John Kerry Impersonates the Iranian Chamber of Commerce

The termination of sanctions pursuant to its nuclear deal with the West has not done enough to boost Iran’s economy—or so Tehran has complained. In response, John Kerry traveled to Europe last week to persuade investors to do business with the Islamic Republic. Elliott Abrams comments:

Iran has the “right” to an end to nuclear sanctions, but has no “right” to additional business. There are many reasons companies might hold back, ranging from American terrorism-related and human-rights sanctions, to uncertainty about future U.S. policy, to fear that entities in Iran with which they may undertake business are also involved in illegal or terrorist activities.

Moreover, Iran is not a democracy with a reliable legal system, but a dictatorship run by the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard where legal rights cannot possibly be guaranteed. There is simply no defensible reason for an American official, much less our top diplomat, to concern himself with how much investment and profit Iran can eke out of the nuclear deal. The effort to do so betrays America’s real interests in the Middle East, which are challenged by a richer and better-resourced Iran.

Read more at Pressure Points

More about: Iran sanctions, John Kerry, Politics & Current Affairs, U.S. Foreign policy

How Columbia Failed Its Jewish Students

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.

Read more at National Review

More about: Anti-Semitism, Columbia University, Israel on campus