The Evening CSIS March 3 2015

Good Evening,

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please click here.

Purim on the Potomac

Speaking to a Joint Session of Congress today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel invoked the Jewish holiday of Purim, in which ancient Persia was the Jewish enemy, to underscore today’s threat from Iran. One interesting excerpt from Netanyahu: “Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire.” The complete transcript of PM Netanyahu’s speech can be found here.

CNN immediately reported after the speech that an Obama administration official called it “all rhetoric, no action.” President Obama at the White House a few hours later said Prime Minister Netanyahu presented “no viable alternative” to a deal with Iran but urged members of Congress to continue their staunch support for Israel. The New York Times’s Peter Baker has this report on the speech.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Haim Malka and other top experts were asked to provide reaction to the speech by CNN.com.

CFR’s Ray Takeyh writes that Iran’s Khamenei is “a first-rate strategic genius who is patiently negotiating his way to a bomb.”

Venezuela at Odds with US

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has accused the Obama administration of plotting against him and has announced measures intended to reduce US influence in his embattled nation. The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Schaefer Munoz and Juan Forero report that Maduro has given the U.S. two weeks to cut its embassy staff.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Carl Meacham penned this commentary, “Venezuela’s Desperate Times and Nicolás Maduro’s Desperate Measures.”

In his commentary, Meacham writes in what would become the WSJ’s editor-in-chief QUOTE OF THE DAY: “All of this bluster and bombast amounts to this: desperate moves from an administration desperate to distract from Venezuela’s desperate political and economic straits.”

In that Number

$6 trillion  The total cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Source: CSIS Burke Chair. 

Critical Question

Our signature "Asked & Answered" series

Asked: What is Venezuela trying to achieve with its latest round of recriminations against US citizens?

Answered: Carl Meacham, director, CSIS Americas Program: All of this bluster and bombast amounts to this: desperate moves from an administration desperate to distract from Venezuela’s desperate political and economic straits.

The past two years have been grim (at best) for Venezuela. The country’s oil sector, mismanaged under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, can no longer support the government’s vast social programs—particularly not in the context of last year’s rapid drop in oil prices.

Without oil income, Venezuela’s economy has ground to a halt. Inflation is over 60 percent, the bolivar is at an all-time low even on the black market, and scarcity has topped 80 percent. Goods as basic as toilet paper and milk are nowhere to be found, and the government is frantically seeking additional sources of loan-based income.

Meanwhile, the political environment is toxic. Since early 2014, protests have persisted across Venezuela as the opposition has fought to preserve its place in the country’s politics. Last year saw over 40 casualties—not to mention the hundreds injured and jailed.

Read the full analysis here.

One to Watch

CSIS Americas Program director Carl Meacham (@carlmeacham) is a former senior adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he served for over a decade. Meacham is a native speaker of Spanish and was partly raised in Chile. His thoughtful commentaries and deep expertise in the region make him one to watch.

Optics

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress today brought out the press in mass. The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) snapped this photo in the normally quiet House of Representatives press gallery and wrote on Twitter, “There now seem to be more hacks in the House press gallery waiting for #Netanyahu than for the State of the Union.”

Highly Recommended

Whether you believe in climate change or not, there is an interesting read in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which a new study concludes that climate change helped spark the Syrian war. National Geographic explains it in lay terms.

CSIS Today

Watch video of today’s events at our HQ.

CSIS hosted a half-day conference on “Creating Shared Value: The Role of the Private Sector in Agricultural Development,” looking at how the private sector addresses socioeconomic challenges in the world’s poorest countries. Featured speakers included the Martin Dahinden, ambassador of Switzerland; Dan Glickman, former US secretary of agriculture; and Ann Veneman, former executive director of UNICEF.

CSIS Tomorrow

What’s in store at CSIS HQ on Wednesday.

The CSIS Brzezinski Institute on Geostrategy will host Felipe González, former prime minister of Spain and chairman of the EU Reflection Group, to address the future of Europe, the crisis in Ukraine, and the threat of violent extremism. Join us at 9:00 a.m.

CSIS will host Dr. Munqith Dagherto present findings from a major public opinion project on Arab attitudes toward terrorism and terrorist organizations conducted throughout Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and Libya. Join us at 10:00 a.m.

Join us at 1:30 p.m. for a discussion with General Vincent Brooks on “Perspectives on East Asia” and the Pacific Pathways strategy, an innovative approach to conducting previously scheduled exercises in the region.

This Town Tomorrow

So many important things in this town- so little time. Of note:

CSIS’s Scott Miller will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Prospects for Greater US Trade.” His testimony will point out that “last year, more than $10 trillion in goods and services flowed around the Pacific, and the APEC region accounted for 44 percent of total global trade. Six of America’s top 10 trading partners are in APEC, and US exports to APEC member economies have more than doubled over the past decade.” Here’s a sneak peek of the full testimony.

CSIS on Demand

Colonel Michael Foster, commander of Italy’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, spoke yesterday on US troops in Europe and their training missions in Ukraine, announcing that they will be training the equivalent of Ukraine’s National Guard for a period of six months: “It’s not about teaching the Ukrainian troops things they don’t know, it’s about refining their tactics.”

Sounds

The BBC’s Amy Guttman takes a ride on Tehran’s metro and finds an unexpected boon due to Iran’s economic woes—more women are having to leave the home in search of work to sustain their families. She explores the new kind of feminism that is now taking root, listen from 11:50.  

I Like It Like That

Eye catching things in CSIS’s orbit

The documentary “Under the Dome” is a two-hour film by famous Chinese journalist Chai Jing (who anchored for the state run CCTV) about China’s air pollution problem. It is being recognized by some as the Chinese “Inconvenient Truth” and has been viewed over 100 million times in the 48 hours since its release on various Chinese websites, according to the BBC.

Smiles

A website called FunnyPlox.com has created viral videos of heartwarming scenes showing soldiers being welcomed home by their dogs. But what happens when soldiers are welcomed home by their cats? You guessed it.

Feedback

I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at aschwartz@csis.org.