I n just under two months, former Vice President Joe Biden will assume the Oval Office after defeating incumbent President Donald Trump during the election in November. President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will seek to quickly make changes from the executive branch that will alter the nature of American leadership at home and abroad and create significant daylight between their policies and those put forth by Trump since January 2017. One topic that has once again risen to prominence over the last few weeks has been the U.S.’s confrontational relationship with Iran. Amid uncertainty and concern regarding the future Biden administration’s next steps in managing the conflict, there have been indications of potential last-minute actions by the Trump administration that could impact the path forward for the president-elect. Reports have indicated that Trump consulted his military advisers about the possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear processing facilities. This was in the wake of findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had been enriching uranium on a much greater scale and to a greater degree of purity than was allowed for in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. Former President Barack Obama and his administration considered the deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to be one of his greatest foreign policy achievements. Of course, that was under the assumption that the terms of the deal — which included the lifting of all U.S. sanctions against Iran in exchange for a temporary halt to its work on nuclear weapon development — were strong enough to bring Tehran closer to moderation and better relations with the West. As it turned out, and as critics of the JCPOA had known for years, the so-called “deal” was incredibly flawed and one- sided, and the assumptions by Obama and his advisers that led to its creation were fundamentally shaky, to say the least. The evidence found by the IAEA at Natanz proves once again that Iran has never had true desires to moderate and curb its aggressive uranium enrichment activities. Considering Iran’s malign influence throughout the region and the threat it represents to America and its allies, too much is at stake for the U.S. to simply sit back and hope that the terms of the JCPOA are honored, or that any true Iranian moderation would occur. To make matters worse, the lifting of Western sanctions on Iran freed up billions of dollars that would not be used for domestic improvements, but rather would be funneled into Tehran’s network of proxy forces that are sowing terror and destabilization all over the region. Trump made the wise choice to abandon the deal in May of 2018. While Biden criticized the decision and warned that “talk of a ‘better deal’ (was) an illusion,” it can only be said with certainty that the old deal wasn’t cutting it for the U.S. and its allies. While it would absolutely be unwise to risk a potential full-on armed conflict with Iran, the concern from Trump and his administration that the president-elect would repeat critical U.S. missteps in the Middle East is certainly justified. Biden has often defended Obama’s foreign policy record, including the Iran Deal and has stated his desires to reenter the agreement. He has also criticized Trump’s policies, which have not had any tangible downsides — such as moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem — though he wisely indicated he would not reverse the move. Biden himself was a signatory to the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act that required the U.S. move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In the last four years, the U.S. saw its regional allies strengthened, reconciled and cooperating with one another in Israel and Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. At the same time, its regional adversaries like ISIS incurred losses in their quests for domination. To halt this course of progress would be very unfortunate. In what was essentially a victory speech on the Friday after election night, Biden called for national unity and an end to hyperpartisanship. He also added that “the purpose of our politics … (is) to solve problems.” One way that the president-elect can stay true to his word is by simply not reversing policies or changing an effective strategy because it was implemented by the previous administration. Trump reversed course on much of the Obama-era foreign policy after significant evidence of its failure to bring positive developments and advance American interests; to have abandoned policies purely out of political spite would have been a shame. At the end of his term, it can certainly be said that for all his flaws in rhetoric and other areas of policy, Trump has largely been spot-on when it comes to the Middle East. If Biden truly wants to govern as “an American president” and bring an end to the rank partisanship that has grown within U.S. politics, he should chart a path forward that is based on an earnest look at the last few administrations’ successes and failures, not on the approval of his former boss. 7 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020 Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com The United States and polarization LYDIA STORELLA | COLUMN What if Al Gore had won? ALEX NOBEL | COLUMN On Iran and the Mideast, Biden should follow in Trump’s footsteps A s millions of Americans try and grapple