The Republicans are coming!

It's official: the Twin Cities are getting the 2008 Republican Convention!

Seriously, this is cool. Not so seriously, some random thoughts:

* I imagine the police are already counting the overtime

* I'm glad I no longer live in Minneapolis. Conventions are supposed to boost the local economy, but the costs will fall most heavily on Minneapolis residents, and I don't think they're going to get their money back.

* Traffic is going to suck; St. Paul streets are a nightmare even without tens of thousands of out-of-towners, and without a light-rail link from the airport all those visitors are going to be driving, busing or taxiing into St. Paul. At least those of us who work in downtown Minneapolis will only get the peripheral effects.

* This should kill our chances of getting the Democratic convention. The two are scheduled to be held on consecutive weekends, and there's no way our humble metropolis could handle both.

* I wonder how hard it will be to get press credentials to blog from the convention center?

Republicans, convention, 2008, politics, midtopia

NIE summary released

The Bush administration has declassified and released (pdf) the summary of the National Intelligence Estimate that was partially leaked last week.

I'm not sure why Bush thinks this validates his strategy, or demonstrates that the leak was misleadingly narrow.

Here's the summary of the summary.

Good news
1. We've seriously damaged the leadership of Al-Qaeda.

2. The ultimate political aim of jihadists -- conservative Sharia government -- is opposed by the vast majority of Muslims.

3. Prominent Muslim clerics have begun condemning Islamic violence with increasing punch and frequency.

Bad news
1. Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat to the U.S. homeland and has grown less centralized, making it harder to penetrate.

2. The number of jihadists is growing, both in numbers and geographic reach.

3. Expect more attacks in Europe, often from home-grown radicals.

4. Iraq is proving a great training and breeding ground for terrorist leaders, breeding a "deep resentment" of the United States and increasing support for jihadist movements.

5. The factors fueling terrorism currently outweigh the factors restraining it, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

6. Sunni extremist organizations other than Al-Qaeda are likely to expand their reach unless countered, perhaps obtaining the ability for large-scale terror attacks. However, they pose little threat to the U.S. homeland itself.

Predictions and suggestions
1. Addressing the underlying factors that produce terrorism -- autocratic governments that are corrupt and unjust, fear of Western domination, Iraq, lack of social and economic reforms and pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment -- will help fight it. But the instability inherent in such transitions will provide jihadists with short-term advantages.

2. If jihadists feel they have lost in Iraq, it will dampen their fervor and hinder recruitment.

That's it. Anything strike you about that list? Like, you already knew everything on it? Maybe it's because all the really good stuff remains classified, but there's really nothing new in it; it's all stuff we've known about for a very long time -- including the leaked bit about Iraq helping to breed terrorists. I'm not a CIA analyst, but I've been making much the same points -- including the need to address the factors that breed terrorism -- for years.

That aside, however, what does it mean?

I'm sure war supporters will latch on to the first item under "Good news" and the last item under "Predictions" to say "We're beating Al-Qaeda, and Iraq is where we'll break the back of terrorism."

But that's misreading the document. We've done great harm to Al-Qaeda, true -- and good for us. But that has almost nothing to do with Iraq. And the gist of the NIE is that Al-Qaeda is resilient and still our biggest threat.

As for Iraq, let me break the report down for you.

The NIE first states what is: Iraq is a breeding and training ground for terrorists, and inspiring growth in jihadi ranks worldwide. This is likely to continue for the forseeable future, and the report lists "Iraq" as one of the four underlying factors fueling militant Islam.

It then adds a truism: That if we somehow manage to "win" in Iraq -- whatever that means -- it will be a blow to the jihadists.

Well, no kidding. Besides being blatantly obvious, it is an assessment of what could be -- not what is, not even what is likely to be. In fact, the NIE points out that the situation favors continued growth in the jihadist movement for the forseeable future.

So this is a bit like General Paulus at Stalingrad musing, "Yes, the Russian encirclement is getting stronger every day. But if we could somehow break out, we'd be fine."

