Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

May 2, 2019

A Captive American Journalist Sheds His Naïveté about the Islamic Republic

Because Iran’s theocrats deal only in subterfuge, conspiracy, and lies, they imagine everyone else does, too.

Born in California to an Iranian-immigrant father, Jason Rezaian was working in Tehran as a reporter for the Washington Post in 2015 when he was arrested and thrown into the notorious Evin prison—on the grounds that his attempts to raise funds to start an avocado farm were coded messages to the CIA and Mossad. After eighteen months of relentless psychological torture, Rezaian was freed as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal; he has since written a memoir of the experience. Sohrab Ahmari writes in his review:

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