Washington Should Remember the Past and Avoid a World War I Redux
Attempting to apply historical lessons to current events typically is problematic. Circumstances change dramatically; almost any moment in time in 1914 looks radically different from any one in 2020. The rise of a dictator and onset of a war may be examples of...
Lebanon: Inconvenient Truths About Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Shia ‘Street’
This is the fourth segment in the author’s backstory series – "Lebanon: Bellwether, Battleground, and Bastard Child" – in the wake of the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion. Check out parts one, two, and three, plus stay tuned for upcoming segments at...
Artificial (Un)intelligence and the US Military
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the U.S. military, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare informs us today, has had a brilliant idea – robot generals (!) – into which to sink yet more billions of our tax dollars...
Pompeo’s Iran Failures Make War More Likely
The US foreign policy establishment has for decades been dominated by neoconservative interventionists and falsely-named “humanitarian” interventionists. These people believe that because the United States is the one “exceptional nation,” no...
The Vindication of Harry Browne… Again
On January 27, 2000 in an email during his 2000 campaign for the American presidency, the late Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne wrote, "Today we have a strong national offense (the ability to blow any country to smithereens) and a weak national defense (the...
‘People of the Cave’: Palestinians Take Their Fight for Justice to the Mountains
Palestinians are not going anywhere. This is the gist of seven decades of Palestinian struggle against Zionist colonialism. The proof? The story of Ahmed Amarneh. Amarneh, a 30-year-old civil engineer from the northern West Bank village of Farasin, lives with his...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Four Killed in Iraq
Donald Trump and the Art of Betrayal
Iran and the Nuclear Deal The betrayal began with Iran. The work had all been done by Obama and Secretary of State, John Kerry. Trump was the beneficiary of a historic treaty that made the world a safer place and that lifted trust between Iran and the US to a level it...
Imagine a President Joe Biden: What Would be a Progressive Foreign Policy?
With Joe Biden leading in the polls and Republicans in trouble in the Senate, progressives are hoping for the sort of political revolution that Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide over Barry Goldwater delivered. Biden has raced left, abandoning many of the positions which...
