Watch Newt Gingrich's New Hampshire Primary Speech

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed a crowd of supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire after trailing in the state's primary, the first in the country. He told the crowd that "this campaign will go on to South Carolina," and
"we're going to prove that I both understand the principles and I understand the practice."

QUICK TAKE: Gingrich Raises Expectations for Romney to 50 Percent

 By Sarah Mimms

Updated: January 10, 2012 | 7:49 p.m.
January 10, 2012 | 6:34 p.m.

Newt Gingrich tried to raise expectations for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s performance, the presumptive front-runner in New Hampshire, during an appearance on CNN just hours before the polls closed.
“If he can’t break 50 percent in a state that is, I think, his third-best state after Utah and Massachusetts, it’s going to be interesting to see how he makes the case that he is the presumptive front-runner,” Gingrich said. “Yes, he has more votes but at no point so far has he come anywhere to having a convincing majority of Republicans.”
Gingrich’s prediction sets incredibly high expectations for Romney, who was polling at 41 percent in the most recent WMUR-University of New Hampshire, which was conducted Jan. 5-8. He received 32 percent of the vote in 2008. Gingrich attracted 8 percent of likely Republican voters in the same WMUR poll.
Gingrich said he expects Romney to come in “about where Paul Tsongas did when everyone thought he lost the election at about thirty-seven percent.”
As for his own prospects in New Hampshire, Gingrich said he expects to come in somewhere behind Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whom he predicted would take second place. Gingrich said he will likely end up “kind of bunched up in a group” with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Sen. Rick Santorum in the bottom of the pack.

 

QUICK TAKE: Gingrich: On to South Carolina

By Sarah Mimms

Updated: January 10, 2012 | 10:32 p.m.
January 10, 2012 | 10:18 p.m.

Newt Gingrich said he will not drop out of the Republican presidential race, despite a potential fourth- or fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
“This campaign is going on to South Carolina,” he told cheering supporters.
Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., were tied for fourth place as they took the stage simultaneously. The former speaker did not mention any of his Republican opponents.
Instead, he highlighted his pro-jobs message, saying that he wants to reach out to those “who would rather have paychecks than food stamps." Gingrich also spoke about his experience in Washington, a topic many of the Republican candidates have avoided for fear of being labeled an “insider.”
“We're going to prove that I both understand the principles and I understand the practice.… I believe if we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Gingrich presidency, it would be amazing how much we could get done and how rapidly we could get it done,” he told supporters.
Throughout his speech, Gingrich focused on the future of his campaign. “I’m asking each of you not to slow down,” he said. “The next couple days, make a list of every person you know in South Carolina and every person you know in Florida, because those are the next two great contests.”

 

 

Watch Rick Santorum New Hampshire Primary Speech

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January 10, 2012 C-SPAN
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QUICK TAKE: Santorum Chalks Romney's Success to N.H. Being His 'Backyard'

By Julia Edwards

Updated: January 10, 2012 | 10:34 p.m.
January 10, 2012 | 10:07 p.m.

 Even after enduring verbal lashings from prospective voters, hosting about a dozen contentious town halls, and failing to make a serious play for first place, Rick Santorum says he has no regrets about his decision to compete in the Granite State.
“I’ve known for a long time that New Hampshire is full of tough questions. People up here take their politics very seriously, and they study the issues very carefully,” Santorum told a National Journal/CBS News reporter as he shook hands with last-minute voters at a polling station at James Mastricola Upper Middle School on Tuesday evening. “So really, no surprises here.”
Asked whether he regrets coming to New Hampshire to compete in the Republican presidential primary, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania answered: “No! No. We feel very good. We think we got a lot of positive responses.”

Rick Santorum, slumping in New Hampshire after his near-victory in Iowa, told supporters “we wanted to respect the process here," even though the state was Mitt Romney"s "backyard."
Santorum was close to tying with Newt Gingrich for fourth place. The social-conservative platform that worked in his favor in Iowa was a disadvantage among New Hampshire voters who are typically more interested in fiscal conservatism. He acknowledged that it would be tough to do well in a state like New Hampshire, where, according to Santorum, “a lot of folks spend a lot of time, a lot of money,” a reference to Romney.
“We are going to go on to South Carolina. For those who would like to think that somehow or another that this race can be over in one or two states, states that have been, well, the backyard and the home of a certain candidate, who, by the way, I want to absolutely congratulate Mitt Romney for a great victory tonight.” Santorum said.
He encouraged the party to elect a “true conservative.”
Santorum's speech overlapped with Gingrich's and the two competed for airtime on TV networks.

Santorum: GOP Would Suffer Under Romney

By Ron Fournier

Updated: January 7, 2012 | 10:52 a.m.
January 7, 2012 | 10:08 a.m.

AP Photo/Charles Krupa

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum holds up a $20 bill during a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned Saturday that rival Mitt Romney would lead the GOP to defeat in the fall and, even if Romney won, the party would suffer under the former Massachusetts governor’s moderate leadership. “Even if we win,” Santorum said, “we lose.”
Santorum, a conservative former senator trying to slow Romney’s ascent in New Hampshire and South Carolina, declared that he will win the GOP nomination despite the GOP establishment backing Romney.
“I’m running against the establishment,” Santorum told reporters before addressing an Atlantic/National Journal conference on the economy and the electorate. The conference focused on 11 Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor surveys released since 2009.
“I’m the underdog,” Santorum said.
Santorum said his party has a habit of nominating moderate candidates who have been laying in wait and paying their dues. He said that’s not a good recipe for victory, pointing to the general election losses of John McCain in 2008 and Bob Dole in 1996.
“Its Mitt’s turn,” Santorum said sarcastically. “Look how well we’ve done with that.”
Romney might be capable of defeating President Obama, Santorum said, but even that would be a hollow victory, Santorum said, adding that Romney wouldn’t represent the party as well as he would.
“Even if we win, we lose,” Santorum said. “We need somebody who’s not just rearranging deck chairs.”

