There were two traditional rain delays Wednesday during the Angels’ 6-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.
There also was a rather nontraditional goose delay.
The second restart of the night was briefly held up by a wild goose chase — yes, an actual wild goose chase — and a subsequent...
Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Rhys Hoskins is likely headed to the disabled list after a further examination Wednesday revealed he has a fractured jaw.
Hoskins was hit in the mouth by his foul ball in the ninth inning Monday while facing Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen. He was removed from the...
Kevin Durant smiled sheepishly when asked if it’s good for the NBA to have the same two teams returning to the NBA Finals year after year.
“Yeah, I think it’s great, I think it’s great,” he said, before pausing. “You want me to elaborate?
“I mean, it may not be as suspenseful as a lot of people...
[Warning: The following contains spoilers from Wednesday’s series finale of FX’s “The Americans.” ]
It maybe can’t compete with a Russian journalist participating in the staging of his death, but “The Americans” series finale will certainly have people talking.
The farewell episode of the Cold...
Nobodies Rachel and Larry (Rachel Ramras, Larry Dorf) prepare for their meeting with Steven Spielberg, while Hugh (Hugh Davidson) is on a personal mission in Phoenix, in this new episode of the show business comedy. 10 p.m. TV Land
Imposters Ezra’s (Rob Heaps) con unexpectedly leads to an...
Beset by yet another injury to their starting rotation and scrambling for coverage in their bullpen, the Dodgers made a pair of roster moves before Wednesday’s game against Philadelphia.
The team placed Kenta Maeda (right hip strain) and Chase Utley (left thumb sprain) on the 10-day disabled list...
Si Jesús descendiera del cielo y pisase físicamente la Tierra en el siglo XXI, les dijo el televangelista de la prosperidad Jesse Duplantis a sus seguidores, el Redentor probablemente no montaría a lomo de burro: “Viajaría en un avión, predicando el evangelio por todo el mundo".
Duplantis cree...
La temporada de huracanes de 2018 se inicia oficialmente este viernes, pero la tormenta subtropical Alberto trajo desde el lunes último fuertes lluvias a la zona conocida como Florida Panhandle -al noroeste del estado- y la costa del Golfo, y se esperan más esta semana en el sureste de Estados...
De pie sobre los escalones de entrada de la iglesia First Congregational Church, de Oakland, a fines del mes pasado, Nichola Torbett emitió una declaración. "Ya no podemos tolerar el trauma infligido en nuestras comunidades por la policía", aseveró Torbett, una mujer blanca, voluntaria del templo,...
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Photos: Yahoo News national correspondent Holly Bailey journeyed to the Mississippi Delta to find lingering poverty and racial disparities that profoundly moved both Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy fifty years earlier.
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The rising cost of higher education makes affording medical school tough for the vast majority of students. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 75 percent of medical students who graduated in 2017 borrowed student loans to pay for school. Among U.S. medical school graduates who borrowed, those who attended public institutions finished their degrees with nearly $170,000 on average in student loans, according to data submitted to U.S. News by 52 ranked schools in an annual survey.
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In a move that will surely lead to radical changes throughout the American carceral state, businesswoman Kim Kardashian West met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss prison reform, according to the New York Times. Kardashian West was specifically interested in obtaining a pardon for Alice Johnson, a Tennessee woman who has been serving a life sentence since 1996 for a first-time, non-violent drug offense, but according to President Trump, their conversation included broader issues of “prison reform and sentencing.” Getting Alice Johnson out of prison is a noble cause even if larger reforms seem unlikely, and Trump is susceptible to this kind of pitch, so maybe some good will come of this. But in the long term, has anyone ever been glad they lent their celebrity to Donald Trump?
Early Wednesday morning, Roseanne Barr blamed her racist, TV show-canceling tweets on Ambien, the popular prescription drug used for the short-term treatment of insomnia. In addition to saying that she had only compared former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett to an ape because she was “Ambien tweeting,” she added that it’s not the only weird thing she’s done on the drug—she’s also cracked eggs on the wall.
On paper, the series finale of The Americans, which aired Wednesday night, gave Elizabeth and Philip Jennings more peace than they deserved. After spending decades plotting, manipulating, betraying, and murdering on behalf of the USSR, with the FBI finally closing in on them, these dangerous, soulful Soviet spies escaped to Russia, the country in which they have not lived for decades. Their American children, Henry and Paige, did not come with them, but Elizabeth and Philip could comfort themselves with the knowledge that this was for the best, if not for the good.
