HODER IS NO SPY

I've been away from Iranaffairs.com for a while, I am currently in Thailand, and I didn't think there was any point talking about all the endless speculation about what Obama's foreign policy would look like until he was actually in office, so there was no point in updating this blog. Until I heard that Hoder has been arrested in Iran for "spying" for Israel. This charge is silly. Look, spies don't go around openly blogging about their activities. Let him go. (I suspect he'll be harassed for a few days and then released anyway.) As for the rest of the news, the Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is considering a solo attack on Iran, and the other editorial pages are full of reports that "time is short" to "deal" with Iran, so apparently some people think that Clinton's appointment as Sec of State is an indication of more of the usual. We'll see how things play out, but I think this approach has been worn to threads already and no one is really buying it. Yet I don't put it past the AIPAC folks to try to turn Iran into a major foreign policy challenge in Obama's first term. As for my opinion of Clinton, well, the fact is that she voted for the war. And that after she received a severe scolding for hugging Arafat's wife, she quickly fell in line with AIPAC and swore her everlasting fealty to Israel as usual with American politicians. So, color me sceptical about any real changes happening to US foreign policy under Obama.