Iran-related Parries
July 2008
Suddenly Seymour
Time was, Seymour Hersh’s dispatches were a cause for minor celebration. They were full- and deep-throated journalistic tours de force, possible changers of paradigms. But his latest, “Preparing the Battlefield” on funding covert ops in Iran, leaves too many clues that reveal precisely where he’s coming from.
June 2008
Another End of Times
With the recent reported training exercises over Crete, perhaps Israel’s strike on the Iranian regime’s machinery of genocide has already begun.
May 2007
Notes and Chords on the Levant Right Now
Palestinian Arabs, quasi-sovereign for the first time, are descending into civil war in Gaza. Lebanon, acting militarily for the first time, is going after al-Qaeda cells within its Palestinian camps. And Israel is undergoing political convulsions, hammering out a new political system it seems. And all these developments among the neighbors are in play each with the other.
April 2007
Franklin or Jonah?
In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin one of the major lessons the author wishes to impart is that when proposing new initiatives it’s best to stay in the background because people are jealous and are far more likely to enthusiastically come aboard a new project if it seems to come from themselves or from the ether. But should Israel be applying this wisdom to the case of denuking Iran?
Now the Sailors are Safe, Pursue the Matter
Even though the British government did a great job in getting the kidnapped soldiers back, that is the first step, not the last. Such piracy must cost dearly in order to discourage the Iranians (or anyone else) from doing anything like it again.
British Press on Pending Hostage Release
“Extraordinary scenes as Iran frees sailors”— The Telegraph. “Iran releases 15 as ‘gift’ to Britain”— The Times. Strangely, it’s the left-wing papers who seem less naive and and demonstrate understanding that it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. “Iran announces release of British sailors”— The Independent; and “Iran to release sailors tomorrow”— The Guardian.
Iran-related Photos
No Latmag on Iran
And on the Trail
Fri 20 Apr ’12
Josef Joffe, editor of Hamburg’s Die Zeit, analyses Günter Grass’s What Must Be Said.
Tue 6 Mar ’12
Jeffrey Goldberg interviews a very articulate, reasonable-sounding President Barack Obama prior to Netanyahu’s visit.
Sun 4 Mar ’12
Photographer Paul Conroy makes his escape from Homs through a sewer.
Fri 2 Mar ’12
Ensuring that Iran does not go nuclear is the best guarantee for long-term regional stability. Amos Yadlin, one of eight Israeli fighter pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, debunks some conventional wisdom on attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Tue 21 Feb ’12
Sun 19 Feb ’12
Revenge of the Sunnis: What the Arab Spring is really about. By Edward Luttwak. In Foreign Policy.
Thu 19 Jan ’12
Mark Helprin sums it up on attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Unusually, he cogently summarizes the reasons Iran wants the bomb.
Mon 5 Dec ’11
Rashid Khalidi speaks at length to Haaretz. Agree or not, it’s required reading.
Wed 21 Sep ’11
Masterful summation by Herb Keinon of the significance of Obama’s speech to the UN on voting for a Palestinian state.
Thu 25 Aug ’11
Despite Libya, what matters now is Syria, namely defeating Iran there.
Sun 16 Jan ’11
Sat 2 Oct ’10
Constantly two generations ahead: Stuxnet confounds and amazes.
Thu 26 Aug ’10
Michael J Totten and Jonathan Spyer talk Middle East.
Tue 24 Aug ’10
The Persians’ problem: Iran or Islam?
Mon 28 Jun ’10
Fri 4 Jun ’10
Krauthammer on those troublesome Jews; Kristol in praise of blockades.
Fri 14 May ’10
Walter Russell Mead is sanguine about long-term prospects after a visit to Israel.
Tue 13 Apr ’10
Mon 29 Mar ’10
Israel-Iran war games at the Saban Center. Game simulation — such a powerful way to think.
Thu 4 Mar ’10
JCPA: The Iranian regime will indeed collapse? within the decade.
Sun 24 Jan ’10
Fine interview (discount the interviewer) with wise elder statesman Gary Sick on Iran.
Fri 22 Jan ’10
On moving forward smartly on Iran. Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic (be like Reagan). James K. Glassman in The Wall Street Journal (a serious plan). And the participants in a Harvard Kennedy School diplomacy wargame with Iran talk to Charlie Rose: Gary Sick, Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns and Ehud Eiran.
Mon 18 Jan ’10
George Mitchell with Charlie Rose for 52 whole minutes on the current Israeli-Palestinian situation. Great man… A few days later Elliott Abrams responds.
Thu 15 Oct ’09
It’s madness but persuasive: Why Russia is Not Afraid of an Iranian Bomb by Boris Morozov.
Thu 27 Aug ’09
If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the Middle East, it is now, under Obama. By Michael Young, opinion editor, Lebanon’s Daily Star.
Tue 25 Aug ’09
Iranian missile technology is developing impressively, Dore Gold’s Jerusalem Center reports.
Fri 10 Jul ’09
Iranians are back on the streets, reports The New York Times.
Sun 5 Jul ’09
Peter Berokowitz outlines the likely repercussions of an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nothing too earth-shattering actually.
Sun 21 Jun ’09
David Brooks writes the first beautiful prose on the Iranian protests — see paragraphs 3 and 4. And it stays lyrical as well as wise. Brooks’s best ever?
I have to say, Tom Friedman’s column on Iran sounds like a presidential speech.
Tirade against Britain by Iran’s foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki. The mid-sized Satan?
Sat 20 Jun ’09
Withering observations on Obama’s lukewarm reaction to events in Iran by William Kristol (Obama as “resolutely irresolute”) and Fred Barnes (rejecting Obama’s “false choices” meme).
“Unless Mousavi withdraws and leads his followers in a renewed quietist retreat,” writes Reuel Marc Gerecht, “the Islamic revolution, which shook the Muslim world 30 years ago, will now become either a real laboratory of democracy or a crude and violent dictatorship that might rival the Baathist regimes of Iraq and Syria in its savagery. Either outcome would be momentous.”
Wed 17 Jun ’09
Spengler provides the first interesting look at the Iranian presidential election, arguing that the ayatollahs must appear militant to fend off their main true threat: not Israel, not the US, not the Saudis, but the Sunni Taliban in Pakistan.
Sat 13 Jun ’09
John Bolton lists Iran’s likely responses to an Israeli attack. Plus: he says “quantum of solace”!
Sun 31 May ’09
Joe Lieberman points out the unprecedented convergence of concerns about Iran among Arabs and Israelis alike — and that some of the strongest alliances in history have been forged among old antagonists when confronted by a new, common threat.
Tue 28 Apr ’09
Interview with Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new Foreign Minister.