Harsh international sanctions against Iran are pointless and even counterproductive, members of the Iran Project argued this week in a new report. The group, consisting of a number of leading experts and former diplomats, argued that sanctions “may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and the United States..."

Harsh international sanctions against Iran are pointless and even counterproductive, members of the Iran Project argued this week in a new report.

In his first 48 hours in the Bronx, Omar al-Mashhadani caught a few echoes of the life that he and his family had left behind in Baghdad. Thousands of people were swarming along 161st Street, toward the hulking stadium on the other side of the El on River Avenue.

The United States entered Afghanistan and Iraq knowing what it wanted to eliminate – Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary and Saddam Hussein’s regime – but with only a vague conception of a desired strategic end state. In Iraq, the lack of a post-conflict strategy was not an oversight, but deliberate. In neither case was there a grasp of the political, social and cultural forces in those countries that would shape the eventual outcomes.

One of the most memorable shows singer/songwriter Mary McBride performed on her worldwide tour as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. Department of State was at a senior center in Iraq.

Bolen recently completed his third summer teaching in American Voices’ Youth Excellence on Stage, or YES Academy. The program has taken him to Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon for two-week intervals to introduce classical piano music and techniques to young pupils from around each country.