US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As Peter Beinart correctly argues, anti-Palestinianism is not a word in American English. I can tell since the internet helpfully underlines it in red to mark it for correction whenever I write it. Of course, it ought to be a word. It can become a word. It needs to become […]

Foreign Policy

Iran and America: They weren’t Always Enemies

Fariba Amini

Review of Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Heroes to Hostages America and Iran, 1800–1988 (Cambridge U.P., 2023) When the subject of Iran and America comes to mind, two eventful episodes are often invoked by Iranians and Americans. The first is the CIA-led coup d’état of 1953, which toppled Mohammad Mossadegh’s democratically elected government; and the second is the […]

Featured

President Biden needs to Dump his War Hawks and Turn to Peace Work if he wants to Salvage his Presidency

Omer Abid

Grand Blanc, Mi. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It has been clear since the horrid terror attack of October 7 by Hamas that President Joe Biden has been getting dreadful advice from his top officials, whether at the State Department, the CIA or the National Security Council. The president’s refusal to draw any red […]

Authoritarianism

The Media must stop Enabling Trump’s Attention-Seeking use of Fascist Rhetoric

The Conversation

By Robert Danisch, University of Waterloo | – Donald Trump is campaigning for the presidency of the United States the same way that Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy campaigned almost 100 years ago. Trump recently travelled to New Hampshire and delivered a speech that included a pledge to “root out the […]

Books

In the Shadow of War: Life and Fiction in Twenty-First Century America

Tomdispatch

By Beverly Gologorsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – I’m a voracious reader of American fiction and I’ve noticed something odd in recent years. This country has been eternally “at war” and you just wouldn’t know that — a small amount of veteran’s fiction aside — from the novels that are generally published. For at least a decade, […]

Donald Trump

Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson is the Face of the Republican Party: Election Denialist, Forced Birth Enforcer, Homophobe and Christian Zionist

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Disguised as a mild-mannered Clark Kent, Mike Johnson is a raging theocrat under his tailored suit, who believes his ascension to the speakership was ordained by God. The formerly invisible but now made manifest Christian Nationalist from Louisiana was elevated to power unanimously, following three weeks of vindictive, […]

Anti-intellectualism

Columbia University’s Suspension of Jewish Voices for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine is Arbitrary and Wrong

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association. Minouche Shafik President, Columbia University officeofthepresident@columbia.edu Provost Dennis Mitchell dml48@cumc.columbia.edu . . . Dear President Shafik and colleagues: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern […]

Arab World

The Gaza Conflict Opens up New Opportunities for China in the Middle East, Global South

The Conversation

Shaun Narine, St. Thomas University (Canada) | – (The Conversation) – The western world’s support for Israel as it attacks Gaza has provoked fury across the Arab world and much of the Global South. This situation undermines the West’s international standing and offers opportunities for China to enhance its regional and global diplomatic influence. Whether […]

Africa

Pentagon Admits Failure in ‘War on Terror’ in Africa, as Attacks increase 75,000%

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com ) – America’s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its “Forever Wars,” however, may not be […]