 32
It was supported by Republicans , Democrats , businesses and environmentalists
Prop 23 proposes to suspend implementation of A.B. 32 until California achieves four consecutive quarters of unemployment below 5.5 percent
It is currently above 12 percent
#NAME?
Just remember : A.B. 32 , good ; Prop 23 , bad .
A.B. 32 was designed to put California on a path to reducing greenhouse gases in its air to 1990 levels by 2020
This would make the state a healthier place , and a more innovative one
Since A.B. 32 was passed , investors have poured billions of dollars into making new technologies to meet these standards
`` It is very clear that the oil companies from outside the state that are trying to take out A.B. 32 , and trying to take out our environmental laws , have no interest in suspending it , but just to get rid of it , '' Governor Schwarzenegger said at an energy forum we both participated in last week in Sacramento , sponsored by its energetic mayor , Kevin Johnson
`` They want to kill A.B. 32
Otherwise they would n't put this provision in there about the 5.5 percent unemployment rate
It 's very rare that California in the last 40 years had an unemployment rate of below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters
They 're not interested in our environment ; they are only interested in greed and filling their pockets with more money
`` And they are very deceptive when they say they want to go and create more jobs in California , '' the governor added
`` Since when has -LRB- an -RRB- oil company ever been interested in jobs
Let 's be honest
If they really are interested in jobs , they would want to protect A.B. 32 , because actually it 's green technology that is creating the most jobs right now in California , 10 times more than any other sector .
No , this is not about jobs
As ThinkProgress.org , a progressive research center , reported : Two Texas oil companies , Valero and Tesoro , `` have led the charge against the landmark climate law , along with Koch Industries , the giant oil conglomerate owned by right-wing megafunders Charles and David Koch
Koch recently donated $ 1 million to the effort and has been supporting front groups involved in the campaign .
Fortunately , Californians from across the political spectrum are trying to raise money to defeat Prop 23 , but the vote could be close
George Shultz , a former secretary of state during the Reagan administration , has taken a leading role in the campaign against Prop 23
-LRB- See : www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com .
`` Prop 23 is designed to kill by indefinite postponement California 's effort to clean up the environment , '' said Mr. Shultz
`` This effort is financed heavily by money from out of state
You have to conclude that the financiers are less concerned about California than they are about the fact that if we get something that is working here to clean up the air and launch a clean-tech industry , it will go national and maybe international
So the stakes are high
I hope we can win here and send a message to the whole country that it 's time to put aside partisan politics and get an energy bill out of Washington .
Dan Becker , a veteran environmental lobbyist , echoes that view : `` Now that industry and their friends in Congress have blocked progress there , the hope for action moves to the states '' and the Environmental Protection Agency
`` Unfortunately , '' he added , `` polluter lobbyists are tight on our heels
They 've offered Senate amendments to block the E.P.A. from using the Clean Air Act to cut power plant pollution
Since that failed , they are trying to block California from moving forward
... If the people of California see through the misrepresentations of the oil industry , it throws climate denialism off the tracks and opens the door for a return to a science-based approach to the climate
It would be a triumph for the National Academy of Sciences over the National Academy of Fraud .
The real joke is thinking that if California suspends its climate laws that Mother Nature will also take a timeout
`` We can wait to solve this problem as long as we want , '' says Nate Lewis , an energy chemist at the California Institute of Technology : `` But Nature is balancing its books every day
It was a record 113 degrees in Los Angeles the other day
There are laws of politics and laws of physics
Only the latter ca n't be repealed .
Every so often a quote comes out of the Bush administration that leaves you asking : Am I crazy or are they
I had one of those moments last week when Dana Perino , the White House press secretary , was asked about a proposal by some Congressional Democrats to levy a surtax to pay for the Iraq war , and she responded , We ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type , and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything
Yes , those silly Democrats
They ll raise taxes for anything , even get this to pay for a war
And if we did raise taxes to pay for our war to bring a measure of democracy to the Arab world , does anyone seriously believe that the Democrats are going to end these new taxes that they re asking the American people to pay at a time when it s not necessary to pay them
added Ms. Perino
I just think it s completely fiscally irresponsible
Friends , we are through the looking glass
It is now fiscally irresponsible to want to pay for a war with a tax
These democrats just don t understand : the tooth fairy pays for wars
Of course she does the tooth fairy leaves the money at the end of every month under Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson s pillow
And what a big pillow it is
My God , what will the Democrats come up with next
Taxes to rebuild bridges or schools or high-speed rail or our lagging broadband networks
No , no , the tooth fairy covers all that
She borrows the money from China and leaves it under Paulson s pillow
Of course , we can pay for the Iraq war without a tax increase
The question is , can we pay for it and be making the investments in infrastructure , science and education needed to propel our country into the 21st century
Visit Singapore , Japan , Korea , China or parts of Europe today and you ll discover that the infrastructure in our country is not keeping pace with our peers
We can pay for anything today if we want to stop investing in tomorrow
The president has already slashed the National Institutes of Health research funding the past two years
His 2008 budget wants us to cut money for vocational training , infrastructure and many student aid programs
Does the Bush team really believe that if we had a $ 1-a-gallon gasoline tax which could reduce our dependence on Middle East oil dictators , and reduce payroll taxes for low-income workers , pay down the deficit and fund the development of renewable energy we would be worse off as a country
Excuse me , Ms. Perino , but I wish Republicans would revert to type
I thought they were , well , conservatives the kind of people who saved for rainy days , who invested in tomorrow for their kids , folks who didn t believe in free lunches or free wars
No wonder The Wall Street Journal had a story Tuesday headlined , G.O.P. Is Losing Grip on Core Business Vote
It noted that traditional fiscal conservatives were defecting from the G.O.P. angered by the growth of government spending during the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress
And no wonder Alan Greenspan told The Journal : The Republican Party , which ruled the House , the Senate and the presidency , I no longer recognize
Of course , the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee , the Democrat David Obey , in proposing an Iraq war tax to help balance the budget was expressing his displeasure with the war
But he was also making a very important point when he said , If this war is important enough to fight , then it ought to be important enough to pay for
The struggle against radical Islam is the fight of our generation
We all need to pitch in not charge it on our children s Visa cards
Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home we ve never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation , said Robert Hormats , vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International , who has written a history The Price of Liberty about how America has paid for its wars since 1776
In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries , said Mr. Hormats , Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes and nonessential programs have been cut to support the military effort
Yet during this Iraq war , taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed
In contrast to World War I , World War II , the Korean War and Vietnam , for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice
The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families
In his celebrated Farewell Address , Mr. Hormats noted , George Washington warned against ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burdens we ourselves ought to bear
I am a 56-year-old baby boomer , and looking around today it 's very clear that my generation had it easy : We grew up in the shadow of just one bomb the nuclear bomb
That is , in our day , it seemed as if there was just one big threat that could trigger a nonlinear , 180-degree change in the trajectory of our lives : the Soviets hitting us with a nuke
My girls are not so lucky
Today 's youth are growing up in the shadow of three bombs any one of which could go off at any time and set in motion a truly nonlinear , radical change in the trajectory of their lives
The first , of course , is still the nuclear threat , which , for my generation , basically came from just one seemingly rational enemy , the Soviet Union , with which we shared a doctrine of mutual assured destruction
Today , the nuclear threat can be delivered by all kinds of states or terrorists , including suicidal jihadists for whom mutual assured destruction is a delight , not a deterrent
But there are now two other bombs our children have hanging over them : the debt bomb and the climate bomb
As we continue to build up carbon in the atmosphere to unprecedented levels , we never know when the next emitted carbon molecule will tip over some ecosystem and trigger a nonlinear climate event like melting the Siberian tundra and releasing all of its methane , or drying up the Amazon or melting all the sea ice in the North Pole in summer
And when one ecosystem collapses , it can trigger unpredictable changes in others that could alter our whole world
The same is true with America 's debt bomb
To recover from the Great Recession , we 've had to go even deeper into debt
One need only look at today 's record-setting price of gold , in a period of deflation , to know that a lot of people are worried that our next dollar of debt unbalanced by spending cuts or new tax revenues will trigger a nonlinear move out of the dollar and torpedo the U.S. currency
If people lose confidence in the dollar , we could enter a feedback loop , as with the climate , whereby the sinking dollar forces up interest rates , which raises the long-term cost of servicing our already massive debt , which adds to the deficit projections , which further undermines the dollar
If the world is unwilling to finance our deficits , except at much higher rates of interest , it would surely diminish our government 's ability to make public investments and just as surely diminish our children 's standard of living
Unfortunately , too many conservatives , who would never risk emitting so much debt that it would tank the dollar , will blithely tell you on carbon : `` Emit all you want
Do n't worry
It 's all a hoax .
And too many liberals , who would never risk emitting too much carbon , will tell you on emitting more debt : `` Spend away
We 've got plenty of room to stimulate without risking the dollar .
Because of this divide , our government has not been able to put in place the long-term policies needed to guard against detonating our mounting debt bomb and climate bomb
As such , we 're in effect putting our kids ' future in the hands of the two most merciless forces on the planet : the Market and Mother Nature
As the environmentalist Rob Watson likes to say , `` Mother Nature is just chemistry , biology and physics .
That 's all she is
You ca n't spin her ; you ca n't sweet-talk her
You ca n't say , `` Hey , Mother Nature , we 're having a bad recession , could you take a year off ?
No , she 's going to do whatever chemistry , biology and physics dictate , based on the amount of carbon we put in the atmosphere , and as Watson likes to add : `` Mother Nature always bats last , and she always bats a thousand .
Ditto the market
The market is just a second-by-second snapshot of the balance between greed and fear
You ca n't spin it or sweet-talk it
And you never know when that balance between greed and fear on the dollar is going to tip over into fear in a nonlinear way
That is why I was heartened to see the liberal Center for American Progress stating last week that , while the stimulus is vital to rescuing our economy , the size of projected budget deficits demand that we also start thinking about broad-based tax increases and reductions in some spending and entitlement programs supported by liberals
I am equally heartened when I see Republicans like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging his party to start taking climate change seriously
But we also need to act
If we do n't , we will be leaving our children to the tender mercies of the Market and Mother Nature alone to shape their futures
This moment reminds me of an image John Holdren , the president 's science adviser , uses when discussing the threat of climate change , but it also applies to the dollar : `` We 're driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heading for a cliff
We know for sure that cliff is out there
We just do n't know exactly where it is
Prudence would suggest that we should start putting on the brakes .
Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel
But given the huge attention she is getting , you ca n't just ignore what she has to say
And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw
It was when she turned to Biden and declared : `` You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic
In the middle class of America , which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives , that 's not patriotic .
What an awful statement
Palin defended the government 's $ 700 billion rescue plan
She defended the surge in Iraq , where her own son is now serving
She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan
And yet , at the same time , she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic
I only wish she had been asked : `` Governor Palin , if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood , who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq
Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed
If it is n't from tax revenues , there are only two ways to pay for those big projects printing more money or borrowing more money
Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans ?
That is not putting America first
That is selling America first
Sorry , I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis , and my parents taught me that paying taxes , while certainly no fun , was how we paid for the police and the Army , our public universities and local schools , scientific research and Medicare for the elderly
No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes : `` I like paying taxes
With them I buy civilization .
I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system , but I ca n't understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes
I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq , but I ca n't understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until `` victory '' declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic
How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States
Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now
We are in the middle of an economic perfect storm , and we do n't know how much worse it 's going to get
People all over the world are hoarding cash , and no bank feels that it can fully trust anyone it is doing business with anywhere in the world
Did you notice that the government of Iceland just seized the country 's second-largest bank and today is begging Russia for a $ 5 billion loan to stave off `` national bankruptcy .
What does that say
It tells you that financial globalization has gone so much farther and faster than regulatory institutions could govern it
Our crisis could bankrupt Iceland
Who knew
And we have not yet even felt the full economic brunt here
I fear we may be at that moment just before the tsunami hits when the birds take flight and the insects stop chirping because their acute senses can feel what is coming before humans can
At this moment , only good governance can save us
I am not sure that this crisis will end without every government in every major economy guaranteeing the creditworthiness of every financial institution it regulates
That may be the only way to get lending going again
Organizing something that big and complex will take some really smart governance and seasoned leadership
Whether or not I agree with John McCain , he is of presidential timber
But putting the country in the position where a total novice like Sarah Palin could be asked to steer us through possibly the most serious economic crisis of our lives is flat out reckless
It is the opposite of conservative
And please do n't tell me she will hire smart advisers
What happens when her two smartest advisers disagree
And please also do n't tell me she is an `` energy expert .
She is an energy expert exactly the same way the king of Saudi Arabia is an energy expert by accident of residence
Palin happens to be governor of the Saudi Arabia of America Alaska and the only energy expertise she has is the same as the king of Saudi Arabia 's
It 's about how the windfall profits from the oil in their respective kingdoms should be divided between the oil companies and the people
At least the king of Saudi Arabia , in advocating `` drill baby drill , '' is serving his country 's interests by prolonging America 's dependence on oil
My problem with Palin is that she is also serving his country 's interests by prolonging America 's dependence on oil
That 's not patriotic
Patriotic is offering a plan to build our economy not by tax cuts or punching more holes in the ground , but by empowering more Americans to work in productive and innovative jobs
If Palin has that kind of a plan , I have n't heard it
If John McCain can win this election race with a 50-pound ball called `` George W. Bush '' wrapped around one ankle and a 50-pound ball called `` The U.S. Economy '' wrapped around the other , then he deserves to represent America in the next Olympics in any race he wants swimming , cycling or track I do n't care how old he is
He would be the Michael Phelps of politics
I confess , I watch politics from afar , but here 's what I 've been feeling for a while : Whoever slipped that Valium into Barack Obama 's coffee needs to be found and arrested by the Democrats because Obama has gone from cool to cold
Somebody needs to tell Obama that if he wants the chance to calmly answer the phone at 3 a.m. in the White House , he is going to need to start slamming down some phones at 3 p.m. along the campaign trail
I like much of what he has to say , especially about energy , but I do n't think people are feeling it in their guts , and I am a big believer that voters do n't listen through their ears
They listen through their stomachs
If you as a politician connect with voters on a gut level , they will follow you anywhere and not fret about the details
If you do n't connect with them on a gut level , you ca n't show them enough details
Obama early on , and particularly with young people , connected on a gut level like no other politician since Ronald Reagan
But in recent weeks , I feel as though he has lost that gut connection
I thought his convention speech contained no memorable lines or uplifting visions
It never got me out of my seat
Forget trashing McCain 's ideas
If Obama wants to rally his base , he has to be more passionate about his own ideas
I have long felt that what propelled Obama early was the fact that many Americans understand in their guts that we need a change , but the change we need is to focus on nation-building at home
We 're in decline
We need to get back to work on our country
And that is going to require strong , smart government
Who is bailing out Fannie Mae
Who is going to build a new energy system
Health care
More tax cuts are not going to do it
But I am just not sure that Obama is making the sale that he has the plan and passion to unite and mobilize the country for this task
In a way , I would love to hear Obama say , just for shock value : `` I am so eager to do whatever it takes to fix these problems that I am ready to be a one-term president
Mine will not be a presidency that is confined to the first 100 days
But that is what we have fallen into , folks
The first 100 days have become the only 100 days
Once they are over , presidents are told that they have to trim their sails to get ready for the midterm elections , and once the midterms are over they are told that they have to trim their sails and get ready for the next presidential election
We ca n't solve our problems with a government of 100 days
I am going to work the hard problems the hard way for 1,461 days .
