US Foreign Policy

Trump may want out of Afghanistan, but this so-called “Peace Deal” with Taliban isn’t Likely to Succeed

By Madhav Joshi | – After 18 months of negotiations, the U.S. and the Taliban signed a peace deal on Feb. 29. It is expected that the deal will provide a plan for a comprehensive Afghan peace process. The deal addresses the security of foreign troops; the Taliban’s commitments to sever ties with terrorist organizations; […]

Donald Trump

Rudy Giuliani’s sinister Foreign Policy Coup on Behalf of the World’s Shadiest Customers

Bob Dreyfuss

(Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the president of the United States was an arrogant, information-challenged, would-be autocrat with a soft spot for authoritarian leaders from China, Russia, and North Korea to Egypt (“my favorite dictator”), Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. And then, suppose that very president, while hollowing out the State […]

China

Maybe Try Friendship? Hatred and Enmity are bad Politics for America and a World in Crisis

Richard Penaskovic

We live in an era where animosity and even rage are the norm in the political arena. Both Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided in Congress so that little can be done legislatively. Correspondingly, millions of families are often split down the middle in terms of their political views with relatives divided among Democrats, Republicans […]

Afghanistan

Can the US-Taliban Truce Hold, Bringing Peace to Afghanistan after 40 Years of War?

The Conversation

By Elizabeth B. Hessami | – If a seven-day truce between the United States and the Taliban holds until Feb. 28, 2020, Afghanistan’s decades-long conflict may finally end. A peace deal could be signed as soon as Feb. 29, according to the State Department. The draft accord follows months of stop-and-go negotiations between the United […]

Pentagon

Retired US Officers are all in on Forever Wars: Where are the Smedley Butlers of Today?

Danny Sjursen

(Tomdispatch.com) – There once lived an odd little man — five feet nine inches tall and barely 140 pounds sopping wet — who rocked the lecture circuit and the nation itself. For all but a few activist insiders and scholars, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler is now lost to history. Yet more […]

Russia

As Tensions Flare between Russia and Turkey in Syria, will Trump be Drawn in on side of Ankara?

Middle East Monitor

By Bakr Sidqi | – Amid international neglect of the tragedy of an additional one million displaced individuals from the “de-escalation” zones in the countryside of Idlib and Aleppo provinces, Moscow and Ankara announced that the talks that took place on Monday and Tuesday failed to reach any new understandings. “We did not accept the […]

Russia

In Syria’s Idlib, Turkey is trying to play middle man between Russia and the US – with little success

The Conversation

By Umut Korkut and Tarik Basbugoglu | – The recent turn of events in Idlib, an opposition stronghold in north-western Syria undergoing bombardment by the Syrian military, has put Turkey in a difficult position. Since the end of January, Syrian regime forces have killed 13 Turkish soldiers who were monitoring a tense ceasefire in Idlib. […]

Bernie Sanders

Can the Democrats’ Foreign Policy Visions clean up Trump’s Global Mess?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Democratic candidates offer a wide range of foreign policy views. These won’t decide the election, but they could have a huge post-Trump impact. The next presidential election will not likely hinge on foreign policy. Americans will go to the polls in November to express their fervent support, or disgust, […]

Featured

Rockets slam into US Embassy Compound in Iraq, as Base with US Troops also Comes under Fire

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Agence France Presse Arabic is reporting that early Sunday morning several rockets or mortars slammed into the area around the US Embassy in Baghdad. Warning sirens sounded, and fighter jets began patrolling the skies. Reuters reports an American military officer as saying that a base at which US troops are […]