At least 11 Iraqis were killed and 25 more were wounded as coverage of attacks resumed in the media. The parliamentary stalemate dominated the headlines, along with oil and Kurdish concerns, but the most significant story of the day came from the United Kingdom where an inquiry into the causes of the Iraq War continues to embarrass the war hawks.
P.C. Roberts: China, Russia waiting for US to self-destruct?
"From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August," explained then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card back in September 2002, in answer to queries about why the administration of George W. Bush had not launched its campaign to rally public opinion behind invading Iraq earlier in the summer. And while …
Continue reading “Stirrings of a New Push for Military Option on Iran”
Although the United States and its allies insist that the latest round of U.N. sanctions against Iran targets high-level government officials rather than the general population, interviews with a number of analysts, activists and journalists in Tehran reveal a growing concern over the impact on the country’s middle class. "The government will use the oil …
Continue reading “Iran Sanctions May Target Iran’s Middle Class”
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: To check out the most recent review of my book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s, which just went up at Mother Jones magazine’s Web site, click here (“…as in his daily dispatches, he takes on our war-possessed world with clear-eyed, penetrating precision…”). For all those of …
Continue reading “BP’s First ‘Spill’”
Light violence left four Iraqis killed and eight more wounded, but a guerilla war on Iraq’s northern border could be intensifying. The lack of a stable government following March elections has left Iraq unable to properly deal with events on its northern flank and forced Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to criticize Iraq’s regional neighbors for meddling in Iraqi politics.
Defuse tensions before it’s too late, says R. Heydarian
At least nine Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded in the latest violence. Hundreds of Kurds, however, have been forced to leave their homes because of shelling from Iranian troops. Also, dozens of people were accidentally poisoned in Baghdad.
The sad truth is that if Iran wants a nuclear weapon, it will likely eventually get one. So the United States should quit wasting valuable political capital beseeching, threatening, and horse-trading with China, Russia, and other UN Security Council members to incrementally ratchet up likely futile multilateral economic sanctions against Iran. Economic sanctions rarely work …
Continue reading “Turkey’s Policy Toward Iran Is Worth Emulating”
Juan Cole on how the US and Israel help the hardliners
