US Foreign Policy

By David Mednicoff | (The Conversation) – After two years of repeated and inconclusive Israeli elections, the advent of a new coalition government has ended the long era of Benjamin Netanyahu’s prime ministership. Yet he leaves a legacy of hawkish policies that will likely remain intact. As a scholar of Middle Eastern politics, I think […]

Joe Biden

Could Putin woo Turkey from Biden and NATO?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – The Turks seem to be weary of the alliance with the United States. Although it is still a NATO member, and has the second largest army in the organization, Turkey is strengthening military, political and economic ties with the US “major geopolitical rival” – Russia. According to a recent […]

Arab World

Biden wants to end America’s 20-Year War on the Middle East: But Can He?

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Next September, when the last C-130 cargo aircraft and Chinook transport helicopters take off from the infamous Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan that has doubled as a CIA torture center for suspected jihadists, they will not only be leaving behind the site […]

Barack Obama

Top Ways Israel’s Netanyahu Torpedoed Mideast Peace and Harmed Israel and America

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A step was taken by his rivals toward unseating long-serving Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday when opposition parties all along the political spectrum from left to right formed a coalition of national unity. Ironically, that coalition only reached a majority in parliament by accepting for the first time […]

Israel/ Palestine

This time, Palestine Solidarity Swept the U.S.

Waging Nonviolence

By Shane Burley | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – In mid-May, hundreds gathered in Terry Schrunk Plaza in downtown Portland, Oregon with signs denouncing the violence that is now crushing the Gaza Strip’s over two million residents. At this storytelling rally, Palestinians — who are so often rendered invisible in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict […]

Arab World

Why Jared Kushner’s ‘Abraham Accords’ did not produce Israel-Palestine Peace and are increasingly Irrelevant

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Jared Kushner/ Trump plan for Israel-Palestine had some basic premises. The first was that the U.S. could act punitively toward the Palestinians with no consequences. The second was that the Arab states were so afraid of Iran that they would throw the Palestinians under the bus and make an […]

Human Rights

The Emperor’s New Rules: America’s “Rules-Based Order” has Blind Spots

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – The world is reeling in horror at the latest Israeli massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in Gaza. Much of the world is also shocked by the role of the United States in this crisis, as it keeps providing Israel with weapons to kill Palestinian civilians, in violation of […]

Arms Sales

America Dominant Again (in Arms Sales) . . . And Again… and Again… and Again

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – When it comes to trade in the tools of death and destruction, no one tops the United States of America. In April of this year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its annual analysis of trends in global arms sales and the winner — as always — was the […]

Green Energy

The Good News with Green Energy is the end of Struggles for Oil; the Bad news? Struggle for Lithium

Michael T. Klare

(Tomdispatch.com ) – Thanks to its very name — renewable energy — we can picture a time in the not-too-distant future when our need for non-renewable fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal will vanish. Indeed, the Biden administration has announced a breakthrough target of 2035 for fully eliminating U.S. reliance on those non-renewable fuels […]