Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security, lays it all out …

One more issue I want to put on the table is the state of Western foreign correspondence. In 1978, I was assigned to Northern Ireland to cover “the Troubles,” the sectarian civil conflict that broke out in the 1960s and ended, for the most part, in 1998.

The following year, 1979, I was sent to Iran to cover the revolution being led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In both countries, I interviewed some very hard and violent men. But in those days, reporters were seen as neutrals. Everyone wanted to talk to us — to tell us their stories and argue, through us to the public, for the justice of their causes.

At some point over the years that followed there was a change: Those who kidnapped Daniel Pearl decided they could express themselves most eloquently not by letting him fill his notebook but by beheading him and posting the video on the Internet.

Today, by contrast, I fear it has become impossible for a journalist to visit a country such as Iran and do hard-hitting reporting in relative safety. There are lines that cannot be crossed. But how many of the reporters who spend time in Iran — courageous though they are — will acknowledge that? How many of their editors will say it publicly? Is an honest discussion of this dilemma not long overdue? Islamic infiltration continues…