Gates's Next Mission

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Two brief updates concerning past columns on Iran:

In my Aug. 3 column, I said that a Washington Institute for Near East Policy task force "advocated 'preventive military action' " to keep Iran from building a nuclear bomb. That shorthand truncated the report's conclusions. According to the group's executive director, Robert Satloff, "the report endorses a strategy of prevention, as opposed to deterrence, to deal with the issue and urges the president to engage in high-level discussions with Israel to assess the entire range of policy options, which includes preventive military action."

In a column that appeared Sept. 6, 2006, I highlighted the work of Dr. Arash Alaei, an Iranian who created an HIV-AIDS program that the World Health Organization called a "best-practice model" for the Middle East. Now, inexplicably, he and his brother Kamiar, also a physician, have been arrested and charged with fomenting a "velvet revolution." Having visited Alaei at his headquarters in North Tehran, I have seen firsthand the good he and his brother were accomplishing. Shame on the Iranian government.

The writer is co-host ofPostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address isdavidignatius@washpost.com.