1nc
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No veto proof majority for Iran sanctions now but it is within grasp. It’s a top
priority for the GOP and Obama’s lobbying is empirically critical to prevent it
Everett, 12/29/14 (Burgess, “GOP to move on Iran sanctions legislation,”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/gop-senate-iran-sanctions-bill-113852.html, JMP)
Congressional Republicans are setting up early challenges to President Barack Obama in
January, preparing to move forward quickly on new Iran sanctions legislation following on the
heels of a vote on a bill approving the Keystone XL Pipeline.
The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to vote on legislation that would impose
additional economic penalties on Iran in the first few weeks of next year, according to
Republican senators and aides. The starting point would be a bill written a year ago by Sens.
Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that managed to accrue the support of 60
senators in both parties despite opposition from the White House.
Kirk and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said over the weekend that an Iran vote could occur in
January after a vote on Keystone, which is the first bill the Republican Senate will take up and is
also opposed by President Barack Obama.
Republican leaders have not yet finalized their legislative schedule, but the bipartisan Iran
proposal is supported by incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and all of
his leadership team. And taking a confrontational stance toward Iran as diplomatic negotiations
continue with a group of Western nations appears to be top of mind for the new Senate
Republican majority.
“It’s an important issue, a priority , and has wide bipartisan support in the Senate,” said
McConnell spokesman Don Stewart on Monday.
The Republican House overwhelmingly passed a sanctions bill targeting Iran’s energy industry
in 2013, though that legislation was never taken up by the Senate.
The Kirk-Menendez legislation would tighten economic sanctions on Iran if the country walks
away from ongoing negotiations over nuclear enrichment or reneges on an interim agreement
that has frozen some of Iran’s nuclear activities in return for unwinding some sanctions. In
November, Western and Iranians negotiators extended that interim deal until July as they
attempt to hammer out a permanent deal that would curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions and relax
sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy and isolated the country globally.
A separate bill written by Graham and incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker
(R-Tenn.) would require Congress to approve of any final deal and could figure into the GOP’s
plans next year.
“You will see a very vigorous Congress when it comes to Iran. You will see a Congress making
sure that sanctions are real and will be reimposed at the drop of a hat. You will see a Congress
wanting to have any say about a final deal,” Graham said at a weekend press conference with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A dozen returning Senate Democrats officially signed on in support of the Kirk-Menendez
legislation in 2014, though President Barack Obama’s administration convinced other
on-the-fence members to hold off public support after warning that voting on that
legislation could upset ongoing negotiations. While the Kirk-Menendez legislation could very
well accrue 60 votes to clear the Senate in the new Congress, Democratic aides on Monday
declined to estimate the level of enthusiasm for fresh sanctions in the new year.
Indeed, the largest challenge for both supporters of Iran sanctions and the Keystone pipeline is
building veto-proof levels of support in Congress that would require dozens of Democrats in the
House and Senate to oppose the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in
November that new penalties during negotiations would be “counterproductive.”
Garnering 67 votes in the Senate for the Kirk-Menendez bill could be a steep task ,
given the defeat of several moderate Democratic supporters, opposition from Obama and
lack of unanimous support in the GOP. But Kirk said on Sunday in an interview with Fox news
that he expects “really bipartisan votes” and predicted having a “shot of even getting to a
veto-proof majority in the Senate.”
The plan would deplete Obama’s capital
Daw, 12 --- J.D. from Harvard Law (12/15/2012, Jeremy, “Marijuana Not A Priority For
Obama,” http://cannabisnowmagazine.com/current-events/politics/marijuana-not-a-priorityfor-obama)
Some hope for even more radical change. With the most recent polls suggesting that a majority
of Americans favor reform of pot laws, why not seize the moment and end federal prohibition
entirely? Obama could order the DEA to reschedule cannabis out of Schedule I to a less
restrictive classification, which would effectively end the conflict with the federal government in
medical marijuana states. Such a move could harness political will for change and put the
president on the winning side of public opinion.
But such moves would have serious downsides. The politics of pot, rife with cultural and
political divisions since the tumultuous 1960s, remain bitterly divisive ; any politician who
proposes liberalization of cannabis laws risks becoming saddled with labels borne out of a long
history of ingroup/outgroup dynamics and which can rapidly drain a leader’s store of
political capital . Given Obama’s susceptibility to an even older tradition of racial
stereotyping which associates cannabis use with African Americans, any kind of green light
to relaxed marijuana laws will cost the president dearly .
That directly trades-off with the political capital necessary to prevent a veto
override on Iran and sustain the deal. Failure will spur prolif and war with Iran.
Beauchamp, 11/6/14 --- B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from Brown University and
an M.Sc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, former editor of TP
Ideas and a reporter for ThinkProgress.org. He previously contributed to Andrew Sullivan’s The
Dish at Newsweek/Daily Beast, and has also written for Foreign Policy and Tablet magazines,
now writes for Vox (Zack, “How the new GOP majority could destroy Obama's nuclear deal with
Iran,” http://www.vox.com/2014/11/6/7164283/iran-nuclear-deal-congress, JMP)
There is one foreign policy issue on which the GOP's takeover of the Senate could have huge
ramifications, and beyond just the US: Republicans are likely to try to torpedo President
Obama's ongoing efforts to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. And they just might pull it off.
November 24 is the latest deadline for a final agreement between the United States and Iran
over the latter's nuclear program. That'll likely be extended, but it's a reminder that the
negotiations could soon come to a head. Throughout his presidency, Obama has prioritized
these negotiations ; he likely doesn't want to leave office without having made a deal.
But if Congress doesn't like the deal, or just wants to see Obama lose, it has the power to torpedo
it by imposing new sanctions on Iran. Previously, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used
procedural powers to stop this from happening and save the nuclear talks. But Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell may not be so kind, and he may have the votes to destroy an Iran deal.
If he tries, we could see one of the most important legislative fights of Obama's
presidency.
Why Congress can bully Obama on Iran sanctions
At their most basic level, the international negotiations over Iran's nuclear program (they
include several other nations, but the US is the biggest player) are a tit-for-tat deal. If Iran
agrees to place a series of verifiable limits on its nuclear development, then the United States
and the world will relax their painful economic and diplomatic sanctions on Tehran.
"The regime of economic sanctions against Iran is arguably the most complex the United States
and the international community have ever imposed on a rogue state," the Congressional
Research Service's Dianne Rennack writes. To underscore the point, Rennack's four-page report
is accompanied by a list of every US sanction on Iran that goes on for 23 full pages.
The US's sanctions are a joint Congressional-executive production. Congress puts strict limits on
Iran's ability to export oil and do business with American companies, but it gives the president
the power to waive sanctions if he thinks it's in the American national interest. "In the collection
of laws that are the statutory basis for the U.S. economic sanctions regime on Iran," Rennack
writes, "the President retains, in varying degrees, the authority to tighten and relax restrictions."
The key point here is that Congress gave Obama that power — which means they can take it
back. "You could see a bill in place that makes it harder for the administration to suspend
sanctions," Ken Sofer, the Associate Director for National Security and International Policy at
the Center for American Progress (where I worked for a little under two years, though not with
Sofer directly), says. "You could also see a bill that says the president can't agree to a deal unless
it includes the following things or [a bill] forcing a congressional vote on any deal."
Imposing new sanctions on Iran wouldn't just stifle Obama's ability to remove existing
sanctions, it would undermine Obama's authority to negotiate with Iran at all, sending the
message to Tehran that Obama is not worth dealing with because he can't control his own
foreign policy.
So if Obama wants to make a deal with Iran, he needs Congress to play ball . But it's
not clear that Mitch McConnell's Senate wants to.
Congress could easily use its authority to kill an Iran deal
To understand why the new Senate is such a big deal for congressional action on sanctions, we
have to jump back a year.
In November 2013, the Obama administration struck an interim deal with Iran called the Joint
Plan of Action (JPOA). As part of the JPOA, the US agreed to limited, temporary sanctions relief
in exchange for Iran limiting nuclear program components like uranium production.
Congressional Republicans, by and large, hate the JPOA deal. Arguing that the deal didn't place
sufficiently serious limits on Iran's nuclear growth, the House passed new sanctions on Iran in
December. (There is also a line of argument, though often less explicit, that the Iranian
government cannot be trusted with any deal at all, and that US policy should focus on coercing
Iran into submission or unseating the Iranian government entirely.) Senate Republicans, joined
by more hawkish Democrats, had the votes to pass a similar bill. But in February, Senate
Majority leader Harry Reid killed new Iran sanctions, using the Majority Leader's power to block
consideration of the sanctions legislation to prevent a vote.
McConnell blasted Reid's move. "There is no excuse for muzzling the Congress on an issue of
this importance to our own national security," he said. So now that McConnell holds the
majority leader's gavel, it will remove that procedural roadblock that stood between Obama and
new Iran sanctions.
To be clear, it's far from guaranteed that Obama will be able to reach a deal with Iran at all;
negotiations could fall apart long before they reach the point of congressional involvement. But
if he does reach a deal, and Congress doesn't like the terms, then they'll be able to kill it by
passing new sanctions legislation, or preventing Obama from temporarily waiving the ones on
the books.
And make no mistake — imposing new sanctions or limiting Obama's authority to waive the
current ones would kill any deal. If Iran can't expect Obama to follow through on his promises to
relax sanctions, it has zero incentive to limit its nuclear program. "If Congress adopts sanctions,"
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Time last December, "the entire deal is dead."
Moreover, it could fracture the international movement to sanction Iran . The United
States is far from Iran's biggest trading partner, so it depends on international cooperation in
order to ensure the sanctions bite. If it looks like the US won't abide by the terms of a deal, the
broad-based international sanctions regime could collapse . Europe, particularly,
might decide that going along with the sanctions is no longer worthwhile.
"Our ability to coerce Iran is largely based on whether or not the international community
thinks that we are the ones that are being constructive and [Iranians] are the ones that being
obstructive," Sofer says. "If they don't believe that, then the international sanctions regime falls
apart."
This could be one of the biggest fights of Obama's last term
It's true that Obama could veto any Congressional efforts to blow up an Iran deal with sanctions.
But a two-thirds vote could override any veto — and, according to Sofer, an override is entirely
within the realm of possibility.
"There are plenty of Democrats that will probably side with Republicans if they try to push a
harder line on Iran," Sofer says. For a variety of reasons, including deep skepticism of Iran's
intentions and strong Democratic support for Israel, whose government opposes the
negotiations, Congressional Democrats are not as open to making a deal with Iran as Obama is.
Many will likely defect to the GOP side out of principle.
The real fight, Sofer says, will be among the Democrats — those who are willing to take the
administration's side in theory, but don't necessarily think a deal with Iran is legislative priority
number one, and maybe don't want to open themselves up to the political risk. These Democrats
"can make it harder: you can filibuster, if you're Obama you can veto — you can make it
impossible for a full bill to be passed out of Congress on Iran," Sofer says. But it'd be a really
tough battle, one that would consume a lot of energy and lobbying effort that
Democrats might prefer to spend pushing on other issues.
"I'm not really sure they're going to be willing to take on a fight about an Iran sanctions bill,"
Sofer concludes. "I'm not really sure that the Democrats who support [a deal] are really fully
behind it enough that they'll be willing to give up leverage on, you know, unemployment
insurance or immigration status — these bigger issues for most Democrats."
So if the new Republican Senate prioritizes destroying an Iran deal, Obama will have to
fight very hard to keep it — without necessarily being able to count on his own party for
support. And the stakes are enormous: if Iran's nuclear program isn't stopped
peacefully, then the most likely outcomes are either Iran going nuclear, or war
with Iran .
The administration believes a deal with Iran is their only way to avoid this horrible choice.
That's why it's been one of the administration's top priorities since day one. It's also why
this could become one of the biggest legislative fights of Obama's last two years.
Goes nuclear
Avery, 13 --- Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen (11/6/2013, John Scales Avery, “An Attack On Iran Could Escalate
Into Global Nuclear War,” http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm)
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure
groups in Washington continue to demand an attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global
nuclear war, with catastrophic consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should remember
that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict.
There is a danger that an attack on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the
Middle East , entirely destabilizing a region that is already deep in problems. The unstable
government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary Pakistani government
might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the
conflict . Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle
much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the
price of oil to reach unheard-of heights, with catastrophic effects on the global economy .
In the dangerous situation that could potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that nuclear weapons
would be used, either intentionally, or by accident or miscalculation. Recent research has shown
that besides making large areas of the world uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive
contamination, a nuclear war would damage global agriculture to such a extent that a
global famine of previously unknown proportions would result. Thus, nuclear war is the ultimate
ecological catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of the
East. Since
biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of
all the peoples of the world, US citizens included.
1nc 2
Obama’s “wait and see approach” is sustainable, but the plan kills it
Bennett and Walsh, 10/14 - *Wells C. Bennett is a Fellow in National Security Law at the
Brookings Institution and Managing Editor of Lawfare AND **John Walsh is a Senior Associate
at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), focused on drug policy reforms that protect
human rights, public health and public safety. His work has contributed to the recent opening of
the hemispheric debate on drug policy (“Marijuana Legalization is an Opportunity to Modernize
International Drug Treaties” October,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/10/15-marijuanalegalization-modernize-drug-treaties-bennett-walsh/cepmmjlegalizationv4.pdf)
United States’ enforcement discretion under the drug treaties might be drawn precisely, we
know that such discretion by definition cannot be an across-the-board, categorical affair, when the issue is federal tolerance of
Wherever the limits of the
regulated , comprehensive marijuana markets established by state law. And that’s just it: if more states
take a legalize-and-regulate approach, a federal-level decision not to prosecute similarly situated persons
could start to look like blanket non-enforcement of implementing legislation—something that, in
our view, the drug treaties do not contemplate.
The prospect of future marijuana regulation raises a second, more fundamental reason to rethink things: the nation’s experiment with legalizing and
regulating marijuana might actually go well. Suppose Colorado and Washington both operate their regulated marijuana markets smartly, without
offending federal enforcement prerogatives, and—most importantly— without compromising public health and safety. We don’t think this is a fanciful
or improbable scenario. Our Brookings colleague John Hudak was the first to examine Colorado’s implementation effort up close. And he tentatively
concluded that so far, the state’s initial rollout has been imperfect but quite effective.39 If this path continues or even bends towards improvement,
then other states may soon elect to follow Washington and Colorado’s lead. And that, in turn, stands to exacerbate an already visible tension between
obligations imposed by the drug treaties, and the federal government’s enforcement posture towards legalizing states.
To put the point another way, if
Colorado and Washington augur a real trend, then the costs to the United
States of treaty breach could be swiftly ratcheted upwards . The INCB could raise the
volume and severity of its criticisms; we wouldn’t be surprised to hear protests from more
prohibitionist countries about the United States’ treaty compliance, or to see other nations start pushing the
limits of other no less important treaties to which the United States is party. When some or all of this
happens, the United States won’t get very far in emphasizing the CSA’s theoretical application nationwide, subject to enforcement priorities enunciated
in the Cole Memo; or in appealing to larger objectives woven throughout the drug treaties, and their conferral of policy flexibility. What if twenty or
thirty states successfully establish, and police, regulated markets for marijuana production and sale?
Having that scenario in mind, we lastly emphasize the United States’ unique relationship both to the drug treaties and to the wider international
community. The
United States was a—if not the— key protagonist in developing the 1961, 1971, and 1988
Conventions, as well as the 1972 protocol amending the 1961 Convention; the United States has for decades been widely
and correctly viewed as the treaties’ chief champion and defender.40 That fact feeds back onto this one: The
United States also occupies a singular place in international relations. It can summon powers no other
nation can summon, but it also confronts risks no other nation confronts.41 For that oft-cited reason, the
United States has a profound interest in ensuring that counterparties perform their treaty
obligations. Reciprocity is always a big deal for any nation that trades promises with other
ones—but it is perhaps uniquely so for ours .
These factors mean that caution is in order regarding international law and the viability of the Cole Memo in the longer run. If the United States can
“flexibly interpret” the drug treaties with regard to marijuana, then Mexico is entitled to no less—though it might view the limits of its flexibility
differently, or apply it to another controlled substance within the treaties’ purview. Or imagine that a foreign nation’s controversial policy butts up
against seemingly contrary language, in a treaty covering an extremely important global issue other than drug control. Likely the United States will
have a tougher time objecting when, rather than conceding the problem or changing course, that nation’s foreign ministry invokes the need to
“tolera[te] different national approaches;” or recasts the relevant treaty as a “living document” subject to periodic, unilateral reinterpretation.
