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What If Iran Already Has the Bomb?There’s rarely a dull moment in Iranian affairs. The past few months alone have seen clashes with Israel and Pakistan, and a helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister. But spectacular as these events are, the most important changes often happen gradually, by imperceptible degrees.One such change took a while to register but is now obvious to all: In a sharp departure from a years-long policy, Iran’s leading officials are now openly threatening to build and test a nuclear bomb.Earlier this month, Kamal Kharazi, a former foreign minister, said that Tehran had the capacity to build a bomb and that, if it faced existential threats, it could “change its nuclear doctrine.”“When Israel threatens other countries, they can’t sit silent,” he said in an interview with Al-Jazeera Arabic on May 9.To emphasize that this wasn’t a gaffe, he reiterated the position a few days later when he addressed an Iranian Arab conference in Tehran.Kharazi isn’t just any old diplomat. He heads a foreign-policy advisory body that reports directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who also appointed Kharazi to the regime’s Expediency Council. He would not have spoken without Khamenei’s blessing.[Read: Is Iran a country or a cause?]For Iranian officials to openly acknowledge the possibility that Iran could pursue a nuclear weapon is a momentous change and marks the collapse of a previous taboo. Western intelligence agencies unveiled Iran’s clandestine nuclear program in 2002. For many years after that, Tehran’s leaders emphatically insisted that this was a civilian effort with no military dimensions. Khamenei was even claimed to have issued a fatwa (an Islamic ruling) banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons, although, as the journalist Khosro Isfahani recently argued, whether such a ruling has ever existed is not actually clear.The fatwa was always a bit of a red herring anyway. Under the tenets of Shiite Islam, ayatollahs can revoke most rulings at will. “We can’t build a bomb because we have a fatwa” was thus never a convincing argument, even from a purely religious perspective.But the repeated invocation of the fatwa by Iranian officials did make boasting about a possible bomb taboo. This proscription held throughout the long years of Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the United States and five other powerful countries, which resulted in the landmark nuclear deal in 2015. Even after President Donald Trump quit that deal in 2018, and Iran reinvigorated its program, the Islamic Republic made no such threats for a while.Over the past couple years, however, Iranian officials have begun making sporadic comments insinuating a nuclear threat. In 2021, then–Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi told Western states that if they push Iran to become “a cornered cat,” they should expect it to behave like one: “If they push us to such directions, it’s not our fault,” he said, referencing the country’s nuclear intentions.The innuendo has been stripped away in recent weeks as numerous officials have made more direct threats similar to Kharazi’s. The list of those who have publicly bragged that Iran could build nukes now includes the head of the military unit in charge of safeguarding Iran’s nuclear installments, a leading nuclear physicist known to have played a key role in the program, and a former head of the nuclear agency.The more extreme version of the boast is that Iran already has nuclear weapons and just hasn’t tested them. A former member of Parliament’s foreign-policy committee made this claim on May 10.Last month, when Israel’s attacks on an Iranian consular building in Damascus led to an exchange of fire between the two countries, Iranian pro-regime commentators made statements that would have been unthinkable in the past. If the United Nations didn’t act against Israel, Iran should “leave all nuclear negotiations and reveal that beautiful Iranian boy,” a pro-regime analyst said, in an obvious reference to Little Boy, the type of atomic bomb the U.S. used on Hiroshima in 1945.“The Western intelligence entities were mistaken to think Iran won’t move toward a bomb under any conditions,” Mehdi Kharatian, the head of an Iranian think tank, said recently. Regime outlets now speak of Khamenei’s well-known “strategic patience” doctrine as having given way to “active deterrence,” allegedly evidenced by last month’s attacks on Israel, but with a seemingly deliberate echo of the language of nuclear deterrence.Experts will inevitably debate whether all of this is a bluff or an actual change in military doctrine. Understanding the Islamic Republic has always been as much an art as a science, and key to the endeavor is distinguishing between the regime’s bark and its bite. But whatever the true intentions of the regime’s bigwigs, the rhetorical shift matters on its own.For more than 20 years, Western intelligence agencies have believed that Iran shut down its nuclear program in 2003 and made no subsequent decision to build a nuclear bomb. In 2018, Israel was able to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear archives and examine much of their content. No finding seems to have emerged from this endeavor to significantly contradict the previous assessment of decision making in Tehran. The trouble, however, is that civil nuclear efforts can be “double purposed”—meaning that even without any specific work on weaponization, Iran’s nuclear advances have brought it dangerously close to producing a bomb.Under the 2015 deal, Iran had agreed to enrich uranium up to only 3.67 percent for a period of 15 years, thus keeping it far from the high-grades necessary for possible military use, and to cut its stockpile of already-enriched uranium by 98 percent. When the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018, Iran started gradually scaling up its program. Today, according to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has more than 5,000 kilograms of enriched uranium, including more than 120 kilograms that are 60 percent pure, many times more than what’s necessary for most civil purposes and a very short step away from the necessary military grade. Not only is Iran