No carrots for Iran

Wednesday Aug 11, 2010

Posted by Ed Koch

The Sunni Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and other nations in the region, are a majority of the Arab people. Because of a 1,300-year-old split between Sunnis and Shia, the Sunnis are just as fearful of Iran, a Shia country, getting a nuclear bomb, as are Israel and the United States.

The Israeli position is well known. For Israel, already singled out by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for extinction, the Iranian nuclear threat is an immediate danger. But the rest of the world knows that Iran has long-range missiles and is working on increasing their range. Iran's most recently tested missile has a range that includes parts of Europe.

The United States under President Obama has many times said that no option on our part, including a military action, is off the table. So far, our efforts have focused on negotiating with the Iranians. When they spurned us, we turned to sanctions. We recently were successful in convincing the United Nations to pass more severe sanctions against Iran, but the UN will never go for the jugular which would include prohibiting gasoline from being exported to Iran, it having insufficient refineries to supply its needs.

Russia and China have made it clear they see Iran as a supplier of their growing oil and other needs and will never agree to the kinds of sanctions that could cause Iran's total capitulation. Apparently, they believe they have no cause to fear Iran's missile wrath being launched against them, and they are content to allow the US to expend its efforts and spin its wheels trying to rally international support for further sanctions against the Iranian regime. China follows a similar policy with nuclear North Korea, which they allow to exist because it's a thorn in the side of the US, Japan, and the West.

Nevertheless, importuned by our allies Israel, Saudi Arabia et. al., and perhaps beginning to feel even greater frustration with Iran, President Obama is thought by many observers to be reaching the point where the military option is beginning to look more attractive.

We know that once Iran actually achieves the nuclear bomb, a military option on our part becomes less viable.  Surely, that is why we have accepted without retaliation so many punches and insults from North Korea, even the recent destruction of a warship of our ally, South Korea, by a Chinese-made torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine. Shockingly, the UN Security Council resolution on that clear act of war by North Korea did not even mention that North Korea was responsible for the destruction of the ship and deaths of 46 South Korean sailors. That cowardly resolution was agreed to by the US at the insistence of China, North Korea's protector and neighbor fearful of an exodus of North Koreans across its border.

So, we permit South Korea and Japan to live in fear of further military aggression by North Korea against them while North Korea and its apparent mad man president, Kim Jong-il, remains convinced that they need not worry about retaliation from the UN or the US. North Korea, after all, has the nuclear bomb and can use it, perhaps against Japan and certainly against South Korea.

Now comes an editorial in The New York Times on August 7th which unmercifully castigates former President George W. Bush for standing up to Iran. In 2004, I crossed party lines and supported President Bush because I said that, while I did not agree with him on a single domestic issue, I appreciated his willingness to stand up to Islamic terror which the Democratic Party was not so willing to do. In my view, Islamic terror trumped all other issues because it involved the very existence of the United States and the Western world. I have no regrets.

The Times editorial denounces former President Bush, stating:

At first glance, President Obama's policy on Iran and its illicit nuclear program is not all that different from President George W. Bush's. They both committed themselves, on paper, to sanctions and engagement. Mr. Bush, however, was never really that serious about the carrots, and he spent so much time alienating America's friends that he was never able to win broad support for the sticks: credible international sanctions."

Then, the editorial praises Mr. Obama, but only to a limited extent, stating:

Mr. Obama has done considerably better on the sanctions front - at the United Nations and from the European Union, Canada and Australia. But the other piece of a credible strategy - serious engagement - seemed to be getting lost.

So it was encouraging that he made the effort this week to reassert his commitment to talks with Tehran. Meeting with journalists from The Times and other publications on Wednesday, he said his pledge to change the United States-Iran relationship after 30 years of animosity 'continues to be entirely sincere.'

The Times asserts that "a package of inducements first proposed in 2006 - diplomatic ties, trade, nuclear energy technology - needs to be on the table." The so-called carrots.

Shall we go back to the days of Munich, 1938, when Neville Chamberlain was dealing with "Herr Hitler." All Hitler seemed to want at that time in exchange for "peace in our time," was the Czech Sudetenland, and he got it. Without asking, he took the balance of Czechoslovakia and then went on to Poland and brought about World War II.