Ron Paul has two problems: One his, the other ours

Corey Robin teaches political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

The left needs its own Ron Paul, someone who raises issues of an end to empire and civil liberties in a forceful way. Last Modified: 05 Jan 2012 09:49

Ron Paul is a distinctly American type of libertarian [GALLO/GETTY]

Brooklyn, NY - Ron Paul has two problems. One is his and the larger conservative movement of which he is a part. The other is ours - by which I mean a left that is committed to both economic democracy and anti-imperialism.
Ron Paul's problem is not merely the racist newsletters, the close ties with Lew Rockwell, his views on abortion, or even his stance on the 1964 Civil Rights Act - though these automatically disqualify him from my support. His real problem is his fundamentalist commitment to federalism, which would make any notion of human progress in this country impossible.
Federalism has a long and problematic history in this country - it lies at the core of the maintenance of slavery and white supremacy; it was consistently invoked as the basis for opposition to the welfare state; it has been, contrary to many of its defenders, one of the cornerstones of some of the most repressive moments in our nation's history - and though liberals used to be clear about its regressive tendencies, they've grown soft on it in recent years. As the liberal Yale constitutional law scholar Akhil Reed Amar put it not so long ago:

"Once again, populism and federalism-liberty and localism-work together; We the People conquer government power by dividing it between the two rival governments, state and federal."

As I've argued repeatedly on this blog and elsewhere, the path forward for the left lies in the alliance between active social movements on the ground and a strong national state. There is simply no other way, at least not that I am aware of, to break the back of the private autocracies that oppress us all.
Even people, no, especially people who focus on Paul's position on the drug war should think about the perils of his federalism. There are 2 million people in prison in this country. At most, 10 per cent of them are in federal prisons; the rest are in state and local prisons. If Paul ended the drug war, maybe 1/2 of those in federal prison would be released. Definitely a step, but it has to be weighed against his radical embrace of whatever it is that states and local governments do.
Paul is a distinctively American type of libertarian: one that doesn't have a critique of the state so much as a critique of the federal government. That's a very different kettle of fish. I think libertarianism is problematic enough - in that it ignores the whole realm of social domination (or thinks that realm is entirely dependent upon or a function of the existence of the state or thinks that it can be remedied by the persuasive and individual actions of a few good souls) - but a states-rights-based libertarianism is a social disaster.
So that's his problem.
Our problem-and again by "our" I mean a left that's social democratic (or welfare state liberal or economically progressive or whatever the hell you want to call it) and anti-imperial - is that we don't really have a vigorous national spokesperson for the issues of war and peace, an end to empire, a challenge to Israel, and so forth, that Paul has in fact been articulating.  The source of Paul's positions on these issues are not the same as ours (again more reason not to give him our support).  But he is talking about these issues, often in surprisingly blunt and challenging terms. Would that we had someone on our side who could make the case against an American empire, or American supremacy, in such a pungent way.
This, it's clear, is why people like Glenn Greenwald say that Paul's voice needs to be heard. Not, Greenwald makes clear, because he supports Paul, but because it is a terrible comment - a shanda for the left - that we don't have anyone on our side of comparable visibility launching an attack on American imperialism and warfare. (Recalling what I said in the context of the death of Christopher Hitchens, I suspect this has something to do with our normalisation and acceptance of war as a way of life.) In other words, we need to listen to Paul, not because he’s worthy of our support, and certainly not because the reasons that underlie his positions on foreign policy are ours, but because he reveals what’s not being said, or not being said enough, on our side.
There is a long history in this country of the left not paying too much attention to the ways in which our leaders do things that set the stage for worse things to come. J Edgar Hoover got a tremendous amount of traction under FDR and the New Deal because he was perceived to be a spit-and-polish, professional crime fighter. So trusted and hailed was he by liberals and progressives - when he worked for their leaders - that it was none other than Arthur Schlesinger, in The Vital Center (1949), who urged Americans to put their trust in Hoover rather than in the Red hunters of the far right:

All Americans must bear in mind J. Edgar Hoover's warning that counter-espionage is no field for amateurs. We need the best professional counter-espionage agency we can get to protect our national security.

In 1950, William Keller reports in his essential The Liberals and J Edgar Hoover, while Truman was still president, Hubert Humphrey took to the floor of the Senate to declare:

If the FBI does not have enough trained manpower to do this job, then, for goodness sake, let us give the FBI the necessary funds for recruiting the manpower it needs… This is a job that must be done by experts.

Yet, as Ellen Schrecker rightly argued in Many Are the Crimes, her definitive account of McCarthyism:

"Had observers known in the 1950s what they have learned since the 1970s, when the Freedom of Information Act opened the Bureau's files, 'McCarthyism' would probably be called 'Hooverism'. For the FBI was the bureaucratic heart of the McCarthy era."

In the last week, liberals and progressives have been arguing about these issues; Digby has been especially cogent and worth listening to. The only thing I have to add to that debate is this: both sides are right. Not in a the-truth-lies-somewhere-in-between sort of way. Nor in a can't-we-all-get-along sort of way. No, both sides are right in the sense that I laid out above: Ron Paul is unacceptable, and it’s unacceptable that we don't have someone on the left who is raising the issues of imperialism, war and peace, and civil liberties in as visible and forceful a way.
Corey Robin teaches political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin and Fear: The History of a Political Idea. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harper's, the London Review of Books, and elsewhere. He received his PhD from Yale and his A.B. from Princeton. You can read Corey's blog here.
Follow him on Twitter: @CoreyRobin
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Why the Tea Party needs Mitt

Thomas Frank is the "Easy Chair" columnist for Harper's Magazine and the founding editor of The Baffler.

