HKS in the News March 6, 2012

1. Candidates Hammer Obama Over Iran, but Approaches Differ Little (Burns) New York Times

2. Mr Obama must take a stand against Israel over Iran (Walt) Financial Times

3. A course in driver’s ed (Fenn) Boston Globe

WASHINGTON — To rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Mitt Romney says he would conduct naval exercises in the Persian Gulf to remind Iran of American military might. He would try to ratchet up Security Council sanctions on Iran, targeting its Revolutionary Guards, and the country’s central bank and other financial institutions. And if Russia and China do not go along, he says, the United States should team up with other willing governments to put such punitive measures in place.

As it turns out, that amounts to what President Obama is doing. …

R. Nicholas Burns , the State Department’s top Iran negotiator under President Bush, said: “The attacks on Obama basically say, ‘He’s weak and we’re strong.’ But when you look at the specifics, you don’t see any difference.”

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Mr Obama must take a stand against Israel over Iran
Financial Times
March 4
Commentary coauthored by: Stephen Walt, Belfer Center
Topic: U.S./Israel relations

US president Barack Obama today welcomes arguably his least favourite foreign leader to the White House. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit neatly coincides with the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). That event offers both men a chance to appeal to some of Israel’s most ardent American supporters. We can therefore expect to hear repeated references to the “common interests”, “unshakeable bonds” and “shared values” of the two countries.

This familiar rhetoric is misleading at best and at worst simply wrong. No states have identical interests, and Israel and America are at odds on two vital issues: Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr Obama should continue to rebuff Israel’s efforts to push him into military confrontation with Tehran, while reminding Mr Netanyahu the true danger to Israel lies in its refusal to allow a viable Palestinian state.

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A course in driver’s ed
Boston Globe
March 6
Quoted: Dan Fenn, Executive Education
Topic: Nobel Laureate School Visits program

… It is an only-in-Greater-Boston phenomenon. Through his company, Lexington Luxury Sedans, Mosher is driver for a local nonprofit program called Nobel Laureate School Visits.

The program taps into the many Nobelists at Harvard, MIT, and other institutions in the area and sets up visits with top students at area high schools.

Dr. Edward Shapiro, founder of the program, said that of about 200 Nobel laureates living in the United States, 31 live in Massachusetts, and 28 are affiliated in some way with MIT or Harvard University.

The School Visits program was started in 2009 by Shapiro, a Quincy scientist, with the help of Dan Fenn, adjunct professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"The idea was that the best and the brightest in these schools need to benefit from recognition, from encouragement, from nurturing," said Fenn.

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In the HKS TV Studio

Ted Strickland, Institute of Politics
MSNBC, 3/5/12
Topic: Presidential race

Broadcast Notes

Graham Allison, Belfer Center
WBUR “On Point,” 3/6/12
Topic: Iran

Erich Muehlegger
WGBH , 3/5/12
Topic: Rising gas costs and driver behavior