newyorker--2020-01-08--Iran Attacks U.S. Forces, Then Both Sides Stand Down

On Tuesday , speaking to hundreds of thousands of mourners at the final funeral service for Qassem Suleimani , the head of Iran ’ s powerful Revolutionary Guard vowed that the United States would pay a price for the general ’ s murder .
Passions were running so high that more than fifty people were killed and hundreds injured in a stampede around the funeral cortege .
They , too , were considered “ martyrs ” whose deaths were blamed on the U.S. drone strike that killed Suleimani .
“ We will take revenge , a hard and definitive revenge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Kerman , Suleimani ’ s home town .
In Tehran , the chairman of Iran ’ s Supreme National Security Council told local media that the Islamic Republic was considering thirteen “ revenge scenarios.
” He warned that even the most limited option would be “ a historic nightmare for the Americans.
” In the dark early hours of Wednesday morning , Iran launched missile strikes on two military bases in Iraq that are home to U.S. troops .
They were flashy and noisy and a sharp shift from Iran ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through proxies outside Iran ’ s borders to provide Tehran with plausible deniability .
This time , Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from its turf at Iraq ’ s sprawling Ain al-Assad base , about a hundred miles from Baghdad , and at Erbil , in northern Kurdistan .
President Trump visited the Ain al-Assad base in December , 2018 , on his only visit to Iraq .
Yet there were no U.S. casualties , perhaps deliberately , despite claims on Iranian media that as many as eighty Americans had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advance warning to Iraq , which in turn tipped off the United States , a senior member of the Iraqi government told me .
More than five thousand troops in Iraq were basically in lockdown by the time the cruise missiles hit the two bases .
Iran ’ s attack was far from “ historic ” —and seemed to be calibrated to seek revenge but avoid war with the United States .
Iranian television made the announcement , almost boastfully .
So , too , the statement by the Revolutionary Guards .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true promise , and with the permission of God Almighty this morning , in response to the criminal and terrorist operations of the American invaders and the vicious assassination of the hero and martyrdom of the heroic and sacrificial commander of the Quds Force , ” it said .
Mimicking—and mocking—Trump ’ s tweet of the American flag after the U.S. attack on Suleimani , a senior Iranian official tweeted a picture of the Iranian flag minutes after the missile strike .
But , as soon as it was over , Iranian officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacks were not the beginning of a major offensive—and certainly not war .
Shortly after the missile strikes , the Iranian Foreign Minister , Mohammad Javad Zarif , tweeted a message directed straight at Washington .
“ Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched , ” he wrote .
“ We do not seek escalation or war , but will defend ourselves against any aggression.
” Even the inflammatory four-point statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would not take further action unless the United States fired back .
“ We warn the Great Satan , the bloodthirsty and arrogant regime of the U.S. , that any new wicked act or more moves and aggressions [ against Iran ] will bring about more painful and crushing responses.
” It then called on the American people to “ prevent further casualties and not to allow the lives of U.S. military personnel to be further endangered by the growing hatred of the anti-U.S. regime.
” On Wednesday morning , flanked by his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire Joint Chiefs of Staff , Trump said that Iran now appears to be “ standing down.
” He had a tough message for the Islamic Republic .
“ For far too long—all the way back to 1979 , to be exact—nations have tolerated Iran ’ s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond , ” he said , speaking from the Grand Foyer of the White House .
“ Those days are over.
” He announced “ powerful ” new economic sanctions that will “ remain until Iran changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s policy has been a so-called maximum-pressure campaign to squeeze Iran back to the negotiating table .
Trump called on the world ’ s five major powers—Britain , China , France , Germany , and Russia , co-sponsors with the United States of the 2015 nuclear deal—to join him in rejecting the historic agreement and launching diplomacy to get a bigger , broader , and longer-lasting pact .
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May , 2018 , and reimposed sanctions six months later .
Tehran continued to observe its obligations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to gradually breach some of its commitments in mid-2019 because the promised economic benefits had not materialized and new U.S. sanctions were again hurting its economy .
He also called on NATO , the world ’ s largest military alliance , to become more involved in the Middle East process , with no specifics .
NATO ’ s original mandate was to protect Europe and the West .
The first change to its mission was to engage in Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban , in 2001 .
Nineteen years later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most striking language in Trump ’ s speech to the nation was an overture to negotiate with Iran .
He noted that Washington and Tehran share common cause in eliminating ISIS in Iraq and Syria .
“ ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran , ” he said .
“ We should work together on this and other shared priorities.
” Although the United States has dispatched six B-52 bombers and more than three thousand troops to the Middle East , Trump said that he sought to avoid confrontation .
“ The fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equipment , however , does not mean we have to use it .
We do not want to use it.
” Speaking directly to Iran , he said that the United States wants Iran to have a “ great future , one that you deserve—one of prosperity at home and harmony with the nations of the world , ” he said .
“ The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.
” The attack quickly led to calls for new diplomacy to prevent further escalation—and potentially to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the negotiating table .
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi , who just days ago led an effort in parliament to get U.S. troops to withdraw , pledged that his government would “ continue its intense attempts to prevent escalation.
” Barham Salih , the Kurdish President of Iraq , messaged both Iran and the United States that Baghdad rejects the “ repeated breaches of national sovereignty , and asserts that Iraq must not be turned into a battleground for the conflicting parties.
” The U.S. drone attack that killed Suleimani was near @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has experienced several wars on its territory over the past forty years , has increasingly feared that it would become the theatre of conflict between the United States and Iran .
Iraq , Salih vowed , refuses “ to be a launching territory for aggression against any country , as it refuses to be a source of threat to any of its neighbors , but , rather , a pillar of stability and space for convergence of interests between the peoples of the region.
” Nevertheless , the attack had a rippling impact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diverted traffic from Iran , Iraq , and the Gulf .
The U.S. Maritime Administration issued a warning to ships transiting in or near the Persian Gulf ; two major tanker companies suspended crossing the Strait of Hormuz , which is controlled on one side by Iran , the other by Oman .
Tehran was blamed for the attacks on six foreign oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman , just outside the Strait of Hormuz , in May and June last year .
Roughly a fifth of all crude-oil exports are trafficked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another signal that Iran ’ s attack was meant to be limited , Iran ’ s state-controlled television ran footage from Suleimani ’ s burial in Kerman shortly after the strike .
When a loudspeaker announced that Iran had launched a missile attack on U.S. bases , mourners shouted “ God is great.
” The Iranian television then commented , “ His revenge was taken and now he can rest in peace .
”

On Tuesday, speaking to hundreds of thousands of mourners at the final funeral service for Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard vowed that the United States would pay a price for the general’s murder. Passions were running so high that more than fifty people were killed and hundreds injured in a stampede around the funeral cortege. They, too, were considered “martyrs” whose deaths were blamed on the U.S. drone strike that killed Suleimani. “We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” General Hossein Salami said, in Kerman, Suleimani’s home town. In Tehran, the chairman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council told local media that the Islamic Republic was considering thirteen “revenge scenarios.” He warned that even the most limited option would be “a historic nightmare for the Americans.”
In the dark early hours of Wednesday morning, Iran launched missile strikes on two military bases in Iraq that are home to U.S. troops. They were flashy and noisy and a sharp shift from Iran’s past attacks on American targets, usually through proxies outside Iran’s borders to provide Tehran with plausible deniability. This time, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from its turf at Iraq’s sprawling Ain al-Assad base, about a hundred miles from Baghdad, and at Erbil, in northern Kurdistan. President Trump visited the Ain al-Assad base in December, 2018, on his only visit to Iraq.
Yet there were no U.S. casualties, perhaps deliberately, despite claims on Iranian media that as many as eighty Americans had been killed. The Islamic Republic gave advance warning to Iraq, which in turn tipped off the United States, a senior member of the Iraqi government told me. More than five thousand troops in Iraq were basically in lockdown by the time the cruise missiles hit the two bases. Iran’s attack was far from “historic”—and seemed to be calibrated to seek revenge but avoid war with the United States. Iranian television made the announcement, almost boastfully. So, too, the statement by the Revolutionary Guards. “The time has come to fulfill the true promise, and with the permission of God Almighty this morning, in response to the criminal and terrorist operations of the American invaders and the vicious assassination of the hero and martyrdom of the heroic and sacrificial commander of the Quds Force,” it said. Mimicking—and mocking—Trump’s tweet of the American flag after the U.S. attack on Suleimani, a senior Iranian official tweeted a picture of the Iranian flag minutes after the missile strike.
But, as soon as it was over, Iranian officials tempered the bravado with signals that the attacks were not the beginning of a major offensive—and certainly not war. Shortly after the missile strikes, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted a message directed straight at Washington. “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched,” he wrote. “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”
Even the inflammatory four-point statement by the Revolutionary Guards indicated that Iran would not take further action unless the United States fired back. “We warn the Great Satan, the bloodthirsty and arrogant regime of the U.S., that any new wicked act or more moves and aggressions [against Iran] will bring about more painful and crushing responses.” It then called on the American people to “prevent further casualties and not to allow the lives of U.S. military personnel to be further endangered by the growing hatred of the anti-U.S. regime.”
Shrapnel from an Iranian missile targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. Photograph from AFP / Getty
On Wednesday morning, flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump said that Iran now appears to be “standing down.” He had a tough message for the Islamic Republic. “For far too long—all the way back to 1979, to be exact—nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond,” he said, speaking from the Grand Foyer of the White House. “Those days are over.” He announced “powerful” new economic sanctions that will “remain until Iran changes its behavior.” The cornerstone of Trump’s policy has been a so-called maximum-pressure campaign to squeeze Iran back to the negotiating table.
Trump called on the world’s five major powers—Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia, co-sponsors with the United States of the 2015 nuclear deal—to join him in rejecting the historic agreement and launching diplomacy to get a bigger, broader, and longer-lasting pact. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May, 2018, and reimposed sanctions six months later. Tehran continued to observe its obligations for a year, but it began to gradually breach some of its commitments in mid-2019 because the promised economic benefits had not materialized and new U.S. sanctions were again hurting its economy. He also called on NATO, the world’s largest military alliance, to become more involved in the Middle East process, with no specifics. NATO’s original mandate was to protect Europe and the West. The first change to its mission was to engage in Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban, in 2001. Nineteen years later, its forces are still there.
The most striking language in Trump’s speech to the nation was an overture to negotiate with Iran. He noted that Washington and Tehran share common cause in eliminating ISIS in Iraq and Syria. “ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran,” he said. “We should work together on this and other shared priorities.” Although the United States has dispatched six B-52 bombers and more than three thousand troops to the Middle East, Trump said that he sought to avoid confrontation. “The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it.” Speaking directly to Iran, he said that the United States wants Iran to have a “great future, one that you deserve—one of prosperity at home and harmony with the nations of the world,” he said. “The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.”
The attack quickly led to calls for new diplomacy to prevent further escalation—and potentially to get Iran and the United States back to the negotiating table. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who just days ago led an effort in parliament to get U.S. troops to withdraw, pledged that his government would “continue its intense attempts to prevent escalation.” Barham Salih, the Kurdish President of Iraq, messaged both Iran and the United States that Baghdad rejects the “repeated breaches of national sovereignty, and asserts that Iraq must not be turned into a battleground for the conflicting parties.” The U.S. drone attack that killed Suleimani was near Baghdad International Airport. Iraq, which has experienced several wars on its territory over the past forty years, has increasingly feared that it would become the theatre of conflict between the United States and Iran. Iraq, Salih vowed, refuses “to be a launching territory for aggression against any country, as it refuses to be a source of threat to any of its neighbors, but, rather, a pillar of stability and space for convergence of interests between the peoples of the region.”
Nevertheless, the attack had a rippling impact across the Middle East. International airlines diverted traffic from Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf. The U.S. Maritime Administration issued a warning to ships transiting in or near the Persian Gulf; two major tanker companies suspended crossing the Strait of Hormuz, which is controlled on one side by Iran, the other by Oman. Tehran was blamed for the attacks on six foreign oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Strait of Hormuz, in May and June last year. Roughly a fifth of all crude-oil exports are trafficked through the strait.
Yet, in another signal that Iran’s attack was meant to be limited, Iran’s state-controlled television ran footage from Suleimani’s burial in Kerman shortly after the strike. When a loudspeaker announced that Iran had launched a missile attack on U.S. bases, mourners shouted “God is great.” The Iranian television then commented, “His revenge was taken and now he can rest in peace.”