Why do Tea Party members despise Mitt Romney despite him upholding many of their core ideals? Last Modified: 10 Jan 2012 13:08 inShare10

Mitt Romney: The hero the Tea Partiers deserve and really need right now [GALLO/GETTY] Washington, DC - Dear Tea Party Movement, For the past few months, the world has been fascinated by your frenzied search for a presidential candidate who is not Mitt Romney. We know that you find the man inauthentic and that you have buoyed up a string of anti-Mitts in the Iowa polling - Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich - buffoons all, preposterous figures whom you have rightfully changed your minds about as soon as you got to know them. It was quite a spectacle, your quest for the non-Romney - and I think we all know why you undertook it. In ways that matter, Romney is clearly a problem for you. His views on abortion, for example, change with the winds. Ditto, gay rights. He designed the Massachusetts health insurance system that was the model for Obamacare. And he's even said that he approved of the TARP bank bailout, the abomination that ignited the Tea Party uprising in the first place. Grievous offences all, I have no doubt. Still, my advice to you idealists of the right is this: get over it. Not for sell-out reasons like the idea that Romney has the best chance of beating Obama. No. You should get behind the charging Massachusetts RINO (your favorite term for a Republican-In-Name-Only sellout type) because, in a certain paradoxical way, he may turn out to be the truest of all the candidates to the spirit of your movement. After all, given everything you represent, why wouldn't you line up behind this quarter-billionaire who's calling for just a little human love and sympathy for billionaires? I'm sure you already understand me perfectly well, but just to be certain, let me make the case. The gimme candidate of 2012  Romney remains in pole position after debate Start with those issues where Romney's positions so offend the sensibilities of you Robespierre Republicans. First, of course, the social issues. If nothing else, you in the Tea Party movement have spent the past three years teaching Americans that they no longer matter - not when we're supposedly in a battle for the very soul of capitalism. And here comes Mitt Romney, the soul of US capitalism in the flesh. Look back over his career as a predator drone at Bain Capital: Isn't it the exact sort of background you always insist politicians ought to have? Isn't it the sort of titanic enterprise for which you lust, as you wave your copy of Atlas Shrugged in the air? You accuse the former Massachusetts governor of opportunism, but from where I stand, the bad faith is all on your side. What offends you about Romney's Massachusetts healthcare plan, for example, isn't that it crushes human liberty, but that it provided the model for President Obama's own healthcare overhaul, which you spent the past two years decrying as the deed of a power-grabbing socialist. If the public ever learns about the Republican provenance of Obamacare - and if Romney is the candidate, they most certainly will - it will become obvious that your movement was not telling the truth about all that Kenyan Stalinist death-panel stuff. It is indeed a moment to fear, that day when the nation finds out that you were, ahem, exaggerating in your bullhorn pronouncements about the communist in the White House. Still, if the Tea Party movement is all about truth-telling and straight shooting, then you need to face it like a patriot. And yes, Mitt Romney has also said that the bank bailouts of 2008 to 2009 were necessary, while you regard them as a mortal sin against free-market principles. (To his credit though, at least in your eyes, he was also a total hardliner about the auto industry bailouts, displaying the pointless meanness you seem to admire in nearly any other politician.) In truth, though, the candidate's only offence on the bailout question was his candour. He merely admitted what should be obvious to any billionaire from a study of bank history: that conservatives have no problem doling out, or grabbing for, government money when the chips are down. After all, President Herbert Hoover himself distributed bank bailouts in the early years of the Great Depression. Calvin Coolidge's vice-president, Charles Dawes, helped out in Hoover's bailout operation, later changing hats and grabbing a big slice of the bailout pie for his own bank. Ronald Reagan's administration rescued Continental Illinois from what was then the largest bank failure in our history. In-depth coverage of the US presidential election Citibank's market-worshipping CEO Walter Wriston begged for (and of course received) the assistance of big government when Citi needed it - after making loans to the troubled Penn Central Railroad. And don't forget, every single one of you is guilty of taking a government bailout any time you make a withdrawal from a bank that's been rescued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The reason they - I mean, you - do these things should be as obvious as it is simple: "free market" has always been a high-minded way of saying "gimme", and when the heat rises, the "market" is invariably replaced by more direct methods, such as demanding bailouts from the government you hate. Banks get bailouts for the simple reason that they want bailouts and have the power to insist on them - the same circumstances that got them deregulated in wave after wave in the eighties, nineties and the aughts. In this sense, Romney, who is loud and proud when it comes to the need for further deregulation, has actually been more consistent than you. He's the gimme candidate of 2012 and so he should really be your guy. Promethean job creators "You say Romney is an unprincipled faker. Fair enough - he is ... but have you looked in the mirror recently?" You say Romney is an unprincipled faker. Fair enough - he is. He's so plastic he's almost animatronic. But have you looked in the mirror recently? Aren't you the ones who fall for it every time Fox News wheels out some Washington hack to confuse this or that corporate issue with the sacred cause of freedom or states' rights or man's inalienable right to mine uranium in his backyard? Aren't you the ones who thought that Glenn Beck's tears were markers of emotional sincerity? And for Pete's sake, your populist Tea Party movement was actually launched from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade! I know, I know: for almost three years now you've dazzled the world with your proclamations that we're being dragged into "tyranny", that the country is being "destroyed", that the US needs to be "saved" - and now here comes Mitt, with his fondness for workaday compromise, ruining your carefully contrived atmosphere of panic. That must be disappointing, but don't lose the faith. Give the man credit: he has tried. He's no stranger to the core Tea Party myth of the noble businessman persecuted by big government. Indeed, at the Conservative Political Action Congress in 2009, he opened his talk as a stand-up comic this way: "I gotta get through this speech before federal officials come here and arrest me for practicing capitalism." Meanwhile, he has the perfect Tea Party sense of social class. A centimillionaire who made his pile as a venture capitalist, Romney has both deplored class warfare - meaning, certain criticisms of Wall Street - and practiced it, taunting President Obama as a modern version of Marie ("let them eat cake") Antoinette. There's no contradiction in any of this, either for him or you. When someone has made his way in life via academia, such as the president, he is, of course, a snob, and part of the ruling elite. When, on the other hand, a person's multi-millions were visited upon him by open-market actions directed from the C-suite, he is automatically a man of the people, a horny-handed son of toil. In fact, Romney takes this kind of market populism a step farther than you ordinarily dare: corporations, he famously announced, are themselves people. And keep in mind that, with Mitt Romney, venture capitalist, carrying your banner in 2012, you will finally get to submit your capsized vision of social class to the verdict of the people - the actual flesh-and-blood people, that is, not the corporate "people" who make up the S&P 500. You will get to defend exactly the sort of "person" your movement has longed to defend since it was birthed by a CNBC reporter almost three years ago to the cheers of a bunch of derivatives traders in Chicago. Inside Story US 2012 - Does Romney's Iowa win really matter? You will get to explain your peculiar conviction that the way to react to a gigantic slump brought on by frenzied finance is to unshackle Wall Street. You will get to line up behind a heroic businessman, like those rugged, resourceful fellows in the Ayn Rand novels you love. You will get to go into battle for the job creators, which is what all capitalists are, right? (Well, okay, maybe not the guys at Bain Capital, the particular outfit where Romney made his pile, but the theory is all that really matters, isn't it?) Indeed, your leadership cadre is already playing up the inevitable criticisms of Romney as a job decimator as a way of launching a grand debate about capitalism - by which they mean, of course, freedom itself. When Newt Gingrich criticised Romney a few weeks ago for his career in private equity, the airwaves of your winger-tainment world exploded with outrage. "This is the kind of risk-taking, free-market capitalism that most people who call themselves conservatives applaud," intoned Brit Hume on Fox News. If Newt had a problem with Bain's operations, announced syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, "then Gingrich really doesn't believe in capitalism at all". Washington Post columnist George Will declared that what Romney did in his venture capitalist days was an "essential social function", that his company was "indispensable for wealth creation". (Just whose wealth was being created he left discreetly undefined.) Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Centre and a familiar figure at Tea Party events, is no fan of Romney's, but he had this to say about Romney's career: "Private equity serves an incredibly important productive function in our economy ... Private equity is in my view a heroic activity." "In Romney we have finally found a quarter-billionaire to cry for." "Heroic": that's exactly the word. In Romney we have finally found a quarter-billionaire to cry for. And so Suzy Welch, author and wife of Jack, appeared on Fox Business to wonder why Romney wasn't defending himself aggressively against criticism of his business career. Romney, she announced, is "an American hero to people who believe in free enterprise, or he should be". And that combination of tragedy and heroism, my friends, is why you will soon be signing up for the Romney juggernaut. In him you will see the saintly victimhood of Sarah Palin melded with the Promethean job-creator who was the cult object of your 2010 efforts. Social issues be damned. Romney will ensure that we get the one thing that this country can't do without on its path to hell: further deregulation of Wall Street. The nation's all-powerful elitist socialists will, of course, disagree, and you'll have a field day, raging and weeping at the way they are going to set out to persecute this noble, wealth-creating soul. Pity the billionaire: it will be a powerful rallying cry for 2012. Yours in petulant individualism, Tom Thomas Frank is the author of the just-published Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right (Metropolitan Books). He has also written The Wrecking Crew, What's the Matter With Kansas? and several other abrasive volumes. He is the "Easy Chair" columnist for Harper's Magazine and the founding editor of The Baffler. A version of this article first appeared on TomDispatch.com. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. Everybody hates Newt Romney Neither Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich pose a threat to President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, says author. ( 02-Dec-2011 ) The inevitability of Mitt Romney Mitt Romney embraces the Neocons Romney dodges blows at first post-Iowa debate