I do n't know how long or high the `` Sarah Palin bounce '' will go , but I would take her very seriously as a politician
She may not know nuclear deterrence theory , but she can deliver a line
`` I think there are a lot of women out there that look at her , holding her baby , talking about being a hockey mom , and say , ` She knows what I feel ; she 's going through what I am going through , ' '' remarked leadership expert John Maxwell
As Neil Oxman , political consultant at The Campaign Group , put it to me : For half the country , `` Sarah Palin is Roseanne from the ` Roseanne ' show
` Roseanne ' was the No. 1 comedy five years in a row and seven out of nine in the top 10 .
She is connecting at a gut level
So does McCain and , therefore , they do n't need to give their constituents many details
This race has a long way to go
It is still Obama 's election to lose
But Obama got where he is today by defining himself as the agent of change and by defining change as the issue in this election
McCain , with Palin 's help , has once again not only made Obama 's experience an issue , but has now moved in on Obama 's strength and tried to define the G.O.P. ticket as the party of `` change .
How , you ask , can two people running with the exact same policies as the party that has been in power for eight years , claim to be the agents of `` change ?
That 's politics
There 's no shame
But what this has done is to make the word `` change '' as a campaign slogan meaningless
Obama will need to find another way to connect his ideas clearly , crisply and passionately
Because , while the pollsters tell us it is still really close , my own totally unscientific , seat of the pants poll tells me this : When you say Obama 's name today and ask people for their first impression a quick , flash , gut , first impression no single word or phrase or policy comes to mind
His opponents will fill that vacuum if he does n't
They already are
I want to share a couple of articles I recently came across that , I believe , speak to the core of what ails America today but is too little discussed
The first was in Newsweek under the ironic headline `` We 're No. 11 !
The piece , by Michael Hirsh , went on to say : `` Has the United States lost its oomph as a superpower
Even President Obama is n't immune from the gloom
` Americans wo n't settle for No. 2 !
Obama shouted at one political rally in early August
How about No. 11
That 's where the U.S.A. ranks in Newsweek 's list of the 100 best countries in the world , not even in the top 10 .
The second piece , which could have been called `` Why We 're No. 11 , '' was by the Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson
Why , he asked , have we spent so much money on school reform in America and have so little to show for it in terms of scalable solutions that produce better student test scores
Maybe , he answered , it is not just because of bad teachers , weak principals or selfish unions
`` The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable : shrunken student motivation , '' wrote Samuelson
`` Students , after all , have to do the work
If they are n't motivated , even capable teachers may fail
Motivation comes from many sources : curiosity and ambition ; parental expectations ; the desire to get into a ` good ' college ; inspiring or intimidating teachers ; peer pressure
The unstated assumption of much school ` reform ' is that if students are n't motivated , it 's mainly the fault of schools and teachers .
Wrong , he said
`` Motivation is weak because more students -LRB- of all races and economic classes , let it be added -RRB- do n't like school , do n't work hard and do n't do well
In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers , 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem ; 29 percent cited ` student apathy . '
There is a lot to Samuelson 's point - and it is a microcosm of a larger problem we have not faced honestly as we have dug out of this recession : We had a values breakdown - a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism
Wall Street may have been dealing the dope , but our lawmakers encouraged it
And far too many of us were happy to buy the dot-com and subprime crack for quick prosperity highs
Ask yourself : What made our Greatest Generation great
First , the problems they faced were huge , merciless and inescapable : the Depression , Nazism and Soviet Communism
Second , the Greatest Generation 's leaders were never afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice
Third , that generation was ready to sacrifice , and pull together , for the good of the country
And fourth , because they were ready to do hard things , they earned global leadership the only way you can , by saying : `` Follow me .
Contrast that with the Baby Boomer Generation
Our big problems are unfolding incrementally - the decline in U.S. education , competitiveness and infrastructure , as well as oil addiction and climate change
Our generation 's leaders never dare utter the word `` sacrifice .
All solutions must be painless
Which drug would you like
A stimulus from Democrats or a tax cut from Republicans
A national energy policy
Too hard
For a decade we sent our best minds not to make computer chips in Silicon Valley but to make poker chips on Wall Street , while telling ourselves we could have the American dream - a home - without saving and investing , for nothing down and nothing to pay for two years
Our leadership message to the world -LRB- except for our brave soldiers -RRB- : `` After you .
So much of today 's debate between the two parties , notes David Rothkopf , a Carnegie Endowment visiting scholar , `` is about assigning blame rather than assuming responsibility
It 's a contest to see who can give away more at precisely the time they should be asking more of the American people .
Rothkopf and I agreed that we would get excited about U.S. politics when our national debate is between Democrats and Republicans who start by acknowledging that we ca n't cut deficits without both tax increases and spending cuts - and then debate which ones and when - who acknowledge that we ca n't compete unless we demand more of our students - and then debate longer school days versus school years - who acknowledge that bad parents who do n't read to their kids and do indulge them with video games are as responsible for poor test scores as bad teachers - and debate what to do about that
Who will tell the people
China and India have been catching up to America not only via cheap labor and currencies
They are catching us because they now have free markets like we do , education like we do , access to capital and technology like we do , but , most importantly , values like our Greatest Generation had
That is , a willingness to postpone gratification , invest for the future , work harder than the next guy and hold their kids to the highest expectations
In a flat world where everyone has access to everything , values matter more than ever
Right now the Hindus and Confucians have more Protestant ethics than we do , and as long as that is the case we 'll be No.
On Sept. 3 , this newspaper published a very revealing front-page article from Iraq about a bizarre bank-robbery that summed up the challenge of where we are in Baghdad and Kabul and how to think about what it will take to succeed in both places
The article began with an appalling tale : bodyguards for one of Iraq 's most powerful men , Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi , tied up eight security officers at a Baghdad bank , executed them point blank and then made off with $ 4.3 million in cash
It is the sort of story that leaves war supporters shaking their heads , asking what have we accomplished in six years of U.S. involvement there , and war opponents saying , `` I told you so .
But then , suddenly , the story took an interesting turn
It noted that the robbers were quickly identified by witnesses , and most were arrested
After a short trial , a court in Baghdad sentenced four out of the nine robbery suspects to death
One man was acquitted ; the other four are still missing
Although the plotters are still on the loose , `` the robbery also demonstrated in some rickety way that Iraq 's young institutions , the judiciary , the news media and its increasingly democratic politics , make it difficult for even the country 's most powerful people to snap their fingers and make an embarrassing case go away , '' the article noted
`` And , contrary to the state of affairs under Saddam Hussein , there was an open trial free for anyone to criticize and they did even if death sentences were handed down in only two and a half days .
All the money was reportedly recovered
Why is this story revealing
First , Iraqis and Afghans have one big thing in common : They are like battered children
And battered children often grow up to be battering adults
That is , to survive under Saddam in Iraq or to survive the Russian occupation and the Taliban years in Kabul was to survive terrifying levels of brutality
And it made many people brutal and corrupt to get by
What you see in this bank robbery story is the struggle between Iraq 's old political culture of brutality and corruption and its incipient new one of democracy and the rule of law
Now that Saddam is gone , we have to hope `` that a new generation will grow up with enough rule of law , freedom of speech , freedom of thought and democracy that it will be able to overcome the culture of brutality that Saddam instilled , '' said Joseph Sassoon , the Baghdad-born author of `` Iraqi Refugees '' and an adjunct professor at Georgetown
`` But we should have no illusions ; the batterers may still win .
That is what we have accomplished in Iraq so far : At a huge cost , we have given a chance for a more democratic political culture to emerge in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world
That is not insignificant
But changing a political culture is hard
It will take a long time before one trend decisively wins and more American help will be needed to keep it on track
In Afghanistan , the U.S. military is advocating a new strategy , designed to make the Afghan people feel safe in order to get their cooperation in defeating the Taliban
It , too , requires changing the political culture and state-building from bottom up , another long historical process
You ca n't visit a Greg Mortenson school for girls there without being touched by the necessity of such an effort
But you ca n't walk through an Afghan town made of mud huts , or observe how our Afghan `` allies '' perverted the last election , without sensing how hard it will be
While visiting Afghanistan in July , I met a U.S. diplomat in Helmand Province who told me this story : He had served in Anbar , in Iraq , and one day a Marine officer came to him , after carrying a wounded buddy off the battlefield on his back , and said to him , `` The policy had better match the sacrifice .
In Iraq , for way too long , our policy did not match the sacrifice of our soldiers
It was badly planned and under-resourced
Before we proceed with this new strategy in Afghanistan we have to give our generals a chance to make their case , we also have to insist that Congress debate it anew , hear other experts , and , if Congress decides to go ahead , to formally authorize it
Like Iraq , it would involve a long struggle , and we ca n't ask our soldiers to start something we have no stomach to finish
In short , President Obama has to be as committed to any surge in Afghanistan as President Bush was in Iraq , because Mr. Obama will have to endure a lot of bad news before things might get better
Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , recently told an American Legion convention about Afghanistan : `` Let 's take a good hard look at this fight we 're in , what we 're doing and why we 're doing it
I 'd rather see us as a nation argue about the war , struggling to get it right , than ignore it
Because each time I go to Dover to see the return of someone 's father , brother , mother , or sister , I want to know that collectively we 've done all we can to make sure that sacrifice is n't in vain .
Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul , sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor , were observers from Russia , Iran and Venezuela
And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of `` drill , baby , drill !
I 'll tell you what they would have been doing : the Russian , Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats , exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall `` Yes
Drill , America , drill !
because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it
Why would Republicans , the party of business , want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology fossil fuels rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology renewable energy
As I have argued before , it reminds me of someone who , on the eve of the I.T. revolution on the eve of PCs and the Internet is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper
`` Typewriters , baby , typewriters .
Of course , we 're going to need oil for many years , but instead of exalting that with `` drill , baby , drill '' why not throw all our energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the mantra `` invent , baby , invent ?
That is what a party committed to `` change '' would really be doing
As they say in Texas : `` If all you ever do is all you 've ever done , then all you 'll ever get is all you ever got .
I dwell on this issue because it is symbolic of the campaign that John McCain has decided to run
It 's a campaign now built on turning everything possible into a cultural wedge issue including even energy policy , no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter how much it might weaken America
I respected McCain 's willingness to support the troop surge in Iraq , even if it was going to cost him the Republican nomination
Now the same guy , who would not sell his soul to win his party 's nomination , is ready to sell every piece of his soul to win the presidency
In order to disguise the fact that the core of his campaign is to continue the same Bush policies that have led 80 percent of the country to conclude we 're on the wrong track , McCain has decided to play the culture-war card
Obama may be a bit professorial , but at least he is trying to unite the country to face the real issues rather than divide us over cultural differences
A Washington Post editorial on Thursday put it well : `` On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook , when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government 's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan , on what did the campaign of Senator John McCain spend its energy
A conference call to denounce Senator Barack Obama for using the phrase ` lipstick on a pig ' and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read .
Some McCain supporters criticize Obama for not having the steel in his belly to use force in the dangerous world we live in today
Well I know this : In order to use force , you have to have force
In order to exercise leverage , you have to have leverage
I do n't know how much steel is in Obama 's belly , but I do know that the issues he is focusing on in this campaign improving education and health care , dealing with the deficit and forging a real energy policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure are the only way we can put steel back into America 's spine
McCain , alas , has abandoned those issues for the culture-war strategy
Who cares how much steel John McCain has in his gut when the steel that today holds up our bridges , railroads , nuclear reactors and other infrastructure is rusting
McCain talks about how he would build dozens of nuclear power plants
Oh , really
They go for $ 10 billion a pop
Where is the money going to come from
From lowering taxes
From banning abortions
From borrowing more from China
From having Sarah Palin `` reform '' Washington as if she has any more clue how to do that than the first 100 names in the D.C. phonebook
Sorry , but there is no sustainable political\/military power without economic power , and talking about one without the other is nonsense
Unless we make America the country most able to innovate , compete and win in the age of globalization , our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode
Those are the issues this election needs to be about , because that is what the next four years need to be about
There is no strong leader without a strong country
And posing as one , to use the current vernacular , is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig
This moment was inevitable
Ever since China began to shuck off communism and turn itself into a global economic power , its leaders have followed the strategy of a '' peaceful rise '' -- be modest , act prudently , do n't frighten the neighbors and certainly do n't galvanize any coalition against us
But in recent years , with the U.S. economic model having suffered an embarrassing self-inflicted shock , and the '' Beijing Consensus '' humming along , voices have emerged in China saying '' the future belongs to us '' and maybe we should let the world , or at least the ` hood , know that a little more affirmatively
For now , those voices come largely from retired generals and edgy bloggers -- and the Chinese leadership has remained cautious
But a diplomatic spat this past summer has China 's neighbors , not to mention Washington , wondering for how long China will keep up the gentle giant act
With an estimated 70 million bloggers , China 's leaders are under constant pressure now to be more assertive by a populist - and nationalist-leaning blogosphere , which , in the absence of democratic elections , is becoming the de facto voice of the people
The diplomatic fracas was a session of the regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations , or Asean , held July 23 in Hanoi
In attendance were foreign ministers of the 10 Asean members , as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and China 's foreign minister , Yang Jiechi
According one of the diplomats who sat in on the meeting , the Asean ministers took turns subtly but firmly cautioning China to back off from its decision to claim '' indisputable sovereignty '' over the whole resource-rich South China Sea , which stretches from Singapore to the Strait of Taiwan over to Vietnam and carries about half the world 's merchant cargo each year
Its seabed is also believed to hold major reserves of oil and gas , and lately China 's Navy has become more aggressive in seizing fishing boats alleged to have infringed on its sovereignty there
China also has been embroiled in maritime disputes with South Korea and Japan
As one minister after another got up at the Asean meeting to assert claims in the South China Sea or argue that any territorial disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law , the Chinese foreign minister grew increasingly agitated , according to a participant
And after Mrs. Clinton spoke and insisted that the South China Sea was an area where America had '' a national interest '' in '' freedom of navigation , '' the Chinese foreign minister asked for a brief adjournment and then weighed in
Speaking without a text , Yang went on for 25 minutes , insisting that this was a bilateral issue , not one between China and Asean
He looked across the room at Mrs. Clinton through much of his stem-winder , which included the observation that '' China is a big country '' and most of the other Asean members '' are small countries , '' The Washington Post reported
The consensus in the room , the diplomat said , was that the Chinese minister was trying to intimidate the group and separate the territorial claimants from the nonclaimants so that there could be no Asean collective action and each country would have to negotiate with China separately
As negative feedback from the Yang lecture rippled back to Beijing , China 's leaders seemed to play down the affair for fear that after a decade of declining U.S. influence in the region they were about to drive all their neighbors back into America 's embrace
How much China 's leaders will be able to cool it , though , will depend , in part , on a third party : the Chinese blogosphere , where a whole generation of Chinese schooled by the government on the notion that the U.S. and the West want to keep China down , now have their own megaphones to denounce any Chinese official who compromises too much as '' pro-American '' or '' a traitor .
