Clients from Easter Seals Arc competed in the nation’s first Special Olympics ballroom dance competition Saturday at Memorial Coliseum [Fort Wayne, Indiana].

Organizers said they hope the locally developed program will eventually become a model for a new national Special Olympics sport. Competitors got either a first-, second- or third-place medal or a ribbon.

Last week, the athletes and their “unified dancers” — more experienced dancers without disabilities — practiced at American Style Ballroom.

Steve Hinkle, president of Easter Seals Arc, is a longtime ballroom dancer and was the impetus for the program. “I figured if I didn’t get it started, it’s not going to happen,” he said earlier.

- Fort Wayne News-Sentinel: Link.

By Anna Cherkasova

 

Americans who remember the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979, in which a group of Iranian students took over the American embassy and held 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days, can’t help but dislike the theocratic regime still in place in Iran. Democratic or Republican, all four of the most recent U.S. administrations pursued a policy of having no diplomatic presence in Iran. This policy has been in place for almost 30 years.

Today we know that Iran is developing its own nuclear program. Remembering 1979, we feel uneasy about this whole Iran-becoming-a-nuclear-power thing. We don’t know exactly why we are scared: combining nuclear weapons and Iran in one sentence just doesn’t sound good.

This blind fear, fueled by our current administration’s calls to disengage Iran from the world by any means possible, is inexcusable. With our eyes closed, we refuse to consider the possibility that our perception of the Iranian threat is not matched by the reality of this threat. The truth is, we know very little about the country. Perhaps if we knew more, we would see that it is irrational of us to be afraid of Iran, and it is rational of them to be afraid of the United States.

With an alarming proximity to five nuclear powers (Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel), Iran is located in one of the most volatile regions of the world. It doesn’t exactly fit into this volatile region either, given the historic tensions between Persia and the Arab countries, including an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq.   

Now, in addition to this already uncomfortable geopolitical situation, Iraq is currently occupied by the United States, the world’s strongest military and nuclear power. Another neighbor of Iran, Afghanistan, is occupied by NATO, the world’s strongest military alliance.

All these international tensions could have been relieved if Iran was a strong, wealthy, and consolidated state. Its internal health, however, just like its international standing, is not stable. Despite increased revenue due to skyrocketing oil prices, economic hardships persist: 40 percent of the Iranian population lives below the poverty level; inflation and unemployment are in double-digits. President Ahmadi-Nejad’s inability to improve the economic situation in Iran makes him increasingly unpopular. His overblown and often bombastic rhetoric towards the United States and Israel does not sit well even with Ayatollah Khamenei, the true leader of Iran. Political opposition to Ahmadi-Nejad is gaining strength, with some speculating that he will face tough challenges in his re-election bid next year.

In such a turbulent international and domestic environment, the development of a nuclear program for peaceful and military purposes is this regime’s best bet for its political survival. It works well with the domestic audience because international opposition to Iran’s right to develop its own nuclear program fuels nationalist feelings among the Iranian population. It also helps with Iran’s international standing since, as Fareed Zakaria, a prominent international relations scholar, put it, “in the world of international politics, a nuclear program is the ultimate insurance policy.”

Don’t agree with Zakaria? Look at India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. All four of these countries have nuclear weapons programs; all four of them acquired these weapons illegally. When the world, the United States included, had to face the reality of these countries being nuclear powers, serious consequences did not follow. In fact, quite the opposite happened: Israel, which till this day does not admit to having a nuclear weapons program, is one of the United States’ closest allies; India is on the verge of signing a nuclear agreement with the United States; Pakistan, despite violations of democratic principles by President Musharraf and despite Al-Qaeda’s haven formed on the Pakistan-Afghan border, enjoys unprecedented support of the U.S. government; North Korea has been paid to get rid of its nuclear weapons and is no longer considered, by the United States, a part of an Axis of Evil. It seems clear that wonderful things happen to countries after they establish their nuclear programs. Is it not a wise choice for Iran to proceed with enrichment of uranium and face the consequences after its weapon is developed? Given the precedents, these consequences are certainly better than the ones Iran is facing now. The bottom line is that incentives for Iran to continue with its nuclear program are far greater than disincentives.

Realizing that Iran is on its way to becoming a nuclear power, however, should not make us afraid. Before it is too late, we need to make sure that our government, and whoever is in charge of it, starts serious negotiations with Iran. Instead of putting Iran on the same level with Hitler and threatening the coming of World War III, our government needs to make a break with the failed 30-year policy of calling Iran irrational and refusing to negotiate. Perhaps it’s time to try something new. After all, we are currently in negotiations with Kim Jong Il, a much more belligerent and irrational dictator (Khamenei did not starve two million of his people) of an expansionist country (North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950; the Islamic Republic of Iran has never invaded another country), and we were able to persuade him to drop an already established nuclear program.

