Israel and Iran

I just read a very interesting opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal - I very much enjoy their paper but refuse to pay for a subscription to their website. I got to read it at work for free last summer and still look for free content there, but don't read it consistently because I get locked out of things and find that frustrating.

Anyone have an explanation for why WSJ remains one of the only newspapers where you have to pay to read their online content? They can't be making that much revenue from a paid subscription, and online content is vastly cheaper than home delivery of a paper anyway, so shouldn't they encourage people to go online?

Anyway, the point of this post was to talk about this article. Here's the concluding line:

"Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable."

The entire article brings to mind two important questions in my mind. How close were we to an Israel-instigated theater in the Middle East during the Bush years? Also, is Obama's approach to the Middle East more or less likely to maintain the status quo (and as an aside, is this beneficial)?

Ahmadinejad Won... Get Over It?

No class today, I have time off to write a synopsis of the Fiat/Chrysler merger and describe the inner workings of the new company. But I also have the attention span of a gnat, so rather than read about mergers and acquisitions, I've been focusing on the developing situation in Iran.

Here's a quote I found really interesting from one of the few "let the election stand" articles I've read:

"Before the Iranian election, the Obama administration had fallen for the same illusion as many of its predecessors — the illusion that Iranian politics is primarily about personalities and finding the right personality to deal with. That is not how Iranian politics works."

You can read the rest of the article here. I don't think even Obama himself knows how he will handle this situation, but it's yet another twist in the ongoing US/Iran saga and yet another test for the young American President.