There have been consistent assertions from conservatives and from the mainstream media that the Administration’s strategy of engagement was “naïve” and had “failed.” A new meme is now emerging that the Administration is shifting to Hillary Clinton’s hard nosed pressure approach. All of this overlooks the fact that the engagement policy is playing out just as Obama described. There are in fact increasing signs that UN security council sanctions, once seen as improbable, are becoming increasingly possible.

What naysayers don’t seem to understand is that sanctions are a byproduct of engagement. For engagement to work, Iran and the US did not have to become best buddies. While constructive talks that led to Iran renouncing nukes would have been ideal, engagement was just as much about building an international consensus and demonstrating to our allies and the world that Iran was the problem not America’s refusal to talk. During the first 2008 presidential debate against Senator McCain, Obama argued this point:

I do not agree with Senator McCain that we’re going to be able to execute the kind of sanctions we need without some cooperation with some countries like Russia and China that are, I think Senator McCain would agree, not democracies, but have extensive trade with Iran but potentially have an interest in making sure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. But we are also going to have to, I believe, engage in tough direct diplomacy with Iran. … Again, it may not work, but if it doesn’t work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.

This is playing out just Obama said it would. The Administration appears to be closing in on the votes at the UN. European powers, France, Germany, and the UK, after clashing and working off different playbooks during the Bush administration are firmly supportive of UN sanctions. The Administration’s effort to reset relations with Russia is paying dividends, as Russia is now seemingly in near lockstep with the Administration on Iran. If Russia does end up supporting security sanctions, this will be quite a feat for the Administration given that some experienced Iran hands dismissed the notion that Russia would support sanctions.

China has been a much trickier case. Despite extensive US outreach to China last year, China pushed back against the move toward sanctions earlier this year. However, China has now gone silent – a sign that it may be recalibrating. The Israeli Ambassador has said that it is a “mystery” what China will do. US-Sino relations have gotten a bit pricklier and China has tremendous economic interests in its relations with Iran, as it has overtaken Europe as Iran’s largest trading partner and is dependent on Iranian oil. However, as Roger Cohen noted, “I expect China, averse to conspicuous isolation, will eventually abstain on a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran.” The International Crisis Group similarly concluded in a recent report, “if Russia finally supports sanctions, China will likely come on board to avoid diplomatic isolation.”

UN security sanctions would put significant additional pressure on the Iranian regime, as it would highlight their international isolation and would clear the way for coordinated targeted sanctions against the regime. It would also be a big win for the Administration and would vindicate, not contradict, their strategy of engagement. As General Petraeus said on Meet the Press on Sunday engagement has laid the groundwork for greater pressure.

Watch it:

Transcript:

PETRAEUS: We have over the last year of course pursued the engagement track, I think no one over the course of this time can say that the United States has not given Iran every opportunity to resolve the issues diplomatically, that puts us on a solid foundation to go on what is termed the pressure track.

This morning, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) chastised Democrats for not doing anything about language in the jobs bill which he claims will allow employers of “illegal workers” and the “illegal workers” themselves to receive “benefits of a payroll tax holiday.” Grassley remarked:

The bill as currently written would allow employers of illegal workers to benefit from a payroll tax holiday. Now, for sure we should correct that mistake with an amendment. But under this parliamentary setup, you can only offer an amendment if not a single Senator objects to setting aside the existing business and replacing it with a new idea.

So, the leadership put posture on this bill now prohibits this correction of giving illegal workers the benefits of this payroll tax holiday — or the employer who employs him. Either the Democratic leaders are playing partisan politics with tax extenders or they don’t understand the worth of the provisions to the economy as a whole and most importantly, job retention and job creation.

Watch it:

However, if anyone is playing partisan politics, it’s Grassley. An article in the Hill points out that the current jobs bill contains the exact same language that was first introduced in the tax rebate bill by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) which raised few, if any immigration-related objections. Along these lines, Democrats claim that Grassley’s concerns are nothing more than a transparent excuse to oppose a bill along partisan lines.

Either that, or Grassley himself is ignorant of the implications of his own argument in terms of job retention and job creation. Grassley’s concerns are reportedly ripped straight off the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — an immigration restrictionist organization that has also been designated a hate group. According to FAIR, the bill “disappointed immigration reformers” like themselves because it left “out any mandate that jobs created by the bill go to U.S. workers” and doesn’t require employers to use E-Verify — a controversial electronic verification system that many claim is simply “not ready for prime time.” According to a human resources association, E-Verify has a 4.1% error rate which could deny as many as 6 million Americans employment due to a bureaucratic error.

