Ghoshworld

Where’s the cavalry? (Photo: Al Jazeera English, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons) It takes a certain audacity to sign a mutual-defense treaty on a morning when one of the signatories is already under fire.

Ozel is in the center of the front row; Imamoglu is to his right, in glasses. (Photo: Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) In the summer of 1996, I was an editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, and the copy arriving from our bureau in Jakarta read like a political obituary of Megawati Sukarnoputri.

The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Long before the first American bomb fell on Iran this February, the US military had already fought this war dozens of times — on paper, in classified exercises, in rooms full of officers pushing markers around a map. It kept losing.

Who’s the lapdog now? (Image: The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) Donald Trump says he has his deal. On Sunday the President pronounced the agreement with Iran “complete,” ordered the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz lifted, and set a signing for Friday — by his own hand or Vice President JD Vance’s.

Redlinux, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Every child who has handled a Chinese finger trap learns its single lesson within seconds. Slide two fingers into the woven tube, pull, and the weave cinches down. Pull harder and it grips harder. Panic, thrash, yank with everything you have, and you are more thoroughly caught than when you began. The way out is the one move that feels like giving up: push your fingers toward each other, let the bamboo go slack, and slip free.

Photo by Max Letek on Unsplash On Sunday evening, with Iranian missiles still arcing toward northern Israel, Donald Trump picked up the phone to the Financial Times to explain who was in charge. Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, would have to accept whatever bargain Washington struck with Tehran, because “I call the shots. I call all the shots.

Photo: Nyitott Könyvműhely Kiadó, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons On the opening page of “Persepolis,” a round-faced 10-year-old sits in a black headscarf she has just been ordered to wear, arms folded, glaring out of the panel. The year is 1980, and Iran’s new rulers have decreed that girls must cover their hair at school. The scowling child is Marjane Satrapi, and the book is her own account of growing up as the revolution remade the country around her.

Mojtaba Khamenei won’t be so easy to please. (Photo: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) In March, Donald Trump was dismissive about the man about to inherit Iran’s supreme leadership. Mojtaba Khamenei, the President told Axios, was “a lightweight.” When Mojtaba was elevated regardless, Trump declared the new leader was unlikely to last long.

Israel’s renewed military campaign in Lebanon endangers chances of a US-Iran deal. It’s a bad idea on its own. Roded Shlomo, Pikiwiki Israel, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons Benjamin Netanyahu rarely stops a war to give a history lesson, so it was worth listening when he did. Hailing the capture of Beaufort Castle at the weekend, the prime minister reached back 44 years, to the night in June 1982 when Israeli soldiers first stormed the Crusader fortress above the Litani River.

Confounding skeptics (including this writer), Pakistan’s army chief has made himself the indispensable interlocutor between Washington and Tehran. Munir of the moment. (Photo: Inter Services Public Relations Pakistan, via Wikimedia Commons) In this space in late March, I argued that Pakistan could only play the messenger — but not the mediator — in peace negotiations in the war between the United States and Iran.