Today, the GoodFellows convene to discuss the US-Iran memorandum of understanding; Victor Davis Hanson pens an essay on misconceptions surrounding the Iran war reverberating through US politics; and Hoover scholars share a new interactive atlas of education worker pension funding, allowing Americans to better understand how much of their state's education spending is allocated toward school worker pensions.
Determining America’s Role in the World
Now that the US and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding halting hostilities in the Middle East, the GoodFellows ask: Will the agreement hold up for long? The answer is far from clear, given ongoing US-Iranian disputes over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its funding of terrorist proxies across the region, and Israel’s actions in Lebanon. If President Trump succeeds in putting Iran in the rear-view window, does he turn his attention to brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine (that war now approaching four years and four months of fighting) as well as ending Cuba’s communist dictatorship? After considering these possibilities, the show’s resident Scotsman explains the joy of his countrymen’s “Tartan Army” coming to Boston—thousands of kilt-wearing lads and lasses singing, marching, and pub-crawling their way through Beantown while rooting on a Scottish national team making its first World Cup appearance in this century. Watch or listen here.
The End of the Iran War?
In an essay published today at his Blade of Perseus site, Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson pushes back against several “fabrications and distortions” he sees circulating about the Iran conflict. Against the claim that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz means the war was a failure, Hanson says that “disarming Iran and then dealing with its inevitable desperate strategy of closing the Strait” was inevitable in any US-Iran war. Against claims of US strategic isolation, Hanson argues the war has reshaped Middle East foreign relations and will likely yield a lasting partnership among the US, Israel, and Gulf states. And last, to the claim that this war broke Trump’s pledge to not enter “forever wars,” the military historian maintains it’s likely “that less than six weeks of active bombing achieved far more than 20 years in Afghanistan and a decade in Iraq—at a fraction of the human and fiscal costs.” Read more here.
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Writing at The Free Press, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson digs into the details of the 14-point memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran published yesterday. Ferguson argues that “it is important to remember that a piece of paper by itself is not a peace. For peace is made as much by actions as by words—and as much by the unforeseen consequences of diplomacy as by the intended ones.” And as he notes, there is much room in the days, weeks, and months ahead for yet-unknown consequences to play out. For one, Ferguson says, the Iranian regime could already be poised for collapse. Recalling the history of President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, “designed not merely to end World War I but also to serve as a blueprint for an enduring global peace,” Ferguson concludes that “the wording of this lousy memorandum of understanding may matter less than the second- and third-order consequences of Trump’s Iran war.” Read more here.
Reforming Education
Education worker pension spending is rapidly crowding out direct outlays on K–12 education spending in several states, revealing a growing crisis in public education across America, according to new research from the Hoover Institution. Senior Fellow Joshua D. Rauh and Research Associate Gregory Kearney have built a new web database tracking the share of education spending across the US that is devoted to school worker pensions since 2015. They find that states and localities spent 10.57 percent of associated education expenditures on school worker pensions in 2023, up 2.1 percentage points since 2015. At schoolpensionatlas.org, users can see detailed breakdowns of pension spending from all 50 states. The database covers 12,800 school districts, participating in 95 different state and local defined-benefit pensions in operation for education workers across the country. Learn more here.
Revitalizing American Institutions
A multiday conference at the Hoover Institution brought together journalists and scholars to examine how declining local news coverage is impacting American democracy and explore possible pathways to reinvigorate news at the community and even national levels. The May 14–15 gathering was hosted by Hoover’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI). “Perhaps no period in US history has been so consequential to the existence of local and state media as the 21st century, when many outlets have closed or significantly reduced capacity,” said RAI Director Brandice Canes-Wrone. “In their wake, however, innovators have been leading the way with novel media developments to bring news to the people.” The conference was made possible by the organizational efforts of Canes-Wrone, Visiting Fellow Markos Kounalakis, and Gregory J. Martin of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Read more here.
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