Looking carefully at Salman Rushdie’s 1988 The Satanic Verses, Hussein Ibish argues that “no reader could come away with the idea that the novel was attempting to tell the tale of the birth of Islam or critique the religion.” What then, explains the price put on Rushdie’s head by the Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which provoked his recent stabbing? Ibish answers:

Chapter 11 of the novel paints a stinging and remarkably incisive caricature of Khomeini himself. It depicts “the Imam”—a fanatical cleric forced to live in the West, just as Khomeini was when he was exiled to France after being expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein. Among the many absurdities of this character is that he wants to stop time, an obvious parody of Khomeini’s passionate hatred of progress and modernity.

It is hard to imagine a more precise and stinging lampoon of Khomeini and his malevolent mission. There’s more besides in chapter 11 about the Imam character that would have caused Khomeini additional, and indeed greater, personal offence and outrage. He and his followers were certainly well aware of it when they decided the author had to die. Of course, they claimed to be responding to an attack “against Islam, the prophet of Islam, and the Quran.” But there is no doubt it was, above all, about the wounded ego of a man anointing himself a “supreme leader.”

That Khomeini and his followers recognized him and his fanatical regime in the character of the Imam—and then acted precisely according to monstrous type in 1989 and ever since—tells us everything we need to know about their ongoing addiction to violence and hostility to creativity and freedom of thought. . . . Rushdie’s attacker is unlikely to see any of the promised millions. But Iranian gloating confirms who is responsible for this heinous attack.

At the moment, the U.S. government is considering whether to extend billions of dollars of sanctions relief to the Islamic Republic as part of a revived nuclear deal.

Last week, the Lebanese parliament chose Joseph Aoun to be the country’s next president, filling a position that has been vacant since 2022. Aoun, currently commander of the military—and reportedly supported by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—edged out Suleiman Frangiyeh, Hizballah’s preferred candidate. But while Aoun’s victory is a step in the right direction, David Daoud sounds a cautionary note:

Lebanon’s president lacks the constitutional authority to order Hizballah’s disarmament, and Aoun was elected as another “consensus president” with Hizballah’s votes. They wouldn’t vote for a man who would set in motion a process leading to their disarmament.

Habib Malik agrees that hoping for too much to come out of the election could constitute “daydreaming,” but he nonetheless believes the Lebanese have a chance to win their country back from Hizballah and, ultimately, make peace with Israel:

Lebanon’s 2019 economic collapse and the 2020 massive explosion at the Beirut Port were perpetrated by the ruling mafia, protected ever since by Hizballah. [But] Lebanon’s anti-Iran/Hizballah communities constitute a reliable partner for both the U.S. and Israel. The Lebanese are desperate to be rid of Iranian influence in order to pursue regional peace and prosperity with their neighbors. Suddenly, a unique opportunity for peace breaking out between Israel and Lebanon could be upon us, particularly given President Trump’s recent reelection with a landslide mandate. It was under Trump’s first term that the Abraham Accords came into being and so under his second term they could certainly be expanded.

As matters stand, Lebanon has very few major contentious issues with Israel. The precisely targeted and methodical nature of Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hizballah and what has unfolded in Syria make this outcome a far more attainable goal.