May 22, 2015 4 min read

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad as compiled by the Associated Press:

It never made sense for the Pentagon to offer surplus materiel such as grenade launchers and mine-resistant armored personnel carriers to local law enforcement agencies. The practice helped increase the militarization of the nation’s police, leading to such jarring images as assault-gun-toting officers in full body armor arriving in armored vehicles to confront demonstrators during the Ferguson, Mo., protests last year.

So we were heartened by President Obama’s announcement Monday that the federal government will remove some of the more extreme tools of war from the list of free items, including tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft, grenade launchers and bayonets. We take heart as well in the president’s reported desire to find a way to retrieve now off-limits items already in the hands of local police.

As we’ve said before, there is no legitimate reason for law enforcement agencies not to revisit and revise protocols and training that guide how officers engage with their communities. And they should be open about their methods and results, so the public can measure the actions of its protectors.

The 2014 midterm elections will be remembered for creating a new balance of power in Washington, D.C.

But they also will be remembered as a new benchmark on America’s continuing slide in voter participation. About 36 percent of the nation’s registered voters turned out the worst showing since World War II.

Without a presidential race, midterm elections have traditionally had lower turnout, but with so much at stake, having just a little more than a third of registered adults vote is discouraging.

Many would argue that is because the core problem is voter engagement, and there seems to be a host of reasons that Americans have tuned out to the political process from growing distrust of institutions to an overall decline in civic literacy and responsibility.

But the one thing that has dramatically increased as turnout has dramatically declined is negative advertising. Despite mounting evidence that all the mean-spirited attacks just turn off voters, court decisions have opened up the floodgates to even more of it.

The foundation of democracy is robust participation by an informed public. Otherwise, the power gradually flows into the hands of a few.

There was trepidation surrounding last week’s summit between the United States and its partners in the Persian Gulf – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Despite long-standing relationships, there is considerable nervousness stemming from the progress of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West. Fortunately, however, hope prevailed over fear.

An internationally accepted agreement to cap Tehran’s nuclear ambitions will signal Iran’s legitimation in regional politics. The lifting of economic sanctions – even if only partially at the outset – will provide Iran with resources to underwrite more ambitious diplomacy. The Gulf states, whose governments are Sunni, worry that Iran, a Shiite state, will advance its own model of Islam and deepen sectarian divides throughout the Middle East.

While Iran hung over the meeting, other topics were on the agenda. Obama and his Gulf counterparts also pledged to back the moderate opposition in the Syrian civil war, to back the unsteady truce in Yemen, to rein in support for the groups fighting Shiites throughout the region, and work for a two-state solution in Israel. Indeed, the Gulf states’ approach to Iran is a marked contrast with that of Tel Aviv, whose opposition to any deal seems to harden daily. If the Gulf states prove to be more accommodating of U.S. foreign policy objectives than Israel, then that could be a geopolitical shift that rivals the return of Iran to regional politics.