Interestingly , the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has begun to reach out to that same blogosphere -- even inviting bloggers to travel in the car with the U.S. ambassador , Jon Huntsman , and interview him when he visits their Chinese province -- to get America 's message out without filtering by China 's state-run media .
China for the first time has a public sphere to discuss everything affecting Chinese citizens , '' explained Hu Yong , a blogosphere expert at Peking University .
Under traditional media , only elite people had a voice , but the Internet changed that .
He added , '' We now have a transnational media
It is the whole society talking , so people from various regions of China can discuss now when something happens in a remote village -- and the news spreads everywhere .
But this Internet world '' is more populist and nationalistic , '' he continued .
Many years of education that our enemies are trying to keep us down has produced a whole generation of young people whose thinking is like this , and they now have a whole Internet to express it .
Watch this space
The days when Nixon and Mao could manage this relationship in secret are long gone
There are a lot of unstable chemicals at work out here today , and so many more players with the power to inflame or calm U.S.-China relations
Or to paraphrase Princess Diana , there are three of us in this marriage
Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you 've probably never heard of
It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer
The chip business , though , is volatile , so in 2004 Mike Splinter , Applied Materials 's C.E.O. , decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company 's nanotechnology capabilities making the machines that make solar panels
The other day , Splinter gave me a tour of the company 's Silicon Valley facility , culminating with a visit to its `` war room , '' where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it 's built around the world in the last two years
I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing
Let 's see : five are in Germany , four are in China , one is in Spain , one is in India , one is in Italy , one is in Taiwan and one is even in Abu Dhabi
I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials 's solar business : `` Invented here , sold there .
The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry : 1 -RRB- any business or homeowner can generate solar energy ; 2 -RRB- if they decide to do so , the power utility has to connect them to the grid ; and 3 -RRB- the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop
Regulatory , price and connectivity certainty , that is what Germany put in place , and that explains why Germany now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and , as a byproduct , is making itself the world-center for solar research , engineering , manufacturing and installation
With more than 50,000 new jobs , the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry
One thing that has never existed in America with our fragmented , stop-start solar subsidies is certainty of price , connectivity and regulation on a national basis
That is why , although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased here , it has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials the world 's biggest solar equipment manufacturer build them a new factory in America yet
So , right now , our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China , by Chinese workers , using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America
Have a nice day
`` About 95 percent of our solar business is outside the U.S. , '' said Splinter
`` Our biggest U.S. customer is a German-owned company in Oregon
We sell them pieces of equipment .
If you read some of the anti-green commentary today , you 'll often see sneering references to `` green jobs .
The phrase is usually in quotation marks as if it is some kind of liberal fantasy or closet welfare program -LRB- and as if coal , oil and nuclear do n't get all kinds of subsidies -RRB-
In 2008 , more silicon was consumed globally making solar panels than microchips , said Splinter
`` We are seeing the industrialization of the solar business , '' he added
`` In the last 12 months , it has brought us $ 1.3 billion in revenues
It is hard to build a billion-dollar business .
Applied sells its solar-panel factories for $ 200 million each
Solar panels can be made from many different semiconductors , including thin film coated onto glass with nanotechnology and from crystalline silicon
At Applied , making these complex machines requires America 's best , high-paid talent people who can work at the intersection of chemistry , physics and nanotechnology
If we want to launch a solar industry here , big-time , we need to offer the kind of long-term certainty that Germany does or impose the national requirement on our utilities to generate solar power as China does or have the government build giant solar farms , the way it built the Hoover Dam , and sell the electricity
O.K. , so you do n't believe global warming is real
I do , but let 's assume it 's not
Here is what is indisputable : The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050 , and many will be aspiring to live American-like , high-energy lifestyles
In such a world , renewable energy where the variable cost of your fuel , sun or wind , is zero will be in huge demand
China now understands that
It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death
That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months
China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind , which will give it a great export platform
In October , Applied will be opening the world 's largest solar research center in Xian , China
Gotta go where the customers are
So , if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia , you 're going to love importing solar panels from China
Watching some financial stocks just get wiped out in recent months , I often hear a voice in the back of my head , and it is the same voice as one of those dealers in Las Vegas who coolly tells you as he sweeps up your chips after you 've busted in blackjack : `` Thank you for playing , ladies and gentlemen .
That 's what happens when bubbles burst
You feel wiped out , and the coolness with which the dealers in this case the markets sweep away all your chips is unnerving
It 's easy to over-react , and it is important that we do n't
Now is the time for coolly sorting out what markets can do best and what governments need to do better
Let 's understand what happened here
Wall Street the financial industry became a bubble in recent years thanks to an excess of liquidity and the oldest bubble maker in history : greed
Some of the smartest people forgot one of the oldest rules of investing : There is no such thing as a risk-free return
When you reach too far for yield , sooner or later you get burned
In the '90s , the no-lose , risk-free , high-yield return was supposed to be dot-com stocks
This decade 's version are subprime mortgages and financial stocks
Just like the dot-comers in the 1990s , the financial stocks got inflated to ridiculous levels and salaries for Wall Street executives reached ridiculous heights
You are now watching live and in color that bubble burst : `` Thank you for playing , Lehman Brothers .
That 's really sad for a 158-year-old company
The market is now consolidating this industry , with the strong eating the weak , which will impose its own fiscal discipline
Maybe then more of our next generation of math geniuses will think about going into engineering the next great global industry energy technology rather than engineering derivatives
But we also need to understand the uniqueness of this bubble in order to identify where smart government needs to step in
One reason this financial bubble got so big is now well known : you and your neighbor went out and got subprime mortgages , which enabled many more people to become homeowners a real blessing
Your local finance company or bank , which extended those mortgages , later resold them to an aggregator who put them into big packages with thousands of other subprime mortgages
Then those loan packages were chopped up and sold in small pieces as corporate bonds to all kinds of institutions , who were reaching for extra yield
Your subprime mortgage payments went to pay the interest on those bonds
But as the housing market collapsed , and people could n't cover their mortgages or sell their houses , the bonds lost value and , therefore , the banks that held them lost capital , and the whole pyramid started to crumble
This infected the entire housing market , so banks no longer knew the value of their mortgage-backed assets
The result
They stopped lending
Hence , the current credit crunch
This credit crunch is what makes this crisis so lethal
We ca n't tolerate a prolonged situation where banks wo n't lend to good companies
That 's why Congress needs to create another Resolution Trust Corporation like we used to get out of the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s
As then , so now , we need a government agency to buy the toxic mortgages off the banks ' balance sheets , hold them and sell them in an orderly way later
That would prevent a fire sale of homes and mortgages now and restore confidence to banks so they start lending again
In the long run , though , regulators need to find ways to limit the amount of leverage investment banks or insurance companies can take on at any one time , because given how intertwined they all are in today 's global economy , one bank blowing up can now take down many
`` We are at the end of an era the end of ` leave it to the markets ' and of the great cop-out that less government is always better government , '' argues David Rothkopf , a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration and author of a book about the world 's financial leaders who brought about this crisis : `` Superclass : The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making .
`` I think , however , it is important to stress the difference between smart government and simply more government
`` We do not need a regulatory ` surge ' on Wall Street , '' he added
`` We need a complete rethinking of how we make global financial markets more transparent and how we ensure that the risks within those markets
many of which are new and many of which are not well understood even by the experts are managed and monitored properly .
In sum , government 's job is to police that fine line between the necessary risk-taking that drives an innovation economy and crazy gambling with other people 's savings in ways that threaten us all
We need to make sure that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and does n't come to Main Street
We need to get back to investing in our future and not just betting on it
In the last few weeks , I happened to visit Doha and Dalian , and I must say : I was stunned
Before explaining why , let me acknowledge that chances are you ve not visited Doha or Dalian recently
Indeed , it may be I presume nothing that you have never heard of either city
Doha is the capital of Qatar , a tiny state east of Saudi Arabia
Dalian is in northeast China and is one of China s Silicon Valleys because of its proliferation of software parks and its dynamic , techie mayor , Xia Deren
What was stunning is that I hadn t been to either city for more than three years , and I barely recognized either one
In Doha , since I was last there , a skyline that looks like a mini-Manhattan has sprouted from the desert
Whatever construction cranes are not in China must be in Doha today
This once sleepy harbor now has a profile of skyscrapers , thanks to a huge injection of oil and gas revenues
Dalian , with six million people , already had a mini-Manhattan when I was last here
It seems to have grown two more since including a gleaming new convention complex built on a man-made peninsula
But this , alas , is not a travel column
It s an energy column
If you want to know why I remain a climate skeptic not a skeptic about climate change , but a skeptic that we re going to be able to mitigate it it s partly because of Doha and Dalian
Can you imagine how much energy all these new skyscrapers in just two cities you ve never heard of are going to consume and how much CO2 they are going to emit
I am not blaming them
It is a blessing that their people are growing out of poverty
And , after all , they re just following the high-energy growth model pioneered by America
We re still the world s biggest energy hogs , but we re now producing carbon copies in places you ve never heard of
Yes , Americans are popping up all over now people who once lived low-energy lifestyles but by dint of oil wealth or hard work are now moving into U.S.-style apartments , cars and appliances
Our planet can not tolerate so many Americans , unless we take the lead and change what it means to be an American in energy terms
Attention Kmart shoppers : the world consumed about 66.6 million barrels a day of oil in 1990
We re now consuming 83 million barrels a day
Demand for oil has grown 22 percent in the U.S. since 1990
China s oil demand has grown nearly 200 percent in this same period , Margo Oge , director of the Environmental Protection Agency s office of transportation and air quality , told the Tianjin China Green Car conference that I attended
By 2030 , the global thirst for oil is forecast to increase by another 40 percent if we maintain business as usual
Such an appetite would devour every incremental green initiative we make
Hey , I m really glad you switched to long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house
But the growth in Doha and Dalian ate all your energy savings for breakfast
I m glad you bought a hybrid car
But Doha and Dalian devoured that before noon
I am glad that the U.S. Congress is debating whether to bring U.S. auto mileage requirements up to European levels by 2020
Doha and Dalian will have those gains for lunch maybe just the first course
I m glad that solar and wind power are soaring toward 2 percent of U.S. energy generation , but Doha and Dalian will devour all those gains for dinner
I am thrilled that you are now doing the 20 green things suggested by your favorite American magazine
Doha and Dalian will snack on them all , like popcorn before bedtime
But , as I said , this is not just about them
It is still very much about us
Peter Bakker is the chief executive of TNT , the biggest express delivery company in Europe
The Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2007 just listed TNT as the No. 1 company in terms of energy and environmental practices
Mr. Bakker , whom I met in China , told me this story : We operate 35,000 trucks and 48 aircraft in Europe
We just bought two Boeing 747s , which , when fully operational , will do nine round trips every week between our home base in Li ge -LRB- Belgium -RRB- and Shanghai
They leave Li ge only partly full and every day fly back to Europe as full as you can stuff them with iPods and computers
By our calculations , just these two 747s will use as much fuel each week as our 48 other aircraft combined and emit as much CO2
That s why we re fooling ourselves
There is no green revolution , or , if there is , the counter-revolution is trumping it at every turn
Without a transformational technological breakthrough in the energy space , all of the incremental gains we re making will be devoured by the exponential growth of all the new and old Americans
Related Searches Dalian -LRB- China
What a contrast
In a year that 's on track to be our planet 's hottest on record , America turned `` climate change '' into a four-letter word that many U.S. politicians wo n't even dare utter in public
If this were just some parlor game , it would n't matter
But the totally bogus `` discrediting '' of climate science has had serious implications
For starters , it helped scuttle Senate passage of the energy-climate bill needed to scale U.S.-made clean technologies , leaving America at a distinct disadvantage in the next great global industry
And that brings me to the contrast : While American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue , the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work issue
`` There is really no debate about climate change in China , '' said Peggy Liu , chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy , a nonprofit group working to accelerate the greening of China
`` China 's leaders are mostly engineers and scientists , so they do n't waste time questioning scientific data .
The push for green in China , she added , `` is a practical discussion on health and wealth
There is no need to emphasize future consequences when people already see , eat and breathe pollution every day .