Rules for Couples

Successful couples resolve their differences in healthy , mature ways .
Like duelling .
Try to find someone whose taste in snacks is compatible with yours .
Do not walk ten feet ahead of me , unless you are checking for land mines .
If you keep buying stuff from Amazon ten times a day , even though there ’ s no more room in the house , you must buy a storage unit .
And live in it .
You are allowed to be late twice .
After that , if the relationship is to survive , you must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If you are the Wordmeister in the relationship , don ’ t correct the other person ’ s every little mistake .
Save it for when you can not stand it anymore .
You get to kvetch for three minutes , and then your time is up , unless you are in a Chekhov play , in which case you have two hours .
Step 1 : Divide house into zones .
Step 2 : No yelling from one zone to another .
Step 3 : If someone breaks this law , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my zone .
I can ’ t hear you.
” Step 4 : Endlessly debate whether the hallway to the bathroom is in the same zone as the bathroom .
If the electricity goes out in the kitchen , and neither of us knows where the fuse box is , it ’ s time to move to a new house .
Marriage is one of you secretly turning the thermostat up and the other secretly turning it down , and so on , and so on , until one of you dies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single , there ’ d be nobody to watch your luggage in the airport while you go to the rest room .
From `` You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time : Rules for Couples '' by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast , to be published by Celadon Books .

Successful couples resolve their differences in healthy, mature ways. Like duelling.
Try to find someone whose taste in snacks is compatible with yours.
Do not walk ten feet ahead of me, unless you are checking for land mines.
If you keep buying stuff from Amazon ten times a day, even though there’s no more room in the house, you must buy a storage unit. And live in it.
You are allowed to be late twice. After that, if the relationship is to survive, you must move westward, to another time zone.
If you are the Wordmeister in the relationship, don’t correct the other person’s every little mistake. Save it for when you cannot stand it anymore.
You get to kvetch for three minutes, and then your time is up, unless you are in a Chekhov play, in which case you have two hours.
Zoning Laws:
Step 1: Divide house into zones.
Step 2: No yelling from one zone to another.
Step 3: If someone breaks this law, whisper, “You’re not in my zone. I can’t hear you.”
Step 4: Endlessly debate whether the hallway to the bathroom is in the same zone as the bathroom.
If the electricity goes out in the kitchen, and neither of us knows where the fuse box is, it’s time to move to a new house.
Marriage is one of you secretly turning the thermostat up and the other secretly turning it down, and so on, and so on, until one of you dies.
But remember: if you were single, there’d be nobody to watch your luggage in the airport while you go to the rest room.
From “You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples,” by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast, to be published by Celadon Books.


I Have Pears

SERVICE AGENT : Thanks for calling Orchard Farms .
How may I help you ?
AGENT : Did you receive a fruit-of-the-month delivery from us ?
AGENT : Great—how are you enjoying it ?
CALLER : There ’ s too many .
What should I do ?
AGENT : You should eat some .
AGENT : You should eat more .
CALLER : I don ’ t want to eat more .
AGENT : Then why did you order all those pears ?
AGENT : Well , you must have told someone that you love pears , or they wouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : I didn ’ t say a fucking word to anyone about loving pears !
!
AGENT : Oh , right , I ’ m sure you didn ’ t .
AGENT : Sorry that I got so upset .
AGENT : What about a pie ?
You could make a pie .
AGENT : How about a crumble , then ?
AGENT : It ’ s not a pie !
It ’ s a crumble !
It ’ s fruit with a crumb topping !
A pie has a crust !
!
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ adult—I know what a pie is !
AGENT : Do you want to unload these fucking pears or not ?
Make a fucking crumble !
AGENT : Don ’ t do me any favors !
!
!
CALLER : No , it ’ s not you .
It ’ s these pears .
They ’ re really getting under my skin .
AGENT : What about slicing some up and handing them out during halftime at your kid ’ s soccer game ?
AGENT : Well , maybe he should .
Exercise is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure aren ’ t acting like you know it !
!
CALLER : He does other things !
!
AGENT : Oh , really ?
Like what ?
AGENT : So bring the fucking pears to tennis !
!
CALLER : I can ’ t do that !
The racquets will get sticky from the pear juice !
It will fucking ruin the racquets !
AGENT : Oh , but soccer would have been fine ?
You ’ re full of shit !
CALLER : You play soccer with your feet—if you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d know that !
AGENT : I did play soccer !
I played for years !
I played center midfield for my high-school team , the Badgers !
!
!
CALLER : Oh , wow , the Badgers ?
You must have been amazing !
Come on !
AGENT : We were state champs two years in a row , actually !
AGENT : You could try making some jam .
That might be nice .
CALLER : I did !
I already made more jam !
I have ten fucking jars of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want to open a fucking jam store !
I have a job !
!
AGENT : Like you ’ re fulfilled at that job !
Please !
!
!
CALLER : I am fulfilled !
I work at a fucking advocacy group for underprivileged youth !
!
It ’ s very fucking fulfilling !
!
!
AGENT : No !
!
I needed to hear myself say it out loud !
!
!
AGENT : Send the pears to your mom !
CALLER : Why don ’ t you send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AGENT : She passed away last year !
!
CALLER : I ’ m really sorry to hear that !
!
!
AGENT : She was ill for a long time , so I think we honestly all felt a little relieved at the end !
!
CALLER : I totally get that !
!
It was a similar thing with my grandfather a few years ago !
!
!
AGENT : Dig a hole in your yard and fucking bury the pears !
CALLER : What if that grows a fucking pear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faces on the pears and film a stop-motion short about their lives !
AGENT : Put them in a bowl and paint a fucking still-life !
AGENT : How did it turn out ?
!
AGENT : Is there anything else I can help you with ?
CALLER : No , I think I ’ m good .
Thank you .
AGENT : Great .
Oh , before I let you go , your second shipment of pears is in the queue .
Should go out on the fourteenth .