Given that it is becoming increasingly obvious that we are not even remotely serious about winning in Iraq, I think it's unlikely we will "win" in the sense suggested by the NIE. But that's beside the point. The point is that war supporters will try to counter the NIE's "what is" assessment with the NIE's "what could be" truism. That's comparing apples to oranges to try to put a brave face on what is a pretty pessimistic NIE.

Bush, NIE, Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

DVS bureaucracy

I usually don't hate my encounters with Minnesota government. They may not be the most flexible organizations, but state agencies are usually staffed by nice people who know their job, and the government tries to give you multiple options for getting things done.

For instance, my car's registration renewal form arrived in the mail today. And I had three options for renewing it:

1. Go to a service center and pay in person;

2. Take the pre-printed form and envelope and mail it to them along with a check;

3. Go online, fill out the information at the DVS web site, and pay with a credit card, incurring a $1.25 "convenience fee."

So let's see. Go online, mess around with the Web forms and credit card numbers, and be charged $1.25 for that "convenience." Or write a check, stick it in the envelope with a 39-cent stamp, and drop it in the mailbox.

Kind of a no-brainer for me: mail them a check.

But it seems kind of silly from their end. I'd be willing to bet money that it costs them less to process an electronic payment than it does to process a paper payment. That's why most companies, after initially trying to charge consumers for electronic payments, gave up the ghost and now provide electronic payment options for free; it saves them money.

The State of Minnesota appears to have missed that memo. Their pricing structure encourages people to pay using the method that costs the state the most to handle. That's pennywise and pound foolish.

A note to DVS employees: If I'm wrong and electronic payments actually do cost more, drop me an e-mail or a comment explaining that and I will apologize for impugning the efficiency of state government.

bureaucracy, politics, midtopia

Demand paper ballots

I have no fundamental problem with electronic voting. It would be quicker, cheaper and more user-friendly than the current paper system.

But any voting system that doesn't include a tamper-proof paper record that can be verified by each voter and used to backstop the electronic system should be laughed out of the room.

It has been demonstrated again and again that the most popular system, Diebold's AccuVote, is laughably vulnerable to tampering. Never mind the controversy over Diebold executives' support for Bush.

And now we have a real-life example of problems caused by pure electronic voting. Much of it is traceable to poor performance by poll workers, but the lack of a paper trail makes fixing or even assessing the damage nearly impossible.

Which is why I don't understand why this is still even under debate.

Board members agreed to hold the hearings, probably in December after the fall elections and runoffs.

Secretary of State Cathy Cox, who chairs the election board, has been dismissive of most of the criticisms of the state's voting machines, saying Wednesday that "so-called experts" have not taken into account a comprehensive series of independent security measures put into place in Georgia.

Perhaps those security measures are enough. But why are we holding the hearings after the elections? Isn't this important enough to put on the front burner?

To quote Reagan, "Trust but verify." Insist on a paper backup; problem solved. Otherwise, expect a blizzard of justified lawsuits from voters and candidates after the fall elections.

voting, Diebold, elections, politics, midtopia

The blindingly obvious

In the "what took them so long" department, the CIA has finally recognized that the invasion of Iraq has increased terrorism rather than hindered it.

This has been blindingly obvious for years. As has the solution.

But the Bush administration has never let facts get in the way of policy. Not even when the facts threaten to undermine that policy. For instance, even as the Army is extending more tours in Iraq, the administration has been trying to cut the Army's budget. The Army, in an unprecedented move, has protested the cuts as not only unwise, but as making it impossible to meet current commitments.

This pennywise, pound-foolish approach to security isn't an isolated instance. For instance, the U.S., while calling for U.N. intervention in Lebanon and Darfur, has been concerned about the growing cost of such peacekeeping missions. So in order to keep costs down, they pressured the U.N. to withdraw peacekeepers from East Timor in 2005. That worked so well that Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal had to send troops to restore order in May, and the UN will reintroduce about 1,600 police.

Meanwhile, a group of retired officers who had made stinging criticisms of Donald Rumsfeld individually earlier this year are appearing before a Senate committee today, where they are expected to repeat those blunt assessments. A taste:

"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, is expected to assess Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ...."

