June 28, 2015

US

Dexter Filkins doesn’t understand why the US isn’t demanding more of Iran:

At the nuclear discussions now unfolding in Vienna, American and other Western diplomats are asking the Iranians to do many things. But perhaps most interesting is what they are not asking them to do: they are not asking the Iranians to curtail their sponsorship of Hezbollah, or to scale back their aid to Assad, or to release any of the American citizens held in their country’s prisons, including Jason Rezaian, a correspondent for the Washington Post.

Philip Gordon gives his take on next week’s crucial negotiations:

While critics—and op-ed writers in the comfort of their offices—can easily say what an agreement should contain, our negotiators have to find a way to deliver across the room from Iranian negotiators who are under as much pressure as they are—with their own domestic politics, redlines and hard-liners back home. What I do believe is that if we can get these remaining elements, the agreement will be in the national security interests of the United States. Critics of the Lausanne framework would consider even the agreement described here a “bad deal” and will call on Congress to reject it or the next president to repeal it. But while true that it could always be better—which is true, of course, for every diplomatic agreement ever reached—letting the perfect be the enemy of the good would be a historic mistake.

Israel

Retired British colonel Richard Kemp attacks the UN report on Gaza:

As a British officer who had more than his share of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, it pains me greatly to see words and actions from the United Nations that can only provoke further violence and loss of life. The United Nations Human Rights Council report on last summer’s conflict in Gaza, prepared by Judge Mary McGowan Davis, and published on Monday, will do just that.

Palestinian activist and commentator Bassem Eid presents the Palestinian case against BDS:

BDS spokespeople justify calling for boycotts that will result in increased economic hardships for the Palestinians by asserting that Palestinians are willing to suffer such deprivations in order to achieve their freedom. It goes without saying that they themselves live in comfortable circumstances elsewhere in the world and will not suffer any such hardship. It would seem, in fact, that the BDS movement in its determination to oppose Israel is prepared to fight to the last drop of Palestinian blood. As a Palestinian who actually lives in East Jerusalem and hopes to build a better life for his family and his community, this is the kind of “pro-Palestinian activism” we could well do without. For our own sake, we need to reconcile with our Israeli neighbors, not reject and revile them.

Middle East

Professor Robert Farley engages in a thought experiment and tries to imagine what the world would look like had America not invaded Iraq:

The enduring cost of the Iraq invasion comes in the form of the thousands of dead Americans, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. Technology shortfalls driven by the war will smooth out over time; the war didn’t cause the U.S. to “miss out” on any critical technological opportunities, instead simply delaying them. The biggest change likely comes in a reassertion of the traditional reticence of the American public towards foreign military intervention, a reticence that waned after the fall of the Soviet Union, but has again become a major factor in the making of American foreign policy.  And if this reticence limits America’s strategic flexibility to make horrifically tragic mistakes, then some good can come out of the Iraq War.

Mohamed Fahy, former head of Al Jazeera’s Egypt bureau, lashes out against the news network’s promotion of its extremist political agenda:

The network’s slogan “The Opinion and the Other Opinion” represents a mirage as the coverage fails to give voice to Qatar’s opposition, which calls for the right to protest and form political parties and labor unions. More than ever, the region needs independent voices and reporting to make sense of the forces of change and the possibilities for a better, more peaceful future. Al Jazeera had that potential. Sadly its leadership has instead manipulated the truth and has revealed itself as a mouthpiece for extremism.

Jewish World

Leon Wieseltier believes that although American Jews are thriving, American Jewishness is nowhere near where it should be:

Everybody, in sum, appropriates only what suits them, what tickles them, what affirms them, without any sense of obligation toward the totality of our resources, without any appetite for the work that would be required by a more comprehensive fidelity, without any sensation of responsibility for the legacies of Jews who are not like themselves. These ardent but truncated commitments amount to a new manner of sectarianism. The only Jewish thing that every American Jew knows about is politics.

Walter Laquer writes about anti-Semitism and Putin’s new vision for Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s steely nationalist rule has raised fears in the West of a return to Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia. But what many outsiders fail to understand is that the country is still in a period of ideological transition, with a new national idea gradually emerging from the Marxism-Leninism of old. Among the more noteworthy aspects of this new “Russian idea” is the explanation it provides for the upheavals of the 20th century and the country’s perceived current decline. Unfortunately, as is often the case with such overarching narratives, Jews play a disproportionately significant role.