I believe Ahmadinejad treats his own people, particularly dissenters, no differently than Hitler treated German dissenters, exclusive of the Jews. No matter what he agrees to, does anyone think Ahmadinejad will give up his goals of getting the nuclear bomb and exterminating Israel and its Jewish population? Hitler wasn't satisfied with carrots. They just whetted his appetite. Ahmadinejad won't be satisfied until Israel is destroyed.

Senator John McCain said it best - "I still say there's only one thing worse than military action against Iran, and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." President Obama hopefully will reach the same conclusion.

Source : http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/koch/entry/no_carrots_for_iran_posted

Psychology: Learning to fail can bring success

By MORRIS N. MANN  

08/13/2010 16:41 

An old Chinese proverb says ‘failure is not falling down, but refusing to get up.’Have you avoided a challenge rather than risk failure?

Most of us have done that. We have a fear of experiencing failure. Yet, we also know it would be foolish to expect to win and succeed at everything we do. Our emotion has us in fear of things our reason knows are inevitable and even normal. There seems to be a disconnect between our emotion of fear and our intellectual reason.

For some people the emotional fear of failure is so great it severely limits their ability to succeed in life. They set unrealistically high expectations for themselves and believe that anything less than success at those levels is failure.

Carol Dweck studied such perfectionist tendencies in school-age children. She studied bright children for whom school work and grades came easily.

They were the top of their class and were often told they were smart or even brilliant. Problems surfaced for these children when they faced challenges and adversity in areas in which they did not excel. If work did not come easily and there was a real possibility of less than stellar performance, these children would avoid the challenge. The few that did not avoid the challenge would become hypervigilant in their work and extremely nervous in fear of not attaining perfection.

Adults with these perfectionist tendencies set up unrealistic goals for themselves. They overload their schedules with endless work which induces high levels of stress. Not only do they impose such standards on themselves but they often do so of their colleagues as well.

The first step to overcoming the problem of ‘fear of failure’ is to realize the toll it is taking on you and on those you work with. The price you pay is in your peace of mind and your struggles with work. If failure is inevitable and you are worried about avoiding it, then you will be living with high levels of stress. In addition, you will be overly invested in making sure every aspect of your work is perfect, and it may make you feel the need to go over and over it multiple times while avoiding completion.

THE FIRST STRATEGY to use after realizing the problem is to change your frame of mind from goals of perfection and universal approval to striving for excellence and doing the best you know you can. That means not focusing on the end goal all the time but on the effort you put in daily and recognizing the small accomplishments along the way. It is also necessary to accept, to understand and even value the fact that failures are an important part of the process. They are valuable learning opportunities.

For parents it means they should learn to encourage gifted children’s efforts rather than only their abilities or performance. It may seem counterintuitive, but praise of their talent is detrimental to someone with a fear of failure if it is not accompanied with praise for their effort.

The advice I have given to many a parent of such children is to emphasize the effort that went into an accomplishment rather than the result. Rather than saying, “It’s great that you got an A- in that course,” a parent should say “It’s because of your hard work studying and reviewing that you were able to get an A- in that course.” There needs to be a link between the work, the effort, and the result. If school work is too easy, then challenges need to be found.

Your approach to accepting failure is relevant in the workplace as well. Seth Godin is one of the most heralded and brilliant online marketing experts. He not only emphasizes the importance of accepting failure in order to achieve success, but he advocates the need to embrace your failure in order to do significant work and succeed. In many of the successful companies he ran, Godin included failed attempts in the corporate culture. People were encouraged to fail because it was a sign they were willing to take risks of doing something special.

In fact, he said that in one company he called two employees for a negative review because there was nothing they failed at in the past 12 months. For Godin, not to fail means not pushing the envelope or daring to do things that would make an impact. It is a sign you have settled for a safe way out. You have settled for mediocrity. One of the key strategies to overcoming “fear of failure” is to consider failure as a learning experience. In his endless struggle to create the light bulb, Thomas Edison said: “I have not failed; I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” You must see the pitfalls and failures as stepping stones to learn from. If you can see your failures as lessons learned, and appreciate the small successes on your way to a greater goal, you will achieve success.
The writer is a positive clinical psychologist who helps clients in his Jerusalem office and gives workshops on positive psychology to businesses and organizations.

morris.mann@gmail.com
Source : http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Lifestyle/Article.aspx?id=184559

American Jews often defend Muslims

By RAY HANANIA

11/08/2010

Recent example involves the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ where the leading Jewish defenders were passionate in their defense.