SERVICE AGENT: Thanks for calling Orchard Farms. How may I help you?
CALLER: Pears.
AGENT: Sorry?
CALLER: I have pears.
AGENT: Did you receive a fruit-of-the-month delivery from us?
CALLER: Yes.
AGENT: Great—how are you enjoying it?
CALLER: They’re everywhere.
AGENT: The pears?
CALLER: There’s too many. What should I do?
AGENT: You should eat some.
CALLER: I did.
AGENT: You should eat more.
CALLER: I don’t want to eat more.
AGENT: Then why did you order all those pears?
CALLER: I didn’t order them—they were a gift!
AGENT: Well, you must have told someone that you love pears, or they wouldn’t have sent them!
CALLER: I didn’t say a fucking word to anyone about loving pears!!
AGENT: Oh, right, I’m sure you didn’t.
(Pause)
AGENT: Sorry that I got so upset.
CALLER: I’m sorry, too.
(Pause)
AGENT: What about a pie? You could make a pie.
CALLER: I did, I made a pie.
AGENT: How about a crumble, then?
CALLER: That’s also a pie!
AGENT: It’s not a pie! It’s a crumble! It’s fruit with a crumb topping! A pie has a crust!!
CALLER: I’m a fucking adult—I know what a pie is!
AGENT: Do you want to unload these fucking pears or not? Make a fucking crumble!
CALLER: O.K., I will!!
AGENT: Don’t do me any favors!!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Apologies again.
CALLER: No, it’s not you. It’s these pears. They’re really getting under my skin.
(Pause)
AGENT: What about slicing some up and handing them out during halftime at your kid’s soccer game?
CALLER: He doesn’t play soccer.
AGENT: Well, maybe he should. Exercise is important for kids!
CALLER: I fucking know that!
AGENT: You sure aren’t acting like you know it!!
CALLER: He does other things!!
AGENT: Oh, really? Like what?
CALLER: Tennis!
AGENT: So bring the fucking pears to tennis!!
CALLER: I can’t do that! The racquets will get sticky from the pear juice! It will fucking ruin the racquets!
AGENT: Oh, but soccer would have been fine? You’re full of shit!
CALLER: You play soccer with your feet—if you’d ever played soccer, you’d know that!
AGENT: I did play soccer! I played for years! I played center midfield for my high-school team, the Badgers!!!
CALLER: Oh, wow, the Badgers? You must have been amazing! Come on!
AGENT: We were state champs two years in a row, actually!
CALLER: Wow, that’s actually really impressive!!
AGENT: Thank you!!!
CALLER: You’re welcome!!!
(Pause)
AGENT: You could try making some jam. That might be nice.
CALLER: I made jam.
AGENT: Make some more jam!
CALLER: I did! I already made more jam! I have ten fucking jars of pear jam!!
AGENT: Sell it! Sell the fucking jam!! Open a jam store!!
CALLER: I don’t want to open a fucking jam store! I have a job!!
AGENT: Like you’re fulfilled at that job! Please!!!
CALLER: I am fulfilled! I work at a fucking advocacy group for underprivileged youth!! It’s very fucking fulfilling!!!
AGENT: For real?
CALLER: Yes!!!
AGENT: I work in a call center for a fucking fruit-shipping company!! Fuck!
CALLER: Don’t beat yourself up! It’s honest work!!
AGENT: My life sucks so bad!
CALLER: I’m sorry! I hit a nerve!!!
AGENT: No!! I needed to hear myself say it out loud!!!
CALLER: Oh, good!!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Send the pears to your mom!
CALLER: Why don’t you send them to your mom?!!
AGENT: My mom?
CALLER: Yeah!
AGENT: She passed away last year!!
CALLER: I’m really sorry to hear that!!!
AGENT: She was ill for a long time, so I think we honestly all felt a little relieved at the end!!
CALLER: I totally get that!! It was a similar thing with my grandfather a few years ago!!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Dig a hole in your yard and fucking bury the pears!
CALLER: What if that grows a fucking pear tree?!
AGENT: Holy shit, yeah, don’t do that!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Draw fucking faces on the pears and film a stop-motion short about their lives!
CALLER: I don’t want to!!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Put them in a bowl and paint a fucking still-life!
CALLER: I did!
AGENT: How did it turn out?!
CALLER: Decent!!
(Pause)
AGENT: Is there anything else I can help you with?
CALLER: No, I think I’m good. Thank you.
AGENT: Great. Oh, before I let you go, your second shipment of pears is in the queue. Should go out on the fourteenth.
CALLER: Fuck you!
AGENT: Fuck you!!!


newyorker--2020-01-09--Tips for Middle-Aged Women on How to Look Stunning in Photos

Ladies , if you don ’ t want to deal with the hassle and expense of cosmetic procedures to look younger in photos , I have good news .
There are now countless apps and filters available to take years off your digital face , with just the touch of a button .
In the past , only famous people , like Cher , Liberace , and Spuds MacKenzie , reaped the benefits of photo retouching , but these days that magic is available to middle-aged nobodies like you , too .
Wrinkles , woes , and worries , be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look like a million bucks : 1 .
First , know where to pose when taking a group photo .
If there are more than two people , insist that you be in the middle .
You must never , ever get stuck in the end position , a.k.a .
the Fat-Arm Spot .
“ Wow , when did her arm become a side of beef ?
” people will exclaim when they see you on Facebook looking like a Green Bay Packer .
I ’ ll tell you when—when you let Janice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If photos are being snapped on someone else ’ s phone , immediately ask to see them so that you can delete the ones you don ’ t like .
This may involve force .
Think Sean Penn in the eighties .
3 .
If the photos were taken on your phone , relax , and only save the pictures that are flattering to you .
Trash the rest .
And , yes , it ’ s O.K .
to post the photos where you look good and your friends don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dish best served on Instagram .
4 .
There are many editing apps available for the iPhone , so be sure to pick one that ’ s highly rated .
You may think that a free app is fine , but you are wrong .
Anyone over forty needs the latest and greatest M.I.T .
nerd technology .
Besides , would you rather pay three dollars for an app that erases your forehead lines or three hundred dollars for Botox that erases your forehead lines ?
5 .
The best filters to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like “ Soft Focus , ” “ Vaseline , ” and “ Just Had Cataract Surgery.
” Stay away from any filter with a name like “ Natural , ” “ Aging Gracefully , ” or “ God Thinks I ’ m Beautiful so I Don ’ t Give a Shit if You Do.
” 6 .
If the filter isn ’ t doing the trick , you may want to use a feature called “ healing.
” This digital surgeon lets you erase lines , dark spots , and pimples from your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the screen .
You can also erase entire people from the photo .
If they comment “ What happened to me ?
” just answer , “ I think that ’ s a question for your therapist , Megan.
” 7 .
Do not use so many filters that your nose and/or other facial features appear to be missing .
You don ’ t want to look like a spectre from another dimension in the group selfie from Girls Wine and Painting Night .
Nor do you want to look like a Colombian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a veterinarian ’ s office .
A good rule of thumb is , if you ’ re holding a newborn baby in a photo and you look like the one who just came out of the womb , remove a filter or two .
8 .
Finally , when you ’ re meeting someone in real life who has only seen your retouched photos online , be honest in advance .
Come clean .
Let them know that you ’ re a middle-aged feminist and don ’ t believe that women should subject @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and peels just to fit into an outdated patriarchal beauty standard .
Women should be loved for who they are , not what they look like .
Then dim the lights , put on your beekeeper ’ s outfit , and take a new profile pic .

Ladies, if you don’t want to deal with the hassle and expense of cosmetic procedures to look younger in photos, I have good news. There are now countless apps and filters available to take years off your digital face, with just the touch of a button. In the past, only famous people, like Cher, Liberace, and Spuds MacKenzie, reaped the benefits of photo retouching, but these days that magic is available to middle-aged nobodies like you, too. Wrinkles, woes, and worries, be gone!
Here’s how to look like a million bucks:
1. First, know where to pose when taking a group photo. If there are more than two people, insist that you be in the middle. You must never, ever get stuck in the end position, a.k.a. the Fat-Arm Spot. “Wow, when did her arm become a side of beef?” people will exclaim when they see you on Facebook looking like a Green Bay Packer. I’ll tell you when—when you let Janice take the coveted middle position.
2. If photos are being snapped on someone else’s phone, immediately ask to see them so that you can delete the ones you don’t like. This may involve force. Think Sean Penn in the eighties.
3. If the photos were taken on your phone, relax, and only save the pictures that are flattering to you. Trash the rest. And, yes, it’s O.K. to post the photos where you look good and your friends don’t—but be careful. Revenge is a dish best served on Instagram.
4. There are many editing apps available for the iPhone, so be sure to pick one that’s highly rated. You may think that a free app is fine, but you are wrong. Anyone over forty needs the latest and greatest M.I.T. nerd technology. Besides, would you rather pay three dollars for an app that erases your forehead lines or three hundred dollars for Botox that erases your forehead lines?
5. The best filters to make your face look more youthful have names like “Soft Focus,” “Vaseline,” and “Just Had Cataract Surgery.” Stay away from any filter with a name like “Natural,” “Aging Gracefully,” or “God Thinks I’m Beautiful so I Don’t Give a Shit if You Do.”
6. If the filter isn’t doing the trick, you may want to use a feature called “healing.” This digital surgeon lets you erase lines, dark spots, and pimples from your face simply by swiping your finger across the screen. You can also erase entire people from the photo. If they comment, “What happened to me?” just answer, “I think that’s a question for your therapist, Megan.”
7. Do not use so many filters that your nose and/or other facial features appear to be missing. You don’t want to look like a spectre from another dimension in the group selfie from Girls’ Wine and Painting Night. Nor do you want to look like a Colombian drug lord who had plastic surgery in a veterinarian’s office. A good rule of thumb is, if you’re holding a newborn baby in a photo and you look like the one who just came out of the womb, remove a filter or two.
8. Finally, when you’re meeting someone in real life who has only seen your retouched photos online, be honest in advance. Come clean. Let him know that you’re a middle-aged feminist and don’t believe that women should subject their faces to fillers, serums, and peels just to fit into an outdated patriarchal beauty standard. Women should be loved for who they are, not what they look like. Then dim the lights, put on your beekeeper’s outfit, and take a new profile pic.