The Illinois House voted on Wednesday to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 40-plus years after it was approved by Congress. The ERA, which gained momentum during the 1960s and aims to combat discrimination based on sex, explicitly enshrining civil rights regardless of gender, was approved by the House of Representatives in 1971 and then by the U.S. Senate in 1972. The proposed amendment was then sent to the state legislatures with bipartisan support for ratification, garnering 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications and appeared to be headed for enshrinement in the Constitution before it was met by a groundswell of opposition by conservative women’s groups.
It’s a testament to how baffled everyone is at this juncture in American life that almost no one predicted the aftermath of Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet correctly. No one—not even Barr’s harshest critics—expected ABC to actually cancel the show, which had given the network a much-needed ratings bonanza. Working under the same assumption, some on the right briefly tried to argue that comparing Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to apes was acceptable. Fox host Eric Bolling reassured Barr (in a now-deleted Tweet) that “no apology necessary at all.” Conservative loudmouth Bill Mitchell tried to argue (in a now-deleted Tweet) that the apes in Planet of the Apes were the heroes, so the comparison was actually flattering. One sensed that pundits on the right were privately waiting for Donald Trump to tweet in Roseanne’s support; if he had, the Defend-Roseanne machine would have fully activated. But Trump’s loyalties are fickle, and his signal for how to handle the scandal facing his biggest supporter in Hollywood didn’t come. (His eventual Wednesday tweet—it should be no surprise—was more about himself than about Barr.)
A previously unreported memo written by former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe shortly after James Comey’s firing, reported by the New York Times Wednesday, describes private conversations between McCabe and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, adding new detail to the swirl of uncertainty surrounding the dismissal of Comey, as well as potential context for how it might fit into an obstruction of justice case being investigated by Robert Mueller. According to the Times, McCabe turned over his memo to the special counsel.
On Tuesday, Pusha T added fuel to his exhilaratingly reignited rap feud with Drake, releasing a new diss track, “The Story of Adidon,” in which he claimed the Toronto rapper is a deadbeat dad. It was undoubtedly a low blow, but it might not have been the most damning part of the track: that would be the accompanying album art, which features a photo of a widely grinning Drake in blackface, jazz hands splayed.
Listen to Episode 1,003 of Slate’s The Gist:
Roseanne Barr’s sitcom was canceled Tuesday in the aftermath of her tweet comparing former White House aide Valerie Jarrett to what would happen if the “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.” While many news outlets declared the message racist, some chose to call it “racially charged” instead. When did people start calling things “racially charged”?
Rachel Garcia made her mother cry Tuesday, and it wasn’t the first time.
In Garcia’s 15 years of playing softball, there have been plenty of tear-jerking moments. Like when Garcia won the 2015 Gatorade softball player of the year award in high school. Or when she planted her left knee into the...
Kenta Maeda held up his right hand in protest. He raised both hands as he saw Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and a member of the training staff approach him on the mound for the second time in two batters. He shook his head as his superiors drew closer. The gestures were futile. Maeda could not talk...
Insurance commissioner: In the May 29 Business section, an article about the race for California insurance commissioner misspelled the first name of campaign strategist Garry South as Gary.
Prosecutor elections: In the May 24 Section A, an article about spending in district attorney races around...
A suspected street racer accused of fleeing the scene of a crash that killed two young brothers in Perris two weeks ago was arrested at a DMV office more than a thousand miles away, authorities said.
Josue Gallegos, 30, was trying to register a vehicle in Kent, Wash., Friday when he was taken into...
Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon believes Anthony Rizzo’s slide that upended Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Elias Diaz at the Monday was legal.
Joe Torre, MLB chief baseball officer, doesn’t agree.
Torre told the clubs Tuesday that Rizzo should have been called for interference for swiping Diaz’s right...
He was two for 27 on this Angels trip.
He began Tuesday with as many strikeouts in May as hits, 15 apiece.
His batting average was .179, the sort of small number that can oddly weigh plenty.
Ian Kinsler, a four-time All-Star, had been searching for something familiar. He found it at Comerica Park.
...
