Middle East Insider · Issue 053 · Monday, September 28, 2026

The Mailbag, Vol. IV

Good morning. Yesterday’s Long View went through CAIR’s own filings. This morning, the mail. Between the afternoon Vol. III went out on August 26 and this past Saturday, 87 letters reached the desk from 70 of you. Among them: a plan to arm a million Iranians, a question about how the Forum’s map of American Islamism differs from the Boston map, one answer sent as a subject line with nothing under it, and seven donors who cannot get into the Premium they are owed. Five answers, your answers to the questions I asked, the readers who doubt Washington, one argument I refuse from both sides, the Lightning Round, the Number and the Ask.

What does “non-kinetic” mean? Can you give an example?

Kinetic is the military’s word for physical force: bombs, missiles, shells, a boarding party. Non-kinetic is everything a government does to an enemy without using weapons. Treasury’s August measures against the regime’s money were non-kinetic (Economic D-Day). So were the cyberattacks of June 2025 that shut down Bank Sepah’s payment systems and destroyed about $90 million at Nobitex, the regime’s largest crypto exchange (SecurityWeek). So are Persian-language broadcasting, satellite internet for Iranians, and money that lets oil and truck workers stay on strike.

The line George quotes means this: the U.S. Navy keeps the strait closed to Iran’s trade, and the next moves against the regime’s money, its networks and its enforcers’ pay should be led by Israel, because Israel has the cyber tools, the language and the agents inside the regime’s own institutions. Non-kinetic does not mean soft. The Berlin Wall fell when the soldiers stopped shooting, and they stopped shooting when they stopped being paid (The Western Front).

Why don’t you write about arming the Iranian population for when their uprising comes? Unarmed, it will be another excuse for the regime to massacre its people, as in January. A million Iranians at $1,000 each is only $1 billion. Why is this not even in the conversation?

It is in the conversation, in a form Jon may not have seen. On March 14, Reza Pahlavi told the network inside Iran he calls the Immortal Guard that he had asked them “to wear down and weaken the Islamic Republic’s machinery of repression by every possible means” (his statement), and a few days later he described the network as “striking institutions that the authorities use to spread fear and violence” (Jerusalem Post). He has not asked for a million rifles. Neither would I.

A million rifles weigh more than a thousand tons, and they would have to cross borders and waters the Revolutionary Guard patrols. The last American program to arm an insurgency at about the price Jon names, roughly $1 billion in Syria from 2013 to 2017, saw its TOW missiles stolen and sold for up to $30,000 each before the President shut it down in 2017 (War on the Rocks, Fox News). The Afghan program of the 1980s worked because Pakistan supplied the border and the officers who ran it. Iran has no neighbor that would do the same.

The January killings argue against the plan, not for it. Human Rights Watch documented security forces firing rifles, automatic weapons and heavy machine guns into crowds in at least eight provinces between January 8 and 14 (HRW). A crowd with rifles facing a state with machine guns and helicopters loses more people, and gives the regime a better excuse for killing them. The regime falls when its own armed men stop firing. That happens in one of three ways: they stop being paid, which is what the blockade and the sanctions are for; they are hit directly, as Israel hit the Basij headquarters and the Guard’s internal security command in June 2025 (Times of Israel); or they desert, which is what Pahlavi asked the army to do. The right policy is to fund the labor strikes, keep the internet on, strike the units that shoot protesters, and make it safe for soldiers to desert. Handing rifles to the crowd is the one option on that list with a record of failure.

While I think mapping American Islamism is a good idea, I’m not clear how it’s different from the Boston Mapping Project that many view as antisemitic.

It is a fair question. The Mapping Project appeared in June 2022 with 483 Massachusetts entities on it, among them Jewish day schools, Jewish cultural centers, a Jewish disability-services group, police departments and the Boston Globe, with the names of their leaders and their workplace addresses (Boston.com, Boston Globe). Its authors stated their purpose: “reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them” (ADL). The ADL’s Boston director called it “a Jewish hit list,” Senators Warren and Markey called it “dangerous and irresponsible,” and even the national BDS committee disowned it because of the names and addresses.

There are three differences. First, who gets listed. A Jewish school was on the Boston map because it was Jewish. An organization is in the Forum’s archive because a tax return, a corporate registration, a property record or its own public statements show a documented tie to the Islamist movement, and the same archive lists the reformist Muslim organizations that a university or a government agency can work with (Why We Map American Islamism). Second, what it is for. The Boston map told its readers to dismantle the organizations on it and gave them the addresses. The Forum’s archive exists to answer a question institutions ask us every week: which Muslim organizations can we work with. Third, who can check it. The archive is open to researchers by application, including our critics, so any entry can be tested against the documents behind it. Yesterday’s essay on CAIR shows the method: tax filings, registrations and public payments, each with a link (Why CAIR Is a Threat, and to Whom). The Forum’s position since 2005 is that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution (Pipes). The Boston map made no such distinction.

Why doesn’t the Crown Prince strike the Houthis, since they are attacking his country? And why do our European allies, who import more Middle Eastern oil than we do, do nothing while the United States does and finances everything?