And because runaway pollution in China means wasted lives , air , water , ecosystems and money - and wasted money means fewer jobs and more political instability - China 's leaders would never go a year -LRB- like we will -RRB- without energy legislation mandating new ways to do more with less
It 's a three-for-one shot for them
By becoming more energy efficient per unit of G.D.P. , China saves money , takes the lead in the next great global industry and earns credit with the world for mitigating climate change
So while America 's Republicans turned `` climate change '' into a four-letter word - J-O-K-E - China 's Communists also turned it into a four-letter word - J-O-B-S
`` China is changing from the factory of the world to the clean-tech laboratory of the world , '' said Liu
`` It has the unique ability to pit low-cost capital with large-scale experiments to find models that work .
China has designated and invested in pilot cities for electric vehicles , smart grids , LED lighting , rural biomass and low-carbon communities
`` They 're able to quickly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what clean-tech models stick , and then have the political will to scale them quickly across the country , '' Liu added
`` This allows China to create jobs and learn quickly .
But China 's capability limitations require that it reach out for partners
This is a great opportunity for U.S. clean-tech firms - if we nurture them
`` While the U.S. is known for radical innovation , China is better at tweak-ovation .
said Liu
Chinese companies are good at making a billion widgets at a penny each but not good at complex system integration or customer service
We -LRB- sort of -RRB- have those capabilities
At the World Economic Forum meeting here , I met Mike Biddle , founder of MBA Polymers , which has invented processes for separating plastic from piles of junked computers , appliances and cars and then recycling it into pellets to make new plastic using less than 10 percent of the energy required to make virgin plastic from crude oil
Biddle calls it `` above-ground mining .
In the last three years , his company has mined 100 million pounds of new plastic from old plastic
Biddle 's seed money was provided mostly by U.S. taxpayers through federal research grants , yet today only his tiny headquarters are in the U.S. His factories are in Austria , China and Britain
`` I employ 25 people in California and 250 overseas , '' he says
His dream is to have a factory in America that would repay all those research grants , but that would require a smart U.S. energy bill
Americans recycle about 25 percent of their plastic bottles
Most of the rest ends up in landfills or gets shipped to China to be recycled here
Getting people to recycle regularly is a hassle
To overcome that , the European Union , Japan , Taiwan and South Korea - and next year , China - have enacted producer-responsibility laws requiring that anything with a cord or battery - from an electric toothbrush to a laptop to a washing machine - has to be collected and recycled at the manufacturers ' cost
That gives Biddle the assured source of raw material he needs at a reasonable price
-LRB- Because recyclers now compete in these countries for junk , the cost to the manufacturers for collecting it is steadily falling .
`` I am in the E.U. and China because the above-ground plastic mines are there or are being created there , '' said Biddle , who just won The Economist magazine 's 2010 Innovation Award for energy\/environment
`` I am not in the U.S. because there are n't sufficient mines .
Biddle had enough money to hire one lobbyist to try to persuade the U.S. Congress to copy the recycling regulations of Europe , Japan and China in our energy bill , but , in the end , there was no bill
So we educated him , we paid for his tech breakthroughs - and now Chinese and European workers will harvest his fruit
Are n't we clever
Frank Rich is off today
President Obama is embarking on something I 've never seen before - taking on two Missions Impossible at the same time
That is , a simultaneous effort to heal the two most bitter divides in the Middle East : the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Shiite-Sunni conflict centered in Iraq
Give him his due
The guy 's got audacity
I 'll provide the hope
But kids , do n't try this at home
Yet , if by some miracles the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that open in Washington on Thursday do eventually produce a two-state solution , and Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis do succeed in writing their own social contract on how to live together , one might be able to imagine a Middle East that breaks free from the debilitating grip of endless Arab-Israeli wars and autocratic Arab regimes
President Obama deserves credit for helping to nurture these opportunities
But he , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas , the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu , and the newly elected leaders of Iraq need to now raise their games to a whole new level to seize this moment - or their opponents will
Precisely because so much is at stake , the forces of intolerance , extreme nationalism and religious obscurantism all over the Middle East will be going all out to make sure that both the Israeli and Iraqi peace processes fail
The opponents want to destroy the idea of a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians , so Israel will be stuck with an apartheid-like , democracy-sapping , permanent occupation of the West Bank
And they want to destroy the idea of a one-state solution for Iraqis and keep Iraq fractured , so it never coheres into a multisectarian democracy that could be an example for other states in the region
I hope that one of my personal rules about the Middle East is proved wrong - that in this region extremists go all the way and moderates tend to just go away
Mr. Obama was right to keep to his troop-withdrawal schedule from Iraq
Iraqi politicians need to stand on their own
But this is tricky
The president will not be remembered for when we leave Iraq but for what happens after we leave
That is largely in Iraqi hands , but it is still very much in our interest
So we need to retain sufficient diplomatic , intelligence , Special Forces and Army training units there to promote a decent outcome
Because all the extremists are now doubling down
Last week , insurgents aligned with Al Qaeda boasted of killing 56 innocent Iraqis
On Tuesday , Palestinian gunmen murdered four West Bank Israeli settlers , including a pregnant woman ; Hamas proudly claimed credit
In Israel , Rabbi Ovadia Yosef , who heads the largest ultra-Orthodox party , Shas , used his Shabbat sermon to declare that he hoped the Palestinian president and his people would die
`` All these evil people should perish from this world ... God should strike them with a plague , them and these Palestinians , '' Yosef said
Trust me , this is just the throat-clearing and gun-cleaning
Wait until we have a deal
Even if Israel agrees to swap land with the Palestinians so that 80 percent of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank can stay put , it will mean that 60,000 will still have to be removed
It took Israel 55,000 soldiers to remove 8,100 Jewish settlers from Gaza , which was never part of the Land of Israel
Imagine when today 's Israeli Army , where the officer corps is increasingly drawn from religious Zionists who support the settler movement , is called on to remove settlers from the West Bank
None of this is a reason not to proceed
It is a reason to succeed
There is so much to hate about the Iraq war
The costs will never match the hoped-for outcome , but that outcome remains hugely important : the effort to build a decent , consensual government in Iraq is the most important democracy project in the world today
If Iraqi Sunnis , Kurds and Shiites can actually write a social contract for the first time in modern Arab history , it means that viable democracy is not only possible in Iraq , but everywhere in the region
`` Iraq is the Germany of the Middle East , '' says Michael Young , opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star and author of a very original book about Lebanon , `` The Ghosts of Martyrs Square .
`` It is at the heart of the region - affecting all around it - and the country 's multi-ethnic , multisectarian population represents all the communities of the region
Right now , what is going on in Iraq represents all the worst trends in the region , but if you can make it work , it could represent the best .
The late Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin used to say he would pursue peace with the Palestinians as if there were no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there were no peace process
That dual approach is one that Iraqi , Arab , Palestinian and Israeli moderates are all going to have to adopt
Mao said a revolution is not a dinner party , and neither is bringing revolutionary change to the Middle East
I hope the forces of moderation are up to it
The bad guys will be offering no timeouts
They know the stakes , and they will be going all the way
Do we owe the French and other Europeans a second look when it comes to their willingness to exercise power in today 's world
Was it really fair for some to call the French and other Europeans `` cheese-eating surrender monkeys ?
Is it time to restore the French in `` French fries '' at the Congressional dining room , and stop calling them `` Freedom Fries ?
Why do I ask these profound questions
Because we are once again having one of those big troop debates : Do we send more forces to Afghanistan , and are we ready to do what it takes to `` win '' there
This argument will be framed in many ways , but you can set your watch on these chest-thumpers : `` toughness , '' `` grit , '' `` fortitude , '' `` willingness to do whatever it takes to realize big stakes '' all the qualities we tend to see in ourselves , with some justification , but not in Europeans
But are we really that tough
If the metric is a willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and consider the use of force against Iran , the answer is yes
And we should be eternally grateful to the Americans willing to go off and fight those fights
But in another way when it comes to doing things that would actually weaken the people we are sending our boys and girls to fight we are total wimps
We are , in fact , the wimps of the world
We are , in fact , so wimpy our politicians are afraid to even talk about how wimpy we are
How so
France today generates nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants , and it has managed to deal with all the radioactive waste issues without any problems or panics
And us
We get about 20 percent and have not been able or willing to build one new nuclear plant since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 , even though that accident led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or neighbors
We 're too afraid to store nuclear waste deep in Nevada 's Yucca Mountain totally safe at a time when French mayors clamor to have reactors in their towns to create jobs
In short , the French stayed the course on clean nuclear power , despite Three Mile Island and Chernobyl , and we ran for cover
How about Denmark
Little Denmark , sweet , never-hurt-a-fly Denmark , was hit hard by the 1973 Arab oil embargo
In 1973 , Denmark got all its oil from the Middle East
Because Denmark got tough
It imposed on itself a carbon tax , a roughly $ 5-a-gallon gasoline tax , made massive investments in energy efficiency and in systems to generate energy from waste , along with a discovery of North Sea oil -LRB- about 40 percent of its needs -RRB-
And us
When it comes to raising gasoline taxes or carbon taxes at a perfect time like this when prices are already low our politicians tell us it is simply `` off the table .
So I repeat , who is the real tough guy here
`` The first rule of warfare is : ` Take the high ground .
Even the simplest Taliban fighter knows that , '' said David Rothkopf , energy consultant and author of `` Superclass .
`` The strategic high ground in the world whether it is in the Middle East or vis - - vis difficult countries like Russia and Venezuela is to be less dependent on oil
And yet , we simply refuse to seize it .
According to the energy economist Phil Verleger , a $ 1 tax on gasoline and diesel fuel would raise about $ 140 billion a year
If I had that money , I 'd devote 45 cents of each dollar to pay down the deficit and satisfy the debt hawks , 45 cents to pay for new health care and 10 cents to cushion the burden of such a tax on the poor and on those who need to drive long distances
Such a tax would make our economy healthier by reducing the deficit , by stimulating the renewable energy industry , by strengthening the dollar through shrinking oil imports and by helping to shift the burden of health care away from business to government so our companies can compete better globally
Such a tax would make our population healthier by expanding health care and reducing emissions
Such a tax would make our national-security healthier by shrinking our dependence on oil from countries that have drawn a bull 's - eye on our backs and by increasing our leverage over petro-dictators , like those in Iran , Russia and Venezuela , through shrinking their oil incomes
In sum , we would be physically healthier , economically healthier and strategically healthier
And yet , amazingly , even talking about such a tax is `` off the table '' in Washington
You ca n't mention it
But sending your neighbor 's son or daughter to risk their lives in Afghanistan
No problem
Talk away
Pound your chest
I am not sure what the right troop number is for Afghanistan ; I need to hear more
But I sure know this : There is something wrong when our country is willing to consider spending more lives and treasure in Afghanistan , where winning is highly uncertain , but ca n't even talk about a gasoline tax , which is win , win , win , win , win with no uncertainty at all
So , I ask yet again : Who are the real cheese-eating surrender monkeys in this picture
Of all the points raised by different analysts about the economy last week , surely the best was Representative Barney Frank 's reminder on `` Charlie Rose '' that Ronald Reagan 's favorite laugh line was telling audiences that : `` The nine most terrifying words in the English language are : ` I 'm from the government , and I 'm here to help . '
Are you still laughing
If it were n't for the government bailing out Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac and A.I.G. , and rescuing people from Hurricane Ike and pumping tons of liquidity into the banking system , our economy would be a shambles
How would you like to hear the line today : `` I 'm from the government , and I ca n't do a darn thing for you .
In this age of globalization , government matters more than ever
Smart , fiscally strong governments are the ones best able to empower their people to compete and win
I was just in Michigan to give a talk on energy
I ca n't tell you how many business cards I collected from innovators who had either started renewable-energy companies or were working for big firms , like the Dow Chemical Company , on clean energy solutions
It just reminded me how much innovative prowess and entrepreneurial energy is exploding from below in this country
If it were channeled and enhanced by better leadership in Washington , no one could touch us
If I were to draw a picture of America today , it would be of the space shuttle taking off
There is all this thrust coming from below
But the booster rocket Washington is cracked and leaking energy , and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan
So we ca n't achieve escape velocity to enter the next orbit the next great industrial revolution , which is going to be E.T. , energy technology
In many ways , this election is about how we get our groove back as a country
We have been living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes
President Bush has nothing to offer anymore
So that leaves us with Barack Obama and John McCain
Neither has wowed me with his reaction to the market turmoil
In fairness , though , neither man has any levers of power to pull
But what could they say that would give you confidence that they could lead us out of this rut
My test is simple : Which guy can tell people what they do n't want to hear especially his own base
Think how much better off McCain would be today had he nominated Michael Bloomberg as his vice president rather than Sarah Palin
McCain could have said , `` I 'm not an expert on markets , but I 've got one of the best on my team .
Instead of a V.P. to re-energize America , McCain went for a V.P. to re-energize the Republican base
So what would get my attention from McCain
If he said the following : `` My fellow Americans , I 've decided for now not to continue the Bush tax cuts , because the most important thing for our country today is to get the government 's balance sheet in order
We ca n't go on cutting taxes and not cutting spending
For too long my party has indulged that nonsense
Second , I intend to have most U.S. troops out of Iraq in 24 months
We have done all we can to midwife democracy there
Iraqis need to take it from here
We need every dollar now for nation-building in America
We will do everything we can to wind down our presence and facilitate the Iraqi elections , but we 're not going to baby-sit Iraqi politicians who do n't have the will or the courage to reconcile their differences unless they want to pay us for that
In America , baby sitters get paid .
What would impress me from Obama
How about this : `` The Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers union want a Washington bailout
The only way they will get a dime out of my administration is if the automakers and unions come up with a joint plan to retool their fleets to get an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2015 instead of the 35 m.p.g. by 2020 that they 've reluctantly accepted
I am not going to bail out Detroit with taxpayer money , but I will invest in Detroit 's transformation with taxpayer money , provided the management and unions agree to radical change
At the same time , while I will go along with the bailout of the banking system , it will only be on the condition that the institutions that got us into this mess accept sweeping reforms in terms of transparency and limits on the leverage they can amass so we do n't go through something like this again
To help me figure this out , I 'm going to keep Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on the job for a while
I am impressed with his handling of this crisis .
