Central Intelligence Agency

Review of David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The figure of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, is an uncomfortable one for both sides […]

The Real U.S. Intelligence Failure in Gaza: For years, U.S. officials have known that dire Conditions in Gaza could lead to violence

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Edward Hunt ( FPIF ) – As officials in Washington scramble to address the rapid outbreak of war in Israel and Palestine, they are sidestepping the fact that they believed that such a dramatic outburst of violence was likely. Since May 2021, when Hamas and Israel clashed in a brief war that left more […]

Afghanistan

That Time Gorbachev Announced Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan and US went on Building up Muslim Fundamentalists there Anyway, leading to 9/11

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing yesterday at age 91 is a good occasion to review some of the profound mistakes of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies regarding Afghanistan. Reagan-era officials refused to believe that Premier Gorbachev actually intended to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan, though Gorbachev came into […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Yes, America overthrew the Democratically Elected gov’t of Iran in 1953 and Ray Takeyh is wrong on the History

Fariba Amini

Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment) – It is likely that, if the elected government of Iran’s Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh had stayed in power, the Middle East or at least Iran would look very different now. But, in history, we cannot reach satisfactory conclusions based on ‘ifs‘. We have to consider only the facts and […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Ending Regime Change – in Bolivia and the World

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – Less than a year after the United States and the U.S.-backed Organization of American States (OAS) supported a violent military coup to overthrow the government of Bolivia, the Bolivian people have reelected the Movement for Socialism (MAS) and restored it to power. In the long history of U.S.-backed “regime changes” in […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Before the CIA Coup in 1953, the US and Iran had been old Friends

The Conversation

By Daniel Thomas Potts | – The British- and American-backed plot to overthrow Iran’s prime minister in 1953 laid the groundwork for the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and decades of hostility with the U.S. A documentary about the plot released on Aug. 19 offers new details of what happened. I believe it is worth recalling […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Coronavirus and Intelligence: Trump is Getting up Conflict with China the way Bush did with Iraq

Bob Dreyfuss

By Bob Dreyfuss | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – There’s a meme that appears now and then on Facebook and other social media: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” That’s funny. What’s not is […]

Central Intelligence Agency

How the CIA’s secret torture program sparked a citizen-led public reckoning in North Carolina

contributors

By Alexandra Moore | (The Conversation) | – – President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, is reported to have overseen a U.S. site in Thailand where torture of a suspected terrorist took place. Later she allegedly helped destroy evidence of torture. Her nomination, pending congressional approval, is viewed by many as further […]

Central Intelligence Agency

John Bolton Skewed Intelligence, Say People Who Worked With Him

contributors

By Sebastian Rotella | ProPublica | – – Former colleagues say the next national security adviser — whose job is to marshal information and present it to the president fairly — resists input that doesn’t fit his biases and retaliates against people he disagrees with. In early 2002, as the Bush administration hunted for Osama […]