A lot of the misunderstanding U.S. policy makers have of foreign countries is caused by the lousy reporting in U.S. media.
Here is just one of many examples:
After War With Israel and U.S., Iran Rests on a Knife Edge (archived) – NY Times, Jun 29 2025
The Islamic Republic limps on after the 12-day conflict. Where will the nation go from here?
The piece was filled by Roger Cohen – the 'Paris Bureau chief for The Times' – from Dubai.
The opener is somewhat weird:
Roxana Saberi felt like she was back behind bars in Tehran. As she watched Israel’s bombing of Evin prison, the notorious detention facility at the core of Iran’s political repression, she shuddered at memories of solitary confinement, relentless interrogation, fabricated espionage charges and a sham trial during her 100-day incarceration in 2009.
Like many Iranians in the diaspora and at home, Ms. Saberi wavered, torn between her dreams of a government collapse that would free the country’s immense potential and her concern for family and friends as the civilian death toll mounted. Longings for liberation and for a cease-fire vied with each other.
That 'longings' language would fit the opener for some soft-porn essay. But it has nothing to do with the question the piece is supposed to (but does not) answer.
Roxana Saberi is U.S. born to an Iranian mother and a Japanese father. She lives with her parents in North Dakota. Only six out of her 48 years were spent in Iran where she worked until 2009 as a reporter for various western propaganda outlets. After she had been found in possession of secret documents she was jailed and later kicked out of country.
How can she be expected to tell us where Iran will go from here? She can't.
Neither can any of the other persons quoted in the too long piece:
… said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London think tank.
And who is that?
At Chatham House, Sanam directs a diverse portfolio of research and policy initiatives, addressing critical issues such as Gulf Arab security and economic transitions, Iran’s regional ambitions, governance and political reform, women’s empowerment, and the intersection of climate and socio-economic challenges.
Another source of the NY Times:
… said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent political scientist in the United Arab Emirates. “A weak Islamic Republic could hang on four or five years.”
Looking at Abdulkhaleq Abdulla vita I wonder how he is prominent 'in the UAE':
Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is a Senior Fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is a United Arab Emirates national, …
Professor Abdulla was a Fulbright Scholar, a Visiting Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics. He holds PhD in political science from Georgetown University and master’s degree from American University.
I see a lot of U.S. academia merits but not much Gulf experience in there.
Another of the NY Times 'experts':
… said Jeffrey Feltman, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington
Feltman is a former U.S. diplomat who has spent years in Tel Aviv but none in Iran. The Brookings Institute where he resides is the publisher of the Which Path To Persia pamphlet which is the still current manual for regime change in Tehran.
And last but not least one at least somewhat local 'expert':
“The people of Iran are fed up with being pariahs, and some were more saddened by the cease-fire than the war itself,” said Dherar Belhoul al-Falasi, a former member of the United Arab Emirates’ Federal National Council
'Saddened by the cease-fire'? Falesi would know that how? He was quoted in Zionist media when he rejected to give UAE money to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority because 'are corrupt'. Sure. How could they not be. But what does he know of Iranians?
There you have it. A New York Times piece which diagnoses Iran to be on a 'knife edge' based on five 'experts' none of whom is in Iran or has recently (if ever) been there. But all of them are from the very same swamp of U.S. foreign policy academics or 'think tanks' that live off and digest such pieces.
It feels like an outside look on some mysterious object with random guesses of what may be inside.
It is just a remix of the very same opinions that have been blubbered for years.
How is any policy maker supposed to get some understanding of Iran from it?