| | | | The Trouble With Pompeo's Plan B | | Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was right to call out the Iranian regime for the oppression of its people in a policy speech Monday. But his "Plan B" of ratcheting up the pressure is likely to have the opposite of the intended effect, writes Barbara Slavin for the Atlantic Council.
"Demanding that Iran end uranium enrichment and allow essentially anytime, anywhere access to 'all sites throughout the country' for international inspectors will only encourage those forces in the country that want to reduce Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and accelerate the nuclear program," Slavin writes.
"Iran is also not about to abandon its partners in the Middle East, some of which, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been its allies for nearly four decades. It is as though Iran demanded that the United States forsake its partners in the region because they are Tehran's adversaries."
"US policy will further embitter a people that was once predisposed to like Americans and set back for years the chance for Iran to re-integrate into the global economy."
| | The Real Danger of Those Deep State Attacks | | | President Trump's weekend tweets on the FBI and the "world's most expensive witch hunt" are the latest examples of the "phony" deep state controversy, writes Gideon Rachman. But the attacks still matter – just look at those countries where "the notion of a deep state is far from fanciful."
Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey "have experienced military coups (sometimes repeatedly) when the armed forces moved against elected politicians," Rachman notes in the Financial Times.
"Those scarring experiences leave a legacy of fear about the connections between business, the military and the intelligence services. That kernel of justified suspicion often then creates a political culture, in countries such as Turkey, in which conspiracy theories are rife — something that is corrosive of the trust in institutions that is crucial to a functioning democracy.
"It should not need saying, but American political traditions are very different from those of Turkey or Pakistan […] So when other branches of government investigate a sitting president […] it is not evidence of an illegal conspiracy to subvert the people's will. It is because even presidents are bound by the law and the US constitution." | | Trump's "Prudent" Response to Team Kim's Tantrum | | | South Korean President Moon Jae-in travels to Washington for a meeting with President Trump on Tuesday, a week after North Korea suggested it might walk away from plans for a Trump-Kim meeting. The Korea Herald editorializes that the Trump's response to Pyongyang's threats have been "prudent."
Trump "tried to pacify the North by clarifying that he was not thinking about a Libyan model of denuclearization for the North. He even ruled out a regime change and promised economic prosperity on the level of South Korea," the paper says.
"The better part of Trump's response to the North Korean threat to 'reconsider the summit' was that he issued a stern warning that if the denuclearization talks collapse, the ongoing maximum pressure campaign against the Pyongyang regime would continue to be in place and it could face the same fate as Libya." | | Why China Won the Trade Talks | | In putting tariffs against China on ice – for now, at least – the Trump administration helped hand China a significant win, writes Keith Bradsher for The New York Times. Thank Beijing's single-minded approach to talks.
"Even as Beijing has shown a willingness to talk and make peace offerings in the form of multibillion dollar import contracts, it has held fast to its refusal to make any commitment for a fixed reduction in its trade gap with the United States," Bradsher writes.
"White House trade officials have more expertise with trade law, but China has a small but cohesive team of negotiators who report directly to Liu He, a vice premier and nearly lifelong friend of Xi Jinping, the country's top leader. The group has also streamlined Beijing's ability to make economic policy decisions, a benefit in evaluating the impact of any concessions to the United States. Policy decisions that once took a month can now take as little as a day…
"By contrast, the United States has shifted its demands and struggled to send out a consistent message."
| | Being Cool Is Making Us All Hot | | The Earth's temperature has been above average for 400 consecutive months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week. Nathaniel Bullard suggests for Bloomberg that as the world continues to get richer, we are likely to find ourselves in an increasingly vicious cycle as rising temperatures dramatically ramp up the demand for air conditioning.
International Energy Agency data shows "Japan has 90 residential air conditioning units for every 100 people; India has 1 per 100. South Korea has twice the number of residential air conditioners as Brazil, which has more than four times as many people. And the US has more than a thousand times as much cooling output per person as India does," Bullard writes.
Meanwhile, "urbanization and air conditioning go hand in hand: Urban downtown areas can be as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit…warmer than outside their cities."
| | North Korea is expected to hold a dismantlement ceremony for its Punggye-ri nuclear test site this week, with a number of foreign media outlets invited to attend. Per the Korea Times, citing officials in Seoul: "North Korea is demanding that each foreign reporter pay $10,000 for a visa to cover the planned dismantlement."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issues its annual forecast Thursday for the upcoming hurricane season, which officially starts on June 1. Two institutions have already released their predictions. Per Marketwatch: "Colorado State University is forecasting 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. North Carolina State University is forecasting 14 to 18 named storms, seven of which are expected to grow to hurricane strength, and three to five of which may become major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 or higher."
Colombians head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president. Matthew Bristow reports for Bloomberg: "A 'market-friendly' candidate pledging to cut taxes on corporations will face off against a leftist former Mayor of Bogota in the second round of Colombia's presidential election, according to some of the last polls of the campaign." | | | | | | |
