At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step....
The Real Winners: The Strategic Fallout of the Israel-Iran War
On June 24, US President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare. Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations,...
Resistance Works: How Small Groups Took on Great Powers
Originally published at TomDispatch. At a time when many may feel that good news has gone the way of the dodo, look no further than the homeland of that long-extinct bird – Mauritius – for a dose of encouragement. There, among the islands of the Indian Ocean, news can...
Sumud: The Unyielding Heart of the Palestinian Cause in Gaza
The profound and unrelenting struggles endured by Palestinians should, by any rational expectation, have irrevocably concluded the Palestinian cause. Yet, the struggle for freedom in Palestine is at its zenith. How is one to explain this? Attempts aimed at the erasure...
Will Trump Continue Seeking War? If So, Here’s Why.
In 1938, five years into Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” the US remained mired in the depths of a “Great Depression.” Real income still hadn’t regained its 1929 level. Unemployment stood at six times at level. The nation languished in economic failure with no...
Hey, POTUS, America Don’t Need No Bunker Busters, Either
We have observed on multiple occasions that Donald J. Trump is an unhinged, egomaniacal Caesarist who knows no limits to power. Indeed, it would appear that he believes himself to be the CEO of the world, bombing Iran last weekend for the good of mankind despite the...
The Dangerous Consequences of the US Attack on Iran
On June 21, the United States committed an act of war, attacking a sovereign nation that had neither attacked nor threatened it without the approval of the Security Council. Iran’s nuclear facilities were severely damaged. But that is not all that was damaged. The...
How the US and Israel Used Rafael Grossi To Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowed the IAEA to be used by the United States and Israel – an undeclared nuclear weapons state in long-term violation of IAEA rules – to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran, despite...
President Trump: End the War Now!
Just a few weeks ago in this space I urged President Trump to accept a deal with Iran allowing it to continue pursuing civilian nuclear power while ensuring that it would not pursue nuclear weapons. Iran signaled it was ready to sign such a deal, yet suddenly Trump’s...
Trump Never Has Been a Sincere Advocate of Realism and Restraint
Expectations for a restrained foreign policy by a Trump administration were naïve. We now have strong evidence. Even before President Donald Trump ordered B-2 bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and plunge the United States into another Middle East war, it should...