Monday Newsbreak: 7/21

--Only six months before his long run as U.S. president ends, George W. Bush has changed his direction in dealing with Iraq and Iran, at least on the surface. Bush has acquiesced to the idea of a “time horizon” (love that language) for American troops to leave Iraq, while the U.S. is now sending a negotiator to directly talk with the Iranian government over its nuclear enrichment program and is also setting up an “interests” section in Tehran to officially represent the U.S. there. Critics of the Bush policy in Iraq had long maintained that the Iraqis would not move seriously toward the reconciliation of its feuding political and religious groups until the Americans left them to solve their problems on their own. Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of their democratically-elected government, wants the U.S. troops out, and we’re supposed to be there in support of Iraq’s democracy and sovereignty. So why do we keep acting as if we owned the place? As for Iran, there had been a great deal of fear in 1979 that the U.S. would seek to reinstall the Shah in power there (as it had already done in 1953, overthrowing the democratically-elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh). When the Shah was allowed to enter the U.S. for medical treatment, the fears culminated in the desperate taking of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the rest is history. Those circumstances don’t exist today, and it’s no use for each successive administration in Washington to shun Tehran as they have been doing. We don’t have to agree with the Iranians' policies and ideology, but we should be talking with them just the same.

--Barack Obama, along with two other U.S. senators, is on his announced trip to Afghanistan and the Middle East. Republican opponent John McCain can only keep criticizing Obama for making a policy address before actually visiting the area. But why should visiting these places change his policies? You know he’s going to be heavily protected and surrounded by U.S. troops. None of the Afghanis, Iraqis, Israelis, and Palestinians that he does come in contact with are going to change anything. I don’t really see the necessity of this trip, as far as Obama becoming more enlightened regarding our foreign policy in this area is concerned. But it does serve the political purpose of showing him in a foreign policy role and that he is listening to the various parties involved and will make reasoned, informed decisions as president.

--My local newspaper The Gainesville Sun had an article about the eight University of Florida buildings that have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. One of them is Weil Hall (for computer science and engineering), an utterly ancient and foreboding place (next to their nuclear reactor) where I suffered in 1977 through a thoroughly frustrating computer class featuring key-punch machines (a torture device of sorts) and feeding in stacks of punched cards repeatedly (sometimes for hours on end) while continually getting error message printouts. I also took a Polish language class in spring 1978 that was held in Weil’s basement (UF was known for putting classes in strange places). Held in the first class period of the morning, the classroom was right next to a small lounge, where some kindly soul would leave some boxes of glazed doughnuts each morning. There was a small basket placed next to them for anyone who wanted a doughnut to throw some money in (honor system). I rapidly became a doughnut junkie, but I paid for every one. I noticed over the days, though, that most of those taking the doughnuts wouldn’t deposit any money, but would instead just throw in slips of paper saying “IOU” (without identifying themselves, of course). Kind of reminds me how our government works on the national level!