Tag: Iran

  • Democracy, Bureaucracy and the Fear of Statisticians

    Often when I am trying to explain problems in the modern political landscape or my own approach to political philosophy, I will return to Max Weber’s account of bureaucracy as more efficient than private office. Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes about “efficiency” in bureaucracy, but Weber’s argument rested on the contrast between private and…

  • We have always been at war with Iran.

    The recent peaceful return of British soldiers to the contrary, (and so smartly dressed!) it appears we are currently involved with groups carrying out military operations in Iran: Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the…

  • The effects of withdrawal and Iranian covert operations

    Two recent “Intelligence Briefs” from PINR caught my eye: “Iran’s Covert Operations in Iraq,” and “The Implications of Strategic Withdrawal from Iraq.” As some readers know, I’m a big fan of PINR for supplying ‘open source intelligence,’ which is to say, generalized insights into foreign policy and educated guesses based on publicly available information. In…

  • Reading Tehran

    This CSM piece gives an excellent background on the British-Iranian conflict that lead to the capture of British soldiers last week. The big mystery is why Iran would give the UK/US a clear casus belli like this, when we’re so clearly itching for a fight. It’s not like they couldn’t guess what sort of reaction…

  • Life in Tehran

    Things look pretty normal in Iran these days. Check out this Flickr blog of quotidian shots of Persian life.

  • News in Review

    Silly of me to post without checking out the breaking Sunday stories. WaPo has the US planning airstrikes on Iran. If this was Martin Sheen’s White House, I’d know the story was coming while Stealth bombers flew towards their targets, and that Monday’s news wouldn’t be about planning the strikes, but about their effects. I…