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Author Archives: Robert Huntington
Thoughts on Iran
[I began the following post several years ago when Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and never got around to finishing it. Given what’s happened in the past few days, I’ve decided to publish it now as is with a few remarks. As I said, Iran is a deeply divided country. It remains so. I called it a powder keg that could explode at any time. We set the match to it. We have not effected regime change (and are unlikely to do so without “boots on the ground”). What we have likely done is trigger a civil war between the regime and its opponents. Which side, alas, controls the military and the security apparatus and has most of the guns? Thousands more of those we support will die as they are branded traitors and many on the fence “rally around the flag.” This may have been inevitable but we needn’t have been the trigger.]
Back in December 2000, I spent about a week and a half in Tehran (covering the FIDE version of the world chess championship for AP). This was during the administration of President Khatami, a pro-Western reformer. I talked with a number of people and they were uniformly pro-Western and optimistic about the future.* I heard not a single anti-American word (unless you count one person’s puzzlement at how someone could “lose” the election and still be elected–“that’s not democratic, is it?”). They saw change on the horizon and a thawing of relations with the West. Of course it didn’t happen. Iran was (and is) a deeply divided country and the people I talked to were a small, unrepresentative sample (being mostly young and all English speaking except for one conversation in broken French).
In hindsight, it seems obvious that Khatami went as far toward accommodating the West as he could within the relatively closed nature of Iran’s political system (still more open than most in the West give it credit for), i.e., within Iran’s Overton window, only to be rebuffed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations for not going far enough. Since he had nothing to show for his efforts, he was naturally voted out in favor of the hardliner Ahmadinejad, who did nothing to heal Iran’s division. After a disputed election in 2009, the moderates regained the presidency with the election of Rouhani in 2013.
A look at Iran’s demographics reveals a ticking time bomb. Exactly the opposite problem from that faced by the advanced democracies, who have an aging, shrinking population. Iran has a booming, young population and Iran’s stagnant economy can’t absorb them all into the labor force. It’s a powder keg and if it goes off, the effects will not be confined within Iran’s borders. Supreme Leader is a nice title but Ayatollah Khamenei can’t feel very comfortable or very supreme contemplating all of this.
Under the circumstances, it seems likely that the main goal of “Obama’s nuclear deal” was simply to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It strengthened the moderates by giving them something (sanctions relief and presumably an improved economy) to show for their moderation at the expense of the hardliners. While not perfect, it seems to be the best deal attainable (i.e., that the hardliners couldn’t block).
With these considerations in mind, I have to ask: who in Iran benefits from Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and who in Iran is harmed? The answer seems obvious: the hardliners benefit at the expense of the moderates. The sanctions “only benefit the Revolutionary Guards.” The get to boast of their nationalistic patriotism and crow that they were right when they said that the West is not to be trusted.
* Of course, my sample was both small (maybe 12-15) and skewed towards those who spoke English and would engage an American in conversation. Almost all were under 30. I did not encounter any hardliners. I take my experience, not as a representative sample, but as perhaps representative of the pro-Khatami reformers. If nothing else, it proved the existence of those who genuinely wanted an opening to the West and were pro-Western in outlook.
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Billionaires’ low taxes a problem for economy
From the Wall Street Journal: “The risk is that the U.S. economy becomes increasingly dependent on a narrow group of very rich households, whose spending is tied to the performance of the stock market. This could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction. …
“Data from the Federal Reserve shows that only the richest 1% of households have grown their share of overall U.S. wealth since 1990. Their share hit a record 32% in the third quarter of 2025, equivalent to $54.8 trillion.
“Gains made by the billionaire class, the very top 0.1% of households and a subset of the 1%, have eclipsed the merely extremely rich. This group’s share of U.S. net wealth has risen nearly 6 percentage points to 14.4% since 1990.”
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Poem of the day
Dirge
by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)
Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now!
Even while with ours thy footsteps trod,
His seal was on thy brow.
Dust, to its narrow house beneath!
Soul, to its place on high!
They that have seen thy look in death
No more may fear to die.
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Poem of the day
Address to the Wood-Lark
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing fond complaining.
Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that wad touch her heart,
Wha kills me wi’ disdaining.
Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join’d
Sic notes o’ wae could wauken.
Thou tells o never-ending care;
O’ speechless grief, and dark despair;
For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
Or my poor heart is broken!
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Poem of the day
When I Have Fears
by John Keats (1795-1821)
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high pilèd books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
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Heartbreaking (a feature, not a bug, for the regime)
Hundreds of children are currently being held with their parents at an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. In letters and drawings, eight kids convey the pain of feeling trapped with no end in sight.
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Game of the week
A rare Fischer game not in ChessBase’s MegaBase.
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Monetizing the presidency
A recent trademark filing has some state lawmakers wondering if the Trump family is looking to profit off the renaming of the Palm Beach International Airport.
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Don’t tell RFK jr about this
Archaeologists in Turkey say they have uncovered evidence that the Romans used human feces in medical treatments, according to new research.
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