The decision by Iran’s Guardian Council to bar the long-time Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from participating in its June 14th presidential election prompts two thoughts about the Islamic Republic. First, despite fanciful notions by some top U.S. officials, Iran is no democracy. Second, despite equally fanciful notions by some U.S. “experts,” Rafsanjani is no …
In his 2010 book, The Strong Horse, Lee Smith counseled that, in the Middle East, what matters in shaping the loyalty of the masses is which “strong horse” – whether a person or a country – can impose its will on others. The title refers to the celebratory remark by Osama bin Laden after the …
Israel’s military strikes in Syria leave the interested observer with admiration over Jerusalem’s steadfastness, disgust over Washington’s continued dithering, and worry over the long-term global implications. To be sure, Syria is both a humanitarian horror and a geopolitical mess and, at this point, no one’s got a clean, easy, fool-proof way to stop the slaughter …
The “blame America first” crowd that Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called out in her speech to the 1984 Republican National Convention, lifts its collective head at opportune moments. When death and destruction rain down on America, this odd mix of hard-left, hard-right and hard-middle critics and cranks don’t blame …
Continue reading “After Boston, A Predictable Wave Of America-Bashing”
If you monitor United Nations proceedings, listen to political debates on college campuses, and take in much mainstream and new media, you might think that Israel is the world’s greatest human rights abuser. The reality is quite different, as this week’s release of the U.S. State Department’s latest annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices …
Continue reading “No, Israel’s not the world’s big human rights problem”
Western thinking about freedom and democracy is marked by a set of optimistic assertions, which include the following: First, the global advance of freedom and democracy marches ever-onward. Second, economic and political freedoms in a particular nation walk hand in hand, each reinforcing the other. Third, the more a society (particularly its middle class) enjoys …
Continue reading “Stakes Too High To Ignore Democracy’s Retreat”
Fresh off the failure of Almaty, where global negotiators again received nothing for their slavish effort to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear pursuit, Western diplomats insisted that talks would continue. “There is enough substance for these negotiations to continue,” a Western diplomat told Reuters this week. “I would not expect a breakdown.” Why? Because …