Introducing The World Islands
And The Right Struggle
Hello to everybody!
If you are receiving this note, it is because you subscribed to The Russia–Iran File. Over the past year, I worked on a major project with a colleague, which led me to a realization: Europe and the Middle East, as I emphasized in my newsletter, obscured more than they explained. As the world becomes more connected, thanks to digital and transportation technologies, as well as ideologies, such divisions become less meaningful. The emerging partnership among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, with the frenemy status of Turkey, is at odds with such divisions. To be clear, there are still certain differences in these geographical zones; however, my craft is politics, not geography or sociology. Indeed, geography and sociology inform politics, but they do not overcome it.
My brilliant discovery, unfortunately, is two and a half millennia too late to be entirely new. Herodotus and Thucydides observed this first. In modern writings, Max Brooks, Halford Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman, and A.T. Mahan did too. In his lecture and subsequent essay, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Mackinder called the Eurasian landmass “the World Island.” The new name of this publication, The World Islands, is an acknowledgment of Mackinder’s theory of Eurasia, but it also broadens the scope to include the Americas as well, especially because our own country is not in Eurasia but is deeply involved in its affairs.
Going forward, I will discuss U.S. foreign and defense policy as it relates to Eurasia, as well as the Americas, which remains the most critical region to our security because it is our own backyard. I will also continue to report on domestic issues in Iran because I understand the country better than most.
There is a second newsletter, to which you are also subscribed, but can opt out: The Right Struggle. I am a conservative, and the future of the American right is up for the taking. From traditional conservatives, such as my friends at National Review, The Dispatch, Commentary, and The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages, to the paleocons and postliberals of the New Right like the groypers, everyone is hoping to see their side triumph. I will have my say here, in defense of the tradition of William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, and Ronald Reagan. I say tradition, mindful of the differences among those great men.
Of course, I’m a man of the right, so the progressive and illiberal lefts do not sit well with my taste, either. Expect me to swing punches on both sides. Here, there are enemies to the right and to the left, as there are friends on both sides. My goal is to post at least once a week for each newsletter. Some time this week, you should receive notes on how Eurasia became a geopolitical unit and where its politics stand today, and on how the right is imperfectly handling Jew hatred within its ranks (and how the left is mishandling it).
The new address is http://www.shaykhatiri.com. It is currently not working without the www., but it is supposed to soon!
And with that, I have to get to the belly of the beast, which you can find below.
