Sunday Open Thread [4.5.15]

Easter day is “so beautiful, and so ugly because of the rain,” Pope Francis said during his Sermon on Easter Day to a Roman crowd being drenched in rain. Thankfully, here in Delaware, it looks to be a sunny and relatively warm day. The Pope made his first public comments about the recent Iranian accord, and aimed at ensuring Iran doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon.

“In hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world.” Decrying the plentitude of weapons in the world in general, Francis said: “And we ask for peace for this world subjected to arms dealers, who earn their living with the blood of men and women.”

He denounced “absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence” in Libya, convulsed by fighting fueled by tribal and militia rivalries. He hoped “a common desire for peace” would prevail in Yemen, wracked by civil warfare. Francis prayed that the “roar of arms may cease” in Syria and Iraq, and that peace would come in Africa for Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan and Congo.

He recalled the young people, many of them targeted because they were Christians, killed last week in a Kenyan university, and lamented kidnappings, by Islamic extremists, that have plagued parts of Africa, including Nigeria. He also cited bloodshed closer to home, in Ukraine, praying that the Eastern European nation would “rediscover peace and hope thanks to the commitment of all interested parties.” Government forces have been battling Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, months after a cease-fire was proclaimed following international diplomatic efforts.

The New York Times notes that what happened in Indiana was a great defeat for the forces of Darkness, otherwise known as the Christian Right. They really wanted to discriminate, you know, and now they can’t.

Religious conservatives and some Republican political operatives now describe what occurred here as a major setback. For years now, they have been using “religious freedom” as a slogan and the legal answer to the growing gay rights movement. With same-sex marriage racking up one win after another in the courts and in public opinion, the conservatives say they believed their strategy of passing religious rights laws seemed like a consensus solution as American as Abe Lincoln.

But now, many Christian conservatives say that what happened over the last week in Indiana — and in Arkansas, where lawmakers backed away from a similar law — has been a terrible blow to their movement. They are left with a law at war with itself, with language that seems to cancel out what it had been designed to accomplish.

I feel so sorry for them. I hope they are despondent enough to never leave their houses again, leaving the rest of the planet in peace. But if they are not, they should know that we will defeat them at every opportunity.

Austin Long at the Washington Post argues that if you really want to bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran, then take the deal brokered by the Great President Obama (yeah, I am going to start referring to the President as we do sainted Popes, just to piss off conservatives).

I have spent a large portion of the past decade assessing military options against Iran’s program and the costs, benefits and likely consequences of the use of force. I have previously argued that any attack must answer the question of the end game: what is the long-term outcome of military force? Taking this deal, if it is implemented as currently outlined, not only increases the benefits and reduces the costs of military action should Iran attempt breakout, it also helps answer the end game question. […]

In addition to increasing benefits of military options, the deal can reduce costs of action. One of the main costs of military action now is that it could cause the current sanctions regime to collapse, as a U.S. (or Israeli) strike would be seen as an act of unprovoked preventive war. The collapse of sanctions could benefit Iran immensely, particularly in terms of reconstituting its nuclear program. In contrast, if Iran is seen to be violating the deal through attempted breakout, sanctions are to be rapidly reinstated. In this case, military action would not be seen as a decision to give up on diplomacy. Instead, it would be seen as a response to Iranian violations of a diplomatic deal that already had the blessing of the United Nations. Indeed it might even be possible to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iran’s program in this context. Admittedly, given the Russian and Chinese vetoes it is unlikely. Thus the deal may be the only way to have internationally supported sanctions and the effective use of force simultaneously.

It is this combination that helps answer the end game question. If Iran is widely seen to be violating such a hard won (and relatively generous) deal by attempting breakout, the use of force can lead to an outcome that is catastrophic for Iran. Not only would Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure, built over decades, be demolished but it could be diplomatically and economically more isolated than it is now. In this end game the balance of power in the Middle East would shift significantly against Iran and the regime could face significant unrest after having gambled and lost. This prospect should warm the heart of even the most hawkish.

Leonard Pitts talks about a wound that’s never healed.

On the day after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Abraham Lincoln appeared at a second floor window of the White House. He was acceding to the wishes of citizens who had gathered to serenade their president in this moment of victory. They called for a speech but Lincoln demurred. Instead he asked the band to play Dixie.
… It was probably his way of encouraging a nation that had ripped itself apart along sectional lines to begin knitting itself together again.

Lincoln received an answer of sorts two days later as beaten rebels surrendered their weapons to the Union Army. Union General Joshua Chamberlain remarked to Southern counterpart Henry Wise that perhaps now “brave men may become good friends.”

Wise’s reply was bitter as smoke. “You’re mistaken, sir,” he said. “You may forgive us, but we won’t be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts which you little dream of. We hate you, sir.”

Two days after that, April 14, Lincoln received a more direct response. John Wilkes Booth, famed actor and Southern sympathizer, shot him in the head. …

Twice now — at gunpoint in the 1860s, by force of law a century later — the rest of the country has imposed change on the South, made it do what it did not want to do, i.e., extend basic human rights to those it had systematically brutalized and oppressed.

The South may hate us, but what they do not realize is that we hate them now too. Their rancor has stripped away what good will that Union General, or President Lincoln, spoke and acted from.