the only nonnuclear weapons state in the world to have enriched uranium to such levels, but it already has enough material for at least three bombs.When he visited Iran last month, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, said that the country was merely weeks, not months, away from bomb-making capacity. He also said that his agency didn’t have a full picture of the country’s program, meaning that it could be even more advanced. The assessment has been substantiated in a 112-page report that Grossi has prepared ahead of IAEA’s board of governors meeting next month in Vienna. If Iran is not able to satisfy the body that it is still abiding by its obligations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including granting adequate access to IAEA inspectors, it could face censure or be referred to the UN Security Council.Are we in a moment of acute crisis then?I’ve spent much of my adult life covering the Iranian nuclear issue, and I’ve seen many such moments come and go. There is often more to the situation than meets the eye. For months now, for example, Iran and the U.S. have been holding secret talks in Muscat, with the nuclear issue at their center. Perhaps something in this subtext also explains the bizarre condolences the U.S. offered for the passing of President Ebrahim Raisi, despite his well-known involvement in crimes against humanity.As the Washington-based analyst Karim Sadjadpour recently argued, Khamenei is 85 years old and unlikely to change his longtime strategy. Sadjadpour suggests that as long as Khamenei is alive, Tehran won’t attempt to build a bomb, but will continue to pursue the “Japan option,” which entails standing on the nuclear threshold without crossing it. Maybe the recent decision to break the rhetorical taboo is an attempt to formally declare Iran’s Japan posture: Tehran could hope that making its threshold status more explicit can deter a U.S. or Israeli attack.[Phillips Payson O’Brien: The growing incentive to go nuclear]Observers of the region will be forgiven if they find this explanation, though plausible, hardly reassuring, given Tehran’s disruptive ideology and vows to destroy Israel. Khamenei doubled down on those threats during Raisi’s funeral, when he met with the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and promised that the world would see a “disappearance of Israel” and its replacement with “Palestine, from the river to the sea.”And as terrible as Khamenei is, he often avoids direct confrontations. When he finally dies, Iran will see big changes; power will pass to others, likely including some within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A rocky period will follow, with unforeseeable consequences. Whether in Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, or Washington, no one wants to see a volatile Tehran have access to nukes.In other words, the United States and others should still want to do all they can to scale back Iran’s nuclear program. The realist theoretician Kenneth Waltz famously mused that a nuclear Iran would actually help stabilize the region. But as even Waltz’s ideological successors admit, this is a gamble best not taken.
What If Iran Already Has the Bomb?There’s rarely a dull moment in Iranian affairs. The past few months alone have seen clashes with Israel and Pakistan, and a helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister. But spectacular as these events are, the most important changes often happen gradually, by imperceptible degrees.One such change took a while to register but is now obvious to all: In a sharp departure from a years-long policy, Iran’s leading officials are now openly threatening to build and test a nuclear bomb.Earlier this month, Kamal Kharazi, a former foreign minister, said that Tehran had the capacity to build a bomb and that, if it faced existential threats, it could “change its nuclear doctrine.”“When Israel threatens other countries, they can’t sit silent,” he said in an interview with Al-Jazeera Arabic on May 9.To emphasize that this wasn’t a gaffe, he reiterated the position a few days later when he addressed an Iranian Arab conference in Tehran.Kharazi isn’t just any old diplomat. He heads a foreign-policy advisory body that reports directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who also appointed Kharazi to the regime’s Expediency Council. He would not have spoken without Khamenei’s blessing.[Read: Is Iran a country or a cause?]For Iranian officials to openly acknowledge the possibility that Iran could pursue a nuclear weapon is a momentous change and marks the collapse of a previous taboo. Western intelligence agencies unveiled Iran’s clandestine nuclear program in 2002. For many years after that, Tehran’s leaders emphatically insisted that this was a civilian effort with no military dimensions. Khamenei was even claimed to have issued a fatwa (an Islamic ruling) banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons, although, as the journalist Khosro Isfahani recently argued, whether such a ruling has ever existed is not actually clear.The fatwa was always a bit of a red herring anyway. Under the tenets of Shiite Islam, ayatollahs can revoke most rulings at will. “We can’t build a bomb because we have a fatwa” was thus never a convincing argument, even from a purely religious perspective.But the repeated invocation of the fatwa by Iranian officials did make boasting about a possible bomb taboo. This proscription held throughout the long years of Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the United States and five other powerful countries, which resulted in the landmark nuclear deal in 2015. Even after President Donald Trump quit that deal in 2018, and Iran reinvigorated its program, the Islamic Republic made no such threats for a while.Over the past couple years, however, Iranian officials have begun making sporadic comments insinuating a nuclear threat. In 2021, then–Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi told Western states that if they push Iran to become “a cornered cat,” they should expect it to behave like one: “If they push us to such directions, it’s not our fault,” he said, referencing the country’s nuclear intentions.The innuendo has been stripped away in recent weeks as numerous officials have made