An attorney for the family of a 14-year-old boy killed by a Los Angeles police officer released body camera footage Tuesday of the controversial 2016 encounter, arguing that the recordings show that the boy had tossed his gun and was unarmed when he was shot.
Humberto Guizar released two clips...
The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are entering their fourth consecutive NBA Finals with injury concerns.
Cleveland’s Kevin Love is in the concussion protocol and must complete a series of tests before he’s cleared to return, and Golden State’s Andre Iguodala, a former Finals MVP,...
Snap Inc. Chief Executive and co-founder Evan Spiegel said a widely-shared email by a former software engineer who accused the company of harboring a “sexist” and “toxic” workplace culture was a “wake-up call” that has already prompted change at the Venice firm.
Speaking on stage at the Code Conference...
The girls on the Newport Beach Mariners Elementary A team have impressive looking T-shirts this year at the Daily Pilot Cup.
Teresa Hlista, the wife of Mariners coach Brett Hlista, had last names or nicknames, as well as numbers, screen-printed in white on the back of the Marlins’ green shirts.
...
Proven performance earns some privileges.
In a nod to a new star player’s offseason regimen, Rams coach Sean McVay afforded defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh plenty of leeway when voluntary workouts began last month.
Suh spent time in home-state Oregon getting fit. McVay said the five-time Pro Bowl...
American Ninja Warrior The extreme obstacle course competition kicks off a new season with a qualifying round in Dallas. Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbajabiamila and Kristine Leahy return as cohosts. 8 p.m. NBC
MasterChef A new season of the culinary competition hosted by chef Gordon Ramsay begins....
Candidates for California governor barnstormed the state on Tuesday, launching their final outreach to voters in the run-up to the June 5 primary.
Front-runner Gavin Newsom, who has led the polls and fundraising since entering the race more than three years ago, urged supporters gathered on the...
Nothing, it seemed, could dampen fans’ adoration of the Vegas Golden Knights during the happy first few months of the team’s existence — and then general manager George McPhee acquired brawny forward Ryan Reaves from Pittsburgh on Feb. 23.
With the passion of the newly converted, followers of recent...
As a reporter for the Mexican newspaper Excelsior, Hector Gonzalez Antonio frequently chronicled the violence engulfing his home state of Tamaulipas.
Recent topics included one shootout that interrupted an Easter parade, another that killed six innocent bystanders and a group of people searching...
You have to begin to wonder if Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley might be the team of destiny this season in high school baseball.
Its coach, Bob Zamora, in his 41st season, has his team one win away from the Southern Section Division 1 championship after the Cougars knocked off the last remaining...
For all that has changed in the 16 months since Serena Williams last played in a Grand Slam tournament — she is now married and a mother — so much was familiar about her at the French Open on Tuesday.
The fashion statement, this time in the form of a black bodysuit with a red belt that she said...
UCLA is being spared a complete makeover of its basketball roster for next season after forward Kris Wilkes announced Tuesday that he would come back for his sophomore season instead of entering the NBA draft.
“Year 2 up next!” Wilkes tweeted. “Go Bruins.”
Wilkes’ return gives the Bruins a proven...
Don’t look now, but there seems to have been a disturbing change in the leadership of Los Angeles’ most admired sports franchise.
It appears LaVar Ball is now running the Lakers.
That is the only reasonable explanation for why LiAngelo Ball was wearing Lakers practice gear and sprinting around...
Nimble as he is on the football field, Chargers offensive tackle Russell Okung was caught flat-footed last week by the NFL’s new policy on the national anthem.
It was a spin move he didn’t see coming.
“I think the NFL has proven that they want to work unilaterally, without consulting us on issues...
James Murdoch is starting to plan for life after Fox.
“Every five years or so, I try something new-ish,” Murdoch, the chief executive of 21st Century Fox, said Tuesday at the Code media conference in Palos Verdes.
Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son has worked within the family empire for the last 23...
Northern California authorities have arrested two men they say towed 165 feet of stolen copper cable behind their car.
The car, dragging the thick cable, was spotted Tuesday morning in Burney, authorities said.
The Shasta County Sheriff's Office says two men in the car told a deputy they were trying...
A jury on Tuesday convicted a man in the 2015 slaying of a UCLA student found dead inside her burning apartment — a gruesome stabbing case that led to a fierce rebuke of the police response amid concerns that the killing could have been prevented.