"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," said his testimony prepared for the hearing, to be held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections in which the war is a central issue.

At long last, the national consensus is arriving at the conclusion that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake that has hurt our efforts to combat terror. Too bad it took three years, 2,800 American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, tens of thousands of wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. What's worse is that, even having reached that conclusion, we cannot simply end the war because of a moral obligation to see the Iraqi people through to some sort of conclusion.

Given all of the above, however, it seems unlikely that the current administration will be able to deliver such a conclusion. In which case, pulling out immediately is the only rational choice. If we're not going to do what we need to do to fix the mess we created, then we should leave before we do any more harm to ourselves and Iraq.

security, Rumsfeld, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

What unity government?

Looks like the Palestinians need to get their house in order before they can conduct meaningful negotiations with Israel.

After Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said a Palestinian unity government would recognize Israel, Hamas flatly contradicted him. Now the unity talks have been postponed.

Abbas wants a political platform honouring interim peace deals with the Jewish state, which he hopes will satisfy the West. Hamas has sought vague wording that would not contradict the group's charter calling for Israel's destruction.

The president has accused Hamas of reneging on an agreement reached earlier this month on the political programme for the unity government. Hamas has denied the allegation.

This situation needs more than "vague wording." It needs a clear committment to peace talks from the Palestinians. And Abbas should hold Hamas' feet to the fire until they agree. Until then, Hamas cannot be taken seriously in diplomatic efforts.

Maybe Abbas will renew his pledge to call a referendum on recognizing Israel. That would be a gutsy move that would bring this crisis to a head.

Palestine, Israel, Abbas, Hamas, politics, midtopia

Abbas: Unity government will recognize Israel

If he's right, and he pulls it off, this is huge.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly Thursday that the planned national unity government will recognize
Israel....

Abbas told the assembly's annual ministerial meeting that he has recently sought to establish a government of national unity "that is consistent with international and Arab legitimacy and that responds to the demands of the key parties promoting Mideast peace — recognition, ending violence and honoring past agreements.

"I would like to reaffirm that any future Palestinian government will commit to all the agreements that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority have committed to," he said.

So far it's just talk. And there are hotheads on both sides that would like to derail this. And we'll have to see how grudgingly Hamas plays along. Cross your fingers.

Abbas, Hamas, Israel, politics, midtopia

U.S. health care gets a 'D'

Despite paying half again as much for health care as our nearest competitor (Switzerland), a study released this week gives the United States a 66 percent score in health care outcomes, quality, access and efficiency compared to other industrialized nations.

How seriously should we take this? Well, it depends.

The U.S. ranks 15th out of 19 countries in terms of the number of deaths that could have been prevented. The study estimates that each year 115 out of 100,000 U.S. deaths could have been avoided with timely and appropriate medical attention. Only Ireland, Britain, and Portugal scored worse in this category, while France scored the best, with 75 preventable deaths per 100,000.

Here's an example. We rank 15th... but we still only have 115 preventable deaths per 100,000. That's an error rate of about 0.1%. We could do better, but we're still doing pretty darn well.

The U.S. ranks at the bottom among industrialized countries for life expectancy both at birth and at age 60. It is also last on infant mortality, with 7 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 2.7 in the top three countries. There are dramatic gaps within the U.S. as well, according to the study. The average disability rate for all Americans is 25% worse than the rate for the best five states alone, as is the rate of children missing 11 or more days of school.

These are more serious numbers, because life expectancy and infant mortality are basic measures of a society's health. But again, though we lag the competition, we're better off than much of the world; an infant mortality rate of only 0.7 percent isn't too shabby.

What those overall numbers, miss, though, is the unevenness of health care quality in the country. The report notes major gaps in quality and access across the country, with poorer areas, unsuprisingly, having worse outcomes.

So the problem isn't that our health care stinks overall; it's that access to it is uneven, and that we're paying far too much for the results we get.

