About Those Iran Negotiations ...

In Iran-related news:
The New York Times quotes one anonymous Western diplomat as saying, in reference to the just-completed P5 + 1 talks over Iran's nuclear program -- talks in which the only subject discussed was when to talk -- "I don't think they would come if they weren't serious."

The "they" is the Iranian regime, and this Western diplomat may be right, though there is an alternative explanation for Iranian participation: They came because they're stalling for time, and what better way to stall for time then create the appearance of negotiations? Could this aforementioned Western diplomat not have thought of that?

I think the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, overreacted when he called the 5-week period between this round of talks and the next, in late May, a "freebie" to the Iranians, who can use the time to enrich uranium, and further harden their nuclear sites, and so on. Five weeks is not too terribly long, and President Obama (who, I get the sense, Netanyahu is back to mistrusting) has said explicitly that he's not going to allow the Iranians to stall. But again, we're back to the phase of this drama in which Netanyahu feels that Obama, who desperately wants to avoid the economic disruption he fears would ensue if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear program (that is to say, he doesn't want the economic disruption before November), is stringing along Iran, and stringing along Israel.

I believe Netanyahu should trust Obama to deal with Iran in 2013 (and yes, I've taken a beating from various of my friends for suggesting that Obama is serious about stopping Iran by whatever means necessary, but I'm sticking with this analysis until someone actually makes an argument that doesn't consist mainly of, "Are you kidding? Obama?")

And so, again, June. After the Netanyahu-Obama meeting last month, I thought the White House had bought some time with the Israelis. Though it makes no sense for the Israelis to strike Iran's nuclear sites after November (the political climate, and the actual climate, as in cloud-cover, makes a strike this winter implausible), I thought the Obama Administration had moved the Israeli clock back a bit, to September. But I think we're back to looking at June as a possible (I didn't say probable) month for an Israeli attack.

Here, by the way, is Slate's Fred Kaplan on the subject. I agree with Fred -- I hope I'm not mischaracterizing his position -- that if the Israelis don't strike by November, then they will have, in essence, decided to subcontract out the problem to the Americans:

(I)f the Israelis really are intent on attacking the Iranian nuclear facilities, they're likely to do so before this November's American presidential elections. If they started an attack and needed U.S. firepower to help them complete the task, Barack Obama might open himself up to perilous political attacks--for being indecisive, weak, appeasing, anti-Israel, you name it--if he didn't follow through. It could cost him the votes of crucial constituencies. If the Israelis tried to pressure the United States into joining an attack after the election, Obama would have (to borrow a phrase from another context) more flexibility. So, to the extent the Israeli leaders have decided to attack (and it's not at all clear they have), they are probably thinking: much better sooner than later.

One of several reason I think an attack, if it comes, will come sooner rather than later is a just-aired report from Israel's Channel 10 Television on the Israeli air force's preparedness for an attack. (Times of Israel has a synopsis). The fact that the Barak-run Defense Ministry allowed this report to air (it has the power to censor national security information) suggests something, I think. (And, yes, it could be part of a bluff, but I don't tend to think so. I think the airing of this report was more a signal to the White House and to the Europeans that Israel won't wait very long.)

About the Author

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”