Of Russia's Criminally Brutal Actions in Syria and America's Election [originally posted on 10.15.2016]

Earlier today Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart in Lausanne, Switzerland to see if it might be possible to restore the cease-fire in eastern Aleppo which broke down 12 days ago when Russian air power and Syrian forces on the ground renewed their scorched earth campaign against Assad's opponents. 

Of course nothing positive came out of the meeting in Lausanne, and nobody should deceive themselves about Russian tactical intentions in Syria, which are in fact transparent.

Indeed, it seems clear that the brutal, indiscriminate and criminal attacks of the Russians in Aleppo and in other parts of Syria - in conjunction with their Syrian and Iranian allies - reflects a decision by Putin to do everything possible to defeat or destroy Assad's enemies between now and November 8th, or by January 20th at the latest.

In short, it appears that Putin believes that he has a window of opportunity in which he can act brutally and with impunity because he calculates that the Obama administration will not dare oppose him on the ground while the American election campaign is underway.

And one can bet that Putin has also calculated that Hillary is likely to respond much more forcefully to what Russia is doing in Syria and elsewhere from her very first day in office. Indeed it will doubtless be of great importance to the incoming Clinton administration to show the Russians, and the world more generally, from day one, that our enemies cannot act with impunity. So one can imagine that Putin understands this as well and knows that he will have to act in a more restrained and circumspect manner come January 20th.

In the meantime, he and his allies seem bent upon bringing maximum force to bear in an effort to cripple or destroy Assad's opponents before the ref blows the whistle.

Moreover, if Putin is thinking a few steps ahead, as one would expect, he may even be planning on simultaneously consolidating his gains and mounting a "peace offensive" in January that will seek to lock in Assad's and Alawite primacy (and Russian hegemony). How could Hillary possibly resist his offer of a "reset", especially if he sweetens the pot with new promises to work closely "again" with Washington to defeat ISIS?

I would further observe that the shift by the Russians toward a much more aggressive stance in Syria, which occurred sometime in August after the Democratic Convention, likely owed to the Russians having assessed that Hillary was much likelier than Trump to win the presidency, which led the Russians, in turn, to decide that they needed to do all they could to land a knockout blow against Assad's enemies before the American election or, at the latest, before the presidential inauguration.

Clearly, at least so far as their Syria policy is concerned, the Russians may prefer a President Trump since all of his public statements have given them reason to conclude that he would be far less likely than Hillary to stand in the way of Russia's continuing to flex its muscles in Syria in a manner that is increasingly brutal and in contravention to the laws of war. But Putin can read the US election polls as well as anybody and knows that it is increasingly less likely that he will ever have the opportunity to do business with a President Trump. .

Finally, I would note that while I see January 20, 2017 as the putative final day of the current Russo-Syrian offensive, there is some reason to think that the Russians may decide to curtail their behavior on November 9th for fear that once Obama is freed of the electoral constraints of the present moment, he may choose to respond forcefully to Russian provocations both because it is the right thing to do and in order to begin the process of rectifying the long train of unfortunate consequences which were set in motion when Obama flinched and permitted his infamous red line to be crossed with impunity.

While it would be easy to deride such "bold" action as too late even if not too little, by initiating such a mid-course correction after the election, Obama might also be inspired by the hope that such boldness might soften the judgment of future historians and biographers who are likely to conclude that Obama's policy vis-a-vis Russia in general, and vis-a-vis Syria in particular was a colossal failure of immense strategic consequence. The negative reverberations of this failure are, after all, enough to make one shudder: from the horrendous loss of innocent life, to the rise of dangerous regional instability, to the far-flung tremors which continue to ripple across the globe, including a significant uptick in jihadist terror and a refugee crisis that has in turn helped to produce a rightward and xenophobic turn in the politics of the region and far beyond. (And going even further, one might plausibly argue that the collapse of the Arab Spring itself should be understood to be a consequence of the Obama administration failed Syrian policy (aided and abetted by the administration's failed policies vis-a-vis Egypt and Libya as well), which helped to transform the Arab Spring into a new Arab Winter.) Having ample reason then to fear the judgment of presidential historians, it would not surprise me in the least if Obama Obama sought, during his final days in the White House, to strike back with force against the Russians in Syria and to establish the predicate for Hillary's continuing in this same direction, in a push back against Russia that cannot but recall Jimmy Carter's "reset" of his Russian policy in December of 1979 following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, an act which similarly established the predicate for Reagan's continued support of the mujahadeen.

