“Iran, Iraq, Irate. What a world! It couldn’t be much stranger, could it? And by the way, what is it about the Middle East? Since the Gulf War of 1990-1991, it’s just never really ended, has it? Who cares that the region is halfway around the world from Washington, DC? Yes, the US fought Iraq there from 2003 to 2008. And recently, of course, President Donald Trump has gone after Iran. If you want to spread out just a bit more, you could toss in this country’s relatively brief war in Libya and its almost endless one this century in Afghanistan. And don’t blame me if I left something out. After all, I’m almost 82 years old and starting to forget a few things. I mean, Iran makes particular sense, right? After all, it’s a mere 6,000-odd miles from this country.” (07/11/26)
“In 2026, the world’s first trillionaire—following the recent stock debut of SpaceX—Elon Musk has remained one of the most influential figures in American politics. After campaigning for Donald Trump in 2024 and initially playing a leading role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has remained a constant presence in the headlines. One of his latest political clashes came with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) over the impact of DOGE’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Citing a 2025 Lancet study, Khanna argued the reductions were ‘potentially a death sentence for an estimated 4.5 million children around the world.’ … its projection of fourteen million additional deaths by 2030 assumes that other governments, NGOs, private charities, and international organizations would be unable to meaningfully fill the gap left by USAID. That distinction matters.” (07/10/26)
“The fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States has been broken once again. The United States has been bombing Iran, claiming that its attacks are in retaliation for Iran attacking three vessels near Straight of Hormuz, which it considers as violation of the Islamabad agreement, officially known as the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two nations. But it is in fact the United States that has been violating the MoU because its interpretation of Article 5 of the MoU is simply false.” (07/10/26)
“Moderation and centrism are not necessarily virtuous: A man should not be moderately honest or split the difference between virtue and vice. But in the realm of electoral politics—and, especially, in this time of populist demagoguery—bipartisanship and moderation have real practical value. We do not want our elected officials to be easily carried away by ideological enthusiasm and passion—especially in the Senate, which is meant to be a brake to the House’s accelerator. And because we have a big election every two years, the only sure path to creating a stable policy environment (and there are many cases in which an imperfect stable policy is preferable to an improved but unstable policy) is bipartisanship. Sen. Collins also provides a reminder that more than a few supposed conservatives in our time need: To be conservative is not the same thing as to be a right-wing revolutionist.” (07/10/26)
“Kudos to the State Department for putting the kibosh on city International Affairs Commissioner Ana María Archila’s bid to meet with Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, even as America and Iran are at war — but the affair poses a challenge to Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Does he have the grit to break with the openly anti-American factions of the Democratic Socialists of America? Mamdani’s tried to downplay the disgraceful episode, insisting Archila had no clearance to do such outreach, yet he’s not firing her or imposing any discipline. Nor even saying outright how very wrong she was. Which raises the question of whether he prefers the theocratic regime in Tehran to the United States government.” (07/11/26)
“A May 29 article in the IMF’s F&D Magazine argues in favor of using U.S. tariffs as a policy tool. It begins by questioning the argument for free trade, claiming that economists have based U.S. and global trade policy on theoretical models rather than empirical evidence: ‘Tariffs were not tried and found wanting but rejected by au courant economic models and left untried. Policymakers, scared of challenging the elite consensus derived from such models, closed off the universe of options and strategies to solve America’s challenges.’ However, in the U.S. there is an extensive history of trying to use tariffs strategically, especially in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.” (07/10/26)
“Are We Still at War? Yep. We’re back to where we were in early March; the U.S. is attacking targets in Iran, and Iran is attacking targets throughout the region, in Bahrain and Kuwait and Jordan, though those last ones were intercepted. Where international shipping was starting to revive, that now has ended, and I’d expect the reimposition of the blockade, following the U.S. revocation of Iran’s license to sell oil internationally. In retrospect, this was not a hard thing to predict. Donald Trump gets ornery when he doesn’t get his way, and there was no way to get his way in this war. Iran has asserted operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, with eventual fees inevitable, and it was only a matter of time before there would be tensions around that” (07/10/26)
