Kerry Files Formal Request to Visit Iran?
So say the Iranians. Of course, they’d probably say anything right now to try and get back just a little bit of the international legitimacy that the regime has been bleeding with each video of Iranian protesters being murdered in the streets. Still, ever since Josh Rogin first floated the rumor that Kerry was trying [...]
Obama and the Iranian protesters — mutuality of interests but not of spirit, Part Two
President Obama took a step in the right direction yesterday when he condemned “the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens” and called for “the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained.” However, Obama seemed to stop short of a more meaningful position when he expressed his “confidence that history will [...]
Death to the Dictator
The Iranian people are once again in what, at least to the outside world, seems just short of full-scale revolt. Some dramatic video out of Iran today, none more so than this violent four-minute clip showing a crowd of people cutting down three men that are being hanged in the street by some kind of [...]
Oil Follies - and a Gentle Suggestion
Today, Iran sent troops into Iraqi territory and seized one of Iraq’s oil wells.
This is nothing new; it evidently happens several times every year:
The field is about 500 metres (yards) from an Iranian border fort and about 1 kilometre from an Iraqi border fort, US Colonel Peter Newell said, adding that it falls on the [...]
Obama the Nixonian?
That’s the theme of Peter Beinart’s latest essay in Time:
The best precedent for all this is what Nixon did in the late Vietnam years. For roughly two decades, the U.S. had been trying to contain “communism” — another ominous, elastic noun that encompassed a multitude of movements and regimes. But Vietnam proved that this was [...]
The National Iranian American Council discovers the perils of bringing a lawsuit
The indispenable Eli Lake has an important story in the Washington Times about the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its leader Trita Parsi. Lake’s piece demonstrates that NIAC may well be lobbying for policies favorable to the Iranian government, in violation of federal law.
Lake’s evidence consists of emails that have [...]