newyorker--2020-01-09--The Trouble with Crime Statistics

The Trouble with Crime Statistics

Last year , lawmakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania proposed legalizing recreational marijuana in their states .
A debate ensued .
Some argued that legalizing pot would make crime go up ; others claimed that it would make crime go down .
There is evidence to favor the optimists : a recent paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization reports that , after Washington State legalized recreational marijuana , in 2012 , rapes there decreased by as much as thirty per cent , and thefts by about twenty per cent .
And yet there are plenty of pessimists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them work in law enforcement .
Curious about their views , I reached out to more than seventy-five county sheriffs in California , Colorado , Maine , Massachusetts , Michigan , Nevada , Oregon , Vermont , and Washington—states where recreational marijuana is legal .
( It ’ s also legal in Alaska . )
Of the twenty-five sheriffs who got back to me , half said they hadn ’ t noticed a trend , and the rest were certain that legalizing marijuana had made crime go up .
“ We can just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time you ’ re around marijuana , or the marijuana industry , the likelihood that you ’ ll be the victim of some type of crime is higher , ” Ray Kelly , a sheriff ’ s sergeant in Alameda County , California , which is home to Oakland , said .
Paul Bennett , a captain in the Riverside County Sheriff ’ s Department , in California , told me , “ I can certainly say that cops in the field , on the streets , and specifically narcotics officers , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all related to marijuana trafficking , sales , and cultivation , both legal and illegal.
” I asked the sheriffs about the paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization .
“ Whoever gave you those statistics is so full of crap that they can ’ t even see how ludicrous these statements are—you can quote me on that , ” Kendle Allen , the sheriff of Stevens County , Washington , said .
Frank Rogers , the sheriff of Okanogan County , Washington , had a different hypothesis : “ Maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a little of the green stuff themselves.
” Whether smoking marijuana causes crime is an important question .
It informs opinion on whether smoking marijuana should be a crime .
According to the F.B.I.
, there were more than six hundred thousand arrests for marijuana possession in 2018—about six per cent of all arrests nationally .
Even if an arrest doesn ’ t lead to imprisonment , it creates a criminal record , disrupts work and family life , and piles up legal fees and other costs ; the enforcement of anti-marijuana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on poor communities of color .
Given the high stakes of the question , it ’ s tempting to take sides : either legalizing pot leads to more crime or it doesn ’ t .
And yet the truth may be unknowable .
“ We do not have a good mechanism in place for tracking why a person commits crime , ” Timothy Tannenbaum , a sheriff ’ s lieutenant in Washington County , Oregon , told me .
“ I ’ m not sure most of the data you seek is available.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Sheriff Joseph McDonald , of Plymouth , Massachusetts , cautioned that “ it ’ s often hard to identify marijuana as either the cause or the deterrent for criminal conduct.
” I brought all these responses to David Weisburd , a criminologist at George Mason University .
“ The sheriffs raise an important question , ” Weisburd said .
In his view , marijuana ’ s effects on crime are likely to remain hazy ; in fact , the effect of pretty much anything on crime is rarely crystal clear .
Certainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what causes and prevents crime .
The “ Handbook of Crime Correlates , ” from 2009 , a reference book compiled by three criminologists , lists more than a hundred demographic , economic , relational , institutional , cognitive , and biological risk factors ; in aggregate , they suggest that young men in hard times find trouble .
A 2015 report from the Brennan Center for Justice identifies a dozen plausible explanations for the major decline in crime that unfolded across America from 1990 to 2010—among them , more police officers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stronger economy , and the adoption of CompStat , a statistics-based approach to managing police departments , pioneered by the N.Y.P.D .
But each of these factors can explain only a few per cent of the broader change .
After analyzing a hundred and sixty-nine criminology studies published from 1968 to 2005 , Weisburd found that , on average , each study—despite combining many variables—could explain only a third of a given change in crime .
A 2018 report in the Annual Review of Criminology concluded that the findings in one out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replicated , and that another fifteen per cent were only partially replicable .
“ The world is complicated , ” Weisburd said .
Many people are sure that they know how to reduce crime .
They urge the adoption or repeal of laws based on that conviction .
But crime and crime statistics are more mysterious than they seem .
The first problem with understanding crime is that measuring it is harder than it sounds .
The Department of Justice approaches the problem in two ways .
The F.B.I.
’ s Uniform Crime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data from about twenty thousand law-enforcement agencies around the country .
Simultaneously , the Bureau of Justice Statistics ’ National Crime Victimization Survey , or N.C.V.S.
, interviews about a hundred and fifty thousand nationally representative citizens , asking them whether they have been victims of a crime .
Both datasets have problems .
An obvious one is that there ’ s no consensus about what counts as criminal activity .
In some jurisdictions , only offenses worthy of incarceration are considered crimes .
In others , fined infractions also count .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manspreading , for which one can be fined seventy-five dollars in Los Angeles ? )
Because the U.C.R .
draws its data from investigators , and the N.C.V.S .
relies on victims , they can present starkly different pictures of crime .
According to the U.C.R.
, the incidence of rape nearly doubled from 1973 to 1990 .
The N.C.V.S.
, by contrast , shows that it declined by around forty per cent during the same period .
Researchers at Vanderbilt University looked into the discrepancy ; they found that the upward trend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upticks in the number of female police officers , and with the advent of rape crisis centers and reformed investigative styles .
It could be , in short , that a modernized approach to the policing of rape drastically increased the frequency with which it was reported while reducing its incidence .
But coherent stories like these only sometimes emerge from the conflicting data .
In 2016 , a panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences , Engineering , and Medicine on modernizing the nation ’ s crime statistics concluded that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.C.R .
and N.C.V.S.—data that is more fine-grained and carefully categorized .
But the panel ’ s chair , Janet Lauritsen , a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis , acknowledged that collating and reporting detailed statistics require resources and training that aren ’ t widely available in police departments .
In the meantime , insights derived from one dataset often prove incompatible with the other .
In 2007 , for example , a study conducted by Jessica Reyes , a professor at Amherst College , concluded that the removal of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and early nineteen-eighties could explain fifty-six per cent of the reduction in violent crime between 1992 and 2002 .
( Reyes drew upon a large body of literature that theorized that lead , by damaging children ’ s brains , had made them more likely to become criminals . )
That study used U.C.R .
data .
When Lauritsen and her colleagues re-ran the analysis with N.C.V.S .
data , they found that leaded gasoline had approximately zero effect on violent-crime trends .
Even if we had perfect measurements of crime rates , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from causation .
Drug use might be a risk factor for committing crime—a behavior that ’ s correlated with it , and so helps predict it .
And yet drugs themselves might not cause crime ; drug use and crime might both have other causes ( unemployment , say , or under-policing ) .
The connection could also be random .
Criminologists sometimes describe crime as a “ chaotic system , ” and countless factors contribute to it .
The passage of time makes it especially difficult to sort correlation from causation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a phenomenon they call “ regression toward the mean.
” If crime randomly goes up , it may soon return to average levels on its own ; the increase and subsequent reduction might be a statistical hiccup .
And yet a fortuitously timed intervention—a new law , say , passed in the wake of the random increase—may appear , incorrectly , to be what brought crime under control .
“ There ’ s empirical evidence for this in speeding enforcement , ” Mark Kleiman , a public-policy researcher at New York University , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Tougher traffic rules tend to get enacted right after spikes in highway fatality , and the mean reversion makes it appear as though that toughness worked.
” Measuring the effects of new punishments , moreover , also requires figuring out whether people know about them .
“ What matters for deterrence is not how much punishment actually happens but how much punishment potential offenders think will happen , ” Kleiman went on .
“ If perception lags punishment , which presumably it does , then you ’ ve got another modelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too : in addition to knowing that something works , we want to know why it works .
The authors of the Washington State marijuana paper suggest that legalizing pot could reduce crime by sedating people ; by substituting for alcohol or other drugs ; by diminishing the allure of black markets ; and by allowing police to focus on other crimes .
And yet describing mechanisms is easier than proving their existence .
Criminologists have sometimes taken cues from medical research , implementing randomized controlled trials .
But Robert Sampson , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , because police departments and neighborhoods are not laboratories , such trials are often imperfectly designed and executed .
Many also fail to track the long-term effects of the anti-crime programs they study .
In some cases , decades must pass before the effects of an intervention become visible .
Criminology ’ s first large-scale randomized controlled trial , the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study , took place between 1939 and 1945 .
Researchers matched two hundred and fifty-three pairs of boys who lived in Boston-area youth homes on age , intelligence , home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tossed a coin to see who in each pair would receive counselling , tutoring , and a trip to summer camp .
Initial results showed that the interventions had little effect .
Then , in the nineteen-seventies , a criminologist named Joan McCord tracked down nearly all of the men .
She found that the counselled men were actually more likely to have committed multiple crimes , and they had higher rates of alcoholism and mental illness .
Camp , it seemed , had backfired .
( Perhaps bringing many at-risk kids together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
In 1992 , a meta-analysis of four hundred and forty-three published studies on juvenile-delinquency programs found that a third of them had done more harm than good .
Evidence suggests that D.A.R.E .
and Scared Straight—modern-day programs similar to the Youth Study—may have been counterproductive , too .
In some cases , findings reverse , then reverse again .
In the early nineteen-eighties , the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment found that the mandatory arrest of offenders reduced the incidence of further violence against the victims by a third .
Many states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the following decades , though , six replication studies in different cities found mixed effects ; some even suggested that arrests encourage revenge against the victims .
In 2002 , a trio of criminologists published a meta-analysis of those replications in Criminology & Public Policy .
They discovered that their colleagues in the eighties had been on the right track : the policy worked after all .
Beyond measuring crime and determining its causes , a third difficulty lies in predicting the effects of interventions .
Peter Grabosky , a political scientist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” might be “ the most common pitfall ” in the study of anti-crime interventions : “ What works in Wollongong might fail on Palm Island , ” he said .
Neighborhoods , cities , and states are different .
The converse is also true : crime isn ’ t a purely local phenomenon , and interventions in one place may affect criminal behavior in another .
Legalizing pot in one state , for example , could reduce theft there while increasing drug trafficking somewhere else .
“ State legalization is not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Caulkins , a public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University , told me .
Even in a single location , decreases in one kind of crime can create increases in others .
“ The biggest effect of marijuana legalization has been the increase in people driving under the influence of marijuana , ” Will Reichardt , the retired sheriff of Skagit County , Washington , said .
Because detecting marijuana requires a blood or saliva test , which are often administered in a hospital , rather than a breathalyzer , effectively policing the roads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Such indirect effects of changes in the law are hard to predict .
For this reason , Sampson argues , “ practitioners ( e.g.
, cops on the beat ) may be better ‘ theorists ’ of what policy changes will trigger on the ground than academic criminologists who theorize at a considerable remove.
” Sampson thinks that criminologists should spend less time trying to figure out what causes crime—in many cases , it ’ s an impossible task—and turn , instead , to investigating the effects of law-enforcement policies .
Such research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more contextual view of proposed crime-fighting measures .
As a discipline , Sampson points out , criminology isn ’ t narrowly focussed on criminals and their motives ; it also studies communities , the economy , and the kinds of trade-offs citizens are willing to make .
In February , 2019 , for example , a paper in the American Sociological Review looked at the effect of the N.Y.P.D.
’ s Operation Impact—a multi-year effort to increase policing in the city ’ s highest-crime neighborhoods—on two hundred and fifty thousand students between the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study found that , although the operation probably led to a reduction in crime , it significantly reduced the test scores of African-American boys , who are stopped on the street by police officers more than any other group .
Such research suggests that anti-crime interventions can ’ t be contemplated in isolation .
They affect society as a whole .
Criminologists may disagree on questions of causality , but they agree that outsiders underestimate the complexity of criminology .
“ Everyone thinks they know what causes crime , ” Sampson told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a strong view that some factor is responsible , whether it ’ s video games , bad music , or sexist attitudes , ” she said .
Kleiman complained about the “ very primitive models people have in their heads ” when it comes to crime : “ Most of those models imply that more severity of punishment is better , which is almost certainly false.
” He went on , “ Anyone who hasn ’ t studied this professionally has more confidence than they ought to have .
You have to really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confusing it is.
” Criminologists face a problem that ’ s common in many fields : overdetermination .
Why does someone commit a crime ?
Was it peer pressure , poverty , a broken family , broken windows , bad genes , bad parenting , under-policing , leaded gasoline , Judas Priest ?
“ You could just keep stepping back and back and back and back , and you wonder when , ultimately , you ’ re going to draw a line , ” Lauritsen told me .
“ It could be drawn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t the only researchers who study overdetermined subjects : biologists , who have long sought specific genes for diseases , have come to realize that many traits and illnesses may be “ omnigenic ” —determined by countless genes .
The sociologist David Matza summed up the difficulty , in 1964 : “ When factors become too numerous , we are in the hopeless position of arguing that everything matters.
” Still , it ’ s human nature to prefer comprehensible stories to uninterpretable complexity .
We like simple stories—and we prefer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study in the European Journal of Social Psychology showed that people found explanations for events such as forest fires more satisfying when those explanations involved people .
( Arson may be a senseless act , and one that causes only a few per cent of wildfires , but it ’ s more intuitively sensible than an inferno sparked by sunlight focussed through broken glass—in part because one can punish a person , but not a bottle . )
Other research shows that we shy away from explanations that entail solutions we don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Duke University asked some gun-control supporters to read an article containing fake evidence that guns often help homeowners during home invasions .
After reading the article , which seemed to justify gun ownership , they lowered their estimates of how often home invasions occur .
And moral principles can shape the factual beliefs on which they should be based : a 2012 study at the University of California , Irvine , found that shifting people ’ s feelings about the moral acceptability of capital punishment affected their beliefs about its practical effectiveness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morally charged , and so our stories about it are , too .
When Joan McCord , the researcher who tracked down the Cambridge-Somerville men , first published her findings on the project ’ s failure , in 1978 , she received threatening phone calls and shouted insults from people who didn ’ t want to believe her findings : the programs she was investigating fit a redemptive , positive narrative that people found hard to set aside .
As late as 2017 , the Attorney General , Jeff Sessions , was still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whenever someone offers up an especially compelling explanation for a rise or fall in crime , we should be wary .
We might recognize that criminology—a field with direct bearing on many charged issues—is also slow and confounding , with answers that may come decades late or not at all .
The moral and social complexity of crime makes simple accounts of it all the more appealing .
In hearing an explanation for its rise or fall , we might ask : What kind of story is its bearer trying to tell @

