Good news #2 -- foreign policy

Alongside the shift to better news about the ACA enrollment, suddenly the course of the past few days has revealed a stunning series of positive developments in our foreign affairs.

1.  Syria continues to cooperate in the plan to destroy its chemical weapons;  and experts believe they have solved the problem of where to carry out the destruction.   Inside war torn Syria isn't a safe place to do it, and no other country wanted to take them in for the destruction process.   Now there is a growing plan that would have the chemicals put on ships and towed out into international waters, where the destruction would take place.

2.  The historic agreement with Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment program, dilute its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, and allow daily intrusive inspections is a major break through for sanctions and diplomacy -- if the hawks in Congress and the Israel lobby don't ruin the deal.

3.  But that's not all that our diplomacy has accomplished with Iran.   The diplomats are making progress on getting Iran's cooperation in ending the Syrian war.

4.  National Security Adviser Susan Rice has been secretly in Afghanistan for several days and presumably working behind the scenes with the conference of tribal leaders -- which just approved the long-range status agreement with the U.S., despite President Karzai's continued petulant and quixotic undermining.

5.  There is even some progress at Guantanamo.  Blocked by Congress from having trials in civilian courts, the Obama administration is doing an end run around that block, which has kept low-level risk detainees in a hopeless incarceration.   They are holding what amounts to parole hearings to determine which prisoners can be released to their home countries.

Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show played clips from the 2008 presidential debate, when Barack Obama took heat for saying that he would talk with our enemies with preconditions.  Now that approach seems to be paying off.   All of these fledgling success stories depend on diplomacy, not war.  And the hawkish conservatives don't like it one bit.   Heaven forbid it should succeed.

Ralph