Yakov M. Rabkin writes: During a sabbatical I spent in West Jerusalem in the late 1980s, my 7-year-old daughter was enrolled in an Israeli school. One day, she came home and could not find her tricycle anywhere. “Arabs must have stolen it,” she said. We later found the tricycle behind the building, but her immediate assumption gave me pause. Just a few months in, an Israeli school had already planted seeds of anti-Arab prejudice in her young mind. In response,…
Science reports: There’s a lot more than just raw materials within the medicines in your bathroom cabinet or the watch on your wrist. These objects are also packed with knowledge, which is why they can only be produced by complex economies with the right mix of know-how, infrastructure, and technology. A new analysis of Roman gravestones, presented at the NetSci conference in Maastricht, Netherlands, on 4 June, suggests this kind of knowledge tends to stick in place—even over thousands of…
James M. Acton writes: Speaking on Sunday morning, Vice President JD Vance stated that the Saturday U.S. air strikes on Iran had “set their nuclear program back substantially.” His comments came soon after President Donald Trump said that the operation had “completely obliterated” key nuclear facilities in the country. Satellite images of bombed buildings and cratered mountainsides certainly give credence to these claims. But these statements from Vance and Trump are far too confident. In reality, Iran can likely reconstitute…
Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: To many outside the Middle East, the American and Israeli war with Iran reads like a linear narrative: the two allies’ formidable militaries and intelligence agencies arrayed against their adversary, poised to prevail, on the cusp of indisputable, decisive triumph. The fight and its expected outcome are viewed through the prism of familiar antecedents: Hitler’s Germany overwhelmed, defeated, willing to acquiesce to the victor’s demands; Japan following suit. When proponents of this war speak…
You will find more infographics at Statista The New York Times reports: President Trump declared a “spectacular military success,” saying that American bombs had knocked out key pillars of Iran’s nuclear program. Even if he is right, the operation may not have delivered a death blow to a program that is deeply embedded in Iran’s history, culture, sense of security, and national identity. Since Iran first embarked on an ambitious civilian nuclear program in 1974 under the shah, Mohammed Reza…
NBC News reports: As the United States faces possible retaliatory attacks from Iran, a “brain drain” in top Justice Department and FBI national security and counterterrorism units could reduce their ability to prevent potential terror and cyberattacks from Tehran, according to six former senior DOJ and FBI officials. Staff levels in the DOJ National Security Division’s Law and Policy section have dropped by as much as two-thirds, two former DOJ officials said. Its counterintelligence and export control section — which…
Time reports: She wasn’t elected and she doesn’t cast votes. But over the past week, Elizabeth MacDonough, the quietly powerful Senate parliamentarian, may have had more influence over Donald Trump’s legislative agenda than anyone else in Washington. After meeting with Republicans and Democrats behind closed doors, MacDonough in recent days has significantly shrunk the size of the President’s sweeping tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by striking several measures that violated an arcane, decades-old Senate rule known…
Helen Lewis writes: Last week, something happened that is extremely rare in Washington, D.C., but completely normal outside of it: People openly described an octogenarian as frail and overdue for retirement. The subject of discussion was Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting congressional delegate, who turned 88 on Friday. Recently, several D.C. figures have questioned her ability to serve. Beverly Perry, a senior adviser to Mayor Muriel Bowser, went on the record to say that it was “hard”…
Live Science reports: After decades of preparation, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images to the world in a live stream on Monday (June 23). The photos, taken by the world’s largest digital camera, are highly-detailed and show relatively large areas of the sky. In a televised news conference, scientists from the observatory revealed new details about the images that far surpass the “sneak peek” images released earlier in the day. In fact, an awe-inspiring spiral galaxy…
Isaac Chotiner interviewed James M. Acton, the chair and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: One point that opponents of the Obama deal have made is that Iran could have been using hidden sites to enrich uranium beyond what was allowed. But you have argued that that isn’t actually a case for military action. Why? One of the big challenges with all I.A.E.A. [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspections everywhere is, Does the I.A.E.A….
Seyed Hossein Mousavian writes: On Sunday, US President Donald Trump publicly announced: “The US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Following the attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the use of force by the United States against Iran today is…
Middle East Eye reports: There had been growing speculation in recent days that further and larger strikes would hit Iranian nuclear facilities – especially Fordow, which is buried deep underground. However, military experts had said only US bunker-busting bombs could destroy the facility, and that Israel doesn’t have that capability. As a result, many Iranians were worried an American attack might be coming soon. Milad, 35, was one of them. He lives in the northwestern city of Mashhad, 900km from…
HuffPost reports: A provision in the GOP’s tax-and-spending bill that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to sue the Trump administration for breaking laws is on track to be stripped from the bill after the Senate parliamentarian said it violates the chamber’s rules. This provision, which is in Senate Republicans’ version of the One Big Beautiful Act, would require anyone seeking an emergency court order ― that is, a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction ― against the…
The New York Times reports: Mahmoud Khalil sat in a Manhattan apartment dotted with posters and signs calling for his freedom and described the moment 105 days before when plainclothes immigration agents had handcuffed him in the building lobby. “All the ‘Know Your Rights’ information and fliers I read and familiarized myself with were useless,” Mr. Khalil said. “There are no rights in such situations.” “It felt like kidnapping,” he said. Mr. Khalil, a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate and U.S….