This is not to suggest that compliance challenges or complexity should always trigger a call to reshape the United States’ treaty commitments. Practice
and prudence both support a more nuanced, case-specific approach than that. Sometimes the United States has sought to make significant adjustments
to multilateral frameworks or even quit them; other times, the United States has weighed costs and benefits, and pressed on within the treaty despite
consequential breaches—in situations much more obvious (and less open to reasonable contention) than that regarding marijuana.
But in those instances, the United States’ compliance failures often have come despite some hard striving by the federal government. The State
Department, to name one well known example, tries mightily to make state law enforcement officers aware of the United States’ obligations under the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations—notwithstanding some repeated and well-known violations of that treaty by the likes of Texas, Virginia, and
Arizona.42 In this case, though, no external factors—federalism, say, or a contrary ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court—have frustrated a strong push
by the executive branch to vindicate the drug treaties; the decision not to assert federal supremacy was in fact taken unilaterally by the Obama
administration. Given the circumstances, we believe it was the correct decision. The
Cole Memo nevertheless establishes at least
some friction with a treaty obligation, by holding back on CSA enforcement, so as to
accommodate state-level regulation of marijuana. Again, the reasons why are entirely understandable: given the incipient
nature of the changes to which the Cole Memo was reacting, the United States essentially opted to take a wait-andsee approach as to how problematic the treaty questions might become.
So far as we are aware,
this strategy is without precedent in U.S. treaty practice . The United States
should approach it carefully and deliberatively, given the country’s outsized interest in reciprocal
performance of treaty obligations. That depends in part on being able to credibly call out other
nations for treaty failings—something which in turn depends on strictly performing our
own obligations , or at least making a good show of trying hard to do so before coming up short.
Again, we
think the United States can sustain the status quo in the short term . But today’s
model likely won’t hold up year in and year out, for the reasons we describe above. The government therefore ought
to start thinking about some of the fundamental treaty reforms that its public statements seemingly have
downplayed. Better to have weighed such options early on, should existing policy’s downsides start to overtake its upsides—as we predict they could.
Sequencing key -- they wreck the regime
Bennett and Walsh, 10/14 - *Wells C. Bennett is a Fellow in National Security Law at the
Brookings Institution and Managing Editor of Lawfare AND **John Walsh is a Senior Associate
at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), focused on drug policy reforms that protect
human rights, public health and public safety. His work has contributed to the recent opening of
the hemispheric debate on drug policy (“Marijuana Legalization is an Opportunity to Modernize
International Drug Treaties” October,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/10/15-marijuanalegalization-modernize-drug-treaties-bennett-walsh/cepmmjlegalizationv4.pdf)
VI. A Stress Test We Can Pass
In making the case for the United States to proactively open the door to future change in the drug treaties, we have emphasized, so
far, the negative value of avoiding conflict and instability. We would be remiss not to end on an equally important positive note. The
political changes and incentives in play in the marijuana-policy debate open a real opportunity to
demonstrate and improve the adaptability of the international legal system—a system on which the
United States relies more and more.
No treaty can survive the collapse of a political consensus supporting it. And no
treaty system can endure if it cannot
cope with changing political conditions. Sustainability in international law depends not only on
commitment but also on resilience and adaptability.
At this writing, one or two more U.S. states may be about to adopt a version of marijuana legalization. If
states continue to legalize, and if the federal government continues to allow their reforms to
proceed, the short run for treaty reform may come quite soon. This is why we refer to the
challenge of marijuana legalization as a “ stress test” for the adaptability of
international law . Should legalization prove politically popular or socially successful, it will spread to more states
one way or another both domestic and international politics will
find ways to accommodate it—either by adapting formal legal commitments or by cutting new,
informal channels around those commitments. The latter would weaken international
and nations; should it spread, then
law; the former would strengthen it.
Marijuana-related reform to the drug treaties offers, in several respects, good odds of achieving constructive adaptation. Reform
need not entail any wholesale reconsideration of international drug policy, nor need any brand new treaty be negotiated. Modest
incrementalism can do the job. In the United States, moreover, a growing political constituency, embracing members of both
political parties, favors reform, so the issue is less partisan than many. Persuading the Senate to make more room for U.S.
experimentation by revising an existing treaty is a lighter lift than persuading it to undertake entirely new treaty obligations. And, if
the United States plays its cards right (with, as we have suggested, suitably narrow and hedged
legal changes) , we believe a consensus abroad for modest change could become within reach. In
the subject relatively early on—by ruling treaty change in, now, as a possibility,
instead of ruling it out as a non-starter—may itself open the door to a new international conversation about
modernizing and adapting drug treaties. In other words, marijuana offers as good a chance as we are
likely to see of setting a precedent for creative, consensual, and gradual adaptation of a wellestablished international treaty structure.
The international legal system, however suspicious of it many Americans may be, has always mattered and has never
mattered more than now. For example, the campaign against ISIS and the Ukraine crisis
underscore all too dramatically the continuing importance of multilateral security commitments.
If anything, international law’s remit is growing as environmental, social, economic, and security
problems transcend national borders. From global warming to sanctions on Iran and
any case, broaching
Russia to the campaign against terrorism and military intervention in a host of
theaters, the United States and its allies increasingly rely on international agreements and
commitments to legitimize and amplify joint action against common threats.
Of course, marijuana and the international narcotics treaties are only one small piece of that
puzzle. But they are a highly visible piece , and they offer a real opportunity to demonstrate
adaptation through international legal channels, rather than around them . Laying
groundwork for manageably incremental changes—by beginning conversations with treaty
partners and other constituencies about where flexibility might lie—would reaffirm
American commitment to constructive adaptation, and to building consensus.
Conversely, pushing the outer boundaries of the drug treaties’ flexibility could weaken the
international order and damage American interests.
To put the point another way: Marijuana policy reform is a stress test that the United States and the international order should, and
realistically can, pass.
Great power war
Harald Müller 2K, Director of the Peace Research Institute-Frankfurt and Professor of
International Relations at Goethe University, Summer 2000, “Compliance Politics: A Critical
Analysis of Multilateral Arms Control Treaty Enforcement,” The Nonproliferation Review,
http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/72muell.pdf
A third very crucial condition is a sufficient commonality of interest and commitment among the
major powers with regard to both the treaty in general and the compliance issue in question in particular. The great
powers act on the basis of a multiplicity of interests, commitments, and orientations. If the major powers' broader political,
economic, and security concerns turn out to be contradictory or even antagonistic, a non-multilateral compliance action by one or
more of them becomes more likely. Such action outside the multilateral context will affect the great power
relationship and, in turn, the prospects for continued institutionalized cooperation.
In short, power relations do not develop in an ahistorical and context-free way, following quasi-natural laws. They depend
rather on habits, conventions, and perceptions that are shaped by experience. The constraints and
relations in the international system are thus not immutable, but rather malleable.12 When a treaty regime creates
expectations of multilateral compliance policies, unilateralist behavior can thus cause one of two
difficulties:
• It may push other powers (and possibly their followers, proxies, allies, and partners) to rally around the accused party. This may
occur either because the accused party is a close ally, or to deter the power(s) acting unilaterally from further unilateral actions out
of fear that such actions may lead to an adverse change in the balance of power. Such a course of events would seriously diminish
the chances for pursuing further the road towards a world order based on cooperative security,13
rather than balance of power principles. Moreover, such confrontations include a risk of escalation ,
which could lead to another confrontation like the Cuban missile crisis, by far the most dangerous
event so far in the nuclear age .
• Alternatively, the aggrieved powers may abstain from a direct confrontation out of concern for these risks, but freeze their
cooperation in the arms control field as a sort of reprisal. Such a development, while less dangerous on the surface, would risk the
erosion of multilateral arms control and nonproliferation in the long run. Would-be rule-breakers could be tempted to play off great
powers against each other, making it possible for them to pursue their rule-breaking activities with less risk and a greater likelihood
of getting away unscathed with their deviant course of action.
In either mode, arms agreements suffer, the prospects of cooperative security policy as an ordering
principle of world politics decline, and the risk of a major confrontation among great powers
increases . This trajectory is a reflection of the pivotal role of treaty community cohesion . Because of
the particular importance of major powers within that community—the presumption of legal equality
notwithstanding—antagonisms among them are particularly likely to sunder that community and
prevent it from maintaining and strengthening the treaty when it is challenged by deviant behavior.
Extinction
Sachs 14—Jeffrey, D. is a Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and
Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also Special Adviser
to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals “Ukraine and
the Crisis of International Law,” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d-sachs-sees-in-russia-s-annexation-of-crimea-the-return--with-us-complicity--of-great-powerpolitics
International law itself is at a crossroads . The US, Russia, the EU, and NATO cite it when
it is to their advantage and disregard it when they deem it a nuisance. Again, this is not to justify Russia’s
unacceptable actions; rather, it is to add them to the sequence of actions contrary to international law.
The same problems may soon spill over into Asia. Until recently, China, Japan, and
others in Asia
have staunchly defended the requirement that the Security Council approve any outside military
intervention in sovereign states. Recently, however, several countries in East Asia have become locked in
a spiral of claims and counterclaims regarding borders, shipping lanes, and territorial rights. So far, these
disputes have remained basically peaceful, but tensions are rising . We must hope that the countries of the
region continue to see the great value of international law as a bulwark
of sovereignty, and act
accordingly.
There have long been skeptics of international law – those who believe that it can never prevail
over the national interests of major powers, and that maintaining a balance of power among
competitors is all that really can be done to keep the peace. From this perspective, Russia’s actions in the
Crimea are simply the actions of a great power asserting its prerogatives.
Yet such a world is profoundly and unnecessarily dangerous . We have learned time and again
that there is no such thing as a true “balance of power.” There are always imbalances and
destabilizing power shifts. Without some scaffolding of law, open conflict is all too likely .
This is especially true today, as countries jostle for oil and other vital resources. It is no coincidence
that most of the deadly wars of recent years have taken place in regions rich in valuable and
contested natural resources.
As we look back in this centennial year toward the outbreak of WWI, we see again and again that the only possible
route to safety is international law, upheld by the United Nations and respected on all sides. Yes, it sounds
naive, but no one has to look back to see the naiveté of the belief that great-power politics will
preserve peace and ensure humanity’s survival.
1nc 3
The United States should propose an amendment to the Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs that allows parties to the amendment to legalize nearly all
marijuana, to be made binding upon the U.S. in the event of acceptance. The
United States should freeze any additional moves towards marihuana legalization,
pending the outcome of treaty reform and in the event of the amendment’s
rejection, the United States should maintain Controlled Substances Act
restrictions on marihuana necessary for compliance with the Convention. The
United States should prosecute bank employees involved in money laundering for
drug trafficking organizations. The United States should initiate criminal
prosecution against United States government officials responsible for torture.
The CP causes treaty reform and allows legalization down the road
Don, 14 - University of Minnesota Law School, J.D. candidate 2015 (Allison, “Lighten Up:
Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” 23 Minn. J. Int'l L. 213, Hein Online) The
Board = The International Narcotics Control Board
3. Amending the Single Convention is the Best Option
In light of the newly passed legislation within the United States concerning recreational
marijuana and proposed legislation in the international community, the best means of aligning
the Single Convention with evolving norms is to amend the treaty.153 Amendments allow for
formal changes to be made to a treaty while maintaining the treaty's existence. 154 This allows
for adjustment as "parties' understanding of the issue"' change or circumstances surrounding
the issue change without requiring the drafting of a new treaty or termination of an existing one.
By amending the Single Convention to allow for the recreational use of marijuana, the United
States and other countries considering such legislation would be able to continue the legislative
process without any international obligations impeding the progression towards marijuana
legalization.
Article 47 within the Single Convention provides instructions for amending the treaty, stating
that "[any [p]arty may propose an amendment to this Convention.156 In order to make such a
proposal, the amendment itself and the reasons behind the amendment must be transferred to
the Secretary- General of the United Nations in writing who will then disseminate the proposed
amendment to the other parties of the treaty and the Commission. At this point, the
Commission has the power to decide if a conference should be held to discuss the proposal or if
the parties should simply be asked if they are willing to accept.157 If there is no objection within
18 months , the amendment becomes fully adopted; if there is an objection, the Commission
may then choose to hold a conference to review the proposal.158
With 153 current parties to the Single Convention, arriving at a consensus may prove difficult.
This does not preclude the option to amend as "amendments require agreement between
treaty parties, but not necessarily between all parties." Once an amendment has been proposed
and adopted, parties are free to decide if they will become a party to the amendment.159 Those
who opt not to join the amendment remain bound by the treaty's original obligations.160 By
proposing an amendment that would permit the use of marijuana for recreational purposes,
those countries who wish to pursue such legislation would be permitted to do so and those
countries who remain in opposition would be able to remain parties to the original treaty
preventing the use of recreational marijuana.161
The CP takes a wait and see approach to legalization while the US pursues treaty
amendments – that protects international law
Counts, 14 - J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, 2014 (Nathan, “INITIATIVE 502 AND
CONFLICTING STATE AND FEDERAL LAW” 49 Gonz. L. Rev. 187,
http://www.law.gonzaga.edu/law-review/files/2014/04/1-Counts-Pgs-187-212.pdf)
In dealing with the conflicting state and federal law, enforcement decisions will affect the United
States’ role as an actor in international law and the direction of international cooperation in
combatting illegal drug trade. First, if the United States breaches its treaty obligations under the
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, it would undermine the international rule of law . A
strong international rule of law is desirable “to establish and maintain order and enhance
reliable expectations” in international affairs.142 As there are no enforcement mechanisms for
international legal obligations equivalent to that which exists with domestic law, the weight of
obligations relies to some extent on comity among the states involved.143 As long as states agree
to limit their sovereignty and comply with international law, states will be more likely to respect
one another’s reasonable expectations and fulfill their obligations.144
Both conventions have provisions that read, “If there should arise between two or more Parties a
dispute relating to the interpretation or application of this Convention, the Parties shall consult
together with a view to the settlement of the dispute by . . . peaceful means of their own choice,”
and should this fail, they agree to jurisdiction before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).145
Despite this possibility of justiciability of breach, it is highly unlikely that any state party would
bring a case before the ICJ over domestic non-enforcement of the treaty obligations, as
diplomatic channels are more predictable and possible noncompliance with ICJ judgments
weakens the international rule of law.146
If the United States fails to enforce the CSA and allows the Washington legalization system to
succeed, it may signal to other states that the United States is willing to allow its domestic
law overcome its international law obligations and may not be reliable in international
transnational enforcement efforts in the future. It also signals to other states that they may allow
their domestic law to inhibit effective enforcement of international treaty
obligations , which may undermine the United States’ goals in the future.
Aside from rule of law concerns, breach of treaty obligations may undermine the international
cooperation required to combat international drug trafficking. The United States has historically
been a strong proponent of drug prohibition and prioritization of enforcement efforts against
trafficking, so legalization and non-enforcement of a Schedule I drug within our borders would
send a conflicting message.147 The former Administrator of the DEA, John C. Lawn,
commented, “A violation of these treaties by the United States would destroy our credibility with
drug source and drug transit countries that are now working with the United States in the global
war on drugs.”148 Some parties have already softened their domestic enforcement policies and
similar action by the United States would make this course more acceptable.149 If other
governments follow suit and legalize drugs in some capacity, this may decrease the focus on
enforcement against drugs generally, which may negatively impact coordinated efforts against
illicit drug trafficking. Thus, if the United States allows legalization of marijuana in its borders,
it should be ready to support the change in policy that this represents and address it at the
international level. The United States would need to restate the importance of cooperation
against international drug trafficking, even though some amount of domestic social
experimentation may be permissible.
V. RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Domestically
The possible federal response depends on whether the government wishes to continue to pursue
the policy underlying the CSA or defers to the states in managing local marijuana regulation. If
the policy goals of the CSA are to be continued, the government should take steps to disrupt the
Washington legalization scheme and deter use, which may take three forms.
