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Roadblock In The Path To Freedom. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was among 289 House members last week who sadly, shamefully passed the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015, despite administration protests that the extensive vetting process already in place thoroughly meets national security needs regarding refugees.

The legislation focuses exclusively on refugees from Iraq and Syria, requiring the heads of Homeland Security, the FBI and national intelligence to sign off on each individual refugee, affirming he or she is not a threat — an impractical and largely meaningless obligation. It’s unlikely to clear the Senate, and the president has promised to veto it if it does.

A knee-jerk reaction to the attacks and threats against Paris and other nations (including the United States) over the past 10 days, the bill ignores the fact that the recent outrages have largely been committed by French and Belgian nationals and, in the case of Mali, Al Qaeda loyalists in Algeria and perhaps other African nations.

Individuals from those countries would need no more than a visitor visa to enter the United States, where any budding terrorist is free to purchase guns, thanks to the . In fact, more than 2,000 on the FBI watchlist have done exactly that over the past decade.

Instead, the bill seeks to put further roadblocks in the path to freedom of innocents running for their lives from Syria and Iraq and praying for a helping hand.

Even worse than the hysteria-fueled vote by Gabbard and colleagues was the posturing by presidential candidates. New Jersey Gov. should be allowed to come to the U.S. (and was widely criticized for it subsequently). Donald Trump falsely claimed Syrians “are pouring into our country” (the U.S. has accepted less than 2,000 over the last four years) and called for a mandatory registry for all Muslims, recalling for many Hitler’s mandatory registry for Jews and what that led to.

The bill seeks to put further roadblocks in the path to freedom of innocents running for their lives from Syria and Iraq and praying for a helping hand.

Would that Joseph Welch were alive today so that the Army chief counsel could rebuke Trump in the same way he leveled Sen. Joe McCarthy 65 years ago: “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Back in Congress, House Democrats have an alternative bill that would apply tougher scrutiny to all refugees, not just single out Iranians and Syrians. But no one has shown yet what, exactly, is lacking in our current process. Any person or family seeking refugee status must go through a stringent process of background checks, cross checks and interviews jointly administered by the United Nations and participating countries that typically takes 18 to 24 months.

Over the past four years, 23,000 Syrians have sought refugee status in the United States, and as noted above, fewer than 10 percent of that number made it through.

The bill is the worst sort of pandering to the plague of fear and panic sweeping the country and deserves a quick death. We hope at some point, Rep. Gabbard, an increasingly prominent and often thoughtful voice on foreign affairs and defense, will rethink her position.

Iran Draws Down. Lost in the glut of media coverage of the Paris attacks last week was the approved over the summer between Iran and the P5+1 group.

Remember the deal? Supported unanimously by Hawaii’s federal delegation (despite concerns raised by Reps. Mark Takai and Tulsi Gabbard), it was so vehemently opposed by Republicans in Congress that a group of 47 GOP Senators wrote a letter to Iranian religious leaders to undermine the deal as it was being negotiated. They claimed Iran would never follow the agreement and that it would make the world less safe.

As so often happens with the fear mongering over whatever is terrifying the far right at any given moment (Ebola, gay marriage, government death panels, you name it), the reality doesn’t match the hype. A report issued last week by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency shows Iran is, in fact, dismantling thousands of centrifuges at its two primary uranium enrichment sites, where material could have been created to form the core of an atomic bomb.

According to the report, about 4,500 centrifuges have been removed from their positions thus far, as Iran works toward reducing the overall number from 19,000 to 6,100.

Iran’s nuclear downsizing must continue before the sanctions that have crippled its economy for years are lifted.

about this development, which is probably a more positive comment on the accord’s value than anything we could say here. The relationships between them and Iran President Hassan Rouhan, who agreed to the deal, are “increasingly bitter, punctuated by public exchanges and growing signs of an anti-American backlash, including arrests,” the New York Times reported last week.

Nevertheless, Iran’s nuclear downsizing must continue before the sanctions that have crippled its economy for years are lifted. The political dynamics around that won’t get easier anytime soon for Rouhan: supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who endorsed the deal during its negotiation, is now playing the other side of the room, warning against U.S. infiltration of Iranian economics, politics and culture.

But Rouhan, so far, is grudgingly keeping his word. The centrifuge draw down comes on the heels of the IAEA receiving its first samples from an Iran nuclear facility and Iran meeting its deadline last month of coughing up key information on the history of its nuclear program. Positive steps in an agreement that, make no mistake about it, demands continuous monitoring and verification.

Regardless of conservative critics in Iran who think the deal goes too far and conservative critics in America who think it doesn’t go far enough, the accord is slowly, methodically making the world safer by preventing one of its most belligerent governments from attaining nuclear weaponry — a prospect that would have been as little as three months away, had the deal not gone through.

As Obama’s legacy continues to take shape, the Iran deal will be seen by historians not just as a political win for the president, but as a victory for diplomacy at a time when too many are seeing armed combat as the only way forward on other serious matters. U.S. leadership on the accord strengthened our global standing and enhanced relationships with key allies (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany) without loss of a single life.

Sun Tzu called subduing the enemy without fighting “the supreme art of war.” Diplomacy’s lesson is one we should keep in mind, as we ally with others around the world to take on matters equally complex and chillingly consequential.

Sand Island. The City and County of Honolulu charted modest progress last week with the opening of the first units at Hale Mauliola, its transitional housing facility on Sand Island.

By late Monday, the first 12 residents are expected to have moved in. That the site will likely house 90 people at any given time (as well as some of their pets) by the end of the year is a solid step forward among many others being taken in recent months by Honolulu and Hawaii officials.

But the development is nevertheless a year late. Transitional housing should have been in place before the city began enforcement of its controversial sit-lie bans in 2014; the lack of such spaces made those acts of “compassionate disruption” seem more callous and counterproductive, simply pushing homeless residents into other parts of the city.

If Honolulu expects to make significant headway in getting approximately 5,000 people off our streets, we need more projects like Sand Island, we need more public and private partners and we need all of them more quickly.

Reports on Honolulu businessman Duane Kurisu’s proposal to build a permanent homeless shelter on 13 acres along Nimitz Highway, not far from the Sand Island site or homeless service providers, is encouraging news along exactly those lines. Kurisu’s plan would provide housing for up to 200, and it’s already earned an enthusiastic endorsement from Gov. David Ige.

In an interview with Civil Beat, Kurisu, who grew up on the Big Island, recalled how people helped his family and others who found themselves in tough situations.

“Those of us who grew up in plantation towns probably would have faced the same situation as a number of these homeless families do — if it wasn’t for the benevolent plantation owners who provided housing, water, sewer, built schools and churches,” Kurisu said. “So that’s what I hope to do. That’s what my heart tells me — to replicate it for those who are less fortunate.”

Two hundred units here, 90 units there, a statewide homeless emergency declaration in place spurring further action — if we keep up the pace, this could start to look like a solution. Let’s get moving.