Last year, lawmakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania proposed legalizing recreational marijuana in their states. A debate ensued. Some argued that legalizing pot would make crime go up; others claimed that it would make crime go down. There is evidence to favor the optimists: a recent paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization reports that, after Washington State legalized recreational marijuana, in 2012, rapes there decreased by as much as thirty per cent, and thefts by about twenty per cent.
And yet there are plenty of pessimists about legalization, too; many of them work in law enforcement. Curious about their views, I reached out to more than seventy-five county sheriffs in California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington—states where recreational marijuana is legal. (It’s also legal in Alaska.) Of the twenty-five sheriffs who got back to me, half said they hadn’t noticed a trend, and the rest were certain that legalizing marijuana had made crime go up. “We can just tell you from our experience that any time you’re around marijuana, or the marijuana industry, the likelihood that you’ll be the victim of some type of crime is higher,” Ray Kelly, a sheriff’s sergeant in Alameda County, California, which is home to Oakland, said. Paul Bennett, a captain in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, in California, told me, “I can certainly say that cops in the field, on the streets, and specifically narcotics officers, have experienced an increase in violent crime, all related to marijuana trafficking, sales, and cultivation, both legal and illegal.” I asked the sheriffs about the paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. “Whoever gave you those statistics is so full of crap that they can’t even see how ludicrous these statements are—you can quote me on that,” Kendle Allen, the sheriff of Stevens County, Washington, said. Frank Rogers, the sheriff of Okanogan County, Washington, had a different hypothesis: “Maybe when they wrote it they were indulging in a little of the green stuff themselves.”
Whether smoking marijuana causes crime is an important question. It informs opinion on whether smoking marijuana should be a crime. According to the F.B.I., there were more than six hundred thousand arrests for marijuana possession in 2018—about six per cent of all arrests nationally. Even if an arrest doesn’t lead to imprisonment, it creates a criminal record, disrupts work and family life, and piles up legal fees and other costs; the enforcement of anti-marijuana laws is, moreover, overwhelmingly focussed on poor communities of color.
Given the high stakes of the question, it’s tempting to take sides: either legalizing pot leads to more crime or it doesn’t. And yet the truth may be unknowable. “We do not have a good mechanism in place for tracking why a person commits crime,” Timothy Tannenbaum, a sheriff’s lieutenant in Washington County, Oregon, told me. “I’m not sure most of the data you seek is available.” In an e-mail, the spokesman for Sheriff Joseph McDonald, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, cautioned that “it’s often hard to identify marijuana as either the cause or the deterrent for criminal conduct.” I brought all these responses to David Weisburd, a criminologist at George Mason University. “The sheriffs raise an important question,” Weisburd said. In his view, marijuana’s effects on crime are likely to remain hazy; in fact, the effect of pretty much anything on crime is rarely crystal clear.
Certainly, we know a few things about what causes and prevents crime. The “Handbook of Crime Correlates,” from 2009, a reference book compiled by three criminologists, lists more than a hundred demographic, economic, relational, institutional, cognitive, and biological risk factors; in aggregate, they suggest that young men in hard times find trouble. A 2015 report from the Brennan Center for Justice identifies a dozen plausible explanations for the major decline in crime that unfolded across America from 1990 to 2010—among them, more police officers, a decline in alcohol consumption, a stronger economy, and the adoption of CompStat, a statistics-based approach to managing police departments, pioneered by the N.Y.P.D. But each of these factors can explain only a few per cent of the broader change. After analyzing a hundred and sixty-nine criminology studies published from 1968 to 2005, Weisburd found that, on average, each study—despite combining many variables—could explain only a third of a given change in crime. A 2018 report in the Annual Review of Criminology concluded that the findings in one out of ten crime studies couldn’t be replicated, and that another fifteen per cent were only partially replicable.
“The world is complicated,” Weisburd said. Many people are sure that they know how to reduce crime. They urge the adoption or repeal of laws based on that conviction. But crime and crime statistics are more mysterious than they seem.
The first problem with understanding crime is that measuring it is harder than it sounds. The Department of Justice approaches the problem in two ways. The F.B.I.’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, or U.C.R., solicits data from about twenty thousand law-enforcement agencies around the country. Simultaneously, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, or N.C.V.S., interviews about a hundred and fifty thousand nationally representative citizens, asking them whether they have been victims of a crime.
Both datasets have problems. An obvious one is that there’s no consensus about what counts as criminal activity. In some jurisdictions, only offenses worthy of incarceration are considered crimes. In others, fined infractions also count. (Is speeding a crime? What about manspreading, for which one can be fined seventy-five dollars in Los Angeles?) Because the U.C.R. draws its data from investigators, and the N.C.V.S. relies on victims, they can present starkly different pictures of crime. According to the U.C.R., the incidence of rape nearly doubled from 1973 to 1990. The N.C.V.S., by contrast, shows that it declined by around forty per cent during the same period. Researchers at Vanderbilt University looked into the discrepancy; they found that the upward trend in the U.C.R. data correlated with upticks in the number of female police officers, and with the advent of rape crisis centers and reformed investigative styles. It could be, in short, that a modernized approach to the policing of rape drastically increased the frequency with which it was reported while reducing its incidence. But coherent stories like these only sometimes emerge from the conflicting data.
In 2016, a panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on modernizing the nation’s crime statistics concluded that we need to incorporate additional data that complements the U.C.R. and N.C.V.S.—data that is more fine-grained and carefully categorized. But the panel’s chair, Janet Lauritsen, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, acknowledged that collating and reporting detailed statistics require resources and training that aren’t widely available in police departments. In the meantime, insights derived from one dataset often prove incompatible with the other. In 2007, for example, a study conducted by Jessica Reyes, a professor at Amherst College, concluded that the removal of lead from gasoline in the late nineteen-seventies and early nineteen-eighties could explain fifty-six per cent of the reduction in violent crime between 1992 and 2002. (Reyes drew upon a large body of literature that theorized that lead, by damaging children’s brains, had made them more likely to become criminals.) That study used U.C.R. data. When Lauritsen and her colleagues re-ran the analysis with N.C.V.S. data, they found that leaded gasoline had approximately zero effect on violent-crime trends.
Even if we had perfect measurements of crime rates, we’d need to sort correlation from causation. Drug use might be a risk factor for committing crime—a behavior that’s correlated with it, and so helps predict it. And yet drugs themselves might not cause crime; drug use and crime might both have other causes (unemployment, say, or under-policing). The connection could also be random. Criminologists sometimes describe crime as a “chaotic system,” and countless factors contribute to it.
The passage of time makes it especially difficult to sort correlation from causation. Statisticians are always on the lookout for a phenomenon they call “regression toward the mean.” If crime randomly goes up, it may soon return to average levels on its own; the increase and subsequent reduction might be a statistical hiccup. And yet a fortuitously timed intervention—a new law, say, passed in the wake of the random increase—may appear, incorrectly, to be what brought crime under control. “There’s empirical evidence for this in speeding enforcement,” Mark Kleiman, a public-policy researcher at New York University, who died in July, told me. “Tougher traffic rules tend to get enacted right after spikes in highway fatality, and the mean reversion makes it appear as though that toughness worked.” Measuring the effects of new punishments, moreover, also requires figuring out whether people know about them. “What matters for deterrence is not how much punishment actually happens but how much punishment potential offenders think will happen,” Kleiman went on. “If perception lags punishment, which presumably it does, then you’ve got another modelling mess on your hands.”
Mechanisms matter, too: in addition to knowing that something works, we want to know why it works. The authors of the Washington State marijuana paper suggest that legalizing pot could reduce crime by sedating people; by substituting for alcohol or other drugs; by diminishing the allure of black markets; and by allowing police to focus on other crimes. And yet describing mechanisms is easier than proving their existence. Criminologists have sometimes taken cues from medical research, implementing randomized controlled trials. But Robert Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard University, argues that, because police departments and neighborhoods are not laboratories, such trials are often imperfectly designed and executed. Many also fail to track the long-term effects of the anti-crime programs they study.


