Opinion

Analysis and opinion of protests and unrest in Ukraine

In the end, it will all come down to hard-liners in Washington and Tehran. 
Months of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran have failed to bring either country back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after Donald Trump, in one of the greatest own-goals of his presidency, withdrew from the pact in 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation. Tehran responded by expanding its nuclear program in breach of the accord. 
That there is no agreement — and no firm prospect of one before the self-imposed mid-February deadline — is making everyone nervous. Led by the five other world powers still party to the accord, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.K., the talks intensified in January and are now in what negotiators describe as the final stage. A senior U.S. State Department official told a briefing Monday the process was entering "the end game." 
Iran wants sanctions lifted. The U.S. wants Tehran to walk back its advanced centrifuges and stockpiles. Then there are questions over the sequencing, the order in which each step will occur. If these can’t be resolved, the U.S. official said that the world would be facing "a reality of mounting tensions and crisis." Even senior leaders in Israel, whose previous government had run a bitter campaign against the pact, "now regret the JCPOA withdrawal and call it a terrible mistake," the official said. 
Reviving the 2015 agreement is a high-stakes game. If it fails, Iran could be the next country to exit the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as North Korea did in 2003, said Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. That would put at risk any progress on the development of a nuclear weapons free zone for the Middle East, he noted. (That’s aside from Israel, which, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates in its 2021 report, has 90 nuclear weapons.) It could also prompt other countries, especially Saudi Arabia, to follow suit. 
Since the U.S. withdrew from the deal, Iran has made significant leaps in its nuclear program — particularly over the last 12 months — including raising uranium enrichment to 60%, its highest level ever. Although there’s no evidence of weaponization, the breakout time (what it would take for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade enriched uranium fuel for a nuclear weapon) is now just a matter of weeks, as opposed to a year. It is impossible, Panda told me, to "unlearn" these advances. "This is knowledge that they have gained and can be used to further develop weapons." 
Even an interim pact, which some Iran watchers say has been proposed on the sidelines but is not a favored option, will need serious incentives to get hardliners in President Ebrahim Raisi’s regime to agree. That will involve allowing the nation, with the world’s No. 2 gas and No. 4 oil reserves, to return to international markets. A more difficult ask is Raisi’s demand for guarantees that a future U.S. administration won’t quit the deal as Trump did. This would be impossible for President Joe Biden to nail down with Iran hawks in his own party, let alone with Republicans. 
Given Iran’s mastery of advanced centrifuges, the country would also need to dismantle the machines, "destroy the corresponding electronic infrastructure and mothball their assembly lines," the International Crisis Group wrote in its Jan. 17 report on the talks. Tehran says these actions are beyond its JCPOA commitments. 
U.S. sanctions under its "maximum pressure" posture have made life unbearable for Iranians, and a far cry from the "resistance economy" myth perpetuated by the regime. But while much had been made of the threat of Iran’s nuclear development to the U.S. and Israel, tensions in the wider region are also on the rise. In the third attack in a month, the United Arab Emirates on Monday intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi fighters, further blowback from its involvement in the nearly seven-year war in Yemen. While the UAE has mostly exited the conflict, as did the U.S. last year, Saudi Arabia has continued its bombing campaign and has suffered rebel-led attacks on its oil installations. 
Other Gulf states are escalating their diplomatic efforts in an attempt to push the deal closer to reality and patch up their own differences with Iran. Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, met Biden in the White House on Monday in the first visit of a Gulf Cooperation Council leader since he assumed the presidency. You’d hope the nuclear pact was on their agenda, along with Ukraine and Afghanistan. That follows a visit to Tehran on Jan. 27 by Qatar’s foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, soon after his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said Iran would consider direct negotiations with Washington if a "good deal" was on offer. 
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said Monday his government had presented negotiators in Vienna with a written initiative that could result in a "reliable, sustainable deal" if Washington agreed, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. 
But for now, negotiators have thrown the onus back on their political leaders for the next move. A failure to return to the accord will be a significant step backward in the push to stave off a nuclear arms race, which is a risk neither side can afford. As Sanam Vakil, deputy director and senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program told me: "The U.S. and Iran are the main players in this drama — they need to talk." 
Let’s hope that happens, and that Biden and Raisi are able to win over their domestic audiences and re-enter the fold. We’ll all be a lot safer for it.

