US politics

By John Feffer | (FPIF) | Originally published in Korea Quarterly | – – The last near-century of American dominance was extraordinarily violent. Is it coming to an end? John Dower is one the most preeminent historians of World War II’s Pacific theater and the aftermath of the conflict in Asia. His book War Without […]

Donald Trump

Top 5 things Trump is doing to us Worse than insulting Mika

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Yes, Trump’s gratuitous Twitter insult to newswoman Mika Brzezinski was horrible. But US cable news and even a lot of print news are falling down on the job by focusing on these clashes of personality that Trump provokes. In contrast, corporate news is not doing a […]

Afghanistan

Back to Quagmire: Beware endless US Troop Escalations in Afghanistan

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – We walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasn’t — at least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: Russians alarmed, Washington Befuddled, by White House threats

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The unusual statement from the “White House” on Monday saying that there were indications that the Syrian regime was preparing to use poison gas has provoked much head-scratching both inside the Trump administration and around the world. Why would the “White House” say this? Is it […]

Donald Trump

Trump May Already Be Blundering into the Next Middle East War

contributors

By Jim Lobe & Giulia McDonnell Nieto Del Rio | ( FPIF) | First published in Lobelog | – – The possibilities for catastrophic miscalculation are skyrocketing in the Middle East, and this administration is proving singularly prone to miscalculation. The Washington elite is waking up to the increasingly real possibility that the Trump administration […]

Donald Trump

Why it Matters that the World thinks US under Trump is Laughingstock

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Pew Research Center has found that the confidence of the world public in the US willingness to do the right thing has plummeted in just the few months Trump has been at our helm. Last fall, 62 percent of people throughout the world said they trusted […]

Displaced and Refugees

N. American Scholars of Mideast react to SCOTUS Decision on Trump Muslim Ban

contributors

Middle East Studies Association of North America | – – On Monday, June 26, 2017, the United States Supreme Court issued a limited stay in the case that MESA has joined as a plaintiff, IRAP v. Trump, partially reinstating the revised Executive Order (EO) from March 6, 2017 (for MESA’s statement on EO 13780 see […]

Donald Trump

Is Putin’s Russia the critical threat Americans believe it to be?

contributors

Ronald Suny | (The Conversation) | – – U.S. intelligence agencies – 17 of them – agree that evidence shows the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee and waged a campaign to influence voters in 2016. Although no evidence of collusion between U.S. citizens and Russia has been proven yet, President Donald Trump and […]

Bashar al-Assad

Trump’s Escalations of War in Syria—Sleepwalking into a Global Confrontation

contributors

By Reese Erlich | (The Progressive) | – – Syrian President Bashar al Assad claims to have won the war and that he is merely mopping up remaining rebel groups. With its escalation of the undeclared war in Syria, the Trump Administration risks a direct military confrontation with Russia. On June 20, the United States […]