Last week, the Council on Foreign Relations invited me to a roundtable discussion it will be hosting Tuesday with the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, who will be in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. As a longtime member of the council, I wrote back to decline the

Dear J, If the proper study of mankind begins with man, as the poet Alexander Pope once put it, then it seems reasonable that the proper study of Israel should begin with the Jew. This, by way of permitting myself to stand in as that Jew and start with a

Thirty-four years after the massacre of political prisoners in Iran, the conviction of Hamid Noury in Sweden has been a victory for accountability and for the truth. I. The tale of the dead In January 2023, the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm, Sweden, began hearing the appeal of an

Don’t be fooled that this is meaningful reform. It’s about regime self-preservation. Last week, Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri announced that the Guidance Patrol, widely known as the Morality Police because it enforces the Islamic Republic’s laws on personal behavior and dress, will be suspended. Though Montazeri quickly added

The goal is liberty. The United States should be able to see that. If, at this very moment, George Washington could choose the most rightful heirs to his legacy, I like to think he would pick the people of Ukraine and Iran. As divided as Americans currently are in their

For Iran’s protesters, the fight for women’s freedom of choice is now synonymous with a desire to end the rule of the ayatollahs.