When was the last time leading Arabs or Muslims came to the defense of Jews? I say that because a phenomenal thing happened in America last week. American Jews were divided, but still led the national debate on whether or not a mosque should be allowed within blocks of “Ground Zero,” the spot where the Twin Towers collapsed under a terrorist assault on September 11, 2001.

Although the Anti-Defamation League flip-flopped on the issue, supporting it on principle and then later opposing it on emotional grounds, it did so with attempted gracefulness.

The ADL noted the intense emotions aroused and said that Muslims seeking to build the mosque should recognize the feelings of those who lost family, relatives and friends in the al-Qaida terrorist attack.

Yet the ADL was just one of the American Jewish voices addressing the controversy; the leading Jewish defenders were not only passionate in their defense but stubborn about the principle involved.

Among those voices was one of the country’s leading Jewish politicians, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose eyes welled up with emotion while he declared that Muslims have every right to build a mosque, just as Christians and Jews could build a church or synagogue nearby.

Bloomberg was consistent in May when he declared: “I think it’s fair to say if somebody was going to try to build a church or synagogue on that piece of property, nobody would be yelling and screaming.

The fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it, too.”

Bloomberg remained principled on August 3, when he insisted: “Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors mourned with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave in to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.”

ONE OF America’s leading Jewish American writers, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, expressed shock at the ADL flip-flop, and unhesitantly defended the right of Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

Steinberg concluded a column addressing the issue, saying: “I expect more from the ADL.

Given the history of Jews being tarred as an evil foreign presence, I thought we’d be not quite so fast to condemn others based on the same non-reasoning. There are lots of Islamic terrorists, sure, but there are also lots of Jewish bankers. Both are still offensive stereotypes, still slurs, and I can’t see how what one group of 19 Muslims did in 2001 should prevent another, completely separate group of Muslims from building a religious center in 2010. How is claiming that any different from saying I can’t join your country club because the Jews killed Christ? The ADL thinks the Islamic center spoils the healing process? Well boo hoo – the Jewish kids spoil the Christmas pageant too, but they aren’t forced to stay home. That’s how America works. We adapt. I thought the Anti-Defamation League understood that, but I guess I was wrong.”

Steinberg also asked the question many may have asked quietly. If two blocks is too close to Ground Zero, how far away would be acceptable? Six blocks? One mile? Ten miles? These were but a few of the principled and courageous voices raised in defense of the Muslim American community as the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy raged. These voices stood in stark contrast to the hysteria of mainstream Americans who packed the media with assertions that Islam is “evil” and that all Muslims support terrorism.

I hope to one day hear Arab and Muslim voices speak in defense of the Jewish people as powerfully as the Jewish community has spoken in defense of Muslims.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a tragedy that keeps both sides on “politically correct” guard. But it doesn’t mean that Arabs and Muslims can’t be principled, moral or ethical in defending what is right when it comes to anti-Semitism.

Arabs and Muslims should not allow themselves to be consumed by what we think is wrong. Sometimes we need to step outside of the conflict and remind others and ourselves that we also believe in what is right.
The writer is an award-winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. www.YallaPeace.com