The panel deliberated for about six hours before...
A small vegetation fire burning in the hills off the 405 Freeway near Skirball Center Drive in Brentwood closed three southbound lanes during rush hour Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
The blaze, reported about 5:45 p.m., had burned about a quarter-acre of grass and brush, according to the Los...
In ordinary times, the work of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, a UN body that negotiates international arms-control agreements, draws little attention. Then came this week’s news that Syria, a country with a well-known propensity for using chemical weapons against civilians, would assume the organization’s rotating, four-week presidency. The temporary post gives Syria the power to take the lead on issues the Conference is working on—meaning that the already deadlocked body will have an even harder time achieving meaningful results.
The Conference and its predecessors have built the architecture of the global nonproliferation system, which includes the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the global conventions to ban the use of biological and chemical weapons, and the comprehensive test ban treaty. Handing Syria the reins of an organization responsible for the most important global accords on disarmament is a bit like asking the Saudis to lead a commission on women’s rights. During the country’s more than seven-year-long civil war, the Assad regime has used chemical weapons against its own people on multiple occasions—with virtually zero consequences. But its use of conventional weapons has perhaps wrought more suffering. The Syrian conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, flattened entire cities, and created more than 5 million refugees.
Syria’s presidency also showcases the awkward nature of international organizations like the Conference, composed of some of the most problematic actors on the global stage. Because of the nature of organizations like the Conference, many of which feature similar rotating presidencies, the Syrias of the world often wind up at the helm of the very bodies that work to curb their activities. For instance, Saudi Arabia, whose air force has been bombing targets in Yemen’s bloody civil war, is a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Iran, similarly, sat on the UN Economic and Social Council’s Commission on the Status of Women. Both countries were elected to those positions by other member states. The case of Syria and the Conference on Disarmament is different, however: It will take leadership of the body only because it follows Switzerland, the country that occupied the presidency until last week, in the alphabetical list of the members of the Conference. (Tunisia comes next.)
Even before Syria took up the Conference’s presidency, it already faced significant obstacles. Because the 65-nation Conference works through unanimous consent on its decisions, the odds of every one of those 65 members agreeing to do anything are unlikely, and the organization has been stymied for approximately two decades. In that period, the Conference’s members have met only to hold technical and expert-level discussion on issues. “The Conference on Disarmament is not particularly productive at the moment,” Daryl Kimball, who is the executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, told me.
One longstanding U.S. goal at the Conference is to begin negotiations on a treaty to cut off the production of fissile material. Other countries have different priorities: China and Russia want to see talks on a treaty to prevent an arms race in space. Several other members of the Conference want to start work on a treaty clarifying that a nuclear-armed state will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against a country with no nuclear weapons. But because the Conference works via consensus, one country can raise an objection to another’s priorities, and, as Kimball put it, “they have not been able to begin a formal work plan on any of those issues.”
On Tuesday, Robert Wood, the U.S. ambassador to the Conference, walked out of the plenary in protest of Syria’s assumption of the presidency, which he labeled a “travesty.” He returned later to condemn the Assad regime for its repeated use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians:
I informed CD members that throughout Syria's four-week presidency, the US would not attend any subsidiary body mtgs. or any informal sessions convened by the presidency. Syria's presidency cannot be business as usual. I will, however, call out the regime's crimes in plenaries. pic.twitter.com/fDMK5MXV8N
— Robert Wood (@USAmbCD) May 29, 2018
Such opprobrium from an American official isn’t out of the ordinary. The United States raised similar protest when Iran assumed the presidency in 2013. “It’s perfectly understandable and justifiable for the United States to object to Syria taking on this role because it legitimizes Syria as a credible actor in the international stage when it isn’t,” Kimball said. But, he added: “It also interferes with our own objectives to the extent that we and other countries have goals that we want to achieve.” Syria’s presidency will likely not help.
“When your enemy is making a mistake,” Napoleon purportedly cautioned, “never interrupt him.” In recent months the Islamic Republic of Iran has been battered by accumulating crises—including a collapsing currency, an irrepressible citizen’s-rights and feminist movement, and persistent labor strikes—that have called into question its continued viability. It is increasingly evident that the Trump administration’s goal, as outlined most recently by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is to exacerbate these crises to hasten either an Iranian capitulation or political implosion. While Iran’s positive political transformation is a worthy goal, the Trump administration’s reckless execution of this strategy could serve to resuscitate an ailing regime.