Being wary of the possibility of such a shift in Obama's stance, it is reasonable to assume that the Russians may press even harder to finish their dirty work before November 8th, while America remains distracted by an electoral contest that is devoid of any serious attention to the serious issues that will preoccupy the next president from his or her first day in office. 

About this sad and even tragic tale, we are sadly likely to someday find ourselves reading a book that bears the familiar and always too soon forgotten title: 'While America Slept -- Again.'

The Sin of Korach: Another Take

In Leviticus 19, the text does not proclaim that the people ARE holy but that they SHOULD BE holy, that holiness is OBLIGATORY AND ASPIRATIONAL, an OUGHT, an ASYMPTOTIC IDEAL. But Korach's demand that Moses and Aaron share their power with the kahal, since "we are all holy," departs from this understanding of holiness. Indeed humans can never BE holy in the ontical or ontological sense that Korach asserts. Only God would be intrinsically holy in that sense. For the rest of us holiness is a matter of moral striving without end and an infinite task. Korach's claim that "we are all holy," misses all of this, as it aims (whether on behalf of Korach's own team or on behalf of all the community, if we take him at his word) at securing not a greater share of the responsibilities but of the spoils.

In a sense, Korach's misunderstanding of holiness as intrinsic to the kahal is the opposite of the misunderstanding of the spies (from last week's parshah) who saw themselves as "grasshoppers," as being utterly incapable of exercising moral or political agency, as intrinsically insignificant. The "truth" of the human condition and of human potentiality would lie somewhere in between the extravagant claims made by Korach and the feelings of extreme incapacity articulated by the spies, a truth that is most fully expressed in the words of Leviticus 19 in which it is not claimed that humans are holy but that they are capable of striving (and indeed obligated to strive) to be holy.

If there is a larger lesson for today in this, I think that it reminds us to be wary of all tacit or express claims of intrinsic superiority made by one group or another, as well as the obverse claims made about another group's supposedly intrinsic inferiority. Such claims and assumptions are expressed today in racism and ethnocentrism and in the more tacit claims of race, ethnocentric, or class privilege. No groups of human beings are intrinsically better than any other. As groups, and more especially as individuals, we each have the capacity to pursue good or to pursue evil, to seek after holiness or to do otherwise. Perhaps what the Torah comes to tell us in Leviticus 19 is that we are only human insofar as we understand ourselves as obligated to pursue ethical holiness as an ideal, which, at a minimum, means striving to treat one another justly and striving to elevate and never denigrate the humanity or personhood of the other.

Why Sanders Will Not, and Should Not, Drop Out Before July 15th.

According to the LA Times there may be as many as 3 million ballots cast in the Democratic primary which remain to be counted. And, as I have noted previously, the LA County Registrar indicated that there are over 500,000 ballots that remain to be counted in LA County alone.

According to the official tally from Tuesday night, Hillary beat Bernie by 435,000 votes, or by 12.5% (of the 3.5 million votes tallied on Tuesday night) -- a difference which was shocking for its divergence from the opinion polls that showed the race as too close to call. So it is reasonable to expect that a full count of the uncounted ballots will close this gap and may even reverse the outcome, moving California into Bernie's column. And the final tally will not be certified by the CA Secretary of State until July 15th.

Since so much hangs in the balance, it is clear that Bernie should he be pressured by anyone to quit the race -- and that includes Hillary, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and POTUS -- until the final outcome in CA is clear.

Bernie owes this much to his supporters and to himself and to all the voters of California that worked for him and voted for him.

This said, it is hardly surprising that the Clinton Campaign and the DNC are pressuring Bernie to throw in the towel. But if it were made clear to all who voted for Bernie and to the public, more generally, that the very outcome of the Democratic primary contest might hang in the balance, then even the mainstream media would be forced to back off.

So when the pundits point to Sanders refusal to bow out as owing to his being in a state of denial, or delusion, they are just blowing smoke and showing their ignorance of how the electoral process works. Sanders has every right to stay the course UNTIL ALL THE VOTES HAVE BEEN COUNTED. And all who believe in democracy must hope that nobody will deflect him from that course.

