Decades ago when I was in college and grad school I had a strong side-interest in the Soviet Union and its history. During those years I may have read as many as one hundred books on those subjects. At that point, my views on most historical matters were almost entirely mainstream and conventional, closely conforming...

On Friday morning the New York Times reported that America had launched waves of attacks on Iranian targets, one of the most intense rounds of strikes since the war had begun more than four months earlier. A day or two before, President Donald Trump had declared that the ceasefire with Iran was "over." Strikes and...

Over the last few weeks I'd been paying less and less attention to our continuing Iran War mostly because less and less seemed to be happening. Every few days President Donald Trump would loudly announce that a peace agreement was about to be signed that would fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker...