There has been a great deal of confusion about why it is so difficult to achieve a ceasefire, and why Russia insists on a comprehensive peace settlement that deals with “the root causes” of the crisis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky now calls freezing the war...
Trump’s Yokosuka Spectacle: The Pageantry of Power and Japan’s Hidden PFAS Crisis
When President Donald Trump strode onto the flight deck of the USS George Washington at Yokosuka, Japan, it looked like a campaign scene, perhaps choreographed for his unconstitutional 3rd term bid. The imperial president, flanked by sailors and television cameras,...
Whitewashing the Gaza Gas Exploration
The Quest for Gaza’s Energy, Part 2 Read part 1 here In 2019, UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) reported that the occupied territories lie above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth in Area C of the occupied West Bank and off...
Rethinking Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME): A Policy Past Its Prime
In business, an edge is earned. In U.S. diplomacy, it is handed out – nepotism with a human cost. Corporate America calls it a “sustainable competitive advantage,” the factor that separates market leaders from the rest, reflecting a company’s key competencies. In...
Norwegian Peace Council Rejects Peace Prize Winner
Norway’s largest peace organization, the Norwegian Peace Council, has announced that it would forego its traditional torchlight procession for the Nobel Peace Prize winner this year after widespread dissatisfaction with the Nobel Committee’s selection of Venezuelan...
The Post-Gaza Rebalancing in the Middle East
On October 9, when the Gaza ceasefire took effect, it was regarded as the first phase of a 20-point peace plan drafted by the White House. Neither Israel nor Hamas liked the full plan. But the former was pressured by Trump and the latter by a set of Arab states,...
Peace in Gaza Depends on Palestinians’ Right to Remain – and Return
Amid some extremely cautious optimism for peace following a tenuous and incomplete ceasefire in Gaza, any hope for Gaza’s future depends significantly on a little-noticed point in President Donald Trump’s original 20-point peace plan. The plan’s twelfth point says,...
The Rubio Doctrine: Neocons Are Back!
According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President’s Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small...
US Officials Disagree With Trump on Venezuela
In the waters of the Caribbean, a surprisingly large U.S. fleet sits with Venezuela in its sights. It includes over 10,000 troops, Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, F-35B jet fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, P-8 Poseidon spy...
The World Confronts the Genocide Washington Is Trying To Bury
On October 4th, 2025, in an interview with Axios, President Trump stressed that one of the main goals behind his Gaza plan was to restore Israel’s international standing. "Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world,” Trump said. “Now I am...