Commentary

WEBOP1220204

Iran nuclear talks: An end-game as 2 stubborn nations dig in

Iran nuclear talks: An end-game as 2 nations dig in

Austria Iran Nuclear

Dan Janison

Sometimes what’s missing tells you more than what’s visible. In their last convention, conducted remotely due to COVID-19, members of the Republican National Committee did something remarkable. 
They failed to issue a platform. 
That meant no written positions on key domestic issues, and no reprise of their 2016 platform fight over arming Ukraine to defend against Russia. 
The first-in-memory, platform-free party went on to lose the White House and Senate. 
Now, with the GOP campaigning to take back a majority in the House of Representatives, stances and ideology and ideas remain up for grabs, as they are in some places for the Democrats, too. 
We know who belongs to the major parties and where they live, but we can’t be sure what issues they’ll choose to prioritize once in office. 
Just as the last congressional elections were a referendum on President Donald Trump, this round will be something of a referendum on President Joe Biden and possibly a verdict on Trump’s sad efforts to nullify the people’s decision. 
Will Trump still be party boss this cycle, and will he and his allies influence GOP governance proposals? 
He has been conducting a strange personal feud over COVID vaccines with Ron DeSantis, the GOP governor of his current home state of Florida. But any actual impact on Republican national health policy, as it might help constituents, remains elusive. 
Famous differences persist among Democrats. The party caucus has in its ranks the lefty Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx), who’s aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders, but also Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City), who’s allied with conservative Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, on such issues as Medicare purchases of prescription drugs. 
The upcoming Democratic scrum in the newly scrambled 3rd Congressional District could offer differences on the presumed left-right spectrum. Candidate Melanie D’Arrigo and possible candidate state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi would be said to represent the left in the five-county, Long Island Nassau-based district primary. 
Nassau Legis. Josh Lafazan seems nearly bipartisan, while Robert Zimmerman, a longtime Democratic National Committee member, and Jon Kaiman, with past ties to departing Rep. Tom Suozzi, are viewed as moderates. 
Such labels are always vague and limited. 
In western New York, incumbent Republican Chris Jacobs, running in a presumably "safe" new GOP seat, reportedly faces a primary challenge from attorney Todd Aldinger who has brought lawsuits against mandating masks and COVID vaccines. But Jacobs is also on that political bandwagon, and stuck with his caucus leadership by voting against the recent bipartisan infrastructure bill which he linked to "socialism." 
A possible Democratic primary in New York City promises a clearer intra-party contrast. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio says he’s seriously considering running for Congress in the newer, bluer CD11 linking Staten Island and Brooklyn. But Democrat Max Rose, ousted last time by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, has a more conservative profile than the ex-mayor whom he’s condemned in the past. 
Rose might gain from the fight if he first beats de Blasio, who’s widely scorned in much of the district, before facing Malliotakis in the general election. But neighborhoods, counties and districts have a dynamic all their own that defies right-left categories, making it all hard to predict. 
In the campaign ecology of today, memes, slanders and celebrity all eclipse practical positions on taxes, spending, peace and war. People would like to know what they are voting for, not just whom — and it falls to the candidates and party leaders to tell us. 
Columnist Dan Janison’s opinions are his own.

Columnists

OPJAN220204

Parties have yet to sharpen stances for '22 elections

Janison: Parties have yet to sharpen stances

0N0DN92S.JPG

<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Brentwood, Five Towns, Elmont highlight map shifts</h3> 
Not everyone feels they come out winners on Long Island’s new state legislative maps. The State Senate redistricting unveiled Tuesday left Michael Fragin, a trustee for the Village of Lawrence, "pretty shocked," he said. 
The map crafters are doing pretty much what Fragin and several of his neighbors asked a state panel in testimony last July not be done — move parts of Nassau County, including Cedarhurst, Hewlett and Woodmere, with a common interest among Orthodox Jewish communities, which have tended to vote Republican, across the border into what has been a heavily Democratic Queens district. 
That is, a significant part of the Five Towns shifts from the 9th S.D. represented by Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) to the 10th S.D. long represented by Sen. James Sanders (D-South Ozone Park). "It’s hard to find a commonality on local issues from a very suburban, single family environment like the Five Towns with Jamaica, Queens, a very different urban environment," Fragin told The Point. And, Queens and Nassau represent "a different type of government entirely," he said. 
In other instances, changes requested in testimony before the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission were reflected in the proposed maps. Elmont had been split in the Senate between the 7th and 9th districts. Under the new map, Elmont is all in the 7th district, now represented by Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-North Hills), shoring up the incumbent with added Democrats as the party's traditional base in Great Neck crumbles. 
The new 6th S.D., represented by Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown), the first Indian American NY state senator, will no longer have white residents make up more than half the district’s population, helping his reelection chances. Another so-called "majority-minority" district emerges in Suffolk, where the 3rd S.D., represented by freshman Republican Alexis Weik of Sayville, would have a plurality of Latino voters. 
The hamlet of Brentwood would thus be united within the district as local activists asked. 
And given a new and more advantageous playing field, Brentwood resident Monica Martinez — the Democrat unseated by Weik in 2020 — is expected to announce her candidacy "imminently," pending a "final decision," a Town of Islip source told The Point. 
While parts of the process resulted in gerrymanders that look like more jagged puzzle pieces, some districts will look like simpler puzzle pieces — at least with a new straight edge or two. 
Assemb. Taylor Darling (D-Hempstead) said her redrawn 18th A.D. makes more sense now. "I don’t have East Meadow and I don’t have Merrick, but I acquired more of Uniondale, I’ve acquired more of Lakeview," Darling told The Point. "I think I have a stronger district. There were parts there that didn’t make the most sense in terms of their needs and the rest of the district’s needs." 
Of course the perception of those needs, communities of interest, proper process, and what makes political and geographic sense are all forever debated — which is why these matters usually bring litigation. 
— Dan Janison <a href="https://twitter.com/danjanison">@Danjanison</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>Displaced congressional hopefuls</h3> 
Redistricting really came home for two prominent congressional hopefuls on Long Island who will likely end up living in different districts than the ones where they were expecting to run. 
Jackie Gordon was the Democratic nominee for 2nd Congressional District in 2020, but her Copiague home now appears headed just over the edge into CD1, according to proposed maps soon to be voted on by the Democrat-controlled State Legislature as part of the post-Census reshuffling. 
And Brookhaven Town Councilman Neil Foley of Blue Point was one of the leading names to assume the GOP mantle in gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin’s CD1. But the new lines would put him right in the center of CD2, home to sophomore GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino. 
For Foley, the shift is particularly stark — horizontally, he’d have to drive some 40 minutes practically to Hampton Bays to get to the southeastern edge where the new CD2 hits the new CD1. For what it’s worth, he’s not the only Republican with a CD1-to-CD2 surprise: Zeldin himself would fall into the new CD2, although he’s now running full-steam for governor and not his current congressional seat. 
The residency requirements for members of the House of Representatives are in the U.S. Constitution: They only need be residents of the state when elected. But it’s not a politically easy move to be a carpetbagger, nor — on Long Island — to quickly sell one’s home and shift to a new area. 
The lines are not finalized until voted on in Albany, but as currently drawn they would likely spur a new plan from both hopefuls. 
CD1 will likely become a big Democratic pickup opportunity, and Gordon could throw herself into that primary (more on that below). CD2, on the other hand, would become Long Island’s GOP heartland. 
Outwardly, neither party is exactly giving up on either district. Suffolk GOP chair Jesse Garcia tells The Point that the party has multiple contenders for CD1 and will have an announced candidate supported by the party by mid-February. He contends a win is possible there given, in part, "the political atmosphere." 
As for CD2, the Democrats have certainly made long-shot efforts against entrenched Republicans on Long Island before. But as one CD2 Democrat told The Point, "I don’t know anyone interested in a suicide mission." 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Courting Ukraine</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>So how will the new districts trend? </h3> 
To get a better sense of how the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts are set to change on Long Island, The Point turned to Steven Romalewski of the Mapping Service at CUNY Graduate Center, whose <a href="https://newyork.redistrictingandyou.org/?districtType=cd&amp;propA=current_2012&amp;propB=congress_latfor_20220130&amp;selected=-72.745,40.904#%26map=8.25/40.857/-72.521">cartography</a> has been devoured by NY political junkies in recent days. 
Romalewski crunched the numbers to find turnout by town during the 2020 presidential general election, in both the current and proposed districts. 
The big partisan shifts are obvious: CD1 would go from a district where only 47.9% voted for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump, to one where 55.5% did. That’s a sizable 7.6 percentage point Democratic gain. 
And CD2 would shift red, with Biden’s share against Trump going from 48% to just under 43%. That’s a more than 5 percentage point GOP gain. 
But for those hoping to forecast party primaries, the town data is more intriguing. 
Take CD1: Brookhaven, which is Kara Hahn’s home turf and where she and Bridget Fleming have already been doing ground-level battle over endorsements, will still be the largest turnout chunk of the district. But a big piece of the town would be carved out of the district, so the part that remains would generate less than half the number of votes. 
Babylon would be the town with the next biggest turnout chunk of CD1. It’s also the home of town Councilwoman Jackie Gordon who had been expecting to run a rematch in CD2, but could instead try her luck in the nationally watched pickup opportunity of CD1. 
And across the border in CD2, the town numbers show where the district is getting redder — perhaps pertinent information for potential primaries either this cycle or in years to come. The all-new Brookhaven portion of the district would be the biggest chunk of town in the district, with 2020 Trump plus Biden turnout of 128,773. That chunk went 55% for Trump. Another new section is a small piece of also-hot-red Smithtown. Trump’s share of that portion was 57%. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220201

