Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Example Input: Joan Didion as the new face of Celine? That's so smart. In dark days, the heart cleaves disproportionately to Lilliputian scraps of good news and so it was that as events played out in Paris last week, I kept thinking of the writer Joan Didion, the star of Celine's latest ad campaign, tiny in black, her porcelain face half obscured by sunglasses as big and as inky as the dinner plates in the kind of restaurants frequented by Patrick Bateman in American Psycho . Oh, the brilliance of Didion! I like to think of myself as wholly resistant to the wicked wiles of big fashion , but this campaign seemed somehow to have got through , and I was all aflutter . What, I wondered, was the provenance of the socking great pendant that hung about her neck in Juergen Teller's photograph? Was it by Celine or was it, as they say, model's own? Could I find something similar on eBay? All day long, between work and news bulletins, I restlessly Googled various combinations of the words "buy", "vintage", "bronze", "large" and "locket" . The coverage of the Paris fashion house's decision to make the author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking its new face has focused mostly on her age . Didion is 80 ; when she began her career as a writer at American Vogue in the late 50s, the personnel director of the magazine's owner, Conde Nast, would from time to time stop her in the hall and ask her when she had last called her mother . Apparently, we should celebrate Teller's photograph of her as a particularly exalted example of fashion's increased willingness to embrace models with wrinkles, liver spots and histories that trail all the way back to the days when women still wore white gloves and little hats to work . At last, the thinking goes, fashion has realised that beauty may also come with silver hair . What? You don't buy that? Well, then . Think of it this way . At least it seems finally to have grasped that women don't simply give up shopping the moment they turn 50 . But it's not Didion's age that interests me . It's her status as a writer and thinker . By choosing her- acclaimed and bestselling, but also trenchant, highly mannered and somewhat complicated - Celine's creative director, Phoebe Philo, is sending out quite a bracing message , even if the semaphore in which it's written will, alas, be largely illegible to those who know nothing of Didion . There' s something going on beyond the cunning commercial appeal to the kind of conflicted consumer who values the inner life as much as the outer  - I mean the kind of woman whose "buttery" leather tote must be big enough to contain at least one hardback if it is not to make her feel guilty for the rest of her life . Isn't this campaign also in the business of suggesting that to be clever and a touch difficult(Didion is nothing if not unpredictable) is to be timelessly beautiful? That this is, in fact, a state to which women might like to aspire? Oh, Phoebe! If only I could afford your gorgeous, minimalist gear , I would dash out and buy something right now just to say thank you . And yet how often have I chickened out? How often do I try, even now, to wear pretty clothes, fun clothes, to embrace colour and print and embroidery? To toddle along in shoes in which I cannot run or even, if I'm honest, walk? Like most professional women who are neither beautiful nor willing to play dumb all of the time, I fear being thought ugly or uncompromising or seeming as if I have not made an effort . I fear, if you will, being seen to be picking a fight, whether by the way I speak or the way I dress . I guess you could say that I wear the swishy frock and high heels the better that I might be allowed, sometimes, to speak my mind . I adore the way that Didion, half child and half sphinx, thinner than a cigarette, looks . But she is not, and never has been, classically beautiful . Nor is she willing to play the fool . She is discreet, but never decorous ; she is fierce, preternaturally observant and, sometimes, a little self-obsessed . And her clothes - unfussy, elegant, practical, a touch forbidding - reflect this . What Teller's photograph says to me is: approach with caution; subject may bite . I love the continuity in this, the wholeness, the confidence in the way that the clothes are an extension of the personality - and I salute Phoebe Philo for recognising it, for extolling it to the world as worthy of admiration, as a thing to be replicated by those women who have the pluck, if not exactly the hard cash .
Example Output: In dark days, the heart cleaves disproportionately to Lilliputian scraps of good news

Example Input: The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were smarter theologians than the jihadis. Rather disturbingly, one word seems to connect the activity of the Paris terrorists and that of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists: iconoclasm . I say disturbingly, because pointing out some common ground may be seen as blurring the crucial distinction between murderous bastards and innocent satirists . Nonetheless ,  it strikes me as fascinating that the cartoonists were profoundly iconoclastic in their constant ridiculing of religion (all religions, it must be noted) - yet it is precisely this same ancient tradition of iconoclasm that inspires Jews and Muslims to resist representational art and, in its most twisted pathological form, to attack the offices of a Paris magazine and slaughter those whose only weapon was the pen . So what's the connection? In one sense an iconoclast is someone who refuses the established view of things , who kicks out against cherished beliefs and institutions . Which sounds pretty much like Charlie Hebdo . But the word iconoclast also describes those religious people who refuse and smash representational images, especially of the divine . The second of the Ten Commandments prohibits graven images  - which is why there are no pictures of God in Judaism or Islam . And theologically speaking, the reason they are deeply suspicious of divine representation is because they fear that such representations of God might get confused for the real thing . The danger, they believe, is that we might end up overinvesting in a bad copy, something that looks a lot like what we might think of as god , but which, in reality, is just a human projection . So much better then to smash all representations of the divine . And yet this, of course, is exactly what Charlie Hebdo was doing . In the bluntest, rudest, most scatological and offensive of terms, Charlie Hebdo has been insisting that the images people worship are just human creations - bad and dangerous human creations . And in taking the piss out of such images, they actually exist in a tradition of religious iconoclasts going back as far as Abraham taking a hammer to his father's statues . Both are attacks on representations of the divine . Which is why the terrorists, as well as being murderers, are theologically mistaken in thinking Charlie Hebdo is the enemy . For if God is fundamentally unrepresentable, then any representation of God is necessarily less than God and thus deserves to be fully and fearlessly attacked . And what better way of doing this than through satire, like scribbling a little moustache on a grand statue of God . It's only some Christians that might demur from this logic . For the Christian story (ie Christmas) tells of God coming into the world as a human being . And in doing this the divine takes on a representational form . Jesus, says St Paul, is the image of the invisible God . Without this the whole western tradition of Catholic religious art and eastern tradition of icons is utterly inconceivable . So I can see how some Christians might find disrespectful images of God a la Charlie Hebdo insulting . After all ,  they believe it's possible for images genuinely to capture something of God . But if images can't capture God- and that's the Jewish/Islamic position- then bring on the cartoonists . They should be encouraged to do their worst and disrupt our confidence that what we think of as God bears any resemblance to anything legitimately God-like . They are like Moses bringing down the golden calf . It is the ancient job of the iconoclast . But ,  of course, these terrorists weren't really interested in theology . They thought that Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists were insulting their human tribe, a tribe they called fellow Muslims . And maybe they were . But whatever else was happening, it was the atheist cartoonists who were performing the religious function and the apparently believing Muslims who had forgotten their deepest religious insights . For any representation of the divine that leads people to murder each other deserves the maximum possible disrespect . @giles_fraser .
