Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jan. 3
No tears for general, but U.S. risks further escalation
Although world is better off without Soleimani, what’s Trump’s broader Mideast strategy?
There can be little doubt that Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force, deserved the fate that befell him when a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad took his life. As the second most powerful leader in the country, Soleimani was a malevolent force who fomented conflict across the region, provoking or supporting aggression in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. U.S. veterans were all too familiar with his name, and many openly cheered his demise.
Other presidents could have ordered Soleimani’s death, as President Donald Trump did on Thursday. The U.S. has vastly superior military power and intelligence capabilities. Soleimani traveled openly and would not have been a difficult target. But Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama ultimately declined because, in assessing the threat risk, they concluded the chances of yet another protracted war outweighed whatever advantages might have been gained. So did Israel.
Trump reached a different conclusion, and now Iranian leaders are vowing “forceful revenge.” Americans in Iraq have been ordered to evacuate, and the U.S. is sending 3,000 more troops into the region. That is an escalation by any definition.
Trump has taken an immense gamble here, and Americans need reassurance that an administration notorious for impulsivity gave careful consideration to its actions and possible alternatives, and that it has strategically planned for the aftermath.
Patrick Clawson, research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on the Middle East, told an editorial writer that Iran has been provoking the U.S. for months, unwilling to enter into talks. After briefings from administration officials, Clawson said he is confident that “they decided the risk of not acting was greater than the risk of acting. That conversation occurred.” It is possible, he said, that the U.S. would have wound up in this place no matter what, so determined was Iran to antagonize.
Despite the severity of the U.S. action, Clawson said it need not necessarily escalate further. “We’ve been in a twilight war with Iran for 40 years,” he said. What must happen now, he said, is action that shows the region American presence will be maintained. “There should be lots of consultation with Iraqi politicians about just how heavy the price will be if more Americans are killed.”
But that’s not enough.
This administration may have acted unilaterally - others have as well - but now it should be prepared to engage Congress and to tell the American people, with as much detail as possible, what prompted its action and how far it is prepared to go. After all, it is the sons and daughters of this country who will be on the ground in a foreign land carrying out the orders of their commander-in-chief. It is American taxpayers who will fund yet another incursion into the Middle East, after yet another president has promised to end the American presence there.
We must also engage our allies, many of whom Trump has spent his presidency disparaging. Even for a nation as powerful as this one, a go-it-alone approach in the quagmire that is the Middle East would be hard-pressed to succeed where well-coordinated, multilateral efforts have failed.
An entire generation has now grown up locked in seemingly interminable conflict in the Middle East: Iraq. Iran. Afghanistan. Syria. Lebanon. Yemen. After decades of fighting, the U.S. still has tens of thousands of troops spread across more than a dozen countries.
We will not mourn the demise of one such as Soleimani. The world indeed is better off without him. But America should not allow his death to become the flash point for a war that could widen more dramatically than anyone can anticipate.
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Mankato Free Press, Jan. 4
Trade war hurting Midwest
Thumbs down to the ongoing trade war with China, which is causing ever more serious damage to the Midwest economy.
A new monthly survey of business supply managers showed the economy is growing slowly in nine Midwest and Plains states, with the trade war taking a bigger toll here than in much of the rest of the country. That’s because the trade war hits agriculture and manufacturing, two staples of the Midwest economy, hard.
But the weakness in the economy is now spilling into other areas of the Midwest economy. In the past 12 months, the region has added jobs at an annual pace of just 0.7% - less than half the national rate.
The Creighton University economists who oversee the survey say they expect slow growth the first half of next year in the Midwest, but the trade war is continuing to hammer the region.
The Trump administration needs to put a higher priority on reigniting talks with China.
Young Women’s cabinet
Thumbs up to two area women being chosen to serve on the Young Women’s Cabinet.
The task force is a joint effort between the state of Minnesota and the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, aiming to improve gender equity and equality throughout the region.
Bla Yang, 21, is a Minnesota State University student majoring in social work who serves on the Student Senate. Benya Kraus, 24, of Waseca, is co-founder of a national nonprofit that creates fellowships for recent college grads, particularly grads of color, to work in local governments.
