London 2012 Olympics: ‘Curiouser And Curiouser!’ – OpEd

By: Lawrence S. Schneiderman

Eurasia Review

July 29, 2012

'Curiouser and curiouser!’ Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

- Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

This phrase is often used to express bewilderment, especially when experiencing something that does not make sense. It’s also an apt description of yesterday evening’s Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

In sum, the production was sophomoric socialistic artistic drivel, masquerading as an intentional gambit of Islamic propaganda.

The artistic value speaks for itself. That is, there was very little. This politically correct production at no time, or precious little, imparts any understanding of the greatness of the British Isles and Britain’s English speaking people. Instead, we are taken on a nightmarish journey: from feudal serfdom; to the darkest Dickensian horrors of the Industrial Revolution; followed by a surrealistic portrayal of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS); before arriving at the real interest of the evening’s “entertainment,” which is the transformation of English society into an Islamic nation.

Mecca (left) and London 2012 (right) 

It wasn’t Romeo and Juliet dancing the night away out there on stage last night, rather it was Ishmael and A’ishah, two young kids from the Levant. And, if you haven’t gotten it by now, it was not a “house” on stage, but the Ka’ba, Islam’s most sacred site, taking center stage – Mecca in London. The transformation is complete, the Islamization of England has been achieved, and all it took was the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games to do it. And, in the end, the kids sing and dance, into the “house.” Translation: all come to Islam.

One wonders who gave the keys to the castle to Danny Boyle, and what did they expect to get? Mr. Boyle, best known for his cinematic work, not for theatrical productions, was a curious choice. His best-known work is for the films Slumdog Millionaire, a story of an Indian slum orphan, and Trainspotting, a story about heroin junkies on the dole.

Mr. Boyle wanted to send the world a message. And that is, the British Isles are no longer Anglo-Saxon. No longer the stuff of Queen Boudicca, King Arthur, Chaucer, Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Nelson, Wellington, Shelley, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Queen Victoria, Dickens, Gilbert and Sullivan, Kipling, Churchill, Thatcher, and Elizabeth II. Instead of these realities, we were subjected to a bizarre existential, if not delusional, production.

For Islam, the Ka’ba (Cube) of Mecca is the House of God. For Mr. Boyle, the “House” at center stage is also the Ka’ba. This is Mr. Boyle’s revelation and destination. Without our consent, we were forced to make the pilgrimage of the faithful.

Indeed, Western Civilization is in distress. When people of responsibility allow the subversive and destructive elements in society to speak to us in a legitimate forum such as the world’s Olympic Games,  we are in serious peril.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own. 

Diplomatic Malpractice: Sectarian Violence In Iraq – OpEd

By: Lawrence S. Schneiderman
July 25, 2012

Eurasia Review

Baghdad, at one time, was the most beautiful city in the world. That was 762 AD. Located where the Garden of Eden is believed to have been. However today, Baghdad and much of Iraq is in tumult.

According to “statista,” as of June 16, 2012, there have been 1,879 civilian deaths in Iraq this year resulting from sectarian violence. On July 23^rd alone, 111 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded. Attacks during the month of June have killed at least 237 people, with many more wounded. Right about now someone is thinking – yes, yes, we know Iraq is a violent place, but what’s your point.

The point is it did not have to be.

Nothing comes more instinctively to the region than sectarian violence. The difference would seem to be less of kind, since most warring parties are Arabic except for the case of the Kurds, than political and religious (Shi’a v. Sunni). This is comparable to the former Yugoslavia where Serbs, Croats, and Muslim Slavs, all southern Slavs, were segregated by religious identity, and fought to determine what each believed to be their birthright.

One of the great failing of the Bush Administration, and specifically its National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is that they did not recognize this division. And, therefore, did not have an intelligent plan of what to do in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed. In fact, Ms. Rice’s preferred option for Iraq was “to have Iraqis kill one another for a while before they get the point.” The violence we are seeing today, in my view, is a direct result of that failure.