Redistricting's losers and carpetbaggers

Michael Dobie

<ul> 
 <li>Billie Eilish is the latest big name to decide to bring a tour to UBS Arena at Belmont Park. The latest big name to decide to bring a tour to Nassau Coliseum is … well … there isn’t any. </li> 
 <li>Carlos Beltran will be a broadcaster on 36 New York Yankees games this season. Perhaps they should cue Beltran when it’s his turn to speak by banging on a garbage can.</li> 
 <li>Musicians Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren joined Neil Young in demanding Spotify remove their music to protest the platform continuing to host podcaster Joe Rogan, a notorious purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation. That’s great, but until someone with as much heft as Rogan joins the protest it’s not going anywhere.</li> 
 <li>Former President Donald Trump says that if he runs and is elected again as president, he will pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. Now there’s a campaign rallying cry — for Democrats.</li> 
 <li>Congressional Republicans have not decided whether they will offer a positive agenda in the 2022 campaign. Which might seem sad, but politics is one area where nothing can beat something.</li> 
 <li>UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Russia would not send 100,000 troops to the Ukraine border if it didn’t intend to use them. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands, the Western world’s scrambling in response, and Monday’s debate at the UN, it’s clear the troops are already being used.</li> 
 <li>After an investigation into Downing Street parties held during times of rigid coronavirus restrictions in Britain found the 16 parties should not have been allowed to take place, embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, "I know what the issue is. It’s whether this government can be trusted to deliver. And I say, Mr. Speaker, yes we can be trusted." To deliver parties, perhaps, but what else?</li> 
 <li>Who ever thought Tom Brady’s career would end on a busted play?</li> 
</ul>