The political psychology of Obama's Iran policy

Obama's Iran policies are falling prey to the same mistakes that overwhelmed the four previous administrations.
Last Modified: 10 Jan 2012 16:11

Reza Marashi
  is Director of Research at the National Iranian American Council.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new sanctions against Iran in an attempt to bolster their diplomatic efforts [GALLO/GETTY]

Washington, DC, United States - The Obama administration spent much of 2009 implementing a historic policy shift towards Iran. To its credit, a noticeable change in tone on the part of the US government vis-a-vis Iran was followed by private messages from President Obama to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on how the US and Iran might practically set up dialogue.
Then-Undersecretary for Political Affairs William Burns met privately with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, emphasising the United States' desire for dialogue and finding new ways to engage on a range of issues - nuclear and otherwise.
After an interim confidence-building measure was agreed upon, Tehran balked. It was unable to sell the agreement at home in amid intense political fratricide.
With Congress coming at the Obama administration like a steamroller, Washington quietly abandoned diplomacy in favour of punitive measures. In 2010, the US withdrew its initial support for a revised confidence-building measure brokered by Turkey and Brazil, and instead led the charge for a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution.
The last meeting between Iran and the P5+1, in January 2011, ended with both sides refusing to budge from their respective entrenched positions. Since then, a powder keg overflowing with sanctions, stuxnet viruses, secret assassinations and dangerous threats of war have shown how easily a single incident can spark a wider conflict.
How did the "mutual interest and mutual respect" of 2009 revert back to "all options are on the table" in 2012?
Privately, senior US officials acknowledge they underestimated both the obstacles to normalising relations with Iran, and the difficulty of understanding Iranian government's decision-making. Yet these same officials increasingly believe that recycling demonstrably failed policies of pressure and containment will provide leverage, bring Iran to the negotiating table and perhaps hasten the end of the regime. As the drumbeat of war intensifies, it is crucial to understand the political psychology of Obama's Iran policy.

The turning point
Despite their best efforts, Turkey and Brazil had little chance of securing nuclear concessions from Iran that the US would have deemed acceptable. In private telephone conversations prior to the May 2010 Tehran summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered tough messages to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and then-Brazilian President Lula da Silva: go to Tehran, see for yourself that Iran is not interested in a deal, then get on board with the UN sanctions process.
Rather than capitalise on Iranian concessions and test the Islamic Republic's ability to follow through, the Turkish-Brazilian initiative was perceived by Washington as part of a larger Iranian strategy to divide the international community and give sanctions naysayers something to hang their hats on.