Further, more and more of that cost is being shifted to workers. Salaries that were negotiated when employers picked up much of the health-insurance premium are now having to absorb a larger share of that premium. The result is that workers are spending a growing share of their income on health care.

Since benefits are part of worker compensation, it's not a particularly big deal if the budget line that pays for health care changes from the benefits side to the salary side -- as long as overall compensation remains stable. But what's happening is that employers are shifting the costs to workers without raising their pay to compensate, meaning a net loss of income to workers. It's a stealth pay cut.

It makes lots of sense to make people pay for their health care directly. Our current system arranges things so that people pay the same for health care whether they use it a lot or a little. This is good because it spreads the financial risk, a prime purpose of insurance. But it also raises some big moral hazards, because consumers have no incentive to limit their use of health-care resources. Giving them incentives to spend their money wisely will encourage more efficient use of those resources and keep overall costs down while possibly improving care -- because people are only going to pay for the care they want, from doctors who provide it efficiently and courteously.

But if workers are expected to pay their own health care costs, their salaries should be bumped up in the interim to compensate and then allowed to adjust to the market from that new base. Anything else is a betrayal of the social contract that has underpinned our health-care system for decades.

medicine, insurance, health care, politics, midtopia

Back in the saddle

It's been crazy busy the last few days, both at work and at home, where we're adjusting to my wife going back to work and having two kids in school. I've barely had time to read the papers, much less post.

Luckily, I make time for the important things. My fantasy football team is now 2-0, having nearly doubled my opponent's score. We now hit bye-week hell. I have to do without Antonio Gates and two of my RBs this weekend, going up against a pretty good team whose only hole is at kicker. I'm pulling out all the superstitious rituals I can to ensure both I and the Vikings go 3-0.

Substantive posts to follow.

fantasy football, midtopia

Ney pleads guilty

After months of denial, Rep. Robert Ney has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

This isn't a wrist slap, either.

The maximum sentence for the two counts is 10 years, but the Justice Department and Ney's lawyers agreed on a sentencing recommendation of 27 months in prison, provided Ney continues to provide truthful information. The final sentence will be determined by a federal judge.

Ney could also be fined up to $500,000, according to the agreement.

Ney had already abandoned his re-election bid. I presume he'll have to resign his Congressional seat.

Time to update the Hall of Shame.

corruption, Ney, Abramoff, politics, midtopia

Reading... who needs it?

In case any of you despair about the workers who will be supporting you in retirement:

Educational doomsayers are again up in arms at a new adult literacy study showing that less than 5 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it.

The obsessive measurement of long-form literacy is once more being used to flail an education trend that is in fact going in just the right direction. Today’s young people are not able to read and understand long stretches of text simply because in most cases they won’t ever need to do so.

It’s time to acknowledge that in a truly multimedia environment of 2025, most Americans don’t need to understand more than a hundred or so words at a time, and certainly will never read anything approaching the length of an old-fashioned book. We need a frank reassessment of where long-form literacy itself lies in the spectrum of skills that a modern nation requires of its workers.

Yes, clearly the world will be a better place when nobody is able to process ideas too complicated to be expressed in 100 words or less....


literacy, politics, midtopia

Delay trial could be delayed until 2007

... because the conspiracy charge against him might be reinstated.

The court could have rejected Earle's appeal outright, sending the case back to Priest's court for additional pretrial motions and a possible trial.

But by accepting the case for review, the high court likely pushed any trial in DeLay's case off until next year. No date for oral arguments has been set.

If anyone was holding their breath waiting for the resolution of this case, now is probably a good time to stop.

DeLay, Texas, politics, midtopia

Maybe they bought it off the Internet

Okay, a lot of people won't take the UN's word for anything. But in this case, they seem to have a point.

U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document "outrageous and dishonest" and offering evidence to refute its central claims. ...

Privately, several intelligence officials said the committee report included at least a dozen claims that were either demonstrably wrong or impossible to substantiate. Hoekstra's office said the report was reviewed by the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

The report was written by a single GOP staffer, Frederick Fleitz, with hard-line views on Iran and ties to John Bolton. It was not voted on or discussed by the full committee; Republicans simply made it public.

