Author: feffer

In talks this week at the DMZ, South Korea welcomed the participation of North Korea in the upcoming Winter Olympics. The two countries also discussed restarting reunions of divided families and reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. Earlier, both sides reestablished their hotline. All of this adult conversation is a welcome change from the war … Continue reading “North Korea Is Walking Back War – And Pundits Are Strangely Disappointed”

The last time Iranians went out onto the streets in large numbers, they were protesting what they thought was a stolen election. It was 2009, and hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had convincingly won the presidency with roughly 63 percent to reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s approximately 34 percent. Adopting their campaign’s green color, Mousavi’s supporters thronged the streets … Continue reading “Trump and the Neocons Are Exploiting an Iran Protest Movement They Know Nothing About”

Donald Trump is contemplating wars that would dwarf anything that his immediate predecessors ever considered. He has dropped the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan, and he’s considering the mother of all wars in the Middle East. He is abetting Saudi Arabia’s devastating war in Yemen. Many evangelicals are welcoming his announcement of US recognition … Continue reading “North Korea: The Costs of War, Calculated”

Every few years – sometimes four, sometimes eight – America’s political mood swings from one pole to another. It’s a not-uncommon disorder for democracies. Voters get disgusted with one flavor of politics and opt for another. For better or worse, the United States doesn’t have a Baskin-Robbins democracy. So, the vacillations in Americans’ political taste … Continue reading “Trump Is Signaling an Unprecedented Right Turn on Foreign Policy”

The United States faces a new nuclear power ruled by a communist dictator. Washington is worried that the leadership of that country is crazy enough to use its new weapons – even against the United States. Meanwhile, other countries fear that the “madman” in the Oval Office might just launch a preemptive nuclear attack. This … Continue reading “It’s Time To Make a Deal With North Korea”

North Korea has prided itself over the years on remaining relatively detached from the international community. During the Cold War, for instance, it refused to become a cog in the Soviet trading system that would have relegated it to supplying raw materials to and purchasing finished products from the imperial center. Instead, it remained economically … Continue reading “North Korea Sanctions: Isolating the Isolated”

Virtually every week, politicians and journalists and policy experts attempt the impossible: mind reading. Specifically, they want to know what’s going on inside one man’s mind. They want to know what Kim Jong Un is thinking and, more importantly, what he wants. It’s impossible to know for sure what another person is thinking. And yet … Continue reading “What Does Kim Jong Un Want?”

Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives in favor of Hillary Clinton. As a group, Washington’s neocons are generally terrified of Trump’s unpredictability and his flirtation with the alt-right. They also support Clinton’s more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long … Continue reading “Hillary Clinton and the Neocons”

The targeted assassination of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour last weekend wasn’t just another drone strike. First of all, it was conducted by the US military, not the CIA, which has orchestrated nearly all drone strikes in Pakistan. Second, it didn’t take place in Afghanistan or in the so-called lawless tribal region of Pakistan … Continue reading “The Coming Drone Blowback”

As the world focuses on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis in Europe, and the primary slugfest in the United States, the two Koreas are heading toward a catastrophe in the Far East. Although relations on the Korean peninsula have been deteriorating for the better part of eight years, the last six months have … Continue reading “Darkness at High Noon in Korea”