The Middle East, Or, There and Back Again
| PNUT GALLERY |
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Congratulations to Lilia for being the winner of last week’s Daily Pnut Week in Review! Lilia is a Canadian who is currently enjoying the early summer in Switzerland. |
| SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE |
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“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt “Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Ibid. |
| IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ |
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The United States Government Issues Iran its Version of a Fatwa: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking before the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, laid out a list of 12 demands the Trump administration is making of Iran. The demands come in the wake of the US being pulled out of the 2015 JCPOA, and carry the threat of “the strongest sanctions in history” if Iran doesn’t comply. Pompeo said “The Iranian regime should know this is just the beginning.” The 12 demands include: Iran must give a full account of its alleged past work on nuclear weapons development; it must stop all uranium enrichment; it must halt launches of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles; it must end its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; it must withdraw all forces under Iranian command from Syria; and it must end support for Houthi rebels in Yemen. Additionally, while Pompeo’s speech didn’t specifically call for regime change, in remarks afterward he said: “I can’t put a timeline on it, but at the end of the day, the Iranian people will decide the timeline.” After the speech, the deputy director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution said: “Pompeo has not outlined a strategy, but rather a grab bag of wishful thinking that can only be interpreted as a call for regime change in Iran. Note that no other US president has openly sought to effect regime change in Iran. This is a first…(an) infantile approach to foreign policy that purports to solve intractable challenges through the application of maximalist pressure.” |
| MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS |
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– A photo taken of delegates and lawmakers attending the US-China trade talks last Thursday has been circulating on the popular Chinese social media service Weibo. That photo was juxtaposed with one from the 1901 meeting when representatives from China met with colonial powers to sign an accord ending the Boxer Rebellion. In the 1901 photo, reps from the West look youngish, while envoys from the Qing dynasty look elderly. In Thursday’s photo, the Chinese side of the table has young people, while on the US side, folks are getting pretty grey. One Weibo user wrote: “Over the past 100 years, American officials have gone from young to old, and Chinese officials have gone from old to young…This has a lot to do with the current state of the two countries. America today is just as closed off as China was 100 years ago.” (NYT) – The Syrian army has finally gotten control of all the environs around Damascus for the first time since the beginning of the seven-year-old war. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pushed Islamic State militants from a pocket in south Damascus. The army had routed rebels from eastern Ghouta in April. More than a half million people have been killed and more than half the population driven from their homes since 2011. (Reuters) – Dr MR Rajagopal is a visionary Indian doctor with a specialty in palliative care, the prevention and treatment of serious health-related suffering. He describes pain as an “invisible” epidemic. Rajagopal says opioids are the cheapest and most effective pain killers and they are too hard to acquire in many countries, particularly developing ones. He has campaigned for decades to loosen India’s tight rein on opioids, saying people who really need them for debilitating pain cannot get them. He estimates only about 2% of Indians get the pain relief they need. (BBC) More News Reads:
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| NUTS IN AMERICA |
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The Kilauea volcano that started erupting two weeks ago is sending acid plumes of toxic steam and fine shards of glass into the sky over Hawaii, and molten rock into the sea below. It has burned 40 structures, including two dozen homes, since it began erupting May 3. About 2,000 people have evacuated their homes. Scientists do not know how long the eruption will last, but most of the Big Island remains ready to welcome summer tourists. (The Guardian) |
| NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ |
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In Iraq, Yesterday’s Enemy is Today’s Friend and Who Knows What Tomorrow Brings: Iraq’s parliamentary election was held May 12 and the winner, a populist, anti-corruption campaigner whose “Iraq First” message appealed to voters across sectarian divides, was a man once reviled as one of the country’s greatest threats to peace and stability. Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has apparently reinvented himselfafter seeing how the Islamic State’s takeover of large parts of northern Iraq in 2014 set off sectarian violence instead of bringing peace and security to the nation. The years of continuing violence led to an overwhelming shift in the public mood and Sadr’s possible realization that sectarianism was at the root of much of the country’s suffering. He has distanced himself from his former Iranian patrons, whom he potentially now sees as destabilizing Iraq’s politics with their meddling. So perhaps Sadr is no longer the paragon of a militant Shiite; now he’s positioning himself as a symbol of reform and Iraqi nationalism, and he’s starkly pragmatic. He did not run as a candidate and has ruled himself out as prime minister, but his bloc won 54 seats in the Iraqi parliament, the most of any group. He has made clear whom he considers natural political allies, starting with moderate Shiite leader Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Sadr has also worked to bring together his pious, largely working-class Shiite base with Sunni business leaders, liberals, and Iraqis looking for relief from the country’s lengthy economic crisis. His goals now are to put professionals, not partisan loyalists, in positions of power, as a means to build national institutions to serve the people instead of political insiders. |
| LOOSE NUTS: FASCINATING NEWS |
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– Humanity is the alpha animal of Earth. Or the most dangerous virus. “The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.” (The Guardian) – Steve Jobs will be remembered for many things: launching incredible products, being an incredibly difficult person, co-founding and reviving Apple, turtlenecks, and being a maestro at pitching tech demos and products. Since Jobs, no one has mastered the tech demo and perhaps many are fake. (Gizmodo) – Whoa! Dude! Keanu Reeves has had starring roles in iconic films such as John Wick, Point Break, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. But we were surprised to learn that he is one of the highest paid movie roles of all time by playing Neo in The Matrix. (Business Insider) – Here is an insightful essay about being focused on the long term in a world that is all about instant gratification: “The analogy I like to use is building a fire. Most of your life you gather firewood. It’s not useful by itself, but it has potential. You keep gathering. You keep storing away information, memories, thoughts, opinions. You do this until one day you get a spark of inspiration and decide to start a fire. Your fire starts small. A few people see it, but most ignore it. You keep throwing more logs on the fire and it burns brighter. Maybe more see it and take notice, but it’s still mostly unknown. You keep at it day by day, night by night until you have a roaring blaze.” (Of Dollars and Data) – Shoes are very, very dirty. In fact, they are filthy. So should one wear shoes in the house? And if shoes are so dirty, why aren’t people getting sick more often because of them? Vice explores “whether dragging in all that bacteria on your shoes will actually make you sick.” (Vice) More Fascinating News:
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| LAST MORSELS |
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“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt |
