Berlin Wall, 1986 (Wikimedia)

My former boss Mike Tomasky will have written this article before the Iranian political crisis broke out, but that only makes the relevance all the more clear:

On June 27, 11 days after Nagy’s rehabilitation, Foreign Minister Gyula Horn met his Austrian counterpart, Alois Mock, at the border. Each official held large clipping shears and made ceremonial cuts in the barbed-wire border fence. Soon thereafter, an annual ritual, by which East and West German families divided by the Iron Curtain reunited for a short vacation in Hungary, started again. But this year, for some reason, Hungarian border guards began letting some East Germans slip through to the West. By summer’s end, there was a full-fledged refugee crisis at the border. It’s a shame that the date September 11 now carries the solemn historical weight attached to it, because it was on that date in 1989–after a brave decision by Horn to abrogate a treaty with East Germany forbidding Hungary from permitting East Germans to cross into the West–that East Germans started streaming by the thousands through Hungary into Austria.

The tumult spread quickly to Leipzig and eventually Berlin. George H.W. Bush and James Baker chose, correctly, to do and say little. Mikhail Gorbachev, more importantly and impressively, chose not to roll tanks into Budapest or Berlin. On November 9, with pressure mounting, East German official Gunter Schabowski announced–hastily and incorrectly, in fact, but, since the announcement was aired live across much of the world, irrevocably–that all rules for travel abroad would be lifted “immediately.” East Germans rushed to the Wall and overwhelmed the guards. They danced atop it and chipped away souvenirs.

In a way, these were important events in American history. Certainly, they proved to have important—and positive—consequences for American foreign policy. But ultimately the events were made by people in the Communist bloc. The heroes were a mix of brave dissidents who dared the powers that be to suppress them brutally, and holders of power who ultimately flinched away from doing so. Inserting the strategic priorities of the West directly into the situation in a heavy-handed way would not, ultimately, have helped improve the outcome in any clear way.

Good news, in a statement to my ThinkProgress colleagues Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has clarified his position on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

While we do not have a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell bill introduced in the Senate yet, a number of Senators are working on an approach to get it repealed. We would welcome a legislative proposal from the White House on repeal so as to provide clear guidance on what the President would like to see and when. Working together, I believe we can find the time to get repeal done in this Congress.

Good.

Boston is, in the scheme of things, a pretty well-governed city with a low crime rate and a public school system that, unusually for a big city, performs above the national average when you control for demographic factors. That’s all probably part of the reason that incumbent Mayor Thomas Menino has been in office since 1993. But that only means there are new issues people need to talk about. For example, City Councilman Sam Yoon is running on a strong platform of transportation reform:

Transportation isn’t just cars

The Menino administration has finally started to introduce limited measures that will make the city more bike-friendly. But gestures are not enough. The real problem is that we have an outdated transportation department and mixed up planning. If we want to be the cleanest, greenest, 21st century city in America, then we must get this right. Street design that moves people – on bike, on foot and on rapid public transit should be the focus. Cars are just one part of the breadth of transportation solutions and Boston should be leading the way.

He’s also right about charter school caps. Obviously, there are other issues in play and lots of local-to-Boston details I’m not on top of, so don’t take this as dispositive. But since this blog likes to cover transportation and urban reform issues, I thought it was worth noting this.

There’s been a concerted effort under way to portray Barack Obama’s approach to the Middle East as badly out of step with Jewish opinion, and those Jews who support him as somehow marginal. I think the resolution adopted today by the Union of Reform Judaism should go a long way toward debunking that. The text isn’t exactly what I would say, but on all the core points they’re supporting the administration’s policies. Notable excerpts:

The new Israeli government has been reluctant to commit to the two-state solution and the settlement freeze embodied in the Roadmap and reaffirmed at the Annapolis Conference. The Israeli Interior Minister announced on June 3rd, 2009 that he will move to expand settlements in the West Bank. The destructive impact of the settlements is aggravated by fringe settler groups that have expanded their lawless reach into newoutposts and hilltops, challenged the authority and legitimacy of the Israeli government and courts, encouraged insubordination by Israeli soldiers tasked with enforcing the law and keeping the peace, and escalated violence against Palestinian civilians. [...]

Although we are mindful that it is still quite early in the Obama Administration, the first months suggest that it can provide the type of creative, determined and sustained leadership that is necessary to help the parties move forward. The President and his national security team have pledged to make the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority and have begun taking encouraging steps and actions to achieve it, including appointing Special Envoy George Mitchell and training a new and professional Palestinian Authority security force that can defend Israelis and Palestinians against extremist violence. The greatest contribution the United States can make in friendship and support of Israel’s future is to help create the conditions that will ensure a lasting peace, by, among other important steps, supporting efforts to strengthen economic, social and security infrastructure necessary for a stable and visionary Palestinian leadership capable of working with Israel to establish peace. [...]

Although Israel may need to retain some areas technically classified as settlements, the failure of the Israeli government to meet its commitments regarding the removal of unauthorized settler outposts and the halting of settlement growth are sources of concern. The settlement controversy is exacerbated by the exceedingly high current 4.9% population growth rate in West Bank settlements. Indeed, the population has grown from 100,000 in 1993 to nearly 300,000 at the end of 2008 according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. We are concerned as well with the establishment of some 100 unauthorized outposts since 1996.

They reach the following specific conclusion:

Support the calls by the United States government, in the spirit of prior URJ Resolutions (1978, 1983, 2001, 2004 and 2007), for the government of Israel to freeze all settlement construction and immediately dismantle illegal outposts, not only to fulfill its prior commitments, but also to do so as the politically wise and morally right action that enhances Israel’s efforts to preserve a secure future for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;

There you have it.