more direct threats similar to Kharazi’s. The list of those who have publicly bragged that Iran could build nukes now includes the head of the military unit in charge of safeguarding Iran’s nuclear installments, a leading nuclear physicist known to have played a key role in the program, and a former head of the nuclear agency.The more extreme version of the boast is that Iran already has nuclear weapons and just hasn’t tested them. A former member of Parliament’s foreign-policy committee made this claim on May 10.Last month, when Israel’s attacks on an Iranian consular building in Damascus led to an exchange of fire between the two countries, Iranian pro-regime commentators made statements that would have been unthinkable in the past. If the United Nations didn’t act against Israel, Iran should “leave all nuclear negotiations and reveal that beautiful Iranian boy,” a pro-regime analyst said, in an obvious reference to Little Boy, the type of atomic bomb the U.S. used on Hiroshima in 1945.“The Western intelligence entities were mistaken to think Iran won’t move toward a bomb under any conditions,” Mehdi Kharatian, the head of an Iranian think tank, said recently. Regime outlets now speak of Khamenei’s well-known “strategic patience” doctrine as having given way to “active deterrence,” allegedly evidenced by last month’s attacks on Israel, but with a seemingly deliberate echo of the language of nuclear deterrence.Experts will inevitably debate whether all of this is a bluff or an actual change in military doctrine. Understanding the Islamic Republic has always been as much an art as a science, and key to the endeavor is distinguishing between the regime’s bark and its bite. But whatever the true intentions of the regime’s bigwigs, the rhetorical shift matters on its own.For more than 20 years, Western intelligence agencies have believed that Iran shut down its nuclear program in 2003 and made no subsequent decision to build a nuclear bomb. In 2018, Israel was able to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear archives and examine much of their content. No finding seems to have emerged from this endeavor to significantly contradict the previous assessment of decision making in Tehran. The trouble, however, is that civil nuclear efforts can be “double purposed”—meaning that even without any specific work on weaponization, Iran’s nuclear advances have brought it dangerously close to producing a bomb.Under the 2015 deal, Iran had agreed to enrich uranium up to only 3.67 percent for a period of 15 years, thus keeping it far from the high-grades necessary for possible military use, and to cut its stockpile of already-enriched uranium by 98 percent. When the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018, Iran started gradually scaling up its program. Today, according to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has more than 5,000 kilograms of enriched uranium, including more than 120 kilograms that are 60 percent pure, many times more than what’s necessary for most civil purposes and a very short step away from the necessary military grade. Not only is Iran the only nonnuclear weapons state in the world to have enriched uranium to such levels, but it already has enough material for at least three bombs.When he visited Iran last month, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, said that the country was merely weeks, not months, away from bomb-making capacity. He also said that his agency didn’t have a full picture of the country’s program, meaning that it could be even more advanced. The assessment has been substantiated in a 112-page report that Grossi has prepared ahead of IAEA’s board of governors meeting next month in Vienna. If Iran is not able to satisfy the body that it is still abiding by its obligations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including granting adequate access to IAEA inspectors, it could face censure or be referred to the UN Security Council.Are we in a moment of acute crisis then?I’ve spent much of my adult life covering the Iranian nuclear issue, and I’ve seen many such moments come and go. There is often more to the situation than meets the eye. For months now, for example, Iran and the U.S. have been holding secret talks in Muscat, with the nuclear issue at their center. Perhaps something in this subtext also explains the bizarre condolences the U.S. offered for the passing of President Ebrahim Raisi, despite his well-known involvement in crimes against humanity.As the Washington-based analyst Karim Sadjadpour recently argued, Khamenei is 85 years old and unlikely to change his longtime strategy. Sadjadpour suggests that as long as Khamenei is alive, Tehran won’t attempt to build a bomb, but will continue to pursue the “Japan option,” which entails standing on the nuclear threshold without crossing it. Maybe the recent decision to break the rhetorical taboo is an attempt to formally declare Iran’s Japan posture: Tehran could hope that making its threshold status more explicit can deter a U.S. or Israeli attack.[Phillips Payson O’Brien: The growing incentive to go nuclear]Observers of the region will be forgiven if they find this explanation, though plausible, hardly reassuring, given Tehran’s disruptive ideology and vows to destroy Israel. Khamenei doubled down on those threats during Raisi’s funeral, when he met with the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and promised that the world would see a “disappearance of Israel” and its replacement with “Palestine, from the river to the sea.”And as terrible as Khamenei is, he often avoids direct confrontations. When he finally dies, Iran will see big changes; power will pass to others, likely including some within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A rocky period will follow, with unforeseeable consequences. Whether in Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, or Washington, no one wants to see a volatile Tehran have access to nukes.In other words, the United States and others should still want to do all they can to scale back Iran’s nuclear program. The realist theoretician Kenneth Waltz famously mused that a nuclear Iran would actually help stabilize the region. But as even Waltz’s ideological successors admit, this is a gamble best not taken.
