Given the devastating effects of this war, first in Ukraine but also, through sanctions, on the world economy and the risks of famine that they entail, it seems obvious that the first task of any diplomat and political leader should be to end this war. The problem is...
As President Joe Biden prepares to visit Saudi Arabia this week, peace and human rights campaigners on Monday decried a report that his administration is considering lifting its amorphous ban on the sale of "offensive" US weaponry to the repressive monarchy. According...
It’s a good thing Biden is the president and not a poker player. Two Middle East rivals each just called his bluff. The results were different. But what they revealed is the same. Biden’s pretended idealism folded fast to reveal a hand full of pragmatism. Biden had...
President Joe Biden is off to the Middle East. He apparently plans to welcome Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – ole "Slice ‘n Dice," when it comes to journalistic critics – in from the cold. The president is abandoning the pretense that human rights...
As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an...
15 years have passed since Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, subjecting nearly two million Palestinians to one of the longest and most cruel politically-motivated blockades in history. The Israeli government had then justified its siege as the only way...
Progressive Middle East watchers on Wednesday condemned the Biden administration's targeting of 15 firms and people in at least five countries allegedly linked to the sale and shipment of Iranian petroleum products in violation of US economic sanctions. In announcing...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Yes, Afghanistan went down the drain and Washington’s global war on terror ended (more or less) in disaster 20 years after it began. But the urge to militarize the planet? Not a chance in an American world where, as TomDispatch...
Notwithstanding the euphoric rhetoric about Europe's extraordinarily strong response to Russia's assault on Ukraine, the conflict has not brought the continent closer together in any unique or revolutionary way. In fact, the war has turned Europe into the battlefield...
