News Nuggets 189

Space blobs!  Scientists have made a major breakthrough in figuring out what they are.  See the Science Nugget below.

TWO important developments in Iran:

ONE: Iran Arrests UK Embassy Staff from the [Manchester] Guardian

"In the latest in a series of spats between the two countries, Iran detained eight or nine local embassy staff for playing a "significant role" in the unrest, which has seen serious clashes between demonstrators and security forces."

To me, this reflects how truly desperate Khomenei and Ahmadinejad are.  This is designed to reinvent a "great enemy" and to shore up their support among hard-liners in Qom.  This brings us to the second development.

TWO: Battle for Iran Shifts From Streets to the Heart of Power from the [Manchester] Guardian

"Ayatollah Khamenei's support for President Ahmadinejad has led both moderates and hard-liners to start plotting against him."

I'm not so sure this story will end any happier in the back halls of power than it ended up in the streets of Tehran.  My sense here is that both sides are NOT messing around and would gladly line up their political rivals and have them mowed down.  Several of the articles below follow other aspects of this same story.

The Second Islamic Revolution (David Horovitz) from the Jerusalem Post

"The watching world well understands the young, pro-Western aspect of the ruthlessly countered post-election revolt in Iran. But what makes this outburst different, says The Jerusalem Post's Sabina Amidi, just returned from Teheran, is that many pro-Islamists have turned on the regime as well."

For Radical Islam, the End Begins (Op-Ed) from the Washington Post

"Much as the hammers that leveled the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, so might the protests rocking Iran signal the death of radical Islam and the challenges it poses to the West."

In a similar vein:

Mideast Hawks, Take Wing (Jim Hoagland) from the Washington Post

""President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brutal clampdown on his opponents is a tragedy for Iranians. But the shredding of Iran's pretensions of being a stable, democratic state may offer positive change in the Middle East in the longer term."

Iran and the Syrian Gambit from the Huffington Post

"The U.S. has three key interests with respect to Iran: containing its nuclear program, limiting its reach in the Middle East and, quite possibly, extending Iranian influence in Afghanistan in cooperation with the U.S. These three interests have to be pursued against the ever-shifting backdrop of the protests."

The Crowds Have Gone But Tehran Has Changed Forever (Karim Sadjadpour) from the Independent [of London]

"The large crowds that we witnessed last week in Tehran may have subsided for now, but the uneasy calm is misleading. ... What is significant ... is that Khamenei's normally trusted servants have begun publicly expressing their misgivings."

US Announces Shift in Afghanistan Drug Policy from Reuters News Service

Woo Woo!  Further evidence that grey matter exists in some abundance in the West Wing.

"The United States has announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts."

Energy Vote: Rolling the Dice Pays Off for Obama, Pelosi from Politics Daily

"For months now, everyone from Obama on down has been involved in a noisy debate over how to fix the nation's health care system. Meanwhile, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) was making its stealth journey on the House side. It's now in line to give Obama his first victory -- or defeat -- on a major campaign pledge."

Obama and Sanford: Being and Nothingness from the Atlantic

"It was my first look at the President at close quarters. I came away with the impression that the President was possibly the most knowledgeable person in the room when it came to the current health care crisis. That's no small thing given the people who were there."

House Passes Landmark Climate Change Bill from Reuters News Service

"President Barack Obama scored a major victory on Friday when the House of Representatives passed legislation to slash industrial pollution that is blamed for global warming."

Republican Reckoning (Jacob Heilbrunn) from the National Interest

A very interesting long-from article looking at how 9/11 really twisted the Republicans' basic approach to foreign policy.

"After 9/11, Robert F. Ellsworth and Dimitri K. Simes warned, “Continuing to follow the prescriptions of the neoconservative faction in the Republican party may damage President Bush’s legacy, imperil the country’s fiscal stability and complicate America’s ability to exercise global leadership.” Since then, all three have come to pass. Bush’s tenure has become a byword for incompetence. America’s economy is in shambles. And its ability to exercise leadership has indeed been seriously compromised.  ...  Obama, you could say, does not have a GOP problem, but the GOP has an Obama problem."

That Wild and Wacky Senate: An Overview of 2010 Races (Larry Sabato) from the VA Center for Politics

"So much has happened recently in many of the 2010 Senate contests that you would think we were in the middle of the election year. We're still seventeen months out from Election Day, yet the battles are turning white hot in many states."

SCIENCE NUGGET!!

Telescope Finds Space Blobs Are Pubescent Galaxies from the [Manchester] Guardian

"Mysterious space blobs aren't infant galaxies as astronomers once thought. Scientists say they mostly consist of galaxies going through puberty, all hot and bothered."