FPA’s Must Reads (May 24-31)

Think Again: A Nuclear Iran
By Alireza Nader
Foreign Policy

A nuclear armed Iran, says Nader, is certainly dangerous, but it’s far from the end of the world that some apocalyptic predictions claim it to be. Nader debunks five claims — that Iran is irration, would nuke Israel, would extend its influence over proxies, would be emboldened, and, finally, could not be contained — coming to the conclusion that while the danger may be real, policymakers need to also think about containment and not just deterrence.

In the Crosshairs
By Nicholas Schmidle
The New Yorker

Chris Kyle, an ex-Navy SEAL, memoirist, private security consultant, and the “Devil of Ramadi,” was murdered this past February along with his companion, Chad Littlefield. Schmidle, a New Yorker staff writer whose account of the death of Osama bin Laden brought him to promenance, delves into the events leading up to the murder in this 13,000 word account.

Stay Out of Syria!
By David Bromwich
The New York Review of Books

Syria may not be Iraq, but, as Bromwich advises, that doesn’t discount the need for a more cautious approach. In this longform op-ed, Bromwich covers the self-assurance of some in the media, the rise of liberal voices on the pro-intervention side, and the possible futility of intervening.

Turncoats: How the Taliban Undermines and Infiltrates the Afghan Local Police
By David Axe
Wired

The Afghan Local Police (ALP) program began in 2009 after numerous failed attempts to stand up the pro-government militias in the country. Plagued by indifference, an uncertainty of the future after the Alliance’s withdrawal, and the ALP’s inability to choose sides (i.e., the government or the Taliban), the ALP is far from the trustworthy force the Alliance, and Afghanistan, needs it to be.

Is This The Face Of A New Global Human Rights Movement?
By Rosie Gray
Buzzfeed

Thor Halvorssen (whose piece on Ali Abdulemam in the Atlantic was featured in an earlier must-reads post), born of the Venezuelan elite may be the posterchild of a new human rights movement. And it’s not just his work at the Human Rights Foundation — which seems to put the bulk of its energy into its Freedom Forum in Oslo — but also, as Gray notes, his intensely media-friendly approach to human rights work.

Blogs:

Obama’s NDU Speech: Implications for Tehran by David Karl
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei: End of a Love Story? by Alireza Ahmadian
Arming the Syrian rebels by Maxime Larive
GailForce: President Obama’s Terrorism and National Security Strategy by Gail Harris
Surprises in the Benghazi Emails by Scott Monje