The Arab spring was a reminder that the collapse of authoritarian regimes appears inconceivable while they rule, and inevitable after they’ve fallen. In Iran it is notable how many longtime observers of the country have begun openly contemplating the latter. The Iranian sociology professor Mohammed Fazeli, in a recent speech widely shared on social media, asserted that the country was experiencing a “convergence of crises”—economic, social, political, environmental, and geopolitical—“unlike any other country in the world.” Most remarkably, his speech was given not at an opposition rally, but at an official government think tank.
The two remaining veteran foreign correspondents in Iran—Thomas Erdbrink of The New York Times and Najmeh Bozorgmehr of the Financial Times—have also taken note of this growing sentiment. The usually sober Bozorgmehr began her May 7, 2018 dispatch with a striking question: “Has the countdown to the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran begun?” She quotes an Iranian businessman who perhaps unwittingly echoes de Tocqueville’s observation that authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable when trying to reform. “The problem is that if the Islamic Republic reforms itself,” he said, “nothing would remain of it. And if it refuses to reform itself, it would die.”
Pompeo’s maiden speech as secretary of state centered on 12 demands that offered Iran’s leaders a similar choice: Transform yourselves into something diametrically opposed to what you have been for four decades, or we will seek your collapse. Iran’s 78-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reacted by prohibiting any interaction with the U.S. government. This, coupled with Khamenei’s long-held view that capitulation to the West will only accelerate, not avert, regime change, means the United States and Iran are on a clear collision course.
There are typically two prerequisites for authoritarian collapse: Pressure from below and divisions from above. While there is often a symbiotic relationship between these two—popular unrest can foment elite divisions—crude attempts by outside powers to instigate regime change can also serve to strengthen authoritarian cohesion. Pompeo has sought to incite Iran’s population against an Iranian regime he portrays as a unified monolith. “Here in the West, President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif are often held apart from the regime’s unwise terrorist and malign behavior,” Pompeo said. “Yet, Rouhani and Zarif are your elected leaders. Are they not the most responsible for your economic struggles? Are these two not responsible for wasting Iranian lives throughout the Middle East?”
In their research on the “Durability of Revolutionary Regimes”— those which emerge out of “sustained, ideological, and violent struggle from below”—political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way show that regimes spawned by popular revolutions—including the former USSR, Cuba, and Iran—usually share four attributes that enhance their durability: “(1) the destruction of independent power centers; (2) cohesive ruling parties; (3) tight partisan control over the security forces; and (4) powerful coercive apparatuses.” All four apply to Iran. These attributes help to “inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three major sources of authoritarian breakdown.”
While the Islamic Republic has experienced bouts of significant popular unrest in the past, during times of crisis the regime’s normally factionalized political and military elite have always seemingly understood that if they did not hang together, they might hang separately. The regime’s coercive apparatus—the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij militia—are an armed and organized group of at least 300,000 men, some of whom have a strong financial interest in preserving the status quo. As Garry Kasparov has said about Russia, every country has its own mafia—but Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards increasingly resemble a mafia within their own country. The Islamic Republic may also be able to draw on the support of some 40,000 Shia militiamen—including Lebanese Hezbollah—it has been arming, financing, and training outside of Iran. These forces have spent years fighting Syrian rebels and Sunni jihadists, while Iranian opponents of the government, in contrast, are unarmed and leaderless.
One of the Republican critiques of the Iran nuclear deal was that it was predicated on the positive transformation of the Iranian regime into a more benign actor by the time the deal’s restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities expired in the next 10–15 years. Similarly, however, the Trump administration’s Iran strategy appears to be a bet on an unarmed, divided Iranian population’s ability to peacefully overthrow a deeply unpopular but heavily armed, cohesive ruling elite. But while the 1979 Iranian revolution was the story of a society willing to mass martyr itself against a regime that wasn’t willing to commit mass murder, in today Iran these roles are reversed.
* * *
Since 1979, successive U.S. administrations have tried unsuccessfully to change either the behavior of the Iranian regime, or the regime itself. The George W. Bush administration surrounded Iran with over 250,000 U.S. soldiers in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan and actively supported Iranian democracy activists. Yet during Bush’s time in office, Tehran relentlessly attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and political opposition in Iran withered. The Iraq War, which intended to spread Iraqi democracy to Iran, instead served to spread Iranian theocracy to Iraq.