Example Output: whatever else was happening, it was the atheist cartoonists who were performing the religious function and the apparently believing Muslims who had forgotten their deepest religious insights

Example Input: The Iranian opportunity. The instability and chaos sweeping across the Arab world today represents both a threat and an opportunity for Iran . Instability in Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq are case-in-point examples that Iran can realise its short and long-term objectives to become the region's main hegemon . Surrounded by countries with significant Shia minorities, Iran seeks to cultivate the image of "protector state" for these populations . And eventually, Iran could become the "core country" in this hotly contested region . Toward this end, Iran has stirred Shia-Sunni divisions, creating sectarian identities for the various clashing groups . In the case of Yemen, this was done within the borders of one country where Iran contrived to create a distinct Shia identity for the Houthis who ended up taking control over the course of the past few months . The Iranian strategy is focused on building a new political model in the region - one that relies on Iran's "centrality" through which it can exercise power and influence both on the regional and international levels . Especially after the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Iran has been keen to develop working relations with the West and the US (particularly with regard to "fighting terrorism" - as it had done before in Afghanistan) . It is also eager to play a similar role in Iraq . This Iranian eagerness, however, cannot be isolated from the larger vision . This vision sees such cooperation as advancing the Iranian model of emphasising its geopolitical centrality for Shiism, as well as its hegemonic desires over the region, including the Arab Sunni states . To become the centre of gravity of the Middle East, Iran needs to amplify its role as both a protector and hegemon for its much weaker and unstable Arab neighbours . These neighbours would be relegated within the Iranian model to the status of periphery states . To do that, Iran uses its old revolutionary rhetoric and slogans to describe its brand of Islam as "authentic and original" while describing pro-West Sunni Arab states as having an "American-Islam" , which it presents as an illegitimate form of Islam . In his Washington Post op-ed last September, "Time to Engage", Rouhani outlined the Iranian objectives and the key areas in which Iran can cooperate with the US and the West . Although Rouhani laid out the Iranian strategic perspective and the parameters through which Iran can work and cooperate with the West , there was an important point, which he left unsaid . He was essentially saying that the US must recognise the failure of its old policies, especially in the region, and at the same time tacitly acknowledged that Iran had made mistakes in dealing with the US during the past eight years . Nevertheless ,  he opened the door for US-Iranian cooperation on combating terrorism and emphasised the Iranian role in solving the region's thorniest problems, such as the Palestinian cause and the conflict with Israel . View of superiority . Current Iranian discourse - political and cultural - revolves around advancing the view of superiority of the Iranian race, Shia Islam, and Iranian culture . Such discourse focuses on the uniqueness of the Iranian race as one that is steeped in civilisation, juxtaposed with the Arabs who represent, according to this view, the "other", i.e  less civilised . In realpolitik terms, amid the instability and chaos plaguing Arab states, Iran presents itself as the alternative power to fill the vacuum in the region . From the Iranian perspective, the US has failed to solve many of the international crises and in some cases, it has created them . Iran, in this respect, is positioning itself as a rising power that will replace the US as the dominant power in the region . Echoing such discourse, Kazem Sajjadpour, an advisor on Strategic Affairs to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran said, in Persian, during his participation in the roundtable discussion on the website Shia News Association, that while the Arab world suffers from fragmentation and strategic paralysis - while under the influence of western powers- Iran enjoys territorial integrity and cohesiveness, and is endowed with strategic resources . All of these are factors that could make Iran the new rising power in the region . Indeed ,  Iran is making the case that the entire Arab world revolves around it - and cannot survive without it .
Example Output:
The Iranian strategy is focused on building a new political model in the region - one that relies on Iran's "centrality" through which it can exercise power and influence both on the regional and international levels To become the centre of gravity of the Middle East, Iran needs to amplify its role as both a protector and hegemon for its much weaker and unstable Arab neighbours