with the fact that President Donald Trump will be a one-term president, it is important to note that this is not America’s first “disputed” election. In the 2000 presidential election, Democratic nominee former Vice President Al Gore and Republican nominee former Texas Gov. George W. Bush went head to head in one of the closest and most contested elections in recent American history. That election was much closer than the 2020 election and came down to 537 votes in Florida, where Bush’s younger brother, Jeb Bush, happened to be the governor. Due to the small margin, there was no winner declared on election night, and the country was forced to wait 36 days for the recount to be conducted. The election was eventually decided by the Supreme Court, which declared by an initial 7-2 ruling and then a 5-4 decision that the recount was unjust; in practice making George W. Bush the nation’s next commander in chief. But somewhere in an alternate universe, the recount was justified and Al Gore became the 43rd President of the United States. What effect would Gore — a man who centered his campaign around environmental protection — have had on the planet as president? To begin to answer this question, Bush’s environmental record must be put under a microscope. During his campaign, Bush promised to regulate carbon emissions from coal power plants, but like many of his campaign promises, he did not follow through with it. Just a few days into his first term, his administration announced that the United States would not enact the Kyoto Protocol. Signed two years earlier in 1998, the Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty, similar to the Paris Climate Agreement, which aimed to encourage countries to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. Under Bush, the U.S. ultimately did not join the treaty. A spokesman for the Sierra Club, Josh Dorner, explained the legacy of the Bush administration, saying, “The Bush administration has introduced this pervasive rot into the federal government which has undermined the rule of law, undermined science, undermined basic competence and rendered government agencies unable to do their most basic function even if they wanted to.” If that sounds familiar it’s because it is. Perhaps the most damaging environmental consequence of the Bush administration was its attack on science. Similar to the current administration, it ran a disinformation campaign and silenced scientists who spoke out about climate change. In 2004, James Hansen, a NASA scientist, publicly accused the Bush administration of censoring information about the rate the planet was warming. Following the accusation, the White House continued to ignore science and tried to go around the Environmental Protection Agency to get a regulation on car emissions overturned by doctoring a scientific study. It also began to deregulate many existing environmental protections and put an emphasis on dismantling the Endangered Species Act — which included special protections for many animals, including polar bears. So what would a President Gore have done differently? For starters, Gore would have joined the Kyoto Protocol, as he explained when he said Bush needed to “listen to those among his advisers who know that we need to have binding reductions in CO2.” While this would not solve everything, it was the absolute bare minimum. Additionally, Gore would not have rolled back environmental regulations in the same haphazard way as Bush did. Gore put environmental conservation front and center during his campaign and would have increased protections for water, air and wildlife. Gore even went so far as to say that environmental protection should become “the central organizing principle for civilization.” His attention toward the environment led almost every major environmentalist group to throw their support behind him. The Sierra Club, the U.S.’s most prominent environmental group, endorsed Gore, citing his record of improving air health standards, reducing car emissions, conserving America’s landscapes and decreasing the amount of time it took to clean up Superfund waste sites. Following his defeat, Gore focused on something bigger than himself. Since 2000, Gore made it his goal to increase awareness about climate change and do everything he can to remedy it. He has given thousands of presentations around the world about the dangers of inaction. In 2006, Gore released a documentary about climate change titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” which led to him later receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. That same year Gore started an organization called Climate Reality, which aimed to pressure politicians to support policies that protect the environment. While a Gore administration would not have solved even close to every climate or environmental related issue, it would certainly have been a big improvement over the administration we got. A major difference is that climate change would not have been as bipartisan as it is now. If Gore had acted on climate early, it would have focused the debate on how best to solve climate change, not whether or not it exists. This would have allowed politicians to actually act in a timely manner and face climate change head-on and protecting our environment. A Gore presidency would have had a tremendous butterfly effect on the state of our present-day nation and would have drastically changed the situation we are in. Alex Nobel can be