(The scholarship initially offered to him was intended for persons who professed the Christian faith, as he later learned while researching the affair.)
[10] Cohen worked for The New York Times as its European economic correspondent, based in Paris, from January 1992 to April 1994.
His exposé of a Serb-run Bosnian concentration camp won the Burger Human Rights Award from the Overseas Press Club of America.
[7] He wrote a retrospective book about his Balkan experiences called Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo in 1998.
[8] Cohen wrote in Hearts Grown Brutal that his coverage of the war changed him as a person, and that he considers himself lucky to still be alive.
[8] In 2005, Cohen's third book, Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble, was published by Alfred A.
In January 2009, he commented that Saddam's "death-and-genocide machine killed about 400,000 Iraqis and another million or so people in Iran and Kuwait."
He argued that "pulling out a lot of troops is the only way to increase pressure on Maliki to make the political compromises – on distribution of oil revenue, the constitution and de-Baathification – that will give Iraq some long-term chance of cohering.
In his writings he expressed opposition to military action against Iran and encouraged negotiations between the United States and the Islamic Republic.
[16] He also remarked that Iranian Jews were well treated, and said the Jewish community was "living, working and worshiping in relative tranquility."
[17] His depiction of Jewish life in Iran sparked criticism from columnists and activists such as Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly[18] and Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
In his Jerusalem Post op-ed, Medoff criticised Cohen for being "misled by the existence of synagogues" and further argued that Iranian Jews "are captives of the regime, and whatever they say is carefully calibrated not to get themselves into trouble.
[20] Roger Cohen responded on 2 March, defending his observations and further elaborating that "Iran's Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux.
"[21] He ended with a warning: I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one—the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.
[21]On 12 March, Cohen accepted an invitation to meet with selected members of Los Angeles's Iranian Jewish and Baháʼí Faith communities at Sinai Temple, after receiving some of their critical mail about his column.
"[23] Cohen argued that the results of the June 2009 Iranian presidential election were fabricated, and incumbent President Ahmadinejad "cheated" his way to victory over reformist Mir Hussein Moussavi.
He also commented, "I've also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers significant margins of freedom by regional standards.
Cohen replied that the pair were guilty of, amongst other things, "a cavalier disregard for the Islamic Republic's intermittent brutality", were "apologists without a conscience".
[25] Cohen wrote in January 2009 that the Israel-Palestinian conflict should not be seen by the United States as just another part of the War on Terrorism.
"[28] However, in one of his articles in The New York Times, Cohen analyses the differences between European and American attitudes toward Israel.
There's talk of a mini-surge in U.S. troops there—now about 34,000—to counter the threat, but little serious reflection on what precise end perhaps 12,000 additional forces would serve.
Notwithstanding these positives, in said op-ed Cohen still acknowledges that Fox News has "made a significant contribution to the polarization of American politics".