Source :  http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=184352

The shame of misrule

By Kuldip Nayar Friday, 13 Aug, 2010

It is not an insignificant coincidence that a journalist reported, on the eve of Aug 15, that the Congress has “destroyed” all papers relating to our second independence in January 1977. If only history could be so easily rewritten. Imagine the first Mahatma Gandhi-led independence to usher in on Aug 15, 1947, a democratic polity, and imagine Mrs Indira Gandhi, his follower, destroying all democratic institutions by imposing the emergency some 28 years later on June 25, 1975. The nation celebrated a second independence when she was routed at the polls in January 1977. Typical of Congress’ furtive ways to cover up its misdeeds, the home ministry claims it does not have the emergency proclamation issued by then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Nor does it have any record of the decisions taken on the arrests of thousands on the basis of false allegations, the appointment of certain people to key posts and the manner in which the statutory provisions governing detentions were breached. This means that anyone aged 30 or younger will find it difficult to obtain any hard information about what happened during those dark days. Many of us remember the courage of Jayaprakash (JP) Narayan, who challenged Mrs Gandhi’s misrule, and the pain he suffered when he was subsequently imprisoned. M.G. Devasahayam, who was then district magistrate of Chandigarh where JP was detained, drew the authorities’ attention to JP’s deteriorating health. As Devasahayam writes in his book, the reply came from the then Defence Minister Bansi Lal, who basically said, ‘let him die’. I am surprised that there was no furore in parliament on the disclosure of the disappearance of the papers on the emergency. Neither Mulayam Singh nor Lalu Prasad Yadav, nor even the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, raised the topic. The home ministry fixes responsibility for the missing records on the National Archives of India, saying that it is the “repository of non-current records”. The National Archives says that nothing was transferred to its safekeeping. Yet the Shah Commission, which dug into the misdeeds committed during the emergency, said on the last day of its proceedings that it was depositing all the records with the National Archives. The Shah Commission held 100 meetings, examined 48,000 papers and issued two interim reports. While the Janata government was still in power, I checked with the National Archives and was assured that the records of the commission’s verbatim proceedings were intact. Apparently, the destruction of evidence started after Mrs Gandhi’s return to power in 1980. Copies of the Shah Commission report disappeared even from the shop where official publications were available. The report by the National Police Commission, which made praiseworthy recommendations to free the force from the pressure of politicians, was shelved because it had been constituted by the Janata government. Mrs Gandhi walked out of a police medal distribution ceremony when her aide told her that the medals were for work in exposing excesses during the emergency. The Congress cannot rehabilitate Mrs Gandhi by hiding records of her misdeeds. It must face the fact of her authoritarian governance. She did great things and her fervour for nationalism allowed the country to hold its head high, but she also had her limitations. She was responsible for ousting morality from politics and effaced the thin line that separated good from bad, moral from immoral. We are still suffering from the hangover. With her extra-constitutional authority exercised by her son Sanjay Gandhi, she effectively smothered dissent and corroded India’s democratic values. It’s a pity that the press went out of its way to conform to the dictates of the government. L.K. Advani was quite right when he chided the press: “You were asked to bend but you began to crawl.” The reason why the system, which was derailed during the emergency, has not been able to return to its moorings so far is the unaccountability of bureaucrats and politicians. No one found guilty by the Shah Commission has been punished. In fact, those who indulged in excesses were given out-of-turn promotions and appointments to key posts. The rulers should heed the advice of the Shah Commission: “The government’s primary responsibility is to guarantee protection to those officials who refused to deviate from the code of conduct which should be accepted not only by the officials but also by the political authorities.” I am not surprised that Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has remained silent over the missing records. He is too close and beholden to the dynasty. Yet he has done laudable work in expanding the contours of the Right To Information Act. Mrs Gandhi did not even consult the cabinet before asking the president to sign the proclamation of emergency order. The cabinet was called the following morning to retrospectively endorse it. It’s understandable that the home ministry cannot explain this without blaming Mrs Gandhi personally. She even wanted to close down the courts but was assured that the judges would fall in line. The Supreme Court went to the extent of upholding five to one the imposition of the emergency. True, it is all history. But the Congress cannot rewrite it. The failings of the government and its leaders should never be fudged because the nation’s conscience is at stake. Coming generations should know how and where the country’s institutions were compromised and democracy derailed. It is only by laying the truth out in black and white that future emergencies and associated authoritarian rule can be avoided. And I hope the dawn of our second independence is never overtaken by the twilight made up of the brutalities and excesses that shame us. The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. Source : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/19-kuldip-nayar-the-shame-of-misrule-380-hh-18

India’s Crisis Of Ethics

Aug 13th, 2010 - Shiv Visvanathan

I firmly believe one does not get old fashioned as one gets older. One gets more demanding of the new. One demands a sense of fundamentals without the facileness of fundamentalism. The world might shrink in terms of people who mattered yet memories become everlasting lemon drops to taste and treasure. Looking over the last few years what I sense most is the absence of an ethics which conveys a robust goodness and also understood the inventiveness of evil.

Consider the newspaper or TV as a landscape and ask where ethics come from and where are the ethical figures? It is definitely not in religion. Our gurus and acharyas preach well being, they might be ascetics and renouncers but they offer a religion separate from ethics. Take our corporate dons. Even the best, from Ratan Tata to Narayan Murthy, remain blasé about the violence of Gujarat riots, almost suggesting that investment is a substitute for ethics. Corporate life has a discipline which often simulates ethics. Sadly, our social movements have lost the edge that JP, Baba Amte, the early Medha Patakar provided them with. One can hardly think of ethicists in academic life.