A Throwback Show That Stays RelevantThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Malcolm Ferguson, an assistant editor who has written about the case for Kwanzaa, and why he wishes his family would take up the holiday again.One of Malcolm’s favorite art pieces is Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence, an exceptional example of the artist’s “dynamic cubism.” Lately, he and his friends have been discussing the merits of Challengers, and he recently started his first watch of Sex and the City. The Carrie-and-Big situation remains as confounding as ever, but he’s enjoyed learning about “the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women”—a perspective he admits knowing “very little about.”First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: Inside the decision to kill Iran’s Qassem Soleimani Mad Max’s George Miller is taking on the apocalypse (again). The big AI risk not enough people are seeing The Culture Survey: Malcolm FergusonA painting that I cherish: Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence. Like most people, I was more familiar with Lawrence’s famous Migration Series, a much more raw, somber collection depicting mass African American flight from the South to the North. But Pool Parlor takes the same grim artistic elements—the dark shading, the rigidity, the aggressive and overstated angles of Lawrence’s “dynamic cubism”—and converts them into an easy, effortless work. I’ll probably hang this painting on my wall someday soon.The television show I’m most enjoying right now: I can’t bring myself to say that I’m fully enjoying this show, but Sex and the City currently has a surprisingly firm hold on me. As with The Sopranos, I initially felt that I’d already consumed much of the series passively, via memes and pop-culture references. But from the very beginning, it was obvious why Sex and the City has maintained such relevance, especially among Gen Zers such as myself. It’s like if a soap opera was actually cool and well produced. I’m currently at the start of Season 5, and I’ve noticed that the ensemble cast develops well; I appreciate that the focus slowly shifts away from Carrie as the seasons progress. (Speaking of, Big and Carrie are about as insufferable together as a main pairing could be. Why are they still friends?)Samantha’s and Charlotte’s converse storylines—Samantha giving in to love, Charlotte (temporarily) reclaiming her singlehood—are much more compelling to me right now. And the wardrobe is unreal: great fits all around. But more than anything, the show is an interesting study of the pre-smartphone romantic landscape, the pre-smartphone version of New York City, and the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women—a perspective I know very little about. [Related: And Just Like That addresses its Che Diaz problem.]My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Although Reddit still has its fair share of dark and scary corners, I find that the sports Subreddits are a quick, accurate, and entertaining way to check the temperature of the most painfully obsessive and devout fans. The NBA Playoffs are happening right now, and a team’s Subreddit will have a live “game thread” for each game, where fans can gather and comment in real time. When a team I’m rooting against starts to collapse, I go straight to the Subreddit game thread to hate-watch fans’ lamentations from afar. It’s truly fun to witness internet communities of spoiled Lakers, Suns, and Heat fans go through the five stages of grief, especially when my team is too horrendous to even stress over. (Go Wizards.) I’ll be doing the same for the NFL when the Ravens start playing.The culture product my friends are talking about most right now: My friends shifted seamlessly from the Drake-and-Kendrick-beef discussion (Kendrick won) to the Challengers discussion. Everyone wants two boyfriends now … I thought that movie was about tennis! [Related: A sexy tennis thriller—yes, really]The last debate I had about culture: I wouldn’t call it a debate, but my roommate and I have been discussing how collective memory functions among historically persecuted groups, and it came up again at her Seder meal. She’s Jewish, and I’m African American, so there are plenty of catastrophic events and experiences between us to be memorialized and remembered each year. But what is the line between remembrance and self-victimization or self-othering? Does centering a history of pain and loss obscure the achievements? And what will we tell the generations that come after us, who are even further distanced from that suffering?I might be thinking about this forever. But right now, to me, the pain will always be important to remember and teach. We wouldn’t be here—I wouldn’t be here—without the scars of others. They inform us and our gains whether we like it or not. And although those scars fade, they never really disappear; they can often be reopened. To decenter them just doesn’t feel right.The last museum or gallery show that I loved: I visited the National Museum of Anthropology, in Mexico City, last month. It was startlingly beautiful inside and out, and there was a real emphasis on the traces of precolonial Mesoamerica in modern Mexico via art, food, and fashion. I was also struck by the concept of the Tlaltecuhtli, or “Earth Monster.” Some early Mesoamericans believed that the Earth was neither round nor flat, but a gargantuan turtle or alligator whose back they were riding on. I think that’s a very interesting way to perceive Earth, as this sentient, moving creature that we’re just clinging on to. (Honorable mention goes to the Simone Leigh sculpture exhibit, which I saw when it was at the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C.)My favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a blockbuster that feels like everything a kid’s superhero movie is supposed to be: well paced and wonderfully animated, with some real meat to it plot-wise. The dynamic of choosing versus creating your own fate plays out over a diverse gaggle of Spider-people from many dimensions, and the cliff-hanger ending actually surprised me. [Related: A spidey sense we haven’t seen before]A thought-provoking art film is Nashville, directed by Robert Altman, the guy who also did M*A*S*H. This movie is hard to describe. It’s dense, sharp, grim yet funny, and incredibly American. It features about an hour’s worth of live folk, gospel, and country music, and 24 “main” characters, some of whom are gathered for the political fundraising of the presidential candidate for the Replacement Party. His character is unseen but heard, as his political messaging—and the film’s thesis—blares loudly throughout the city: All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not.A musical artist who means a lot to me: Roy Ayers, perhaps the most important figure in modern Black music. His work is a convergence of all my favorite genres. From his early, groovy stuff such as Stoned Soul Picnic and Vibrations to his ubiquity in early hip-hop sampling and his generation-linking feature on Tyler, the Creator’s 2015 track “Find Your Wings,” Ayers has made his mark on seemingly every stage and sound of Black music since the 1960s. I’m not sure where my taste would be without him.The Week Ahead Eric, a psychological-thriller miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a devastated father and