Of Note: March 29, 2026

Dear Friends,

Here is the latest round of links to pieces dealing with the US-Israel war against Iran and related issues. I am also adding to these notes a second section. As you know, I have published several books of translations of classical Persian poetry, among them Selections from Saadi’s Bustan. Saadi, a 13th century poet from the city of Shiraz, is among the most important writers in the Persian literary canon, and his work has been translated into many languages worldwide. In light of the damage already done to some of Iran’s most important cultural and historical sites, and since my Bustan has been out of print for some time now (and is likely to stay that way), I thought a worthwhile thing to do would be to share with you some of Iran’s rich literary history. (I am writing more extensively on a specific connection between Saadi’s Bustan and United States culture in the series “On The Trail of a Tale: Benjamin Franklin’s Persian Parable.” Parts 1 and 2 have already been posted. Part 3 will post on April 3rd and Part 4 is coming in May.)

The Links

• How Iran Rewrote Its War Strategy, by Hamidreza Azizi, analyzes the Islamic Republic’s shift “from a defensive posture to an offensive one.”
• Black Rain Over Tehran, a video from Al Jazeera, talks about the environmental and health consequences of US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s energy facilities. It asks, reasonably, if those attacks, because of those consequences, end up being a kind of chemical warfare.
• The Factory Was Always The Target, by Ali Kadivar: Provides historical context for US-Israeli strikes against Iranian steel plants.
• This piece from the Foreign Affairs Newsletter brings discusses seven global “fault lines” the follow from the Iran war. There’s nothing new here, but it’s interesting to read about them all in one piece like this.
• These two pieces from Real Dialectical are also worth reading: “Criticizing America for War Crimes is like Criticizing Fire for Burning” is from 2025 and is about the war-crimes controversy surrounding the United States’ attacks on boats in the Caribbean, but it sets a useful context for “The Iran War Has Clear Objectives. That's Why No One in Washington Will Name Them,” which argues that the brouhaha over how the US went to war, how the war is being conducted, whether or not there are clear objectives, and so on functions as a purposeful smokescreen for the war’s real objectives.
• Naghmeh Sohrabi’s “True Thing for Today” (March 22)” “Ghasseminejad is the main creator of the Pahlavi transition plan that states after Reza Pahlavi enters Iran as the leader of the national movement to get rid of the Islamic Republic, he will lead the transitional government by appointing the heads of every branch, become the commander in chief, and retain the power to impose martial law.” If you haven’t been paying attention to Reza Pahlavi’s role, it’s worth noting.
• This conversation with Sohrabi on Bidoun offers some insight not just into why she started True Things for Today, but also into what it’s like to try to make sense of what is happening in Iran on a human level.
• Bidoun also published this diary written by a woman in Iran as Iran began to crack down on the protests in January.
• They Would Not Dream of Flowers: Translating Through the Tehran Blackout, by Miaad Banki: A literary translator’s account of what it was like to try to work during the Iran’s violent January suppression of protests.
• The Catastrophe That Has Befallen All Of Us: This is one of Sohrabi’s translations published on the Boston Review website. The writer is the director of an art center in Tehran.
• Iranian Officials Say They Have Been Ignoring Witkoff's Private Requests to Talk: This piece from Drop Site news will likely be a little dated by the time you see it here, but it’s worth reading nonetheless. It provides a kind of context that is hard to find anywhere else.
• In Jewish Currents, this piece, “The War in Iran is About Palestine,” offers an analysis of how the Iran war fits into Israel’s goals in the region and, in particular, Netanyahu’s strategy of turning the issue of Palestine and the Palestinians into a “civilizational” one, rather than one rooted in colonization and occupation.
• I do not know who Ori Goldberg is, but I was moved by this meditation on Israel’s behavior in light of his diagnosis with stage IV colon cancer.
• Here are two views of Tucker Carlson in the context of the current “Middle East moment,” one by Avrum Berg, who believes Carlson needs to be taken seriously for “saying the quiet part out loud” even, and perhaps especially, when you disagree with him; and one in which historian Marcia Kupfer does a deep, detailed, and more (and necessarily) intellectualized dive into the anti-Judaism that informs Carlson’s positions. This piece by conservative Yoram Hazoni, who tried to engage Carlson on the subject of his antisemitism is also worth reading.
• I don’t agree with Elyse Wien’s politics, but “The Myth of the Indigenous” is interesting nonetheless in its critique of how the left deploys the concept to serve their own purposes.
• On the Warpath: Messianic Zionism, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israel's War Without End, by Ilan Pappé: The title is self explanatory. It’s short, but offers an interesting angle.