If one moves from individuals to domains and searches for institutional frames or organisational sites, the search is equally futile. The bureaucracy has only an occasional whistleblower to redeem itself. The corporate world offers corporate social responsibility as a great dropping to legitimise its indifference to ecology, justice and moral indifference. Occasionally, non-governmental organisations bring sensitivity to issues but don’t dwell long enough to make a difference. Literature helps by producing a Mahasweta Devi and seems content with it.

Our world of politics brings forth a few Hamlets but the rest are content with a sense, a greed, an appetite for power which makes Right and Left brothers under the same carnal skin. The media offers stuttering pygmies as examples, but they are eventually brittle or hysterical, substituting an inquisitional style for a lived ethics. Eventually the examples we thrive on are the good father or the pious mother, a goodness that gets reduced to family recipes.
The question one wants to ask is why is there an absence of ethics in public spaces.

The first thing one senses is the absence of a civilizational view. There is no Bhakti Movement to rework ethics into law, music or politics. We use civilisation as a prop, a relic, or best as a heritage. It is a monument we salute but not a code, a model or a way of life. The nation state has corroded civilisational possibilities and consumerism has dessicated it further. The simple differences between need and greed as litmus tests have lost their relevance. Ethics as a home remedy becomes impotent in public life.

Earlier nationalism provided a framework of values through people like Gandhi, Gaffar Khan and Kumarappa. They walked their talk. But as nationalism yielded to the nation state, value frames got dessicated into policy frames.

Gradually, politics became managerial. By reifying corruption as a political or bureaucratic problem, we failed to realise the inventiveness of evil. In fact, if anything is global, it is the globalisation of evil that we fail to confront. Terror, genocide, societal indifference to violence or poverty is spreading. Consider how dessicated our id e as of peace, progress and rights are. Evil is not only more inventive, it possesses a more se d u c t i ve sense. We see goodness as ef­feminate, lacking the robustness of evil. In fact, we see viole n ce as the only way to fight evil, and thus becoming what we fight.

Thirdly, there is something about democracy that banalises ethics. Ethics get managerialised, banalised or become a collection of regulations. It becomes a rote procedure rather than a set of individual initiatives. It is reduced to a set of do’s and don’ts and as a result it lacks inventiveness. An ethical act, rather than being the norm is seen as a signal for deviancy. Ethics becomes a singular act of whistle blowing where the ethical act is seen as rare, even eccentric and vulnerable.

Fourthly, we are caught in a dualistic economy of thought which separates the ethics of science from the ethics of religion, the ethics of the formal and the informal, the domains of public and private, the ethics for male and female. Oddly, where we need specialised thinking as in the ethics of scale or the ethics of risk technology, we assume stupidly that conventional science or economics has the answer. We assume that ethics is a symptom that surfaces in crises, disallowing a prosaic ethic of everydayness.

As a result, India as a civilisation, as a nation state, as a civil society, as a community, has few answers about development, displacement, diversity, alternatives, terror, poverty or torture. The poverty of our ethics is more stunning than the poverty of our society. Maybe the two are connected and we need to invent a different ethics of technology, development, poverty and ecology, if India is to remain a viable democracy.

Let us be clear that the old words stemming from Christianity like philanthropy, aid, charity have run dry. We need other words and metaphors to answer questions like what are our ethics regarding poverty? Do we criminalise it or pathologise it or do we treat it as a threat to peace, a form of structural disempowerment? What new thought experiments and institutions can we invent that goes beyond the commoditisation of the environment that sees climate change through carbon credits? What is the ethics of the other that can make citizenship more tolerant of tribals and nomads? What is a civilisational ethic that resists the economisation of a problem or the forced obsolescence of a people? Can we devise a new Hippocratic code for the ethical illiteracy of science? Our ethics need not be fundamentalist but it needs to be a way of life, a dwelling, not an abstract paradigm or a dessicated flower lacking the life blood of water, nor does it have to be humorless wardenship of Gandhi?

We need to invent, create new forms of response to fill in our current silence about Afghanistan, Sri Lanka or the idiocy of our development or the emptiness of our ideas of science, agriculture or governance. The 63rd anniversary of our Independence should provoke some concern about such issues.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Source : http://www.asianage.com/columnists/india’s-crisis-ethics-599