The article "Iran's Efforts to Stir Afghan Violence Worry U.S." written by Thom Shanker, Eric Schmitt, and Alissa J. Rubin presents more than one arguments by example. By doing this, the article not only maintains fluidity but also gains audience views on the overall claim that because of recent events, Iran and Afghanistan movements require our careful watch, because movements in regards to military and weapons will may negatively effect America directly on the front line.
One claim that shows how the authors carefully qualify the statement is "for the most part, the efforts by Iranian agents and local surrogates failed to provoke widespread or lasting unrest" (1). By using "for the most part" and avoiding words like "always" and "invariably" they bypass later criticism because they are not claiming that actions by Iranian agents fail all the time, but in their experience and through interviews they found that most of the time this was true.
Two other claims that are followed by an example is "that Iran continued to "fuel the flames of violence" by supporting the Afghan insurgency" and "Iran could do more if they chose to". The one example provided to reason these claims dances with the issue of being misled by vivid description. "In a melee after the Koran burning, 7 people were killed and 65 were wounded, Afghan and American officials said. That violence peaked when a police ammunition truck was hit by gunfire from a rioter and exploded." Although this does not contain as graphic depictions as it could have, it still offers up numbers of casualties and the effects of the violence. This can create misled ideas about the actual amount of violence occurring. This may have been the only outrage following the Koran incident. And the fact that only one example is offered lessens the effect of the claim.
The final claim I would like to bring up that is depiction of argument by example is this, that "Iran has exercised other means of 'soft-power'...opening schools" and is followed up by three (the magic number) examples. In "western Afghanistan to help extend influence...opened schools in Kabul, and have largely financed a university attached to a large new Shiite mosque." This, I would say is one of the better grounded claims in the article, and so ending with it I think was effective. It left the reader with a claim that had more than one, like some of the other claims in the article, examples grounding the statement made in concern to the violence in the Middle East and the concerns of the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/irans-efforts-to-stir-afghan-violence-provoke...
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