When Barack Obama took office, he sought to be the anti-Bush. More than any of his predecessors, Obama actively sought rapprochement with Tehran, including via numerous letters he wrote to Ayatollah Khamenei. Secretary of State John Kerry—who as a senator in 2009 sought to visit Tehran—spent more time talking with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif than perhaps any of his global counterparts. Despite high expectations after the signing of the JCPOA, however, Iran’s internal and external behavior and hostility toward the United States showed little signs of change.
The Trump administration inherited an Iran ascendant regionally, but descendant internally. Instead of marshaling global unity against Tehran’s malign domestic and regional activities—most notably mass slaughter in Syria—Trump instead focused on the one thing that Iran is perceived to be doing right: adhering to the nuclear deal. Consequently, since Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement, international media attention—including among close American allies—has been diverted away from Iran’s internal repression and regional ambitions, to focus on America as the dangerous and untrustworthy superpower.
In the aftermath of Pompeo’s speech on Iran, the hashtag #RegimeChangeIran began trending on Twitter. It is understandable why the potential implosion of a virulently anti-American theocracy excites many U.S. officials and Iranians—both inside Iran and abroad—who long to see positive transformation in their homeland. But if there is a lesson to be learned from both Iran’s 1979 revolution and the 2011 Arab uprisings, it is that revolutions are ultimately judged by what they build, not what they destroy. The IRGC and Basij militia, like powerful militaries elsewhere in the region, are unlikely to relinquish power absent considerable bloodshed, and may yet emerge on top even in the event of abrupt political change. #RegimeChangeIran has no guarantees of leading to #DemocracyIran.
* * *
In his famous long telegram from Moscow, the celebrated American diplomat George Kennan cautioned that U.S. policies alone could potentially expedite, but not engineer, political change in the Soviet Union. “It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone,” Kennan wrote, “could exercise a power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate. … For no mystical, Messianic movement … can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.”
Kennan’s essay was written in 1947, before the advent of 24-hour cable news and social media made it increasingly impossible for the United States to exhibit strategic patience. It took five decades after Kennan wrote that “Soviet power …bears within it the seeds of its own decay, and the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced” for the Soviet Union to ultimately implode in 1991. Ronald Reagan helped adeptly manage its demise by championing Soviet dissidents and countering Soviet influence while simultaneously engaging the Soviet regime, helping foment the elite divisions and popular unrest—the “internal contradictions”—which led to the peaceful collapse of a nuclear-armed empire.
In theory, a similar template could be applied to U.S. strategy toward Iran. It would require great patience and flexibility, and a willingness to not only intelligently support Iranian civil society and counter malign Iranian influence, but also engage the Iranian regime to heighten the divisions between those who want Iran to be a nation and those who want it to be a cause. It would require heeding Kennan’s advice that “such a policy has nothing to do with outward histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward ‘toughness.’” But just as we must be realistic in our foreign-policy goals, so must we be realistic about our domestic political realities. A scandal-plagued, internationally reviled, unfocused president at home significantly curtails our ability to promote more decent government abroad.
Apropos of nothing in particular, today we have a collection of images of hoofed mammals swimming and splashing about. Paddling pigs, diving horses, leaping bulls, lunging hippos, racing piglets, wading camels, soaking buffaloes, dripping moose, and more.
With the Trump administration’s recent withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the already rocky relationship between the United States and its European allies has become even more tenuous. For many Europeans, Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran accord crystallizes what they dislike about his approach to world affairs: Instead of multilateralism, it’s America First.
Across much of Europe, anti-Americanism appears to be on the rise. Polls show plunging ratings for America, and European leaders are once again critical of Washington’s foreign policies. Commentators are issuing dark warnings about the fate of the transatlantic alliance. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, has said that Europe can no longer rely on the United States and that it must “take destiny into its own hands.”
