Author Archives: News Sources

Iran: We do not want nuclear weapons

Ali Akbar Salehi, foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, writes: Forty-five years ago, the United States sold my country a research reactor as well as weapons-grade uranium as its fuel. Not long afterward, America agreed to help Iran set up the full nuclear fuel cycle along with atomic power plants. The U.S. argument was that nuclear power would provide for the growing needs of our economy and free our remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.

That rationale has not changed.

Still, after the Islamic Revolution in our country in 1979, all understandings with the United States in the nuclear field unraveled. Washington even cut off fuel deliveries to the very facility it supplied. To secure fuel from other sources, Iran was forced to modify the reactor to run on uranium enriched to around 20 percent. The Tehran Research Reactor still operates, supplying isotopes used in the medical treatment of 800,000 of my fellow Iranians every year.

But getting to this point was not easy. In 2009, we put forward a request to the International Atomic Energy Agency for fuel for the reactor as its supply was running out, threatening the lives of many Iranians. When we agreed to exchange a major portion of our stock of low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel in 2010 — a proposal by the Obama administration — the response we got from the White House was a push for more U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Again, we did what every government is obliged to do: protect and ensure the well-being of our citizens. Thanks to the grace of God and the hard work of our committed and growing cadre of scientists, we managed to do something we had never done before: enrich uranium to the needed 20 percent and mold it into fuel plates for the reactor. We have never failed when faced with no option but to provide for our own needs.

All relationships — whether between parents and children, spouses or even nation-states — are based on trust. The example of the Tehran Research Reactor vividly illustrates the key issue between Iran and the United States: lack of trust.

We have strongly marked our opposition to weapons of mass destruction on many occasions. Almost seven years ago, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a binding commitment. He issued a religious edict — a fatwa — forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Our stance against weapons of mass destruction, which is far from new, has been put to the test. When Saddam Hussein attacked us with chemical arms in the 1980s, we did not retaliate with the same means. And when it comes to our nuclear energy program, the IAEA has failed to find any military dimension, despite an unprecedented number of man-hours in intrusive inspections. [Continue reading…]

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Iran’s nuclear programme: legal debate stirs over basis for U.S. or Israeli attack

Chris McGreal reports: Amid the sabre-rattling and bluster over Iran, a furious if little-noticed debate is boiling over the legal basis for a US or Israeli attack on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The threat of a military strike hangs over this weekend’s talks in Istanbul between the major powers and Iran.

The Israeli leadership says an attack will come within months, not years, if the present diplomatic push fails. The US Congress is not far behind, with the Republican leadership pledging to pass an authorisation for the use of “overwhelming military force” if there are signs Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

Barack Obama is more cautious, but says the “military option” remains on the table if sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to give up its enriched uranium.

But while intelligence agencies grapple to assess whether Tehran is attempting to develop a nuclear weapon and militaries on both sides of the Atlantic consider the logistics of bombing Iran, legal authorities are confronting the challenge of constructing a legal case for attack, if it comes.

And already there is considerable dispute over the issue.

Alan Dershowitz, the renowned jurist and supporter of Israel, has argued that the US and the Jewish state can invoke a long-standing right under customary international law of “pro-active self-defence” as well as article 51 of the United Nations charter.

Sceptics counter that international law only permits military action in response to an imminent attack, or if one is under way. They say there is no immediate threat because, as the White House has said, there is no evidence Tehran is building a nuclear weapon. [Continue reading…]

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Iran nuclear negotiations remain the best path forward

Matthew Duss writes: Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany resume again this weekend, with Tehran giving hints that it may take a more constructive attitude to negotiations than it did during the previous round in 2011. Iranian nuclear officials have suggested that Iran might curtail its 20 percent uranium enrichment program, which would meet almost halfway the expected demands of the United States and its so-called P5+1 negotiating partners.

The United States and its allies reportedly plan to demand the immediate cessation of uranium enrichment to 20 percent, and a closure of the hardened Fordow enrichment plant, possibly in exchange for promises of no further sanctions. If the United States and its international partners are able to achieve these objectives, they will significantly slow Iran’s progress toward having the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, score a victory for the two-track policy of diplomacy and economic pressure, and provide a template for more fully resolving outstanding issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program in future talks.

Will that happen? Predicting the future is a fool’s game, but it’s important to recognize that the United States and its partners are going into talks with Iran this weekend in a position of strength that would have been hard to imagine four short years ago. This is in large part thanks to the Obama administration’s hard diplomatic work rebuilding alliances and, importantly, its demonstrated willingness to engage in good faith with the Iranian regime.