Those are the kind of words that would get my attention
The last president who challenged his base was Bill Clinton , when he reformed welfare and created a budget surplus with a fair and equitable tax program
George W. Bush never once not one time challenged Americans to do anything hard , let alone great
The next president is not going to have that luxury
He will have to ask everyone to do something hard and I want to know now who is up to that task
To visit China today as an American is to compare and to be compared
And from the very opening session of this year 's World Economic Forum here in Tianjin , our Chinese hosts did not hesitate to do some comparing
China 's CCTV aired a skit showing four children - one wearing the Chinese flag , another the American , another the Indian , and another the Brazilian - getting ready to run a race
Before they take off , the American child , `` Anthony , '' boasts that he will win `` because I always win , '' and he jumps out to a big lead
But soon Anthony doubles over with cramps
`` Now is our chance to overtake him for the first time !
shouts the Chinese child
`` What 's wrong with Anthony ?
asks another
`` He is overweight and flabby , '' says another child
`` He ate too many hamburgers .
That is how they see us
For the U.S. visitor , the comparisons start from the moment one departs Beijing 's South Station , a giant space-age building , and boards the bullet train to Tianjin
It takes just 25 minutes to make the 75-mile trip
In Tianjin , one arrives at another ultramodern train station - where , unlike New York City 's Pennsylvania Station , all the escalators actually work
From there , you drive to the Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center , a building so gigantic and well appointed that if it were in Washington , D.C. , it would be a tourist site
Your hosts inform you : `` It was built in nine months .
I know , I know
With enough cheap currency , labor and capital - and authoritarianism - you can build anything in nine months
Still , it gets your attention
Some of my Chinese friends chide me for overidealizing China
I tell them : `` Guilty as charged .
But have no illusions
I am not praising China because I want to emulate their system
I am praising it because I am worried about my system
In deliberately spotlighting China 's impressive growth engine , I am hoping to light a spark under America
Studying China 's ability to invest for the future does n't make me feel we have the wrong system
It makes me feel that we are abusing our right system
There is absolutely no reason our democracy should not be able to generate the kind of focus , legitimacy , unity and stick-to-it-iveness to do big things - democratically - that China does autocratically
We 've done it before
But we 're not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven , toxically partisan , cable-TV-addicted , money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful , more interested in defeating each other than saving the country
`` How can you compete with a country that is run like a company ?
an Indian entrepreneur at the forum asked me of China
He then answered his own question : For democracy to be effective and deliver the policies and infrastructure our societies need requires the political center to be focused , united and energized
That means electing candidates who will do what is right for the country not just for their ideological wing or whoever comes with the biggest bag of money
For democracies to address big problems - and that 's all we have these days - requires a lot of people pulling in the same direction , and that is precisely what we 're lacking
`` We are not ready to act on our strength , '' said my Indian friend , `` so we 're waiting for them -LRB- the Chinese -RRB- to fail on their weakness .
Will they
The Chinese system is autocratic , rife with corruption and at odds with a knowledge economy , which requires liberty
Yet China also has regular rotations of power at the top and a strong record of promoting on merit , so the average senior official is quite competent
Listening to Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China tick off growth statistics in his speech here had the feel of a soulless corporate earnings report
Yet he has detailed plans for his people 's betterment , from universities to high-speed rail , and he 's delivering on them
Orville Schell of the Asia Society , one of America 's best China watchers , who was with me in Tianjin , put it perfectly : `` Because we have recently begun to find ourselves so unable to get things done , we tend to look with a certain overidealistic yearning when it comes to China
We see what they have done and project onto them something we miss , fearfully miss , in ourselves '' - that `` can-do , '' `` get-it-done , '' `` everyone-pull-together , '' `` whatever-it-takes '' attitude that built our highways , dams and put a man on the moon
`` These were hallmarks of our childhood culture , '' said Schell
`` But now we view our country turning into the opposite , even as we see China becoming animated by these same kinds of energies
I do n't idealize China 's system of government
I do n't want to live in an authoritarian system
But I do feel compelled to look at China in an objective way and acknowledge the successes of this system .
That does n't mean advocating that we become like China
It means being alive to the challenge we are up against and even finding ways to cooperate with China
`` The very retro notion that we are undisputedly still No. 1 , '' added Schell , `` is extremely dangerous .
After a week of meetings with Chinese energy , environmental and clean-car experts , I m left with one big , gnawing question : Can China go green without going orange
That is , can China really undertake the energy\/environmental revolution it needs without the empowerment of its people to a whole new degree la the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004
The more I see China wrestling with its environment , the more I m convinced that it is going to prove much , much easier for China to have gone from communism to capitalism than to go from dirty capitalism to clean capitalism
For China , going from communism to its state-directed capitalism , while by no means easy , involved loosening the lid on a people who were naturally entrepreneurial , risk-taking capitalists
It was tantamount to letting a geyser erupt , and the results of all that unleashed energy are apparent everywhere
Going from dirty capitalism to clean capitalism is much harder
Because it involves restraining that geyser and to do that effectively requires a system with some judicial independence , so that courts can discipline government-owned factories and power plants
It requires a freer press that can report on polluters without restraint , even if they are government-owned businesses
It requires transparent laws and regulations , so citizen-activists know their rights and can feel free to confront polluters , no matter how powerful
For all those reasons , it seems to me that it will be very hard to make China greener without making it more orange
China s Communist Party leaders are clearly wrestling with this issue
I could hear it , feel it and see it
I could hear it while interviewing government officials
They ve always wanted a steadily rising G.D.P. , which is essential for China s stability and for the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party , whose abiding ideology is G.D.P.-ism
But more and more I heard these same officials now saying they want a better environment and a higher G.D.P. , because the air has become so filthy here , and the damage to China s health , rivers , landscape , glaciers and even G.D.P. has become so severe , that the legitimacy of the communist regime , for the first time , is in some way dependent on making the air cleaner
And China s leaders know it
For now , though , they want to address this problem without having to change the basic ruling system of the Communist Party
They want to be green and red , not green and orange
I could feel it the minute I arrived
Hey , is it a little warm here in your office , or is it just me
I found myself repeatedly asking in Beijing
No , it wasn t just me
In June , China s State Council dictated that all government agencies , associations , companies and private owners in public buildings had to set air-conditioning temperatures no lower than 26 degrees Celsius , or 79 degrees Fahrenheit
Air-conditioning consumes one-third of the energy demand here in summer
The government just ordered it from the top down
Sounds effective
But then you pick up the Shanghai Daily and read : More than half of the city s public buildings have failed to obey power-saving rules setting air-conditioning at 26 degrees Celsius , according to local energy authorities
Hmmm seems to be a little problem with follow-up
In 2005 , China s leaders mandated a 20 percent improvement in energy productivity and a 10 percent improvement in air quality by 2010
You can see why or maybe you can t. I was at the World Bank office in Beijing , meeting with a green expert , and outside his big bay window all I could see through the brownish-gray haze was the gigantic steel skeleton of the new CCTV skyscraper spectacular six-million-square-foot headquarters reaching to the heavens one of 300 new office blocks slated for Beijing s new Central Business District
I play a mental game with myself now as I am stuck in traffic in Beijing
I look at the office buildings I pass which are enormous , energy-consuming and architecturally stunning and I count the ones that would be tourist attractions if they were in Washington , but here in Beijing are just lost in the forest of giant buildings
And that brings me back to China s leaders
Right now they want it all higher G.D.P. , greener G.D.P. , and unquestioned Communist Party rule
I don t think you can have all three
I also don t think they are going to opt for democracy
I am not even sure it is the answer for them right now
So they are seeking a hybrid model some new combination of red , green and orange
I hope they find it , but right now the vista is mostly an ugly shade of brown
For the first time since Iran began enriching uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon , we have a glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution to this problem as long as we are not too diplomatic , as long as the Iranian regime is made to understand that biting economic sanctions are an absolute certainty and military force by Israel is a live possibility
The reason we now have a slight chance and I really emphasize slight for a negotiated deal is because Iran 's nuclear program has always been a survival strategy for Tehran 's ruling clique : what Karim Sadjadpour , an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment , calls `` the small cartel of hard-line clerics and nouveau riche Revolutionary Guardsmen who run Iran today .
After stealing June 's elections , this ruling cartel is now more unpopular and illegitimate than ever
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can not hold a rally in Tehran without hearing `` death to the dictator '' chants more than `` death to America .
As a result , his government can ill afford real biting sanctions that would make life in Iran not only politically miserable but even more economically miserable and his dictatorial clique even more unpopular
I would n't exaggerate this because this regime has never minded inflicting pain on its people , but this time it may be more vulnerable
That is why we may be in a position to say to the Iranian regime that continuing to grow its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium outside international controls , and suffering real economic sanctions , could threaten its survival more than it would help
On Oct. 1 , William Burns , the American under secretary of state , will join diplomats from Britain , France , Germany , Russia and China for talks with Iran 's chief nuclear negotiator to see whether any deal is possible
While real sanctions are necessary to exploit this moment , they are not sufficient
We also need to keep alive the prospect that Israel could do something crazy
I do n't favor Israeli military action against Iran and hope we 're telling Israel that privately
But I do believe that U.S. officials , particularly the secretary of defense , Robert Gates , need to stop saying that publicly
Gates is a smart power player
He knows better
If any U.S. official is asked for an opinion on whether Israel should be allowed to strike Iran 's nuclear facilities , there is only one right answer : Refer them to former Vice President Dick Cheney 's 2005 comment that Israel `` might well decide to act first '' to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons , and say nothing else
Why should we reassure Iran
I would hope by now that the murderous crackdown on Iran 's mass democracy movement by the country 's oil-funded ruling cartel would have removed the last scales from the eyes of those Iran watchers who think this is simply a poor , misunderstood regime that really wants to repair its relations with the West , and we just have to learn how to speak to it properly
This is a brutal , cynical , corrupt , anti-Semitic regime that exploits the Palestinian cause and deliberately maintains a hostile posture to the West to justify its grip on power
A regime that relates to its own people with such coercive force is not going to be sweet-talked out of its nuclear program
Negotiating with such a regime without the reality of sanctions and the possibility of force is like playing baseball without a bat
The U.S. is being advised to explore a variety of sanctions , including encouraging capital flight from Iran , thereby creating a run on the Iranian currency
It is also considering a global ban on companies doing business with Iran 's oil industry , which would be a big blow to the regime , because its oil industry which provides the vast majority of government revenues needs modernizing and that requires foreign technological help and financing
By improving relations with Russia , President Obama has done a good job of increasing his leverage with Iran
But as the negotiations begin , there is another dimension that we have to keep in mind : Obama officials want to be careful not to say that all they care about is a deal that neutralizes Iran 's nukes , and , if we get that , we have no problem with those in power in Tehran
That would be a rebuff of Iranian democrats
This will get tricky
`` The Obama administration must reconcile how to deal with a disgraced regime , which presents urgent national security challenges , while at the same time not betray a democratic movement whose success could have enormously positive implications for the U.S. , '' said Sadjadpour
`` If we neglect to be vocal about human rights , '' he added , `` our message to the Iranian people is ` We do n't care about you
We only care about nukes .
Ultimately , it has to be Iranians themselves who change their history
We ca n't want it more than they do
But it should be a U.S. foreign policy imperative not to do anything to deter the green movement 's success or alter its trajectory
We can not forget that the underlying problem we have with Iran has more to do with the character of its regime than its nuclear ambitions .