They are looking forward to formulating a plan to help support women and strengthen their roles in Minnesota and will be working with state government leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
This region benefits from having participants on the Young Women’s Cabinet and area residents can be proud they are being represented by these smart, motivated women.
Superfund underfunded
Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the administration’s plan to pull back on enforcing pollution laws by saying they would prioritize Superfund cleanup of badly polluted sites.
Some three years later, the Superfund program has been a casebook example of “watch what we do, not what we say.” The EPA quietly revealed over the holidays that the program now has its largest backlog of unfunded projects in 15 years.
And the Trump administration consistently submits budgets that reduce money going to the Superfund program.
Congress has not gone along with those cuts, but the administration’s actions speak louder than its words. Superfund is not a Trump priority. Nothing environmental is.
Slavery reference
Thumbs up to St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell for pushing to have a reference to slavery removed from the Minnesota Constitution.
The reference Axtell pointed to is a section of the state’s constitution that reads: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted.”
Axtell brought up the issue after seeing it raised in other states.
Kudos also go to Minnesota House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, who vowed to hold legislative hearings on an amendment to remove the reference, which would need to be approved by the state’s voters.
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St. Cloud Times, Jan. 3
Minnesota is on the verge of losing one-eighth of our voice in U.S. House
Minnesota is balanced on the brink. By the end of this year, we are likely to have a claim on one less seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
A slowing population growth rate in Minnesota and gangbusters growth in places including Texas, North Carolina and Florida signal a coming shift from eight House seats for Minnesota to seven.
Great - one less politician to pay, so say some. But those folks are not only unclear about how Congress works, they are also, in the words of the president, “Wrong.” Minnesota’s seat doesn’t go away. It goes somewhere else.
Along with that seat will go one-eighth of our House voice in federal matters, including health care reform, defense spending and farm policy. It will diminish Minnesota’s impact on setting federal budget priorities, reduce our leadership positions on key committees and make us potentially less competitive for federal projects that could bring jobs to Minnesotans. It will also reduce our voice in the management of Minnesota’s significant tracts of federally owned lands.
It may also reduce Minnesota’s opportunities to elect our next great statesperson to a seat where he or she can gain deep knowledge and experience before going on to leadership on the national and global stage. The path to Minnesota producing the next Walter Mondale or Hubert Humphrey is about to be one lane narrower.
Already 35th in net federal funding per resident (for the curious, we received about $959 in federal spending per resident in 2017; Virginia received the most at $10,301, Connecticut the least with a net outflow of $4,000 per resident), Minnesota could see a smaller piece of that pie. If that means lower federal taxes, fine. But like the House seat, that money is not likely to be wiped from the budget. It will simply go elsewhere.
In short, there’s no scenario whereby a reduction in seats in Congress is a benefit to the state that experiences it. Is it a tragedy? No. But it’s something to be avoided when possible.
And there’s the rub.
There is little chance of keeping all eight of Minnesota’s seats in the House, having barely held on to them after the 2010 Census. The best estimates of the experts say we’ll come up about 21,000-25,000 residents short of keeping our eight House seats this time.
Make no mistake: Minnesota’s population is growing. In 2018, we gained about 33,000 residents, for a growth rate of 0.6%. But Texas grew its already significantly larger population at more than double that rate. It’s likely to add three seats to its already 36-member House delegation.
What hope there is to hang onto our eighth seat for the next decade lies in another government process that some view as waste, others ignore and some hold in suspicion: the 2020 Census.
The count is already under way in remote areas of Alaska. By April 1, every household should receive a Census notification with options to respond online, by mail or by phone. Follow-ups will continue through May as Census workers visit college students and homes where no one responded yet.
The stakes are high for getting an accurate count of Minnesotans. The consequences of not doing so are unappealing. So it makes sense to not only participate for your own family, but to spread the word to friends and co-workers, neighbors and coffee klatch partners.
Minnesotans are quite skilled at setting high expectations for one another and holding high standards for civic tasks, including voting and making charitable donations.
Put the Census on that list so Minnesotans are counted as accurately as possible. If we lose a seat in Congress, let’s at least lose it fair and square.
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