OPTHITS220131

The Point: Mixed signals

etbill220130_photos

<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Whose district?</h3> 
The newly proposed 3rd Congressional District is one of the more tortured creatures on the State Legislature’s maps. What used to cover three counties has now ballooned to five: parts of Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, the Bronx, and Westchester, all ringing Long Island Sound. 
So which county or counties can really claim it as theirs? 
That’s what campaigns have been scrambling to figure out. The Point has learned of one estimate from Melanie D’Arrigo, the left-leaning Port Washington Democrat who unsuccessfully ran a 2020 primary against incumbent Tom Suozzi, who is not running again in order to pursue a bid for governor. 
In the 2020 general election, a presidential year, turnout in the areas that are set to become the new CD3 was 66% from Long Island, 20% Westchester, 11% Queens and 3% the Bronx, according to D’Arrigo campaign estimates. 
The Democratic primary electorate this June won’t necessarily be the same but it likely won’t be all that different, multiple campaign operatives and consultants told The Point. D’Arrigo campaign manager Anthony Pavone suggested that during the Democratic primary, an even greater share of voters could be from LI due to what he characterized as normally low Democratic primary turnout in places like Pelham and Rye. 
Other Long Island candidates who had launched their races long before the new lines were announced made similar arguments. 
Suffolk County Deputy County Executive Jon Kaiman observed that LI is a "significant portion" of the district. Public relations executive and Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman joked that he’s looking for friends with boats but also noted that, being from Great Neck, he’d still be "centrally located." 
Nassau County Legis. Josh Lafazan’s spokesman Ross Wallenstein noted that a majority of the proposed district’s residents would still be based on the Island. 
The unspoken aspect of all this LI-centering is the possibility that a new candidate comes in from mainland New York and disrupts what had been an already-feisty primary to replace the governor’s-mansion-chasing Suozzi. Chief among those potential candidates would be State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester, is a vocal presence on social media and among the state’s young Democratic cohort, and is the granddaughter of longtime former Bronx congressman Mario Biaggi. The younger Biaggi’s spokesman has said she’s "seriously considering" running, an entrance that would add a fairly well-known name to the mix. As a prominent left-leaning candidate, she could also be running in the same lane as progressive-presenting candidates Zimmerman and D’Arrigo. 
On the off chance that Biaggi doesn't go for the big prize, other Westchester candidates appear to be already percolating. No matter how distant Smithtown is from Rye. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>The lines change, but redistricting game stays the same</h3> 
When the newly proposed congressional lines for New York’s redistricting were released this week, they inspired hope, fear, and … nostalgia. 
Some of the biggest changes contemplated in the plan were also on the table in 2012, particularly in regard to the 1st District. 
Had they been enacted, Tim Bishop might never have lost. Pete King could have timed his retirement differently. And Lee Zeldin might still toil in the State Senate, only dreaming of a gubernatorial run. 
The new rendering of the 1st District adds largely Democratic parts of the towns of Islip and Brookhaven along the central spine of the Island, all the way past the Nassau County line. And it would give up highly Republican areas on the South Shore to the 2nd District. 
This could make incumbent Republican Andrew Garbarino’s CD2 seat a safe one, and make the Democratic nominee in the 1st a favorite now that GOP incumbent Lee Zeldin has decided against another term in order to run for governor. 
But the existing lines nearly never happened. 
"I was supposed to have nothing to worry about," former Rep. Peter King told The Point of the 2012 process. "We had maps that I and Steve [Israel], Carolyn [McCarthy] and Tim [Bishop] were all happy with." 
But as King remembers it, Charlie Rangel’s anger with the way his Harlem-based, super-safe seat — from which he’d planned to retire soon — was being redrawn in that statewide plan kindled a fight between Dominican, Puerto Rican and Black NYC powers looking to control the seat once Rangel retired. That led then-Assembly Speaker Shelley Silver to oppose the deal. 
Israel remembers the Rangel controversy well, and agrees that Silver had a bone to pick, but feels in the end it was more former Gov. Andrew Cuomo who squashed the plan. 
"When I asked him to step in and deal with this, Cuomo asked, ‘On what basis should I, as governor, interfere with this congressional redistricting process,' " Israel said. "And he said Silver had problems, and Silver blamed Cuomo, and it got thrown to the courts." 
Bishop, who survived the changes in 2012 but succumbed to Zeldin in 2014, said Monday, "The intent then was similar to what it is today: Make the 1st safe for Democrats, and the 3rd and 4th strong for Democrats, too, in exchange for making the 2nd quite red." 
And Zeldin, who lost to Bishop under the old lines in 2008 before beating him in 2014 with the new ones? 
"They are saying the new lines create a 1st District that Biden carried by 11 points," Zeldin said. "But that’s on the basis of how those people felt and voted in November 2020. If you look at how they felt and voted a year later, in November 2021, that’s a very different story." 
Zeldin said that while he knew redistricting could change his race, it did not have any bearing on his decision to leave the House. He also says he has no doubt he could win the 1st under the new lines. And he believes the eventual Republican nominee for his seat will have a much better chance than the Democrats drawing the lines might believe. 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Trial by fire</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Quick Points</h2> 
<h3>Mixed signals</h3> 
<ul> 
 <li>Billie Eilish is the latest big name to decide to bring a tour to UBS Arena at Belmont Park. The latest big name to decide to bring a tour to Nassau Coliseum is … well … there isn’t any. </li> 
 <li>Carlos Beltran will be a broadcaster on 36 New York Yankees games this season. Perhaps they should cue Beltran when it’s his turn to speak by banging on a garbage can.</li> 
 <li>Musicians Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren joined Neil Young in demanding Spotify remove their music to protest the platform continuing to host podcaster Joe Rogan, a notorious purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation. That’s great, but until someone with as much heft as Rogan joins the protest it’s not going anywhere.</li> 
 <li>Former President Donald Trump says that if he runs and is elected again as president, he will pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. Now there’s a campaign rallying cry — for Democrats.</li> 
 <li>Congressional Republicans have not decided whether they will offer a positive agenda in the 2022 campaign. Which might seem sad, but politics is one area where nothing can beat something.</li> 
 <li>UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Russia would not send 100,000 troops to the Ukraine border if it didn’t intend to use them. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands, the Western world’s scrambling in response, and Monday’s debate at the UN, it’s clear the troops are already being used.</li> 
 <li>After an investigation into Downing Street parties held during times of rigid coronavirus restrictions in Britain found the 16 parties should not have been allowed to take place, embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, "I know what the issue is. It’s whether this government can be trusted to deliver. And I say, Mr. Speaker, yes we can be trusted." To deliver parties, perhaps, but what else?</li> 
 <li>Who ever thought Tom Brady’s career would end on a busted play?</li> 
</ul> 
— Michael Dobie <a href="https://twitter.com/mwdobie">@mwdobie</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220131