The inability to fashion a sensible accord between Iraq’s three sectarian groups, resulted in the immediate and ongoing warfare. There was no intelligent design, there was no historical perspective, and there was no applied dynamics. Therefore, there has been no peace. Again, it did not have to be this way, but both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and their principle foreign policy chiefs, Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton, simple did not understand the complexities and nuances of the region’s history.

The best strategy for Iraq would have been to partition the country into three parts: the Kurds (Mosul); Sunni (Baghdad); and Shi’a (Basra). Here’s why.

There is no compelling historic justification for modern day Iraq. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference and subsequent San Remo Conference in April 1920 laid the groundwork for an Iraqi nation. But before 1919 modern day Iraq did not exist. There was no Iraqi nationalism and no Iraqi identity. There was what the British called “Mesopotamia” - referring to the Ottoman Empire’s provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. It was not until 1922, that the League of Nations conferred statehood on Iraq, that it became a Nation and legal entity. A decade later, Iraq joined the League of Nations.

The demise of Iraq will cause consternation to some. The whole Middle East has skin in the game, none more so than Turkey and Iran. In the case of Turkey, they have had every opportunity for partnership and constructive intervention in the region and have never failed to miss an opportunity. No matter what they wish to think - Kurds are not Turks and Mosul does not belong to Turkey. A Nation of Kurdistan will not be the death of Turkey. It will be however, a stable force in an unstable region. Turkey should have figured it out by now, that an accommodation to the Kurds would work toward balancing and even mitigating Iran’s position in Iraq, especially under Nouri al – Maliki, the Shi’a Prime Minister.

With al – Maliki and his Shi’a control of Iraq’s central government, Iran will continue to exert untoward influence. Reducing Shi’a dominance to southern Iraq will correspondingly reduce Iran’s influence in the region. It is Iran who is attempting to steer policy in Iraq. Mr. al - Maliki is simply the puppet.

A stable “Mesopotamia” is important to Middle East stability; particularly with the growing probability Syria could collapse, leaving no effective central government, much like Lebanon. It is not too difficult to predict that Iran stands poised to fill the resulting power vacuum in Syria through their surrogate Hezbollah. The new road to perdition will run from Tehran, through Basra, Damascus, ending in Beirut. The partition of Iraq would at least provide two buffer zones against this menacing tide.

Hence, the partition of Iraq is not only a pragmatic solution to help end the violence in Iraq, it is a historical imperative and strategic initiative.

In sum, Iraq is an artificial state. To believe that Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a can live peacefully together contradicts realty. Just as Bosnia became a failed state when Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians, were provided with the means to choose the conditions under which they wished to live - similarly the Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a, are doing so in Iraq today.

A solution to Iraqi violence is to construct a new compact. That new compact will be the partition of Iraq into three distinct states.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own. 

 

Condoleezza Rice: No, Absolutely Not – OpEd

By: Eurasia Review

July 16, 2012

By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

There has been in recent days an avalanche of speculation that Mitt Romney, presumptive Republican nominee for President, in the forthcoming United States (US) presidential election, will select former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate (Vice-President). This needs to be said as strongly as possible -- Condoleezza Rice on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket is a nightmare.

Now, this may get a little rough, so you may want to send the kids out of the room.

Condoleezza Rice is a naive and foolish person. Her records as National Security Chief and Secretary of State are an embarrassment. She is incompetent. 

Bret Stephens’, foreign-affairs columnist, for The Wall Street Journal, outstanding piece in the Journal’s May 1^st edition, said it best: Anyone But Condi. Mr. Stephens points out, “Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state.” He adds, “her tenure at State was notable mainly for the degree to which the bureaucracy ran her, and not the other way around.”  Mr. Stephens goes on: her preferred option (in Iraq) “to have Iraqis kill one another for a while before they get the point;” her performance on North Korea was to lift key sanctions – in exchange for exactly nothing; and, she flubbed the handling of the notorious 16 words on Iraq’s WMD in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address leading up to the Iraq War.