He is striking them. On September 16 the Houthis claimed they had shot down a Saudi F-15 over Marib. The wreckage in their video carries a Royal Saudi Air Force tail number, and their spokesman said Saudi F-15s and Typhoons had flown more than 450 strikes that week (Times of Israel, Army Recognition). Riyadh has confirmed neither the loss nor the number. On Thursday the kingdom’s Grand Mufti told “our sons stationed on the front lines to remain patient, steadfast and vigilant,” as Saudi air defenses shot down six ballistic missiles aimed at Taif and Yanbu (The National). The open question is whether Washington joins the fight; the September 20 Long View put American strikes on Houthi targets by October 15 at likely (the odds).

On Europe, Andy is half right. Europe does little, but not because it depends on Gulf oil. The Middle East Gulf supplied 8 percent of American crude imports in 2025 (EIA) and the Gulf monarchies about 7 percent of the European Union’s (Euronews). Three quarters of the crude that leaves Hormuz goes to China, India, Japan and South Korea (EIA). Everyone pays the higher price, Asia buys most of the oil, and the United States does the work because it has the navy to do it. Europe has done some things this month: France is sending soldiers, radars and air defenses to Yanbu, and European governments are helping draft the Security Council text for an international mission in the strait (Nothing New).

Who shot the latest burning oil tanker, Iran or the USA?

Both sides have fired on ships this year, so the question is fair. The difference is that the United States announces what it does. When the U.S. Navy disables a ship running the blockade, it says so. On August 11 it warned the Vela Nova repeatedly, then put two Hellfire missiles into its engine room, took the crew off unharmed, and Central Command announced it the same day (The Blockade Shoots Back). Nobody has claimed the attacks off Khasab. The tanker that burned there on August 25 was, in the words of the UK Maritime Trade Operations warning, struck by an “unknown projectile”; a second tanker, inbound twelve nautical miles north of Khasab, was hit the same way on August 29 (Gulf News, Gulf News). An unclaimed attack on a merchant ship in the strait fits Iran’s conduct this year and not America’s. That is a pattern, not proof. Until a navy or an insurer identifies the weapon, the honest answer is UKMTO’s: unknown.

Five questions this newsletter asked, and your answers.

Banks or the blockade (August 26). Mickey: “do both, in sequence.” Give the blockade a week or two more; if nothing changes, sanction some Chinese banks, then bigger ones, “rinse and repeat.”

The corridor (August 27). Ellen put her whole answer in the subject line, “answer: hold the blockade,” and left the email blank. That was enough.

The brand (August 27). Bob, a longtime AIPAC member who disagrees with the group’s politics and funds it anyway, says fight for the name in the open: “Jews should not tolerate being told to be good little boys and girls and hand over our money but keep the source of it on the down low.” He was the only reader to answer that question.

The seven-day plan (September 25). Yale: wait until Monday. Either the deadline passes and shows a regime that knows it has lost, or Tehran escalates and unites the world against itself. No reader wanted Washington to answer Tehran before the strait is open.

What the Forum should be scored on (September 20). Ron, a donor, sent screenshots of the Forum’s emails breaking in Outlook: “How can MEF aim for excellence when it has trouble with just making its publishing formats work.” He is right. His screenshots are with the team that sends the Dispatch, which uses a different system from this newsletter.

Three readers doubt Washington. Here is what the record supports.

Barry says Israel “got snookered,” expected “a military end to the Iranian regime” and got “a never-ending war,” and that “the next phase is nuclear.” A reader on AOL says Iran is “already rebuilding their centrifuges” deeper underground and that America is “a paper tiger.” Jeff, in Colorado, says Qatar, “a state sponsor of terror,” should not sit as “a full partner” in any negotiation.

On the stockpile, the facts are these. On September 9 the IAEA’s board reported Iran to the Security Council. The agency’s last estimate before the strikes was 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. It believes more than 200 kilograms are still at one site it cannot enter, and Rafael Grossi called the agency’s “inability to conduct verification activities at these facilities” a matter of “serious proliferation concern” (Express Tribune). That is the argument for finishing the job, which this newsletter has made every week since June. It is not evidence that Washington was fooled.

On the President, the record supports giving him credit. The blockade holds. The Navy moved 22 million barrels through the strait under escort on Thursday night. Tehran’s seven-day plan repeats the June memorandum’s terms with a deadline attached, and Washington’s answer, “not in a rush,” was the right one; the Senate backed it on Thursday (Nothing New). This newsletter disagrees with the pause in strikes as a policy, and with any deal that lifts the blockade before the strait is open. It does not disagree with the President personally.

On Qatar: Doha passes on Tehran’s proposals because Tehran chooses to send them through Doha. A messenger is not a party to the talks. What matters is the terms that arrive, and the terms that arrived were June’s. The answer was no.

Two kinds of letters arrived this month from opposite directions, and both get the same answer. A reader in Germany, replying to the Forum’s 9/11 anniversary essay, wrote that the Quran is “a medieval ideology” and that Islam “has to be removed from the canon of religions.” A writer in New York called the hijackers “obedient followers of the diabolical teachings of their false prophet.” From the other side, a reader answered the September 20 odds essay in seven words: “total misunderstanding of the religion of Islam.”

The Forum’s position, set by Daniel Pipes years ago, is that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution. When a professor emeritus honored by Michigan State said that “It was not Islam that motivated the attacks,” the Forum answered with the hijackers’ own words, which were religious (Campus Watch). The same evidence answers the reader who wants Islam struck from the list of religions: the Islamists say plainly what they believe, and so do the Muslim reformers yesterday’s essay was written about. Condemning a billion people helps the Islamists recruit. Saying the Islamists are not really Muslims excuses them. The Forum does neither.

Eight short ones.

Jerry, whose letter about filling sandbags at Kibbutz Negba ran in Vol. III, challenged me to read the Medal of Valor citation of his friend Zvika Greengold and find a better one. On October 6, 1973, Greengold, a reservist on leave, reached the Golan, took command of two tanks against a Syrian division, fought for more than twenty hours, was burned, changed tanks and kept firing (Jewish Star). I could not find a better one. Jerry wins.

Bob asked when these dispatches started. June 14, 2026; this is the sixty-sixth edition. Dan says the mailbag “allows your readers to see each other a bit.” That is the idea.

Constance is nervous about a Turkish front and asks whether Sunni Ankara is following Shia Tehran. It is not. Turkey competes with Iran for the same Islamist constituency, and this week it sits on the Saudi side of the Mecca pact against Iran’s Houthis. The Forum’s Turkey file runs from Abdullah Bozkurt’s report on the Turkish defense ministry’s letter about “possible crisis, tension and war” to the August 23 Long View on what an Israeli war with Turkey would look like.

Allyn asks how Americans can support Israelis financially. Four answers, none of them the Forum: Israel Bonds, a loan to the State of Israel that pays you interest; Friends of the IDF; American Friends of Magen David Adom; and the Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin, the answer this mailbag gave Irving in August.

Mauricio, in Brazil, on the six generals: “Names not to be forgotten.” Michael added three of his own, Arthur Currie, Frank Merrill and George Patton; Currie, he writes, “did not sit in the rear with the gear.”

Richard, a Washington reporter, cited the August 17 essay on Tehran’s war on American morale in his column on Iran’s campaign against the USS Abraham Lincoln, and called me an investigative reporter. I will take the compliment.

Bruce sent an opinion piece and asked for a one-word decision, “Acceptable” or “Pass.” That decision belongs to the Forum’s publications editors, who have his piece. Larry says the questions at the Forum’s Monday webinars run too long and leave no room for the audience’s; the webinar team has his note. Karen asks for a student rate. There is none today, and we are looking at it.

Five readers answered the September 20 essay on how the Forum is being rebuilt in a word or two: “Outstanding.” “Genius! Bravo!!” “Very impressive!” “Kol hakavod.” And Susan: “I just hope you guys are not too late.”

Seven of you are owed Premium and cannot get in.

Seven readers wrote the same letter in different words: I give to the Forum, the Premium invitation never came, the link asked for a credit card, the site has no place to log in. The rule has not changed: every Forum donor receives Insider Premium with the Forum’s compliments, and the list is reset each January 1 to match who gave. The fix is simple. Reply to this email with the name your gift was made under, and the desk turns your access on by hand, with no card and no form; that is how Eva’s was done this month. The site has no passwords; its login link sends a sign-in link to the address you subscribed with. Gifts made by bank transfer or through a donor-advised fund are the ones our matching misses most often.

Valerie asks whether the Forum’s mailings were replaced by “Gregg Roman’s blog.” Nothing replaced anything. The MEF Dispatch carries the essays from meforum.org under their authors’ names; it went out twelve times this month, most recently Saeid Golkar on the regime’s new loyalty campaign, and anyone can sign up. This newsletter is the Forum’s second publication, a daily brief under my name. If the Dispatch stopped arriving, your address was dropped from the list. Reply and we will put you back on it.

Letters that reached the desk between the afternoon Vol. III went out on August 26 and this past Saturday, from 70 of you. Vol. III answered 303 letters in seventeen days; the difference is the two weeks in September when the daily did not go out. The welcome poll, the one question every new subscriber answers, stands at 1,533, up 52 since August 26: 124 who set or advise on policy, 130 in the press, 63 in government or on the Hill, 118 donors, and 1,098 paying close attention.

Corrections Desk. Clear this morning. Twelve editions have gone out since Vol. III, and no reader has written to correct a fact in any of them. When this one gets something wrong, write [email protected]; corrections run in print.

Forward this mailbag to one person who thinks a think tank cannot answer its critics in public, and to one Forum donor still waiting for a Premium invitation. The Forum reads every letter, answers most of them and prints the hard ones. If you want that work to continue, support it directly.

Reply and tell me: Jon’s plan, a million rifles for a million Iranians, yes or no, and if no, what instead? The best answers, and the strongest disagreements with anything above, run in Vol. V. New reader? The frameworks behind these answers are explained in the Field Guide.