Quite at sea, that 3rd CD; remembering CD1

Sure, optimism is a virtue. I guess. 
But when does optimism fade into a complacent obliviousness that blinds us to just how bad things could get? 
And things could get very bad. There are a number of ways to illustrate this point, but a few gloomy examples should suffice: 
It’s very difficult, for example, to imagine a happy ending to the current standoff over Ukraine. We await Vladimir Putin’s responses to our responses to his demands, but it would require the most starry-eyed optimist to imagine that he will be satisfied. 
If Putin invades Ukraine, turmoil and bloodshed will ensue. The United States will not be immune to their consequences. Whatever happens will probably be only the first battle of a larger war. And it’s deeply sobering to consider that the chief players in this dangerous confrontation have nuclear weapons. 
What else could go very wrong? 
There’s the pandemic. We may at last be seeing the far side of a plague that has killed nearly six million people. While COVID-19 has reminded us that our health — even our lives — are at the mercy of biology, it’s also reminded us that science works and that humankind has considerable capacity to fight back against diseases that, just a few decades ago, would have killed many more of us. 
On the other hand, it’s disturbing to consider how badly we’ve responded to the pandemic in the United States. COVID-19 is a crisis that might have brought our nation together, but it’s had very much the opposite effect. 
In fact, the staggering divisions that we’re currently experiencing weren’t caused by the pandemic, but it struck at just the wrong time to make things much worse. The path back to the place where traditional American democracy is possible isn’t at all clear, and COVID-19 has tested our commitment to that road. And this won’t be the last pandemic. 
Finally, the ominous backdrop to all lesser calamities is climate change, the catastrophe that’s no longer waiting to happen. New alarms are sounded almost daily, each louder than the last. 
Here’s a recent one: In the Jan. 17 issue of The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa reports on the state of permafrost, the frozen soil that comprises about a quarter of the landmass of the Northern Hemisphere. As the climate warms, permafrost is melting and in the process releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Models indicate that permafrost contains 1 1/2 trillion tons of carbon, twice the amount already in the atmosphere. 
There is no prospect that permafrost will ever refreeze, and thus a self-perpetuating, downward cycle is underway: as carbon is released, the atmosphere continues to warm and more carbon is released. 
Sorry for the gloom. But it’s hard to imagine a greater mistake than to adopt oblivious optimism in the face of potential catastrophes such as these. Our biggest challenge is mustering the imagination sufficient to appreciate the magnitude of the disasters ahead of us. 
Maybe fiction will help spur our imaginations. These melancholy thoughts happen to coincide with a reading of H. G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction classic "The War of the Worlds." Martians have landed and, by means of a powerful heat-ray, they wreak havoc in the countryside as they approach London. 
Panic ensues. Few passages in literature are as evocative of catastrophe and chaos as Wells’ description of the terrorized throngs fleeing London before the advancing Martians. 
But Wells’ narrator is a philosopher. He ruminates on humanity’s failure to prepare itself for catastrophe. He imagines the now-extinct dodo bird addressing his dodo spouse complacently in his comfortable nest in Mauritius as "pitiless sailors" are landing on the beaches in search of something to eat. 
"We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear." 
Our unwillingness to imagine the potential catastrophes — especially climate change — that the future holds prevents us from responding to them in a meaningful way. At best, we are merely pecking around the edges of solutions. 
However, unlike Wells’ extraterrestrial threats, our threats — and their potential solutions — are entirely homegrown.