Ultimately, the current law dictates that it is illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers, so spending valuable floor time on an amendment that reiterates a law that is already on the books seems unnecessary. While unauthorized workers are certainly part of the reality of the nation’s broken immigration system, the jobs bill certainly doesn’t provide the proper time or setting for that debate to take place. However, despite his concerns relating to foreign workers, Grassley has already asserted that he isn’t interested in working towards a productive solution that involves even touching a “general immigration reform bill” with a ten-foot pole.

The plea copped by Najibullah Zazi is another vindication of the Obama administration’s belief that the threat of terrorism does not necessitate the abandoning of the U.S. legal system, and its discarding of a militaristic “war on terror” frame generally. But the Washington Post’s story on Zazi’s plea deal contains a couple of other interesting “new details about the path that led the suburban Denver man into terrorism” that further demonstrate the stupidity of the Iraq war specifically:

Zazi, an Afghan immigrant residing legally in the United States, traveled to an al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan in August 2008 to receive weapons training so he could fight alongside the Taliban, according to Justice Department and FBI officials. But jihadists redirected him and two confederates to focus their energies on a suicide attack on the U.S. mainland.

Zazi returned to Colorado in January 2009 with notes on how to mix explosive chemicals. He procured large volumes of beauty supplies that contained hydrogen peroxide to make TATP, the explosive involved in the 2005 bombings of London’s transit system, authorities said.

There are two points to be made here. The first is that, had the Bush administration stayed to finish the job in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not diverted resources, expertise, and attention to Iraq, it’s very possible that there would not have been an al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan for Zazi to travel to in August 2008 to receive weapons training, and no remaining Taliban insurgency for Zazi to hope to fight alongside. The Obama administration has, through focused and painstaking diplomacy, recently had some success in encouraging the Pakistani government to move against Taliban elements on its own territory. What if, instead of being distracted by Iraq for the last seven years of his presidency, President Bush had actually applied his administration’s efforts to this problem?

Second, the Zazi case destroys (yet again) the “flypaper theory” of the Iraq war that was popular among pro-war types in 2003. The idea was that the war would attract radical Islamic jihadists from around the region and distract them from attacks on the American homeland. In addition to being just basically stupid — it was premised on the assumption that there was some finite number of extremists who, upon arriving in Iraq, would obligingly die — it was morally indefensible, as it involved using the Iraqi people as bait for a jihadist flytrap. Not only did the Iraq war not deter Zazi from pursuing a career as a terrorist, it’s very possible that in Pakistan he was exposed to hardened jihadists who, having been initially radicalized by the Iraq war, brought tactics and bomb-making methods learned in Iraq to Pakistan, just as they have done to Yemen and North Africa.

A predictable response to these points will be that “we shouldn’t re-litigate the Iraq war,” but that’s silly. It’s not “re-litigating” anything to take the measure of the continuing consequences of a strategic blunder.

Arizona’s state superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne is facing heat from local Latinos for referring to venerated civil rights leader Dolores Huerta as a “former girlfriend” of Mexican American labor leader Cesar Chávez. The fact that Horne’s remarks were made while testifying on behalf of a bill that would outlaw ethnic studies in public schools only adds insult to injury. Horne, a Republican who is also running for attorney general, refuses to apologize and calls criticism of his comments “a contrived diversion.” Horne told Phoenix’s KTVK 3TV that “the real outrage is that Dolores Huerta told a mandatory high school assembly that Republicans hate Latinos.”

Watch the KTVK 3TV report:

According to Horne, ethnic studies are “harmful and dysfunctional” and promote “ethnic chauvinism.” However, some teachers argue that the course study connects Native American, Mexican, Asian and African American students to “their cultural past and their roles in American history.” In the past, Horne has also irrationally worried that “one who belongs to a governmentally favored race or gender could refuse to pay his bills and dare the other party to sue because decisions governed by sympathy would disregard the facts and legal obligations.”

KTBK affirms that there is no credible evidence of a romantic relationship between Huerta and Chávez and the Arizona Republic points out Huerta is actually Chavez’s sister-in-law. Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers, with Chávez.