The Trump presidency evokes memories of the George W. Bush era, when opposition to the Iraq War and U.S. foreign policy was strong, and transatlantic tensions ran high. After the interlude of the Obama years, European public opinion about the occupant of the White House is once again strikingly negative. Trump’s ratings in Europe look a lot like those of Bush at the end of his presidency, as the 2017 Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Survey illustrated. In France, for example, just 14 percent said they had confidence in Trump’s international leadership, essentially the same as the 13 percent Bush registered in 2008. (During his presidency, Obama never dipped below 80 percent confidence among the French.) And just as in the Bush years, many Europeans are critical of a U.S. foreign policy that seems to disdain international cooperation.
But there are also some important differences between the Trump and Bush eras. The current round of anti-Americanism is taking place at a moment of anxiety about the fate of the U.S.-led world order and the relative decline of American power. Anti-American sentiments in Europe have often been linked to fears about expanding U.S. military power, economic clout, or the pervasiveness of American culture. These days, by contrast, Europeans seem less concerned about an unrestrained “hyperpower” flexing its muscles around the world, and more worried about an America withdrawing from the transatlantic relationship.
After World War II, Washington exerted its outsize power on the world stage to build that relationship. In 1947, the British writer and politician Harold Laski said that “America bestrides the world like a colossus; neither Rome at the height of its power nor Great Britain in the period of economic supremacy enjoyed an influence so direct, so profound, or so pervasive.” A year later, the United States would launch the Marshall Plan and work with its European allies to shape the liberal world order. Of course, even during the Cold War, there were rifts between the America and its European allies: the 1956 Suez crisis, the Vietnam War, and the debate over deploying intermediate-range missiles in Germany during the Reagan presidency. But the Soviet threat offered a terrifying incentive for the nations of the Western alliance to get over their differences.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. power was essentially unrivaled, and after 9/11 the extraordinary reach of U.S. military might worried many Europeans. There was widespread opposition to the Iraq War, plus a widely shared view that the Bush administration was pursuing the broader war on terror unilaterally. Majorities in most of the European countries polled by Pew during the Bush years believed that the United States was looking out for its own interests and not taking into account the interests of other nations. Back then, America’s poor global standing was linked to fears of unconstrained U.S. power and its disregard for international norms or multilateral cooperation.
Obama was much more popular in Europe than Bush, but even his administration occasionally bred fear and resentment. His increased use of drone strikes against terrorists in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia was widely unpopular. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. surveillance around the world highlighted what many saw as a troubling new dimension of American power: the capacity to reach through cyberspace and monitor the communications of almost anyone, anywhere. And the Snowden story had serious effects on American soft power. Pew surveys found that the share of the public who believed the U.S. government respected personal liberty declined in many nations following the disclosures. This issue was particularly important in Germany, where the United States reportedly eavesdropped on Merkel.
In contrast, Trump-era European anxieties are driven less by fears of unchecked American power, and more by a sense that the United States is stepping back from the world order it helped design.
The fate of that order has been the subject of considerable debate since Brexit and Trump’s election. Facing external pressure from the rise of China and other emerging powers, and internal stress from surging populism, the Western nations that shaped the international system for seven decades appear wobbly. And many Europeans believe the hegemon of the U.S.-led order is in decline. Pluralities of those Pew surveyed last year in France, Germany, and Britain, said China—not America—is the world’s leading economic power. A less-powerful America means uncertainty for the international system that has brought relative peace and prosperity to Europe for seven decades.
In addition to decline, many see disengagement. European publics have reacted negatively to some of Trump’s key policies, especially those that pull the United States back from its international commitments. Most of those in the European nations we polled opposed U.S. withdrawal from climate change accords, trade agreements, and the Iran nuclear deal. And Europeans generally do not like to see America throw up barriers—both literal and figurative—between itself and the rest of the world. Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border meets with strong opposition from most Europeans, and to a lesser extent so does the idea of preventing people from certain majority-Muslim nations from entering America.
European leaders have often complained about what they see as Trump’s lack of commitment to the transatlantic partnership, and to the values that undergird the system built by the Western powers. Without criticizing Trump directly during his recent address to the U.S. Congress, French President Emmanuel Macron nonetheless encapsulated European critiques of the American leader’s worldview: “We can choose isolationism, withdrawal, and nationalism. It can be tempting to us as a temporary relief to our fears. But closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world.”