Re the Super Delegates and the Pernicious Role they have Played in this Democratic Primary Contest

The Super Delegate system was created after the 1980 election to allow the party establishment to prevent the party from ever going down the road to oblivion as it did with the nomination of George McGovern (1972), which from the day he was nominated was assured to lead to an overwhelming defeat at the polls. (It was a delayed reaction to the defeat in 1972 and driven by Carter's defeat in 1980 as well.) Thus the point was for the Super Delegates to serve henceforth as a safety valve or emergency brake, not for them to put their finger on the scale from the outset in a manner that would favor one candidate over another. Thus the fact that most of the Super Delegates signed on to support Hillary even before Sanders had entered the race was anti-democratic and contrary to the intentions of those who developed this system. So the idea of Bernie's trying to "flip" Hillary's delegates, as distinct from "appealing" to the Super Delegates, is not as anti-democratic as the Super Delegates having signed on as her supporters in the first place. And it should be added that most of the mainstream news media has not even bothered to separate out the Super Delegates from the pledged delegates when reporting Hillary's delegate lead, which had the effect of permitting Hillary's Super Delegate support to weigh in her favor in a highly anti-democratic manner throughout the entire primary contest.

So my main point is that the system of Super Delegates was created as an anti-democratic check on the democratic primary system and with the express intention that the party leaders would look at the national head-to-head polls and that they would exercise their best judgment as to which of the candidates was most likely to secure a victory for the Democrats in November. So while I will readily admit that the Sanders campaign has not been consistent in their statements about the role that has been played, and that should be played, by the Super Delegates, their present position is not inconsistent with the very raison d'etre of the Super Delegate system. And from the latter perspective, the fact that Hillary has received more votes in the aggregate should count as one, but only as one, consideration in the Super Delegates' prudential calculation of where the best interest of the party lies.

Sanders' late surge in the primaries, and the fact that much public opinion polling (which provide objective and scientific snapshots of the electorate's preferences) indicates that he would likely outperform Hillary in a putative head to head match-up with Trump are indeed just the things which the Super Delegates should be looking at when they decide which candidate to favor.

But having signed on in support of Hillary before Sanders entered the race and having prided themselves on their obstinate refusal to reconsider this support even as the polls have indicated that Hillary is a deeply flawed, and perhaps even fatally flawed, candidate, the Super Delegates have undermined the very rationale for their creation in the first place, and this argues for the need to constrain them explicitly through revisions in the party rules that would prevent them from acting in this manner in the future.

As for the A.P.'s signaling that Hillary is the presumptive nominee, my complaint is not so much about their calling the race as it is about the manner in which the Super Delegates have usurped their proper role, which is what gives the A.P.'s call whatever putative validity is possesses.

And as for Obama's possibly coming out tomorrow to back Hillary, irrespective of the outcome in today's primaries: this is only problematic if one believes that the Super Delegates should objectively and impartially assess the pros and cons of going with Hillary or Bernie, before making their final and irreversible decision. Obama is after all the most super of all the super delegates and his public endorsement of Hillary will surely work to keep the rest of the super delegates in line. Ditto Nancy Pelosi's endorsement today. But in proceeding thus, these personifications of the Democratic Establishment are acting in a manner that weighs heavily against the Super Delegates performing their appropriate, and appropriately circumscribed, task.

Addendum re How to Change the Rules re Super Delegates:

In response to the question of how the Democratic Party might reform the rules that govern the role that is played by the Super Delegates, I would propose the following change in the Democratic Party rules: The new rule should be that no Super Delegate should be permitted to endorse any presidential candidate until after the end of the primaries. After all, the Super Delegates were created to help make sure that the party does not err by nominating a candidate who is unlikely to be able to win the general election. The Super Delegates were created as an anti-democratic emergency brake, who in most circumstances should and will FOLLOW the will of the party rank and file not LEAD it. But this clearly implies that they should not endorse early on in a manner that tilts the playing field on behalf of one candidate or another, before the Democratic electorate has had its say. Also, by endorsing earlier rather than later, the Super Delegates undermine their very ability to serve as an impartial late-in-the-game emergency brake. Thus we should all petition the Democratic Party's Rules Committee to make this change which would be applied starting with the 2020 presidential nominating contest.