Other pundits have pointed out: that her executive know-how was chaotic, clumsy, and clueless; she had a penchant to appoint and choose personnel who’s views were more in-line with Mr. Bush’s opposition than his own; and she foolishly sought to revive the Israeli – Palestinian Arabs peace process despite a lack of interest on the part of the Palestinian Arabs, the Israelis, and her boss in the Oval Office.

From a political perspective, it can be argued that the alternative to Condoleezza Rice as Vice President is worse. Another four years of Barack Obama would be a disaster for the country, and the world. 

Yet, on the one hand, with a Republican Congress (House and Senate), Mr. Obama will have difficulty continuing his Rawlsian agenda. Another far left appointment to the Supreme Court could be blocked. But most importantly, Mr. Obama will have to deal with the economic fiasco he has created. Although, he will surely find someone or something else to lay the blame (on). Nevertheless, this in all probability will put the Democrats out of office for a generation.

On the other hand, a weak Romney presidency, aka George W. Bush, will set up the Democrats for victories in 2014 and 2016, and another radical turn to the left. Something, this time, the United States may not have the capacity to manage. Republicans would have been better off with a John Kerry victory in 2004, than what George W. Bush did to the US with his cast of incompetents, e.g., Rice, Meyers, Hughes, Gonzalez, and the McClellan brothers, to name a few. George W. Bush's incompetence and compassionate conservatism is what turned this country left and into the arms of a Chicago con man. 

It is better to loss an election than have another Republican fool for President. And, if Mr. Romney puts Condoleezza Rice on the ticket with him -- that is exactly what he is. The country thought differently in 2004, but it won't be fooled again.

To believe that with Ms. Rice on the ticket, Republicans will garner a greater percentage of the Black vote; is to believe that al-Qaeda will be friendly to America because we support Muslim regimes in the Balkans. Other Republican vice-presidential candidates may have skeletons in their closets, but Condoleezza Rice has a whole cemetery.


Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University.

Peacekeepers Only Protect You When There Is Peace

Eurasia Review

July 10, 2012

By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

This month marks the seventeenth anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian War. Its significance lies in both what it is as much as what it is not.

Srebrenica was not Genocide. However, the Western Mainstream Media (WMM) and the liberal intelligentsia would like you to think it was. They prefer to shine a bright light on Srebrenica and label it genocide. But the salient point is; that genocide was not committed.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, Genocide is:

“It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group.”

Genocide is a specific and horrendous act that should not be trivialized. Equally, it is wrong to apply its use incorrectly for political gain or correctness. For anyone who has forgotten -- here is a short recap of actual genocides in the 20^th century.

The Armenian Genocide was implement in 1915 and lasted until the end of World War I. In the end, the Ottoman Turks had murdered 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children. The means of extermination were methodically planned, with the intention of destroying the existence of the Armenian people in Turkey. They used some of the same methods we associate with Nazi Germany, such as death marches, starvation, extermination camps, use of poison gases, drowning children, and mass burnings. Their intent from the start was to wipe out the Armenian people, with the ultimate endgame resulting in the systematic eradication of the Armenian population from Turkey. The fact that modern day Turkey, under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denies that it was genocide is laughable.

The Jewish Holocaust of World War II is understood and accepted today as the definition of Genocide, in most of the world. The exception is the world’s Islamic nations. Nazi Germany and their Quisling collaborators exterminated 6 million Jews, two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, in a systematic state planned program, i.e., The Final Solution. The methods and means of history’s most horrific genocide are well documented.

