Month: January 2006

To avoid the failure of its mission in Iraq, the George W. Bush administration has been driven to seek the help of two major enemies – the Sunni insurgents and the government of Iran – but both initiatives have failed to make progress because officials were not given any real negotiating authority. U.S. officials in … Continue reading “Bush Seeks His Enemies’ Help in Iraq”

Although Iranian and EU officials have recently agreed to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear activities, there is little optimism that such talks will lead to any breakthrough in the existing deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program. As senior Iranian diplomats and nuclear negotiators have remarked, Iran is determined to continue work on the nuclear fuel cycle … Continue reading “If Iran Gets Nukes…”

http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e060117.html

In President Bush’s first State of the Union message, he essentially accused North Korea, Iran, and Iraq of having clandestine nuke programs: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. “I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand … Continue reading “What Noncompliance?”

Dictatorships seldom appear full-fledged but emerge piecemeal. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with one Roman legion he broke the tradition that protected the civilian government from victorious generals and launched the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Fearing that Caesar would become a king, the Senate assassinated him. From the civil … Continue reading “Bush Has Crossed the Rubicon”

The neocons have insisted for years that the first shots of what they call “World War IV” have already been fired, and we are in for a new cold war (the previous one was WWIII) that is bound to turn hot. Now Niall Ferguson, the British exponent of a new American Empire, has come up … Continue reading “World War IV”

With Arkan Hamed BAGHDAD – What should have been a joyous four-day Islamic holiday for Eid al-Adha, which Iraqis began to celebrate Jan. 10, has only highlighted the suffering under U.S. occupation. The feast of sacrifice, which begins on the tenth day of the Islamic month of Dhul Hijja, is celebrated as a commemoration of … Continue reading “Fear Overshadows Eid Festival”

In April 2005, I posted a dispatch in which I claimed that “a senior official in one of our intelligence agencies” had slipped me an unpublished manuscript by “the president.” I added that I believed it genuine and had done my best to vet it. My source, I mentioned, had told me that the book … Continue reading “Stranger Than Fiction”

The administration of President George W. Bush has designated the spread of democracy as its principal foreign policy objective with the understanding that burgeoning democracies will make the world a better and safer place for Americans. But critics observe that democracy might not be an exportable commodity, and those who seek to impose it may … Continue reading “You Say You Want a Revolution?”

Despite objections by major Jewish organizations in Venezuela and the United States, some influential U.S. neoconservatives are charging President Hugo Chavez with anti-Semitism, which they say is consistent with the country’s friendly relations with Iran. In what appears to be a new line of attack against the populist leader, two of the White House’s favorite … Continue reading “US Neocons Accuse Chavez of Anti-Semitism”