So while Trump’s ratings resemble Bush’s from a decade ago, the tone of Europe’s critique is somewhat different. Whether it’s Iran, trade, climate change, or calling into question the value of long-standing alliances such as NATO, Europeans now regularly lament U.S. disengagement rather than an overreach of American power. Many see an America pulling away from the world order it shaped, the colossus at twilight, turning inward as other powers rise.
This month the graduating class at Georgetown Law School marked commencement with a speech by non-voting D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, whose résumé is as impressive as any in the House of Representatives.
Born in 1937, Norton received a masters in American studies and a law degree at Yale and traveled to the South for the Mississippi Freedom Summer as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. After clerking for a federal judge, she became the assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. And in 1970, she represented 60 women in a lawsuit against Newsweek that successfully forced the magazine to overturn its practice of barring women from reporter jobs.
She became the head of the New York City Human Rights Commission in 1970, Jimmy Carter appointed her to head the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1977, and as a Georgetown law faculty member in the 1980s she joined the protest movement against apartheid in South Africa.
Her commencement speech focused on the importance of free speech.
Norton praised the Parkland teenagers for their activism on the issue of gun control. But she is worried. She believes survey data on free speech shows that today’s college students are no longer willing to defend speech that they don’t like. She proudly cited instances when she personally fought for the rights of racists to speak. And she called on the graduating lawyers of Georgetown to use their knowledge of the law to teach others of their generation that hearing all sides of arguments is still critical in American society.
In fact, she believes that lasting change cannot be achieved, that it will never be secure, unless the public is won over in a way that requires all sides to be heard.
Here is a transcript of relevant passages from her speech:
Change, especially change that requires legislative solutions, will not occur easily given our vast, inherently disharmonious, and increasingly polarized country. Change will only occur if we make the highest, best and most peaceful use of the First Amendment.
...Yet there is recent disquieting evidence on college campuses of intolerance of speech at odds with the progressive views many in your generation and I share... For example, a significant number of college students believe that “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment. Fifty-one percent believe that shouting down a controversial speaker so he or she could not be heard was acceptable — 63 percent were Democrats and 38 percent were Republicans, but bear in mind that the most controversial speakers on campuses today are from the far right.
Will the generation that is using protest so precociously for issues they favor, like gun safety, also exercise the tolerance that allows those who favor the opposite side to be heard?
...our society periodically must relearn the reasons the Framers added the Bill of Rights as a vital addendum to the nation’s founding document. Inevitably, we periodically get the challenge to apply the Bill of Rights to conditions the Framers could not have imagined. There is some indication that this generation could use the benefit of leadership, not from my generation, but from their own generation of young lawyers, whose education equips them to explain in terms their generation can understand that the First Amendment right to speak must be reciprocal.
I do not mean re-teaching the meaning of the First Amendment by bringing cases. Few lawyers will have the opportunity I had as a young lawyer, not long out of law school and the civil rights movement, to argue a case in the Supreme Court representing an unabashedly racist organization barred by a prior restraint court order from appearing again after engaging in racist and anti-Semitic remarks at a rally. Or another I argued in the New York courts when liberal mayor of New York John Lindsay denied notorious Alabama Governor George Wallace a permit to speak at a public facility, Shea Stadium.
...My direct clients were a minority in American society, proselytizing racists with whom I had nothing in common. Yet it was clear that the ultimate client was the First Amendment itself.
Those who have brought change to our country did not win it by shutting down the other side. They won change the hard and only way that ensures it will be lasting. They persisted against their adversaries until they persuaded the country that they should prevail.
To be sure, sometimes the changemakers have pursued change using lawyers and judges, like Georgetown’s many alumni. Even so, ultimately, changemakers, acting with vital help from the law, must persuade the democratic majority to accept change, even if they won it in the courts.
Who is in the best position to help not only young people, but also the American people, to relearn the purposes and uses of the First Amendment for these times and in our polarized society? I believe I am speaking to them now as the 2018 Georgetown Law graduates go on to become leaders of their communities.
The First Amendment as a tool for change is far easier to understand than appreciating the benefits when all sides are heard. That is where young lawyers can come in — trusted members of their own generation speaking in their own terms and language, offering reasons why hearing the other side of arguments is critical to change our society… the class of 2018 knows that lawyers sharpen their own cases best when they have heard the other side. And we all know that allowing the other side to speak without interruption earns respect from the public, the actual party we need to accept the change we are after.
Norton’s unabridged remarks can be read here.
