Reports from the
Middle East these days have two things in common: All the parties wish to avoid
a war, yet all the movement is toward one, centered in Lebanon.
Forty days after
the passing of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, the
Islamic Republic held snap elections on Friday, 28 June, to vote for a new head
of the administrative branch. With no single candidate receiving a mandatory 51
percent of votes cast, however, the two leading candidates will now advance to
a runoff poll on 5 July.