puppeteer who searches for his missing 9-year-old son (premieres Thursday on Netflix) Young Woman and the Sea, a film based on the true story of the first woman to swim across the English Channel (in theaters Friday) Housemates, a novel by Emma Copley Eisenberg about two artistic housemates who go on a road trip of self-discovery (out Tuesday) Essay Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Sources: Fred Mullane / ISI Photos / Getty; Tullio Puglia / Getty; Matteo Ciambelli / Getty; Dan Istitene / Getty. The Unbearable Greatness of DjokovicBy Scott Stossel What is perhaps most intimidating about Djokovic is the steeliness of his nerve. The ice water in his veins gets chillier as the stakes get higher: The more important the point, the more likely he is to win it. The ATP keeps track of what it calls “pressure stats,” which measure performance on the highest-value, highest-stakes points (break points, tiebreakers, etc). Djokovic, unsurprisingly, has the highest ranking on the pressure-stats list among current players. But he also ranks highest all time by that metric, ahead of Pete Sampras, Nadal, and Federer. Before he lost a tiebreaker to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon championship last summer, Djokovic had won a staggering 15 straight tiebreakers in major tournaments. When everything is on the line, he rarely falters. Read the full article.More in Culture What’s really epic about Furiosa Tennis explains everything. The Brooklyn sequel asks the most American of questions about immigration. Hollywood’s most pessimistic blockbuster franchise The new sound of sexual frustration A powerful indictment of the art world Catch Up on The Atlantic Trump’s money problems are becoming a crisis for the entire country. The British prime minister bowed to the inevitable. New 9/11 evidence points to deep Saudi complicity. Photo Album A bear-safety demonstration at Yellowstone National Park (Jennifer Emerling) The photographer Jennifer Emerling had been to 22 national parks by the time she was 12 years old. Since then, she hasn’t stopped returning to photograph them. Here are some images from her many pilgrimages to the natural scenes of American beauty.Explore all of our newsletters.When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
A Throwback Show That Stays RelevantThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Malcolm Ferguson, an assistant editor who has written about the case for Kwanzaa, and why he wishes his family would take up the holiday again.One of Malcolm’s favorite art pieces is Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence, an exceptional example of the artist’s “dynamic cubism.” Lately, he and his friends have been discussing the merits of Challengers, and he recently started his first watch of Sex and the City. The Carrie-and-Big situation remains as confounding as ever, but he’s enjoyed learning about “the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women”—a perspective he admits knowing “very little about.”First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: Inside the decision to kill Iran’s Qassem Soleimani Mad Max’s George Miller is taking on the apocalypse (again). The big AI risk not enough people are seeing The Culture Survey: Malcolm FergusonA painting that I cherish: Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence. Like most people, I was more familiar with Lawrence’s famous Migration Series, a much more raw, somber collection depicting mass African American flight from the South to the North. But Pool Parlor takes the same grim artistic elements—the dark shading, the rigidity, the aggressive and overstated angles of Lawrence’s “dynamic cubism”—and converts them into an easy, effortless work. I’ll probably hang this painting on my wall someday soon.The television show I’m most enjoying right now: I can’t bring myself to say that I’m fully enjoying this show, but Sex and the City currently has a surprisingly firm hold on me. As with The Sopranos, I initially felt that I’d already consumed much of the series passively, via memes and pop-culture references. But from the very beginning, it was obvious why Sex and the City has maintained such relevance, especially among Gen Zers such as myself. It’s like if a soap opera was actually cool and well produced. I’m currently at the start of Season 5, and I’ve noticed that the ensemble cast develops well; I appreciate that the focus slowly shifts away from Carrie as the seasons progress. (Speaking of, Big and Carrie are about as insufferable together as a main pairing could be. Why are they still friends?)Samantha’s and Charlotte’s converse storylines—Samantha giving in to love, Charlotte (temporarily) reclaiming her singlehood—are much more compelling to me right now. And the wardrobe is unreal: great fits all around. But more than anything, the show is an interesting study of the pre-smartphone romantic landscape, the pre-smartphone version of New York City, and the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women—a perspective I know very little about. [Related: And Just Like That addresses its Che Diaz problem.]My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Although Reddit still has its fair share of dark and scary corners, I find that the sports Subreddits are a quick, accurate, and entertaining way to check the temperature of the most painfully obsessive and devout fans. The NBA Playoffs are happening right now, and a team’s Subreddit will have a live “game thread” for each game, where fans can gather and comment in real time. When a team I’m rooting against starts to collapse, I go straight to the Subreddit game thread to hate-watch fans’ lamentations from afar. It’s truly fun to witness internet communities of spoiled Lakers, Suns, and Heat fans go through the five stages of grief, especially when my team is too horrendous to even stress over. (Go Wizards.) I’ll be doing the same for the NFL when the Ravens start playing.The culture product my friends are talking about most right now: My friends shifted seamlessly from the Drake-and-Kendrick-beef discussion (Kendrick won) to the Challengers discussion. Everyone wants two boyfriends now … I thought that movie was about tennis! [Related: A sexy tennis thriller—yes, really]The last debate I had about culture: I wouldn’t call it a debate, but my roommate and I have been discussing how collective memory functions among historically persecuted groups, and it came up again at her Seder meal. She’s Jewish, and I’m African American, so there are plenty of catastrophic events and experiences between us to be memorialized and remembered each year. But what is the line between remembrance and self-victimization or self-othering? Does centering a history of pain and loss obscure the achievements? And what will we tell the generations that come after us, who are even further distanced from that suffering?I might be thinking about this forever. But right now, to me, the pain will always be important to remember and teach. We wouldn’t be here—I wouldn’t be here—without the scars of others. They inform us and our gains whether we like it or not. And although those scars fade, they never really disappear; they can often be reopened. To decenter them just doesn’t feel right.The last museum or gallery show that I loved: I visited the National Museum of Anthropology, in Mexico City, last month. It was