Yet, what is not as well known is what happened in the Balkans during this same period. The Nazis and their Croatian Ustase collaborators killed 581,000 Serbs. German forces, under direct orders from Adolf Hitler, fought with a special vengeance against the Serbs, who like Jews and Romas, were considered untermensch (sub-human). It is estimated that 300,000 Serbs were murdered in the Croatian operated Jasenovac concentration camp. Large numbers of Serbs were also killed at the hands of Albanians, who allied themselves to the Nazis. It is estimated that Albanians killed 40,000 to 60,000 Serbs.

The Rwandan Genocide began and ended in 1994. It is estimated that 750,000 ethnic Tutsi were murdered in 100 days. This genocidal act occurred under the protection of a United Nation’s Peacekeeping Force, under the direction of Mr. Kofi Annan, Head of the UN Peacekeeping Department. Hutu tribesman who comprised 80% of the population of Rwanda attempted to destroy the existence of all Tutsi in the country.

In the Balkans, during the Yugoslavian War (1991 - 1995) and the Kosovo War (1999), there was war and there were war crimes. Everyone in the Balkans has blood on his hands; war crimes were committed by all of the major warring factions. The greatest of these war crimes was the now infamous Srebrenica Massacre.[i]

In 1995, from July 12 through July 16, Bosnian Serbs killed 7,079 Muslim men, the majority of whom were unarmed. This was a war crime. Much as the American massacre at My Lai was in 1968 during the Vietnam War.[ii] What made Srebrenica unique were not the number of people killed, although significant, but rather the international community’s role in the crime, and the subsequent portrayal of this event as genocide.

United Nation’s Peacekeepers, under the direction of Mr. Kofi Annan, the ongoing Head of the UN’s Peacekeeping Department, had disarmed Muslim fighters and guaranteed their protection in the designated “safe area.”[iii]  As someone who experienced the terrain of Srebrenica firsthand, it was abundantly clear that you could not select a more disadvantageous place to ensure anyone’s safety. Srebrenica is a small town with a single north – south thoroughfare situated in a hollow with steep treed hills on both sides. One could defend the town, much as Texans defended the Alamo. But no one should have mistaken Mr. Annan and his UN Associates, for William Travis, James Bowie, or Davy Crockett.

Since the Bosnian Serbs did not attempt to destroy the existence of all Bosnian Muslims, Srebrenica was a war crime and not genocide. Women and children were also living under UN protection in the Srebrenica “safe area,” and they were not killed. They were put on buses and trucks and were transported out of the area. One may posit that the aim was to ethnically cleanse Muslims from eastern Bosnia, but it was not genocidal. In any war, combatants and civilian populations are on the move – sometime by force and sometime by choice.

So what have we learned? One lesson learned from Srebrenica was that Europe and the United States did not have the will to defend and protect the people who had put their lives in their hands. Moreover, UN officials such as Mr. Annan, Mr. Yasushi Akashi (UN Special Representative for the former Yugoslavia), and French General Bernard Janvier (UN Force Commander in the former Yugoslavia), were either incompetent and/or complicit. They have yet to be held accountable for their part in this horrific war crime.

A second lesson is that Peacekeepers only protect you when there is peace. In the past, a hostile force has used Peacekeepers as human shields, and hostages and pawns in a negotiation. And in this case, worst of all, the Peacekeepers gave the veneer of safety to those whom they were tasked to defend; thus rendering them defenseless and compliant. Survival would have been better achieved knowing ones vulnerability and acting accordingly, rather than relying on a quasi-military force under orders not to engage an opposing hostile force.

The men of Srebrenica put their lives in the hands of the United Nations, and were slaughtered as a result. Apologies and handwringing does not help the dead. And neither does inappropriately euphemistic labeling. Progress may someday be made in the Balkans when broken rhetoric is replaced with honest dialogue.

Author: Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University.

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[i] In his book, Endgame, The Betrayal And Fall Of Srebrenica: Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II, David Rohde superbly documents the events of this tragedy.

