Tag Archives: Persian Gulf

Prez Has More Sequester Flexibility Than WH Admits

From On The Money blog; The Hill; Erik Wesson, Jeremy Herb and Keith Laing:

“The White House has made the case it has almost no flexibility….

“But budget experts say some nuances within the law do give the administration some room to maneuver, though they acknowledge it is limited.

“For example, the administration has broad authority to define ‘program, project and activity,’ according to Barry Anderson, a former budget official under President George H. W. Bush.  He said this would allow some flexibility in making cuts.

“OMB said Friday that it will be issuing the sequester order on the account level and agencies will determine the program, project and activity definition.”

The WSJ argued that the President has a lot of flexibility in its op-ed  “The Sequester Revelation”:
“[T]he White House says it must now cut across the board regardless of how important a given PPA is.
“Not so fast.  Programs, projects and activities are a technical category of the federal budget, but the sequester actually occurs at the roughly 1,200 broader units known as budget accounts.  Some accounts are small, but others contain hundreds of PPAs and the larger accounts run to billions of dollars.  For the Pentagon in particular, the distinction between PPAs and accounts is huge.”
The President’s hands may be tied, but we’re not going to see any burn marks from this sequester.  If they wanted to send the Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf tonight, they certainly could.

Secret Anti-Israeli American Contacts with Iran?

The White House denies disturbing reports out of Israel that the U. S. has told Iran it won’t support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if Iran doesn’t attack our military installations in the Persian Gulf.

From “U. S. denies Israeli newspaper report of secret Iran contacts,” Mark Felsenthal, Reuters:

“The White House on Monday denied an Israeli newspaper report that accused Washington of secretly negotiating with Tehran to keep the United States out of a future Israel-Iran war.

“The Jewish state also played down the front-page report n its biggest-selling daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, which followed unusually publican disagreement between the allies about how to tackle Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

“Without naming its sources, Yedioth said Washington had approached Tehran through two unidentified European countries [if true, one would be Switzerland] to convey the message that the United States would not be dragged into fighting if Israel carried out threats to attack Iran.

“Yedioth said the United States told Iran it should in return refrain from retaliating against U. S. interests, including its military in the Gulf.

“In Jerusalem, an Israeli official, who asked not to be identified, described the report as illogical.

“‘It doesn’t make sense, ‘ the official said.  ‘There would be no need to make such a promise to the Iranians because they realize the last thing they need is to attack U. S. targets and draw massive U. S. bombing raids.”

Where’s this coming from?  I don’t know.  Sheldon Adelson and the Romney campaign?

I hate the way this is framed as Israel’s problem.  The Saudis are as freaked out about Iran’s getting the bomb as the Israelis.  Even if Israel didn’t exist, you’d still have the Sunni-Shiite fight destabilizing the region.  Even if the Jewish religion didn’t exist, you’d still have plenty of other religions for radical Islamists to go after — they hate Christians and Buddhists and Hindus and atheists as much as they hate Jews.  They want everybody to be a devout Muslim.  An Iranian bomb will set off a scramble in the Middle East among Sunnis to get nuclear weapons.  And does anybody think India likes the prospect of two Muslim counties with the bomb? 

Our home-grown Christian Dinosaur Riders may be crazy, but the Muslim extremists are barbarians, all too ready to stone or behead or mutilate people, especially women.

Some Straight Talk on Oil

An excellent op-ed in the NYT today by Stephen Kelly, “Oil Under Our Noses.”

He points out that we’re now importing less than half of our oil, and of the imported oil, less than 20% comes from the Persian Gulf.  So when we talk about Iran threatening our oil supply, let’s remember that we’re talking about less than 10% of what we use.  Yes, prices would go up, but we could get what we need.

For other countries, it’s a bigger deal.  Kelly points out that 77% of Japan’s imported oil is from the Persian Gulf, while South Korea gets 74% and China 43%.  So let them do more to protect their sources.

Kelly argues:

“[W]e should review the estimated $50 billion a year we now spend to maintain a military presence in the Persian Gulf, not counting the cost of the wars we’ve been fighting in the region.

“[A]s we reassess what we can afford to do militarily in the world, countries that depend more directly on Persian Gulf oil should pay a larger share of the burden for keeping the region stable.”

This country too often does too much about things that really aren’t our problem, or should be somebody else’s problem as much as or more than it is ours.  Maybe it was our problem before (as when we got a lot more oil from the Persian Gulf), but we need to recognize and respond to changes in the world.

 

Mitt Romney on Defense Policy — Ignorance or Dishonesty?

The Republicans are always bellyaching that Democrat plans to cut domestic spending are never real cuts, they are just cuts in the rate of growth.

Now comes Mitt “I’m Also Unemployed” Romney, in his foreign and defense policy speech in South Carolina yesterday, declaiming that “As President, on day one, … I will reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts.”

Except that there haven’t been any defense cuts, massive or otherwise.  There have been reductions in the rate of growth in defense spending, which you would expect as we wind down two wars.  And any Republican will tell you that reductions in growth rates aren’t cuts.

Also, Mitt said he would put pressure on Iran by sending an aircraft carrier task force to the Persian Gulf.  Great idea, Mitt, except that we already have one there.

Mitt is either ignorant or dishonest.  Either way, he shouldn’t be commander in chief.