newyorker--2020-01-09--Mad Men: Trump’s Perilous Approach to Dictators

Since taking office , President Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin , held two summits with Kim Jong @ @ @ @ @ , and hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago .
Trump relies on his instincts @ @ @ @ @ conduct of foreign policy , and his sycophancy toward dictators has been a defining feature @ @ @ @ @ has had a somewhat different approach to the Iranian leadership .
Last week , Trump @ @ @ @ @ killed Qassem Suleimani , a high-ranking Iranian official , escalating tensions between the United States @ @ @ @ @ joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what Donald Trump may not understand about the minds of @ @ @

Photograph by Damir Sagolj / Reuters
Since taking office, President Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, held two summits with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, and hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. Trump relies on his instincts when it comes to the conduct of foreign policy, and his sycophancy toward dictators has been a defining feature of his Presidency. He has had a somewhat different approach to the Iranian leadership. Last week, Trump ordered an air strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, a high-ranking Iranian official, escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. Evan Osnos joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what Donald Trump may not understand about the minds of authoritarian leaders.


newyorker--2020-01-09--What to Do in N.Y.C. This Weekend: January 10th-12th

These are our top picks for the weekend of January 10th-12th .
For more event listings and reviews , check out Goings On About Town .
When he died of AIDS , at the age of forty-four , in 1993 , the painter Jesse Murry left behind a number of canvases and works on paper in his New York studio that not only revealed a dreamy , lyrical talent but also hinted at the deeply detailed artist he would have become .
In a small show at the Tibor de Nagy gallery , the artist ’ s beautiful color sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his interest in abstraction as a kind of landscape filled with the splendor of the earth and the expansiveness of the sky.—Hilton Als For more art reviews , click here .
GlobalFEST was launched , in 2004 , with the goal of exposing concert bookers—in town for a larger convention—to musicians from far-flung locales .
One needn ’ t be an industry type to savor this annual showcase , which affords the musically curious a peek at a global bounty spread across three stages on Sunday , at the Copacabana .
From shamanic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dan Gwang Chil ) to Algerian psychedelia ( Sofiane Saidi and Mazalda ) , all make a noisy case for porous borders in an age of closure.—Jay Ruttenberg For more night-life listings , click here .
In Guatemala , there ’ s a common saying , “ A falta de pan , tortilla , ” which translates literally to “ In the absence of bread , tortilla , ” and means , figuratively , “ If you can ’ t get the best thing , take the next best thing.
” It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ referring to a vestigial hierarchy of carbohydrates , to a time in which tortillas were eaten primarily by the country ’ s indigenous population and associated with poverty .
Today , everyone in Guatemala eats tortillas , and , in any definition of the nation ’ s cuisine , they figure quite prominently—certainly more so than bread .
You ’ ll find tortillas at both Ix , in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens , and Claudia ’ s , in East Williamsburg , which was , until recently , a more casual café called C.Lo.—Hannah Goldfield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In Dublin , Ireland , in 1982 , the sixteen-year-old Conor ( Brenock O ’ Connor ) assembles a rock group with some classmates at Christian Brothers high school , battles bullies , and impresses Raphina ( Zara Devlin ) .
“ Sing Street ” —at New York Theatre Workshop , in a production that will transfer to Broadway in March—is based on the 2016 film written and directed by John Carney , with a book by Enda Walsh and songs by Carney and Gary Clark .
This musical , directed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sentimental than the movie .
But the cast of fourteen ( plus one gratuitous live rabbit ) captures even more winningly the dumb joy of being in a teen-age band , not least because the actors play their own instruments .
Bob Crowley ( costumes ) and J. Jared Janas ( hair and makeup ) build a nice gag in which the boys grow ever more peacockish with each scene.—Rollo Romig For more theatre reviews , click here .
Though Yasujiro Ozu is widely considered a filmmaker of domestic intimacy , a strain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through his films , nowhere more boldly than in “ There Was a Father , ” which he made in 1942 , during the Second World War .
The war is a prime subject of the drama—in which a widower maintains a stoic air as he sends his son , his only child , to the Army—and Ozu ’ s depiction of emotion stifled under the pressure of tradition comes off as a quiet but bitter protest .
It screens Friday and Saturday at Anthology Film Archives ( and is also streaming on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more movie reviews , click here .
The Ferus Festival , National Sawdust ’ s weeklong plunge into experimental storytelling , from January 10th to the 17th , ricochets between individual and collective experiences .
Two of Sawdust ’ s artists-in-residence offer deeply personal programs : Lucy Dhegrae , a survivor of sexual assault , contends with how trauma gives way to recovery through haunting pieces by Philippe Leroux and Francis Poulenc ; Sonic , who is partially deaf , uses the venue ’ s new Meyer Sound system to re-create her aural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Come ‘ Round Right ” takes inspiration from Shaker hymns—the artifacts of a community that has all but disappeared—and Sister Sylvester ’ s “ The Eagle and the Tortoise ” asks audience members to read an illustrated storybook together while wearing headlamps .
The festival closes with a workshop performance of “ Untitled , ” for which the composers Ellen Reid and Paola Prestini have each written a monodrama based on one of the images from Cindy Sherman ’ s famously elusive “ Untitled Film Stills.
” —Oussama Zahr For more classical-music listings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choreographer Faye Driscoll set out to make a trilogy of works called “ Thank You for Coming , ” the titular sentiment was sincere .
She ’ s friendly , and these pieces hinge on the performer-audience relationship .
The first two installments were big ensemble efforts that resembled clever , complex theatre-class games , and the dominant tone was sophomoric .
But , in the final section , “ Space , ” receiving its New York première at New York Live Arts , tonight through January 11th , Driscoll goes solo and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : this one is about death .
Just because she ’ s alone doesn ’ t mean that audience members are off the hook , though .
She asks them for help .
And , when this meditation on mortality gets messy , as Driscoll ’ s shows usually do , everyone is implicated.—Brian Seibert For more dance listings , click here .

These are our top picks for the weekend of March 6th-8th. For more event listings and reviews, check out Goings On About Town.
Art work by José Clemente Orozco / Courtesy ARS / SOMAAP / MOMA
The Whitney’s thumpingly great show “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1924-1945” picks an overdue art-historical fight. The usual story of those two decades revolves around young aesthetes striving to absorb European modernism. What to do with the mighty legacy of the era’s big three Mexican painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros? As little as possible has seemed the rule, despite the seminal influence of Orozco and Siqueiros on the young Jackson Pollock. With some two hundred works by sixty artists and abundant documentary material, the curator Barbara Haskell reweaves the sense and sensations of the era to bring it alive.—Peter Schjeldahl
For more art reviews, click here.
For our Spring Art Preview, click here.
Photograph by Hanna-Katrina Jedrosz
The glamorously intelligent post-punk that was incubated in English art colleges forty years ago is reconstituted with panache in Dry Cleaning: it’s almost shocking to hear lyrics referencing not Margaret Thatcher but Meghan Markle. This young London quartet is effortlessly magnetic and impossibly British, with an ace card in Florence Shaw—a vocalist who rarely deigns to sing but, rather, presents her lyrics as if engaged in an apathetic phone conversation. After making its American début at Saint Vitus, on Friday, the band plays Union Pool the following night.—Jay Ruttenberg
For more night-life listings, click here.
For our Spring Night-Life Preview, click here.
Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
There has never been a better time to eat a meatless hamburger. The current surge of interest in plant-based diets has sparked an arms race of sorts. Since 2008, the chef Amanda Cohen has been the force behind Dirt Candy, the first vegetarian restaurant to hold its own in New York’s fine-dining landscape. Cohen had never served a veggie burger before Andrea Kerzner, a South African philanthropist looking for ways to fight climate change, cold-called her to propose that they collaborate on a restaurant built around one, but she was game to try. Last November, they opened Lekka Burger, in Tribeca.—Hannah Goldfield
For more restaurant reviews, click here.
Photograph by Sara Krulwich / NYT / Redux
In 1997, a woman named Dana Higginbotham was abducted by an ex-convict and member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He dragged her from motel to motel around the South for five months, abusing her physically and mentally. Higginbotham happens to be the mother of the playwright Lucas Hnath, who turned the story into a play. And not just any play—“Dana H.” (at the Vineyard) is a channelling, an exorcism, and a tribute. The brilliant concept is that the actress Deirdre O’Connell, alone onstage, lip-synchs—with virtuosic precision—to edited segments of interviews with the actual Dana H. Directed by Les Waters with chilling precision and his usual skill for creating an eerie atmosphere, this production is as stunning as it is harrowing.—Elisabeth Vincentelli
For more theatre reviews, click here.
For our Spring Theatre Preview, click here.
Photograph from Universal Pictures / Album / Alamy
Alfred Hitchcock depended greatly on the art and the acumen of female collaborators, including his wife, Alma Reville, a screenwriter and editor, and Joan Harrison, a writer and producer. Their work is brought into the fore in Film Forum’s series “The Women Behind Hitchcock,” which also includes movies by other directors, including Robert Siodmak, a film-noir specialist whose harsh and cynical vision of wartime New York, “Phantom Lady,” from 1944, was produced by Harrison. It screens on Saturday and four more times before the series ends, on March 19th.—Richard Brody
For more movie reviews, click here.
For our Spring Movies Preview, click here.
Photograph by Alexander Polzin
The Talea Ensemble performs the U.S. première of Toshio Hosokawa’s “Futari Shizuka,” a chamber opera based on a Noh play about a spirit that enters a woman’s body. It uses Western- and Noh-style singing to differentiate between the two characters, and it appears on a double bill with another chamber opera about possession: George Benjamin’s “Into the Little Hill,” a striking, minimalist setting of the Pied Piper legend in which two singers assume all the roles. On Saturday evening, James Baker conducts the cast and ensemble in a semi-staged concert at the 92nd Street Y.—Oussama Zahr
For more classical-music listings, click here.
For our Spring Classical-Music Preview, click here.
Photograph by Rahi Rezvani
Nederlands Dans Theatre, based in The Hague, is one of the most prestigious contemporary-dance ensembles in Europe, if not the world. Its reputation is rooted, in part, in the long artistic residency of the choreographer Jiří Kylián. The current program doesn’t include any Kylián, but the four choreographers on it are in many ways his heirs. Gabriela Carrizo, from Argentina, has created a fragmented Bergmanesque narrative, “The Missing Door,” revolving around a death and set in a bleak, hotel-like space. “Walk the Demon” is one of Marco Goecke’s twitchy, insect-like essays in movement. And, from the two in-house choreographers, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, we get “Shut Eye,” a fantasy made of light and shadow.—Marina Harss
For more dance listings, click here.
For our Spring Dance Preview, click here.


