Latest Articles and Blog Posts

Who will write the Kurdish epic?

January 21, 2012  •  The Kurdistan Tribune

In one of his last acts as prime minister, Barham Salih symbolically launched the Aras Publishing House's book fair in Erbil. The event featured important Kurdish classics, translations of Western works, as well as children's books. Book fairs are important. Despite the claims of its ruling family, Iraqi Kurdistan's greatest achievement is neither democracy nor economic development—these are too marred by corruption and mismanagement—but rather solidifying a safe place for the expression of Kurdish culture.

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Dire Straits Iran's navy plays a dangerous game

January 16, 2012  •  The Weekly Standard

Tension between Iran and the United States flared on December 28, 2011, when Habibollah Sayyari, commander of Iran's navy, threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the 34-mile-wide passage through which more than one-third of the world's oil tanker traffic travels. His televised statement that "closing the Strait of Hormuz is very easy for Iranian naval forces .  .  . easier than drinking a glass of water" came against the backdrop of naval war games, the third major Iranian naval demonstration in recent years. The Iranian military ended its exercise five days later with a barrage of missile tests signaling the peril facing warships and tankers alike.

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Answering Jeffrey Goldberg on Iran

January 11, 2012 at 11:50 am

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg​ raises a number of questions regarding the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, but also makes a number of assumptions which may not be warranted. First, his questions:

1) Why aren't the Iranians attempting to kill Israeli defense officials? The answer, I believe, has more to do with Iranian technical limitations… Perhaps one [other] thing holding back Iran, though, is fear that attacks on Israeli officials…would prompt an immediate Israeli strike on Natanz, before the regime is able to move its centrifuges to its underground facility at Fordow.

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Iran Puts a Weak America in Its Sights, With Big Plans for the Future

January 10, 2012  •  Fox News

Addressing pilgrims on November 5, 2011, just over two weeks after President Obama announced U.S. troops would withdrawal from Iraq, Iran's Supreme Leader cited American "failures" in Iraq and Afghanistan as proof that, "Today, the West, the United States and Zionism are weaker than ever before."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went further, declaring the American retreat was not enough. "So long as the American empire based in the White House has not been overthrown, we have work to do," he thundered.

In the weeks since, the Islamic Republic has ratcheted up both its rhetoric and its defiance.

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Parliament should question KRG silence in the face of Turkey's weapons purchases

January 8, 2012  •  The Kurdistan Tribune

On July 25, 2009, more than two million Kurds went to the polls and, fed up with corruption, nepotism, and the ruling families' abuse of power, delivered the establishment parties a stunning rebuke. The Gorran list, led by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani's former deputy Nawshirwan Mustafa, won a stunning victory in Sulaymani and would have made greater inroads into Erbil and Duhok had it not been for Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) fraud.

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Books by Michael Rubin