Among the errors:

1. The committee said Iran is producing weapons-grade plutonium, which usually means 90 percent enriched. Iran has in fact only managed to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent.

2. The committee said the IAEA had removed an inspector because he raised concerns about Iranian deception. The inspector has not been removed.

3. Most obnoxiously, the report asserted, without evidence, that the IAEA director had an "unstated" policy of keeping inspectors from telling the truth about Iran.

All this makes me wonder if this is a peek inside the intelligence-massaging techniques that led to the invasion of Iraq. With breathtaking chutzpah, the report makes unsubstantiated assertions about Iran's nuclear capabilities -- and then chastises intelligence agencies for failing to provide information that supports those assertions.

Make your own reality, and then go dig up (or make up) evidence to support it.

Here's the kicker:

Hoekstra's committee is working on a separate report about North Korea that is also being written principally by Fleitz. A draft of the report, provided to The Post, includes several assertions about North Korea's weapons program that the intelligence officials said they cannot substantiate, including one that Pyongyang is already enriching uranium.

The intelligence community believes North Korea is trying to acquire an enrichment capability but has no proof that an enrichment facility has been built, the officials said.

Fabulous.

The full text of the IAEA letter is available here.

Update: The Congressional report is available here.

Fleitz, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Some backbone in the Senate

It may be because they face tough re-election battles, but four GOP senators -- including John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee -- defied President Bush and approved legislation on the treatment of detainees. The bill goes to the Senate floor next week.

Unlike Bush's proposal -- which would essentially rubber stamps his own actions -- the bill Warner's committee approved would permit suspects to view classified evidence against them and does not attempt to rewrite the Geneva Conventions.

As senior GOP leaders balked, Colin Powell released a letter opposing Bush's plan.

"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," Powell, a retired general who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in his letter.

Powell said Bush's bill, by redefining the kind of treatment the Geneva Conventions allow, "would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk."

The effect of the split could be seen in the White House's response -- firing testily from the hip and having to apologize later.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Powell was "confused" about the White House plan. Later, Snow said he probably shouldn't have used that word.

"I know that Colin Powell wants to beat the terrorists, too," he said.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to ignore the Armed Services Committee and bring Bush's proposal directly to the floor for a vote -- a move that would only increase the division in the GOP ranks.

That Bush, he's quite a uniter.

terrorism, tribunals, Bush, Warner, Senate, politics, midtopia

Why are we in Iraq?

Apparently, it's not to defeat the insurgency.

A senior American commander in Iraq said Tuesday that U.S.-led military operations are "stifling" the insurgency in western Anbar province but are not strong enough to defeat it.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer told reporters in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Fallujah that he has enough U.S. troops — about 30,000 — to accomplish what he called his main mission: training Iraqi security forces.

"For what we are trying to achieve out here I think our force levels are about right," he said. Even so, he said the training of Iraqi soldiers and police had not progressed as quickly as once expected.

"Now, if that mission statement changes — if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight — then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here," he added.

And all this time I thought we were trying to beat the insurgents. Now I find out that the reason American commanders haven't asked for more troops is because that's not their job.

For the rest of his comments, I'll refer you to a previous post on the subject:

He's right that a reconciliation process is the only way to achieve long-term stability. But he just blithely ignores that short-term stability is needed to get the reconciliation process started.

I've got an idea. How about we defeat the insurgents in order to create that short-term stability we need for long-term stability to take root?

Zilmer, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Poor rules of engagement

What to make of this?

The U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that it considered bombing a group of more than 100 Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan but decided not to after determining they were on the grounds of a cemetery.

I respect the need to be mindful of cultural and religious sensitivities. And there's always the desire to minimize civilian casualties. But look at the picture: They're lined up in rows. Those aren't civilians; those are soldiers. Cemetery or not, pull the trigger.