newyorker--2020-01-09--How Israel Views Trump’s Strike Against Iran

In the United States , early analyses of the Trump Administration ’ s assassination of General Qassem Suleimani , the commander of Iran ’ s Quds Force , tended to come with corresponding analyses of Iran ’ s array of choices for armed retaliation—attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf , Saudi oil assets , Iraqi political targets , Israel , various diplomatic missions—suggesting that such a response is inevitable , and wondering , ominously , where it will come .
By inference , the rationale for Donald Trump ’ s bolt-from-the-blue action will be justified , or not , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As General David Petraeus told Foreign Policy , “ It is impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action .
.
.
.
Suleimani was the architect and operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia crescent , stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria into southern Lebanon.
” He added , “ Now the question is : How does Iran respond with its own forces and its proxies , and then what does that lead the U.S. to do ?
” Petraeus ’ s apprehension was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump Administration ’ s alleged contingency plans for an Iranian counterattack .
After Suleimani ’ s death , Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Iran ’ s Supreme Leader , reportedly instructed his National Security Council that Iran ’ s response should not be carried out by proxies but , rather , by Iranian forces in a direct , proportional attack on American interests .
If that were to happen , Trump tweeted , his Administration had plans to attack fifty-two Iranian targets—a number that recalls the fifty-two American hostages held in Tehran in 1979 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first Iranian salvo came : units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq where American troops are stationed .
There were no reported casualties , and the damage was apparently minimal .
Later on Wednesday morning , in a brief address from the White House , Trump said—some would say gloated—that Iran “ appears to be standing down.
” After misrepresenting the terms of the Iran nuclear deal , he called on NATO—an organization he has frequently scorned—to take a role @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but said that he was ready “ to embrace peace with all who seek it.
” Whatever Trump does , or does not do , in response , looking one military move ahead does not amount to a strategic plan .
And the danger of escalation looms in a region that is , whatever America ’ s advantage in the airspace , Iranian turf .
A missile barrage is the least of Iran ’ s strategic options .
After the killing of Suleimani , which was achieved by a drone strike near the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for American troops to leave that country , which has a Shiite majority and is home to militias subject to Iranian influence .
Trump threatened economic sanctions on Iraq , but this has mainly compromised Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi , who presides over cities—recently wracked by demonstrations—that are desperate for foreign investment .
It has not , apparently , mitigated uncertainty regarding the fate of America ’ s Iraqi bases , which calls the continuing fight against ISIS into question , let alone the meagre results of America ’ s terrible war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owes its survival to Iran , and Lebanon remains dominated by the Iran-backed Hezbollah , whose leader , Hassan Nasrallah , warned that suicide bombers across the region will leave the Americans “ humiliated , defeated , and terrified.
” But this is Israel ’ s turf , too , and the killing of Suleimani feels quite different in Israel than it does in the United States—a somewhat more decisive , if not exactly recommended , move in a game that has been playing out in the region for years .
Prime Minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the U.S. strike in advance by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo , said that Trump was “ worthy of full appreciation ” —though he subsequently tried to distance Israel from the killing , calling it “ an American event.
” Benny Gantz , the opposition leader trying to displace Netanyahu , called the attack a “ brave decision.
” No major party leader has publicly condemned the killing .
On Sunday , Alex Fishman , the security correspondent for the Tel Aviv–based newspaper Yediot Ahronot , wrote , “ For years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States for a military confrontation with Iran .
And last Friday we emerged from these 40 years in the wilderness.
” Fishman puts things brazenly , but he captured the general mood among Israeli security experts , who take it for granted that they must fight a war of attrition with Iran and its proxies—Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria .
They also assume that , despite Israel ’ s own “ second strike ” nuclear capabilities , Iran ’ s heft—a technologically advanced country of eighty-three million people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s—its nuclear program , and its development of guided missiles constitute an outsized , if not existential , threat .
Since October , when Trump seemed willing to abandon the Kurds fighting in northern Syria , Israeli security experts have feared that their American patron was showing signs of withdrawing from the region .
Their ultimate fear was that he would leave Israel to face Iran alone .
But something else is at play here .
The assassination of Suleimani seems of a piece with Israeli conceptions of “ deterrence ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in reserve—in which the killing of leaders is an arrow in the quiver .
When Amos Yadlin , the executive director of Tel Aviv University ’ s Institute for National Security Studies—he previously served as the chief of military intelligence and as a deputy commander of the Israeli Air Force—was interviewed about the assassination on the Ynet news site , he immediately drew a parallel to the assassination of Imad Fayez Mughniyeh , a Hezbollah commander , in a joint Mossad-C.I.A .
operation in 2008 .
As Hezbollah and Iranian leaders did then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now respond in a measured way .
Virtually all defense experts presume a kind of division of labor in the regional contest , with the U.S. deterring Iran ’ s missile and nuclear programs and Israel countering the missile capabilities of its proxies .
The Iranians “ really , really don ’ t want a war with the world ’ s greatest power , ” Yadlin said .
Any “ broad-based attack , ” such as the one that Iranian leaders threatened over the weekend against thirty-two sites , including Tel Aviv , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s great might , including B-1 bombers , B-2s , cruise missiles—everything the U.S. has.
” Yadlin did not have to add that what keeps Hezbollah ’ s tens of thousands of rockets and missiles away from their ( far fewer ) launchers is the spectre of how the Israeli Air Force would retaliate .
In recent months , the Air Force has carried out dozens of attacks in Syria , and even some in Iraq .
“ Alongside the limitations on its nuclear program , Iran is continuing to develop missiles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces , General Aviv Kochavi , said last month at a conference in Herzliya .
“ We are making great efforts to insure that our enemies do not acquire precision weapons , and we will do so openly , covertly , and even at the risk of conflict.
” Since October , though , Israel has worried that the Trump Administration isn ’ t fully committed to its part of the job .
The abandonment of the Kurds , Yadlin told me at the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a direct overland route through Iraq to President Assad ’ s Syria—and , from there , to Lebanon.
” Furthermore , oil-and-gas independence seemed to make the Administration cavalier about the Gulf .
Iran attacked shipping there , then attacked Saudi oil fields , and even shot down a hundred-million-dollar U.S. drone .
“ The perception , ” Yadlin said , was that the Americans “ are willing to impose sanctions , willing to offer economic aid .
But , when it comes to the military option , they are very hesitant.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t need U.S. military help , “ but this withdrawal means a reduction in Israeli ‘ deterrence.
’ ” The attack on Suleimani , presumably , turned things around .
Another former chief of military intelligence , Aharon Ze ’ evi-Farkash , told Israeli radio on Sunday that Suleimani was uniquely positioned to “ continue spreading the Revolution ” —not primarily to annihilate Israel but to build Iranian relations with insurgents from Yemen to Syria to Gaza—and that perhaps the assassination may prove him irreplaceable .
“ There are people built by history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ Iranian regime is pragmatic ” —even Suleimani himself , who had cozied up to the Russian President , Vladimir Putin ( he was , Farkash said , “ the Kremlin ’ s , Putin ’ s favored guest ” ) , had “ worked together ” with the C.I.A .
to fight against ISIS in Iraq .
The Iranians do not want to absorb a further American attack ; their highest priority is “ not to lose Iraq , ” and thus lose the land bridge from Tehran to Beirut .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sites are particularly exposed to air attack .
As a former senior Israeli defense official put it to me in May of 2018 , just after John Bolton , a longtime Iran hawk , became Trump ’ s national-security adviser , the Trump Administration would find an attack on the nuclear installations “ almost tempting , ” what with “ the surgical tools America developed to hit Iranian nuclear sites and operations.
” Uzi Arad , who served as Netanyahu ’ s national-security adviser from 2009 to 2011 , notes that more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He told me , “ Iranian leaders know that America could hit not only nuclear-related installations but also their military bases , their seaports—Iran is largely a sea power in the Gulf .
Also , facilities of the Revolutionary Guards.
” Arad believes that both sides will now look to deëscalate , and that Trump is not out for regime change in Iran .
What he really seems to want , Arad said , is intimidation of the existing regime , which may prove frustrating : “ It is said that Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a negotiation.
” Then again , Arad acknowledged , if escalation continues and miscalculations mount , one never knows , especially with Trump , how things might change .
“ We would hope that the fear of mutual miscalculation will cause the sides to roll things back , ” he said .
“ But miscalculations are possible.
” Trump may then find himself in a spiralling tit-for-tat , a war , and then change his position about regime change .
Yadlin , Arad , Farkash , and the former senior official , unlike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nuclear deal .
They all also distance themselves from Netanyahu ’ s indifference to peace overtures toward the Palestinian National Authority .
The Institute for National Strategic Studies has itself proposed significant , unilateral interim steps for implementing a two-state solution .
Yadlin ran against Netanyahu ’ s government in 2015 , as the designated defense minister on an opposition list that included the Labor Party .
Yet he and Arad both think that Iran had a chance to test the diplomatic path after the nuclear deal—say , by agreeing to negotiations about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way of avoiding remaining sanctions—and , instead , chose to expand its regional adventurism .
In that context , Trump ’ s strike , entangled with Israel ’ s own notions of regional deterrence , is seen as a counter to such adventurism—a continuation of the notion of “ minimum power necessary for maximum effect , and entailing minimum danger , ” as Yadlin wrote to me in November , akin to “ a targeted strike , like Israel ’ s operation on Iraq ’ s nuclear reactor in 1981 , ” which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , participated in .
But this is obviously a dangerously elastic formulation , as the attack on Suleimani shows .
Although provisional asymmetry makes deterrence plausible , it also makes a too-big preëmptive attack “ tempting.
” Israeli military officials routinely say that their theory of deterrence takes into account both the enemy ’ s motives and its capabilities .
But that theory can default to the idea that , if Israeli military power is what intimidates enemy forces , then when the latter gains capabilities their motives will unconsciously change : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they should .
For Israel , this line of thought essentially took hold just before the Sinai Campaign of 1956 , when it attacked Egypt ’ s recently acquired Soviet armor and planes .
It has never really changed .
Then , as now , Israel enlisted great powers to act at its side ; it colluded with France and Britain , which occupied the Suez Canal .
Then , as now , Israel saw periodic attacks to build deterrence as routine .
A state of war came to seem normal .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ though neither Yadlin nor Arad ) exemplifies , is that , as long as Israeli leaders feel themselves in a state of successful deterrence , they will stop imagining how long-term diplomacy can be more urgent than immediate steps to annihilate enemy capabilities— “ mowing the lawn , ” as officers call bombing operations in Gaza .
With Hezbollah in Lebanon , Israel ’ s war in the north may now be inescapably normal .
America ’ s position vis-à-vis Iran and the whole of the Middle East is hardly comparable with Israel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
America ’ s responsibilities are both less urgent and more complex .
For Trump , moreover , diplomacy was an option—about this , many Israeli security experts , including Yadlin , have no doubt .
The nuclear deal proved , if nothing else , that war with Iran is not inescapable .
For Americans , it most certainly will not seem normal .