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Syrian protesters test fragile truce

The Associated Press reports: In the first major test of a U.N.-brokered truce, tens of thousands of Syrians poured into the streets Friday for anti-government protests, activists said. Security forces used live fire, tear gas and beat some protesters, but there was no immediate sign of widescale shelling, sniper attacks or other potential violations of the cease-fire.

At least three protesters were shot dead by security forces, activists said.

President Bashar Assad’s regime has cracked down on protest rallies in the past and suggested it would not allow them to resume Friday, insisting protesters need to seek permission first. Syrian forces tightened security in public squares and outside mosques.

A major outbreak of violence at a chaotic rally could give government forces a pretext for ending the peace plan, which aims to calm a year-old uprising that has killed 9,000 people and pushed the country toward civil war.

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The war on terror is corrupting all it touches

Simon Jenkins writes: On Monday the BBC Panorama programme substantiated an extraordinary allegation that suggested how far the war on terror has descended into legal abyss. The claim was that MI6 rolled the pitch for Tony Blair’s bizarre 2004 hug-in with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi by apparently arranging for the CIA to kidnap Gaddafi’s opponent in exile, Abdel Hakim Belhaj. He was seized in Bangkok, where he and his wife were en route to Britain. It’s been suggested they were “rendered” via the British colony of Diego Garcia to Tajoura jail in Tripoli. Belhaj spent six years, and his wife four and a half months, at the tender mercies of Gaddafi’s security boss, Moussa Koussa. Belhaj’s pregnant wife was taped like a mummy on a stretcher, and he was systematically tortured. Koussa himself denies any involvement in torture.

With this gift came a covering letter from MI6’s Mark Allen, offering Koussa congratulations on the “safe arrival” of the “air cargo [Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years.” Within two weeks Gaddafi was welcoming a fawning Blair in his famous desert tent, and announcing that he would abjure terrorism and set aside his “planned” weapons of mass destruction. The plans were spurious, but the deal allowed Blair to walk tall in Washington at a time when the Iraq invasion was turning sour.

Less spurious were other elements in the strange relationship. It was claimed Britain would not just deliver Belhaj but lift sanctions. Gaddafi would greet BP’s Lord Browne, accompanied by Allen, who switched with full ministerial approval from being an MI6 officer to a £200,000 special adviser to BP. When, three years later, the £15bn deal with BP seemed to falter, it’s claimed Allen pressed his old boss, Jack Straw, to release Libya’s Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. [Continue reading…]

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MoveOn’s 99 Percent Spring, Obama and the Dems march in lock-step

“The Insider” writes: In an earlier installment, I noted that eight smoking guns point to the fact that the much-ballyhooed “99-Percent Spring,” taking place from April 9-15, is merely a front group for MoveOn.org and the Democratic Party. More specifically, it is a front for the Obama Administration and the Party’s 2012 electoral efforts.

The article has proven contentious in many circles, and was analyzed in many lefty publications, including Salon.com, The Huffington Post, The Nation, TaylorMarsh.com, and Dissent Magazine, to name several. Those articles wrestled with the ongoing battle occurring between genuine, mostly volunteer grassroots Occupy activists and well-paid full-time Democratic Party-allied “activists.” ‘

In the main, the articles dug into the whether or not The 99 Spring was playing a constructive, supportive role of the real on-the-ground Occupy movements in cities nationwide and worldwide, or on the contrary, if The 99 Spring’s raison d’etre is simply to co-opt the Occupy movement and steal it as its own, while pooling those efforts into the Democratic Party’s electoral efforts in 2012.

These liberal commentators shared similar observations:

● “All parties seem mindful of the dreaded accusations of co-option, but rarely does such an annexation occur overnight,” explained The Nation’s Allison Kilkenny on April 6.

● “It seems to me that the 99 Percent Spring does indeed complement large sections of Occupy efforts – the sorts of actions, accessible to media narratives, that directly protest institutions like Bank of America, ALEC or rulings like Citizens United,” posited Salon.com’s Natasha Lennard.

● The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim wrote, “It’s a reflection of how the Occupy movement has forced some institutional liberal groups to radicalize — or at least appear to — to meet the new fervent climate, as stubborn unemployment and yawning inequality push activism outside the confines of traditional electoral politics.