First, the government could encourage re-criminalization by conditioning state funding on penal
statutes for marijuana use, similar to that used for enforcing a drinking age of twenty-one
throughout the United States.150 “Congress has immense fiscal resources relative to the states,
and the Court has imposed few meaningful restrictions on how Congress may employ those
resources to extract conditions from the states.”151 This option could make up for the difficulties
in enforcing the CSA by causing state actors to resume enforcement. State law enforcement of
marijuana crimes may continue but at a much lower level, because it is likely that Washington
would still have a policy of deprioritizing marijuana-related crimes. This strategy also
undermines federalism and state experimentalism to some extent and should be used
sparingly.152
Second, the government could enforce the CSA against distributors of recreational marijuana in
Washington. If even one marijuana retailer were charged under the CSA, it is likely that the
entire marijuana legalization of system of Washington would cease to function. As the
businesses are licensed by Liquor Control Board, they will be easily investigated by federal
agents and subject to possible felony prosecution, so marijuana distribution will likely return to
black markets. This may make the situation worse if Washington does not enforce against illicit
sellers even when the activity is still illegal under state law, as a result of marijuana crime deprioritization. Federal enforcement would be insufficient and illegal markets may actually grow
in Washington. Arrests of licensed business owners could lead to a sense of injustice as
explained above as the retailers would view themselves as law-abiding citizens, not the drug
traffickers that the CSA was designed to combat.
Third, federal enforcement could pursue civil injunctions or raids focused on forfeiture of
marijuana, which the DEA currently uses against medical marijuana suppliers.153 This strategy
would have similar effects as the second option, but without the perception of injustice, as these
actions only assert the illegality of the activity and force the business to close without employing
the full penal power of the law. Note though that U.S. Attorneys may still pursue felony charges
under the CSA, the directive to use civil remedies will only be departmental guidelines.
With any of these three approaches, the federal government should take an aggressive stance
against marijuana. Advertising in public media by marijuana-related businesses will go a long
way toward shaping attitudes and giving recreational marijuana legitimacy. Injunctions should
be brought to remove any instances of advertising. This should be paired with anti-marijuana
advertising. Conditional funding could be used to ensure that Washington spends some of the
marijuana excise tax on anti-marijuana advertising campaigns. In addition, proceeds from fines
against marijuana producers and distributors, as well as from forfeitures, could be used to fund
a federal anti-marijuana advertising effort targeted to Washington. The advertising will
demonstrate the government’s continued assertion that marijuana’s negative health consequences are too severe for it to be suitable for any use, and combat the change in social beliefs
that coincide with the state legalization of marijuana.
If the policies behind the CSA are to be reconsidered in light of changing public opinion on
marijuana, there are several options for supporting Washington in implementing Initiative 502.
The first would be a wait-and-see approach of non-enforcement. This would be best paired
with an official statement interpreting the CSA as being inapplicable to actors that follow
relevant state law for a certain time period , so that the actor may raise a defense of
entrapment by estoppel. Otherwise U.S. Attorneys may still bring criminal charges against
violators of the CSA who comply with state law and the actor would have no cognizable defense.
At the end of the time period of non-enforcement, the federal government could examine the
success of Washington’s legalization regime and determine appropriate next steps, possibly
reverting to enforcement or going toward rescheduling.
Finally, Congress could remove marijuana from CSA scheduling and allow states to decide how
to penalize or regulate marijuana production, distribution, and consumption. It could remain a
felony to transport marijuana into or out of the United States, which is a level of enforcement
that is likely commensurate with federal law enforcement capacities. This also ensures that the
United States maintains its commitment to international cooperation in the prevention of drug
trafficking and also ensures that state social experimentalism does not negatively impact the
international community.
B. Internationally
On the international level, it is important that the United States respect international
obligations to maintain the integrity of the rule of law and support coordination in
combatting international drug trafficking. First, the federal government could pursue one of the
approaches above in ensuring enforcement of the CSA in Washington. This would demonstrate
the United States’ ongoing dedication to the goals of both conventions despite conflicting state
laws, reinforcing for other countries that they should pursue this policy even as public opinion
shifts in some areas.
Second, the United States could submit an amendment for the Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs and the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances that would allow for possible recreational use of marijuana within the territory
of state parties, but still require criminal enforcement against international trafficking. Each
convention has a provision for amendments, which would allow the United States to alter the
treaty obligations of all parties such that non-enforcement against Washington recreational
marijuana, and similar actions by other parties, is no longer a breach.154 As other countries
have begun to liberalize their drug laws, there may be support for such an amendment.155 This
must be paired with vigorous enforcement against international traffickers though, so the policy
does not negatively affect supply or transit countries.
VI. CONCLUSION
Initiative 502 gives the federal government the opportunity to reevaluate the policies of the CSA
and either renew efforts against recreational marijuana or allow state governments to control
domestic regulation of marijuana. It is important, however, that in selecting an approach, the
impact of the inconsistency between state and federal law be minimized to avoid a culture of
rule-breaking , and that the United States work to bring itself into compliance with
international law , either through enforcement or by amending existing treaties .
Targeting banks solves cartel revenue
Morris 2013 (Evelyn Krache [Research Fellow, International Security Program, Belfer Center
for Science and International Affairs @ JFK School of Govt, Harvard]; Think Again: Mexican
Drug Cartels; Dec
3;www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/03/think_again_mexican_drug_cartels; kdf)
"We Need to Hit Them Where It Hurts: the Wallet." Exactly.
Despite the ongoing arguments about drug
legalization and border security, the most effective way to combat the scourge of the DTOs
would be to interdict not drugs or people but money. As in any business, money is the fuel that keeps the cartels
running. Even if Sinaloa, to give only one example, were to disappear tomorrow, other organizations
would quickly rise to take its slice of the lucrative pie. One of the most basic tenets of business is that highly
profitable markets attract lots of new entrants. This is true for legal and illegal enterprises alike. The
staggering profits of illegal trade would be much less attractive if the DTOs could not launder, deposit, and
ultimately spend their money. But shutting down the cartels' financial operations will be a formidable
task, given the help they have had from multinational financial institutions, which have profited from
the cartels' large-dollar deposits. In 2010, Wachovia bank (which was acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008) admitted that
it had processed $378 billion of currency exchanges in Mexico -- an amount equal to about one-third of the
country's GDP -- to which it had failed to apply anti-laundering restrictions. In 2012, British bank HSBC
settled with the U.S. government for $1.9 billion to escape prosecution for, among other things, laundering hundreds of
millions of dollars for the Sinaloa cartel. U.S. law enforcement has also implicated Bank of America and Western
Union in DTO money laundering. Although illegal money transfers can happen without banks' knowledge, the volume and
widespread occurrence of these transactions indicate just how easy it is for the cartels to clean their dirty money. Paying a fine to
avoid prosecution is almost no punishment at all. The fines Wachovia paid amounted to less than 2 percent of its 2009 profit. Even
the record fine assessed on HSBC amounted to only 12 percent of the bank's profits. Furthermore, banks can simply accrue funds to
offset any possible fines, either by increasing what they charge cartels or by setting aside some of the earnings from laundering, even
as they continue to do business with the DTOs. Prosecuting bank employees involved in money laundering,
up through the highest levels of an institution, would be a better tack. Pictures of a chief compliance officer
as he entered a courtroom for sentencing would have a far greater deterrent effect than any financial penalty. To that end,
investigative techniques and legal precedents for going after global criminal networks are
increasingly robust, and the political payoffs could be substantial. One of the more successful
campaigns in the war on terrorism has been the financial one; experience gained in tracking the
funds of al Qaeda could make it easier to similarly unravel Los Zetas' financing. Malfeasance in the
financial industry is nothing new, but public sensitivity to banks' wrongdoing is arguably higher than it has been in decades. An
enterprising prosecutor could make quite a reputation for herself by tracking DTO money through the financial system. The cartels,
along with the violence and corruption they perpetrate, are threats to both Mexico and the United States. The problem is a
complicated one and taps areas of profound policy disagreement.
The way to make progress in combating
the DTOs is to ignore issues like gun control and illegal immigration and follow
the money . Stanching the cartels' profits will do more to end the bloodshed than any new
fence or law.
1nc cartels
No state failure or investor pullout
Siskind 12 [Cory Siskind is a researcher for a global risk consultancy. She focuses on Latin
America and is based in Mexico City, Separating Fact from Fiction on Mexico’s Drug Cartels,
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12385/separating-fact-from-fiction-on-mexicosdrug-cartels]
While drug-related violence in Mexico is a grave problem, it is
not plunging the country into failed
statehood . Violence rages in some areas , while others remain calm. Some local economies
have been damaged by cartel-related violence, but the overall economy remains stable , and FDI is
on the rise . There are no easy solutions to cartel-related violence, and legalization in particular is not a panacea. Mexico’s
security situation is complex, dynamic and shrouded in misinformation. A sustainable approach to its significant challenges will
require looking beyond the startling but often misleading headlines.
Violence down
Zabludovsky 14 – By Karla covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From
Height of the Drug War, But Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM
http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists-260990
Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like
Coahuila, Guerrero and Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate . In Durango, part
of the Mexican “golden triangle,” an area notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased
by nearly half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.¶ ADVERTISEMENT¶ It is unclear what percentage of
recorded homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification in October, doing away with a separate category for
drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.¶ Aware
of the war weariness felt among many in Mexico,
Pena Nieto ran on the promise that, if elected, his government would shift the focus from
capturing drug kingpins, like Calderon had, to making daily life for ordinary Mexicans safer.¶
"With this new strategy, I commit myself to significantly lowering the homicide rate, the number of kidnappings in the country, the extortions and the
human trafficking," wrote Pena Nieto in a newspaper editorial during his presidential campaign.¶ Since
Pena Nieto
taking office in December 2012,
has largely eliminated talk of security from his agenda except when large outbreaks
of violence have forced him otherwise, focusing instead on the economy and his legislative
reforms , including sweeping overhauls to education and energy. And while the country appears to be less violent now than during Calderon’s
war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, remains “perilous.”
No impact to heg
Benjamin H. Friedman et al 13, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies;
Brendan Rittenhouse Green, the Stanley Kaplan Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science and
Leadership Studies at Williams College; Justin Logan, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the
Cato Institute Fall 2013, “Correspondence: Debating American Engagement: The Future of U.S.
Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 38, No. 2, p. 181-199
Brooks et al. argue that the specter of U.S. power eliminates some of the most baleful consequences of anarchy, producing a
more peaceful world. U.S. security guarantees deter aggressors, reassure allies, and dampen security dilemmas (p. 34). “By supplying
reassurance, deterrence, and active management,” Brooks et al. write, primacy “reduces security competition and does so in a way that slows the
diffusion of power away from the United States” (pp. 39–40). There
are three reasons to reject this logic : security
competition is declining anyway; if competition increases, primacy will have difficulty stopping
it; and even if competition occurred, it would pose little threat to the United States.¶ an increasingly peaceful
world. An array of research , some of which Brooks et al. cite, indicates that factors other than U.S. power are
diminishing interstate war and security competition .2 These factors combine to make the costs of military aggression
has grown more costly. Nuclear weapons
make it nearly suicidal in some cases.4 Asia, the region where future great power competition is most likely, has a “geography
of peace”: its maritime and mountainous regions are formidable barriers to conflict.5¶ Conquest also yields lower economic
returns than in the past. Post-industrial economies that rely heavily on human capital and information are more difficult to exploit.6
Communications and transport technologies aid nationalism and other identity politics that make foreigners harder to manage. The lowering
of trade barriers limits the returns from their forcible opening.7¶ Although states are slow learners, they
increasingly appreciate these trends . That should not surprise structural realists. Through two world wars, the
international system "selected against" hyperaggressive states and demonstrated even to victors
the costs of major war. Others adapt to the changed calculus of military aggression through
socialization.8¶ managing revisionist states. Brooks et al. caution against betting on these positive trends. They worry that if states
behave the way offensive realism predicts, then security competition will be fierce even if its costs are high . Or, if
nonsecurity preferences such as prestige, status, or glory motivate states, even secure states may become aggressive (pp. 36-37).9¶ These
scenarios, however, are a bigger problem for primacy than for restraint . Offensive realist security
paranoia stems from states' uncertainty about intentions; such states see alliances as temporary expedients of last
resort, and U.S. military commitments are unlikely to comfort or deter them .10 Nonsecurity
preferences are, by definition, resistant to the security blandishments that the United States can offer
under primacy Brooks et al.'s revisionist actors are unlikely to find additional costs sufficient reason to hold back, or the threat of those costs to
be particularly credible.¶ The literature that Brooks et al. cite in arguing that the United States restrains allies actually suggests that
offensive realist and prestige-oriented states will be the most resistant to the restraining effects
of U.S. power. These studies suggest that it is most difficult for strong states to prevent conflict between weaker allies and their rivals when the
very high, and its benefits low.3¶ A major reason for peace is that conquest
restraining state is defending nonvital interests; when potential adversaries and allies have other alignment options;11 when the stronger state struggles
to mobilize power domestically12; when the stronger state perceives reputational costs for non-involvement;13 and when allies have hawkish interests
and the stronger state has only moderately dovish interests.14¶ In other words, the
cases where it would be most important to
restrain U.S. allies are those in which Washington's efforts at restraint would be least effective.
Highly motivated actors, by definition, have strong hawkish interests. Primacy puts limits on U.S. dovishness, lest its commitments lack the credibility
to deter or reassure. Such credibility concerns create perceived reputational costs for restraining or not bailing out allies. The United States will be
defending secondary interests, which will create domestic obstacles to mobilizing power. U.S. allies have other alliance options, especially in Asia. In
short, if
states are insensitive to the factors incentivizing peace, then the United States' ability to
manage global security will be doubtful. Third-party security competition will likely ensue
anyway. ¶ costs for whom? Fortunately, foreign security competition poses little risk to the United States. Its wealth
and geography create natural security. Historically, the only threats to U.S. sovereignty, territorial integrity, safety, or power position have been
potential regional hegemons that could mobilize their resources to project political and military power into the Western Hemisphere. Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union arguably posed such threats. None exist today. ¶ Brooks
et al. argue that "China's rise puts the
possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on the table, at least in the medium to long term" (p. 38). That
possibility is remote , even assuming that China sustains its rapid wealth creation. Regional hegemony requires China
to develop the capacity to conquer Asia's other regional powers. India lies across the Himalayas and has
nuclear weapons. Japan is across a sea and has the wealth to quickly build up its military and develop nuclear
weapons. A disengaged United States would have ample warning and time to form alliances or regenerate
forces before China realizes such vast ambitions.
Advanced manufacturing sector is insulated from cartel violence
Krista Hughes 4-9-2013; “Mexican manufacturing: from sweatshops to high-tech motors”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-mexico-economy-manufacturing-idUSBRE9380TN20130409
Times are tough for the assembly-for-export plants known as maquiladoras clustered along the U.S. border, a region
that has lost economic muscle in the face of competition from China, successive U.S. recessions and drug war violence. But there
are signs of a turnaround elsewhere. Mexico is winning back U.S. import market share and an energetic new
government promises deep economic reforms in pursuit of 6 percent annual growth. Key to the revival is a shift in
activity from the border toward more high-tech manufacturing in central states far from the
drug gang turf wars and smuggling routes. New foreign investment, especially in the auto
industry, heads increasingly to Guanajuato and Aguascalientes states, northwest of Mexico City.
Together with neighboring Queretaro - home to a small but booming aerospace cluster - and San Luis Potosi, they are shaping
up as Mexico's next-generation manufacturing hub. Boosting productivity and adding local content is crucial to
Mexico's goal of breaking out of the emerging market B-list and narrowing the income gap with advanced economies, as countries
such as China and carmaking competitor South Korea have done. Bucking an overall trend of falling productivity,
the central states already have a similar manufacturing output to the four border states of Baja
California, Coahuila, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas with about one-third of the workforce.
Mexico isn’t going to nuke trade ties – US dependency
M. Angeles Villarreal 9-16-2010; Specialist in International Trade and Finance “The Mexican Economy After the Global
Financial Crisis” September 16, 2010 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R41402
The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the U.S. economic downturn had strong
adverse effects on the Mexican economy, largely due to its economic ties and dependence on the
U.S. market. Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 6.6% in 2009, the sharpest decline of any Latin American
economy. Mexico’s reliance on the United States as an export market and the relative
importance of exports to its overall economic performance make it highly susceptible to
fluctuations in the U.S. economy. Most other Latin American countries are not as dependent on
the United States as an export market. Economic reforms over the past 20 years and the government’s responses to
the effects of the global financial crisis have helped Mexico weather the economic downturn and improve conditions in 2010.
However, sustained economic recovery will likely depend on the U.S. economic recovery and the ability to sustain this growth
Cartels also profit off legal marijuana.
Sabet ‘13
Kevin, Director, University of Florida Drug Policy Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Division
of Addiction Medicine Director, Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), “Written
Testimony “Conflict Between State and Federal Laws”,”
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/9-10-13SabetTestimony.pdf
Department of Justice officials have publicly said that the sales of marijuana for supposedly “medical”
purposes are in some cases going to criminal enterprises and foreign drug trafficking
groups.8 “It's very clear to me that there's outside sources,” said Jeff Sweetin, Special Agent In Charge of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency in Colorado, in a news article. “From my investigations, I can tell you what the foreign sources are; they're
foreign cartel sources.” The news story reported that “Sweetin says a large percentage of the pot consumed by
medical marijuana patients ‘absolutely’ comes from Mexico.” Sweetin continued, “These are real organized
crime groups. There's a faction that wants you to believe that these are just guys that are listening to their music, they're driving their
van, they're peaceful guys and they're moving a couple of ounces a week to people that are not doing any problems. That's not what's
happening.” This is also the case in other states, like California, where the U.S. Secret Service and the
DEA were involved in “what has amounted to a four-year investigation ... ... into an organized
criminal enterprise involving large-scale marijuana distribution, not only in the Los Angeles area, but
throughout the United States. This criminal enterprise hired known gang members as enforcers. This organization was
involved in the operation of multiple retail marijuana dispensaries generating massive profits, repeatedly showing their willingness
to use violence and intimidation to expand their operations and dissuade competition. To date, there have been 26 documented
crimes…” 9 As a Los Angeles newspaper mentioned in a story about dispensaries and criminal gangs, “Many of the
dispensaries and grow houses have ties to organized crime and sell to street dealers as
well, detectives said.” The story quoted L.A. County Sheriff's Detective David Mertens who said, “Most of the
dispensaries are getting pot from these indoor grows,” said L, who specializes in narcotics investigations. “It's
not just the dispensaries they're growing for. They're also selling to street dealers.”10
Fragmentation and shift away from drugs outweigh
O’Reilly, 11/12/14 (Andrew, Fox News Latino, “Mexico's newest cartels are smaller, more
localized but just as ruthless” http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/11/12/mexiconewest-cartels-are-smaller-more-localized-but-just-as-ruthless/)
The kidnapping and likely murder of 43 Mexican college students in the poor, rural state of Guerrero has not only
shed light on the complicity of local lawmakers with organized crime groups in Mexico but also on whom
these small, localized and ultra-violent groups are.
It appears that after almost eight years of widespread warfare between Mexican authorities and the country’s notorious drug cartels,
a newer group of criminals is emerging from the battle dust -- one that operates on a much more local level than its international
drug-smuggling brethren.
“[Former President Felipe] Calderón’s strategy was to pulverize those groups and weaken them into
these little ones,” Tony Payan, the Mexico center director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, told Fox
News Latino. “There is now a proliferation of hundreds of these smaller groups.”
Groups like Guerreros Unidos, who are purportedly responsible for the slaying and burning of the 43 students, have become one of
the main threats to the Mexican public as the government continues to dismantle the major cartels – either by arresting or killing
the groups’ major players.
Possibly realizing the national and international pressure that operating a transnational drug cartel brings; the newer, smaller
gangs instead have eschewed the drug trade in favor of extortion, theft and abductions –
crimes that make them a ton of money and reward them with new territory, but also forces
constant acts of violence to keep them visible and in control.
Shannon O’Neil, senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the focus on dismantling
drug cartels has been helpful because it has created a power vacuum among the cartels.
But, she said, it has also forced many to turn to other crimes – like extortion, robbery and
kidnappings “that prey more directly in the Mexican population.”
1nc pharma
Plan doesn’t solve pharma—no incentive to invest and not profitable even if
legalized—this card smokes them
AccessWire 14—corporate news press service
(“Cannabis Should Be Treated as an Agricultural Commodity, Not a Biotech Investment”, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cannabistreated-agricultural-commodity-not-183300760.html, dml)
For a number of reasons, it
will ever
is unlikely that a company focused exclusively on cannabinoid pharmaceuticals
achieve profitability . Taking the broad view, the expenses involved in getting a drug FDA-
approved are extreme , and each indication must be separately approved each time through
the gauntlet. This strategy makes sense if a drug is both patentable and exclusive and a company
is reasonably assured of its return on investment in the event of an FDA approval. With
cannabinoids it’s not so simple , because while synthetic cannabinoids can be patented in principle, the
practicality of a synthetic cannabinoid patent is very questionable. Patents are not much use when a
patient can simply acquire the same natural cannabinoids in concentrated cannabis oil form or
via smoking or otherwise ingesting, at much cheaper prices in most medical marijuana states, or
recreational states like Colorado and Washington.
Take the case of GW's Epidiolex for the Orphan epilepsy indications. The rationale behind developing any Orphan
drug for a rare disease is the ability to charge exorbitant sums for it after approval in order to
make up for the development costs. While some are trying to compare GW's Epidiolex with Alexion's (NASDAQ:
ALXN) $440K a year Soliris for a rare blood disorder or Vertex's (NASDAQ: VRTX) $300K a year Kalydeco for cystic fibrosis,
attempting to sell synthetic CBD for anywhere near that amount sounds nothing less than
ludicrous . The only way people are able to pay such wild sums for Orphan drugs is that
insurance companies pay. They pay because these rare drugs are absolutely exclusive to the
companies that manufacture them and cannot be obtained anywhere else by any means. However,
there is no way insurance companies would hand over that kind of money when access to
natural high-CBD cannabis strains are readily available , almost ubiquitous. One can even get
CBD paste for free, legally, at sites like NewCure.org run by activist volunteers.
Patients and/or insurance companies paying a modest sum for the convenience of CBD in pill or spray form is one thing. But there
is simply no way anyone will pay the fantastic sum necessary to recover the costs of Orphan
drug development
through the necessary bureaucratic pathways for readily available
cannabinoids. With medical marijuana regulations being relaxed state by state and even recreational
use being legalized slowly but surely, cannabinoid compounds will
cease having any
appeal
as investible pharmaceuticals whose profits are normally obtained through real and
tight-fisted exclusivity. Cannabinoids should instead be considered as agricultural commodities that happen to have
medicinal uses.
Let's not forget that Marinol, the very first synthetic THC cannabinoid to be developed by AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) and approved in
1985, only peaked at sales of $100M in 2007 22 years after its approval before going generic, hardly anything close to blockbuster.
No impact uniqueness—new innovations are targeted at drugs that do the same
thing
Donald W Light professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, Joel R Lexchin professor, York University
School of Health Policy and Management, “Pharmaceutical research and development: what do
we get for all that money?,” BMJ ‘12;344:e4348
The real innovation crisis
More relevant than the absolute number of new drugs brought to the market is the number that
represent a therapeutic advance. Although the pharmaceutical industry and its analysts
measure innovation in terms of new molecular entities as a stand-in for therapeutically superior new medicines,
most have provided only minor clinical advantages over existing treatments. The
preponderance of drugs without significant therapeutic gains dates all the way back to the “golden age” of innovation. Out of 218
drugs approved by the FDA from 1978 to 1989, only 34 (15.6%) were judged as important
therapeutic gains.12 Covering a roughly similar time period (1974-94), the industry’s Barral report on all
internationally marketed new drugs concluded that only 11% were therapeutically
and pharmacologically innovative .13 Since the mid-1990s, independent reviews have also
concluded that about 85- 90% of all new drugs provide
few or
no clinical advantages for
patients. 14-19 This small, steady increase in clinically superior drugs contrasts with the FDA granting “priority” review status
to 44% of all new drugs from 2000 to 2010.20 The percentage of drugs with a priority designation began to increase in 1992 when
companies started funding the FDA’s approval process. Other regulatory agencies have classified far fewer of the same medicines as
needing accelerated reviews.21 Post-market evaluations during the same period are much less generous in assigning significant
therapeutic advances to medications.18 21 This is the real innovation crisis: pharmaceutical research
and development turns out mostly minor variations on existing drugs, and most new drugs are
not superior on clinical measures. Although a steady stream of significantly superior new drugs
enlarges the medicine chest from which millions benefit, medicines have also produced an epidemic of
serious adverse reactions that have added to national healthcare costs.22 How much does
research and development cost? Although the pharmaceutical industry emphasises how much money it
devotes to discovering new drugs, little of that money actually goes into basic research. Data
from companies, the United States National Science Foundation, and government reports indicate that companies have been
spending only 1.3% of revenues on basic research to discover new molecules, net of taxpayer
subsidies.23 More than four fifths of all funds for basic research to discover new drugs and
vaccines come from public sources.24 Moreover, despite the industry’s frequent claims that the cost of
new drug discovery is now $1.3bn (£834m; €1bn),25 this figure, which comes from the industry
supported Tufts Center,26 has been heavily criticised . Half that total comes from estimating how
much profit would have been made if the money had been invested in an index fund of pharmaceutical companies that increased in
value 11% a year, compounded over 15 years.26 While used by finance committees to estimate whether a new venture is worth
investing in, these presumed profits (far greater than the rise in the value of pharmaceutical stocks) should not be
counted as research and development costs on which profits are to be made. Half of the remaining
$0.65bn is paid by taxpayers through company deductions and credits, bringing the estimate down to one quarter of $1.3bn or
$0.33bn.27 The Tufts study authors report that their estimate was done on the most costly fifth of
new drugs (those developed in-house), which the authors reported were 3.44 times more costly than the
average, reducing the estimate to $90m. The median costs were a third less than the average, or $60m. Deconstructing other
inflators would lower the estimate of costs even further. Hidden business model How have we reached a situation where so much
appears to be spent on research and development, yet only about 1 in 10 newly approved medicines substantially benefits patients?
The low bars of being better than placebo, using surrogate endpoints instead of hard clinical outcomes, or being non-inferior to a
comparator, allow approval of medicines that may even be less effective or less safe than existing ones. Notable examples include
rofecoxib (Vioxx), rosiglitazone (Avandia), gatifloxacin (Tequin), and drotrecogin alfa (Xigris). Although the industry’s
vast network of public relations departments and trade associations generate a large volume of
stories about the so called innovation crisis, the key role of blockbuster drugs, and the crisis
created by “the patent cliff,”28 the hidden business model of pharmaceuticals centres
on turning out scores of minor variations , some of which become market blockbusters. In a series of
articles Kalman Applbaum describes how companies use “clinical trial administration, research publication, regulatory lobbying,
physician and patient education, drug pricing, advertising, and point-of-use promotion” to create distinct marketing profiles and
brand loyalty for their therapeutically similar products.29 Sales from these drugs generate steady profits throughout the ups and
downs of blockbusters coming off patents. For example, although Pfizer lost market exclusivity for atorvastatin, venlafaxine, and
other major sellers in 2011, revenues remained steady compared with 2010, and net income rose 21%.30 Applbaum contends that
marketing has become “the enemy of [real] innovation.”31 This perspective explains why companies
think it is worthwhile paying not only for testing new drugs but also for thousands of trials of existing drugs in order to gain approval
for new indications and expand the market.32 This corporate strategy works because marketing
departments and large networks of sponsored clinical leaders succeed in
persuading doctors to prescribe the new products.33 An analysis of Canada’s
pharmaceutical expenditures found that 80% of the increase in its drug budget is spent on new
medicines that offer few new benefits .16 Major contributors included newer hypertension, gastrointestinal, and
cholesterol drugs, including atorvastatin, the fifth statin on the Canadian market.
Pharma is ludicrously resilient and profits up now—their author a day later
Richard Anderson 11-7-2014; Business reporter, BBC News “Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits”
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223
Pharmaceutical companies have developed the vast majority of medicines known to humankind, but they have
profited handsomely from doing so, and not always by legitimate means. Pharmaceutical profits Last year, US giant
Pfizer, the world's largest drug company by pharmaceutical revenue, made an eye-watering 42% profit
margin. As one industry veteran understandably says: "I wouldn't be able to justify [those kinds of margins]." Stripping out the
one-off $10bn (£6.2bn) the company made from spinning off its animal health business leaves a margin of 24%, still pretty
spectacular by any standard. In the UK, for example, there was widespread anger when the industry regulator predicted energy
companies' profit margins would grow from 4% to 8% this year. Last year, five pharmaceutical companies made
a
profit margin of 20% or more - Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche, AbbVie, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Eli Lilly. 'Profiteering'
With some drugs costing upwards of $100,000 for a full course, and with the cost of
manufacturing just a tiny fraction of this, it's not hard to see why. Last year, 100 leading oncologists
from around the world wrote an open letter in the journal Blood calling for a reduction in the price of cancer drugs. Dr Brian Druker,
director of the Knight Cancer Institute and one of the signatories, has asked: "If you are making $3bn a year on [cancer
drug] Gleevec, could you get by with $2bn? When do you cross the line from essential profits to profiteering?" And it's
not just cancer drugs - between April and June this year, drug company Gilead clocked sales of $3.5bn for its latest blockbuster
hepatitis C drug Sovaldi. Drug companies justify the high prices they charge by arguing that their research
and development (R&D)
costs are huge. On average, only three in 10 drugs launched are profitable, with one of those going
on to be a blockbuster with $1bn-plus revenues a year. Many more do not even make it to market. But as the table below shows,
drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much - than on
developing them. And besides, profit margins take into account R&D costs.
Plan destroys it
Jackson ‘12
Lee Jackson, staffwriter for Daily Finance News and 24/7 Wall St. News, 12/11/12, “Will
National Legalized Marijuana Help or Hurt Big Pharma, Tobacco and Alcohol?”
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/12/11/will-national-legalized-marijuana-help-or-hurt-bigpharma-tobacco-and-alcohol/
One other big and powerful industry might have something to lose: Big Pharma. It is estimated that the
global pharmaceutical market will be worth more than $1 trillion by 2014. Industry giants Merck &
Co. (NYSE: MRK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) have
warded off patent cliffs for years using their large cash reserves to acquire smaller
companies with robust product pipelines . The last thing these companies want see is
current product lines that are producing dependable revenue flow to be dented by legal
marijuana . The big pharmaceutical firms have a lot of money to spread around, so when it comes to lobbying efforts, very
few have this group’s clout. One thing it wants is for marijuana to remain illegal. There are countless maladies where
the ingestion of marijuana has been believed to help alleviate or control the symptoms. These
include glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS-related complications, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, chemotherapy complications and
others. Big pharma has tried to come up with their own pot pill. There are more than 400
chemicals in marijuana, 80 of which are called “cannabinoids.” Drug companies have tried reducing it to one
chemical and results have been poor. Researchers find that when you reduce cannabis to just tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), you lose
efficacy and gain side effects. In a book critical of the pharmaceutical industry called “Our Daily Meds,” author Melody Petersen
offers a statistic showing more than 100,000 people die each year from prescription drugs. This includes death from abuse and
overdose, side effects, misdiagnosis and interaction error. Many physicians may currently be reluctant to
prescribe legalized marijuana. A national mandate would provide many physicians with the
moral and ethical cover they need to be more aggressive if they feel medical marijuana may help
their patients. Then it is very possible that medical marijuana prescriptions will put a dent in
many currently prescribed drugs. This is not an outcome that big pharma is likely
to tolerate well , unless they get in on the action themselves.
Pharma doesn’t solve disease
Young 10/2—health care reporter for the Huffington Post
(Jeffrey, “Why We Won't Have An Ebola Cure Or Vaccine For Years”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/ebolacure_n_5915892.html, dml)
That doesn't mean it's easy, even with all possible support from governments, pharmaceutical companies or anyone else.
Inventing medicines and vaccines and diagnostic tests is difficult, takes time and is more likely
to fail than succeed, Ross said.
"It really takes almost a decade from concept to finally put the drug into a vial that you're ready to hand to a
physician or a nurse," Ross said. "Very few drugs ever make it to market."
