Iran
This Deal Is No Deal
“The nuclear agreement is the best deal that Iran could have hoped for”
Subverting The Superpowers
Efraim Karsh’s book on the creation of the modern Middle East is timely but overstates his case
The Grand Illusion
‘It is tempting to pretend that the mayhem unleashed by the Arab Spring will somehow not affect us. It will. It already does’
The President Blinked — The Ayatollah Didn’t
Obama’s foreign policy has been defined by a failure to hold his ground against determined foes. The deal with Iran is his latest capitulation
Fait Pas Accompli
‘The gulf between Israel and the Obama administration will continue after Netanyahu’s re-election’
Unethical Tourism
‘It seems a little early for me to give my trust and travellers cheques to Iran, merely on the promise that the new leader smiles more than the last’
A Sham Deal
“The Obama White House has bought into Iran’s narrative that there is a convergence of interests over Islamic State in Syria and Iraq”
Not-So-Revolutionary Rouhani
Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, and his new administration want to save the Islamic Revolution, not reform it
The Rouhani Delusion
‘Thanks to sanctions, the West was winning the race against a nuclear Iran. There is a good chance now that Iran will be the victor’
No Deal
‘The United States and other powers appear resigned to conceding, in the final stage of a future agreement with Iran, that Tehran has a right to enrich uranium’
Tolerating the intolerant
“For those who thought that a global pandemic would sound the death knell for identity politics, think again”
How to prevent the next pandemic
‘I have been reporting as a science journalist for years that the world is at increasing risk of pandemics like this; that this was predicted; that we know what we need to do to prepare and we simply haven’t done it; and that more and worse pandemics are coming so we need to do that, now’
D’où parles-tu? The post-truth world
Power, illusion and the open society: how postmodernism undermines our foundational concepts