[ii] In Vietnam, in March 1968, there was the My Lai Massacre. The village of My Lai is where American soldiers during the Vietnam War killed 347 to 504 (the exact number has never been confirmed) non-uniformed men, women, and children, some of whom were enemy combatants. It was not planned. There was no systematic state program to destroy the Vietnamese people. The commanding officer was tried before a US military tribunal and found guilty.

[iii] On April 16, 1993, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 819, declaring Srebrenica the world’s first “safe area.” It should be noted, that the term “safe haven” was avoided since it had a specific connotation under international law. The latter meant full protection, while the former had at the time no international legal definition.

Mrs. Clinton: Wrong Again -- OpEd

Mrs. Clinton: Wrong Again – OpEd

By: Eurasia Review
July 17, 2012
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

Mrs. Clinton has once again demonstrated that she doesn't have a clue about what is going on in Egypt. Recently, Mrs. Clinton pontifically asserted, "There can be no going back on the democratic transition called by the Egyptian people.

Does she not know who the Muslim Brotherhood is? Does she know who won the parliamentary election? Does she know who won the presidential election? Does she not remember the naïve and foolish policy of the Carter Administration with the Shah and Iran?

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is the Islamist organization that recently took power in Egypt. Its slogan is “Islam is the solution.” The Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sharia Law as the foundations of an Islamic government.

On June 17, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Mursi won Egypt's presidential election. This transfer of power to an Islamist government will adversely affect Israeli - Egyptian relations, and relations in general in the Middle East, that have been relatively stable for the past 30 years under Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Egypt has long been the key to peace in the Middle East. And, although at this point in time, the Egyptian military will continue to control the Armed Forces (SCAF), there should be no doubt that the probability of conflict has increased dramatically. And, there should be little dispute that Egypt is now an Islamic state.

The Muslim Brotherhood may have achieved legitimacy through a “free and fair” election, but it will continue in power and secure the apparatus of state government by any means necessary. Once in power, there is no going back, short of revolution or invasion (see Iran).

Mrs. Clinton and others of her ilk have got it wrong -- yet again.

In my view, they seem to want the world to look, as they want it to look – not as it is. They seem to want to put too many square pegs in too many round holes. Exporting liberal democracy is not the same as exporting Coca-Cola. And, like too many policymakers, both foreign and domestic, rather than acknowledge that a policy is a failure, these elitists cling to it, and defend the absurd.

In the case of Mrs. Clinton, the Obama Administration’s bureaucratic coterie of foreign policy experts, and its pandering State Department sycophants, there is an arrogance, in which they believe they can orchestrate the lives of others deemed inferior. In other words, it is founded on the principle that they (the liberal intelligentsia) are superior. Let’s look at the record and see how they have fared.

But before we examine the record, Mrs. Clinton’s standing in the Obama Administration can be briefly summarized. On the one hand, it may be argued that Mrs. Clinton being appointed by Barack Obama is obligated to carryout his policies. Yet, on the other hand, Mrs. Clinton is Mr. Obama’s principle foreign policy advisor. The US Secretary of State is responsible for setting the foreign policy agenda and implementing the chosen options. Failure is failure. Moreover, if Mrs. Clinton is vehemently opposed to Mr. Obama’s policies – she can resign.

The Arab Spring is quietly becoming the Arab winter of repentance. Why would anyone predict a Muslim country would embrace a true representative democracy over an Islamic regime? As we have seen in Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and for all intents and purposes Turkey, et al. – Islam and Democracy are an oxymoron.

Caroline B. Glick, an insightful expert of the Middle East, posits, “The US is no longer seen as a credible regional power as it pulls its forces out of Iraq without victory, hamstrings its forces in Afghanistan (Obama’s crippling “rules of engagement”), and abandons its allies in country after country.”

