More in ‘Iran’

U.S. Destroys Iranian Force

Islamic Republic fails to put up much of a fight
By Marc Tracy | 4:00 PM Sep 1, 2010

With four players scoring double-digits (and with the Minnesota Timberwolves’s Kevin Love stepping up for 13 points and 6 rebounds in only 11 minutes), the United States national basketball team crushed Iran’s 88-51 in the preliminary round of the 2010 FIBA World Championships, in Turkey. 33 of Iran’s 51 points were scored by just two ...

Daybreak: After Hamas Attack, Massive Arrests

Plus ambition we can maybe believe in, and more in the news
By Marc Tracy | 9:12 AM Sep 1, 2010

• After Hamas claimed responsibility for killing four Israelis (and promised further attacks), the Palestinian Authority proceeded on one of its largest-ever arrestings. [Haaretz]
• Thomas Friedman predicts that extremist efforts to thwart peace, from Rabbi Yosef’s comments about Palestinians to yesterday’s attack, are only going to get worse. [NYT]
• U.S. envoy George Mitchell spoke cryptically ...

Middle East

Prolific

If Saudi Arabia gets the bomb, the rest of the Middle East is likely to go nuclear
By Lee Smith | 7:00 AM Aug 25, 2010

Saudi Arabia lacks Israel’s official stance of nuclear ambiguity, but its status is even more opaque. Indeed, though it has never acknowledged a nuclear program, the kingdom may already have a bomb.
With Iran’s seemingly inexorable march toward a nuclear weapon, it’s not difficult to see why the Saudis would want one of their own, to ...

Road to Damascus

How it could break the Palestinian impasse
By Marc Tracy | 10:00 AM Aug 24, 2010

Faced with peace-process pessimism, the proper response is: Well, okay, if talking isn’t likely to accomplish anything, what is? To which (if you ask me, anyway), the response is: Creating a regional context in which both Israel and the moderate Palestinian West Bank leadership feel safer about making real concessions. The chief way to do ...

Daybreak: Melting Point

Plus the Islamic center around the world, and more in the news
By Marc Tracy | 9:00 AM Aug 23, 2010

• President Abbas threatened to end the announced direct peace talks if the West Bank construction freeze is lifted, as it is currently scheduled to be in late September. [AP/LAT]
• Iran unveiled a new long-range unmanned bomber drone, which President Ahmadinejad called a potential “ambassador of death.” [NYT]
• Iran’s Russia-built Bushehr nuclear reactor will be ...

U.S. Buys Friends at Bargain Prices

Israel and Arab states share fear of Iran
By Marc Tracy | 10:00 AM Aug 17, 2010

In Newsweek, Tablet Magazine Mideast columnist Lee Smith argued that the United States is perfectly happy to sell sophisticated military equipment, like F-15 fighter planes, to Saudi Arabia—and Israel is perfectly happy to see the sale go through, provided the planes lack longer-range capability—because the name of the game in the region is increasingly the ...

World

Dangerous People

A recent book takes a detailed look at the A.Q. Khan network, which helped supply Iran’s nuclear program
By Robert Jervis | 7:00 AM Aug 17, 2010

From the beginning of the nuclear era we have focused on states and national leaders who decide whether to seek nuclear weapons. What is new and central to recent efforts to join the nuclear weapons club are the role of supplying companies, some witting, others acting with studious inadvertence, and still others duped by the ...

Daybreak: Direct Talks Coming, No Really

Plus Obama threatens Turkey, and more in the news
By Marc Tracy | 9:04 AM Aug 16, 2010

• Not that we haven’t heard this before, but President Abbas is expected to agree to direct talks, and direct talks to resume, sometime this week. [LAT]
• George Will again emphasizes that Prime Minister Netanyahu sees a nuclear Iran as simply unacceptable, period. [WP]
• President Obama reportedly warned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that ...

The Bogeyman of Iran

‘The New Yorker’ visits Tehran
By Mark Bergen | 2:00 PM Aug 13, 2010

In the lull of August, major media outlets are turning a watchful eye on Iran. Jeffrey Goldberg’s

Lebanon Doesn’t Need Our Steenkin’ Weapons

As border heats up, rebuke of U.S. funding block
By Marc Tracy | 4:00 PM Aug 11, 2010

Today, Tablet Magazine Mideast columnist Lee Smith explored the future of U.S. military aid to Lebanon, in light of last week’s border skirmish—provoked by the Lebanese Armed Forces—and now two prominent congresspersons’ blocking of a planned $100 million. Lebanon’s first response to this block was to call it “unwarranted,” but pretty soon—and particularly after Iran ...