Ted Snider

The way you frame a question can shape the answer you’ll get. On October 6, 2019, the US removed its troops from the Kurdish region of northeast Syria, clearing the way for the Turkish invasion of the region that followed three days later. Trump’s decision was born of a phone call with Turkish President Recep … Continue reading “The Cries of the Kurds”

Yesterday In 1982, Iraq changed the nature of their war on Iran. They began using chemical weapons. At first, it was only tear gas. But, within a year, Iraq was using mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and soman on, not only Iranian soldiers, but Iranian civilians. The downpour of chemicals was prodigious: the … Continue reading “Iran, Islam, and Banning the Bomb”

The commonly offered logic behind America’s push for war against Iran is that it, at least in part, is pushed by Israeli desire for war with Iran. But that explanation defies the logic of the geopolitics of the Middle East. In the logic of the Middle East, Israel does not obviously seek war with Iran. … Continue reading “How Israel Could Prevent a War With Iran”

If there was a meter to measure White House statements – or the tweets that pass for them – the needle would be wildly swinging from "willing to talk" to "locked and loaded." But, the needle never needed to be so jittery. Iran’s Need to Enrich A gust of the wind of international law is … Continue reading “How America Created the Nuclear Conflict With Iran”

When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee declared that "the two mighty power blocs, have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation" and confidently expressed that "It is our hope that we are now celebrating the end of the Cold War." Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally … Continue reading “Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War”

The mainstream media is full of images and stories of Venezuela’s inhumanely authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro pushing American offerings of humanitarian aid away from Venezuela’s border with Columbia. The mainstream media serves us up our offerings of news as if each headline story was an isolated event, floating alone on an ahistorical sea, unmoored from … Continue reading “Why Won’t Maduro Let US Humanitarian Aid Into Venezuela? History.”

The radical opposition’s case in the unfolding Venezuelan coup rest upon the claim that, since Nicolás Maduro’s second term in office was secured through an illegitimate election, the office of president has been vacated and should, constitutionally, be filled by the President of the National Assembly. Leaving aside the question of whether a contested election … Continue reading “Five Striking things You Didn’t Know About Venezuela”

The coup that is unfolding in Venezuela is not an American backed coup: it is an American coup. Mainstream media coverage paints the events only as American recognition of a legitimate constitutional correction of government. Even in the left wing and alternative media, where writers condemn the American intervention, many of them feel the need … Continue reading “What the Media Won’t Tell You About the Venezuelan Coup”

At the close of 2018, President Donald Trump announced that American troops were being withdrawn from Syria. By the open of 2019, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Senator Lindsey Graham were saying that there would be no withdrawal before a full defeat of the Islamic State and other objectives were achieved. As usual, the … Continue reading “The Syrian War Is Over – It Never Should Have Started”

America strives for hegemony. If the American dream is that an individual can make it to the top, the political equivalent is that a nation can. And the American dream is that that nation is America. "Hegemony" derives from the ancient Greek word "hegemonikon," a word used by the Stoic philosophers to mean the leading … Continue reading “Rogue: America and the Post Unipolar World”