startlingly beautiful inside and out, and there was a real emphasis on the traces of precolonial Mesoamerica in modern Mexico via art, food, and fashion. I was also struck by the concept of the Tlaltecuhtli, or “Earth Monster.” Some early Mesoamericans believed that the Earth was neither round nor flat, but a gargantuan turtle or alligator whose back they were riding on. I think that’s a very interesting way to perceive Earth, as this sentient, moving creature that we’re just clinging on to. (Honorable mention goes to the Simone Leigh sculpture exhibit, which I saw when it was at the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C.)My favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a blockbuster that feels like everything a kid’s superhero movie is supposed to be: well paced and wonderfully animated, with some real meat to it plot-wise. The dynamic of choosing versus creating your own fate plays out over a diverse gaggle of Spider-people from many dimensions, and the cliff-hanger ending actually surprised me. [Related: A spidey sense we haven’t seen before]A thought-provoking art film is Nashville, directed by Robert Altman, the guy who also did M*A*S*H. This movie is hard to describe. It’s dense, sharp, grim yet funny, and incredibly American. It features about an hour’s worth of live folk, gospel, and country music, and 24 “main” characters, some of whom are gathered for the political fundraising of the presidential candidate for the Replacement Party. His character is unseen but heard, as his political messaging—and the film’s thesis—blares loudly throughout the city: All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not.A musical artist who means a lot to me: Roy Ayers, perhaps the most important figure in modern Black music. His work is a convergence of all my favorite genres. From his early, groovy stuff such as Stoned Soul Picnic and Vibrations to his ubiquity in early hip-hop sampling and his generation-linking feature on Tyler, the Creator’s 2015 track “Find Your Wings,” Ayers has made his mark on seemingly every stage and sound of Black music since the 1960s. I’m not sure where my taste would be without him.The Week Ahead Eric, a psychological-thriller miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a devastated father and puppeteer who searches for his missing 9-year-old son (premieres Thursday on Netflix) Young Woman and the Sea, a film based on the true story of the first woman to swim across the English Channel (in theaters Friday) Housemates, a novel by Emma Copley Eisenberg about two artistic housemates who go on a road trip of self-discovery (out Tuesday) Essay Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Sources: Fred Mullane / ISI Photos / Getty; Tullio Puglia / Getty; Matteo Ciambelli / Getty; Dan Istitene / Getty. The Unbearable Greatness of DjokovicBy Scott Stossel What is perhaps most intimidating about Djokovic is the steeliness of his nerve. The ice water in his veins gets chillier as the stakes get higher: The more important the point, the more likely he is to win it. The ATP keeps track of what it calls “pressure stats,” which measure performance on the highest-value, highest-stakes points (break points, tiebreakers, etc). Djokovic, unsurprisingly, has the highest ranking on the pressure-stats list among current players. But he also ranks highest all time by that metric, ahead of Pete Sampras, Nadal, and Federer. Before he lost a tiebreaker to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon championship last summer, Djokovic had won a staggering 15 straight tiebreakers in major tournaments. When everything is on the line, he rarely falters. Read the full article.More in Culture What’s really epic about Furiosa Tennis explains everything. The Brooklyn sequel asks the most American of questions about immigration. Hollywood’s most pessimistic blockbuster franchise The new sound of sexual frustration A powerful indictment of the art world Catch Up on The Atlantic Trump’s money problems are becoming a crisis for the entire country. The British prime minister bowed to the inevitable. New 9/11 evidence points to deep Saudi complicity. Photo Album A bear-safety demonstration at Yellowstone National Park (Jennifer Emerling) The photographer Jennifer Emerling had been to 22 national parks by the time she was 12 years old. Since then, she hasn’t stopped returning to photograph them. Here are some images from her many pilgrimages to the natural scenes of American beauty.Explore all of our newsletters.When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
NYC's Fleet Week features dive-tank experience in heart of Times Square: 'Amazing'The U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps have returned to New York City for Fleet Week 2024. Navy divers Christopher Brewer and Ryan Ilagan shared their experience with Fox News Digital.
WATCH: Woman knocked over as rampaging moose runs loose in Russian cityRussia periodically has to deal with moose wandering into cities, where they can face dangers and death, such as the case of the moose in Salavat last week.
At least 2 dead after apparent tornado tears through Texas, sheriff saysAt least two people were killed as an apparent tornado tore through a community north of Dallas, Texas, on Saturday night, law enforcement said.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels freed over 100 war prisoners, the Red Cross saysThe International Committee of the Red Cross says the Houthi rebels in Yemen have released more than 100 war prisoners linked to the country’s long-running conflict
Michael King ‘disappointed’ he won’t face Yankees in this seriesAbout 10 days ago, Michael King began to look at the Padres’ schedule to find out whether he might actually get to face his old team.
Fantasy baseball: Finding right buy-low candidates can improve your teamAt this point in the season, your fantasy baseball waiver wire options are probably looking pretty bleak.
10 delicious all-American summertime foods enjoy surprising overseas originsHere's a look at 10 of the most iconic all-American summertime foods, from cheeseburgers to apple pie, that arrived in the New World only after the Columbus Exchange.
Letters to the Editor: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's chilling message: Laws aren't for conservatives to obeyBy pardoning the murderer of a Black Lives Matter protester in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott echoes Trump's legal philosophy.
Buy now, pay later companies must adhere to credit card rulesThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that buy now, pay later lenders must provide the same protections and rights as credit card providers.
'Seinfeld' star Michael Richards is more than the worst thing that ever happened to them'Seinfeld' star Michael Richards reflects on his infamous racist tirade in his memoir, 'Entrances and Exits.' Yes, he is sorry. And he accepts the descent into purgatory that followed.
Environmentalists urge California wildlife officials to investigate bottled water operationActivists urge California wildlife officials to crack down on Arrowhead bottled water operations in the San Bernardino Mountains, citing harm to wildlife.
Netanyahu’s split with Biden and the Democrats was years in the makingThe Israeli leader’s longtime strategy of aligning with the GOP has helped shatter the American consensus behind Israel.