In the United States, early analyses of the Trump Administration’s assassination of General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, tended to come with corresponding analyses of Iran’s array of choices for armed retaliation—attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf, Saudi oil assets, Iraqi political targets, Israel, various diplomatic missions—suggesting that such a response is inevitable, and wondering, ominously, where it will come. By inference, the rationale for Donald Trump’s bolt-from-the-blue action will be justified, or not, by its consequences and their consequences. As General David Petraeus told Foreign Policy, “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action. . . . Suleimani was the architect and operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia crescent, stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria into southern Lebanon.” He added, “Now the question is: How does Iran respond with its own forces and its proxies, and then what does that lead the U.S. to do?”
Petraeus’s apprehension was unlikely to have been allayed by the Trump Administration’s alleged contingency plans for an Iranian counterattack. After Suleimani’s death, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, reportedly instructed his National Security Council that Iran’s response should not be carried out by proxies but, rather, by Iranian forces in a direct, proportional attack on American interests. If that were to happen, Trump tweeted, his Administration had plans to attack fifty-two Iranian targets—a number that recalls the fifty-two American hostages held in Tehran in 1979. Early on Wednesday morning, a first Iranian salvo came: units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq where American troops are stationed. There were no reported casualties, and the damage was apparently minimal. Later on Wednesday morning, in a brief address from the White House, Trump said—some would say gloated—that Iran “appears to be standing down.” After misrepresenting the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, he called on NATO—an organization he has frequently scorned—to take a role and reiterated threats and sanctions against Iran but said that he was ready “to embrace peace with all who seek it.”
Whatever Trump does, or does not do, in response, looking one military move ahead does not amount to a strategic plan. And the danger of escalation looms in a region that is, whatever America’s advantage in the airspace, Iranian turf. A missile barrage is the least of Iran’s strategic options. After the killing of Suleimani, which was achieved by a drone strike near the Baghdad airport, the Iraqi parliament called for American troops to leave that country, which has a Shiite majority and is home to militias subject to Iranian influence. Trump threatened economic sanctions on Iraq, but this has mainly compromised Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who presides over cities—recently wracked by demonstrations—that are desperate for foreign investment. It has not, apparently, mitigated uncertainty regarding the fate of America’s Iraqi bases, which calls the continuing fight against ISIS into question, let alone the meagre results of America’s terrible war there. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime owes its survival to Iran, and Lebanon remains dominated by the Iran-backed Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned that suicide bombers across the region will leave the Americans “humiliated, defeated, and terrified.”
But this is Israel’s turf, too, and the killing of Suleimani feels quite different in Israel than it does in the United States—a somewhat more decisive, if not exactly recommended, move in a game that has been playing out in the region for years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was reportedly apprised of the U.S. strike in advance by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said that Trump was “worthy of full appreciation”—though he subsequently tried to distance Israel from the killing, calling it “an American event.” Benny Gantz, the opposition leader trying to displace Netanyahu, called the attack a “brave decision.” No major party leader has publicly condemned the killing. On Sunday, Alex Fishman, the security correspondent for the Tel Aviv–based newspaper Yediot Ahronot, wrote, “For years, Israel has tried unsuccessfully to harness the United States for a military confrontation with Iran. And last Friday we emerged from these 40 years in the wilderness.”
Fishman puts things brazenly, but he captured the general mood among Israeli security experts, who take it for granted that they must fight a war of attrition with Iran and its proxies—Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. They also assume that, despite Israel’s own “second strike” nuclear capabilities, Iran’s heft—a technologically advanced country of eighty-three million people, with a military industry larger than Israel’s—its nuclear program, and its development of guided missiles constitute an outsized, if not existential, threat. Since October, when Trump seemed willing to abandon the Kurds fighting in northern Syria, Israeli security experts have feared that their American patron was showing signs of withdrawing from the region. Their ultimate fear was that he would leave Israel to face Iran alone.
But something else is at play here. The assassination of Suleimani seems of a piece with Israeli conceptions of “deterrence”—the manifest demonstration of overwhelming force kept in reserve—in which the killing of leaders is an arrow in the quiver. When Amos Yadlin, the executive director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies—he previously served as the chief of military intelligence and as a deputy commander of the Israeli Air Force—was interviewed about the assassination on the Ynet news site, he immediately drew a parallel to the assassination of Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah commander, in a joint Mossad-C.I.A. operation in 2008. As Hezbollah and Iranian leaders did then, Yadlin said, Iranian leaders would now respond in a measured way. Virtually all defense experts presume a kind of division of labor in the regional contest, with the U.S. deterring Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and Israel countering the missile capabilities of its proxies. The Iranians “really, really don’t want a war with the world’s greatest power,” Yadlin said. Any “broad-based attack,” such as the one that Iranian leaders threatened over the weekend against thirty-two sites, including Tel Aviv, would “bring down on them America’s great might, including B-1 bombers, B-2s, cruise missiles—everything the U.S. has.”
Yadlin did not have to add that what keeps Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of rockets and missiles away from their (far fewer) launchers is the spectre of how the Israeli Air Force would retaliate. In recent months, the Air Force has carried out dozens of attacks in Syria, and even some in Iraq. “Alongside the limitations on its nuclear program, Iran is continuing to develop missiles that can reach Israeli territory,” the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, General Aviv Kochavi, said last month at a conference in Herzliya. “We are making great efforts to insure that our enemies do not acquire precision weapons, and we will do so openly, covertly, and even at the risk of conflict.”
Since October, though, Israel has worried that the Trump Administration isn’t fully committed to its part of the job. The abandonment of the Kurds, Yadlin told me at the time, “gave Iran a windfall, a direct overland route through Iraq to President Assad’s Syria—and, from there, to Lebanon.” Furthermore, oil-and-gas independence seemed to make the Administration cavalier about the Gulf. Iran attacked shipping there, then attacked Saudi oil fields, and even shot down a hundred-million-dollar U.S. drone. “The perception,” Yadlin said, was that the Americans “are willing to impose sanctions, willing to offer economic aid. But, when it comes to the military option, they are very hesitant.” Israel, Yadlin added, doesn’t need U.S. military help, “but this withdrawal means a reduction in Israeli ‘deterrence.’ ”
The attack on Suleimani, presumably, turned things around. Another former chief of military intelligence, Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, told Israeli radio on Sunday that Suleimani was uniquely positioned to “continue spreading the Revolution”—not primarily to annihilate Israel but to build Iranian relations with insurgents from Yemen to Syria to Gaza—and that perhaps the assassination may prove him irreplaceable. “There are people built by history,” he said. Nevertheless, the “Iranian regime is pragmatic”—even Suleimani himself, who had cozied up to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin (he was, Farkash said, “the Kremlin’s, Putin’s favored guest”), had “worked together” with the C.I.A. to fight against ISIS in Iraq. The Iranians do not want to absorb a further American attack; their highest priority is “not to lose Iraq,” and thus lose the land bridge from Tehran to Beirut. Besides, they know that their nuclear sites are particularly exposed to air attack. As a former senior Israeli defense official put it to me in May of 2018, just after John Bolton, a longtime Iran hawk, became Trump’s national-security adviser, the Trump Administration would find an attack on the nuclear installations “almost tempting,” what with “the surgical tools America developed to hit Iranian nuclear sites and operations.”