Jailed Iran Intellectual Asks US to Butt Out

TEHRAN - One of Iran's best-known intellectuals Ramin Jahanbegloo, who was released on bail this week after spending four months in prison on charges of compromising national security, has said it would be best for the United States and its institutions to avoid...

read more

Whoops! Bolton’s Bad

Three years ago, in deciding to adhere to an Additional Protocol to their Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in advance of its ratification, the Iranians voluntarily "declared" certain activities many months before they were obligated to...

read more

Invoking the Past

Speeches given this week by Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and President Bush, invoking World War II, the Cold War, and Fascists, Nazis and Communists amount to a bit of nostalgia combined with a desperate, last-ditch attempt to convince the...

read more

The Faux Liberal Foreign Policy Debate

President George W. Bush has faced surprisingly little serious opposition while taking the U.S. down an international primrose path. The Left was divided on his mad adventure in Iraq, with most leading Democrats, including 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry and...

read more

Israel’s Deceptions
a Way of Life

In a state established on a founding myth – that the native Palestinian population left of their own accord rather than being ethnically cleansed – and one that seeks its legitimacy through a host of other lies, such as that the occupation of the West Bank...

read more

The Persistence of
Mideast Illusions

The Middle East has always been a place where illusion paves the road to disaster. In 1095, Pope Urban's religious mania launched the Crusades, the reverberations of which still echo through the region. In 1915, Winston Churchill's arrogance led to the World War I...

read more

Israel: Beyond Good and Evil?

The viciousness of the Israeli assault on Lebanon is underscored by the IDF's use of cluster bombs against civilian targets. As Jan Egeland, who heads up humanitarian operations for the United Nations, put it: "What's shocking – and I would say to me completely...

read more

An Army Minus One

On Thursday, 22-year-old Army Specialist Mark Wilkerson turned himself in to Fort Hood in Texas, after being AWOL (absent without leave) for more than 18 months. Wilkerson, who served in the 720th Military Police Battalion in Iraq from March 2003 to March 2004, made...

read more