reached at anobel@umich.edu. MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU NOAH ENTE | COLUMN Noah Ente can be reached at noahente@umich.edu. Design courtesy of Erin Shi I am worried about the state of our country. Cases of COVID- 19 continue to rise daily. Our president and much of the Republican Party continue their baseless claims of voter fraud. These are major issues, but the United States is also in trouble if it is unable to solve the problem of partisanship. In the last 40 years, Americans have become more politically polarized. Along with polarization is the rise of negative partisanship, the growing importance of negative emotions towards the other party in politics. Parties are increasingly held together by their hatred of the other party. Both parties are guilty of this: in 2019, 55% of Republicans called Democrats “immoral” while 75% of Democrats called Republicans “closed-minded.” Each of these percentages have increased since 2016. The messaging of the election shows negative partisanship as well. The “Settle for Biden” movement demonstrates how many on the left put aside reservations about President-elect Joe Biden to vote President Donald Trump out of office. While there was no formal equivalent on the right, many people who disliked Trump voted for him, often citing the Democrats as their reason for doing so. This rhetoric about the other party is dangerous for our country. If the two major political parties view each other with suspicion and hostility, it is impossible to have a dialogue about real issues that the United States face and for members of our government, especially elected officials, to find policy solutions to those problems. Both the left and the right contribute to negative partisanship by acting in ways that lead each side to be dismissive of the other. Each side wants to be respected and have their views heard; negative partisanship prevents this from happening. The left often resorts to calling Trump and his supporters racist, xenophobic, and uneducated to argue their side. This name-calling does nothing but serve to cause further separation between Democrats and Republicans. Why would conservatives have any reason to listen to what Democrats have to say after understanding how Democrats view them? People don’t like to be called bad names, and “racist,” “xenophobic” and “uneducated” are all clearly negative. The left’s tendency to call Trump supporters “uneducated” is one of the most concerning ways that it refers to Republicans. Liberals tend to dismiss those without a college degree solely because they do not have that degree. This is a brand of liberal elitism that often goes unnoticed because American social circles tend to contain people with similar education levels to our own. But Democrats need to understand they are not better than Republicans when they have a college degree. Only about 35% of Americans have a four- year degree. Democrats will not win voters by being patronizing; using talking points such as suggesting that most academics are Democrats, the most uneducated states vote red and saying that Republicans vote for policies that harm them does not do anything but make Republicans more suspicious of Democrats. On the other hand, the right engages in actions that make the left distrustful and angry towards Republicans. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Democrats angrily pointed out the hypocrisy of the nomination when McConnell refused to allow a vote on Judge Merrick Garland in 2016. Republican citizens rejoiced while Democrats anguished. Senate Republicans went back against what they said in 2016 about Garland and the Supreme Court to support the nomination. This type of behavior from the left and the right is not mutually exclusive. They feed into each other and allow each side to become more angry, leading to deeper divisions between each side. The elitism of the left breeds anger from the right that leads to blatant hypocrisy. As long as each side sees the other as the enemy, we will be unable to have a meaningful dialogue about our country. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how these divisions prevent us from not just disagreeing on legislation, such as a second stimulus package during a financial crisis, but having different opinions on facts themselves. The polarization of our country creates anger and prevents our government from being able to work together to solve problems all Americans face. We must work to get over our biases against the other side and realize we are all Americans, and while we have dramatically different opinions about policy, we share values of democracy, life and liberty. Whenever we catch ourselves making generalizations about any group of people, we need to hold ourselves accountable and remember that these thoughts stereotype groups of people and only cause further division between us. This is important to practice with marginalized communities, and it is important to practice with people with differing political views than our own. All Americans must work to overcome our preconceived notions about those we disagree with in order to prevent polarization from overtaking the country. If we follow the path we are on, the trends of disagreement over legislation as well as rights will continue and lead to a divided country whose government cannot work for the people and whose people are unable to see what unites us. Lydia Storella can be reached at storella@umich.edu.