If you are a new entrant into the world of punditry and looking for advice on how to become one of the best, I don't have much to say to you except to advise that you should keep practicing your craft. However, what I can do to help in a small way, is tell you––rather show you––how not to write an opinion piece.
Do not write anything that
resembles Jason M. Brodsky's article which came under the title: “The folly of
trying to empower Iran's moderates,” and the subtitle: “What Biden must
understand as he reengages the Mullah-led nation.” The article was published on
January 25, 2021 in the New York Daily News.
Whereas your style of writing
is yours to develop, what I can divulge is that when I write, I imagine I am
sitting across the table from an interlocutor representing an entire audience.
By no means is he or she a silent listener to my lecture. On the contrary,
different members of the audience are constantly interrupting me to ask
questions and demand clarifications of what I'm saying … and why I’m saying it.
Brodsky's piece being advice
to President Joe Biden, if I were Brodsky writing it, I would imagine myself
siting across the table from the President and having a conversation that might
go something like this:
PRESIDENT: What is it that you're saying is of utmost
importance … I should know about so that I may do the right thing?
JASON: The collective advancing ages of the guardians of
the Islamic Republic require Khamenei to groom new leaders who will choose his
successor. The process disqualified Hassan Khomeini. Ayatollahs Ebrahim Amini,
Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi died.
PRESIDENT: Why should the story of faraway people being
groomed, aging or dying, be of importance to us, a sovereign nation that’s
already reeling under the weight of our own insoluble problems, and requiring
my full attention?
JASON: Amini hailed from the Nezam once complained about
Mojtaba in support of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An ally of former President Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, Amini lost the contest.
PRESIDENT: So, what? Things happen all the time to people
everywhere. They support each other and then have a falling out, maybe even go
on to kiss and make up. It does not mean that any of what they say or do is
earthshaking ... or that it is of importance to us or to history. In any case,
don't you have better things to talk about, rather than this drivel?
JASON: He served as deputy speaker of parliament. He abolished
the Office of the Prosecutor and served as member of the Guardian Council.
Archconservative Mesbah-Yazdi, nicknamed crocodile, was founder of the Haghani
school.
PRESIDENT: Why should I be concerned about a school that
teaches I don't know what, don't know to whom and don’t know where? Let me tell
you something, Jason Brodsky, I’m getting the feeling you're wasting your time
and mine. Don't you have something better to say or do?
JASON: Yazdi and Mesbah-Yazdi have been replaced by new
leaders like Ebrahim Raisi, Ahmad Khatami and Alizera Arafi. Raisi replaced
Yazdi as member of the Guardian Council. Arafi was appointed to the Guardian
Council and chosen to chair Al-Mustafa International University.
PRESIDENT: That's it. We're done. This discussion is
terminated. I have nothing more to say to you, and there is nothing more I want
to hear from you.
JASON: He replaced Mohammad Momen. They joined Sadegh
Larijani. Some may be contenders to succeed the nonagenarian Ahmad Jannati as
chairman of the Assembly of Experts or secretary of the Guardian Council.
Aren't you interested?
PRESIDENT: Go. Get out. Get out now, before I have you escorted
to the exit door.
To you my dear reader, that
scene represents the argument that Jason Brodsky has used to try convincing the
Biden administration that, “the White House should prepare to defend against
[Iranian] hardliners eager to stymie the US plans”.
The story is supposed to show
that Iran has been depleted of its moderates. It is clear from this contention
and from his mention that Iran has been severely weakened by the regime of
sanctions, that Jason Brodsky’s ultimate aim is to dissuade the president from
“rushing” to join the Iran Nuclear deal, and that he should stay on Donald
Trump's agenda.
In other words, this is Brodsky's contribution to the effort exerted by saboteurs of America’s democracy to overturn the result of the election in which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square.