Taliban, Afghanistan, politics, midtopia

Minnesota primaries

Not a lot of surprises in yesterday's primary elections. Kennedy, Klobuchar, Hatch, Pawlenty and Hutchinson all won easily.

One slight (and encouraging) surprise, though: in the conservative Fort Ripley area, State Sen. Paul Koering, the only openly gay Republican legislator in Minnesota, won his primary against a family-values candidate, Kevin Goedker.

Koering wasn't openly gay until last year, and Goedker made his sexuality an issue. So this was in part a referendum on the electability of gay Republicans in outstate Minnesota.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson easily won his primary; we'll see now how his "sanding off the truth" debacle will play with voters in the general election race against Republican Joe Gimse.

Let the campaigning begin in earnest!

politics, midtopia

A mixed bag for moderates

Yesterday's primaries were a mixed bag for moderates.

In the most closely watched race Sen. Lincoln Chafee defeated a conservative challenger backed by the Club for Growth, guaranteeing that a moderate will be elected no matter who wins in November.

But in Arizona, conservative Randy Graf won the primary battle to replace retiring moderate Republican Jim Kolbe, defeating moderate Steve Huffman, who was endorsed by Kolbe and backed by national Republicans. Graf will face Democrat Gabrielle Gifford in November. This could mean the seat could go Democrat, which is good in the sense that the GOP deserves to lose a lot of seats this year. But I don't know enough about Gifford's politics to say whether electing her would be a good thing for moderates.

In Vermont, the House's lone independent, Bernie Sanders, is trying to become the Senate's lone independent to replace Jim Jeffords, the Senate's current lone independent. I note this for the "independent" angle; Sanders, whose views are rather socialist, is not exactly a moderate.

You'll note one thing about all these races: they are defensive ones, attempting to keep a moderate seat moderate. Such battles are necessary, but we're not going to elect more moderates until we get off the defensive and start putting gerrymandered "safe seats" into contention.

politics, midtopia

House leaders seek to water down eavesdropping bill

The House Judiciary Committee today will consider its version of a warrantless wiretapping bill. But if GOP leaders have their way, it will be so watered down as to be a pile of dreck.

The main bill already has minimal teeth. It would give the government five days instead of three to seek a FISA warrant following the start of emergency surveillance. Nonemergency warrantless surveillance would require Congressional approval within 60 days. It would also require more consultation with Congress.

A competing measure is better, clearly asserting that the FISA law is the operative law with regard to surveillance issues.

House leaders, though, want to replace all that with a meaningless provision, allowing but not requiring the administration to submit the program to the secret FISA court for a ruling on its legality.

Pathetic.

At least there are some voices being raised in opposition to this rubber stamping of administration actions. Voices from both sides of the aisle, in both the House and the Senate. So there remains a chance that the GOP leadership's kow-towing will be defeated and Congress will in fact assert its proper Constitutional role instead of abetting the steady expansion of executive power.

But now would be a good time to call your representative.

FISA, wiretapping, NSA, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Movement in Palestine

Yesterday, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas reached a deal with Hamas for a unity government, in which the Hamas government would resign and be replaced by a mixture of Hamas and Fatah representatives, as well as representatives from various splinter groups.

Most important from the Palestinian viewpoint was the prospect that such a move would mean a resumption of the aid it relies on to pay its bills, aid that was suspended following Hamas' ascent to power. That hope appears to have been fulfilled, as the EU said it would consider resuming aid.

More important to the rest of us, however, is that as part of the agreement Hamas gave Abbas full authority to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

It remains to be seen whether all this talk will result in actual change on the ground. "Peace negotiations" are not the same thing as "peace agreement", and it's an open question whether the more militant Palestinian groups -- or even the military wing of Hamas -- will accept and abide by any such deal. Expect at least a couple of attacks aimed at disrupting the talks if they appear likely to bear fruit.

But Hamas sanctioning negotiations with Israel is a pretty big step. It appears that in this case the economic embargo worked, forcing Hamas to choose between militant purity and seeing to the needs of the Palestinian people. To their credit, they have (at least for now) chosen the latter.

Abbas, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, politics, midtopia