May 9, 2018

Here’s How We’ll Bring Iran to Its Knees

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Dan Drezner, who refuses to ever give Donald Trump credit for his successes,¹ has once again adopted a cynical attitude toward our president’s foreign policy tactics. In this case, he’s being snarky about Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal:

Plan B begins to bear more than a passing resemblance to the Underpants Gnomes Theory of Profit. Step 1 is terminating the Iran Deal. Step 3 is Iran complying with all U.S. demands. Step 2? Step 2 is a wee bit hazy.

There are at least two possibilities for Step 2:

  • We will starve Iran into submission, just like we did with North Korea.
  • We will bomb Iran into submission, just like we did with North Vietnam.

Those both worked great! There are other possibilities too, like encouraging the entire Middle East to engage in a brutal war of Sunni vs. Shia. Really, there are loads of options here. Just ask John Bolton.

¹Drezner is the tenured professor who apparently has so much free time that he is now past the 300 mark in his #ToddlerinChief series on Twitter. This series is frivolous and ill-mannered and I urge you not to read it. I also urge Tufts University to discipline Professor Drezner for his disrespectful attitude toward our president.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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