[Parts I and II.] For anyone who was alive at the time and old enough to pay attention to the news, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Revolution is the hostage … Continue reading →
[Part I of this series can be found here. Part III is here.] Shapour Bakhtiar took office as Prime Minister of Iran on Jan 6, 1979. He was appointed by the Shah in one of the latter’s final acts in … Continue reading →
One of my favorite verses from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (the Fitzgerald translation of the Persian original) is this: The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to … Continue reading →
France gives Iran quite the tonguelashing: Foreign Affairs Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy describes Iran’s refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program as “unsatisfactory”. “Unsatisfactory” is such a tepid way to describe what Iran is actually doing, which is to defy and … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I’m aware that the following information comes from Wikipedia, a somewhat suspect source at times. I can’t independently correborate or refute the information, and I’m wondering whether anyone else can find another more reliable source that can shed light … Continue reading →
It’s becoming more and more clear that Iran is the prime mover right now in the Middle East. As columnist Mark Steyn points out: …these territories [Gaza and Lebanon] are now in effect Iran’s land borders with the Zionist Entity. … Continue reading →
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the balance of power in the Middle East. But I do read, and I can think. And what I read lately has convinced me that, in the current Middle East … Continue reading →
At the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, antiwar-protesters who massed outside were beaten with bully clubs by Chicago police. The entire episode was covered heavily by the media. This fact was not lost on the students, who chanted loudly, “The … Continue reading →
My original post about the (now pretty much debunked) report of an Islamic dress code law for minorities quoted that report as stating that the clothing designations were to apply to Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians in Iran. That got me … Continue reading →
In the Atlantic article I discussed yesterday, a name on the first page caught my eye: Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the Iranian foreign minister at the time of the hostage crisis. Suddenly, although I hadn’t thought of him in decades, the memory … Continue reading →
This piece from the Atlantic Monthly Online, “The Desert One Debacle,” about the Carter administration’s attempt to rescue the embassy hostages in Iran in 1980, is a sobering read. I vaguely remember the incident–just one in a long line of … Continue reading →
Christopher Hitchens (previously no special friend of Israel’s) deconstructs Juan Cole’s Dowdification of Ahmadinejad’s threats to Israel in this Slate article (via Austin Bay) entitled “The Cole Report: when it comes to Iran, he distorts, you decide.” Hitchens’s contention is … Continue reading →