Scientists must follow a basic set of procedures throughout that can take an unknown amount of time and
pose challenges all along, any one of which could scuttle the entire enterprise, Ross said.
It starts out with the basic, fundamental research of understanding what the disease is, how it works and how it might be
counteracted. If those stages are successful and researchers have an idea of a way to attack the disease, they have to test it on
animals to see whether it works at all, and whether it's safe.
Before a treatment or vaccine can be tested on living humans, scientists must conduct two rounds of research on human cells and
tissue, first for safety and then for effectiveness. If all of that is successful, a drug company then has to get approval
from the Food and Drug Administration and regulators in other countries to sell the product,
which can take years.
During those painstaking steps, researchers and drugmakers always have to think about money. "It costs
millions of dollars to do human trials," Ross said.
"Even if you have a drug that is effective,
it really sometimes comes down to the economics of it. If it's
going to cost you way more than what a person can afford, they're not going to be able to
manufacture it," Ross said. "There won't be a market for it."
2nc
Cartells
No Mexican state failure
Couch 12—Brigadier, British Army
(Neil, “‘Mexico in Danger of Rapid Collapse’. Reality or Exaggeration?”, Royal College of Defence Studies Seaford House Paper,
2012, dml)
A ‘collapsed’ state, however, as postulated in the Pentagon JOE paper, suggests ‘a total vacuum of authority’, the
state having become a ‘mere geographical expression’.16 Such an extreme hypothesis of Mexico disappearing like
those earlier European states seems implausible for a country that currently has the world’s 14th
largest economy and higher predicted growth than either the UK, Germany or the USA;
that has no external threat from aggressive neighbours, which was the ‘one constant’ in the European
experience according to Tilly; and
does not suffer the ‘ disharmony between communities ’ that
Rotberg says is a feature common amongst failed states.17,18
A review of the literature does not reveal why the JOE paper might have suggested criminal gangs and drug
cartels as direct causes leading to state collapse . Crime and corruption tend to be described
not as causes but as symptoms demonstrating failure. For example, a study for Defense Research
and Development Canada attempting to build a predictive model for proximates of state failure barely
mentions either.19 One of the principal scholars on the subject, Rotberg, says that in failed states,
‘corruption flourishes’ and ‘gangs and criminal syndicates assume control of the streets’, but
again as effect rather than trigger.20 The Fund for Peace Failed States Index, does not use either
of them as a ‘headline’ indicator, though both are used as contributory factors.
This absence may reflect an assessment that numerous states suffer high levels of organised crime and
corruption and nevertheless do not fail . Mandel describes the corruption and extreme
violence of the Chinese Triads, Italian Mafia, Japanese Yakuza and the Russian Mob that, in some
cases, has continued for centuries .21 Yet none of these countries were singled out as
potential collapsed or failed states in the Pentagon’s paper. Indeed, thousands of Americans were killed in gang warfare
during Prohibition and many people ‘knew or at least suspected that politicians, judges, lawyers, bankers and business
concerns collected many millions of dollars from frauds, bribes and various forms of extortion’.22 Organised crime and
corruption were the norm in the political, business, and judicial systems and police forces ran their own ‘rackets’ rather
than enforcing the law.23 Neither the violence nor the corruption led to state failure.
Absolute zero risk of Mexican collapse---everything’s super-resilient
Krauze, 2009 (Enrique, editor of the magazine Letras Libres and the author of “Mexico: Biography of Power,” 3/24/9, “The
Mexican Evolution,” NYT, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/opinion/24krauze.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print)
This notion appears to be increasingly widespread. The Joint Forces Command recently issued a study saying that Mexico — along
with Pakistan — could be in danger of a rapid and sudden collapse. President Obama is considering sending National Guard troops
to the Mexican border to stop the flow of drugs and violence into the United States. The opinion that Mexico is breaking down seems
to be shared by much of the American news media, not to mention the Americans I meet by chance and who, at the first opportunity,
ask me whether Mexico will “fall apart.” It most assuredly will not . First, let’s take a quick inventory of the
problems that we don’t have. Mexico is a tolerant and secular state, without the religious tensions of
Pakistan or Iraq. It is an inclusive society, without the racial hatreds of the Balkans. It has no serious
prospects of regional secession or disputed territories, unlike the Middle East. Guerrilla movements have
never been a real threat to the state, in stark contrast to Colombia. Most important, Mexico is a young
democracy that eliminated an essentially one-party political system, controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, that
lasted more than 70 years. And with all its defects, the domination of the party, known as the P.R.I., never even approached the same
level of virtually absolute dictatorship as that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or even of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Mexico has
demonstrated an institutional continuity unique in Latin America. To be sure, it can be argued that the
P.R.I. created a collective monarchy with the electoral forms of a republic. But since 2000, when the opposition National Action
Party won the presidency, power has been decentralized. There is much greater independence in the executive, legislative and
judicial branches of government. An autonomous Federal Electoral Institute oversees elections and a transparency law has been
passed to combat corruption. We have freedom of expression, and electoral struggles between parties of the right, center and left.
Our national institutions function. The army is (and long has been) subject to the civilian control of the
president; the church continues to be a cohesive force; a
powerful business class shows no desire to move to
Miami. We have strong labor unions, good universities, important public enterprises and social programs that provide reasonable
results. Thanks to all this, Mexico has demonstrated an impressive capacity to overcome crises , of which
we’ve had our fair share. They include the government’s repression of the student movement of 1968; a currency devaluation in
1976; an economic crisis in 1982; the threefold disaster of 1994 with the Zapatista rebel uprising, the murder of the P.R.I. candidate
for president and a devastating collapse of the peso; and the serious post-election conflicts of 2006.
They’re geographically concentrated so at worst they hurt stability in some regions
but decline causes instability on a greater scope
Currie 11 [Duncan is a staff writer at the National Review, Mexico Agonistes,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/264954/mexico-agonistes-duncan-currie/page/0/1]
While the violence has clearly spread, it remains heavily concentrated in geographically
important areas along the U.S. border (where drugs leave Mexico), the western coast (where drugs are
produced and also enter Mexico from South America), and prime inland
shipment routes. “It’s still incredibly
narrowly targeted to certain regions ,” says David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border
Institute at the University of San Diego. In a detailed report, Shirk and Harvard scholar Viridiana Ríos observe that
five Mexican municipalities — Juárez, Culiacán, Tijuana, Chihuahua city, and Acapulco — generated 32 percent of all organizedcrime killings last year. (Mexico has more than 2,400 municipalities in total.) Juárez alone accounted for 18 percent. In a country
that effectively has 32 states (if we count the federal district of Mexico City as a state), 56 percent of the 2010 murders
took place in just four: Chihuahua (home to Juárez and Chihuahua city), Sinaloa (home to Culiacán), Tamaulipas, and
Guerrero (home to Acapulco). For that matter, nearly 70 percent of all organized-crime killings between December 2006 and
December 2010 occurred in just seven states: Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Baja California (home to Tijuana), Michoacán, the
state of Mexico, and Tamaulipas.
Statistics prove spillover violence is a joke
Del Bosque 8 [Melissa del Bosque is a reporter for The Texas Observer, where a version of
this article originally appeared. She lives in Austin, Hyping the New Media Buzzword: ‘Spillover’
on the Border, https://nacla.org/article/hyping-new-media-buzzword%E2%80%98spillover%E2%80%99-border]
By God, they’re coming to your neighborhood!
Looking at another live feed from El Paso, listening
to the breathless reports of violence and “ expert ” analysis about “spillover,” viewers could only
assume that the city was under imminent assault .¶ The truth differs wildly from the perception. In
2008, according to the FBI, more than 1,600 people were killed by cartel violence in Juárez. El
Paso, a city of 755,000, recorded just 18 murders in the same year. Laredo had 11; Brownsville
and McAllen had three and nine, respectively. By comparison, Washington, D.C., with a population
smaller than El Paso’s, had 186 homicides in 2008.¶ Certainly, El Paso’s symbiotic relationship with Ciudad
Juárez across the border has been disrupted by the explosion of drug violence south of the border, which began to
escalate in January 2008. But it’s not the kind of disruption brought to you by CNN, Fox, The
New York Times, and the rest of the media pack.
They’re not just wrong but also racist
Del Bosque 8 [Melissa del Bosque is a reporter for The Texas Observer, where a version of
this article originally appeared. She lives in Austin, Hyping the New Media Buzzword: ‘Spillover’
on the Border, https://nacla.org/article/hyping-new-media-buzzword%E2%80%98spillover%E2%80%99-border]
Get this straight. The violence is not “spilling over the border” into the U.S. No, every time you
say that, whether you mean to or not, you’re conjuring up images of crazed Mexicans
crossing the border to burn Columbus , and you have it backwards. It spilled over from the U.S. into Mexico
and Latin America long ago. . . . [F]or the past 20 years, we’ve been slowly turning the border into a militarized zone, so let’s not say
there isn’t violence associated with both sides of the drug trade and the Drug War. We could say that we’re now sharing the violence
to a higher degree, an important distinction from the simple-minded terminology of “spilling over.”¶ “I’m happy that the border is an
important place,” Negron said a few days after writing the piece. “But I’m not happy about the context in which they place it. I’m
generally a little more mainstream, but I got a bit loose with the editorial because I was ticked off.Ӧ Also in March, El Paso mayor
John Cook was interviewed by BBC anchor Katty Kay. The BBC, Kay said, had information that drug violence had spilled into El
Paso. Cook was eager to set the record straight. He’s had plenty of practice lately, with national and international media frequently
asking him about the situation in Juárez and in his own city.¶ “I’ll speak with them and tell them there hasn’t been any
spillover of violence into El Paso,” he said, “and then they will turn around and report that there is. Mostly I feel like I’ve
wasted my time.”
Fragmentation
Squo US production solves and diversification is inevitable
Burnett, 12/1/14 (John, NPR, “Legal Pot In The U.S. May Be Undercutting Mexican
Marijuana”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/12/01/367802425/legal-pot-in-the-u-s-may-beundercutting-mexican-marijuana)
Made-in-America marijuana is on a roll. More than half the states have now voted to permit pot
for recreational or medical use, most recently Oregon and Alaska. That number also includes the
District of Columbia. As a result, Americans appear to be buying more domestic marijuana,
which in turn is undercutting growers and cartels in Mexico.
"Two or three years ago, a kilogram [2.2 pounds] of marijuana was worth $60 to $90," says
Nabor, a 24-year-old pot grower in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa. "But now they're
paying us $30 to $40 a kilo. It's a big difference. If the U.S. continues to legalize pot, they'll run
us into the ground."
Nabor declines to give his surname because his crop is illegal. The interview takes place on a
hillside outside Culiacan, Sinaloa, located in Mexico's marijuana heartland. We stand next to a
field of knee-high cannabis plants, their serrated leaves quivering in a warm Pacific breeze. The
plot is on communal land next to rows of edible nopal cactus.
He kneels and proudly shows me the resinous buds on the short, stocky plants. This strain,
called Chronic, is a favorite among growers for its easy cultivation, fast flowering and moodlifting high. Nabor, who says he has grown marijuana since he was 14, says the plants do not
belong to him.
"My patrón pays me $150 a month, but I have to plant it exactly the way he wants," he says. "He
provides the water pump, gasoline, irrigation hoses, fertilizer, everything."
An Army Of Small-Scale Growers
There's an image of Mexican traffickers with shiny pickups, fancy boots and shapely girlfriends.
But Nabor says most people who grow marijuana for the Sinaloa cartel are just campesinos like
him.
He drives a motorcycle, and supports a wife and two kids. He says he grows pot to supplement
his other work, which consists of collecting firewood and raising cactus. He says everybody
plants a little marijuana here.
"This is dangerous work to cultivate it and to sell it. If the army comes, you have to run or they'll
grab you. Look here, we're only getting $40 a kilo. The day we get $20 a kilo, it will get to the
point that we just won't plant marijuana anymore."
The slumping economics of Mexican marijuana was not unexpected.
Two years ago, the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness, in a study titled "If Our Neighbors
Legalize," predicted the drug cartels would see their cannabis profits plummet 22 to 30 percent
if the United States continued to decriminalize marijuana.
At one time, virtually all the weed smoked in the States, from Acapulco Gold to Colombian Red,
came from south of the border.
Not anymore.
"We're still seeing marijuana. But it's almost all the homegrown stuff here from the States and
from Canada. It's just not the compressed marijuana from Mexico that we see," says Lt. David
Socha, of the Austin Police Department narcotics section.
Socha's observation is confirmed by the venerable journal of the marijuana culture, High Times
Magazine.
"American pot smokers prefer American domestically grown marijuana to Mexican grown
marijuana. We've seen a ton of evidence of this in the last decade or so," says Daniel
Vinkovetsky, who writes under the pen name Danny Danko. He is senior cultivation editor at
High Times and author of The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains.
U.S. domestic marijuana, some of it cultivated in high-tech greenhouses, is three or four times
more expensive than Mexican marijuana. Vinkovetsky says prices for Mexican weed continue to
slide because it's so much weaker.
He says American cannabis typically has 10 to 20 percent THC — the ingredient that makes a
person high — whereas the THC content of so-called Mexican brickweed is typically 3 to 8
percent.
"Mexican marijuana is considered to be of poor quality generally because it's grown in bulk,
outdoors; it's typically dried but not really cured, which is something we do here in the U.S. with
connoisseur-quality cannabis," he says. "And it's also bricked up, meaning that it's compressed,
for sale and packaging and in order to get it over the border efficiently."
Reversing The Flow
To service the U.S. market, police agencies report some Mexican crime groups grow marijuana
in public lands in the West.
And there's a new intriguing development.
DEA spokesman Lawrence Payne tells NPR that Sinaloa operatives in the United States are
reportedly buying high-potency American marijuana in Colorado and smuggling it back into
Mexico for sale to high-paying customers.
"It makes sense," Payne says. "We know the cartels are already smuggling cash into Mexico. If
you can buy some really high-quality weed here, why not smuggle it south, too, and sell it at a
premium?"
The big question is whether the loss of market share is actually hurting the violent Mexican drug
mafias.
"The Sinaloa cartel has demonstrated in many instances that it can adapt. I think it's in a
process of redefinition toward marijuana," says Javier Valdez, a respected journalist and author
who writes books on the narcoculture in Sinaloa.
Valdez says he's heard through the grapevine that marijuana planting has dropped 30 percent in
the mountains of Sinaloa. But he says the Sinaloa cartel is old school — it sticks to drugs, even as
other cartels, such as the Zetas of Tamaulipas state, have branched out into kidnapping and
extortion.
"I believe that now, because of the changes they're having to make because of marijuana
legalization in the U.S., the cartel is pushing more cocaine, meth and heroin. They're
diversifying," Valdez says.
Diversification to heroin now – almost completely replaced marijuana
Longmire, 12/19/14 - Sylvia Longmire is a border security expert and Contributing Editor for
Breitbart Texas. (Sylvia, Breitbart News, “MEXICO’S SINALOA CARTEL NOW DOMINATES
US HEROIN MARKET” http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2014/12/19/mexico-s-sinaloa-cartelnow-domiates-us-heroin/)
Mexican drug cartels are no strangers to heroin smuggling, although they have historically
lagged behind other countries and organizations in production and distribution. However, a
recent investigation by the award-winning Dromomanos journalism collective revealed the
powerful Sinaloa Federation has overtaken Colombian and Asian drug suppliers in New York,
and that the cartel now dominates heroin distribution across the United States.
According to analysis by InsightCrime.org, the DEA has indicated that 50 percent of heroin sold
in the US is produced in Mexico, between 43 and 45 percent comes from Colombia, and the rest
from Asian countries. Almost all of it is supplied by Mexican cartels. This is no surprise,
considering the years of practice Mexican drug smugglers have under their belts.
The original opiate smugglers in Mexico were actually the Chinese, who brought the opium
poppy across the Pacific in the 1860s while working on Mexican railroads. After the turn of the
century, they started smuggling opium and heroin into southern California through Tijuana.
Mexican criminal groups saw the profitability of the trade and started to take it over within a few
decades. The US demand for morphine exploded during World War II, and there is evidence to
support the notion that cross-border smuggling of the drug was sanctioned because of shortages
for injured soldiers returning from overseas.
