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MARCH 21, 2005
Iran Can Thumb Its Nose At Iranians, Too "Why Iran can thumb its nose at Washington" (International Outlook, Feb. 28) portrays an inaccurate picture of the majority of Iranians. I visited the country last year after 16 long years. One can live a fine life in Iran as long as he or she is not involved in politics, does not break any Islamic laws, and has no need for government services. BusinessWeek indicates a broad consensus in favor of the nuclear program among Iranians. However, the article fails to address the consequences of opposing opinions in the streets of Tehran, given the high level of mistrust and oppression. Vice-President Dick Cheney's strategy to get Israel into the lethal game is much more logical than any other option on the table. Without an imminent threat to their well-being, Americans will be reluctant to support another war in the Middle East unless one of the key U.S. allies -- namely, Israel -- is attacked. And Iran's long-range missile, Shahab-3, which according to daily sources is capable of reaching Israel, could be the winning ticket for Israel's involvement. Iran's nuclear program might be "some years off," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld predicts, but a political change within Iran is a thing of the past. Iranian youth, like many other youth populations around the world, are content with their music and their fashion. There is very little trust among the general public. Citizens worry about their daily lives, and the slightest political involvement is accompanied by the harshest punishments. Iranian officials also realize that with the majority of U.S. military resources bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is next to no chance for a military action by U.S. So the Iranian regime has every reason to thumb its nose not only at Washington but also at its citizens. Murray Shabestari Rochester, Minn. A Closer Look At Birth Rates In Asia Robert Barro's enthusiasm for the findings of Harvard University colleague Emily Oster's research on sex ratios in the population ("The case of Asia's missing women," Economic Viewpoint, Feb. 28) might have been considerably tempered had he paid more attention to one of the key publications cited as evidence of the link between sex ratios and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The article by Anouch Chahnazarian and others cited by Oster is instructive because it summarizes data from four population studies -- all taken in the 1970s -- in which there are several problems, including samples that are "generally small," "differential underreporting of girls," and "subdetectable" levels of HBV infection. Thus the quality of the data in two samples is identified as "probably fair" and in the other two as "probably poorer" or "unknown." In one of the four studies, the difference between the norm sex ratio of 106 and the sex ratio of children born to parents at least one of whom was an HBV carrier was not statistically significant. In one other study, no such comparison was possible because the fathers were not fully identified. Further, in three of the four studies where only the mother was identified as a carrier, there were no statistically significant differences reported. And there were only 27 children born to 17 families in the one study where the sex ratio was higher than the norm and statistically significant. Most telling, all four of the studies in which the HBV testing was done at the time of the interviews are retrospective: No one knows whether the carrier parents were infected when the mother was pregnant and gave birth. For that reason, none of these studies establishes a clear linkage between HBV infection and sex ratios, and Oster's assertion simply is not supported in three of the four studies reported by Chahnazarian. Oster herself admits "there is uncertainty about the biological mechanism" regarding the linkage. Barro in effect is reinforcing Oster's fundamental error of attempting to say more than the data allow. Dr. Meade O'Boyle Edward O'Boyle Mayo Research Institute West Monroe, La.   What If We Made Our World Younger? In a recent special report on "Global aging" (Cover Story, Jan. 31), you say: "The same basic factors are driving this shift: declining fertility and longer life spans. Both are signs of enormous progress in the 20th century." It's clear that declining fertility is exacerbating the aging problem. Yet authors on this subject rarely consider reversing fertility policies as part of the solution. They consider issues of trade, migration, productivity, and innovation, but rarely demographics. What if we didn't accept reduced fertility as an immobile block on our search for a solution in the global aging problem? What if we made our world younger? What if we tried to shift our focus toward sustainable economic growth, embracing a younger world as a desired outcome, but also with solid economic and public policies? Xepus Ginebra London Why We Shouldn't Rush To Export To China In two back-to-back articles, "The Chinese are coming...to Germany" and "An arms cornucopia for China?" (European Business, Feb. 21), I see a disturbing fact: Western countries are so eager to export to China that they are ignoring the fact that China is systematically seeking to purchase high-end products not only to improve productivity but also to pirate the technology. You say: "German salespeople have encountered exact copies of their machines on display at trade shows." Are the CEOs of the European arms companies so gullible that they think the same thing won't happen to them? Until the Chinese start to strictly enforce internationally recognized patent laws, I would be very reluctant to sell any item to China that I didn't want to see on the market in a couple of months' time with a Chinese name on it. David Holtzer Negev, Israel
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