Dear Sirs , I am writing you on a matter of grave importance
It 's hard for me to express to you how deep the economic crisis in America is today
We are discussing a $ 1 trillion bailout for our troubled banking system
This is a financial 9\/11
As Americans lose their homes and sink into debt , they no longer understand why we are spending $ 1 billion a day to make Iraqis feel more secure in their homes
For the past two years , there has been a debate in this country over whether to set a deadline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq
It seemed as if the resolution of that debate depended on who won the coming election
That is no longer the case
A deadline is coming
American taxpayers who would not let their money be used to subsidize their own companies Lehman Brothers , Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch will not have their tax dollars used to subsidize your endless dithering over which Iraqi community dominates Kirkuk
Do n't misunderstand me
Many Americans and me are relieved by the way you , the Iraqi people and Army have pulled back from your own brink of self-destruction
I originally launched this war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction
I was wrong
But it quickly became apparent that Al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq were determined to make America fail in any attempt to build a decent Iraq and tilt the Middle East toward a more democratic track , no matter how many Iraqis had to be killed in the process
This was not the war we came for , but it was the one we found
Al Qaeda understood that if it could defeat America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world , that it would resonate throughout the region and put Al Qaeda and its allies in the ascendant
Conversely , we understood that if we could defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq , in collaboration with other Arabs and Muslims , that it would resonate throughout the region and pay dividends
Something very big was at stake here
We have gone a long way toward winning that war
At the same time , I also came to realize that in helping Iraqis organize elections , we were facilitating the first ever attempt by the people of a modern Arab state to write their own social contract rather than have one imposed on them by kings , dictators or colonial powers
If Iraqi Shiites , Sunnis and Kurds can forge your own social contract , then some form of a consensual government is possible in the Arab world
If you ca n't , it is kings and dictators forever with all the pathologies that come with that
Something very big is at stake there , too
It 's not the stakes that have changed
It is the fact that you are now going to have to step up and finish this job
You have presumed an endless American safety net to permit you to endlessly bargain and dicker over who gets what
I 've been way , way too patient with you
That is over
We bought you time with the surge to reach a formal political settlement and you better use it fast , because it is a rapidly diminishing asset
You Shiites have got to bring the Sunni tribes and Awakening groups , who fought the war against Al Qaeda of Iraq , into the government and Army
You Kurds have got to find a solution for Kirkuk and accept greater integration into the Iraqi state system , while maintaining your autonomy
You Sunnis in government have got to agree to elections so the newly emergent Sunni tribal and Awakening groups are able to run for office and become `` institutionalized '' into the Iraqi system
So pass your election and oil laws , spend some of your oil profits to get Iraqi refugees resettled and institutionalize the recent security gains while you still have a substantial U.S. presence
Read my lips : It will not be there indefinitely even if McCain wins
Our ambassador , Ryan Crocker , has told me your problem : Iraqi Shiites are still afraid of the past , Iraqi Sunnis are still afraid of the future and Iraqi Kurds are still afraid of both
Well , you want to see fear
Look in the eyes of Americans who are seeing their savings wiped out , their companies disappear , their homes foreclosed
We are a different country today
After a decade of the world being afraid of too much American power , it is now going to be treated to a world of too little American power , as we turn inward to get our house back in order
I still believe a decent outcome in Iraq , if you achieve it , will have long-lasting , positive implications for you and the entire Arab world , although the price has been way too high
I will wait for history for my redemption , but the American people will not
They want nation-building in America now
They will not walk away from Iraq overnight , but they will not stay there in numbers over time
I repeat : Do not misread this moment
God be with you
George W. Bush
China today is entering a really delicate phase on the climate-energy issue the phase I like to call The Wal-Mart environmental moment
I wish the same could be said of America and President Bush
The Wal-Mart environmental moment starts with the C.E.O. adopting a green branding strategy as a purely defensive , public relations , marketing move
Then an accident happens someone in the shipping department takes it seriously and comes up with a new way to package the latest product and saves $ 100,000
This gets the attention of the C.E.O. , who turns to his P.R. adviser and says , Well , isn t that interesting
Get me a sustainability expert
Let s do this some more
The company then hires a sustainability officer , and he starts showing how green design , manufacturing and materials can save money in other areas
Then the really smart C.E.O. s realize they have to become their own C.E.O. chief energy officer and they start demanding that energy efficiency become core to everything the company does , from how its employees travel to how its products are manufactured
That is the transition that Lee Scott , Wal-Mart s C.E.O. , has presided over in the past few years
Last July , Mr. Scott was visiting a Wal-Mart in Las Vegas on a day when the temperature was more than 100 degrees
He happened to notice that a Wal-Mart staple inexpensive Styrofoam coolers were not being promoted by the store s associates
As Andrew Ruben , Wal-Mart s vice president for sustainability , told me : Lee walked into the store and said , It s 105 degrees
Why aren t we selling any coolers
The associates said , We don t want to sell Styrofoam coolers because of their impact on the environment
So Lee called us afterwards and said : We re going to have to figure this out
By that he meant innovation of a different kind of cooler that doesn t come from petroleum-based Styrofoam , which is not biodegradable and usually not recycled
Wal-Mart on Monday also announced a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project -LRB- C.D.P. -RRB- to measure the amount of energy used to create products throughout its supply chain many of which come from China
Said C.D.P. Chief Executive Paul Dickinson : Wal-Mart will encourage its suppliers to measure and manage their greenhouse gas emissions , and ultimately reduce the total carbon footprint of Wal-Mart s indirect emissions
We look forward to other global corporations following Wal-Mart s lead
China s leadership is not where Lee Scott is yet
Chinese officials still put their highest priority on growing G.D.P. their bottom line
But for the first time , the costs of this breakneck growth are becoming so obvious on China s air , glaciers and rivers that the leadership asked for briefings on global warming
Many Chinese mayors are looking to get clean-technology industries like wind turbines and solar started in their cities
At such a key time , if the U.S. government adopted a real carbon-reducing strategy , as California and Wal-Mart have , rather than the obfuscations of the Bush team , it would have a huge impact on China and only trigger more innovation in America
Mr. Bush will be convening his climate photo op oops , I mean conference in Washington tomorrow , which will include Chinese and Indian officials
But , as Rob Watson , the C.E.O. of EcoTech International , which works on environmental issues in China put it : The Chinese are not going to take anything we say seriously if we don t set an example ourselves
David Moskovitz , who directs the Regulatory Assistance Project , a nonprofit that helps promote green policies in China , was even more blunt : The most frequent and difficult question we get in China with every policy initiative we put forward is : If it is so good , why aren t you doing it
It s hard to answer and somewhat embarrassing
So we point to good examples that some American states , or cities , or companies are implementing but not to the federal government
We can t point to America
Too bad
It was America which put environmentalism on the world s agenda in the 1970s and 80s , recalled Glenn Prickett , a senior vice president for Conservation International
But since then , somehow , the wealthiest and most powerful country on the planet has gone to the back of the line
Leadership is about follow me not after you
Getting our national climate regulations in order is necessary , but it will not be sufficient to move China
We have to show them what Wal-Mart is showing its competitors that green is not just right for the world , it is better , more profitable , more healthy , more innovative , more efficient , more successful
If Wal-Mart can lead , and California can lead , why can t America
China is doing moon shots
Yes , that 's plural
When I say `` moon shots '' I mean big , multibillion-dollar , 25-year-horizon , game-changing investments
China has at least four going now : one is building a network of ultramodern airports ; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities ; a third is in bioscience , where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers - from America - giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell\/genetic engineering industry ; and , finally , Beijing just announced that it was providing $ 15 billion in seed money for the country 's leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry , starting in 20 pilot cities
In essence , China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine : electric cars
Not to worry
America today also has its own multibillion-dollar , 25-year-horizon , game-changing moon shot : fixing Afghanistan
This contrast is not good
I was recently at a Washington Nationals baseball game
While waiting for a hot dog , I overheard the conversation behind me
A management consultant for a big national firm was telling his colleagues that his job was to `` market products to the Department of Homeland Security .
I thought to myself : `` Oh , my
Inventing studies about terrorist threats and selling them to the U.S. government , is that an industry now ?
We 're out of balance - the balance between security and prosperity
We need to be in a race with China , not just Al Qaeda
Let 's start with electric cars
The electric car industry is pivotal for three reasons , argues Shai Agassi , the C.E.O. of Better Place , a global electric car company that next year will begin operating national electric car networks in Israel and Denmark
First , the auto industry was the foundation for America 's manufacturing middle class
Second , the country that replaces gasoline-powered vehicles with electric-powered vehicles - in an age of steadily rising oil prices and steadily falling battery prices - will have a huge cost advantage and independence from imported oil
Third , electric cars are full of power electronics and software
`` Think of the applications industry that will be spun out from electric cars , '' says Agassi
It will be the iPhone on steroids
Europe is using $ 7-a-gallon gasoline to stimulate the market for electric cars ; China is using $ 5-a-gallon and naming electric cars as one of the industrial pillars for its five-year growth plan
And America
President Obama has directed stimulus money at electric cars , but he is unwilling to do the one thing that would create the sustained consumer pull required to grow an electric car industry here : raise taxes on gasoline
Price matters
Sure , the Moore 's Law of electric cars - `` the cost per mile of the electric car battery will be cut in half every 18 months '' - will steadily drive the cost down , says Agassi , but only once we get scale production going
U.S. companies can do that on their own or in collaboration with Chinese ones
But God save us if we do n't do it at all
Two weeks ago , I visited the Coda Automotive battery facility in Tianjin , China - a joint venture between U.S. innovators and investors , China 's Lishen battery company and China National Offshore Oil Company
Yes , China 's oil company is using profits to develop batteries
Kevin Czinger , Coda 's C.E.O. , who drove me around Manhattan in his company 's soon-to-be-in-production electric car last week , laid out what is going on
The backbone of the modern U.S. economy was locally made cars powered by locally produced oil
It started us on a huge growth spurt
In recent decades , though , that industry was supplanted by foreign-made cars run on foreign oil , so `` now every time we buy a car we 're exporting $ 15,000 of capital , paying for it with borrowed money and running it on foreign energy sources , '' says Czinger
`` We 've gone from autos being a middle-class-making-machine to a middle-class-destroying-machine .
A U.S. electric car\/battery industry would reverse that
The Coda , 14,000 of which will be on the road in California over the next year and can travel 100 miles on one overnight charge , is a combination of Chinese-made batteries and complex American-system electronics - all final-assembled in Oakland -LRB- price : $ 37,000 -RRB-
It is a win-win start-up for both countries
If we both now create the market incentives for consumers to buy electric cars , and the plug-in infrastructure for people to drive them everywhere , it will be a win-win moon shot for both countries
The electric car industry will flourish in the U.S. and China , and together we 'll tackle the next challenge : using auto battery innovations to build big storage batteries for wind and solar
However , if only China puts the gasoline prices and infrastructure in place , the industry will gravitate there
It will be a moon shot for them , a hobby for us , and you 'll import your new electric car from China just like you 're now importing your oil from Saudi Arabia
Most people would assume that 20 years from now when historians look back at 2008-09 , they will conclude that the most important thing to happen in this period was the Great Recession
I 'd hold off on that
If we can continue stumbling out of this economic crisis , I believe future historians may well conclude that the most important thing to happen in the last 18 months was that Red China decided to become Green China
Yes , China 's leaders have decided to go green out of necessity because too many of their people ca n't breathe , ca n't swim , ca n't fish , ca n't farm and ca n't drink thanks to pollution from its coal - and oil-based manufacturing growth engine
And , therefore , unless China powers its development with cleaner energy systems , and more knowledge-intensive businesses without smokestacks , China will die of its own development
What do we know about necessity
I t is the mother of invention
And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity , watch out
You will not just be buying your toys from China
You will buy your next electric car , solar panels , batteries and energy-efficiency software from China
I believe this Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union 's 1957 launch of Sputnik the world 's first Earth-orbiting satellite
That launch stunned us , convinced President Eisenhower that the U.S. was falling behind in missile technology and spurred America to make massive investments in science , education , infrastructure and networking one eventual byproduct of which was the Internet
Well , folks
Sputnik just went up again : China 's going clean-tech
The view of China in the U.S. Congress that China is going to try to leapfrog us by out-polluting us is out of date
It 's going to try to out-green us
Right now , China is focused on low-cost manufacturing of solar , wind and batteries and building the world 's biggest market for these products
It still badly lags U.S. innovation
But research will follow the market
America 's premier solar equipment maker , Applied Materials , is about to open the world 's largest privately funded solar research facility in Xian , China
`` If they invest in 21st-century technologies and we invest in 20th-century technologies , they 'll win , '' says David Sandalow , the assistant secretary of energy for policy
`` If we both invest in 21st-century technologies , challenging each other , we all win .
Unfortunately , we 're still not racing
It 's like Sputnik went up and we think it 's just a shooting star
Instead of a strategic response , too many of our politicians are still trapped in their own dumb-as-we-wanna-be bubble , where we 're always No. 1 , and where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries , uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables
Hat 's off to the courageous chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric , Peter Darbee , who last week announced that his huge California power company was quitting the chamber because of its `` obstructionist tactics .
All shareholders in America should ask their C.E.O. 's why they still belong to the chamber
China 's leaders , mostly engineers , wasted little time debating global warming
They know the Tibetan glaciers that feed their major rivers are melting
But they also know that even if climate change were a hoax , the demand for clean , renewable power is going to soar as we add an estimated 2.5 billion people to the planet by 2050 , many of whom will want to live high-energy lifestyles
In that world , E.T. or energy technology will be as big as I.T. , and China intends to be a big E.T. player
`` For the last three years , the U.S. has led the world in new wind generation , '' said the ecologist Lester Brown , author of `` Plan B 4.0 .
`` By the end of this year , China will bypass us on new wind generation so fast we wo n't even see it go by .
I met this week with Shi Zhengrong , the founder of Suntech , already the world 's largest manufacturer of solar panels
Shi recalled how , shortly after he started his company in Wuxi , nearby Lake Tai , China 's third-largest freshwater lake , choked to death from pollution
`` After this disaster , '' explained Shi , `` the party secretary of Wuxi city came to me and said , ' I want to support you to grow this solar business into a $ 15 billion industry , so then we can shut down as many polluting and energy consuming companies in the region as soon as possible .
He is one of a group of young Chinese leaders , very innovative and very revolutionary , on this issue
Something has changed
China realized it has no capacity to absorb all this waste
We have to grow without pollution .
Of course , China will continue to grow with cheap , dirty coal , to arrest over-eager environmentalists and to strip African forests for wood and minerals
Have no doubt about that
But have no doubt either that , without declaring it , China is embarking on a new , parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation
It is the Sputnik of our day
We ignore it at our peril
Many things make me weep about the current economic crisis , but none more than this brief economic history : In the 19th century , America had a railroad boom , bubble and bust
Some people made money ; many lost money
But even when that bubble burst , it left America with an infrastructure of railroads that made transcontinental travel and shipping dramatically easier and cheaper
The late 20th century saw an Internet boom , bubble and bust
Some people made money ; many people lost money , but that dot-com bubble left us with an Internet highway system that helped Microsoft , I.B.M. and Google to spearhead the I.T. revolution
The early 21st century saw a boom , bubble and now a bust around financial services
But I fear all it will leave behind are a bunch of empty Florida condos that never should have been built , used private jets that the wealthy can no longer afford and dead derivative contracts that no one can understand
Worse , we borrowed the money for this bubble from China , and now we have to pay it back with interest and without any lasting benefit
Yes , this bailout is necessary
This is a credit crisis , and credit crises involve a breakdown in confidence that leads to no one lending to anyone
You do n't fool around with a credit crisis
You have to overwhelm it with capital
Unfortunately , some people who do n't deserve it will be rescued
But , more importantly , those who had nothing to do with it will be spared devastation
You have to save the system
But that is not the point of this column
The point is , we do n't just need a bailout
We need a buildup
We need to get back to making stuff , based on real engineering not just financial engineering
We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream a house with a yard because they have built something with their hands , not because they got a `` liar loan '' from an underregulated bank with no money down and nothing to pay for two years
The American Dream is an aspiration , not an entitlement
When I need reminding of the real foundations of the American Dream , I talk to my Indian-American immigrant friends who have come here to start new companies friends like K.R. Sridhar , the founder of Bloom Energy
He e-mailed me a pep talk in the midst of this financial crisis a note about the difference between surviving and thriving
`` Infants and the elderly who are disabled obsess about survival , '' said Sridhar
`` As a nation , if we just focus on survival , the demise of our leadership is imminent
We are thrivers
Thrivers are constantly looking for new opportunities to seize and lead and be No. 1 .
That is what America is about
But we have lost focus on that
Our economy is like a car , added Sridhar , and the financial institutions are the transmission system that keeps the wheels turning and the car moving forward
Real production of goods that create absolute value and jobs , though , are the engine
`` I can not help but ponder about how quickly we are ready to act on fixing the transmission , by pumping in almost one trillion dollars in a fortnight , '' said Sridhar
`` On the other hand , the engine , which is slowly dying , is not even getting an oil change or a tuneup with the same urgency , let alone a trillion dollars to get ourselves a new engine
Just imagine what a trillion-dollar investment would return to the economy , including the ` transmission , ' if we committed at that level to green jobs and technologies .
Indeed , when this bailout is over , we need the next president this one is wasted to launch an E.T. , energy technology , revolution with the same urgency as this bailout
Otherwise , all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite , but not a future
The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs
It could lift so many boats
In a green economy , we would rely less on credit from foreigners `` and more on creativity from Americans , '' argued Van Jones , president of Green for All , and author of the forthcoming `` The Green Collar Economy .