Inside Story: Is Iran still defiant?

As the United States built up support for new UN sanctions in late 2009





and early 2010, most administration officials privately accepted the improbability of securing "yes" votes from Turkey, Brazil or Lebanon. Only a minority inside the administration argued that the troika would support a new sanctions resolution precisely because of how watered down it was.
The US acknowledged from the outset that any new Security Council resolution would be watered down and lack unanimity, with significant portions written in non-binding language.
Thus, UN Security Council sanctions secured in June 2010 under Obama's watch must be considered a failure - after nearly two years of working closely with the international community on Iran policy, the administration failed to secure a resolution as robust as the previous three ushered in by the wildly unpopular Bush administration.
The US pushed forward with a sanctions-based approach largely because key administration officials believed that sanctions strengthened the credibility and leverage of those who wanted to engage Iran, while preventing more violent actions by Israel.
They insisted that such an approach best addressed the myriad long-term mutual interests shared by the US and Iran. President Obama himself reached the conclusion that there were too few negative incentives to affect Iran's internal calculus, particularly regarding mutual interests. Based on this rationale, a policy of increasing pressure on Iran was constructed, predicated on the assumption that pressure would:

• Bring the Iranians to the negotiating table
• Affect Iran's internal calculus
• Strengthen the credibility and leverage of the pro-engagement camps
• Prevent more violent actions by Israel

As a general matter, senior administration officials believe US leverage vis-a-vis Iran is at its highest immediately before a new set of sanctions hits, which in turn provides political space to carry out "low-key engagement activities" with Iran. To date, few such activities have taken place, largely because US outreach has been reactive rather than proactive, so as to avoid impairing sanctions implementation.

Bush administration redux?
Despite its push for new sanctions, the vast majority of Obama administration officials privately acknowledge that sanctions are not a policy in and of themselves - even if they have in fact become the only policy pursued. This disconnect is reflective of the existing divisions on Iran within the White House, the absence of a concrete policy towards Iran and a reliance on tactics rather than strategy.
Over the past three years, two schools of thought about Iran have emerged within the administration. The first camp equates US security with Iranian democracy. It seeks to hasten a "colour" revolution in Iran by emphasising human rights and fortifying opposition groups in hopes of gaining the trust of the Iranian people and encouraging them to rebel.
The second camp points out that the US and Iran share too many common interests to ignore, including on Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. The resulting policy has become an attempt at compromise - publicly reiterating US commitment to diplomacy, but applying pressure to tip the scale to the more hardline end.

"Few in the Obama administration believe this mix of punitive measures will compel Iran to change its policies or its behaviour."

Most US officials believe keeping Iran's file in the UN Security Council (a political body) versus the IAEA (a technical body) supports a legal case for punitive measures by providing concrete evidence on the diversion of Iran's civilian nuclear programme toward military use. Nevertheless, these same officials acknowledge that Russia and China will veto any severe economic sanctions.
The Obama administration also realises that a military attack on Iran's nuclear installations by the United States or Israel remains a tough sell outside of Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv, as none of the aforementioned capitals have found the proverbial "smoking gun".
Here, senior Obama administration officials privately acknowledge two key points:

• A preference for continuing to incrementally increase both Security Council and "coalition of the willing" sanctions
• The risk/benefit ratio of an attack does not make sense, particularly losing the "pro-American" people of Iran

As such, in the future, the US will likely move forward with a policy of "coalition of the willing" sanctions with the EU and other allies, targeting Iran's financial and energy sector - foreign investment and financial transactions between Iran and multi-national corporations, including banks.
Together with Security Council resolutions, these unilateral sanctions seek to tighten the screws on Iran and reduce its financial manoeuverability. Yet few in the Obama administration believe this mix of punitive measures will compel Iran to change its policies or behaviour. Beyond the existing policy of sanctions, the administration does not have a policy in place for moving forwards.

The military's growing influence
US Central Command (CENTCOM) - the combatant command responsible for overseeing US security interests in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa - has standard planning objectives that provide the president with a set of military options to deal with Iran.
At present, there are essentially three scenarios for Obama to choose from:

• Punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and support for terrorism
• Set back Iran's nuclear programme as significantly as possible
• Contain and change the Iranian regime

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and CENTCOM Commander James Mattis, whose areas of command include Iraq and Afghanistan, have a keen interest in Iran because of its regional influence. For these reasons, they know that war with Iran is not viable - risking regional chaos and breaking the back of the US military.
Privately, Dempsey and Mattis both acknowledge that sanctions will also not work because they fail to achieve the primary US objective - changing Iranian government policies and behaviour. As a result, these men will be a leading voice inside the Obama administration, publicly encouraging diplomacy and communication while privately probing an unofficial long-term policy of containment and below-the-radar efforts to destabilise the Iranian government.
As the US moves away from sustained diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government, US military commanders will become an increasingly important voice on Iran policy - perhaps trumped only by President Obama himself.
Dempsey and Mattis are particularly influential. Nobody on the political right can attack them, few can say "no" to them and they have a nearly unrivalled ability to convince Congress and the administration on key national security issues. Even Obama is inclined to go along with their recommendations - a president can rarely go wrong politically when he says: "I'm going to listen to my generals."
Neither Obama nor his generals will advocate for the military to engage in the first two CENTCOM scenarios. In their view, the likelihood of failure far outweighs the chances of success. However, all three men increasingly believe that developing a strategy for the third scenario - containing and changing the regime - will provide political cover for the US to avoid engaging in kinetic tactics.
They acknowledge the "moderate risk" associated with influence operations and support for opposition groups inside Iran, but nonetheless seek to better understand what outreach to the various facets of Iran's disenchanted society might look like, including to opposition politicians, major industry, labour and transportation unions, government employees, bazaar merchants and oil workers.
They also seek to understand how the US can help these amorphous groups organise and coalesce. This long-term policy option is seen as providing flexibility, even if plans go awry. Barring a major and unforeseen Iranian concession on the nuclear front, this policy trajectory will be difficult to disrupt.

