Iran

Near the top of President Biden’s to-do list for the past few months has been to keep gas prices down. On Wednesday, this was dealt a likely fatal blow by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, which, led by Saudi Arabia, agreed to cut its overall production by two million barrels per day. In actuality, the cut will mean a reduction of more like one million barrels per day if it's taken into account that OPEC has been underproducing compared to its previously stated production goals. Still, this is a significant cut, and the effects on oil markets are already being felt.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is reeling. Its 43-year-old patriarchal system of bearded clerics is witnessing its biggest nationwide demonstrations in years. Iranians of all classes, regions, and professions are pouring into the streets. All this in the heart of the world’s only theocracy, where voicing any discontent can land you a bloody face and a hefty prison sentence. The protests, which will enter their second full week on Friday, were sparked by a particularly gruesome crime by the Iranian authorities against a young woman named Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police in Tehran for supposedly dressing immodestly.

Iran has been transfixed by two deaths: one that didn’t happen and one that shouldn’t have happened. Last week, rumors swept Tehran that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had died. Subsequent reporting revealed he may have been gravely ill. He has since made two public appearances, but his health scare was a reminder that the Islamic Republic’s most powerful man has no designated successor. When the old donkey dies, Iran’s factious elite will have to fight it out as to who will take his place. This week, protesters all over Iran gathered to denounce the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a young woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality patrols after being picked up for a loose headscarf.

In the late 1990s, author Neal Pollack developed an alter-ego character, "The Greatest Living American Writer," for the McSweeneys website, to satirize a generation of pretentious authors, particularly Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, as well as macho literary journalists. That character formed the basis of Pollack's first book, the cult classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature. The GLAW has since appeared in numerous other publications,  left- and right-wing and completely apolitical, surfacing and de-surfacing as the times demand. Now he's back in The Spectator World, until we get tired of him.  I have been the Greatest Living American Writer across eight decades of world literature and have seen many shocking acts of violence.

A mere four years after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the international agreement that had constrained Iran’s nuclear program, Iran is closer to building a nuclear weapon than ever before. Both the Trump administration’s pressure and the Biden administration’s diplomatic campaigns have failed to yield Iran’s capitulation, yet still the United States has not changed tack. Instead, it has only raised fears of a cataclysmic clash in the Middle East. To be sure, while the Trump team’s maximum pressure strategy had great success in “crushing” Iran’s economy, it was far less effective in achieving any of its stated objectives.

It took Barack Obama less than three months to fly to the Middle East for a visit, landing in Iraq to visit the tens of thousands of US troops stationed there at the time. Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president was to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also three months into his tenure), where he basked in the limelight, watched in awe as his face was plastered on buildings in Riyadh, and hovered over a glowing orb with King Salman. Now, eighteen months into his presidency, Joe Biden will be spending a few days this week in the region, making stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

There is an age-old dogma in the US foreign policy establishment: when America pulls back, chaos ensues. Like an anti-inflammatory that keeps arthritis under control, Washington’s presence in this or that region keeps enemies cowed, partners reassured, and the barbarians at the gates. Of course, just because an argument is popular doesn’t mean it’s accurate. There are several problems with the “America must be everywhere, at all times” line of thinking, the most poignant of which is that it turns the US military into an agency of global rent-a-cops.

Several sources in the negotiating team in Vienna tell Cockburn we can expect a "new Iran deal" between the Biden administration and the mullahs as early as Thursday morning. For the last few months, Iran has been behaving stubbornly in negotiations, refusing to back down from its “red lines,” including lifting sanctions on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Instead, it's kept to the original timeline on the Iran deal, which would allow it to test ballistic missiles next year and remove all restrictions by 2030. Now, Iran’s resolve seems to have paid off. Sanctions: Cockburn's sources say the Biden team is set to waive virtually all sanctions on Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has revealed what members of his country’s national security elite have been chatting about behind closed doors for quite a while. “The United States has been, and will always be our best friend,” the Israeli PM said in a speech delivered before the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University. Then came the big “but”: “Washington has its own set of interests, which we must honestly admit do not always overlap with ours.” “We are speaking honestly and understand one another,” Bennett elaborated. America’s “interest in the region is dwindling. The United States is currently focused on the Russian-Ukrainian border and it is in a strategic conflict with China.