March 2022
How Iran Thinks
With a new nuclear deal on the way, attention is again turning to Iran. Four recent books, plus the deal itself, suggest that America and Europe are blind to the regime's motivating spirit.
There is a well-known Persian children’s game in which a parent recites limerick-like poems while engaging in horseplay. One version, popular in the mid-20th century, had the father of the household seat himself on a carpet in the living room with one of his progeny standing to his right and the other to his left. The father would declaim:
There once was a cat (yek gorbeh bud)
Poor and miserable (bichareh bud)
A dog came and bit him in the belly (delash-o sag gaz gerefte bud)
(At this point the first child charges across the room and dives headlong into his father’s stomach.)
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