Intro to the Middle East

BY YORAM ETTINGER, ISRAEL HAYOM— In the pursuit of peace, alliances and interests, Western policy-makers have tended to sacrifice the perplexing realities of the Middle East on the altar of oversimplification and wishful-thinking. Yet their attempts to implement unsubstantiated policies often have served to inflame rather than extinguish regional fires. Lebanese-born professor Fouad Ajami, the…

Constraining Iran in the Straight

BY ILAN BERMAN, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE— The past two weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in Iran’s war of words with the West. Last Wednesday, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, that new economic pressure currently being contemplated by the West would come at a steep cost. According to Rahimi,…