Today, Barry Strauss explains the ancient historical ties between the people of Iran and the Jewish people; Eyck Freymann shows how Iran’s closure of a key chokepoint in global shipping might inform Chinese strategists’ approach to Taiwan; and Ross Levine speaks with Russ Roberts about Adam Smith’s insights into the ends of human ambition and what makes a good life.
Middle East History
Today’s Iran is a determined enemy of the state of Israel, but during centuries past, relations between the peoples of these nations featured long periods of collaboration and peaceful cohabitation, Senior Fellow Barry Strauss argues at Freedom Frequency. Jews have had a continuous history in Iran since 722 BCE, when Assyria relocated conquered Israelites to what is now Iran, and some of the most famous names in the Hebrew Bible lived there under Iranian rule, Strauss writes. Ancient Judea was a province under multiple empires, some of whom integrated Jews into the state and granted them a measure of autonomy. Conditions for Jews in Iran deteriorated during periods of Muslim rule, Strauss says, improved during the Pahlavi reign, and then fell disastrously after 1979. Today, Strauss concludes, it’s easy to forget the millennia of friendship and shared interests between Iran and the Jewish people. He asks: Might a new Iranian regime remember? Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
“You don’t need to sink ships to shut down a global trade route and force the United States to the negotiating table”—this is the lesson China is learning from Iran’s successful closure, at least for a time, of the Strait of Hormuz, argues Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann in a new essay for Time. Iran’s use of a “handful of missile and drone strikes” to scare insurers and merchant vessels has handed Chinese military planners “a proof of concept,” Freymann says, that will figure heavily in their strategizing around Taiwan. “A Taiwan crisis would move faster and cut deeper than anything we have recently experienced,” Freymann says, emphasizing that “incompetent improvisation” in the absence of a coordinated western response would carry even greater costs in a conflict with China than with Iran. To prepare, he calls for “allied stockpiling of semiconductors and other critical inputs that cannot be quickly substituted,” as well as “rigorous supply chain coordination” to facilitate “fallback arrangements” in the event of a crisis. Read more here.
Economic History
What can Adam Smith teach us today? In this EconTalk conversation between Senior Fellow Ross Levine and Visiting Fellow Russ Roberts, Smith emerges as a penetrating psychologist who understood that our deepest hunger isn't for wealth but for respect—and that this hunger, left unexamined, leads individuals and societies alike into serious trouble. The discussion moves from the personal (why do highly successful people keep grinding long after they’ve “won”?) to the political: Smith’s sobering warning that when a society admires wealth and power for their own sake, it breeds servility and undermines freedom. Along the way, there’s a Marxist father reading Smith during COVID, a top economist who couldn’t understand why anyone would bother with a 1759 book, and a childhood story about loyalty and friendship that cuts to the heart of what we may have lost in modern culture. This episode offers a conversation about how to live well, using one of history’s greatest thinkers as a guide. Watch or listen here.
Philosophy of Science
On the latest episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Distinguished Policy Fellow Peter Robinson sits down with mathematician John Lennox, philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, and chemist James Tour to examine what modern science really suggests about the origins of the universe and life itself. Moving from the Big Bang and the discovery of cosmic beginnings to the possibility of fine-tuning of the physical constants that make life possible, as well as the extraordinary complexity of information embedded in DNA, the conversation explores whether these developments point to blind, undirected processes—or to an intelligent design. The trio of guests challenges long-held materialist assumptions, revisits classic scientific debates, and reflects on what these questions mean not only for science but also for our understanding of human existence and purpose. Watch or listen here.
Healthcare Policy
Why is the American healthcare system effective at doing some things—such as treating late-stage cancers or heart disease—but still plagued by persistent challenges in other areas, such as elevated rates of maternal mortality in childbirth? Could improvements in the health insurance market lead to improved outcomes for those not well served by the current health system? To discuss these challenges and the opportunities for reform they present, Research Fellow Lanhee J. Chen spoke with Margaret Hoover on PBS’s Firing Line. Chen reviews the history of healthcare reforms such as “Obamacare” as well as opposition to those reforms, which he suggests has been excessively defiant and insufficiently constructive. Along the way, Chen highlights opportunities for market-based reforms that could meaningfully improve Americans’ experience of the healthcare system. Watch here.
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