here is a base of hope, a try angle of diplomacy(Robert Naiman)[UPDATE]:
The New York Times reported yesterday that the US says it does not want to call for Mubarak to step down because 1) it fears losing all leverage with Mubarak 2) it fears creating a power vacuum in Egypt 3) it wants to avoid the perception that the US was "once again" engineering the ouster of a Middle East leader.Hope may not be too strong a word for what is not really a base, but a path. The point is that diplomacy must recognize the points and the angles to be effective.
Regardless of whether one believes that these stated reasons are the full story, or whether they are also a cover for other US motivations - the Times acknowledges that the administration's "restraint" is also driven by lack of enthusiasm for "dealing with an Egypt without Mubarak" - these are the stated reasons of the US for not responding to the protesters' call.
But publicly and privately backing the opposition parties' call for negotiations would not, on the face of it, trigger any of the stated US objections. It is a very modest demand, totally consistent with previous US statements, which would not plausibly lead to "losing all leverage" with Mubarak; it would not create a "power vacuum"; it would not reasonably lead to a perception that the US was
"engineering" Mubarak's ouster. On the contrary: the US would be raising the profile of a particular proposal for negotiations as a way out of the crisis, and increasing pressure on the Egyptian government to respond to it.
Speaking of angles:
YES! Do not pick on Social Security as part of the debt picture, shore it up. In fact, lowering the retirement age, increasing the cap for contributions, catching it up with inflation would actually improve the debt picture, by impacting federal receipts. (not from Social Security but in income tax on the improved income.) Thank Senator ReidI may need to take another angle on my comment: Big picture, poor segue, right note. My social security tangent is less than clear in economic or accounting terms, but the issue of State budgets, and the impact of unfunded retirement and health plans is a similar complex of factors that angle back to the nature of our frackin' troubles.
[Footnote * on embedded nature.]
* not (...embedded that is.)
1 comment:
My original need to take another angle "on my comment" referred to the "YES! Do not pick on Social Security..." and how I tossed on the table some options(3 as noted) and the way I spoke to them in economic terms. But I did sum it up in "Big picture, poor segue, right note." It seems to be as much sense as can fit in such space, in particular as the "complex of factors angle back". And to be more cautious, this is no pun on Sharon Angle or "The Angler" VP Dick Cheney. But it could be...very academically, as the vector forces of sum people.(sum was a pun)
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