Young Daniel Luban is a fine writer. Here he is on Iran, on Jim Lobe's blog:
I do not personally know whether [Roger] Cohen considers Israel and the U.S.
to be an “existential threat” to Iran, but I would certainly hope he does, as it
appears to be a rather obvious and incontestable statement. In fact, if Iran’s
rulers do not perceive their regime to be existentially threatened by Israel and
the U.S. — two nuclear-armed and militarily dominant states that have in the
recent past demonstrated a preference for regime change in Iran and a
willingness to wage wars of aggression — then they are far more irrational than
even Bibi Netanyahu would give them credit for. To say this is not to take a
position on how the U.S and Israel should actually deal with Iran. Many
countries arguably face existential threats of one sort or another and to
recognize these threats is not to legitimate any particular demand they might
make, nor is it to deny that Israel (and the U.S.) face threats of their own to
which they have valid reasons to respond. Rather, it is simply to insist on a
basic respect for factual accuracy instead of slipping into vague insinuation
and content-free sanctimony.
There is also this knowing, devastating shot at the most important Jewish journalist in America, Jeffrey Goldberg:
Goldberg advances highly tendentious conclusions by invoking his experience
reporting from the Middle East, and attempts to delegitimize his opponents by
accusing them of simple ignorance of the mysterious ways of the Arabs (and now
Persians). Recall his now-famous line from
the runup to the Iraq war: “[War skeptics’] lack of experience causes them to
reach the naive conclusion that an invasion of Iraq will cause America to be
loathed in the Middle East, rather than respected.”