The US track record of implementing containment and destabilisation policies worldwide is far from noteworthy. In the case of Iran, it is abysmal.
With no on-the-ground presence and restricted interaction with Iranian counterparts, the US is largely unable to accurately assess the real strengths and weaknesses of any policy. As a result, US policy towards Iran under the Obama administration is rapidly falling prey to the same entrapments and mistakes that overwhelmed the four preceding US administrations.
Reza Marashi is Director of Research at the National Iranian American Council and a former Iran desk officer at the US Department of State.
Follow him on Twitter: @rezamarashi
A version of this article first appeared on Muftah.org.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Pushing Iran towards a nuclear bomb

Western leaders' current tactics to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons will likely backfire, writes author. ( 04-Jan-2012 )

US vows to stay in Gulf despite Iran warning

Iran blasts West's embargo as 'economic war'

Banning Iran's oil 

Iran nuclear scientist 'killed' by car bomb

 

The New York Times misleading public on Iran

The paper has made faulty allegations about Iran's nuclear programme without running proper corrections. Last Modified: 09 Jan 2012 18:44

The NYT retracted questionable claims in an online article without informing their readers [GALLO/GETTY]

Washington, DC, United States - It's deja vu all over again. AIPAC is trying to trick the United States into another catastrophic war with a Middle Eastern country on behalf of the Likud Party's colonial ambitions, and the New York Times is misleading the public with allegations that say that the country is developing "weapons of mass destruction".
In an article attributed to Steven Erlanger on January 4 ("Europe Takes Bold Step Toward a Ban on Iranian Oil"), this paragraph appeared:

The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear programme has a military objective, is becoming an important issue in the American presidential campaign [emphasis my own].

The claim that there is "a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear programme has a military objective" is misguided.
As Washington Post's Ombudsman Patrick Pexton noted on December 9:

But the IAEA report does not say Iran has a bomb, nor does it say it is building one, only that its multiyear effort pursuing nuclear technology is sophisticated and broad enough that it could be consistent with building a bomb.

Indeed, if you try now to find the offending paragraph on the New York Times website, you can't. They took it down. But there is no note, like there is supposed to be, acknowledging that they changed the article, and that there was something wrong with it before. Sneaky, huh?
You can still find the original here.
Indeed (at least at the time of writing), if you go to the New York Times website and search with the phrase "military objective", the article pops right up. But if you open the article, the text is gone. But again, there is no explanatory note saying that they changed the text.
Note that in other contexts, the New York Times claims to be quite punctilious about corrections.
This is not an isolated example in the Times' reporting. On the very same day, January 4, they published another article, attributed to Clifford Krauss ("Oil Price Would Skyrocket if Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz"), that contained the following paragraph:

Various Iranian officials in recent weeks have said they would blockade the strait, which is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, if the United States and Europe imposed a tight oil embargo on their country in an effort to thwart its development of nuclear weapons [emphasis again my own].

At time of writing, that text is still on the New York Times website.
Of course, referring to Iran's "development of nuclear weapons" without qualification implies that it is a known fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. But it is not a known fact: It is an allegation. Indeed, when US officials are speaking publicly for the record, they say the opposite.
As Washington Post's Ombudsman Patrick Pexton also noted on December 9:

This is what the US director of national intelligence, James R Clapper, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March: "We continue to assess [that] Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

To demand a correction, you can write to the New York Times here. To write a letter to the editor, you can write here. To complain to the New York Times' Public Editor, you write here.
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

New Hampshire: Live free or die

Sometimes I get better coverage from news if I go outside the country.  Hmmmmmmmm.  I wonder Why?
Seeking a more accessible political climate, almost 1,000 libertarian-leaning migrants have moved to New Hampshire. Sam Bollier Last Modified: 11 Jan 2012 12:57

 In 2010, a wave of Free Staters won seats in New Hampshire’s House of Representatives [Thomas Bollier/Al Jazeera]

Loudon, New Hampshire - Yesterday, Republicans in the state of New Hampshire voted for their presidential nominee in the first primary in the nation.
With all eyes on the horse race between the six major Republican candidates, some interesting political trends within the state of New Hampshire itself have gone unexamined. The state - with an official motto of "Live Free or Die" - has a political culture steeped in a small-government mindset. And partly for that reason, almost 1,000 political migrants have moved to New Hampshire over the past several years as part of the Free State Project.
The idea behind the Free State Project began ten years ago. Jason Sorens - a libertarian, who believes in minimal government involvement in society and the economy - lamented the fact that few libertarians were being elected to public office in the US.

In-depth coverage of the US presidential election

So Sorens proposed that 20,000 libertarian-minded US citizens "establish residence in a small state and take over the state government". Members would pledge to work at "reducing government to the minimal functions of protecting life, liberty and property".
The Free State Project (FSP) was founded soon thereafter. In 2003, FSP participants voted to move to the northeastern state of New Hampshire, in part because of its low taxes and few regulations. Some participants also pointed out that New Hampshire, with a deep-water port and international border with Canada, could be a viable independent state if it were to secede from the rest of the US.
With a small population and the largest state legislature in the country, New Hampshire is also a relatively easy place to get elected to office.
The FSP itself has a limited scope; its only goal as an organisation is to convince pledge signers to move to New Hampshire. Once they move, participants are under no obligation to run for office or be politically active.

The Free State Project's mascot is the porcupine because - in the words of one participant - 'it's a peaceful gentle creature, but you don't want to miss with him'.