WEBOP2220131

Our nation's fatal lack of imagination

US_Ukraine_Putin_Options_Explainer_36444

President Joe Biden promised to change U.S. foreign policy after two decades of a costly military-driven approach and four years of an America-first shift away from our allies. He committed to using military power only as a tool of last resort, in defense of vital national interests, and to work with our friends and allies on collective solutions to shared global problems. 
The current Russian threat to invade Ukraine (again) puts this approach to the test. Can we rally our allies into a united front for effective use of nonmilitary tools to promote shared goals? Will Biden avoid direct military conflict with Russia in Ukraine if Putin crosses the (literal) line? Will the American people accept this new image of a more reserved and diplomatic America in the face of Russia’s bullying? 
Despite the disastrous war in Afghanistan, Americans are more willing now than ever to send U.S. troops to defend allies and partners, according to the 2021 Chicago Council Survey on American attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy. A record-high 59% supported using U.S. troops if Russia invaded a NATO ally, 63% supported defending South Korea if North Korea invaded and 52% defending Taiwan against China. Support for defending Ukraine against Russia specifically was up from 30% in 2014 to 50% last year. Notably, this survey was conducted months before Russia amassed troops outside Ukraine’s borders. 
I’m skeptical that sentiment would survive long once our troops started incurring casualties far from home. Russia is also a nuclear power, so escalation brings other concerns, too. But it’s a reminder that the American people are amenable to policing the globe, even if we claim not to want to. 
There is also a tension between Biden’s promotion of democracy against growing authoritarianism and Russian use of force to overthrow a democratic government next door. 
The hard truth is that Putin considers Ukraine a fundamental national security interest, and Ukraine simply isn’t as important to us. That means we might not be able to stop Putin from invading if he is determined to do so, but we can still significantly raise the stakes and make it hurt if he does. 
Biden has been clear about what is at stake, and his team has repeatedly taken to the public stage to explain that to the American people. Beyond Ukraine or even Europe, it is about the principle that one country cannot change the borders of another by force or dictate its choice of allies. We should — and will — lead other nations in condemning that behavior, even if we won’t go to war directly for it. 
So what should Biden do, in keeping with his priorities, guiding principles and the interests of the American people? His administration’s response so far might not feel particularly satisfying, lacking the clarity and moral certainty that some of his predecessors have demonstrated. But it is honest, complex and appropriate. 
The administration is focused on diplomacy and deterrence. High-level diplomacy has been ongoing, both between U.S. and Russian officials and within NATO. Talks with Russia are a long shot, but it is important and low cost to keep that door open. The most successful outcome would likely involve negotiating security guarantees on both sides. Without diplomacy, that isn’t possible. 
We have also invested heavily in building a coordinated response, promising economic sanctions far beyond what we have used against Russia before. The measures taken after the Russian incursions into Ukraine in 2014 were a hesitant compromise, symbolic but lacking real consequence. Biden is building a response package aimed at eliciting Russian regret. The question now is whether he can get all NATO allies, and perhaps others, to join. Germany, with its heavy dependence on Russian gas, is the main question. Talking with allies isn’t sexy, but it is key to the strategy’s success. 
For deterrence, the administration is using military tools but not military action. What we do where is determined by NATO borders. In keeping with our treaty commitment to defend NATO allies, the Pentagon has 8,500 additional troops on alert to deploy to NATO’s eastern border and other hardware headed to the region. President Biden has made clear he doesn’t intend to deploy troops to Ukraine, which isn’t in NATO, but we’re sending additional military assistance to help Ukraine prepare to defend itself. What we are providing now is lethal, unlike the tents and communications equipment we offered in 2014. 
These are no small measures. They are intended to deter Putin from an invasion, possibly pushing him into a negotiation where we might find common cause on re-upping arms control agreements that have fallen by the wayside. If Putin is not hellbent on invasion, this could be a sufficient win to incite him to take an off ramp. But if deterrence falls short, these measures will make him pay for this transgression against Ukraine’s sovereignty and prevent him from moving farther into Europe. Perhaps more importantly, they will put other countries on notice that democracies can come together to act against authoritarian aggression. 
Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is author of "The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age."

WEBOP2220128

Ukraine is a test for Biden's foreign policy doctrine

Russia_Upping_the_Ante_30528

Cathy Young

Does the intensifying Russia-Ukraine conflict signal the possible start of a war in Europe, or of a new Russian push for regional dominance? What should America’s role be in addressing this crisis? These are the questions we are facing at the start of 2022, with Russia massing troops on the Ukrainian border and demanding major concessions from NATO. 
What does the Kremlin want, and what should the White House do? 
The United States and Britain have warned that Russia’s moves signal a full-scale invasion, with the goal of either installing a pro-Kremlin government in Ukraine or annexing the separatist-controlled eastern territories. The dominant view in Western Europe seems to be that this is a bluff directed at NATO and the U.S. 
Russian demands include no further eastward NATO expansion, a halt to NATO military cooperation with nonmembers such as Ukraine, and the removal of NATO troops and weapons from countries that joined the alliance after 1997 (including Poland, the Baltic republics and the Balkan countries). 
The sympathetic view of Russia’s goals — traditionally held on the left, but currently at least as fashionable on the nationalist/populist right, exemplified by Fox News host Tucker Carlson — is that Russian President Vladimir Putin fears NATO "encirclement" and wants Ukraine to be a buffer against a potential military threat. 
Obviously, short of psychic readings, no one knows what Putin really thinks. But there are good reasons to believe the NATO fearmongering is mostly for purposes of propaganda — foreign and domestic. 
For one thing, both NATO’s Partnership for Peace program (launched in 1994, with Russia included) and the NATO-Russia Council (created in 2002) provide a framework for NATO-Russia military cooperation and establish an obligation to consult Russia about its security concerns. 
For another, given Russia’s nuclear arsenal, a NATO military attack on Russia is unthinkable no matter how many of its neighbors join the alliance — as retired Russian general and former arms negotiator Vladimir Dvorkin noted in a column for the independent Russian website EJ.ru in 2008, after Russia’s war in Georgia. The real peril to Russia, Dvorkin warned, was "civilizational isolation" if it continued to resist economic and political liberalization and found itself surrounded by neighbors integrated into the democratic capitalist West. 
Most likely, it’s this kind of "encirclement" — by liberal democracies, not military adversaries — that Putin fears. This is why many Russia-watchers see Putin as primarily a chaos agent. Donald Trump’s former Russia adviser Fiona Hill writes that Putin "wants to evict the United States from Europe." But even that may be part of a bigger strategy: to foment continual instability that undermines the Western liberal order which threatens his power. 
From that standpoint, any number of outcomes in Ukraine could count as a success for Putin, as long as Ukraine’s quest for liberal democracy is thwarted or crippled. 
What can, and should, the U.S. do? Obviously, no one wants to go to war in Europe over Ukraine. But anti-interventionists underestimate the danger of letting an aggressively anti-liberal regime dictate its will to a widening circle of its neighbors. 
Despite some verbal missteps, President Biden has chosen what may be the best course of action in a tough quandary: boosting defensive aid to Kyiv and stepping up sanctions against Moscow. Far from getting us closer to war, this strategy makes war less likely by making invasion costlier for Russia. 
Exporting freedom is a foolhardy venture. But let’s not enable exporters of tyranny. 
Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, are her own.