`` It 's time to stop borrowing and start building
America 's No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages
Our No. 1 resource is our people
Let 's put people back to work retrofitting and repowering America
... You ca n't base a national economy on credit cards
But you can base it on solar panels , wind turbines , smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America .
The Bush team says that if this bailout is done right , it should make the government money
Let 's hope so , and let 's commit right now that any bailout profits will be invested in infrastructure smart transmission grids or mass transit for a green revolution
Let 's `` green the bailout , '' as Jones says , and help ensure that the American Dream does n't ever shrink back to just that a dream
There are actually two Tea Party movements in America today : one you 've read about that is not that important and one you 've not read about that could become really important if the right politician understood how to tap into it
The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention , the amorphous , self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit , is what I 'd actually call the `` Tea Kettle movement '' - because all it 's doing is letting off steam
That is not to say that the energy behind it is not authentic -LRB- it clearly is -RRB- or that it wo n't be electorally impactful -LRB- it clearly might be -RRB-
But affecting elections and affecting America 's future are two different things
Based on all I 've heard from this movement , it feels to me like it 's all steam and no engine
It has no plan to restore America to greatness
The Tea Kettle movement ca n't have a positive impact on the country because it has both misdiagnosed America 's main problem and has n't even offered a credible solution for the problem it has identified
How can you take a movement seriously that says it wants to cut government spending by billions of dollars but wo n't identify the specific defense programs , Social Security , Medicare or other services it 's ready to cut - let alone explain how this will make us more competitive and grow the economy
And how can you take seriously a movement that sat largely silent while the Bush administration launched two wars and a new entitlement , Medicare prescription drugs - while cutting taxes - but is now , suddenly , mad as hell about the deficit and wo n't take it anymore from President Obama
Say what
Where were you folks for eight years
The issues that upset the Tea Kettle movement - debt and bloated government - are actually symptoms of our real problem , not causes
They are symptoms of a country in a state of incremental decline and losing its competitive edge , because our politics has become just another form of sports entertainment , our Congress a forum for legalized bribery and our main lawmaking institutions divided by toxic partisanship to the point of paralysis
The important Tea Party movement , which stretches from centrist Republicans to independents right through to centrist Democrats , understands this at a gut level and is looking for a leader with three characteristics
First , a patriot : a leader who is more interested in fighting for his country than his party
Second , a leader who persuades Americans that he or she actually has a plan not just to cut taxes or pump stimulus , but to do something much larger - to make America successful , thriving and respected again
And third , someone with the ability to lead in the face of uncertainty and not simply whine about how tough things are - a leader who believes his job is not to read the polls but to change the polls
Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg told me that when he does focus groups today this is what he hears : `` People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we do n't
They will follow someone who convinces them that they have a plan to make America great again
That is what they want to hear
It cuts across Republicans and Democrats .
To me , that is a plan that starts by asking : what is America 's core competency and strategic advantage , and how do we nurture it
Answer : It is our ability to attract , develop and unleash creative talent
That means men and women who invent , build and sell more goods and services that make people 's lives more productive , healthy , comfortable , secure and entertained than any other country
Leadership today is about how the U.S. government attracts and educates more of that talent and then enacts the laws , regulations and budgets that empower that talent to take its products and services to scale , sell them around the world - and create good jobs here in the process
Without that , we ca n't afford the health care or defense we need
This is the plan the real Tea Party wants from its president
To implement it would require us to actually raise some taxes - on , say , gasoline - and cut others - like payroll taxes and corporate taxes
It would require us to overhaul our immigration laws so we can better control our borders , let in more knowledge workers and retain those skilled foreigners going to college here
And it would require us to reduce some services - like Social Security - while expanding others , like education and research for a 21st-century economy
In other words , it will require a very smart , subtle and focused plan to use our now diminishing resources in the most efficient way possible to get back to our core competency
That is the only long-term solution to our problem - to grow our way out of debt with American workers who are more empowered and educated to compete
Any Tea Party that says the simple answer is just shrinking government and slashing taxes might be able to tip the midterm elections in its direction
But it ca n't tip America in the right direction
There is a Tea Party for that , but it 's still waiting for a leader
Maureen Dowd is off today
At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday , former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9\/11
My fellow citizens of 9\/11 , today I will make you a promise , said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag
As president of 9\/11 , I will usher in a bold new 9\/11 for all
If elected , Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9\/11 President George W. Bush , including making grim facial expressions , seeing the world s conflicts in terms of good and evil , and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions
Like all good satire , the story made me both laugh and cry , because it reflected something so true how much , since 9\/11 , we ve become The United States of Fighting Terrorism
Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates , but there s no rule against saying who will not get my vote : I will not vote for any candidate running on 9\/11
We don t need another president of 9\/11
We need a president for 9\/12
I will only vote for the 9\/12 candidate
What does that mean
This : 9\/11 has made us stupid
I honor , and weep for , all those murdered on that day
But our reaction to 9\/11 mine included has knocked America completely out of balance , and it is time to get things right again
It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don t. Yes , in the wake of 9\/11 , we need new precautions , new barriers
But we also need our old habits and sense of openness
For me , the candidate of 9\/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are , but who we are
Before 9\/11 , the world thought America s slogan was : Where anything is possible for anybody
But that is not our global brand anymore
Our government has been exporting fear , not hope : Give me your tired , your poor and your fingerprints
You may think Guant namo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists
A lot of the world thinks it s a place we send visitors who don t give the right answers at immigration
I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guant namo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans
Guant namo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty
Roger Dow , president of the Travel Industry Association , told me that the United States has lost millions of overseas visitors since 9\/11 even though the dollar is weak and America is on sale
Only the U.S. is losing traveler volume among major countries , which is unheard of in today s world , Mr. Dow said
Total business arrivals to the United States fell by 10 percent over the 2004-5 period alone , while the number of business visitors to Europe grew by 8 percent in that time
The travel industry s recent Discover America Partnership study concluded that the U.S. entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers and hurting America s image abroad
Those who don t visit us , don t know us
I d love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway
That was and is necessary to improve our security
But sometimes the necessary is impossible and we just can t keep chasing that rainbow this way
Look at our infrastructure
It s not just the bridge that fell in my hometown , Minneapolis
Fly from Zurich s ultramodern airport to La Guardia s dump
It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones
I still can t get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in Bethesda and my office in D.C.
But I recently bought a pocket cellphone at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda crystal clear
I just attended the China clean car conference , where Chinese automakers were boasting that their 2008 cars will meet Euro 4 European Union emissions standards
We used to be the gold standard
We aren t anymore
Last July , Microsoft , fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent , opened its newest software development center in Vancouver
That s in Canada , folks
If Disney World can remain an open , welcoming place , with increased but invisible security , why can t America
We can t afford to keep being this stupid
We have got to get our groove back
We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose , not a common enemy
Al Qaeda is about 9\/11
We are about 9\/12 , we are about the Fourth of July which is why I hope that anyone who runs on the 9\/11 platform gets trounced
I hate to write about this , but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing
I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995
We had a beer in his office
He needed one
I remember the ugly mood in Israel then a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin , who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords
They questioned his authority
They accused him of treason
They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer , and they shouted death threats at rallies
His political opponents winked at it all
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin he must have heard , `` God will be on your side '' and so he did
Others have already remarked on this analogy , but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach : I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left
But something very dangerous is happening
Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents , `` Should Obama be killed ?
The choices were : `` No , Maybe , Yes , and Yes if he cuts my health care .
The Secret Service is now investigating
I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president , you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly
Our leaders , even the president , can no longer utter the word `` we '' with a straight face
There is no more `` we '' in American politics at a time when `` we '' have these huge problems the deficit , the recession , health care , climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that `` we '' can only manage , let alone fix , if there is a collective `` we '' at work
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush , president `` 41 , '' will be remembered as our last `` legitimate '' president
The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater `` scandal .
George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess , and his critics on the left never let him forget it
And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe
They are using everything from smears that he is a closet `` socialist '' to calling him a `` liar '' in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen
And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe
Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives
Again , hack away at the man 's policies and even his character all you want
I know politics is a tough business
But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now nation-building at home we are in serious trouble
We ca n't go 24 years without a legitimate president not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we ca n't address them rationally
The American political system was , as the saying goes , `` designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots .
But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system
Those factors are : the wild excess of money in politics ; the gerrymandering of political districts , making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle ; a 24\/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking ; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates , adding new checks on the establishment , and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level , giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world
Finally , on top of it all , we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship , all the time among our leading politicians
I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest
We ca n't change this overnight , but what we can change , and must change , is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable
As we emerge from Labor Day , college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester , but also , in some cases , to vote for the first time in a presidential election
There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment\/energy
Going into this election , I thought that for the first time we would have a choice between two `` green '' candidates
That view is no longer operative and college students -LRB- and everyone else -RRB- need to understand that
With his choice of Sarah Palin the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change for vice president , John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries , and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil , and given his desire to make more oil-drilling , not innovation around renewable energy , the centerpiece of his energy policy in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate
So please , students , when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few posters of wind turbines and solar panels , ask him why he has been AWOL when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies
`` Back in June , the Republican Party had a round-up , '' said Carl Pope , the executive director of the Sierra Club
`` One of the unbranded cattle a wizened old maverick name John McCain finally got roped
Then they branded him with a big ` Lazy O ' George Bush 's brand , where the O stands for oil
No more maverick
`` One of McCain 's last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge , '' added Pope , `` yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts
While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean , Sarah Palin says , ` The jury is still out on global warming .
She 's the one hanging the jury and John McCain is going to let her .
Indeed , Palin 's much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits , not how to end our addiction
Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda , but at least he had the courage , in the heat of a Democratic primary , not to pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax
And while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling , he has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution to our energy problems
I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now
But it is a complete sideshow
By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to `` drill , drill , drill , '' McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election : who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency
Because renewable energy technologies what I call `` E.T. '' are going to constitute the next great global industry
They will rival and probably surpass `` I.T. '' information technology
The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power , strategic advantage and rising standards of living
We need to make sure that is America
Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not
Palin 's nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness `` reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attach s , '' global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me
`` After much wine , this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness
In his opinion , the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs
However , it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy , which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia .
So , college students , do n't let anyone tell you that on the issue of green , this election is not important
It is vitally important , and the alternatives could not be more black and white
In recent years , I have often said to European friends : So , you did n't like a world of too much American power
See how you like a world of too little American power - because it is coming to a geopolitical theater near you
Yes , America has gone from being the supreme victor of World War II , with guns and butter for all , to one of two superpowers during the cold war , to the indispensable nation after winning the cold war , to `` The Frugal Superpower '' of today
Get used to it
That 's our new nickname
American pacifists need not worry any more about `` wars of choice .
We 're not doing that again
We ca n't afford to invade Grenada today
Ever since the onset of the Great Recession of 2008 , it has been clear that the nature of being a leader - political or corporate - was changing in America
During most of the post-World War II era , being a leader meant , on balance , giving things away to people
Today , and for the next decade at least , being a leader in America will mean , on balance , taking things away from people
And there is simply no way that America 's leaders , as they have to take more things away from their own voters , are not going to look to save money on foreign policy and foreign wars
Foreign and defense policy is a lagging indicator
A lot of other things get cut first
But the cuts are coming - you can already hear the warnings from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
And a frugal American superpower is sure to have ripple effects around the globe
`` The Frugal Superpower : America 's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era '' is actually the title of a very timely new book by my tutor and friend Michael Mandelbaum , the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert
`` In 2008 , '' Mandelbaum notes , `` all forms of government-supplied pensions and health care -LRB- including Medicaid -RRB- constituted about 4 percent of total American output .
At present rates , and with the baby boomers soon starting to draw on Social Security and Medicare , by 2050 `` they will account for a full 18 percent of everything the United States produces .
This - on top of all the costs of bailing ourselves out of this recession - `` will fundamentally transform the public life of the United States and therefore the country 's foreign policy .
For the past seven decades , in both foreign affairs and domestic policy , our defining watchword was `` more , '' argues Mandelbaum
`` The defining fact of foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century and beyond will be ` less . '
When the world 's only superpower gets weighed down with this much debt - to itself and other nations - everyone will feel it
Hard to predict
But all I know is that the most unique and important feature of U.S. foreign policy over the last century has been the degree to which America 's diplomats and naval , air and ground forces provided global public goods - from open seas to open trade and from containment to counterterrorism - that benefited many others besides us
U.S. power has been the key force maintaining global stability , and providing global governance , for the last 70 years
That role will not disappear , but it will almost certainly shrink
Great powers have retrenched before : Britain for instance
But , as Mandelbaum notes , `` When Britain could no longer provide global governance , the United States stepped in to replace it
No country now stands ready to replace the United States , so the loss to international peace and prosperity has the potential to be greater as America pulls back than when Britain did .
After all , Europe is rich but wimpy
China is rich nationally but still dirt poor on a per capita basis and , therefore , will be compelled to remain focused inwardly and regionally
Russia , drunk on oil , can cause trouble but not project power
`` Therefore , the world will be a more disorderly and dangerous place , '' Mandelbaum predicts
How to mitigate this trend
Mandelbaum argues for three things : First , we need to get ourselves back on a sustainable path to economic growth and reindustrialization , with whatever sacrifices , hard work and political consensus that requires
Second , we need to set priorities
We have enjoyed a century in which we could have , in foreign policy terms , both what is vital and what is desirable
For instance , I presume that with infinite men and money we can succeed in Afghanistan
But is it vital
I am sure it is desirable , but vital
Finally , we need to shore up our balance sheet and weaken that of our enemies , and the best way to do that in one move is with a much higher gasoline tax
America is about to learn a very hard lesson : You can borrow your way to prosperity over the short run but not to geopolitical power over the long run
That requires a real and growing economic engine
And , for us , the short run is now over
There was a time when thinking seriously about American foreign policy did not require thinking seriously about economic policy
That time is also over
An America in hock will have no hawks - or at least none that anyone will take seriously
On Aug. 29 , this newspaper carried a front-page headline that should make your blood boil : `` Karzai Using Rift With U.S. to Gain Favor .