In Opposition to the Argument that Too Much Hangs in the Balance for Dems to Dare Run the Risk of a Loss in November by Putting Forward the Unelectable Bernie Sanders

In today's Daily Beast, Jay Michaelson makes the liberal argument for Clinton and her superior electability against what he takes to be Sanders' absolute unelectability. Given the implications of a GOP victory, he warns, good liberal Democrats need to be prudent and support Clinton as the electable moderate. Should Sanders win the nomination, Michaelson argues, this elderly Jewish socialist who happens to also be a foreign policy dove is doomed to total failure in the general election. The implication is that he would have been the party's worst choice since George McGovern. Too much hangs in the balance -- from the Supreme Court, to LGBTQ and abortion rights, to the future of a rapidly warming earth -- for Liberals to indulge in the fantasy of electing a candidate who is so far outside the mainstream of political acceptability as to be unelectable. More damming still, Michaelson suggests that this fantasy is itself an expression of irresponsible white, upper middle class, liberal privilege that permits Bernie supporters to savor the dream while airbrushing out of the picture the downside risk and honesty about who will bear the greatest share of the burden when their fantasy comes crashing into electoral reality.

So how ought Sanders' supporters to respond? First, they might point out that Bernie has been underestimated all along, and is still a long shot to win the primary contest for the nomination. If he fails to win the nomination, of course, they expect to vote for Hillary, as the lesser of two evils, or as the greater good, relative to whomever the GOP selects. On the other hand, should Bernie win the nomination, they will say that this will itself indicate that he has become acceptable to the mainstream and that his chances of winning the presidency would be much stronger than Michaelson (and many others) imagines. If Bernie wins the nomination, they would argue, he might well be able to go on and win the general election as well. They might also take note of the fact that in many ways Hillary Clinton is a very flawed candidate, with a real lot of baggage and very high negatives, who may prove to be unelectable herself.

But Michaelson's best argument for prudence, moderation, and Hillary, is the magnitude of the downside risk -- on a wide range of issues -- if a Republican comes to be elected, a victory which he believes is much more likely if Sanders were to become the Democratic nominee.

This is an old argument that has been used repeatedly against any and all who have supported fielding a candidate from the Left. Since 1976, the result has been a long series of Democratic candidates (and presidents) who are just barely to the left of a "center" which keeps shifting further and further to the right. Such Democratic centrists have, in effect, bestowed the Democratic Party's imprimatur upon the reigning neo-liberalism in economics, the shrinking of the so-called welfare state, and the ever increasing level of income inequality. Another consequence of this argument, which is heard time and again in every election cycle, is that the effort to form a real left wing, grassroots movement for significant (and even radical) change is prevented from reaching critical mass, which in turn guts popular resistance to the continued rightward and oligarchical drift in American politics and policy. Consequently, Democratic presidents come to power, again and again, without a grassroots left-leaning social movement behind them which could provide them with political leverage that is required if they are ever to manage to bring the Right to heel and to enact the significant changes to the increasingly oligarchical order which they claim to want.

The main plank of the pro-Hillary argument turns on fear of the dark consequences that are predicted as sure to follow a Republican victory. I think that Sanders' supporters must insist, however paradoxically, that this fear is overstated. Not that it wouldn't be bad, but it is unlikely to be quite as bad as Michaelson would have us fear. There are checks and balances, after all, and the ship of state turns around only very slowly, which is why one presidential term seldom makes as much difference as one hopes or fears. One needs to say this because otherwise it becomes hard to resist Michaelson's argument which is, effectively, not to let the unachievable ideal become the enemy or the achievable good, especially when everything we believe in hangs in the balance.

The point is that to bring about the "change we can believe in" more is required than keeping the GOP out of the White House and making sure that a moderate Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office. This may prevent the worst from happening but experience makes clear that it is not enough to bring about the realization of our hopes for changing the course on which this country is heading. Real change will not come about until there exists a broader grassroots movement for change. The Sanders candidacy for the nomination is about creating that movement as much as it is about securing the nomination. Should Sanders win the nomination, the general election campaign will take this effort to build a national movement to the next level. If this movement is successful in placing Sanders in the White House, without changing the balance of power in the Congress, then the battle lines will be drawn for 2018, and possibly for 2020 as well, as Sanders leads an epic fight against GOP control of Congress and for the American future. But with a national grassroots movement for change behind him, there are good odds that he (and we) could win that fight and then start to achieve those legislative victories that will be the real instruments for achieving the changes that Sanders' supporters, and most Democrats, want to see.