The so-called “independent media” and news shows, such as AlterNet, TruthOut, The Nation on multiple occasions, Bill Moyers‘ new show, The Thom Hartmann Show on two occasions, and The Nation Washington Editor Chris Hayes’ show “Up with Chris Hayes,” have also offered shameless plugs and interviews for The 99 Spring’s organizers, and have been likely been “in on the take,” so to speak and in varying degrees, of this well-coordinated effort.

Above and beyond softball coverage of the prospective “movement,” though, is a fundamental misunderstanding, among all factions, of the type of co-option MoveOn.org and Friends have already achieved and continue to achieve, of the Occupy movement.

There are a number of ways to derail or co-opt social justice movements.

Government agents and/or corporate agents can go right in, infiltrate it with informants and agent provocateurs, and behave in such a way so as to delegitimize the movement in the public sphere. This is generally done by intelligence agencies and police forces, such as the FBI, CIA and NYPD, both at home and abroad.

Governments, corporations and foundations can also seduce the leadership of movements with money and power, and get organizations to work in ways palatable to them.

In this case, the co-option of the Occupy Movement has occurred in a classic fashion developed by MoveOn.org and its network of liberal foundation funded, Democratic Party allies. All claim to be “responsible progressives working for fundamental social change,” yet the reality is far more mendacious.

MoveOn.org directed networks, such as The 99 Spring, excel at the creation of dog and pony shows, pageantry, and theatrical performances to co-opt the imagery, language, and ideas of a movement, including the very idea of direct action itself.

In this case, it’s the Occupy movement, showing the servile mainstream media, as well as the so-called “left” media (with which it shares the same funding streams) that The 99 Spring is the organized, more professional, and more responsible heir to the Occupy movement, with a suave spokesman, too: Van Jones, head of theRebuild the Dream “movement.”

For a group like MoveOn.org, the existence of an on-the-ground social justice movement, after all, is perfect — it relies on movements of this sort to co-opt for its own purposes: electing Democrats. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian opposition vows protest to test shaky truce

The Associated Press reports: Syria’s opposition called for widespread protests Friday to test the regime’s commitment to an internationally brokered cease-fire that the U.N. chief described as so fragile it could collapse with a single gunshot.

Regime forces halted heavy shelling and other major attacks in line with the truce that began at dawn Thursday, though there were accusations of scattered violence by both sides. The government ignored demands to pull troops back to barracks, however, defying a key aspect of the plan, which aims to calm a year-old uprising that has killed 9,000 people and has pushed the country toward civil war.

“The onus is on the government of Syria to prove that their words will be matched by their deeds at this time,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva. He said the world was watching with skeptical eyes.

“This cease-fire process is very fragile. It may be broken any time,” Ban added, saying “another gunshot” could doom the truce.

The presence of tanks and troops could discourage any large gatherings, but the leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalioun, urged Syrians to demonstrate peacefully on Friday. “Tomorrow, like every Friday, the Syrian people are called to demonstrate even more and put the regime in front of its responsibilities – put the international community in front of its responsibilities.”

A massive protest would be an important test of the cease-fire – whether President Bashar Assad will allow his forces to hold their fire and risk ushering in a weekslong sit-in or losing control over territory that government forces recently recovered from rebels.

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NATO says monitoring tension in Turkey-Syria border

Today’s Zaman reports: NATO said on Thursday that it was concerned about an incident on the Turkish-Syrian border this week that caused casualties on the Turkish side of the frontier, after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey could seek NATO’s help if similar incidents occur.

Two Turkish nationals and two Syrians were injured in a refugee camp in Kilis province when Syrian forces fired across the border during clashes with opposition fighters that reportedly had attempted to seize control of the border gate and then fled to Turkey. Erdoğan called the incident a border violation and said Turkey would pursue measures under international law in response, raising prospects of military retaliation.

On Wednesday, he further said that “NATO has responsibilities to protect the Turkish border according to Article 5.” The premier was referring to the fifth article of the alliance’s treaty stating that an attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all members.

Carmen Romero, a NATO spokeswoman, expressed concern over the incident and said Thursday that the military alliance is “monitoring the situation very closely and will continue to do so.”

The NATO spokeswoman, however, said Turkey did not ask the Alliance for help in dealing with Syria’s cross-border attacks.

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Irving Moskowitz, controversial backer of Israeli settlements, gives $1 million to anti-Obama super PAC

Paul Blumenthal writes: Even in the era of unbridled campaign contributions, Irving Moskowitz’s $1 million donation in February to American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-linked super PAC, is eye-catching.

