Iran's complexities

I owe it to Laura Rozen at War and Piece for directing my attention to this article.

A New York Times op-ed columnist named Roger Cohen wrote an article recently describing the situation of Iranian Jews. He immediately was criticized in a number of places for painting all too rosy a picture. His reply -- that he knows a number of things about Iran, some good some bad -- is here. It contains this important sentence:

I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one — the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.

I hope that will tempt you to read the rest.

Image: view of Isfahan (click for a bigger view).