Alternatively, if Sanders wins the nomination but loses the contest with the GOP, which is the scenario that Michaelson worries about most, then it will be the role of the movement that Sanders has inspired to be, yes, that Tea Party of the Left, and to fight the efforts of the GOP to move America even further to the Right, while it continues to build a grassroots movement for real change in 50 states and in thousands of counties, from sea to shining sea.

This said, it should be reiterated that Sanders supporters do believe that if Sanders can win the nomination, he may well be able to win the general election as well, as today's long-shot morphs into tomorrow's plausible scenario. But this being said, it is not inconceivable that Bernie's candidacy might end up going the way of George McGovern's -- a fate which might similarly befall Hillary's candidacy as well, for other but equally evident reasons. (Indeed neither Hillary or Bernie are without significant "negatives" from the standpoint of the folks who handicap these races.) But Sanders supporters, who support Bernie while allowing that Hillary is perhaps somewhat more electable, do need to address Michaelson's challenge, if only to dispel the doubts of voters who share his skepticism about Sanders' electability, which must be allayed if they are to draw such voters into the Sanders' camp. And here, I think, Sanders' supporters need to take the view that the they are more concerned about changing the direction this country is heading than they are in securing the White House for another Democrat whose term will amount to little more than a holding action in the face of a hostile Congress and corporate antagonism. Better to lose the White House in the short run if doing so is a stepping stone on the way to bringing about the fundamental political realignment that the future well-being of the nation's poor and middle class requires. In this regard, the far Left needs to show as much courage as has been shown in the last 50 years by GOP true believers who have been willing, time and again, to accept the short-term loss of power for the sake of achieving long-term and fundamental gains.

In short, when it comes to considering the implications of a possible electoral defeat next November, it must be acknowledged that such a loss may turn out to be an unfortunate necessity along the path to building a strong, national movement for significant change, a movement that is required not as a vehicle for securing Democratic control of the White House but for bringing about real and substantive change in this country.

And yet, to restate an earlier point, there is good reason to think that if Sanders can win the nomination, the sea-change in attitudes that would have been required to bring this about might well be enough to help propel him to a victory in the general election next November. (And of course the path to this victory might be eased somewhat if the GOP proceeds to nominate a fatally flawed candidate of its own, as it shows every sign of doing.)

And in a rejoinder to Michaelson's parting suggestion that supporters of Bernie Sanders are blinded by the miasma of their white liberal privilege, I would argue that it could be as (or more) convincingly maintained that many of those upper middle class white Democrats who espouse Clinton's candidacy evince a smug satisfaction with a status quo in which those in the top quarter of American households are doing very well economically, as are their children who still have relatively unlimited individual prospects as part of tomorrow's managerial class, and who are quite content with the lifestyle and social liberalism -- and economic neoliberalism -- of the Democratic mainstream.

This said, I see little point of venturing down this path of denying the self-awareness of those who choose to back another horse in this race. It is a road that surely leads to ill will between those who should be allies, as it attacks the identities and unconscious biases of one's opponents rather than their arguments. But it bears pointing out that this is a game that can be played by both sides and one which will ultimately redound to the detriment of all.

The Long Train of Likely Consequences

For good or ill, Monday's UN Security Council vote rendered the debate over whether this is a good deal or a bad deal a matter of strictly historical interest. The deal has now been done and the US Congress's vote is merely symbolic. The UN vote means that the international sanctions are going to be lifted irrespective of what Congress wants or doesn't want. Not even an over-ride of an Obama veto would make a real difference. The horse is about to leave the barn and there is no stopping it.

So what will the deal accomplish? We don't know and cannot know. Ten to fifteen years without nuclear weapons seems like a fair bet as to the initial outcome. And then what? In part this will depend upon whether the nature of the Iranian regime changes in the interim and if it decides to give up its nuclear ambitions.

The most likely scenario is that they are just one turn of the screw away from a nuclear weapon in year 11 or year 16, and the world, or more specifically the US and/or Israel, will have to figure out what to do about this.

Perhaps, like Israel, Iran will choose a policy of nuclear ambiguity, which is a way of securing all the fruits of having nukes without incurring the downside consequences of going public about having them. And perhaps Iran and Israel can achieve a modus vivendi under such circumstances.

