In what some critics describe as a replay of the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives has released a report suggesting Iran may acquire nuclear weapons much more quickly than...
Hoekstra’s Hoax: Hyping Up the Iran ‘Threat’
Talk about chutzpah! I was suffering a bit from outrage fatigue yesterday but was shaken out of it as soon as I downloaded an unusually slick paper, "Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States," released this week by House...
Clueless and Catastrophic
To get a better idea of what ails the world, let's use our imagination to transport ourselves into outer space. From there, we can look down on Earth not as an American or as a European, but as a disinterested alien. We see a collection of sovereign nations –...
Nuking Safeguarded Facilities
According to the Jerusalem Post a "high-ranking [Israeli] defense official" told them that "there is growing consensus within the [Israeli] defense establishment that the United States will not attack Iran, and that Israel might be forced to act independently to stop...
How Washington Goaded Israel Into War
There is increasing evidence that Israel instigated a disastrous war on Lebanon largely at the behest of the United States. The Bush administration was set on crippling Hezbollah, the radical Shiite political movement that maintains a sizable block of seats in the...
These Days, Everyone Dares Call Everything Treason
During the American Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus three times – all under the pretense that the government needed to "keep the peace" and "to protect its military operations." As a result, dozens of journalists in the North were...
The Neocons Ride Again
Laura Rozen, guest-blogging for the Washington Monthly, wonders if "the marketing campaign" for war with Iran has begun, noting what the deputy director of operations for the joint chief of staffs said over at the Pentagon the other day: "The Iranian government is...
The Real Terror Plot
And yet another menacing terror plot was thwarted August 10, with the arrest of 24 suspects, all British Muslims. It was an ominous conspiracy aimed at committing "mass murder" on an "unimaginable" scale, British authorities quickly concluded. US authorities hastily...
The Mythical End to the Politics of Fear
Nearly five years into the "war on terror," it's still at the core of American media and politics. Yeah, I've seen the recent polls showing a drop in public support for President Bush's "war on terror" claims. And I've read a spate of commentaries...
Readings in the Age of Empire
C. Fred Bergsten, et al., China: The Balance Sheet (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 206 pp. Jed Babbin and Edward Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United States (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2006), 226 pp. Ted Galen Carpenter, America's Coming War...