Why are Republicans making it harder for some people to vote? It's not just partisanshipA toxic brew of politics, racism and conservative Supreme Court rulings fuels the effort to prevent people of color and college students from casting ballots.
In the mystery 'Eric,' desperation and decline manifest into a life-size monster puppetIn the Netflix miniseries, Benedict Cumberbatch and Gaby Hoffmann play a troubled couple whose son goes missing, and a detective, played by McKinley Belcher III, has to unravel the disappearance.
Your package wasn't delivered? Try living at one of L.A.'s '½' addressesAs delivery culture increasingly dominates retail of all sorts, people living at the city's fractional addresses are left scrambling.
D.C.-area forecast: Summer-like warmth today. Strong storms possible on Memorial Day.A few storms are possible this afternoon with a better chance tonight.
Trump's assassination lie, and Biden's missed momentTrump's stunning accusation that the FBI and the president were 'ready to take me out' should have been met with forceful, immediate outrage.
How a water scientist hopes to save California habitats that could be pumped dryHydrologist Melissa Rohde studies California ecosystems that depend on groundwater. In many areas, declining water levels put habitats at risk of drying up.
The issue of human rights is on life support. Here's how to save itIn Gaza and Ukraine, in Haiti, Syria, Sudan and dozens of conflict zones around the globe, we know we should be protecting the rights and lives of those at risk. But how?
Letters to the Editor: The stunning Sutter Buttes are off-limits to the public. Keep them that wayMust the public have access to every unspoiled place of natural beauty? Keep the public out of the majestic Sutter Buttes.
Money Talk: Paying bills with auto payments is scary, should it be?Given the regular reports of data breaches at corporations, I refuse to give them the required permissions to set up bill auto payments. Am I wrong in this?
Paris La Défense Arena: From Taylor Swift Stage to 2024 Olympics VenueIndoor arena that hosted first 4 days of Taylor Swift's European Eras tour leg is set to be big part of 2024 Olympic Games.
Departing AfghanistanThe Atlantic has often channeled the resources of poetry—its charged and immediate patterns of language—to mourn and memorialize the war dead. The earliest years of the magazine spanned the Civil War, during which the editors published dirges, elegies, and ballads that told stories to console, to heal, to hearten. An elegy for Rupert Brooke took the sonnet into a new, modern vernacular at the time of the First World War. In October 1944, the magazine put together a portfolio of Soldier Verse; 1960, The Atlantic published Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead,” a poem that reflects on the uses of monuments and memorials.“Departing Afghanistan” continues and deepens this legacy. William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral and the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote “Departing Afghanistan” in June 2021, prior to the evacuation in August.The poem emerges from a period of deep reflection and personal soul-searching: Had all the losses, over 20 years, been worth the fight? In its emphasis on the experience of service members, and in its haunting refrain, “Departing Afghanistan” provides neither a defense nor an explanation. After all, the decision to go to Afghanistan and to leave Afghanistan was never the decision of the service members.Instead, for this Memorial Day, Admiral McRaven offers a probing inquiry and a sustaining melody—and a message to the service members that, as McRaven put it to me: “for twenty years they fought with courage and convictions, they kept Americans safe and they should have no regrets as we depart Afghanistan.”— Walt HunterThe Hindu Kush will be quiet now,silence will come to the ancient lands.The roar of the planeswill fade in the nightas we depart Afghanistan.The scholars will chide usand the pundits will pan,why did we stay so longwhen we should have been gone—gone from Afghanistan.But the fight was a good one,noble and right,no matter how long it took.Not a soul has been lost on American soil,not a single building shook. For 20 years our people were safe,living their lives in peace,raising their families across the land,because our soldiers fought—fought in Afghanistan.It was a tragic waste, some will say,the loss of so many men.The rows and rows of headstoneson the graves at Arlington.But a noble life is never a loss,no matter where they may fall.To the soldier who did their duty,they’re a hero forever, for all.Make no mistake about it,we came for a righteous cause.We fought with courage and conviction.We fought for the betterment of all.And for those who cheer our final days,be careful about what you wish.For the fate of the Afghan peopleis unlikely to be filled with bliss.The children will weep as their future fadesand old women will cry to their men.“They weren’t so bad,”the elders will say,as we depart Afghanistan.We pray for the people of Afghanistan,they are warm and kindly souls.We pray that their futurewill be filled with successas the days and years unfold.I hope those we saved will remember us,and the innocents we harmed will forgive.But to those who bore arms against us,may you regret each day that you live.The winds will howl through the vacant FOBs,through the plywood and houses of tin.The tarmacs will rotin the noonday sunas we depart Afghanistan.Some will say it was right.Some will say it was wrong.Let the history books decide.But every soldier did their best,of that, no one can deny.We ache for those warriors we lostand the loved ones who bear the pain.If only we could have saved them all,and brought them home again.The Hindu Kush will be quiet nowand silence will come to the ancient lands.For those who servedlet there be no regretsas we depart Afghanistan.