From Saadi’s Bustan

Bustan is divided into ten chapters, the first of which deals with the question of what it means to be a just ruler. This poem, which serves as the prologue of the chapter, contains an irony that would have been known to Saadi’s readers but that is lost unless you know a bit of history. Nushirvan was popularly known as a good and just king, while his son Hormuz had just the opposite reputation. After this selection from Bustan, I’ve included my versions of two stories from another of Saadi’s works, Golestan, that illustrate the difference.

I’ve heard that Nushirvan with his last breaths
advised his son Hormuz on how to rule:
“Guarantee your poorest subject’s comfort;
do not permit your own comfort to bind you.
None who call your kingdom home will live
at ease, if ease is all you choose to live for.
No judge will find a shepherd innocent
who slept and let the wolf among the sheep.
Be vigilant! Protect the poor and needy;
the crown you wear you wear because of them.
The peasants are the roots, my son; the king,
the tree that needs the roots to give it strength.
Do your best to keep from hurting them;
to hurt them is to dig up your own roots.

If you wish to set your feet upon The Path,
let the pious lead you through Hope and Fear.
A man who fears evil and hopes for good
becomes a man whose wisdom is innate.
If you find a king with both those attributes,
you’ll find his realm secure, his people safe.
To those who hope he offers his indulgence,
hoping God will be indulgent too.
He sees no joy in other people’s pain,
fearing pain will spread throughout his realm.
A king who lacks these traits will rule a realm
lacking the peaceful life that people seek.

If you are hobbled, accept it as your fate,
but if you gallop freely, go where you will.
You’ll never have the room you need to run
in a kingdom where the king abuses power.
Fear the bold and proud among your subjects,
but fear as well the ones who don’t fear God.
A king who lays waste to his people’s hearts
will see his kingdom flourish in his dreams.
Tyranny leads to ruin and a ruined name;
a prudent king will take full measure of these words.

Your people shelter and support your rule,
so don’t kill anyone without just cause.
See to the comfort of those who tend your land;
their happiness will mean a greater yield.
Repay with evil the good someone does you
and you unman yourself in public view.

From Saadi’s Golestan

Story 19 (about Nushirvan)
This is how I heard the story: The hunting party had stopped
to eat, but there was no salt to season the meat they were roasting for Nushirvan, and no one wanted to serve him an improperly seasoned meal. So they sent one of the boys who was with them to get some salt from a nearby village. Before the boy left, however, Nushirvan told him, “Make sure you pay for what you take. Otherwise, the village will be ruined.” Surprised and more than a little incredulous, those who were standing nearby asked how such a simple thing as bringing some salt to the king could have such profound consequences. Nushirvan replied, “When the world began, oppression was a small hut that few people entered, but as more and more people chose to go inside, they built it up, and look how high it reaches now.”

To please the king who eats a single apple
from a subject’s garden, his slaves will pull
the tree up whole to plant in the palace yard;
and if he lets five eggs be taken by force,
his army will commandeer a thousand birds.
Tyrants die. The curses on them do not.

Story 8 (about Hormuz)
When he was asked what crime his father’s viziers had commit-
ted, Hormuz replied, “None. I put these men in jail because they feared my power without respecting it. I knew that to protect themselves from the capriciousness they saw in me and the harm they thought might come to them because of it, they might try to kill me. So I had no choice. I took the advice of the sages, who said:

The power to wipe out a hundred men
should not replace your fear of one who fears you.
Watch when a cat is fighting for its life;
it plucks the tiger’s eyes out with its claws.
To stop the stone the shepherd might throw down
to crush its head, the viper bites, and lives.