Despite the steady demand for heroin and opium derivatives in the US in the past several
decades, most of the heroin in the US was still coming from Afghanistan in the white powder
variety. Mexican brown powder heroin was seen as substandard, although there was still a
steady pipeline—most notably the Herrera family’s “heroin highway” that ran from Durango to
Chicago in the 1970s and early 1980s—running from Mexico into the US. But with Mexico’s rise
as a dominant producer of the drug has come a new and more deadly trend: black tar heroin,
more powerful and less expensive than its inferior brown powder cousin.
Part of the danger of this relatively new drug formulation is that it doesn’t need to be injected,
removing much of the stigma associated with traditional heroin use. Black tar heroin just needs
to be heated up on a piece of tin foil in order to produce smoke that can be easily inhaled. Street
prices for the drug are also now often cheaper than weaker prescription Oxycontin tabs, favored
by drug-using teenagers in Middle America. A drug that costs less than prescription opiates,
produces a bigger high, and leaves no evidence (e.g. track marks) of use is a huge temptation for
a middle-class suburban demographic with a willingness to experiment beyond marijuana,
Ecstasy, and pills.
And law enforcement agencies across the country are seeing evidence of this growing trend.
Bridget Brennan, New York’s special narcotics prosecutor, told Mexico’s El Universal that the
Sinaloa Federation is controlling heroin routes into the US, which are traditionally the same as
cocaine and marijuana routes. “The heroin we seize is no longer just destined for distribution in
New York, but also in other states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Vermont. New York
has become a hub [a storage and distribution center],” said Brennan. In Vermont, Governor
Peter Shumlin declared a health emergency last January due to a 770 percent increase in the
consumption of opiates since 2000.
Determining exactly how the heroin goes from Mexico into the hands of couriers and onto the
streets of New York and other parts of the country is still a huge challenge for US law
enforcement. Brennan explained, “There is probably just one link in the chain, and there may
even be a direct connection between those who bring large quantities of heroin to New York and
those that distribute it in envelopes in the streets. There are countless organizations, but the
Dominicans continue to lead the distribution in the city.” She added that for the cartels, it’s
better to work with the local, already established mafias.
This won’t be the last trend that the Sinaloa Federation and other major Mexican cartels will
control. The US drug market can be both reliable and whimsical, and the key to a cartel’s success
is its ability to spot upcoming trends, changes in demand, and market opportunities before its
competitors. Despite the loss of key personnel in the last year, including former leader Joaquin
“El Chapo” Guzmán,” the Sinaloa Federation continues to demonstrate a resilience that both
Mexican and US authorities are finding extremely difficult to break.
Pharma
Solvency
And, can’t patent marijuana
Berkman Center ‘10
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard University, 2010, “HEALTH CONFLICTS:
WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC INCENTIVES OF DRUG COMPANIES?”
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/evidence99/marijuana/Economic_2.html
Drug companies may be in favor of legalizing marijuana in its traditional smokable form only if
they have control over its production. Again, though, that would put marijuana within the ambit
of the FDA. Additionally, drug companies would be less enthusiastic about such a proposal since
part of the advantage of developing new drugs is the patent. Since marijuana is a plant, it
cannot be patented . Therefore, drug companies lose some of the value inherent in
developing other new drugs.
Uniqueness
Emerging markets mean pharma can withstand the patent cliff
Ward, 10/16/14 (Andrew, Financial Times, “Pharma giants face developing market ambitions”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e1b39b2c-2f97-11e4-83e400144feabdc0.html#axzz3JHJQf9rR)
As the pharmaceuticals industry careered towards the edge of its notorious patent cliff over the
past decade, there was one main hope for a soft landing.
Emerging markets were supposed to be big pharma’s salvation, as many of its most important
products lost market exclusivity without enough new drugs to replace them.
Growth in China, India, Brazil and other developing economies would revive the industry, as
rising living standards, ageing populations and increased incidence of diseases such as cancer
and diabetes fuelled higher healthcare spending.
To some extent, this new world has begun to materialise . Take Sanofi, France’s biggest
drugmaker, which has increased revenues from emerging markets by a fifth since 2010, even as
those from the developed world have stalled.
Emerging markets accounted for a third of sales last year – comfortably ahead of the US and
Europe as Sanofi’s biggest geographic division. Others, including Bayer of Germany and
GlaxoSmithKline of the UK, have been making similar strides in Asia, the Middle East, Africa
and Latin America.
Yet the general upwards trend masks pockets of volatility, as drugmakers grapple with local
healthcare and regulatory systems that vary widely in their structure and maturity.
GSK’s £300m fine from Chinese authorities in September for “massive and systemic” bribery of
doctors to boost sales highlighted the potential pitfalls in chasing rapid growth in unfamiliar and
often opaque markets.
In India, meanwhile, big pharma has been waging a running battle over intellectual property, as
regulators have opened some patent-protected medicines to low-cost generic production by local
manufacturers such as Cipla and Sun Pharma.
Novartis, for example, saw its best-selling drug, Glivec for leukaemia, denied patent protection
by the Indian Supreme Court last year. Health activists have welcomed such rulings as a step
towards more affordable access to medicines.
Some industry leaders, however, accuse India of using public health as a pretext for giving
domestic drugmakers a free ride on western innovation. Should other emerging markets take a
similar stance, the intellectual property framework underpinning the industry could be
threatened, they fear.
A deal struck last month by Gilead Sciences of the US to license its blockbuster hepatitis C
medicine, Sovaldi, to several big Indian manufacturers showed that some companies are willing
to find middle ground.
Gilead has been among the pioneers of tiered pricing models that offer drugs more cheaply in
poor countries. However, finding a fair level can be difficult in places such as India where wealth
coexists with extreme poverty.
Pricing looks set to remain tough and contentious across the developing world, as governments
seek to widen access to healthcare while containing costs. But Chris Viehbacher, Sanofi chief
executive, says the twin trends of urbanisation and an expanding middle class will support a
steady rise in spending.
“Some 80 per cent of the world’s population live in emerging markets. Many of those people are
not treated today. Many of those people are gaining greater incomes . . .[and] that’s going
to be a strong growth driver. ”
No patent cliff impact
Jonathan Yates 13, founder of EarnedMediaUnlimited, author of thousands of articles for
Seeking Alpha, The Washington Post, AOL Daily Finance, Foreign Policy, and The Motley Fool,
3/25/13, “Drug Companies Have Rebounded From The Patent Cliff With Acquisitions Now On
The Mind,” http://seekingalpha.com/article/1298241-drug-companies-have-rebounded-fromthe-patent-cliff-with-acquisitions-now-on-the-mind
With the "Patent Cliff" proving to be
every bit as overblown
as the
"Fiscal Cliff
investors have
returned back to the pharmaceutical
sector in full force not long ago the
patent cliff
a threat to drug companies
" was to the country,
. It was
that
that
, the period when a slew of lucrative drug patents would expire, such as Lipitor for Pfizer
(NYSE: PFE), led to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) downgrading multinational pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca
(NYSE: AZN), Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS), Novo Nordisk and Roche. In the report, "An
warned that "the
operating environment for pharma is
worsening rapidly But Big Pharma
has recovered very nicely, despite the
concerns of Morgan Stanley
Avalanche of Risk? Downgrading to Cautious," it was
."
. Year to date, Pfizer is up more
than 13%. Novatris AG is higher by 15.84% for 2013. Over the same period, GlaxoSmithKline has risen by 7.47% with AstraZeneca
increasing 5.66%. Even though these firms have rebounded, each is still facing strong competition from generic drug companies
Large
companies
continue to be pressured to produce a
new pipeline of drugs
Based on activity in the market as it
moves beyond the hollow specter of
the patent cliff there is a definite
interest in buying up companies with
such as Teva (NYSE: TEVA).
pharmaceutical
, either through research & development or acquisitions.
,
promising efforts Firms making
progress
against cancer
always draw attention
Advaxis is
developing the next generation of
immunotherapies for cancer and
infectious diseases
.
in the war
such as Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ:
DNDN) and Advaxis (OTCQB: ADXS)
. Dendreon has
its prostate cancer drug Provenge already approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
. Both of these companies have the potential that attracts the
attention of individual investors and institutions. Sales of Provenge, an autologous cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of
certain types of prostate cancer, are projected to increase by some analysts. Advaxis has more than 15 constructs in various stages of
development that are not only distinct, but many are in strategic collaborations with such heavyweights as the National Cancer
Institute, Cancer Research - UK, the Wistar Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of British Columbia, the
Karolinska Institute, and others. Advaxis' lead construct, ADXS-HPV, was honored as the Best Therapeutic Vaccine (approved or in
development) at the 5th Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards. Earlier this month, it was announced that Advaxis was
nominated for the "Best Early-Stage Vaccine Biotech" Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Award. Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics
created these awards to recognize the accomplishments and contributions for the previous year in the vaccine industry. The VIE
Awards are selected by the medical journal, Expert Reviews of Vaccines. While honors and awards light up a press release,
investors only care about the glow
from the bottom line For the global
market for immunotherapies
sales are
$40 billion. For
cancer vaccines, sales are projected
to rise to $8 billion
.
from companies such as
Advaxis and Dendreon,
estimated to be about
. As detailed in a previous article at Seeking Alpha, there are
concerns about the financial stability of Dendreon, as Provenge is very expensive and costs need to be cut for the company to be
For a Big
Phama concern moving beyond its
brush with the patent cliff, those are
very compelling features
viable for the future. In the future, Advaxis is protected by 77 issued and pending patents.
.
Impact
Pandemics unlikely and no extinction
Ridley 12 [8/17, Matt Ridley, columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Rational
Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, “Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About
End Times,” http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all/]
The emergence of AIDS
led to a theory that other viruses would spring from tropical rain forests to wreak
revenge on humankind for its ecological sins. That, at least, was the implication of Laurie Garrett’s 1994 book, The Coming Plague: Newly
Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. The most prominent candidate was Ebola, the hemorrhagic fever that starred in Richard Preston’s The
Hot Zone, published the same year. Writer Stephen King called the book “one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read.” Right on cue, Ebola
appeared again in the Congo in 1995, but it soon disappeared. Far from being a harbinger, HIV was the only
new tropical virus to go pandemic in 50 years .¶ In the 1980s British cattle began dying from mad cow
disease, caused by an infectious agent in feed that was derived from the remains of other cows. When people, too, began to catch this disease,
predictions of the scale of the epidemic quickly turned terrifying: Up to 136,000 would die, according to one study. A pathologist
warned that the British “have to prepare for perhaps thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of cases of vCJD [new variant CreutzfeldtJakob disease, the human manifestation of mad cow] coming down the line.” Yet the
total number of deaths so far in the UK has
been 176, with just five occurring in 2011 and none so far in 2012.¶ In 2003 it was SARS, a virus from civet cats, that ineffectively but
inconveniently led to quarantines in Beijing and Toronto amid predictions of global Armageddon. SARS subsided within a
year, after killing just 774 people. In 2005 it was bird flu, described at the time by a United Nations official as being “like a combination of
global warming and HIV/AIDS 10 times faster than it’s running at the moment.” The World Health Organization’s official forecast was 2 million to 7.4
million dead. In fact, by late 2007, when the disease petered out, the death
toll was roughly 200. In 2009 it was Mexican swine flu.
proved to be a
normal flu episode.¶ The truth is, a new global pandemic is growing less likely, not more .
Mass migration to cities means the opportunity for viruses to jump from wildlife to the human
species has not risen and has possibly even declined, despite media hype to the contrary. Water- and insectborne infections—generally the most lethal—are declining as living standards slowly improve. It’s true that casualcontact infections such as colds are thriving—but only by being mild enough that their victims can soldier
on with work and social engagements, thereby allowing the virus to spread. Even if a lethal virus does go global, the ability of
medical science to sequence its genome and devise a vaccine or cure is getting better all the time.
WHO director general Margaret Chan said: “It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.” The outbreak
Pharma not key to the economy – offshoring
Fred Maidment December 2009; professor of management at the Ancell School of Business at Western Connecticut State
University in Danbury, Connecticut. “Offshoring May Slow Impending U.S. Economic Recovery”
http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/offshoring-may-slow-impending-u-s-economic-recovery/
Many of the jobs workers from developed countries lost were found in places like India, China,
and Indonesia. Jobs in information technology were especially hard hit[12] as well as production positions in the
pharmaceutical industry, which were offshored to China.[13] As demand increased for foreign labor, however, it
also made that labor more expensive. The result is that Indian and Chinese labor is not as cost effective as they once were, and
companies in those countries are now themselves outsourcing and offshoring.[14] In India, the local and global demand for denim is
so great that they are offshoring to meet that demand.[15] This trickle-down effect may eventually benefit all societies as the influx of
jobs helps strengthen developing economies and improve standards of living. Jobs will continue to be offshored from
the United States,[16] which will increase unemployment during the recession. Many of these jobs will not return, which will
slow the coming of the eventual economic recovery. Although it will mean economic pain for workers in the developed world, it will
mean a more productive allocation of resources worldwide. The U.S. Economy Will Recover Employers and employees should expect
job recovery to be even slower than after the 2001 to 2003 recession. The Internet, technological advances, access to international
labor forces, transportation, foreign exchange, U.S. dollar strength against key currencies, and other factors that caused the first
“jobless recovery” are now more developed worldwide, and companies are more skilled at capitalizing on the
global labor market. The American economy always recovers from economic downturns and it
will recover from this one. Naturally, we question how long will that recovery take and when will it begin, but there are
additional questions that must be posed and answers sought. What form will the recovery take? What jobs will return to the country
and what jobs will remain elsewhere? What skills will individuals need to perform the jobs that will be returning?
No impact and econ resilient
Drezner 14—professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at
Tufts University
(Daniel, “The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession”, World Politics / Volume 66 / Issue 01 /
January 2014, pp 123-164, dml)
The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn’t barked: the
effect of the Great Recession on cross-border
conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial
crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine
concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether
through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great
power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy
movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder.
The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has
concluded that “the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in
2007.”43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as
have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other
studies confirm that the Great Recession has
not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themnér and Peter Wallensteen conclude: “[T]he
pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years .”44 The secular
decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that “the crisis
has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might
have been expected.”45
1nr
Cyber—No Cyberterrorism
No cyber threat—empirically denied, hackers incapable, countermeasures check,
key systems are insulated
Weimann 4 (Dec., Gabriel, senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and professor
at the University of Haifa, Israel, “Cyberterrorism: How Real Is the Threat?”
http://www.usip.org/files/resources/sr119.pdf)
Amid all the dire warnings and alarming statistics that the subject of cyberterrorism gen- erates, it is important to
remember one simple statistic: so far, there has been no recorded instance of a terrorist
cyberattack on U.S. public facilities, transportation systems, nuclear power plants, power
grids, or other key components of the national infrastructure. Cyber- attacks are common, but they have
not been conducted by terrorists and they have not sought to inflict the kind of damage that would qualify them as cyberterrorism.
Technological expertise and use of the Internet do not constitute evidence of
planning for a cyberattack. Joshua Green (“The Myth of Cyberterrorism,” Washington Monthly, November 2002)
makes this point after reviewing the data retrieved from terrorists in Afghanistan: When U.S. troops recovered al Qaeda laptops in
Afghanistan, officials were surprised to find its members more technologically adept than previously believed. They discovered structural and
engineering software, electronic models of a dam, and information on computerized water systems, nuclear power plants, and U.S. and
European stadiums.¶ But nothing suggested they were planning cyberattacks, only that they were using the Internet to communicate and
coordinate physical attacks. Neither
al Qaeda nor any other terrorist organization appears to have
tried to stage a serious cyberattack. For now, insiders or individual hackers are responsible for most attacks and
intrusions and the hackers’ motives are not political. According to a report issued in 2002 by IBM Global Security Analysis
Lab, 90 percent of hackers are amateurs with limited technical proficiency, 9 percent are more skilled at
gaining unauthorized access but do not damage the files they read, and only 1 percent are highly skilled and intent on copying files or
damaging programs and systems. Most hackers, it should be noted, try to expose security flaws in computer software, mainly in the operating
systems produced by Microsoft. Their
efforts in this direction have sometimes embarrassed corporations but have
responsible for alerting the public and security professionals to serious security flaws. Moreover, although
there are hackers with the ability to damage systems, disrupt e-commerce, and force websites offline, the vast majority of
hackers do not have the necessary skills and knowledge. The ones who do, generally do
not seek to wreak havoc. Douglas Thomas, a professor at the University of Southern
California, spent seven years studying computer hackers in an effort to understand better who they are and
also been
what motivates them. Thomas interviewed hundreds of hackers and explored their “literature.” In testimony on July 24, 2002, before the
House Subcommittee on Govern- ment Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations, Thomas argued that “with the
vast majority of hackers, I would say 99 percent of them, the risk [of cyberterrorism] is negligible for the simple reason that those
hackers do not have the skill or ability to organize or execute an attack that would
be anything more than a minor inconvenience.” His judgment was echoed in Assessing
the Risks of Cyberterrorism, Cyber War, and Other Cyber Threats, a 2002 report for the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, written by Jim Lewis, a sixteen-year
veteran of the State and Commerce Departments. “The idea that hackers are going to
bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously,” Lewis argued.
“Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare give
them credit for. Infrastructure systems [are] more flexible and responsive in restoring
service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a
routine basis.Ӧ Many computer security experts do not believe that it is possible to use the
Internet to inflict death on a large scale. Some pointed out that the resilience of computer
systems to attack is the result of significant investments of time, money, and expertise. As
Green describes, nuclear weapons systems are protected by “air-gapping”: they are not
connected to the Internet or to any open computer network and thus they cannot be
accessed by intruders, terrorists, or hackers. Thus, for example, the Defense Department
protects sensitive systems by isolating them from the Internet and even from the
Pentagon’s own internal network. The CIA’s classified computers are also air-gapped, as is
the FBI’s entire computer system. The 9/11 events and the subsequent growing awareness of cyberterror highlighted other
potential targets for such attacks. In 2002, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) described “the absolute havoc and devastation that would
result if cyberterrorists suddenly shut down our air traffic control system, with thousands of planes in mid-flight.” However, argues Green,
“cybersecurity experts give some of their highest marks to the Federal Aviation Authority,
which reason- ably separates its administrative and air traffic control systems and strictly air-gaps the latter.” Other sources of concern
include subway systems, gas lines, oil pipelines, power grids, communication systems, water dams, and public services that might be attacked
to inflict mass destruction. Most of these are managed and controlled by computer systems and are in the private sector—and thus they are
more vulnerable than military or govern- ment systems. To illustrate the threat of such attack, a story in the Washington Post in June 2003
on al Qaeda cyberterrorism related an anecdote about a teenage hacker who allegedly broke into the SCADA system at Arizona’s Theodore
Roosevelt Dam in 1998 and, according to the article, could have unleashed millions of gallons of water, imperil- ing neighboring
communities. However, a probe by the computer-technology news site CNet.com revealed the story to be exaggerated and concluded that the
hacker could not have endangered lives or property.
It’s all hype
Healey 13 Jason, Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, "No,
Cyberwarfare Isn't as Dangerous as Nuclear War", 3/20,
www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/03/20/cyber-attacks-not-yet-anexistential-threat-to-the-us
America does not face an existential cyberthreat today, despite recent warnings. Our
cybervulnerabilities are undoubtedly grave and the threats we face are severe but far from comparable to nuclear war . ¶
The most recent alarms come in a Defense Science Board report on how to make military cybersystems more resilient against advanced threats (in short, Russia or China). It
warned that the "cyber threat is serious, with potential consequences similar in some ways to the nuclear threat of the Cold War." Such fears were also expressed by Adm. Mike
Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 2011. He called cyber "The single biggest existential threat that's out there" because "cyber actually more than theoretically,
While it is true that cyber attacks might do these things, it is also
true they have not only never happened but are far more difficult to accomplish than
mainstream thinking believes. The consequences from cyber threats may be similar in some ways to nuclear, as the Science Board concluded, but
can attack our infrastructure, our financial systems."¶
mostly, they are incredibly dissimilar. ¶ Eighty years ago, the generals of the U.S. Army Air Corps were sure that their bombers would easily topple other countries and cause
A study of the 25-year history of cyber conflict, by the Atlantic
Council and Cyber Conflict Studies Association, has shown a similar dynamic where the impact of disruptive cyberattacks has
been consistently overestimated. ¶ Rather than theorizing about future cyberwars or extrapolating from today's concerns, the history of cyberconflict
that have actually been fought, shows that cyber incidents have so far tended to have effects that are either widespread but fleeting or persistent but narrowly focused. No
attacks, so far, have been both widespread and persistent. There have been no authenticated
cases of anyone dying from a cyber attack. Any widespread disruptions, even the 2007 disruption against Estonia,
have been short-lived causing no significant GDP loss. ¶ Moreover, as with conflict in other domains, cyberattacks can take down many targets but keeping
their populations to panic, claims which did not stand up to reality.
them down over time in the face of determined defenses has so far been out of the range of all but the most dangerous adversaries such as Russia and China. Of course, if the
United States is in a conflict with those nations, cyber will be the least important of the existential threats policymakers should be worrying about.
Plutonium
trumps bytes in a shooting war.¶ This is not all good news. Policymakers have recognized the problems since at least 1998 with little significant
progress. Worse, the threats and vulnerabilities are getting steadily more worrying. Still, experts have been warning of a cyber
Pearl Harbor for 20 of the 70 years since the actual Pearl Harbor . ¶ The transfer of U.S. trade secrets
through Chinese cyber espionage could someday accumulate into an existential threat. But it doesn't seem so seem just yet, with only handwaving estimates of annual losses of
0.1 to 0.5 percent to the total U.S. GDP of around $15 trillion. That's bad, but
it doesn't add up to an existential crisis or "economic cyberwar."
2nc overview
Torpedoing nuclear deal with new legislation will trigger war with Iran and a wave
of proliferation
Borger, 12/31/14 --- Guardian's diplomatic editor (Julian, “A nuclear deal with Iran would
mean a less volatile world,”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/31/nuclear-deal-iran-cubaproliferation, JMP)
There will be no greater diplomatic prize in 2015 than a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran.
In its global significance, it would dwarf the US detente with Cuba, and not just because there
are seven times more Iranians than Cubans. This deal will not be about cash machines in the
Caribbean, but about nuclear proliferation in the most volatile region on Earth .
An agreement was supposed to have been reached by 24 November, but Iran and the west were
too far apart to make the final leap. After nine months of bargaining, the intricate,
multidimensional negotiation boiled down to two main obstacles: Iran’s long-term capacity to
enrich uranium, and the speed and scale of sanctions relief.
Iran wants international recognition of its right not just to enrich, but to do so on an industrial
scale. It wants to maintain its existing infrastructure of 10,000 centrifuges in operation and
another 9,000 on standby, and it wants to be able to scale that capacity up many times.
The US and its allies say Tehran has no need for so much enriched uranium. Its one existing
reactor is Russian-built, as are its planned reactors, so all of them come with Russian-supplied
fuel as part of the contract. The fear is that industrial enrichment capacity would allow Iran to
make a bomb’s-worth of weapons-grade uranium very quickly, if it decided it needed one –
faster than the international community could react.
However, the west is currently not offering large-scale, immediate sanctions relief in return for
such curbs on Iran’s activity. President Barack Obama can only temporarily suspend US
congressional sanctions, and western states are prepared to reverse only some elements of UN
security council sanctions. The best the west can offer upfront is a lifting of the EU oil embargo.
These gaps remain substantial, but none of the parties involved can walk away from the table. A
collapse of talks would lead to a slide back to the edge of conflict between Iran and Israel; the
latter has vowed to launch military strikes rather than allow the former to build a
bomb . It could also trigger a wave of proliferation across the region and beyond as
other countries hedge their bets.
So the parties to the talks have given themselves more time – until 1 March 2015 – to agree a
framework deal for bridging them and until 1 July to work out all of the details. They have
resumed meetings in Geneva, with an emphasis on sessions between the two most important
countries, the US and Iran. The trouble is that, while the diplomats inside the chamber sense
that they are still making progress in closing the gaps, the sceptics back home just see deceit and
playing for time by the other side.
This is particularly true of the US Congress. A new Republican-controlled Senate will convene
on 6 January. From that date, the White House can no longer rely on a Democratic majority
leader to keep new sanctions legislation off the Senate floor. The legislation now under
discussion could take the form of triggered sanctions, which would come into effect if there was
no deal by a target date. That would add urgency to the negotiations, undoubtedly a good thing,
but it would also provoke counter-measures from Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, and a very
volatile environment.
2nc Turns Hegemony
An Iran deal is vital to America’s global standing
Leverett, 11/10/13 - senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a
professor at the Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs (Flynt, “Nuclear
Negotiations and America’s Moment of Truth About Iran”
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/?q=node/13358)
America’s Iran policy is at a crossroads. Washington can abandon its counterproductive
insistence on Middle Eastern hegemony, negotiate a nuclear deal grounded in the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), and get serious about working with Tehran to broker a settlement to
the Syrian conflict. In the process, the United States would greatly improve its ability to shape
important outcomes there. Alternatively, America can continue on its present path, leading
ultimately to strategic irrelevance in one of the world’s most vital regions—with negative
implications for its standing in Asia as well.
U.S. policy is at this juncture because the costs of Washington’s post-Cold War drive to
dominate the Middle East have risen perilously high. President Obama’s self-inflicted debacle
over his plan to attack Syria after chemical weapons were used there in August showed that
America can no longer credibly threaten the effective use of force to impose its preferences in
the region. While Obama still insists “all options are on the table” for Iran, the reality is that, if
Washington is to deal efficaciously with the nuclear issue, it will be through diplomacy.
In this context, last month’s Geneva meeting between Iran and the P5+1 brought America’s
political class to a strategic and political moment of truth. Can American elites turn away from a
self-damaging quest for Middle Eastern hegemony by coming to terms with an independent
regional power? Or are they so enthralled with an increasingly surreal notion of America as
hegemon that, to preserve U.S. “leadership,” they will pursue a course further eviscerating its
strategic position?
The proposal for resolving the nuclear issue that Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, presented
in Geneva seeks answers to these questions. It operationalizes the approach advocated by
Hassan Rohani and other Iranian leaders for over a decade: greater transparency on Iran’s
nuclear activities in return for recognizing its rights as a sovereign NPT signatory—especially to
enrich uranium under international safeguards—and removal of sanctions. For years, the Bush
and Obama administrations rejected this approach. Now Obama must at least consider it.
The Iranian package provides greater transparency on Tehran’s nuclear activities in two crucial
respects. First, it gives greater visibility on the conduct of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has
reportedly offered to comply voluntarily for some months with the Additional Protocol (AP) to
the NPT—which it has signed but not yet ratified and which authorizes more proactive and
intrusive inspections—to encourage diplomatic progress. Tehran would ratify the AP—thereby
committing to its permanent implementation—as part of a final deal.
Second, the package aims to validate Iran’s declarations that its enrichment infrastructure is not
meant to produce weapons-grade fissile material. Iran would stop enriching at the near-20
percent level of fissile-isotope purity needed to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor and cap
enrichment at levels suitable for fueling power reactors. Similarly, Iran is open to capping the
number of centrifuges it would install—at least for some years—at its enrichment sites in Natanz
and Fordo.
Based on conversations with Iranian officials and political figures in New York in September
(during Rohani and Zarif’s visit to the UN General Assembly) and in Tehran last month, it is also
possible to identify items that the Iranian proposal almost certainly does not include. Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has reportedly given President Rohani and his diplomats
flexibility in negotiating a settlement—but he has also directed that they not compromise Iran’s
sovereignty. Thus, the Islamic Republic will not acquiesce to American (and Israeli) demands to
suspend enrichment, shut its enrichment site at Fordo, stop a heavy-water reactor under
construction at Arak, and ship its current enriched uranium stockpile abroad.
On one level, the Iranian package is crafted to resolve the nuclear issue based on the NPT,
within a year. Iran’s nuclear rights would be respected; transparency measures would reduce the
proliferation risks of its enrichment activities below what Washington tolerates elsewhere. On
another level, though, the package means to test America’s willingness and capability to resolve
the issue on this basis. It tests this not just for Tehran’s edification, but also for that of other
P5+1 states, especially China and Russia, and of rising powers like India and South Korea.
America can fail the Iranian test in two ways. First, the Obama administration—reflecting
America’s political class more broadly—may prove unwilling to acknowledge Iran’s nuclear
rights in a straightforward way, insisting on terms for a deal that effectively suborn these rights
and violate Iranian sovereignty.
There are powerful constituencies—e.g., the Israel lobby, neoconservative Republicans, their
Democratic “fellow travelers,” and U.S.-based Iran “experts”—that oppose any deal recognizing
Iran’s nuclear rights. They understand that acknowledging these rights would also mean
accepting the Islamic Republic as an enduring entity representing legitimate national interests;
to do so, America would have to abandon its post-Cold War pretensions to Middle Eastern
hegemony.
Those pretensions have proven dangerously corrosive of America’s ability to accomplish
important objectives in the Middle East, and of its global standing. Just witness the profoundly
self-damaging consequences of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, and how badly the
“global war on terror” has eviscerated the perceived legitimacy of American purposes in the
Muslim world.
But, as the drama over Obama’s call for military action against Syria indicates, America’s
political class remains deeply attached to imperial pretense—even as the American public turns
away from it. If Washington could accept the Islamic Republic as a legitimate regional power, it
could work with Tehran and others on a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Instead,
Washington reiterates hubristic demands that President Bashar al-Assad step down before a
political process starts, and relies on a Saudi-funded “Syrian opposition” increasingly dominated
by al-Qa’ida-like extremists.
If Obama does not conclude a deal recognizing Iran’s nuclear rights, it will confirm suspicions
already held by many Iranian elites—including Ayatollah Khamenei—and in Beijing and Moscow
about America’s real agenda vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic. It will become undeniably clear that
U.S. opposition to indigenous Iranian enrichment is not motivated by proliferation concerns,
but by determination to preserve American hegemony—and Israeli military dominance—in the
Middle East. If this is so, why should China, Russia, or rising Asian powers continue trying to
help Washington—e.g., by accommodating U.S. demands to limit their own commercial
interactions with Iran—obtain an outcome it does not actually want?
2nc Turns Cartels
Continued sanctions spur Hezbollah-cartel cooperation—bigger internal link
Trumpet 13—official website of the Philadelphia Trumpet news magazine (“Sanctions on Iran Bringing
Terror Closer to the U.S.”, http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10246.19.0.0/sanctions-on-iran-bringing-terror-closer-to-the-us,
dml)
Curtailed funding from embargoed Iran to its terrorist proxies may be causing Hezbollah to partner
with Mexican drug cartels to raise funds for potential attacks in the United States.
The economic sanctions that have been slapped on Iran for its nuclear weapons program have caused Tehran to cut
back its funding to Hezbollah, according to the Israeli military. U.S. officials say Hezbollah operatives in
Mexico are enhancing their cooperation with murderous drug cartels, like Los Zetas, in the northern
districts bordering the U.S. in order to minimize dependency on Iranian funding.
In an article titled “Hezbollah’s Cocaine Jihad,” Ynetnews writes:
Western intelligence agencies have been able to gather
ample evidence suggesting that the drug
cartels in Mexico—which are the de facto rulers of the northern districts bordering the U.S.—are in cahoots with Islamic
terror organizations, which are eager to execute attacks against American, Israeli, Jewish and western targets; but most of
all, the Islamic terror groups are eager to make money, so they can fund their nefarious aspirations.
Hezbollah is helping the cartels in weapons and explosives production. The terror entity is also
training drug lords to build elaborate tunnels under the U.S.-Mexico border, much akin to the maze of tunnels running
under the Gaza-Egypt border. These tunnels would be mutually beneficial to both syndicates. The cartels
would use them to smuggle humans, drugs and weapons, and Hezbollah would use them for its
own terrorist activities in the United States. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security caught wind of an al
Qaeda recruiter’s boasts of the ease with which these tunnels could be used to bring terror to the U.S. on a scale that
would “ make 9/11 look like peanuts .”
