2ac

2AC --- T

CI- EE includes lifting sanctions

Pernaa, 7 – Dept of Political Science at Lund University (Emilia, “Catering Sticks and Carrots for the Global Security,” http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=1324375&fileOId=1324376

The term engagement has been understood in a rather multiple manner. It can be understood as opposite to isolation, as a general interaction between two states. Here I will use the term of engagement to some extent in line with the definition of Haass and O’Sullivan. Thus, the term engagement is understood as a positive foreign policy strategy, which depends to a significant degree on positive incentives to achieve its objectives. However, the engaging strategy does not preclude the simultaneous use of negative instruments, such as sanctions or military force, but in order to be understood as engaging strategy the use of positive incentives should play leading role (2000:2). Thus, the term engagement is seen in a positive light, referring to constructive efforts in order to engage the country in case to the international community. Even though some negative means might be used to some extent by side of the engaging strategy, engagement means generally a conflict preventing approach which can be understood as tension reduction, conciliation, appeasement and incentives and use of positive methods to cooperate with proliferators (Baldwin 1985:111). Whereas the economic statecraft such as incentives like trade agreements or lifting the sanctions are probably one of the most tangible engagement efforts, diplomatic statecraft can be considered as an engaging strategy as given in the form of diplomatic recognition and efforts of negotiating common interests (O’Sullivan 2000:5f). In the case of structural statecraft engagement is seen to base on legitimate policies, following the norms of the international system.

“its” – includes association

Oxford Dictionaries, 13 (its, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/its?view=uk)

Definition of its determiner belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified: turn the camera on its side he chose the area for its atmosphere belonging to or associated with a child or animal of unspecified sex: a baby in its mother’s womb

2ac --- k

No internal link from our reps to war

Kaufman, Prof Poli Sci and IR – U Delaware, ‘9

(Stuart J, “Narratives and Symbols in Violent Mobilization: The Palestinian-Israeli Case,” Security Studies 18:3, 400 – 434)

Even when hostile narratives, group fears, and opportunity are strongly present, war occurs only if these factors are harnessed. Ethnic narratives and fears must combine to create significant ethnic hostility among mass publics. Politicians must also seize the opportunity to manipulate that hostility, evoking hostile narratives and symbols to gain or hold power by riding a wave of chauvinist mobilization. Such mobilization is often spurred by prominent events (for example, episodes of violence) that increase feelings of hostility and make chauvinist appeals seem timely. If the other group also mobilizes and if each side's felt security needs threaten the security of the other side, the result is a security dilemma spiral of rising fear, hostility, and mutual threat that results in violence. A virtue of this symbolist theory is that symbolist logic explains why ethnic peace is more common than ethnonationalist war. Even if hostile narratives, fears, and opportunity exist, severe violence usually can still be avoided if ethnic elites skillfully define group needs in moderate ways and collaborate across group lines to prevent violence: this is consociationalism.17 War is likely only if hostile narratives, fears, and opportunity spur hostile attitudes, chauvinist mobilization, and a security dilemma.

The alt doesn’t solve – exclusive focus on criticism fails

Gunning 2007 [Jeroen, Lecturer in Int’l Politics @ U of Wales, Government and Opposition 42.3, “A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies?”]

