The implicit wager here is that the United States can bear the economic pain for longer than Iran can. Doubtful.

This is a classic double bind and you are so focused on being right you fail to realize what you are arguing is not just bad policy, it’s also morally wrong. Either the blockade is bad policy because I am right and it adds marginal economic pressure on a country that already expected the face such disruptions to trade while creating new headaches for US allies… …or the blockade is bad policy because you are right and it leads to economic collapse and hyperinflation, which brings more misery and despair upon your fellow Iranians. Collapsing an economy is a completely unacceptable policy aim. It’s something the international community decided was beyond the pale 100 years ago. If that’s your aim, why stop at a blockade? Why not blow up every power plant or sterilize the agricultural fields or poison the water supply? I’m willing to grant that FDD has had a greater influence on US policy towards Iran over the last decade than any other think tank, but that is precisely why so much hardship has been brought upon ordinary Iranians and why the international community is dealing with the chaos of this stupid war. A slavish commitment to maximizing pressure and pain leads you to see value in any policy that might hurt Iran, even if it *obviously* hurts ordinary Iranians in ways that are unconscionable and immoral. You are in the wrong, even when you are right. Not sure there’s much honor in that.

After everything the Iranians inside the country and the diaspora have gone through in recent months and years, there is understandably a lot of consternation about the diplomacy now underway in Islamabad and what it means for the preservation of the Islamic Republic. The lesson of the last two decades is that ordinary Iranians cannot live the lives they deserve without a transformative change in U.S.-Iran relations. If such a change can be achieved today, without further destruction and loss of life, the opportunity must be seized. This is an imperative even if the leaders negotiating the deal, on both sides of the table, have often failed to uphold the decorum of their offices and lack clear mandates from their electorates. I firmly believe that Iran needs to experience fundamental political change. Ordinary Iranians have been failed by a political class unwilling or unable to ensure security, provide prosperity, deliver equality, and safeguard basic civil liberties. The political project of the Islamic Republic has failed. However, in the face of this failure, Iranians have been persistent in their political activism and social organization. They have pushed back against state repression and economic deprivation to preserve spaces for self-expression and innovation and community to a degree rarely seen in the Middle East. There are amazing things happening in Iran each day that speak to the resilience of ordinary people and their incredible capacity to imagine and realize better conditions for themselves and their communities. Each of the forty days of the war, we learned about a new person, or initiative, or place that represented the best of Iran and we also learned about how the war was threatening or destroying those sources of positivity: a schoolchild, an artist, a small business, a historic palace, a steel factory, a bridge, a medical institute etc. If the talks now taking place in Islamabad can remove just some of the obstacles that have slowed the progress of the Iranian people in creating a more just and prosperous society, than diplomacy deserves our support. Iranians cannot reasonably achieve their political aspirations if they are forced to live in a country traumatized and damaged by repeated wars. They will likewise struggle to pushback against authoritarian forces if their leaders remain completely unaccountable to the international community and especially the United States. Isolation breeds despotism. Insecurity breeds repression. Antagonism breeds paranoia. This is the lesson of 47 years. The kind of diplomatic agreement that is being discussed right now could profoundly shift Iran's trajectory in political and economic terms. This would have an inherently positive impact on Iranian society precisely because the social fabric of Iran, although worn and tattered by so many years of internal repression and external pressures, remains that of a country in which people remain able to imagine and pursue their personal fulfillment so long as they are provided just a modicum of stability, support, and freedom. Even in the difficult circumstances of the Islamic Republic people have managed to find dignity in their work and meaning in their social relations. But too few people are being provided such opportunities today. A diplomatic agreement that could improve economic welfare and reduce the isolation of the Iranian people is inherently worthy for it would mean more Iranians can access the stability, support, and space they need to lead fulfilling lives. There is no promise that the talks will succeed. But there is no shame in hoping. Hope has gotten us this far.

JD Vance: "I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise, we never indicated that was gonna be the case."

یک سوال: کیفی که دست این خانم است را افراد عادی هم که دستشان در دست رژیم نیست می‌توانند بخرند؟

Marco Rubio on Iran: The Strait of Hormuz can be open tomorrow if Iran stops threatening global shipping, which is an outrage and a violation of international law. For all these countries that care about international law, they should be doing something about it.

The unsettling reality is that with this president, Americans in wartime are in the unprecedented position of having to suspect that the enemy’s version of events is more likely to be true than our own. We have become Baghdad Bob.

@FT remains one of the few newspapers that has never echoed Iran International’s fabricated figure of 30k dead protesters. Its opening paragraph here uses “thousands”- not “tens of thousands”-of dead protesters. The reality is brutal and shocking enough. We must not erode trust by inflating the numbers. #IranWar‌

This horror is still happening and you won’t see a single headline about it in Western media today.