On April 13, US president Joe Biden spoke by phone with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he has previously referred to, in pot/kettle fashion, as a “killer.” During the call, Biden proposed a summit between the two in the near future. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Russian chess legend and political exile Garry Kasparov …
Continue reading “A Biden-Putin Summit: Jaw-Jaw Is Better Than War-War”
Make no mistake: much policy indecency is permitted and enabled by vacuously vague bureaucratic reports peddling in platitudes. For further evidence bolstering this increasingly open-and-shut case, see Exhibit number 3,472, or so: last week’s release of the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community – the latest contribution from that politest of polite militarists, …
Continue reading “America’s Intel Vampires Can’t See Themselves in the Mirror: DNI’s Hypocritical and Self-Awareness-Absent Annual Threat Assessment”
Last week President Biden announced a “full” US withdrawal from Afghanistan – the longest war in US history – by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the United States. While this announcement is to be welcomed, the delayed US withdrawal may result in Americans and Afghans dying needlessly for good PR optics back …
Continue reading “Why Can’t We ‘Just March Out’ of Afghanistan?”
Four security members were killed in attacks.
The current discussion on the planned withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan centers on a benighted belief that my former CIA analyst-colleague Paul Pillar exposed 12 years ago. Paul called it the "key tenet that Afghanistan must not be allowed to again become a haven for terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda". With Sunday’s Washington …
Continue reading “Oh, No! Al-Qaeda Out of Cave on 9/12!”
The Castro brothers ruled Cuba for more than six decades. The results have not been pretty. An island impoverished in body and mind. Even artists have been protesting of late, punished by the security forces for having the temerity to question the communist authorities. However, change is in the offing. Fidel died in 2016. A …
Continue reading “As Castro Rule Fades in Cuba, Americans Should Engage the Cuban People”
Reprinted from The Grayzone with the author’s permission. The Biden administration signaled once again at the April 9 Vienna meeting on the Iran nuclear deal that it intends to maintain Trump-era Iran sanctions in an effort to win political and military concessions going well beyond the original deal itself. Team Biden continued to insist during …
Continue reading “Vienna Talks Reveal Biden Team’s Attachment to Sanctions That Would Torpedo Iran Deal”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Some things just never seem to end. What came to mind was the way in which, during administration after administration, the Saudis and other foreign powers have poured money into Washington to ensure that their governments and their desires will be supported, that they will be sold arms in a major …
Continue reading “How To Make a Gulf Monarchy All-American”
Growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine are producing an surge of bluster from the Biden administration, as well as from the hawkish denizens of Washington’s think tanks. The administration keeps assuring Ukraine’s government that the United States and NATO have Kiev’s back in its confrontation with Russian-supported separatists in the eastern Donbas region as well …
Continue reading “The US Lacks Options if Russia Calls Washington’s Ukraine Bluff”
On March 4, 2021, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz very publicly told Fox News that the "Israeli military is updating plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites and is prepared to act independently." He added that "If the world stops them before, it’s very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must …
Continue reading “When Israel Leaves its Calling Card” 