The notion of emancipation also crystallizes the need for policy engagement. For, unless a ‘critical’ field seeks to be policy relevant, which, as Cox rightly observes, means combining ‘critical’ and ‘problem-solving’ approaches, it does not fulfil its ‘emancipatory’ potential.94 One of the temptations of ‘critical’ approaches is to remain mired in critique and deconstruction without moving beyond this to reconstruction and policy relevance. Vital as such critiques are, the challenge of a critically constituted field is also to engage with policy makers – and ‘terrorists’ – and work towards the realization of new paradigms, new practices, and a transformation, however modestly, of political structures. That, after all, is the original meaning of the notion of ‘immanent critique’ that has historically underpinned the ‘critical’ project and which, in Booth's words, involves ‘the discovery of the latent potentials in situations on which to build political and social progress’, as opposed to putting forward utopian arguments that are not realizable. Or, as Booth wryly observes, ‘this means building with one's feet firmly on the ground, not constructing castles in the air’ and asking ‘what it means for real people in real places’.96 Rather than simply critiquing the status quo, or noting the problems that come from an un-problematized acceptance of the state, a ‘critical’ approach must, in my view, also concern itself with offering concrete alternatives. Even while historicizing the state and oppositional violence, and challenging the state's role in reproducing oppositional violence, it must wrestle with the fact that ‘the concept of the modern state and sovereignty embodies a coherent response to many of the central problems of political life’, and in particular to ‘the place of violence in political life’. Even while ‘de-essentializing and deconstructing claims about security’, it must concern itself with ‘how security is to be redefined’, and in particular on what theoretical basis.97 Whether because those critical of the status quo are wary of becoming co-opted by the structures of power (and their emphasis on instrumental rationality),98 or because policy makers have, for obvious reasons (including the failure of many ‘critical’ scholars to offer policy relevant advice), a greater affinity with ‘traditional’ scholars, the role of ‘expert adviser’ is more often than not filled by ‘traditional’ scholars.99 The result is that policy makers are insufficiently challenged to question the basis of their policies and develop new policies based on immanent critiques. A notable exception is the readiness of European Union officials to enlist the services of both ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ scholars to advise the EU on how better to understand processes of radicalization.100 But this would have been impossible if more critically oriented scholars such as Horgan and Silke had not been ready to cooperate with the EU. Striving to be policy relevant does not mean that one has to accept the validity of the term ‘terrorism’ or stop investigating the political interests behind it. Nor does it mean that each piece of research must have policy relevance or that one has to limit one's research to what is relevant for the state, since the ‘critical turn’ implies a move beyond state-centric perspectives. End-users could, and should, thus include both state and non-state actors such as the Foreign Office and the Muslim Council of Britain and Hizb ut-Tahrir; the Northern Ireland Office and the IRA and the Ulster Unionists; the Israeli government and Hamas and Fatah (as long as the overarching principle is to reduce the political use of terror, whoever the perpetrator). It does mean, though, that a critically constituted field must work hard to bring together all the fragmented voices from beyond the ‘terrorism field’, to maximize both the field's rigour and its policy relevance. Whether a critically constituted ‘terrorism studies’ will attract the fragmented voices from outside the field depends largely on how broadly the term ‘critical’ is defined. Those who assume ‘critical’ to mean ‘Critical Theory’ or ‘poststructuralist’ may not feel comfortable identifying with it if they do not themselves subscribe to such a narrowly defined ‘critical’ approach. Rather, to maximize its inclusiveness, I would follow Williams and Krause's approach to ‘critical security studies’, which they define simply as bringing together ‘many perspectives that have been considered outside of the mainstream of the discipline’.101 This means refraining from establishing new criteria of inclusion/exclusion beyond the (normative) expectation that scholars self-reflexively question their conceptual framework, the origins of this framework, their methodologies and dichotomies; and that they historicize both the state and ‘terrorism’, and consider the security and context of all, which implies among other things an attempt at empathy and cross-cultural understanding.102 Anything more normative would limit the ability of such a field to create a genuinely interdisciplinary, non-partisan and innovative framework, and exclude valuable insights borne of a broadly ‘critical’ approach, such as those from conflict resolution studies who, despite working within a ‘traditional’ framework, offer important insights by moving beyond a narrow military understanding of security to a broader understanding of human security and placing violence in its wider social context.103 Thus, a poststructuralist has no greater claim to be part of this ‘critical’ field than a realist who looks beyond the state at the interaction between the violent group and their wider social constituency.104

Wholesale rejection of security is essentialist – provisionally utilizing security discourse is essential to emancipatory politics

Nunes 2012 (Joao – Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, Reclaiming the political: Emancipation and critique in security studies, Security Dialogue 43, p. 349-350)

In fact, a profound distrust towards security is present in the work of Michael Dillon, who understands security as a ‘generative principle of formation’ (1996: 127), a register of meaning that entails a politics of calculability, closure, exclusion and violence. Dillon (1996: 130) identifies within Western thought a ‘metaphysical politics of security’ that makes ‘politics a matter of command; membership of a political community a matter of obedience; love synonymous with a policing order; order a function of discipline; and identity a narcissistic paranoia’. Similar concerns are present in the work of Didier Bigo, for whom security is a liberal political register that strives to make the world calculable, ‘makes a fantasy of homogeneity and seeks the end of any resistances or struggles’ (2008: 109). Mark Neocleous (2011: 186) takes these concerns in a more radical direction by linking security to fascism. In the works of these authors, one can identify a tendency to see security as inherently connected to exclusion, totalization and even violence. The idea of a ‘logic’ of security is now widely present in the critical security studies literature. Claudia Aradau (2008: 72), for example, writes of an ‘exclusionary logic of security’ underpinning and legitimizing ‘forms of domination’. Rens van Munster (2007: 239) assumes a ‘logic of security’, predicated upon a ‘political organization on the exclusionary basis of fear’. Laura Shepherd (2008: 70) also identifies a liberal and highly problematic ‘organizational logic’ in security. Although there would probably be disagreement over the degree to which this logic is inescapable, it is symptomatic of an overwhelmingly pessimistic outlook that a great number of critical scholars are now making the case for moving away from security. The normative preference for desecuritization has been picked up in attempts to contest, resist and ‘unmake’ security (Aradau, 2004; Huysmans, 2006; Bigo, 2007). For these contributions, security cannot be reconstructed and political transformation can only be brought about when security and its logic are removed from the equation (Aradau, 2008; Van Munster, 2009; Peoples, 2011). This tendency in the literature is problematic for the critique of security in at least three ways. First, it constitutes a blind spot in the effort of politicization. The assumption of an exclusionary, totalizing or violent logic of security can be seen as an essentialization and a moment of closure. To be faithful to itself, the politicization of security would need to recognize that there is nothing natural or necessary about security – and that security as a paradigm of thought or a register of meaning is also a construction that depends upon its reproduction and performance through practice. The exclusionary and violent meanings that have been attached to security are themselves the result of social and historical processes, and can thus be changed. Second, the institution of this apolitical realm runs counter to the purposes of critique by foreclosing an engagement with the different ways in which security may be constructed. As Matt McDonald (2012) has argued, because security means different things for different people, one must always understand it in context. Assuming from the start that security implies the narrowing of choice and the empowerment of an elite forecloses the acknowledgment of security claims that may seek to achieve exactly the opposite: alternative possibilities in an already narrow debate and the contestation of elite power.5 In connection to this, the claims to insecurity put forward by individuals and groups run the risk of being neglected if the desire to be more secure is identified with a compulsion towards totalization, and if aspirations to a life with a degree of predictability are identified with violence. Finally, this tendency blunts critical security studies as a resource for practical politics. By overlooking the possibility of reconsidering security from within – opting instead for its replacement with other ideals – the critical field weakens its capacity to confront head-on the exceptionalist connotations that security has acquired in policymaking circles. Critical scholars run the risk of playing into this agenda when they tie security to exclusionary and violent practices, thereby failing to question security actors as they take those views for granted and act as if they were inevitable. Overall, security is just too important – both as a concept and as a political instrument – to be simply abandoned by critical scholars. As McDonald (2012: 163) has put it, If security is politically powerful, is the foundation of political legitimacy for a range of actors, and involves the articulation of our core values and the means of their protection, we cannot afford to allow dominant discourses of security to be confused with the essence of security itself. In sum, the trajectory that critical security studies has taken in recent years has significant limitations. The politicization of security has made extraordinary progress in problematizing predominant security ideas and practices; however, it has paradoxically resulted in a depoliticization of the meaning of security itself. By foreclosing the possibility of alternative notions of security, this imbalanced politicization weakens the analytical capacity of critical security studies, undermines its ability to function as a political resource and runs the risk of being politically counterproductive. Seeking to address these limitations, the next section revisits emancipatory understandings of security.