The article said that Obama officials were growing disenchanted with the Afghan president , Hamid Karzai , whose supporters allegedly stuffed ballot boxes in the recent elections , while Mr. Karzai struck deals with accused drug dealers and warlords , one of whom is his brother , for political gain
The article added , though , that in a feat of political shrewdness , Mr. Karzai `` has surprised some in the Obama administration '' by turning their anger with him `` to an advantage , portraying himself at home as the only political candidate willing to stand up to the dictates of the United States .
If this is how our `` allies '' are treating us in Afghanistan , after eight years , then one really has to ask not whether we can afford to lose there but whether we can afford to win there
It would be one thing if the people we were fighting with and for represented everything the Taliban did not : decency , respect for women 's rights and education , respect for the rule of law and democratic values and rejection of drug-dealing
But they do not
Too many in this Kabul government are just a different kind of bad
This has become a war between light black Karzai & Co.
and dark black Taliban Inc.
And light black is simply not good enough to ask Americans to pay for with blood or treasure
This is the most important and troubling fact about Afghanistan today : After eight years of work there , we still do not have a reliable Afghan partner to hand off to
And it is not all our fault
Lord knows , Iraq still has problems
The outcome there remains uncertain
But the reason Iraq still has a chance for a decent future is because a critical mass of Kurds , Sunnis and Shiites were ready to take on their own extremists and hold reasonably fair elections
The surge in Iraq started with key Iraqi communities wanting to liberate themselves from their own radicals
Our troops helped them do that
The strategy that our new and impressive commander in Afghanistan , Gen. Stanley McChrystal , is pursuing calls for additional troops to create something that does not now exist there a reasonably noncorrupt Afghan state that will serve its people and partner with America in keeping Afghanistan free of drug lords , warlords , the Taliban and Al Qaeda
His plan calls for clearing areas of Taliban control , holding those areas and then building effective local , district and provincial governments along with a bigger army , real courts , police and public services
Because only with all that can we hold the support of the Afghan people and avoid a Taliban victory and a return of Al Qaeda that could threaten us
That is the theory
And it may , indeed , be the only way to go , but we should have no illusions : We 're talking State Building 101 in the most inhospitable terrain and in one of the poorest , most tribalized , countries in the world
As the military expert Anthony Cordesman , who has advised the U.S. Army in Afghanistan , explained in The Washington Post recently , it requires `` a significant number '' of U.S. reinforcements and time to do what the Kabul government has failed to do , because it remains `` a grossly overcentralized government that is corrupt , is often a tool of power brokers and narco-traffickers , and lacks basic capacity in virtually every ministry .
To put it another way , we are not just adding more troops in Afghanistan
We are transforming our mission from baby-sitting to adoption
We are going from a limited mission focused on baby-sitting Afghanistan no matter how awful its government in order to prevent an Al Qaeda return to adopting Afghanistan as our state-building project
I recently looked back at Stephanie Sinclair 's stunning 2006 photograph in The Times of Ghulam Haider , an 11-year-old Afghan girl seated next to the bearded 40-year-old man she was about to be married off to
The article said Haider had hoped to be a teacher but was forced to quit her classes when she became engaged
The furtive sideways glance of her eyes at her future husband said she was terrified
The article said : `` On the day she witnessed the engagement party
... Sinclair discreetly took the girl aside
` What are you feeling today ?
the photographer asked
` Nothing , ' the bewildered girl answered .
I do not know this man
What am I supposed to feel ? '
That is the raw clay for our state-building
It may still be worth doing , but one thing I know for sure , it must be debated anew
This is a much bigger undertaking than we originally signed up for
Before we adopt a new baby Afghanistan we need to have a new national discussion about this project : what it will cost , how much time it could take , what U.S. interests make it compelling , and , most of all , who is going to oversee this policy
I feel a vast and rising ambivalence about this in the American public today , and adopting a baby you are ambivalent about is a prescription for disaster
Frank Rich is off today
On Wednesday , The New York Times on the Web flashed a headline that caught my eye : `` U.S. to Unveil $ 1 Billion Aid Package to Repair Georgia .
Wow , I thought
That 's great : $ 1 billion to fix Georgia 's roads and schools
But as I read on , I quickly realized that I had the wrong Georgia
We 're going to spend $ 1 billion to fix the Georgia between Russia and Turkey , not the one between South Carolina and Florida
Sorry , but the thought of us spending $ 1 billion to repair a country whose president , though a democrat , recklessly provoked a war with a brutish Russia , which was itching to bash its neighbor , makes no sense to me
Yes , we should diplomatically squeeze Russia until it withdraws its troops ; no one should be invading neighbors
But where are our priorities
How many wars can we fight at once without finishing even one
Iraq , Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan and now Georgia
Which is the priority
Americans are struggling to meet their mortgages , and we 're sending $ 1 billion to a country whose president behaved irresponsibly , just to poke Vladimir Putin in the eye
Could n't we poke Putin with $ 100 million
And should n't we be fostering a dialogue with Georgia and with Putin
Otherwise , where is this going
A new cold war
Over what
And that brings me to our election
What I found missing in both conventions was a sense of priorities
Both Barack Obama and John McCain offered a list of good things they plan to do as president , but , since you ca n't do everything , where 's the focus going to be
That focus needs to be on strengthening our capacity for innovation our most important competitive advantage
If we ca n't remain the most innovative country in the world , we are not going to have $ 1 billion to toss at either the country Georgia or the state of Georgia
While we still have enormous innovative energy bubbling up from the American people , it is not being supported and nurtured as needed in today 's supercompetitive world
Right now , we feel like a country in a very slow decline in infrastructure , basic research and education just slow enough to lull us into thinking that we have all the time and money to play around in Tbilisi , Georgia , more than Atlanta , Georgia
As Chuck Vest , the former president of M.I.T. , said to me : `` Both candidates have spoken a lot about ` change , ' but in most areas of need , innovation is the only mechanism that can actually change things in substantive ways
Innovation is where creative thinking and practical know-how meet to do new things in new ways , and old things in new ways
`` The irony of ignoring innovation as a theme for our times is that the U.S. is still the most innovative nation on the planet , '' Vest added
`` But we can only maintain that lead if we invest in the people , the research that enable it and produce a policy environment in which it can thrive rather than being squelched
Our strong science and technology base built by past investments , our free market economy built on a base of democracy and a diverse population are unmatched to date ; but we are taking it for granted .
A developed country 's competitiveness now comes primarily from its capacity to innovate the ability to create the new products and services that people want , adds Curtis Carlson , chief executive of SRI International , a Silicon Valley research company
As such , `` innovation is now the only path to growth , prosperity , environmental sustainability and national security for America
But it is also an incredibly competitive world
Many information industries require that products be improved by 100 percent every 12 to 36 months , just for the company to stay in business .
Our competitiveness , though , he added , is based on having a broadly educated work force , superb research universities , innovation-supportive taxes , immigration and regulatory policies , a productive physical and virtual infrastructure , and a culture that embraces hard work and the creation of new opportunities
`` America is still the best place for innovation , '' said Carlson
However , we are falling behind in K-12 education , infrastructure and in tax , regulatory and immigration policies that no longer welcome the world 's most talented minds
`` These issues must be at the top of the national agenda because they determine our ability to provide health care , clean energy and economic opportunity for our citizens .
-LRB- For a good plan , read the new `` Closing the Innovation Gap '' by the technologist Judy Estrin .
Alas , though , the Republicans just had a convention where abortion got vastly more attention than innovation , calls to buttress Tbilisi , Georgia , swamped any for Atlanta , Georgia , and `` drill , baby , drill '' was chanted instead of `` innovate , baby , innovate .
If we were serious about weakening both Putin and Putinism , we would be investing $ 1 billion in Georgia Tech to invent alternatives to oil the high price of which is the only reason the Kremlin is strong enough today to bully its neighbors and its own people
It 's been a week and the newly minted Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have not broken down yet
Surely that is a good sign
It is a measure of how low expectations are for these talks that they have to be celebrated by the week
Now that they have begun , though , both sides will try to avoid being the one that scuttles them - and not only to avoid the wrath of the United States
It is because one senses that after all these years of stop-and-start peace talks - where someone declares `` this is the year of decision , and if these talks fail the peace process is dead and buried '' - this time it might actually be true
If these talks fail , with 300,000 Israeli settlers already living in the West Bank , and with Hamas becoming ensconced with its own government in Gaza , talk of a `` two-state solution '' will enter the realm of fantasy
But while the talks are alive , they lack any sense of drama or excitement or larger possibilities
That is partly because the awful violence that followed the breakdown of the Oslo peace process wrung virtually all the romance out of this relationship
And it is partly because both Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and the Palestinian president , Mahmoud Abbas , know that to make peace today with each other will require a small civil war within each of their communities
Even if the two sides swap land and 80 percent of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank get to stay put , 60,000 will have to be removed
Many will leave peacefully - if Mr. Netanyahu strikes the land-for-security deal he wants - but thousands will not
They will have to be forcibly removed from Biblical sites by the Israeli Army , and the process will not be pretty
Even if President Abbas gets 100 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem , or its equivalent , Hamas will denounce any peace deal that is more than a temporary cease-fire with the Jewish state
And , with Iran 's help , Hamas will employ whatever violence it can to overturn any deal
It will not be pretty
That is why the sense of dread and the sense of opportunity are intertwined in an emotional standoff right now between the negotiators
What these talks could really use is an emotional lift , one that would remind Israelis in particular that peace not only has huge security risks but also huge benefits - that at the end of this road lies something more than a civil war among the Jews
I know one way to do that
Some eight years ago , in February 2002 , I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh
I shared with him a column I had written - suggesting that the Arab League put forth a peace plan offering Israel full peace for full withdrawal from the West Bank , Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state - when he feigned surprise and said : `` Have you broken into my desk ?
The Saudi leader said he was preparing the exact same plan and offered it up - `` full withdrawal from all the occupied territories , in accord with U.N. resolutions , including in Jerusalem , for full normalization of relations .
He added : `` I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs do n't reject or despise them .
It was an important , visionary move by Abdullah , and his plan was quickly adopted by the Arab League , with some amendments
It has been floating out there in the ether of diplomatic possibilities ever since
But all that it has been doing is floating
It is time to bring it out of the air
King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present it to him personally
Abdullah need not go to Jerusalem , as Anwar Sadat did , or recognize Israel
He can , though , still have a huge impact on the process by simply handing his plan to the leader for whose country it was intended
I ca n't think of anything that would get these peace talks off to a better start
It feels to me as though Netanyahu is taking this moment seriously , but he is still very wary
By handing him the Abdullah plan , the Saudi monarch would unleash a huge peace debate in Israel
It would make it more difficult for Netanyahu to continue settlement building - and spur an Israeli public that is also still wary to urge Netanyahu to take risks for peace and support him for doing so
Netanyahu is the only Israeli leader today who can deliver a deal
The Saudis ca n't just keep faxing their peace initiative to Israelis
That has no emotional punch
It actually says to Israelis : if the Saudis are afraid to hand us their plan , why should we believe they 'll have the courage to implement it if we do everything they suggest
Israelis are isolated
Seeing their prime minister received by the most important Muslim leader in the world in Riyadh would have a real impact
Both Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to do something really hard to produce a two-state solution
Saudi officials have developed a reputation in Washington for being experts at advising everyone else about the hard things they must do , while being reluctant to step out themselves
This is their moment - to do something hard and to do something important
Watching both the health care and climate\/energy debates in Congress , it is hard not to draw the following conclusion : There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy , and that is one-party democracy , which is what we have in America today
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks
But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people , as China is today , it can also have great advantages
That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century
It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars , solar power , energy efficiency , batteries , nuclear power and wind power
China 's leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes , demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar
Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that , including boosting gasoline prices , from the top down
Our one-party democracy is worse
The fact is , on both the energy\/climate legislation and health care legislation , only the Democrats are really playing
With a few notable exceptions , the Republican Party is standing , arms folded and saying `` no. '' Many of them just want President Obama to fail
Such a waste
Mr. Obama is not a socialist ; he 's a centrist
But if he 's forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation , he will be whipsawed by its different factions
Look at the climate\/energy bill that came out of the House
Its sponsors had to work twice as hard to produce this breakthrough cap-and-trade legislation
Because with basically no G.O.P. representatives willing to vote for any price on carbon that would stimulate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency , the sponsors had to rely entirely on Democrats and that meant paying off coal-state and agriculture Democrats with pork
Thank goodness , it is still a bill worth passing
But it could have been much better and can be in the Senate
Just give me 8 to 10 Republicans ready to impose some price on carbon , and they can be leveraged against Democrats who want to water down the bill
`` China is going to eat our lunch and take our jobs on clean energy an industry that we largely invented and they are going to do it with a managed economy we do n't have and do n't want , '' said Joe Romm , who writes the blog , climateprogress.org
The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech
Hard to do with a one-party democracy
The same is true on health care
`` The central mechanism through which Obama seeks to extend coverage and restrain costs is via new ` exchanges , ' insurance clearinghouses , modeled on the plan Mitt Romney enacted when he was governor of Massachusetts , '' noted Matt Miller , a former Clinton budget official and author of `` The Tyranny of Dead Ideas .
`` The idea is to let individuals access group coverage from private insurers , with subsidies for low earners .
And it is possible the president will seek to fund those subsidies , at least in part , with the idea John McCain ran on by reducing the tax exemption for employer-provided health care
Can the Republicans even say yes to their own ideas , if they are absorbed by Obama
Without Obama being able to leverage some Republican votes , it is going to be very hard to get a good plan to cover all Americans with health care
`` Just because Obama is on a path to give America the Romney health plan with McCain-style financing , does not mean the Republicans will embrace it if it seems politically more attractive to scream ` socialist , ' '' said Miller
The G.O.P. used to be the party of business
Well , to compete and win in a globalized world , no one needs the burden of health insurance shifted from business to government more than American business
No one needs immigration reform so the world 's best brainpower can come here without restrictions more than American business
No one needs a push for clean-tech the world 's next great global manufacturing industry more than American business
Yet the G.O.P. today resists national health care , immigration reform and wants to just drill , baby , drill
`` Globalization has neutered the Republican Party , leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America , the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears , '' said Edward Goldberg , a global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College
`` The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy , the multinational corporate manager , the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer
In principle , they have left the party , leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers .
