The war of nerves in recent days between Iran and Israel has created a tension that is not just regional, but global. Iran has pledged to retaliate severely against Israel for the bombing of its Damascus consulate and the killing of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammed Reza Zahedi. This tit-for-tat scenario may look like a simple movement in the see-saw of escalation, but in the complex triangle of Iranian-Israeli-American relations things are seldom what they seem.
The Taliban’s harsh new “vice and virtue” laws match the oppression of the 1990s – especially for Afghan womenÂ
The recent law change empowers the Taliban’s morality police and removes any remaining differences between the current regime and its 1990s predecessor.