Perm solves best

Guzzini 1998 (Stefano – Assistant Professor at Central European Univ., Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy, p. 235)

Third, this last chapter has argued that although the evolution of realism has been mainly a disappointment as a general causal theory, we have to deal with it. On the one hand, realist assumptions and insights are used and merged in nearly all frameworks of analysis offered in International Relations or International Political Economy. One of the book's purposes was to show realism as a varied and variably rich theory, so heterogeneous that it would be better to refer to it only in plural terms. On the other hand, to dispose of realism because some of its versions have been proven empirically wrong, ahistorical, or logically incoherent, does not necessarily touch its role in the shared understandings of observers and practitioners of international affairs. Realist theories have a persisting power for constructing our understanding of the present. Their assumptions, both as theoretical constructs, and as particular lessons of the past translated from one generation of decisionmakers to another, help mobilizing certain understandings and dispositions to action. They also provide them with legitimacy. Despite realism's several deaths as a general causal theory, it can still powerfully enframe action. It exists in the minds, and is hence reflected in the actions, of many practitioners. Whether or not the world realism depicts is out there, realism is. Realism is not a causal theory that explains International Relations, but, as long as realism continues to be a powerful mindset, we need to understand realism to make sense of International Relations. In other words, realism is a still necessary hermeneutical bridge to the understanding of world politics. Getting rid of realism without having a deep understanding of it, not only risks unwarranted dismissal of some valuable theoretical insights that I have tried to gather in this book; it would also be futile. Indeed, it might be the best way to tacitly and uncritically reproduce it.

Specifity key to policy – turns the K

Galles 9 – (Gary, Professor of Economics at Pepperdine, “Vagueness as a Political Strategy,” March 2, http://archive.mises.org/9529/vagueness-as-a-political-strategy/)

The problem with such vagueness is that any informed public policy decision has to be based on specific proposals. Absent concrete details, which is where the devil lurks, no one–including those proposing a “reform”–can judge how it would fare or falter in the real world. So when the President wants approval for a proposal which offers too few details for evaluation, we must ask why. Like private sector salesmen, politicians strive to present their wares as attractively as possible. Unlike them, however, a politician’s product line consists of claimed consequences of proposals not yet enacted. Further, politicians are unconstrained by truth in advertising laws, which would require that claims be more than misleading half-truths; they have fewer competitors keeping them honest; and they face “customers”–voters– far more ignorant about the merchandise involved than those spending their own money. These differences from the private sector explain why politicians’ “sales pitches” for their proposals are so vague. However, if vague proposals are the best politicians can offer, they are inadequate. If rhetoric is unmatched by specifics, there is no reason to believe a policy change will be an improvement, because no reliable way exists to determine whether it will actually accomplish what is promised. Only the details will determine the actual incentives facing the decision-makers involved, which is the only way to forecast the results, including the myriad of unintended consequences from unnoticed aspects. We must remember that, however laudable, goals and promises and claims of cost-effectiveness that are inconsistent with the incentives created will go unmet. It may be that President Obama knows too little of his “solution” to provide specific plans. If so, he knows too little to deliver on his promises. Achieving intended goals then necessarily depends on blind faith that Obama and a panoply of bureaucrats, legislators, overseers and commissions will somehow adequately grasp the entire situation, know precisely what to do about it, and do it right (and that the result will not be too painful, however serious the problem)–a prospect that, due to the painful lessons of history, attracts few real believers. Alternatively, President Obama may know the details of what he intends, but is not providing them to the public. But if it is necessary to conceal a plan’s details to put the best possible public face on it, those details must be adverse. If they made a more persuasive sales pitch, a politician would not hide actual details. They would be trumpeted at every opportunity, proving to a skeptical public he really had the answers, since concealing rather than revealing pays only when better informed citizens would be more inclined to reject a plan. Claiming adherence to elevated principles, but keeping detailed proposals from sight, also has a strategic advantage. It defuses critics. Absent details, any criticism can be parried by saying “that was not in our proposal” or “we have no plans to do that” or other rhetorical devices. It also allows a candidate to incorporate alternatives proposed as part of his evolving reform, as if it was his idea all along. The new administration has already put vague proposals on prominent display. However, adequate analysis cannot rest upon such flimsy foundations. That requires the nuts and bolts so glaringly absent. In the private sector, people don’t spend their own money on such vague promises of unseen products. It is foolhardy to act any differently when political salesmen withhold specifics, because political incentives guarantee that people would object to what is kept hidden. So while vagueness may be good political strategy, it virtually ensures bad policy, if Americans’ welfare is the criterion.

2ac --- CIR

Decline doesn’t cause conflict.

Gelb 10 - Leslie H., President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations; was a senior official in the U.S. Defense Department from 1967 to 1969 and in the State Department from 1977 to 1979, November/December 2010, “GDP Now Matters More Than Force,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 6

To an unprecedented degree, the major powers now need one another to grow their economies, and they are loath to jeopardize this interdependence by allowing traditional military and strategic competitions to escalate into wars. In the past, U.S. enemies--such as the Soviet Union--would have rejoiced at the United States' losing a war in Afghanistan. Today, the United States and its enemies share an interest in blocking the spread of both Taliban extremism and the Afghan-based drug trade. China also looks to U.S. arms to protect its investments in Afghanistan, such as large natural-resource mines. More broadly, no great nation is challenging the balance of power in either Europe or Asia. Although nations may not help one another, they rarely oppose one another in explosive situations. Given the receding threat of great-power war, leaders around the world can afford to elevate economic priorities as never before. To be sure, leaders throughout history have pursued economic strength as the foundation of state power, but power itself was equated with military might. Today, the prevailing idea is that economic strength should be applied primarily toward achieving economic--not military--ends. Money is what counts most, so most nations limit their spending on standing armies and avoid military interventions. What preoccupies most leaders is trade, investment, access to markets, exchange rates, additional riches for the rich, and a better life for the rest. This trend is plain among the rising regional powers known as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and among such others as Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey. Although these countries' leaders have major security concerns--such as India with regard to Pakistan--their paramount objective has become economic strength. For most, economic growth is their prime means of fending off internal political opposition. China makes perhaps the best case for the primacy of economics. Although it might emerge as a spoiler decades hence, Beijing currently promotes the existing economic order and does not threaten war. Because Beijing has been playing the new economic game at a maestro level--staying out of wars and political confrontations and zeroing in on business--its global influence far exceeds its existing economic strength. China gains extra power from others' expectations of its future growth. The country has become a global economic giant without becoming a global military power. Nations do not fear China's military might; they fear its ability to give or withhold trade and investments.

Won’t pass – 3 reasons

- divided GOP

- weak Boehner

- time

Fabian 10/16

Jordan, ABC News, The House Can't Handle Immigration Reform [Analysis], 10/16/13, http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/house-handle-immigration-reform-analysis/story?id=20587483&singlePage=true

President Obama says he’s ready to renew the push for immigration reform immediately after the fiscal crises plaguing Washington end.¶ We’re not convinced that’s a fight he can win.¶ Obama told Univision’s Los Angeles affiliate KMEX Tuesday that once the government is re-opened and the debt ceiling is lifted, “the day after I’m going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform.”¶ And immigration-reform activists are reportedly drawing up plans to marshal an immigration bill through the House of Representatives, hoping that Republicans who control the lower chamber be willing to come back to the table after a bruising fiscal battle.¶ But if the debt-ceiling and shutdown fights taught us anything, it’s that the House of Representatives is extremely fractured. It’s a body that seems incapable of handling a bill that requires compromise to pass.¶ A Divided Party¶ The House has struggled to build majorities around bills that can actually become law in a divided capital. Since last year, House leaders have failed to pass their “Plan B” to avert the fiscal cliff, a farm bill, and their last-ditch gambit to resolve the shutdown and debt ceiling, as NBC’s “First Read” noted.¶ The same goes for immigration. After the Senate passed a sweeping immigration overhaul with a bipartisan vote in June, House GOP leaders convened a “special conference” on the issue. But they emerged from the meeting with no clear plan upon which a majority of members could agree.¶ In the meantime, none of the small-bore immigration bills favored by Republicans have seen a vote on the floor of the House. A bipartisan Gang of lawmakers who were drafting a broad immigration overhaul broke apart last month. And a House Democratic bill that closely mirrors the Senate’s bill is going nowhere.¶ Four months after that special conference, an immigration bill that could pass the House looks as out of reach as ever.¶ Boehner’s Weakness¶ House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made every effort to placate rebellious Tea Party elements within the House GOP, yet he has still struggled to form majorities around major pieces of legislation.¶ That’s been the main reason for the holdup on immigration. The Senate’s immigration bill likely has the votes -- between Democrats and a handful of Republicans -- to pass the House. But Boehner has refused to violate the unwritten “Hastert Rule," under which legislation must have the support of the majority of the majority to come to the floor. That’s because most House Republicans likely oppose a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.¶ Pro-immigration advocates have pointed out that Boehner has broken the Hastert Rule on at least three key votes this year. They argue that the Speaker may do it again, especially to pass a proposal that’s backed by business interests and party strategists who believe it’s necessary to start winning back Latino voters. Boehner may even violate it to end the current fiscal crisis.¶ But yesterday’s failure on the fiscal crisis further weakened Boehner’s hand within his conference. That makes it even less likely that he will roll them over to pass a bill that’s at the top of President Obama’s list of domestic priorities.¶ Time¶ Supporters of immigration reform have long hoped to pass a bill by the end of next year, fearing that the process could stall in 2014, an election year.¶ But that looks as unlikely as ever.¶ The House only has 23 more planned legislative days left this year. That’s not a lot of time to pass an immigration overhaul, especially considering it took the Senate over two months to pass its immigration bill after it was introduced.¶ President Obama said that he would renew his immigration push ”the next day” after the fiscal crisis is over. But it’s unclear when the crisis will truly end. The Senate’s proposal to end the current standoff would reportedly fund the government until Jan. 15 and extend the country’s borrowing authority until Feb 7.¶ Whether it’s a broad proposal like the Senate’s or a smaller bill designed to open negotiations, it’s hard to imagine the House passing an immigration bill getting passed in that short time frame.

Oil loves the plan and lobby for it---determines Congressional sentiment

Sadowski 11 – Richard Sadowski 11, J.D., Hofstra University School of Law, Fall 2011, “IN THIS ISSUE: NATURAL RESOURCE CONFLICT: CUBAN OFFSHORE DRILLING: PREPARATION AND PREVENTION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE UNITED STATES' EMBARGO,” Sustainable Development Law & Policy, 12 Sustainable Dev. L. & Pol'y 37, p. lexis

A U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Cuba's offshore oil fields hold at least four and a half billion barrels of recoverable oil and ten trillion cubic feet of natural gas. n29 Cupet, the state-owned Cuban energy company, insists that actual reserves are double that of the U.S. estimate. n30 One estimate indicates that Cuba could be producing 525,000 barrels of oil per day. n31 Given this vast resource, Cuba has already leased offshore oil exploration blocks to operators from Spain, Norway, and India. n32 Offshore oil discoveries in Cuba are placing increasing pressure for the United States to end the embargo. First, U.S. energy companies are eager to compete for access to Cuban oil reserves. n33 [*38] Secondly, fears of a Cuban oil spill are argued to warrant U.S. investment and technology. n34 Finally, the concern over Cuban offshore drilling renews cries that the embargo is largely a failure and harms human rights.¶ ECONOMICS: U.S. COMPANIES WANT IN¶ For U.S. companies, the embargo creates concern that they will lose out on an opportunity to develop a nearby resource. n35 Oil companies have a long history of utilizing political pressure for self-serving purposes. n36 American politicians, ever fearful of high energy costs, are especially susceptible to oil-lobby pressures. n37 This dynamic was exemplified in 2008, when then-Vice President Dick Cheney told the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that "oil is being drilled right now sixty miles off the coast of Florida. But we're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply" n38¶ This pressure for U.S. investment in oil is exacerbated by America's expected increase in consumption rates. n39 Oil company stocks are valued in large part on access to reserves. n40 Thus, more leases, including those in Cuban waters, equal higher stock valuation. n41 "The last thing that American energy companies want is to be trapped on the sidelines by sanctions while European, Canadian and Latin American rivals are free to develop new oil resources on the doorstep of the United States." n42

Budget thumps – time and focus

McMorris-Santoro 10/15

Evan, BuzzFeed Staff, Obama Has Already Won The Shutdown Fight And He’s Coming For Immigration Next, 10/15/13, http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/obama-has-already-won-the-shutdown-fight-and-hes-coming-for

Sharry said immigration reform advocates have sketched out a calendar that has them pushing the House Republicans to take action on immigration reform through the end of the year. If that doesn’t work, advocates will abandon the current legislative effort in favor of a program that seeks to punish Republicans in 2014 and urges Obama to use his executive power to meet as many of the reform advocates’ goals as possible.¶ That’s a tight timeline for a White House victory, especially considering reform may have a hard time making it to the front burner. Martha McKenna, a former political director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said fiscal policy is likely to remain the top issue even after the government reopens.¶ “The economy will continue to take precedence even after the government reopens and the country moves beyond the debt crisis,” she said. “The debate over the Democrats’ economic policy that strengthens the middle class and the Republicans’ economic policy that favors the wealthy will not be resolved in short order.”¶ Jesse Ferguson, communications director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the potential for a short-term fiscal deal means Congress is more likely to go through the last two weeks again than it is to move onto something else.

Executive action solves

Lillis 13 – Staff @ The Hill

Mike, “Dems: Obama can act unilaterally on immigration reform,” http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/administration/283583-dems-recognize-that-obama-can-act-unilaterally-on-immigration-reform#ixzz2NAEmbB00 February 16

President Obama can – and will – take steps on immigration reform in the event Congress doesn't reach a comprehensive deal this year, according to several House Democratic leaders.¶ While the Democrats are hoping Congress will preclude any executive action by enacting reforms legislatively, they say the administration has the tools to move unilaterally if the bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill break down. Furthermore, they say, Obama stands poised to use them.¶ "I don't think the president will be hands off on immigration for any moment in time," Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the head of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters this week. "He's ready to move forward if we're not."¶ Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, echoed that message, saying Obama is "not just beating the drum," for immigration reform, "he's actually the drum major."¶ "There are limitations as to what he can do with executive order," Crowley said Wednesday, "but he did say that if Congress continued to fail to act that he would take steps and measures to enact common-sense executive orders to move this country forward."¶ Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said there are "plenty" of executive steps Obama could take if Congress fails to pass a reform package. "The huge one," Grijalva said, is "the waiving of deportation" in order to keep families together.¶ "Four million of the undocumented [immigrants] are people who overstayed their visas to stay with family," he said Friday. "So that would be, I think, an area in which … there's a great deal of executive authority that he could deal with."¶ The administration could also waive visa caps, Grijalva said, to ensure that industries like agriculture have ample access to low-skilled labor.¶ "Everybody's for getting the smart and the talented in, but there's also a labor flow issue," he said.¶ To be sure, Obama and congressional Democrats would prefer the reforms to come through Congress – both because that route would solidify the changes into law and because it would require bipartisan buy-in.¶ Still, House Republicans have been loath to accept one of the central elements of Obama's strategy: A pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11-12 million undocumented people currently living in the country – a move which many conservatives deem "amnesty."¶ Indeed, when the House Judiciary Committee met earlier this month on immigration reform, much of the discussion focused on whether there is some middle ground between citizenship and mass deportation.¶ “If we can find a solution that is … short of a pathway to citizenship, but better than just kicking 12 million people out, why is that not a good solution?” Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) asked during the hearing.¶ Obama on Tuesday spent a good portion of his State of the Union address urging Congress to send him a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year. Central to that package, he said, should be provisions for "strong border security," for "establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship" and for "fixing the legal immigration system to cut waiting periods and attract the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs and grow our economy."¶ "We know what needs to be done," Obama said. "So let’s get this done."¶ Becerra said he and other immigration reformers have had two meetings with the White House on immigration this month, one with the executive team working on the issue and, more recently, with Obama himself. Becerra said administration officials "essentially" know what reforms they want – "and they have communicated that to both House and Senate members, bipartisanly" – but they also want Congress to take the lead.¶ "They're giving Congress a chance to work its will to move this," Becerra said. "But … I don't think he's going to wait too long.¶ "If you were to ask him would he be prepared to submit a bill if Congress isn't ready … he would tell you, I have no doubt, 'I can do it in a heartbeat,'" Becerra added. "The president will move forward where he can if Congress doesn't act."¶ Indeed, Obama has already shown a willingness to do just that. Last summer, just months before November's elections, Obama shocked political observers when he launched a program through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children to remain without threat of deportation. The two-year "deferred action" was modeled on the Dream Act legislation that has been unable to pass Congress.

Plan bolsters political capital and is popular with the public

- public opinion

- demographic shifts

Hinderdael 11

Klass, M.A. candidate at SAIS Bologna Center, concentrating in American Foreign Policy and Energy, Resources, and Environment, Breaking the Logjam, 6/11/11, http://bcjournal.org/volume-14/breaking-the-logjam.html?printerFriendly=true

In the wake of a markedly diminished strategic threat from the Cuban island after the end of the Cold War, domestic political goals trumped other goals in terms of setting Cuba policy, particularly during election years. Nonetheless, legislative momentum for engaging Cuba has picked up decidedly, even as some presidents have lagged behind. This momentum has coincided with a slow shift in public opinion and demographics that make ending the embargo and engaging Cuba popular amongst both the majority of American voters, as well as the majority of the Cuban-American constituency.¶ Two events in the late 1990s have often been pointed to as significant turning points in the political views and weight of Cuban-American voters. First, many traveled to Cuba for the 1998 papal visit, and embraced Pope John Paul II’s call for “Cuba to open to the world, and the world to open to Cuba.”40 then, two years later, the Elián González episode of 2000 allowed for a shift dubbed by Daniel Erikson the “Elián meets the China syndrome.”41 With the majority of Americans calling for Elián to be reunited with his father in Cuba, a position that anti-Castro Cuban-Americans opposed vehemently, the Cuban-American community, by taking such a hard-line stance, lost some of its legitimacy in the American political system. Furthermore, a harsh Cuba policy stood in stark contrast to a simultaneous broadening of America’s economic and diplomatic ties with China.¶ Polls over the last decade have revealed the dramatic shift in the views of Cuban-Americans. They indicate that, while in 1997, only 22 percent of Miami-Dade County Cuban-Americans favored ending the embargo, by 2004, that percentage had risen to 34 percent, and by December 2008 to 55 percent (in 2008, 65 percent also supported ending restrictions on travel and remittances).42 these statistics indicate that Obama’s positions in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election may not have been such a bad political strategy after all. Furthermore, we should expect to see politicians increasingly catering to these beliefs as they continue to gain political expediency.¶ Perhaps more significantly, Americans on both sides of the political spectrum support significant changes in Cuba policy, from relaxing travel and remittance restrictions to opening up diplomatic relations. They also believe that the island provides little threat to the United States, and that engagement is the most likely policy to lead Cuba towards democratic reform. An April 2009 World Public opinion poll drew the following conclusions from republican (r) and Democrat (D) pollsters:43¶ In terms of the US embargo policy, just days before the World Public opinion poll was released, separate Gallup and ABC polls showed that approximately 55 percent of Americans believe the embargo should be ended, with 35 percent believing it should be continued, and the rest unsure.44 Due to such strong public support for a shift in Cuba policy, the risks of making a drastic shift in the country’s Cuba policies are decreasing rapidly. Leaders willing to promote such a transformation stand to reap significant political gains.¶ A steady demographical shift in the Cuban-American population also makes such a stance politically pragmatic. As experts have noted, first generation Cuban-Americans, traditionally more linked to Cuba policy hardliners, “are retreating from the political stage, if for no reason other than age.”45 In contrast, later-generation immigrants are no longer single-issue voters, made particularly evident during the 2008 election, as the majority of Cuban-American voters agreed with Obama’s Cuba policy, but still voted for Senator John McCain.¶ In fact, Florida International University (FIU) polls show that on a variety of issues, including ending restrictions on remittances and travel, ending the embargo, and reestablishing diplomatic relations, there is a 15 to 20 percent hike in support for these policies among those who immigrated between 1980 and 1998, as opposed to earlier immigrants. There is an additional increase of 5 percent for those who came to America after 1998.46 Clearly, as these demographics continue to provide rising support for engagement and ending the embargo, politicians should and will attempt to shift Cuba policy accordingly.¶ Nonetheless, while the above views do provide increasing political clout, one cannot discard the historical significance of election year Florida politics. During his campaign, President Bush repeatedly condemned the June 2000 seizure of Elián González and made it clear that “he intended to confront [Fidel] Castro.”47 Harsh anti-Castro rhetoric ultimately helped Bush win the election, as he won 80 percent of the Cuban-American vote and the state of Florida by only 537 votes.48¶ In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, it is inevitable that candidates continue to fear alienating a strong voting bloc in a key swing state. Similarly, republican campaign finance money going into Democratic coffers bolsters the status quo and prevents policy modifications.49 Florida can still determine an election, but candidates should note the weakening correlation between the voting patterns of Cuban-Americans and the Cuba policies touted by politicians, as well as the demographical changes that have taken place since 2000.¶ Ultimately, public support amongst Americans as a whole, as well as Cuban-Americans in particular, shows that pragmatism is winning, and that the majority prefers engagement over isolation. More recently, Raúl’s reforms are also providing domestic momentum for a transformation of US-Cuba policy. Forward-looking American leaders will see these shifts and take advantage of the political gains that they provide by ending the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba.

1ar

Iran negotiations will fail---sanctions outweigh and Rouhani doesn’t matter

Fareed Zakaria 9/25, Washington Post/CNN Writer, "Can Rouhani or Obama deliver on any deal?", 2013, articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-25/opinions/42392666_1_nuclear-issue-revolutionary-guard-corps-iranophobia

I came away willing to believe that Rouhani is a pragmatist. (“Moderate” is a misleading term for the head of a quasi-theocratic regime.) He wants to end his country’s isolation. But it remains unclear whether he has the authority to act on behalf of his government. Consider what happened Tuesday, when the Iranians turned down a White House offer of a brief meeting with President Obama. Rouhani explained that he had no problem “in principle” with the handshake but said that this was a “sensitive issue” and that it would have been the first such meeting in 35 years, so steps have to be taken with proper preparation. One has to wonder: If Rouhani does not have the freedom to shake Obama’s hand, does he have the freedom to negotiate a nuclear deal?¶ The Tehran government has another side, made up of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the special force whose political influence has grown over the past decade. These people are hawkish on all foreign-policy issues. They also profit from the sanctions because their businesses have become the only path for trade and smuggling. Perhaps the most encouraging news from Iran in the past two weeks was that its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, publicly addressed the Guard and said its role was in national defense, not “policy.”¶ U.S. doubts about Rouhani’s power can be addressed only over time and through Iranian actions. But Iranians probably also have doubts — about Obama’s power. After all, the new Iranian president appears willing to cooperate on the nuclear issue in return for a relaxing of the sanctions crippling his country. But can Obama provide any such relief?¶ Iran has dozens of layers of sanctions arrayed against it. Some are based on U.N. Security Council resolutions, others are decisions by the European Union, others are acts of Congress and still others are executive orders by the U.S. president. Obama can unilaterally lift only the last, which are the least burdensome. The most onerous by far are the sanctions passed through acts of Congress, and those will be the most difficult to lift.¶ In theory, it’s possible to devise a rational process that requires concrete actions from Iran, verifiable checks by inspectors and then a reciprocal easing of sanctions by the United States. But that would require Congress to behave in a rational manner — which is a fantasy today. The most likely scenario is that any agreement with Iran — almost regardless of its content — would instantly be denounced by Republicans as selling out. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has already gathered 10 other senators who insist that, unless Iran dismantles most of its civilian nuclear program and becomes a liberal democracy, none of the sanctions can be eased.

Predictions are good enough---they can be based on specific knowledge and empirical data

Chernoff 9 Fred, Prof. IR and Dir. IR – Colgate U., European Journal of International Relations, “Conventionalism as an Adequate Basis for Policy-Relevant IR Theory”, 15:1, Sage

For these and other reasons, many social theorists and social scientists have come to the conclusion that prediction is impossible. Well-known IR reflexivists like Rick Ashley, Robert Cox, Rob Walker and Alex Wendt have attacked naturalism by emphasizing the interpretive nature of social theory. Ashley is explicit in his critique of prediction, as is Cox, who says quite simply, ‘It is impossible to predict the future’ (Ashley, 1986: 283; Cox, 1987: 139, cf. also 1987: 393). More recently, Heikki Patomäki has argued that ‘qualitative changes and emergence are possible, but predictions are not’ defective and that the latter two presuppose an unjustifiably narrow notion of ‘prediction’.14 A determined prediction sceptic may continue to hold that there is too great a degree of complexity of social relationships (which comprise ‘open systems’) to allow any prediction whatsoever. Two very simple examples may circumscribe and help to refute a radical variety of scepticism. First, we all make reliable social predictions and do so with great frequency. We can predict with high probability that a spouse, child or parent will react to certain well-known stimuli that we might supply, based on extensive past experience. More to the point of IR prediction – scepticism, we can imagine a young child in the UK who (perhaps at the cinema) (1) picks up a bit of 19th-century British imperial lore thus gaining a sense of the power of the crown, without knowing anything of current balances of power, (2) hears some stories about the US–UK invasion of Iraq in the context of the aim of advancing democracy, and (3) hears a bit about communist China and democratic Taiwan. Although the specific term ‘preventative strike’ might not enter into her lexicon, it is possible to imagine the child, whose knowledge is thus limited, thinking that if democratic Taiwan were threatened by China, the UK would (possibly or probably) launch a strike on China to protect it, much as the UK had done to help democracy in Iraq. In contrast to the child, readers of this journal and scholars who study the world more thoroughly have factual information (e.g. about the relative military and economic capabilities of the UK and China) and hold some cause-and-effect principles (such as that states do not usually initiate actions that leaders understand will have an extremely high probability of undercutting their power with almost no chances of success). Anyone who has adequate knowledge of world politics would predict that the UK will not launch a preventive attack against China. In the real world, China knows that for the next decade and well beyond the UK will not intervene militarily in its affairs. While Chinese leaders have to plan for many likely — and even a few somewhat unlikely — future possibilities, they do not have to plan for various implausible contingencies: they do not have to structure forces geared to defend against specifically UK forces and do not have to conduct diplomacy with the UK in a way that would be required if such an attack were a real possibility. Any rational decision-maker in China may use some cause-and-effect (probabilistic) principles along with knowledge of specific facts relating to the Sino-British relationship to predict (P2) that the UK will not land its forces on Chinese territory — even in the event of a war over Taiwan (that is, the probability is very close to zero). The statement P2 qualifies as a prediction based on DEF above and counts as knowledge for Chinese political and military decision-makers. A Chinese diplomat or military planner who would deny that theory-based prediction would have no basis to rule out extremely implausible predictions like P2 and would thus have to prepare for such unlikely contingencies as UK action against China. A reflexivist theorist sceptical of ‘prediction’ in IR might argue that the China example distorts the notion by using a trivial prediction and treating it as a meaningful one. But the critic’s temptation to dismiss its value stems precisely from the fact that it is so obviously

Marked

true. The value to China of knowing that the UK is not a military threat is significant. The fact that, under current conditions, any plausible cause-and-effect understanding of IR that one might adopt would yield P2, that the ‘UK will not attack China’, does not diminish the value to China of knowing the UK does not pose a military threat. A critic might also argue that DEF and the China example allow non-scientific claims to count as predictions. But we note that while physics and chemistry offer precise ‘point predictions’, other natural sciences, such as seismology, genetics or meteorology, produce predictions that are often much less specific; that is, they describe the predicted ‘events’ in broader time frame and typically in probabilistic terms. We often find predictions about the probability, for example, of a seismic event in the form ‘some time in the next three years’ rather than ‘two years from next Monday at 11:17 am’. DEF includes approximate and probabilistic propositions as predictions and is thus able to catagorize as a prediction the former sort of statement, which is of a type that is often of great value to policy-makers. With the help of these ‘non-point predictions’ coming from the natural and the social sciences, leaders are able to choose the courses of action (e.g. more stringent earthquake-safety building codes, or procuring an additional carrier battle group) that are most likely to accomplish the leaders’ desired ends. So while ‘point predictions’ are not what political leaders require in most decision-making situations, critics of IR predictiveness often attack the predictive capacity of IR theory for its inability to deliver them. The critics thus commit the straw man fallacy by requiring a sort of prediction in IR (1) that few, if any, theorists claim to be able to offer, (2) that are not required by policy-makers for theory-based predictions to be valuable, and (3) that are not possible even in some natural sciences.15 The range of theorists included in ‘reflexivists’ here is very wide and it is possible to dissent from some of the general descriptions. From the point of view of the central argument of this article, there are two important features that should be rendered accurately. One is that reflexivists reject explanation–prediction symmetry, which allows them to pursue causal (or constitutive) explanation without any commitment to prediction. The second is that almost all share clear opposition to predictive social science.16 The reflexivist commitment to both of these conclusions should be evident from the foregoing discussion.