But there are some commonly held tenets. Sorens said FSP participants tend to think there should be big cuts in government spending and taxation, greater school choice for parents, "more of a market- and charity-oriented approach" to health care, and looser laws against marijuana, among others.
Since 2003, more than 11,000 people have pledged to move to New Hampshire, but just under a thousand people have actually moved.
Yet although fewer than the 20,000 initially called for, Free Staters have had an outsized influence on state politics - and many are quite active in the Republican primary as well.
Wave of support
The midterm elections in 2010 - widely seen as a backlash against President Obama and the Democratic Party - were a major success for Republicans. The party gained 63 seats in the federal House of Representatives and won big victories at the state level, too.
The landslide gave New Hampshire Republicans a lopsided 295-105 majority in the state House of Representatives. As many as 14 candidates identifying as "Free Staters" were elected - all as Republicans - as well as many more libertarian-leaning legislators not affiliated with the FSP. Libertarians tend to feel ideologically closer to the Republican Party, which has historically favoured a smaller federal government.
Since 2010, the New Hampshire state legislature has passed many measures favoured by libertarians that cut the state budget, reduce the size of government, and loosen regulations on businesses. A bill co-sponsored by two Free Stater legislators, among others, expanded New Hampshirites' ability to legally use deadly force for self-defence. And a largely Republican committee did away with a ban on guns in the statehouse.
When the state legislature began a new session last week, several bills quickly passed the House. One lets parents exempt their children from course material in school that they find objectionable; another prevents universities from banning firearms on campus; another removes some regulations on insurance companies. It remains unclear, however, whether these bills will be signed into law.

Unlike neighbouring states, New Hampshire’s political culture is suffused with a streak of libertarianism [Thomas Bollier/Al Jazeera]

Not all of the legislation's success can be chalked up to the efforts of Free Stater lawmakers - after all, they still number just over a dozen out of a chamber of 400.
But one FSP participant and legislator says that he now thinks only a few thousand people need to move to New Hampshire in order to achieve the project's goals. "I think if we get two or three thousand people here, game over. We'll be able to achieve what a lot of people want."
And Don Gorman, a New Hampshire native and former state legislator who works on campaigns for libertarian-leaning candidates, said the FSP participants in the legislature "support each other. They’re very independent as individuals, but they're a very tight-knit group".
Of the project's opponents, he said: "They're standing there jumping up and down throwing rocks, and we're quietly going and getting elected to this and that and the other thing."
Differences in method
State legislator and FSP participant Jennifer Coffey, however, downplays Free Staters' unity. Despite common goals, she says they're "not all cut from the same cloth". Many are interested in electoral politics, though a minority - about one-third, estimates Sorens - leans towards protests and civil disobedience instead.
Garret Ean is one of the latter. Ean, a 23-year-old who moved to New Hampshire in 1996 (before the FSP came into being), is involved with Occupy New Hampshire and runs a website that provides news about civil liberties activism in the state, often focusing on abuses of police power. Ean said he felt impelled to start the site in 2010 after several arrests in New Hampshire of people filming police officers on duty.
Some FSP participants - especially in western New Hampshire towns such as Keene - have held demonstrations that are legal, but controversial. For instance, in 2009, 18-year-old Cassidy Nicosia walked through Keene topless with a handgun strapped to her hip, causing a small uproar. Others do break the law: Some Free Staters have publicly played drinking games and smoked marijuana in downtown Keene to protest laws against what they say are victimless crimes.
The different approaches can cause tension. Coffey, who's twice co-sponsored a bill that would legalise medicinal marijuana, complained that some FSP participants' civil disobedience had undermined her work. "They were doing protests, and smoking dope, and violating the law, and creating what I thought was a negative scene, and it did cost us some votes."
The pushback
Meanwhile, some New Hampshirites resent what they see as a stealth campaign by FSP participants to gain political power in the state. Others are alarmed by participants' adamant small-government positions.
Victoria Parmele, a member of the town planning board in Northwood, New Hampshire, is wary of Free State Project participants’ approach towards state politics. "It takes some time to understand New Hampshire, and to consider whether libertarianism truly has a role to play in this state," said Parmele, an environmentalist opposed to bills backed by Free Stater legislators that would defund the state rail authority and end an energy efficiency programme. "I'd like to have a public discussion on this, as opposed to this 'we've decided that New Hampshire should be our bastion of liberty'."
And Caitlin Rollo, a former Democratic state representative, said that many FSP participants running for election in 2010 "did not advertise who they are, or what they're about, or that they moved to our state with the intent of running for public office to change our political system".
Of the FSP participants currently serving as state representatives, few mention the Free State Project on their personal websites. In August 2011, a local newspaper published an editorial charging that there had been "a concerted effort" on the part of the state Republican Party "to avoid an open and full discussion" of the fact that one of its candidates, Honey Puterbaugh, was an FSP participant.
Free Stater legislators say they don't deny their participation in the project. "I've always been honest and upfront about it if someone's asked me," said Coffey. And Cameron DeJong, a state representative from Manchester, explained that he does not mention the Free State Project on his website because of the media’s negative coverage. "They portray the side of the Free State Project that comes from places like Keene," he said.
DeJong stressed a conciliatory approach. "The key to the success has been those of us that have come here in the sense of saying, 'We're not here to take your state over. We're here to live beside you; we're here to be your neighbour, your friend. We're here to do what we can to fit in'."
Leaning towards Paul
New Hampshire votes on January 10 in the Republican Party's presidential primary. Could Free State participants make a difference in the outcome?
Purely on a numbers level, they're not likely to have a huge impact. Almost 235,000 people voted in the New Hampshire Republican primary in 2008, dwarfing the 985 people who have moved to the state as part of the Free State Project. And, says Coffey, FSP participants are in "every different camp", supporting candidates from Newt Gingrich to Jon Huntsman to Rick Santorum.
But a majority of Free Staters seem to support Texas congressman Ron Paul, whose opposition to US military intervention and a powerful federal government resonates with libertarians. At a Paul rally in Nashua, Scott Carlson - a high school teacher who recently moved from Chicago to New Hampshire as an FSP participant - said he admired Paul's opposition to legislation such as the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would expand the federal government's power over content on the internet; and the National Defence Authorisation Act, which allows for the indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial. "A lot of these police state things - I think it's really a shame," said Carlson.
A sizeable contingent of Free Staters had backed former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson for president - and some still do. But after Johnson dropped out of the Republican race to run for president as a member of the Libertarian Party, FSP participant Denis Goddard says "virtually everyone is now Ron Paul".
Free Staters' numbers may not be huge, but those that are involved in the Paul campaign are passionate. FSP participants are responsible for making many of the huge Ron Paul banners currently draped across overpasses on New Hampshire highways. And Ean says a political action committee affiliated with Paul’s campaign held a fundraiser with FSP participants in Manchester.
DeJong, the co-chair of Ron Paul's campaign in the city of Manchester, estimates that about 400 of the almost 1,000 Free Staters in New Hampshire are actively involved in the campaign, phone banking and going door-to-door to talk to potential voters about Ron Paul.
"That's a number we wouldn't have without the Free State Project."

