Dubious Diplomacy, Postal Wars, and a Mining Bailout
Here’s What You Need to Know
The U.S. and Russia negotiated a cease-fire between rebel and government forces in Syria this week. The shaky truce began on Monday at sundown, with many skeptics already questioning whether the measure will have a meaningful long-term impact.
- Déjà Vu: In February of this year, a similar U.S.-Russia negotiated cessation of hostilities fell apart within weeks. The truce eroded as Russia and the Syrian government accused the American government of failing to get Syrian opposition groups to distance themselves from extremist groups, while opposition groups accused the Russian-backed Syrian government of lumping them in with jihadists.
- Kerry Confusion: Trouble with the cease-fire came almost immediately after it went into effect. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed the U.S. and Russia would approve Syrian government airstrikes against jihadist militants. Yet, within hours the State Department declared Sec. Kerry had been “incorrect,” and explained neither the U.S. nor Russia would have authority over Syrian airstrikes on the jihadists.
- Divided Defense: The agreement apparently states that if the violence in the region is significantly reduced by this coming Monday, the U.S. and Russia will begin to collaborate on joint airstrikes against ISIS and Nusra Front fighters occupying portions of Syria. This portion of the agreement faced strong opposition within the Obama administration from Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who has deep reservations about collaborating and sharing intelligence with Moscow.
- Syria Skeptics: Everyone from Syrian opposition leaders to the Obama administration have voiced their skepticism that the agreement (which has yet to be released to the public in a written form) will prove successful. Given the failure of past agreements, and the dramatic increase in violence that occurred over the weekend leading up to the cease-fire, many fail to see how this latest measure will jump-start a political track in the Syrian conflict.
Fawaz Gerges, the Chair of Contemporary Middle East Studies at the London School of Economics, explained, “The Obama administration does not really want to invest any strategic capital in Syria for a variety of reasons.” This cease-fire agreement seems to confirm that the administration is running out the clock on this issue and the Syrian conflict will almost certainly be passed on in its current form, if not worse, as a foreign policy challenge for the next president to address.
News You Can Use
(NOT) THE SUMMER OF BRITAIN’S DISCONTENT
Britain’s June vote to leave the European Union sparked predictions of economic doom, but thus far those prophecies have failed to materialize. Financial analysts are already scrapping their expectations for a 2017 recession in the wake of strong consumer spending, improved industrial production, and growing business investment over the past three months. Economists now argue the policy’s negative economic impact is likely to be prolonged and chronic as opposed to instant and acute. While the consensus suggests tough times still lie ahead, at least for the moment, the “doom and gloom” economic predictions espoused by the Bremain campaigners have yet to materialize.
THE IRS DOESN’T SHARE WELL
In 2014, more than 2.5 million American taxpayers earned income from businesses in the “sharing economy” including Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy. That number is expected to double in the next few years, according to an American University study, and the IRS isn’t happy about it. The agency is concerned it will be losing out on billions in tax collections because much of this income goes unreported thanks largely to the tax system’s failure to keep up with the emerging sharing economy. The IRS has produced a new website called the Sharing Economy Resource Center in order to help address this challenge, but even the new site is likely too complicated to ensure most sharing economy business partners meet their tax obligations. Bureaucracies always lag behind economic shifts, and how fast (or slow) they respond could mean the difference between millions or billions of dollars lost.
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POSTAL WARS EXPOSED
Last week, a new group called “Americans for Securing All Packages” was created after their senior advisers – former Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and former Obama administration Homeland security official Juliette Kayyem – both published columns arguing the poor screening of parcels by the U.S. Postal Service poses a top national security threat. Both Ridge and Kayyem have been paid by the group, which has connections to top DC lobbying and public affairs firms as well as a trade association partially funded by UPS and FedEx. UPS has actively lobbied in favor of measures requiring the Postal Service to use the same security process as the private sector. While the evidence here may be circumstantial, these reports show how savvy stakeholders in public affairs campaigns are increasingly seeking to dig into seemingly grassroots efforts to identify and expose who is really behind them.
MINING BAILOUT
It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where Congressional Republicans would support legislation proposed by a Democratic Senator to bail out a private pension fund of a major labor union. But, that’s exactly what is happening with Sen. Joe Manchin’s Miners Protection Act of 2015. Eight Republicans have co-sponsored the bill to transfer $490 million in federal monies to help replenish the pension plan of the United Mine Workers of America. Former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department Diana Furchtgott-Roth argues that instead of simply providing a Band-Aid in the form of a bailout, the next President should help America’s miners by simply ending “President Obama’s vendetta against the coal industry.” But it is often politically difficult to oppose an effort to directly help workers in an industry that has fallen on hard times due to both regulations and market forces.
EU HANDS TELECOMMS SOME WINS
This week, the European Union will release a proposal regulating online chat services like Skype and WhatsApp, subjecting them to the same rules that have long governed the telecommunications industry. The details of the proposal are not yet confirmed, but tech companies claim “oversight from the EU’s national telecom regulators could raise costs and lead to jurisdictional disputes, discouraging them from launching new services.” The increased regulation and oversight of tech companies in the EU, along with last week’s reversal of a plan to end all data roaming charges within the EU by June 2017, certainly go a long way in maintaining the strong position of the established telecom providers in the European market.
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Mark Your Calendars
Monday, September 26: First Presidential Debate, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY