Dennis Ross Has Some Explaining To Do

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos earlier today President-Elect Barack Obma reaffirmed his belief that “Iran is going to be one of our biggest challenges” during his first year in office.  Obama went on to say that “engagement is the place to start” and that his policy would send “a signal that we respect the aspirations of the Iranian people”.  This new approach is music to the ears of those of us who have have found the stubborn silence of the Bush years to be dangerous and counterproductive.  However, recent moves by the President-Elect’s transition team have signaled that there may not be as much change as some have hoped.

The possible appointment of Dennis Ross as a special envoy to the Middle East and Iran has many activists and analysts worried.  Ross is a veteran ambassador who has served in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and who has also been a key negotiator in talks between Israelis and Palestinians throughout the 1990’s.

In some ways Ross would appear to be a logical candidate for a post dealing with the Middle East in the Obama administration.  He has extensive experience in the region, as noted in an article by the Middle East Times.  He has openly critiqued the tactics of the Bush administration and he shares President-Elect Obama’s views that the US will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and that the US should engage Iran diplomatically. In a recent piece in Newsweek he wrote that strengthening unilateral and multilateral sanctions will “show Iran what it stands to lose by going nuclear” while promises of economic, political, and security benefits could “show [Iran's] leaders what they would gain by moderating their behavior”.  These views all fall in line with the President-Elect’s stated strategy of a system of sticks and carrots.

What is concerning to many, however, is the nature of the sticks that Ross has advocated using.  Ross is one of the authors of a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center entitled Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development.  This report contains some heavy-handed suggestions about the military options available for the incoming administration.  It calls for the augmentation of the US’ military presence in the region as an overt “signal to Iranians and our regional allies” and it notes that increased troop presence would make it easier to “insert Special Forces and intelligence personnel into Iran”.

These suggestions of militaristic gesturing and covert intervention are, quite frankly, a familiar tune and not one that has produced many results over the last eight years. It seems rather contradictory that Ross could advocate for “smart statecraft” in one article and a “show of force” in another. As the confirmation hearings for Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and therefore Ross’ potential boss, begin on Tuesday, I hope that members of Congress will ask for some more clarification on Ross’ exact views on the role of military might in diplomatic engagement.

Abstinence-Only Education: Just As Much Sex, But With Less Condom Use

In theory, abstinence from any and all sexual activity is the best way to prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Also, in theory, barricading yourself in the library for all four years of college is your best chance to get good grades. Most likely, however, if someone suggested this strategy for academic excellence to you as your only option to do well in school you would roll your eyes and then look for someone who could provide you with more feasible study tips – like how to form a study group or how to take effective notes.

Like expecting a student to be a library hermit, I have always felt that abstinence-only education was unrealistic and misguided. And Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health agrees. A recent study by John Hopkins researcher Janet Rosenbaum, Ph.D., concludes that teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until their wedding night are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not. Moreover, pledgers in the study were less likely to take precautions against STIs and unwanted pregnancies than a peer control group with similar backgrounds who did not make a pledge. Only 24% of the students who had previously made a virginity pledge reported consistent condom use while the control group’s consistent usage was 10 points higher at 34%.

And frankly, why should we be surprised about these statistics when abstinence-only education curriculum often contains incorrect, limited or misleading information about contraceptives and condoms? For example, one curriculum states “Condoms provide no proven reduction in protection against Chlamydia, the most common bacterial STD.” (Choosing the Best PATH, Leader Guide, pg. 18). This is statement is wrong; barrier methods, such as condoms, are 98% effective in preventing most STIs with perfect use and 85% effective with average use. The risk with Chlamydia is that if it goes undetected in a woman she can get pelvic inflammatory disease that can lead to infertility. But abstinence-only education means just that – that students only receive information about abstaining from sex. Abstinence- only educators assume 100% compliance; that students who pledge to remain virgins until marriage do not need information about how to get tested for STIs because they will never have sex with any one other than their virgin spouse. Yet in fact Rosenbaum’s study found that pledgers and non-pledgers have a similar average of sexual partners. And even if the pledgers were to abstain until marriage, they still might want to have some information about spacing and timing pregnancies through the use of contraceptives.

To date, the federal government has spent over one billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to fund abstinence-only education, a sexual health program that does not work and in fact does a disservice for those who receive it. We need to hold our government responsible for this gross mismanagement of funds and expect that they should re-distribute this funding stream towards best-practice public health programs such as comprehensive sexual education.