OPYOU220127

Deciphering Russian aggression

Young: Deciphering Russian aggression

US_Ukraine_Military_Explainer_50813

<ul> 
 <li>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is backing a Republican-sponsored bill in that state that would bar public schools and businesses from inflicting "discomfort" on white people during lessons or training about discrimination. Oh my, now who’s getting triggered and reacting to micro aggressions?</li> 
 <li>Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul said Russian President Vladimir Putin "smells weakness" in President Joe Biden’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Funny, McCaul never said anything about what Putin smelled while Donald Trump was president.</li> 
 <li>New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has registered to become licensed as a substitute teacher as part of an effort to deal with a COVID-19-created teacher shortage. Now there’s a hands-on governor.</li> 
 <li>Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Joe Biden cannot count on his support for "almost any compromise" with Sen. Joe Manchin on a social spending and climate package. OK, as long as Sanders understands that guarantees the failure of almost any compromise.</li> 
 <li>Arizona Democratic leaders voted to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her role in killing voting rights legislation. But what they and lefties in the right-to-center state don’t realize is that what doesn’t kill Sinema will make her stronger.</li> 
 <li>Inflation continues to plague the United States. And here’s the thing: It might not be President Joe Biden’s fault, as the White House says, but it’s his problem.</li> 
 <li>Like a bat out of hell, he flew high over rock ‘n’ roll, took the words right out of our mouths on many occasions, reminded us that two out of three ain’t bad, and established that paradise could indeed be found by your dashboard light. RIP, Meat Loaf.</li> 
</ul>

OPTHITS220124

The Point: Comfort zones

The Point: Comfort zones

Redistricting-Florida-Congress_95341

<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Smithtown addiction facility may get zoned out</h3> 
When Charlie Murphy’s Residence opened in 1942, Alcoholics Anonymous had only existed for seven years and its instruction manual, originally titled "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism," had only been in print for three. 
But in 2016 the famed Fort Salonga facility, which housed and rehabilitated thousands of Long Island addicts over eight decades, burned down. 
And since the time Charlie Murphy’s was established, the neighborhood around it has grown up. 
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, investors hoping to again use the site for an addiction treatment facility will appear before the Smithtown Board of Zoning Appeals, opposed by a local civic association and neighbors fighting to stop it. The proposed facility is for-profit; Charlie Murphy’s was a not-for-profit. 
The neighborhood is residential, both in zoning and character. As long as the treatment facility was operating, and holding 12-step meetings for patients staying there and locals needing a meeting, its use was grandfathered in. 
But opponents led by the Fort Salonga Association, which is asking residents to send form letters to elected officials that can be found on its website, say when the rehab burned and stopped operating for more than 12 months, the site lost its right to a zoning exception. 
Additional arguments are that the proposed 50 beds of the new facility would double the old facility’s census, and that the rehab would increase traffic, endanger children at a school one-third of a mile away, and bring "violence" and "the dregs of society." 
Vincent Trimarco Sr., the attorney for John Bonlarron and William Alvaro, the buyers looking to acquire and reopen the site, told The Point he may argue the use was never abandoned. And, Trimarco points out, similar uses like halfway houses, which this could become instead, are largely exempt from zoning bans under state law. 
In previous similar battles, like a rehab in Blue Point proposed by the Seafield Center that never opened and one for eating disorders in Glen Cove proposed by Monte Nido that did, the outcry in the recovery community in favor of the planned facilities was loud. 
In this case, it has been more muted. 
And elected officials and addiction-treatment advocates say the difference that has them holding their fire and doubling down on due diligence is that they don’t know the operators’ work the way they did Seafield and Monte Nido, which have strong track records here. 
Those officials and advocates say they’d like to know more. Opponents would certainly like to say more, and perhaps even hear more, too. 
And once more, on Long Island, anxious residents will spell "donnybrook" with the letters "B.Z.A." 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>Crypto politics</h3> 
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ wallet might be ruing his decision to convert some salary payments into cryptocurrency, what with the plunge in that market in recent days. 
But Adams appears committed to promoting the electronic, blockchain-based money system even on pain of a short-term loss, which got The Point wondering whether Long Island’s county executives have had any similar flirtations with crypto in this brave new world. 
Spokespeople for Suffolk’s Steve Bellone and Nassau’s Bruce Blakeman said neither county executive had plans to be paid in Bitcoin or the like. Neither had Nassau’s former top official Laura Curran, but it turns out there has been something of a common crypto denominator with Adams in New York City: Brock Pierce. 
Pierce, the former child actor and 2020 Independence Party presidential standard-bearer, is also a crypto enthusiast on whose private jet Adams flew last year to Puerto Rico — seen as a tax haven of sorts for crypto magnates (an Adams spokesman has said the then-mayor-elect paid for the flight). 
Pierce has also donated to Curran and Bellone, according to state campaign finance filings. And he talked crypto with both Democrats last year. 
That included a Suffolk "roundtable discussion" in the spring with local elected officials and business and labor leaders, in which Pierce did a briefing on the future of crypto and how local governments should plan for it. 
Pierce also made his pitch to Nassau leaders in the fall of last year, as Curran was getting into campaign season. No big crypto policies appeared to come of it. 
Curran went on to lose to Bruce Blakeman, and though the Republican has reshuffled the office on other fronts he doesn’t appear to be jumping on the crypto train yet, either. 
Spokesman Chris Boyle said Blakeman has not met with Pierce and won’t take his salary in crypto. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Their silence is golden</h3>