A retired physician who made a fortune purchasing hospitals and running bingo and casino operations in the economically depressed California town of Hawaiian Gardens, Moskowitz is well-known to those who follow the Israel-Palestine conflict. His contributions to far-right Jewish settler groups, questionable archaeological projects and widespread land purchases in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have routinely inflamed the region over the past four decades and, according to many familiar with the conflict, made him a key obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Now, at age 83, Moskowitz has turned his money on the American political realm in a more prominent fashion than ever before, funding “birther” groups that question the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship and others that stoke fears about the president’s alleged ties to “radical Islam.”

Although he has funded Republican politicians and organizations in the past, his $1 million donation to American Crossroads is his biggest contribution to U.S. electoral politics to date. Moskowitz did not respond to requests for comment from The Huffington Post. American Crossroads told HuffPost that it does not comment on its donors.

Moskowitz’s contribution was made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and a subsequent lower court decision that freed corporations, unions and individuals to make unlimited contributions to independent electoral efforts.

And it indicates that supporters of Israel’s right to control the West Bank, occupied since the end of the 1967 war, will vigorously oppose President Obama in his campaign for reelection. [Continue reading…]

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Israel bravely faces threat of imminent invasion

Gideon Levy writes: And with what shall we frighten the Israeli public in advance of the seventh day of Passover? How will we provide the dose of fear to which it has long since become addicted? After a week of a quiet and safe vacation, we have to find something, after all. The Iranian threat has entered a negotiations freeze, terror is quiet, even the Grad missiles have diminished in number, there is no mass plague on the horizon and even the circumstances of the attack against the Jew in Kiev have not become sufficiently clear.

But Israel has not been abandoned, and the Israeli mind finally hit on something: the pro-Palestinian fly-in “provocation,” as it has already been called. The minister of public security is convening feverish consultations, the airlines have received the “blacklist” prepared in advance by the omniscient security networks, the crime reporter – of course this is about crime, what else? – has already been sent to Ben-Gurion International Airport to greet the looming danger.

Israel is prepared for D-Day this coming Sunday. They say 2,500 activists will land in Israel and sow great fear. Although the crime reporter explained to the nation that the activists do not plan to bear arms or resort to violence, still, when it comes to danger, to terror, to scare-mongering, the forces are already prepared for the big day. The last time, about a year ago, it ended with 127 detainees who were immediately expelled, as they deserved, and the danger was nipped in the bud.

The intentions of the organizers – a visit to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people, a trip directly from Ben-Gurion to Bethlehem without any violent intent – were immediately blurred and replaced with the usual Israeli accusation: terror and delegitimization. As we accuse any peace lover or human rights activist.

Had Israel not inflated the story to such terrifying dimensions, few people would have paid attention to this innocent protest. Had Israel also welcomed them warmly and sent them on their way to Bethlehem, that would have embarrassed them and even undermined their objective. But the State of Israel will not stand by idly. It certainly won’t miss an opportunity to look ridiculous and even more contemptible in the eyes of the world. It will immediately turn them into personae non grata, as it did to Gunter Grass, as well as an airborne threat.

Entry into Israel is permitted only to its declared friends. Not a Spanish clown and not a German writer, certainly not human rights activists. An ignorant, extremist, Christian American right-winger is welcome; an intellectual, conscientious European left-winger is sent to the expulsion cell. Israel 2012.

In the case of flotillas as well as fly-ins, these are activists, most of whom mean well. The Swedish writer Henning Mankell turned to us before the most recent flotilla to Gaza: “For once report the truth. Don’t you see that there is no declaration of war here, but a declaration of peace?” And of course his words fell on deaf ears. Mankell participated in two flotillas to Gaza, was expelled twice from Israel in disgrace, and published his harsh impressions in the world’s leading newspapers.

Had Israel not confiscated his computer and his property and treated him like a terrorist, his impressions would have been different. Had Israel invited him to present its viewpoint, perhaps his criticism would have been less harsh. Mankell and his friends will not give up. Now another flotilla is being organized in Sweden, this time on a sailboat carrying flowers, which we will probably also treat as though it were an aircraft carrier about to attack Israel.

The roots of this paranoia are deep and thought-provoking. Were Israel convinced of the justice of its path, it wouldn’t behave this way. If Israel really thought the occupation is just and legal, it wouldn’t be frightened by every conscientious activist who opposes it. If it had nothing to hide, it would respectfully invite them to visit.