How far has America’s credibility fallen in the region -- consider this. Israel’s total energy reserves some experts now think could rival or even surpass that of Saudi Arabia. But, will American firms be involved in its exploration -- apparently not. Israel and Canada have just signed an agreement to cooperate on the exploration and development of what, apparently, could be vast shale oil reserves beneath the Jewish state. Then, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprisingly cordial visit last week (June 25, 2012), Gazprom and Israel have announced plans to cooperate on gas extraction. The upshot, and something of extreme significance, is that Israel recognizes that Russia is a more advantageous ally in the region than the United States of America.

Still, Mrs. Clinton will not be deterred. She chirps an endless chorus for women rights as she hopscotches the world. Yet, is there an example of one woman better off because of her campaign? On the contrary, the Muslim world is becoming more reactionary, and with it, whatever rights Muslim women might have had are quickly eroding. Moreover, Myanmar’s (Burma) opposition leader and democracy advocate, and 1991 Nobel Peace Price recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, is a personal triumph many years in the making, and not in anyway a factor of Mrs. Clinton’s Women Crusade.

Other examples of Mrs. Clinton’s failures include: the “Reset Button” with Russia; negotiations with North Korea; massive fraud in the United Nations run fund that finances Afghanistan's police force; and humiliation of the only Democracy in the Middle East – Israel.

Under the radar is Mrs. Clinton’s embarrassing support for Kosovo. Kosovo’s independence was folly. Independent Kosovo is a failed state. Kosovo has 50% unemployment. Government revenue is virtually totally dependent on the largesse of foreign aid. The private sector economy is almost nonexistent, and what exists is on the black market.

Hashim Thaçi, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, is an unindicted war criminal, and since no real effort has been made to bring Mr. Thaçi to account, it would seem Mrs. Clinton and her European counterpart Lady Ashton are protecting him from prosecution. Prime Minister Thaçi was Supreme Commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during and after NATO’s war with Serbia (1999).

In a report, by Mr. Dick Marty, of Switzerland, dated December 12, 2010, entitled, "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo," the findings confirm that some Serbians and some Albanian Kosovars were held prisoner in secret places of detention under KLA control in northern Albania, and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing. This included the inhuman harvesting of their organs for illicit transplantation.

Kosovo’s government is corrupt, brutal, and has a preference for lying. For example, recently (June 28, 2012), unarmed Serbs traveling to the historic Field of Blackbirds, to celebrate St. Vitus Day, were hit with Molotov petro bombs, and were fired upon by Albanian Kosovo police, injuring 50 persons, including women and children. Earlier that week, the Kosovo parliament enacted legislation limiting the rights of journalists, including requiring journalists to give the names of confidential sources. And, a week earlier Kosovo’s Minister for Privatization, Dino Asanaj, under investigation for corruption, was stabbed 11 times in his home. A few days later, the EU mission in Kosovo (EULEX) said an autopsy suggests he committed suicide and was not stabbed to death as reported initially. It’s one of the worst case of suicide ever seen!

Indeed, with a statue of Bill Clinton in its central plaza, Kosovo’s dreadful record goes uncontested.  Call it what you want, but Kosovo is a Thugocracy and Gangsterdom, and our unquestioning support does not reflect well on Mrs. Clinton and the United States.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton’s and the Obama Administrations’ “engagement” policy with Iran has been barren. While Mrs. Clinton and the US State Department “talk” to Iran – Iran continues unabated to enrich weapons grade uranium, and gets closer to fulfilling its military nuclear ambitions.

Naïve and foolish foreign policy decisions have consequences – just like elections. Many times these consequences are serious – deadly serious. Like her clueless predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, Mrs. Clinton’s conduct of foreign policy has been at best without merit. All the world really sees after three and a half years of American foreign policy under Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton is a weakling in an empty suit, and another in an empty pants suit.

In conclusion, let’s hope the next US Secretary of State will not be a celebrity, establishment darling, or motivated by political correctness. Make no mistake; the world today is fraught with uncertainty and danger. It is a fragile environment.

We need competence. We need an adult. American foreign policy has been in weak hands for the past two decades. The next Administration must find someone with the “Right Stuff.”

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.