The best way to convince our leaders to abandon their failed policies towards Iran is to stop our own hysteria over Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. According to the February Gallup poll, 25 percent of Americans consider Iran the U.S.’s greatest enemy. Only 9 percent of Americans, according to the same poll, think that North Korea is our biggest foe, even though it is North Korea that has nuclear weapons, and not Iran. It is time to stop allowing our irrational fears to dictate our policies. We need to let go of our embedded dislike of the regime and be adults here. Direct talks are necessary and the United States, unlike Iran, has no excuse for being afraid to negotiate.

By Anna Cherkasova

 

I’d like to put forward a new candidate. Her name is Hillary McCain-Obama, and she is perfect! She has all the credentials needed to be a great president. She is a wonderful legislator, has great military experience and projects a unifying and inspiring presence that mesmerizes not only people here in the United States, but all over the world. And as an African-American woman who is not trying to hide her grey hair, she is poised to make history. 

The point of this absurd exaggeration is to show that none of the presidential contesters is perfect for the role, but then, very few presidents were; the role is too demanding of people who want to fill it. The U.S. presidency involves many responsibilities and it is nearly impossible for one person to have the talents or the energy to be equally strong at all of them. No wonder Thomas Jefferson called the presidency a “splendid misery.”

A president must perform three main functions. He must be head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief. Since each of these has elements that contradict the others, no one person can fill the bill.

The head of state, in the words of Charles de Gaulle, should embody “the spirit of the nation.” This person is the face of the country, the king surrogate, the symbol of the values for which the nation stands. The head of state should be able to unify people at home, and not alienate people abroad, although for the United States not alienating is obviously not enough. The U.S. head of state must be able to lead those nations that recognize and defend human rights, carrying a symbolic and self-proclaimed crown of the leader of the free world.

Being an effective head of state requires a big picture personality, great oratorical skills, charisma, and the ability to project strength and calmness during times of turmoil.  Skills such as tear-dropping and teleprompter familiarity are not required but can be a plus.

The head of government is a less glamorous but equally important function of the U.S. presidency. It involves putting forward legislation to Congress, directing administrative agencies, and making and implementing budgetary and taxing proposals.

Effective heads of government are usually detail- and content-oriented individuals with great negotiating skills and many well-established contacts. They believe in the power of legislation and that hard, behind-closed-doors work, and not lofty speeches, gets things done. In the middle of the battle for the democratic nomination, for example, Hillary Clinton made a now-infamous remark that “the Presidency is more about pushing difficult legislation through a fractious Congress than it is about transforming society.” She was referring to the Civil Rights movement, and to the fact that it took Lyndon Johnson, the president and not the movement leader, to realize Martin Luther King’s dream. Clinton was also reminding voters that Barack Obama, her main opponent for the democratic nomination, despite his tremendous oratorical talents and potential to be one of the strongest heads of state America has known, has only a few years of legislative experience.

As you can see, there is a conflict of expectations between the positions of head of state and head of government: being detail oriented while pursuing big-picture goals is a difficult task. Very few presidents have been able to successfully perform both roles. More are the leaders who were good at one and ineffective, to say the least, at the other. Classic cases of this natural separation are presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. While Kennedy was a very strong and capable head of state, successfully representing the United States abroad and serving as the role model for millions of Americans at home, he was a mediocre head of government who struggled to get legislation enacted. Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, was, as Clinton mentioned, the one who made King’s dream a reality and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As a head of state, however, Johnson lived in Kennedy’s shadow, never able to make the nation truly fall in love with him.

It is important to add that the problems Johnson faced as a president were not all from his inability to be an inspirational head of state. By mismanaging the war in Vietnam, he also failed to be an effective commander-in-chief.

The importance of the commander-in-chief function cannot be underestimated. It requires years of experience, a firm hand, and a respectable reputation. Even though a president himself is not the one fighting on the battleground, as Harry Truman put it, “the buck stops here.” Since the position involves formulating and directing American military strategy, it is beneficial if a president is knowledgeable of military affairs and, when at war, is able to help and not hinder the situation on the ground.  A commander-in-chief has to be able to strike the right balance between formulating military strategy and yet not getting bogged down in military tactics.

Even though the position of commander-in-chief is extremely important in managing wars, it is even more important in keeping peace. Dwight Eisenhower, one of the most capable commanders-in-chief America has ever known, masterfully prevented the United States from engaging into the conflict in Indochina, despite the pressure coming not only from France, but also from the U.S. Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council. Eisenhower kept the peace, and that was one of the most important parts of his legacy as the U.S. president.  

So now you know how I came up with the perfect new presidential candidate. Hillary McCain-Obama’s ability to combine all of the qualities needed to be a great president is truly outstanding. Today we need her more than ever.

All three roles of the U.S. presidency have suffered a setback over the past decade. The economy is hurting, the war in Iraq continues to be mismanaged, and our world posture seems to aggravate more countries than it unites.

At the same time we cannot count on Hillary McCain-Obama to suddenly appear and, by a wave of the hand, make things right. Change will not happen overnight, and it will certainly have to involve more than one person.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that, just like the rest of us, presidents are human.