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 <img alt="" src="/image-service/alias/contentid/image.1.50486525/1.50486525.jpg?f=default"> 
 <figcaption></figcaption> 
</figure>
 
For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Quick Points</h2> 
<h3>Comfort zones</h3> 
<ul> 
 <li>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is backing a Republican-sponsored bill in that state that would bar public schools and businesses from inflicting "discomfort" on white people during lessons or training about discrimination. Oh my, now who’s getting triggered and reacting to micro aggressions?</li> 
 <li>Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul said Russian President Vladimir Putin "smells weakness" in President Joe Biden’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Funny, McCaul never said anything about what Putin smelled while Donald Trump was president.</li> 
 <li>New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has registered to become licensed as a substitute teacher as part of an effort to deal with a COVID-19-created teacher shortage. Now there’s a hands-on governor.</li> 
 <li>Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Joe Biden cannot count on his support for "almost any compromise" with Sen. Joe Manchin on a social spending and climate package. OK, as long as Sanders understands that guarantees the failure of almost any compromise.</li> 
 <li>Arizona Democratic leaders voted to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her role in killing voting rights legislation. But what they and lefties in the right-to-center state don’t realize is that what doesn’t kill Sinema will make her stronger.</li> 
 <li>Inflation continues to plague the United States. And here’s the thing: It might not be President Joe Biden’s fault, as the White House says, but it’s his problem.</li> 
 <li>Like a bat out of hell, he flew high over rock ‘n’ roll, took the words right out of our mouths on many occasions, reminded us that two out of three ain’t bad, and established that paradise could indeed be found by your dashboard light. RIP, Meat Loaf.</li> 
</ul> 
— Michael Dobie <a href="https://twitter.com/mwdobie">@mwdobie</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220124

Rehabbing a rehab in Suffolk County

So we're still 100 seconds from doomsday. 
Not literally, of course. Not that I know of, anyway. 
But the science and security board of the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced last week that it was keeping its famed Doomsday Clock set at 100 seconds before midnight for the third year in a row — midnight being the metaphorical time of the end of the world. And the end of the world does seem to be on a lot of people's minds given the record-breaking run on Netflix of "Don't Look Up," the Leonardo DiCaprio-Jennifer Lawrence film about a planet-killing comet headed straight toward Earth. 
So, what does 100 seconds mean? 
As with many things, knowing where you are now depends on knowing where you've been. 
Tell me your favorite baseball team is three games out of first place and, well, OK. Tell me that a week ago they were nine games out and that's interesting. Tell me they were ahead by three games a week ago, that's a completely different picture. 
The context here is that the Doomsday Clock — created 75 years ago by scientists, some of whom had worked on the Manhattan Project, and meant to measure the risk of nuclear war before expanding to consider climate change and other threats — was first set at 7 minutes before midnight. 
In 1991, flush with optimism from the end of the Cold War and a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union, the Bulletin wound the clock back to 11:43 p.m., 17 minutes before allegorical midnight. But humans being humans, and the world being the world, the clock began creeping back toward anticipated disaster. 
In 2017, it moved up 30 seconds to two-and-a-half minutes 'til extinction with the Bulletin citing a lack of progress on nuclear weapons and climate change, the rise of nationalist movements, and "disturbing" and "casual" talk about nuclear proliferation by then-President Donald Trump. In 2020, the clock moved to its present 100 seconds, its first time under 2 minutes to midnight. 
So, yes, 100 seconds is precarious, in the view of the experts in nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies, and other fields who are the clock's timekeepers. 
But it's important to note that the clock's setting is not the product of an algorithm. There's no equation with lots of variables where you plug in numbers and it spits out a time. It's a feel kind of thing, based on opinions — the opinions of very learned, very well-informed people who study these matters for a living, but opinions all the same. 
So you're free to measure it against your own feelings and your own learned experience — as long as you, too, are rooting those in facts. 
That the clock didn't move from last year was ominous, according to the Bulletin. "Steady is not good news," said George Washington University professor Sharon Squassoni, co-chair of its science and security board. 
The Bulletin cited many factors in its assessment. Tense relations between the U.S., Russia and China and efforts by all three to develop hypersonic missiles. North Korea's continued missile testing. Russian troops on Ukraine's border. A lack of action to meet climate goals. A continuing insufficient global response to COVID-19. The pursuit of biological weapons. Ongoing internet-based disinformation, especially that which convinced some people of the lie that Joe Biden didn't win the presidential election in 2020, part of the slide of America down every index that evaluates the strength of democracies. 
Given all that, and the sense of unsettledness many feel about things in general, staying in the same place — not deteriorating — doesn't seem so bad, even if the measure is metaphorical. It's not enough to shake the unsettledness, but it might be enough to set the stage for better times ahead. 
Treading water is OK when you've been drowning. But sooner or later, you've got to get ashore. 
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.

OPDOB220123

As the clock ticks on toward doomsday

Dobie: As the clock ticks on toward doomsday

doomsday-clock

Newsday

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