If only this was the whole story, but alas it is not. Even leaving aside the question of Iranian cheating and the 24 day gap regarding "snap" inspections, the deal gives the Iranians the right to retain and further develop its nuclear enrichment capability, which is why Obama himself observed that by year 10 or 15 the Iranians will be a legitimate nuclear (weapons) threshold state.

The question, however, is what will this mean to the neighborhood. What will the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Turks do? Will they sit idle and hope that Iran does not decide to pursue nuclear weapons even while the pending deal permits them to continue to develop their nuclear program? I think not. Indeed I think that it is a fairly good bet that these states will either seek to advance their own nuclear weapons r&d programs or to buy such weapons from Pakistan and to do so during the next ten years during which the Iranian program is still largely mothballed. (After all the Saudis apparently bankrolled the Pakistani program, and presumably did not do so from purely altruistic motivations.)

But the ultimate irony is that the unintended but rather predictable consequence of the deal between the p5+1 and Iran is likely to be a proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region -- ironically first among the Sunni regimes, and then, as a "consequence" by the Iranians as well who will decide to "reverse" their opposition to nuclear weapons as unIslamic in order to defend the Shiites, not against Israel, but against the Sunnis!

Moreover, all of these regimes know that the only reason Kaddafi was toppled by NATO is because he did not have nuclear weapons. It is not lost on any of them that Kaddafi would still be in power if he had acquired a nuclear weapon and a delivery system for it. And thus I am sure that, at the end of the day, the Iranian revolutionary regime looks at such a weapon not as a weapon to be used against its neighbors but as the best form of long term life insurance for the regime itself.

In fact, the only chance of securing a nuclear weapons free Middle East would be a multi-party agreement to forgo nuclear weapons among all the potential nuclear weapons states of the region to respect one another's borders and sovereignty. But of course Israel is not about to accept such a deal, while Iran, for one, is also unlikely to be willing to stake its future on such an agreement.

Only if Iran had been forced to dismantle its entire nuclear program, and to accept stringent restrictions in perpetuity on its development of dual-use nuclear technologies was there a good chance of avoiding the outcome of a broadly nuclearized Middle East.

Finally, it should be noted that comparisons with the Cold War, in which mutually assured destruction actually served to keep the peace, are misplaced when it comes to nukes in an unstable region that is populated by illegitimate and antidemocratic regimes, that is rife with sectarian and ethnic civil wars, and in which millennialist sects who might actually be willing to employ these doomsday devices proliferate like flowers in the desert after a spring rain.

In a word, welcome to the new world. Hope I am wrong but the wheel is now in spin.

Today's Vote by the UN Security Council

I have not decided definitively on the merits of the Iran Deal but am inclined to support it despite its manifest shortcomings. This being said, I am flabbergasted that Team Obama permitted the deal to be submitted to, and voted upon by, the UN Security Council before the US Congress has had a chance to express its opinion of the deal. How dare the White House permit this vote to take place and order UN Ambassador Samantha Power to vote in favor of this resolution before Congress votes on the deal. This is to present the Congress with a fait accompli and to permit the UN's sanctions against Iran to lapse irrespective of the eventual judgment of the Congress. Not only does this put pressure on Congress to vote for the deal, but it also guts the sanctions regime against Iran without regard for the workings of the democratic process in the US. Should the Congress now decide against the deal, the US vote in the Security Council today would have already ended the international sanctions against Iran. Sure, the US Congress could vote against the deal and decide to continue US economic sanctions against Iran, but this would have relatively little effect on Iran if the rest of the world has already begun trading again with Iran without any restriction.

To have proceeded in this way is wrongheaded on the part of the administration, and should be seen as such irrespective of whether one favors or opposes the deal. It is imperious and politically far more highhanded than Boehner's decision to invite Bibi to speak to the Congress last spring. Democratic and Republican members of Congress should be disturbed by this executive trampling upon the democratic branch of the federal government, and should indeed treat this as worthy of censure. Not that I expect they will do so.

Finally, on a positive note, there is one good thing to report about the UN Security Council vote. It does specify a plausible mechanism for "snapping back" the sanctions if there is a dispute between Iran and the p5+1. An unresolved inspection issue will automatically trigger snapback unless there is a Security Council vote to stop the snapback of sanctions from taking place.

But the larger point is that the Obama Administration should not have permitted this vote before Congress has its say on the deal. Indeed it should be clear to all that this is a sad day for the American political system.