2nc Uniqueness
( ) Obama making a forceful case to prevent veto proof majority
Riechmann, 12/29/14 (Deb, Associated Press, “Obama doesn't rule out US embassy in Iran,”
Factiva, JMP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — While President Barack Obama hasn't ruled out the possibility of
reopening a U.S. Embassy in Iran, Republicans say the Senate will vote within weeks on a
bill to impose more sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
Obama was asked in an NPR interview broadcast on Monday whether he could envision opening
an embassy there during his final two years in office.
"I never say never," Obama said, adding that U.S. ties with Tehran must be restored in steps.
Washington and its partners are hoping to clinch a deal with Iran by July that would set longterm limits on Iran's enrichment of uranium and other activity that could produce material for
use in nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for energy production and medical
research purposes. It has agreed to some restrictions in exchange for billions of dollars in relief
from U.S. economic sanctions.
On a visit to Israel on Saturday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the new Republicancontrolled Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill in January.
He said the bipartisan sanction legislation says: "If Iran walks away from the table, sanctions
will be re-imposed. If Iran cheats regarding any deal that we enter to the Iranians, sanctions will
be re-imposed."
Graham also is sponsoring legislation that would require any deal with Iran to be approved by
Congress before sanctions could be lifted.
Standing alongside Graham, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran a
"dangerous regime" that should be prevented from having nuclear weapons.
"I believe that what is required are more sanctions, and stronger sanctions," Netanyahu said.
The Obama administration has been telling members of Congress that it has won significant
concessions from Iran for recently extending nuclear talks, including promises by the Islamic
republic to allow snap inspections of its facilities and to neutralize much of its remaining
uranium stockpile. Administration officials have been presenting the Iranian concessions to
lawmakers in the hopes of convincing them to support the extension and hold off on new
economic sanctions that could derail the diplomatic effort.
Obama has threatened to veto any new sanctions legislation while American diplomats continue
their push for an accord that would set multiyear limits on Iran's nuclear progress in exchange
for an easing of the international sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. Senate
hawks are still trying to build a veto-proof majority of 67 votes with Republicans set to assume
the majority next month.
Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News Sunday that Senate Republicans might have enough
backing from Democrats to pass veto-proof legislation that would impose more sanctions on
Iran.
"The good thing about those votes, they will be really bipartisan votes," he said. "I have 17
Democrats with me. . We have a shot at even getting to a veto-proof majority in the Senate."
And, Obama’s continual lobbying is critical
Klapper, 12/4/14 (Bradley, “New Iran sanctions supporters seek veto-proof bloc,”
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/new_iran_sanctions_supporters_seek_veto_proof_bloc/,
JMP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional hawks are struggling to build a veto-proof majority for
new Iran sanctions despite wide discontent among lawmakers over the lack of progress from
more than a year of nuclear talks with Iran, recently extended for seven more months.
One week after world powers and Iran failed to meet their own deadline for a deal, many in
Congress are decrying the stalemate and what they perceive as widespread concessions by the
United States and its partners for few steps by Iran to dismantle its nuclear program. Rhetoric
aside, however, there has been no serious push yet in the Senate that would match a package of
new sanctions approved by the House a year and a half ago. And even though Senate
Republicans will be in the majority next month, there is no clarity on what is going to happen.
That’s because President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any new sanctions legislation
while American diplomats push for an accord that would see Iran accept stricter limits on its
uranium enrichment activity for a gradual easing of the international sanctions that have
crippled the Iranian economy. Sanctions proponents thus need 67 votes out of 100 in the Senate,
and administration officials have been lobbying furiously to keep them below that
threshold.
Incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hasn’t spoken on the subject since
criticizing his Democratic rival, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, for standing in the way of sanctions
legislation in early November. That was before the midterm elections in which Democrats
received a drubbing. McConnell hasn’t spelled out specific plans for when he can set the agenda.
Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., a leading anti-Iran voice in the Capitol, said last month he was still
working on building a veto-proof majority in the Senate, though he was more confident about
sufficient support in the House.
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the outgoing Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said this week he is working with Kirk to redraft a bill they authored in
2013 which was stymied by administration pressure. It’s unclear how many Democrats will
support Menendez, whose relations with the White House and State Department have become
increasingly acrimonious over Iran.
A minority of Republicans may balk, too. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible presidential
candidate, expressed optimism Wednesday about the negotiations and with the constraints on
Iran’s nuclear program that U.S. and international negotiators have delivered. A year ago, Sen.
Jeff Flake of Arizona joined Paul in declining to sign on to the Menendez-Kirk sanctions
package.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, is vowing to
increase pressure on Iran but has focused his energy on assuring Congress has a say in a final
deal and lawmakers lay down acceptable parameters for any agreement.
In any scenario, Republicans will need significant Democratic support to pass new sanctions on
Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Administration officials believe they have a short window to negotiate unimpeded by
Congress . But they know they’re on a short leash, with many Democrats under pressure from
groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, to join the
sanctions push.
The top U.S. nuclear negotiator, Wendy Sherman, and the Treasury Department’s sanctions
chief, David Cohen, are likely to hear a series of grievances when they brief leading senators
behind closed doors Thursday. A number of Democratic senators were invited to the White
House on Wednesday to hear the administration’s case for patience.
AT: Winners Win
Winners-win empirically false for Obama
Klein, 10/10/14 (Ezra, “Obama ditched a key campaign promise. And it saved his presidency,”
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6953889/paul-krugman-obama-historic-success, JMP)
Hate Obama or love him, on this, Krugman is clearly correct. Obama has passed more major
legislation than perhaps any president since Lyndon Johnson — and, at least as of yet, there's no
Vietnam War to mar his legacy. The history of the Obama administration will be hard to write,
as so many of its chapters will demand their own books (indeed, some, like the stimulus, have
already gotten them). Most crucially, Obamacare itself looks headed for success — and that, plus
preventing the financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression, is a legacy in itself.
That said, Obama's greatest successes — and his most serious failures — lie in the dense mass of
his first two years. This is the time, in Krugman's telling, before Obama grokked the nature of
the Republican opposition and "began dealing with it realistically." I think the story there is
more complicated — and more interesting.
From 2009 to 2010, Obama, while seeking the post-partisan presidency he wanted, established
the brutally partisan presidency he got. Virtually every achievement Krugman recounts — the
health-care law, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, the financial rescue, the stimulus bill —
passed in these first two years when Democrats held huge majorities in congress. And every item
on the list passed over screaming Republican opposition. The first two years of the Obama
administration are the story of Obama being haunted by his promises of a postpartisan
presidency, and choosing, again and again, to pass bills at the cost of worsening partisanship.
The irony of Obama's presidency
As Reid Cherlin, a former Obama administration staffer, put it, "[T]hey have managed over six
years to accomplish much of what Obama promised to do, even if accomplishing it helped speed
the process of partisan breakdown." The engine of Obama's political rise, going all the way back
to his 2004 keynote at the Democratic National Convention, was that the conflictual nature of
politics was the product of the people who knew no politics other than conflict. The central irony
of Obama's presidency is he proved himself wrong.
Obama promised to reform the health-care system and regulate the financial sector by fixing
American politics. Instead, he did it by breaking American politics further. The candidate who
ran for office promising to heal Washington's divisions became the most divisive president since
the advent of polling:
[graph omitted]
It's not just partisanship. Obama ran as the scourge of special interests. "We can't keep playing
the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result," he
said. "Because it's a game that ordinary Americans are losing. It's a game where lobbyists write
check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and our
planet is put at risk."
Lobbyists still write their checks in Obama's Washington. The health-reform bill got done by
cutting side deals with pharmaceutical companies and insurers. Dodd-Frank got done by cutting
side deals with auto dealers and mutual funds. The Obama administration has put no political
capital behind major campaign-finance reforms or, really, any other ideas that would
fundamentally change how Washington works. It's the same old Washington game with the
same old Washington players — but Obama, when he had his big congressional majorities,
managed to secure a different result.
Obama spent his first two years keeping many of his policy promises by sacrificing his central
political promise. That wasn't how it felt to the administration at the time. They thought that
success would build momentum; that change would beget change. Obama talked of the "muscle
memory" Congress would rediscover as it passed big bills; he hoped that achievements
would replenish his political capital rather than drain it .
In this, the Obama administration was wrong, and perhaps naive . They overestimated
their ability to convert the raw exercise of political power into more political power. It was a
mistake, but not a very postpartisan one. And, as a theory, it was the one they needed to build
their legacy — a legacy, at this point, that even their early critics admire.
Winners-win theory is wrong --- Obama’s first term proves
Calmes, 12 (Jackie, 11/13/2012, International Herald Tribune, “Obama looks to budget talks as an opportunity to take control of agenda; News
Analysis,” Factiva, JMP)
Whether Mr. Obama succeeds will reveal much about what kind of president he intends to be in his second term. Beyond the specifics of any accord,
perhaps the
bigger question hanging over the negotiations is whether Mr. Obama will go to his
second inaugural in January with an achievement that starts to rewrite the unflattering
leadership narrative that, fairly or not, came to define his first term for many people.
That story line, stoked by Republicans but shared by some Democrats, holds that Mr. Obama is
too passive and deferential to Congress, a legislative naïf who does little to nurture personal relationships with potential allies —
in short, not a particularly strong leader. Even as voters re-elected Mr. Obama, those who said in surveys afterward that strong leadership was the most
important quality for a president overwhelmingly chose Mr. Romney.
George C. Edwards
III, a leading scholar of the presidency at Texas A&M University who is currently
teaching at Oxford University, dismissed such criticisms as shallow and generally wrong. Yet Mr. Edwards, whose
book on Mr. Obama’s presidency is titled ‘‘Overreach,’’ said, ‘‘He didn’t understand the limits of what he could do.’’
‘‘They thought they could continuously create opportunities and they would succeed, and then
there would be more success and more success, and we’d build this advancing-tide theory
of legislation ,’’ Mr. Edwards said. ‘‘And that was very naïve, very silly . Well, they’ve learned a
lot, I think.’’
‘‘Effective leaders,’’ he added, ‘‘exploit opportunities rather than create them.’’
2nc Dem Support Key to Prevent Veto
Override
At best their ev suggests SOME Democrats support the plan – the DC vote proves
there’s heavy Dem infighting and some oppose legalization
Lillis, 12/9/14 (Mike, “Dem infighting over DC pot law” The Hill,
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/226532-dem-infighting-over-dc-pot-law
Washington's lone voice on Capitol Hill is sounding off against fellow Democrats who would
accept a Republican proposal to undermine marijuana legalization in the nation's capital.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said she can’t confirm reports that bipartisan negotiators
working on a year-end spending package have included language to restrict Washington's new
law to legalize small amounts of the drug for recreational use.
But the 12-term Democrat was incredulous that lawmakers in her own party would ever agree to
such a measure while Democrats still have power in the Senate and White House, as well as
leverage in the government spending debate.
“I do not know why Democrats would agree to block legalization while we still control the White
House and we still control the Senate,” Norton said at a press conference scheduled hastily in
the wake of the reports. “Who knows, they may need Democratic votes to even pass this
omnibus. So I cannot tell you why Democrats would even want to give Republicans a head start
on doing what they're going to be able to do, I suppose, in less than a month.”
D.C. voters last month overwhelmingly approved a measure permitting those over 21 to possess
up to two ounces of marijuana, grow a small number of cannabis plants in their homes and
transfer up to an ounce of the drug to another adult — if no money accompanies the exchange.
The referendum passed by a margin of 65 to 27 percent, with the balance of voters declining to
weigh in.
Many Republicans have pounced, arguing that the new leniency is a public health threat,
especially to teenagers and other youngsters.
Several Republican appropriators — including Reps. Hal Rodgers (Ky.), the committee
chairman, and Andy Harris (Md.) — have pushed to scale back the law as part of the GOP's
government-funding bill, which is expected to be released Tuesday evening.
Several media outlets reported Tuesday that the Republicans have attached a provision allowing
the legalization measure to remain, but denying D.C. the funding needed to tax or regulate the
new law moving forward.
Democrats have publicly hammered such proposals, arguing, among other things, that they defy
the wishes of D.C. voters.
Still, some Democrats conceded that it would be hard to fight the GOP amendment if
Republican leaders are able to push it through the House as part of the cromnibus.
AT: No PC
Obama has new political momentum to prevail in upcoming fights
Yong, 12/25/14 --- US Bureau Chief In Washington (Jeremy Au Yong, Straits Times, “US
President Obama gets his groove back,” Factiva, JMP)
Recent unilateral decisions give him impetus to take on Republicans
AFTER the annus horribilis that is 2014, US President Barack Obama may well be looking
forward to the new year, especially after witnessing a sharp reversal of fortune in the past six
weeks.
Though he still ends his sixth year in office with his worst average approval ratings - his weekly
average, until this week, was firmly stuck in the 40-to-45 per cent range - his popularity picked
up again after he made several bold executive decisions.
The latest Gallup poll put his approval rating at 47 per cent, with the disapproval rate down
slightly to 49 per cent.
This year is the only one in which his ratings never broke the 50 per cent level, but the latest
figure is still the best in more than a year. It is a sign that he is finally gaining some political
momentum to carry over into the fights that await him next year.
Mr Obama's body language said as much. The embattled, irritated, sullen President who
appeared at press conferences over the past few months was nowhere to be found at his yearend conference last week.
His swagger seemed to have returned. He appeared comfortable, good-humoured and made a
point by calling on only female journalists.
There was bravado as well. For the first time in a long while, he boasted about all the things
going well for the US and vowed to continue to take executive action where necessary.
"We've set the stage for this American moment and I'm going to spend every last minute of my
last two years making sure that we seize it," he said.
He gave a clear hint of the sort of thinking that will drive his interactions with a Republicancontrolled Congress next year: He still has veto power and is not about to be bullied. "In order
for their initiatives to become law, I'm going to have to sign off and that means they have to take
into account the issues I care about, just as I'm going to take into account the issues they care
about." The turnaround has come almost entirely off the back of actions Mr Obama has taken on
his own. After his shellacking by the Republicans at the mid-term elections, it is almost as if a
switch went off.
In a few short weeks, he has signed a landmark emissions deal with China, taken significant
executive action on immigration reform, managed to get a comprehensive budget passed and
started the process of normalising relations with Cuba.
That rapid-fire string of achievements has now given Mr Obama the sort of momentum he
struggled to achieve all year.
Throughout 2014, he seemed to be lurching from crisis to crisis, whether it was Russia invading
Ukraine, China towing an oil rig into disputed waters in the South China Sea, the Ebola outbreak
in West Africa or the threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group.
His favourability among Hispanic voters has shot up, he has fired up his liberal political base
and sent Republicans scrambling for a response.
In pushing ahead with immigration reform despite a multitude of threats, he has also shown
renewed political nous, gambling that the Republicans would not risk a mutually destructive
government shutdown to punish him.
Add to that a compressed time frame and the fact that the GOP had yet to take over the Senate,
the Republicans indeed duly passed a US$1.1 trillion (S$1.3 trillion) spending Bill with only a
token symbol of their objection to his immigration action attached.
But the conservatives, too, will be looking forward to the new year because, at some point, the
President is going to run out of things he can do on his own.
A host of big fights loom. The White House needs to confirm two new key appointments - a
defence chief and attorney-general - as well as continue to try and push fast-track authority to
negotiate free trade deals like the stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership.
If normalising ties with Cuba is to go ahead, Mr Obama will need Republican lawmakers to
support lifting the long-standing US trade embargo.
Then there are the items on the Republican agenda. They have pledged to quickly pass
legislation on the Keystone pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to force Mr Obama's
hand on the issue. The project is seen as a environmental disaster by the left and as a major
source of jobs, and energy security by the right.
Though Mr Obama has yet to say if he would veto the project, he has stressed that its economic
benefits are overstated.
The immigration fight is also far from over. When Congress passed the government budget, it
left out the Department of Homeland Security, choosing to fund the department in charge of
immigration only until February.
The aim was to try to get the President to roll back his executive actions again once the
Republicans are in control of Congress.
There are no easy compromises but the Republicans will likely be less confident of
getting their way now that they appear to be facing a reinvigorated President . If his
approval ratings continue to rise, the Republican mandate won at the mid-terms will start to
seem less formidable.
Perhaps the earliest sign will come when Mr Obama delivers his State of the Union speech on
Jan 20. In this year's speech, he promised a "year of action".
Come 2015, he might actually be able to deliver it.