But when the ground is burning beneath our feet, and the fire of doubt and insecurity is consuming everything, the only response is a violent and unrestrained attack. On Sunday, when the farce of arrests and the grotesque expulsion take place once again, the activists will register another significant victory: Once again they will prove that Israel does have something to hide, that in spite of all its propaganda, Israel is well aware that there are skeletons in its closet and anyone who dares come near them will suffer the same fate – expulsion.

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Grass compares Israel to Myanmar, East Germany after entry ban

Bloomberg reports: Guenter Grass, the Nobel Prize winning author of “The Tin Drum,” compared the ban on his entering Israel to his treatment by dictatorships in Myanmar and East Germany in an article for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

On April 8, Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared Grass persona non grata and barred him from entering Israel, after Germany’s best-known living writer published a poem calling the nation’s nuclear capacity a threat to world peace.

“I have been denied entry into a country three times,” Grass wrote in the short article, which was pre-released by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung before its publication tomorrow. He compared the wording of Yishai’s ruling to the tone of his ban by Erich Mielke, the minister in charge of East Germany’s Stasi, or secret police.

Grass wrote that the experience would not erase fond memories of his journeys to Israel, a country to which he still felt “irrevocably bound.” He repeated his criticism of Israel. “As a nuclear power of uncontrolled dimensions, the Israeli government acts only on its own authority and heeds no reprimands,” Grass wrote.

Alex Pearlman writes: Grass’ controversial past could explain away Israel’s actions against that German writer in particular. But it isn’t just the poem. Israel has a free speech problem.

In 2010 renowned professor and linguist Noam Chomsky was banned from entry to Israel after an attempt to give a lecture at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. Norman Finkelstein, also a Jewish professor, was arrested, deported, and banned from Israel for 10 years in 2008. [Here’s a slideshow of more controversial critics of Israel who have been banned from entering the country.]

“The decision to prevent someone from voicing their opinions by arresting and deporting them is typical of a totalitarian regime,” said Oded Peler, a lawyer for Israel’s Association for Civil Rights to the Guardian after Finkelstein’s deportation. “A democratic state, where freedom of expression is the highest principle, does not shut out criticism or ideas just because they are uncomfortable for its authorities to hear. It confronts those ideas in public debate.”

And it isn’t just Israel itself that has a free speech problem — the modus operandi of Israel’s supporters in the US has long been to use all means possible to silence Israel’s critics.

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Tony Blair has ‘no recollection’ of Libyan dissident’s rendition

The Guardian reports: Tony Blair, prime minister at the time MI6 rendered Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a prominent Libyan dissident, to the Gaddafi regime in 2004, has said he had “no recollection” of the incident.

But he said he was sure the operation would be investigated “as it should be”.

Interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, Blair added that it should be remembered that “people in the Middle East were also trying to fight terrorism and extremism”. Britain’s co-operation with Libya at the time was important, the former prime minister said.

He referred to comments made by the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who said the government had been opposed to unlawful rendition. “As far as I know [the government] kept to that position,” Blair said.

Straw has said: “We were opposed to unlawful rendition. We were opposed to any use of torture. Not only did we not agree with it; we were not complicit in it and nor did we turn a blind eye to it.”

However, Straw has added: “No foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing at any one time.”

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Syria mostly calm after UN truce deadline

The Associated Press reports: A fragile cease-fire brokered by the U.N. took hold in Syria on Thursday with regime forces apparently halting widespread attacks on the opposition, but there were reports of scattered violence and the government defied demands by international envoy Kofi Annan to pull troops back to barracks.

A civilian and a Syrian soldier were reported killed after the 6 a.m. cease-fire deadline, but there was no sign of the normally intense shelling, rocket attacks and sniper fire that have become routine.

If the truce holds, it would be the first time the regime has observed an internationally brokered cease-fire since Bashar Assad’s regime launched a brutal crackdown 13 months ago on mass protests calling for his ouster.

However, troops intensified searches at checkpoints, tightening controls ahead of possible large-scale protests Friday called by the opposition and meant to test the regime’s commitment to the Annan plan.

There was deep skepticism that the regime would halt its fire for long, given that Assad has broken promises in the past. Also, the regime said Wednesday, on the eve of the truce deadline, that it reserves the right to respond to any aggression, potentially a pretext for breaking the truce.

