Foreign Policy

By Michael G. Roskin | (Informed Comment) | – – Why did two U.S. Navy boats drift into Iranian waters? And why was it so easy for Iran to capture them? The best explanation is that the Riverine Command Boats—repurposed for freedom of navigation (FON) operations at sea—ran out of gas. The images of our […]

Foreign Policy

US–Saudi relations and the search for leverage

contributors

By Russell E. Lucas | (The Conversation) | – – Russell E. Lucas, Michigan State University The alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States provides one of the foundations of American foreign policy in the Middle East. This week, tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been magnified by the Saudi execution of an […]

Barack Obama

Obama: Islamophobia harms US Interests; Daesh/ISIL a dangerous Fringe

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama’s last State of the Union address this year was largely lacking in specifics and replete with high ideals and ambitious goals like curing cancer. But he did address some issues in everyday politics. One of the more powerful moments came when he implicitly attacked […]

Foreign Policy

None of the GOP Candidates knows anything about Syria & Why that’s Scary

contributors

By John Kiriakou | (Otherwords.org) | – – “Ending this imbroglio requires robust diplomacy.” One ongoing theme [of the GOP campaign has] bothered me — a lot. It seems to me that none of the Republicans running for president had even the vaguest understanding of what’s happening in Syria. I learned during my nearly 15 […]

Foreign Policy

Teen Girl Accused Of Bullying For Criticizing Israel

Juan Cole

Ana Kasparian, Jimmy Dore, Jayar Jackson, and Becca Frucht | (The Young Turks Video) | – – “A teen in New Jersey has been reprimanded by her high school for bullying. She tweeted criticisms of the Israeli government, and the school has taken action saying that it could be perceived as anti-Semitic towards Jewish students. […]

Foreign Policy

The Ultimate Blowback from U.S. Foreign Policy? Donald Trump.

contributors

By Walden Bello | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) | – – How the CIA, bad trade deals, and wanton military intervention caused the social crises that gave us the Donald. (Really.) When the late Chalmers Johnson introduced the word “blowback” to describe the adverse consequences of Washington’s actions in the world, he wasn’t […]

Far Right

Turning to the Dark Side: US Candidates Compete to Promise the Most Torture and Slaughter

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – They’re back! From the look of the presidential campaign, war crimes are back on the American agenda. We really shouldn’t be surprised, because American officials got away with it last time — and in the case of the drone wars continue to get away with […]

Featured

Top 7 Middle East Foreign Policy Challenges in 2016

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – My own feeling is that the US engagement with the Middle East is likely to remain so intense only for another two decades or so. As fossil fuels are replaced with renewables, the outsized role that the oil Gulf plays in world affairs will decline. The […]

Barack Obama

Did Obama Really “Surrender the Middle East to Putin?”

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – A perusal of the “writing on the hall” commentary of the Right Wing in the last two months–since a small Russian force of 2,000 was inserted into the remaining Syrian government-controlled portions of Syria on September 30th–leads to one inevitable conclusion. Namely, that Obama’s “inactivity, […]