Humiliation and Herd-Think

Libertarian stand-up comic Doug Stanhope has said: “Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.” I would only quibble with the “nothing but” part. The collectivist herd-think that is...

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A Foreign Enemy is a Tyrant’s Best Friend

The recent Iran nuclear deal represents a thaw in the American cold war against that country. It is a welcome sequel to the Obama administration’s partial normalization with Cuba announced late last year. Hardliners denounce these policies as “going soft” on theocracy...

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Clean Break to Dirty Wars

To understand today’s crises in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, one must grasp their shared Lebanese connection. This assertion may seem odd. After all, what's the big deal about Lebanon? That little country hasn’t had top headlines since Israel deigned to bomb and invade it...

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No Intervention in Syria

If after the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya (dare I say Vietnam?) some people still want the U.S. government to intervene — further — in the war inside Syria (but fueled by outsiders), we must conclude, not that they can’t learn the lessons of recent...

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Israel, Iran, and the Nuclear Freight Train

Has a weapon ever been invented, no matter how terrible, and not used?  The crossbow, the dreadnought, poison gas, the tank, the landmine, chemical weapons, napalm, the B-29, the drone: all had their day and for some that day remains now.  Even the most...

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Obama’s Duplicitous Iran Policy

One of President Obama’s greatest “accomplishments” has been creating fissures within the antiwar/progressive community in the United States by talking like a progressive politician, but acting in most cases as a conservative one. Consider, for example, his domestic...

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Obama Talks Peace to Iran, But Dishes Out Violence

Four years ago, President Barack Obama quoted the beloved 13th century Persian poet Sa’di in his first Nowruz message to the Iranian people. The address, with its veneer of peace and diplomacy, was a well-received gesture to both civil society and the leadership in...

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Randolph Bourne Institute