Annan’s plan calls for the deployment of international observers and talks on a political transition once a truce is in place. The initiative has broad international support, including from Assad allies Russia, China and Iran, and is widely seen as the last chance for diplomacy to end the violence. The increasingly militarized uprising has been veering toward an armed insurgency.

Analysts said the apparent halt in government attacks suggests Assad’s allies are pressuring him for the first time, after shielding him from international condemnation in the past. Annan has visited Russia, Iran and China to get the broadest possible backing for the plan.

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North America’s dirty oil boom and the threat to the environment and environmentalists

The New York Times reports: The reversal of fortune in America’s energy supplies in recent years holds the promise of abundant and cheaper fuel, and it could have profound effects on what people drive, domestic manufacturing and America’s foreign policy.

Cheaper fuel produced domestically could reduce the cost of shipping and manufacturing, trim heating and cooling bills, improve the auto market and provide tens of thousands of new jobs.

It might also pose new environmental challenges, both predictable and unforeseen, by damping enthusiasm for clean forms of energy and derailing efforts to wean the nation from its wasteful energy habits.

But for Americans battered by rising gasoline prices, frustrated by the dependence on foreign oil, skeptical of the benefits or practicality of renewable fuels and afraid of nuclear power, the appeal of plentiful domestic oil and gas could far outweigh the costs.

Just a few years ago, the dominant theme in discussions about energy was of declining production and the fear of running out of oil. Even today, political tensions in the Middle East, particularly in the Persian Gulf, have fanned fears of supply disruptions that are keeping prices high.

But a new boom in energy production in recent years has upended these expectations in record time. High energy prices led to a wave of successful oil and gas exploration in North America, including in fields that were deemed uneconomical only a few years ago. Using techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, oil companies are tapping into deeply buried reserves in shale rocks and in the ocean’s depths.

The surge in energy prices, along with a recession and new government rules that tightened fuel-economy standards, led to a sharp cutback in gasoline consumption. This decline in demand in the last five years reversed decades of almost uninterrupted growth that made the United States the world’s top energy consumer, accounting for one in every four barrels of oil burned around the globe.

The North American energy revival is primarily the result of so-called unconventional sources of energy — like shale oil and shale gas across the United States, oil sands in Canada and deepwater production in the Gulf of Mexico. In the last five years, the United States and Canada combined have become the fastest-growing sources of new oil supplies around the world, overtaking producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“The transformation unfolding in North America represents a potentially decisive shift in the history of energy,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, who is not usually given to hyperbole, said in a speech in Houston last month.

Ed Morse, head of global commodity research at Citigroup and a longtime energy analyst, says North America has the potential to become a “new Middle East.”

“The reduced vulnerability of North America — and the world market — to oil price spikes also has deep consequences geopolitically, including the reduced strategic importance to the U.S. of changes in oil- and natural gas-producing countries worldwide,” Mr. Morse said in a recent 92-page report called Energy 2020. ”Pressures towards isolationism in the U.S. will likely grow, with consequences for global stability that can only just begin to become understood.”

“The only thing that could stop this is politics — environmentalists getting the upper hand over supply in the U.S., for instance,” the report said. [Continue reading…]

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Growth of income inequality is worse under Obama than Bush

Matt Stoller writes: Yesterday, the President gave a speech in which he demanded that Congress raise taxes on millionaires, as a way to somewhat recalibrate the nation’s wealth distribution. His advisors, like Gene Sperling, are giving speeches talking about the need for manufacturing. A common question in DC is whether this populist pose will help him win the election. Perhaps it will. Perhaps not. Romney is a weak candidate, cartoonishly wealthy and from what I’ve seen, pretty inept. But on policy, there’s a more interesting question.

A better puzzle to wrestle with is why President Obama is able to continue to speak as if his administration has not presided over a significant expansion of income redistribution upward. The data on inequality shows that his policies are not incrementally better than those of his predecessor, or that we’re making progress too slowly, as liberal Democrats like to argue. It doesn’t even show that the outcome is the same as Bush’s. No, look at this table, from Emmanuel Saez (h/t Ian Welsh). Check out those two red circles I added.

Yup, under Bush, the 1% captured a disproportionate share of the income gains from the Bush boom of 2002-2007. They got 65 cents of every dollar created in that boom, up 20 cents from when Clinton was President. Under Obama, the 1% got 93 cents of every dollar created in that boom. That’s not only more than under Bush, up 28 cents. In the transition from Bush to Obama, inequality got worse, faster, than under the transition from Clinton to Bush. Obama accelerated the growth of inequality.

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