Departing AfghanistanThe Atlantic has often channeled the resources of poetry—its charged and immediate patterns of language—to mourn and memorialize the war dead. The earliest years of the magazine spanned the Civil War, during which the editors published dirges, elegies, and ballads that told stories to console, to heal, to hearten. An elegy for Rupert Brooke took the sonnet into a new, modern vernacular at the time of the First World War. In October 1944, the magazine put together a portfolio of Soldier Verse; 1960, The Atlantic published Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead,” a poem that reflects on the uses of monuments and memorials.“Departing Afghanistan” continues and deepens this legacy. William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral and the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote “Departing Afghanistan” in June 2021, prior to the evacuation in August.The poem emerges from a period of deep reflection and personal soul-searching: Had all the losses, over 20 years, been worth the fight? In its emphasis on the experience of service members, and in its haunting refrain, “Departing Afghanistan” provides neither a defense nor an explanation. After all, the decision to go to Afghanistan and to leave Afghanistan was never the decision of the service members.Instead, for this Memorial Day, Admiral McRaven offers a probing inquiry and a sustaining melody—and a message to the service members that, as McRaven put it to me: “for twenty years they fought with courage and convictions, they kept Americans safe and they should have no regrets as we depart Afghanistan.”— Walt HunterThe Hindu Kush will be quiet now,silence will come to the ancient lands.The roar of the planeswill fade in the nightas we depart Afghanistan.The scholars will chide usand the pundits will pan,why did we stay so longwhen we should have been gone—gone from Afghanistan.But the fight was a good one,noble and right,no matter how long it took.Not a soul has been lost on American soil,not a single building shook. For 20 years our people were safe,living their lives in peace,raising their families across the land,because our soldiers fought—fought in Afghanistan.It was a tragic waste, some will say,the loss of so many men.The rows and rows of headstoneson the graves at Arlington.But a noble life is never a loss,no matter where they may fall.To the soldier who did their duty,they’re a hero forever, for all.Make no mistake about it,we came for a righteous cause.We fought with courage and conviction.We fought for the betterment of all.And for those who cheer our final days,be careful about what you wish.For the fate of the Afghan peopleis unlikely to be filled with bliss.The children will weep as their future fadesand old women will cry to their men.“They weren’t so bad,”the elders will say,as we depart Afghanistan.We pray for the people of Afghanistan,they are warm and kindly souls.We pray that their futurewill be filled with successas the days and years unfold.I hope those we saved will remember us,and the innocents we harmed will forgive.But to those who bore arms against us,may you regret each day that you live.The winds will howl through the vacant FOBs,through the plywood and houses of tin.The tarmacs will rotin the noonday sunas we depart Afghanistan.Some will say it was right.Some will say it was wrong.Let the history books decide.But every soldier did their best,of that, no one can deny.We ache for those warriors we lostand the loved ones who bear the pain.If only we could have saved them all,and brought them home again.The Hindu Kush will be quiet nowand silence will come to the ancient lands.For those who servedlet there be no regretsas we depart Afghanistan.
Rash of pickleball paddle pilfering reported in D.C. area, East CoastAfter shops on the East Coast spotted people stealing pickleball paddles, they started sounding the alarm.
Donald Trump's Libertarian Convention Appearance Goes Off ScriptThe presumptive Republican nominee for the presidential election was booed while speaking to libertarians on Saturday.
Tornado damages homes as Texas and Oklahoma residents told to seek shelterA tornado touched down and crossed an interstate in Texas, causing damage and possible injuries as scattered severe storms moved through Texas and Oklahoma Saturday night.
Ukraine's ATACMS Wreak Havoc Deep Behind Russia's LinesKyiv has received batches of the U.S.-made missiles which are capable of varying ranges and are used to strike Russia's assets behind the front lines.
Trump, in hostile territory, faces booing during Libertarian Party convention as members pick their nomineeLibertarian delegates jeered former President Donald Trump during his speech at the Libertarian Party convention Saturday night as he attempted to pull some unlikely voters.
Indianapolis TV news anchor Tanya Spencer dead at 53 after cancer battleAfter leaving WRTV in 2015, Spencer became the Director of Public Relations and councilwoman for the town of Whitestown, about 30 minutes outside of Indianapolis.
Severe Thunderstorm Warning As Tornado, Baseball-Sized Hail Batter TexasA tornado was confirmed near Valley View in Texas, north of Fort Worth-Dallas, causing significant damage in the region.
Residents in Texas, Oklahoma seek shelter as tornado damages homes, overturns trucksA tornado touched down in Texas, resulting in damage to homes and overturning vehicles as severe storms moved through Texas and Oklahoma Saturday night.
Virginia pastor says Psalm 23 provides hope for all those who are strugglingIşık Abla, senior pastor of Dream Church International, reflects on Psalm 23, and how she found comfort and solace in its verses when she was at her darkest days.
Op-Comic: The birth of a spoiler Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blows into campaign 2024 on a famous name and some infamous views
How Florida is getting its pink backFlamingos had mostly disappeared from Florida after a century of hunting and mass development. That changed last year when Hurricane Idalia blew in — bringing with her several flamboyant flocks.
How Florida is getting its pink backFlamingos had mostly disappeared from Florida after a century of hunting and mass development. That changed last year when Hurricane Idalia blew in — bringing with her several flamboyant flocks.
Presidential Candidate Joe Exotic Reveals Stance on Abortion, Guns, LGBTQ"I am not going to let you have [three] abortions because you are lazy or a slob and can't put on a condom," Exotic told Newsweek from prison.
How Calls for Social Media Block Are Hitting CelebritiesSocial media users are calling to block celebrities and influencers over their perceived inaction over the Israel-Hamas war.
2024 Volkswagen Golf GTI Review: The Human-shifted Grown Up of Sports CoupesThe Golf hatch has let drivers shift their own gears for 49 years but this year's model will be the last to offer that option.
Tornado overturns trucks, damages homes as Texas and Oklahoma residents told to seek shelterThe tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 40 mph, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.