Infographic: US presidential election 2012

Explaining logistics of major quadrennial vote, from party primaries to conventions and electoral college. Ben Willers Last Modified: 09 Jan 2012 20:01   @AJEnglish: Visualization showing nuances of presidential election year in #US from #NewHampshire primary to Nov 6

Frontrunner Romney wins New Hampshire

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Jan 10, 2012

New Hampshire, the home of the first primary in the US presidential campaign for Republicans, has decided its choice in favour of Mitt Romney.Libertarian candidate Ron Paul was on the second spot, while Jon Huntsman managed to take third place.
Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports from Manchester in New Hampshire.

Ex-Massachusetts governor consolidates status as Republican leader with victory in first primary of US election race. Last Modified: 11 Jan 2012 13:39

Mitt Romney has won the New Hampshire primary, building on his first-place finish in last week's Iowa caucuses and establishing himself as the man to beat for the Republican US presidential nomination.

Final results showed the former Massachusetts governor with 39 per cent of the vote, followed by Texas congressman Ron Paul with 23 per cent and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman with 17 per cent.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum trailed with 10 per cent and nine per cent, respectively, while Rick Perry, the governor of Texas who did not campaign in the state, polled just one per cent of votes.

Romney, who became the first non-incumbent Republican candidate to place first in both Iowa and New Hampshire in decades, said his latest win had "made history" and looked ahead to the next primary in South Carolina on January 21 as he established himself as the clear favourite to take on Barack Obama in November's presidential election.

"Americans know that our future is brighter and better than these troubled times," said Romney in front of a cheering crowd.

"The president has run out of ideas. Now, he's running out of excuses. And tonight, we are asking the good people of South Carolina to join the citizens of New Hampshire and make 2012 the year he runs out of time."

In-depth coverage of the US presidential election

Paul, a libertarian candidate who has found favour among so-called "Tea Party" conservatives, told supporters: "I sort of have to chuckle when they describe you and me as dangerous. They're telling the truth because we are dangerous to the status quo... We have had a victory for the cause of liberty tonight."

Huntsman and Santorum, who narrowly lost the Iowa caucuses, both told their supporters that they would continue their campaigns to South Carolina, with Huntsman drawing satisfaction from a late surge that pushed him into third place.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're in the hunt!" he said at a rally. "I'd say third place is a ticket to ride!"

The New Hampshire primary is the traditional starting gun in the US primaries season, although in recent elections it has been preceded by the Iowa caucuses.

Although only 12 delegates are at stake, it is considered an important early test of a candidate's chances in a state that is typically more conservative than its New England neighbours.

Romney now has 18 delegates, but needs at least 1,144 from across the country to secure the nomination, with 50 up for grabs in Florida on January 31, 155 in Texas on April 3, and 95 in New York on April 24.

Eleven states hold Republican primaries on March 6, dubbed "Super Tuesday", while California, with 172 delegates at stake, does not vote until June, by which time the identity of the presumptive nominee will probably already have been decided.

'Paul phenomenon'Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Manchester, New Hampshire, said: "Romney has now won New Hampshire and if you look at opinion polls in South Carolina, which have been pretty accurate throughout the whole process, then he is the leader there and also in Florida.

"The reality is if he wins in South Carolina money is going to leak from other campaigns and he is going to be the frontrunner and presumptive nominee for the Republican Party."

Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, told Al Jazeera: "It is a huge night for Romney. He is the first Republican to win both Iowa and New Hampshire.

"Romney is thought be more electable than other candidates. He is been running for office for several years and he might get the nomination," he said.

But Robinson said the strong second-place finish Ron Paul was "fascinating", given his distance from mainstream Republicanism on policies including getting rid of the Federal Reserve, abolishing income tax and his isolationist foreign policy that would bring home all US troops stationed abroad.

"His ideas are very much at odds with other Republican candidates and that’s an indication how complicated the Republican Party is these days," he said.

Race beginsWhile Romney's victory appears to give him a clear run at securing the Republican candidacy, his rivals can draw hope from the failure of recent winners in New Hampshire to press on and claim the nomination.

John McCain won the Republican primary in 2000 but subsequently lost out to George W. Bush. In 2008 Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary but the party's choice eventually went to Obama.

Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler explains the mechanics behind the New Hampshire primary

Brad Marston, a Republican operative in New Hampshire,  said that with new rules regarding how the number of state delegates are allocated, the race for the nomination was still far from over.

"It's about how much does [Romney] wins by . . . clearly he is the odds-on favourite. I think one of the things people are forgetting about is that the Republican party has changed the rules this time. In the past it's always been 'winner-take-all': if you won New Hampshire with 35 per cent of the vote, you got 100 per cent of the delegates," he told Al Jazeera.

"That is not true this time. From now until April 1, we're allocating our delegates on a proportional basis. That makes it that much harder to score an early knockout.

"If I was advising a second-tier candidate, I'd be looking at the caucases. There could be won with volunteer organisations and volunteer efforts, and just doing enough to stay in the game and hope that Romney as the frontrunner stumbles."