History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s February 7 address in Doha, Qatar (transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Who the hell wants to talk about genocide and man’s inhumanity to man? I taught courses on the Holocaust, where I came across a two-volume encyclopedia of genocide (see list of references at the end). We...
Angry demonstrations against Iran’s clerical government engulfed the capital, Tehran, and other cities in December and early January. Although the turmoil has receded since then, it appears that more than 6,800 people have perished in the violence as of February 3,...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sounded more like a populist leader than a former central banker during his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 20. Bemoaning the "fading" of the rules-based order, Carney delivered a surprisingly blunt speech....
The protests that erupted in the streets of Iran at the end of December and beginning of January were the largest since the protests of 2009. They were ignited by an economic crisis and the collapse of the Iranian rial that led to a cost-of-living crisis. As the...
Reprinted from TomDispatch: What constitutes national security and how is it best achieved? Does massive military spending really make a country more secure, and what perils to democracy and liberty are posed by vast military establishments? Questions like those are...
While the sheer pomposity, Trumpian megalomania, and painfully paradoxical context surrounding the so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) might tempt some to dismiss it as mere spectacle or farce, its criminal, inhumane, and hegemonic nature makes it far too dangerous to...
Among the critical issues facing our country today, nuclear arms control is seldom top of mind for most people, understandably, given our myriad political, social and economic crises. Recent books and films such as Annie Jacobsen’s 2004 non-fiction tome Nuclear War: A...
One of the most persistent myths in Western political thought is the idea that the United States and its European allies are principled opponents of fascism and totalitarianism. This doctrine, which many Washington elites believe at an almost religious level, has...
For the past month, Americans have been wondering whether President Trump will attack Iran, or whether the massive military build-up in the Middle East is just another bluff. President Trump claims that the decision is his alone to make. Thus far, President Trump has...
