A talk delivered to the Fifth Bil’in International Conference for Palestinian Popular Resistance, held in the West Bank village of Bil’in on April 21 Israel’s apologists are very exercised about the idea that Israel has been singled out for special scrutiny and criticism. I wish to argue, however, that in most discussions of Israel it […]
Geography Archives: Iraq
Iraq Redux: “Conventional Wisdom” of Iran Analysts
The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler had an important story: “Even as Momentum for Iran Sanctions Grows, Containment Seems Only Viable Option.” Glenn states his thesis up front: After months of first attempting to engage Iran and then wooing Russia and China to support new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the Obama Administration appears within reach […]
Why You Should Care about the Three Americans Held in Iran
Watching the news in August 2009, you may have heard about three U.S. citizens being detained in Iran. Arrested for allegedly crossing the Iran-Iraq border on July 31, 2009, they remain in detention nine months later in Iran’s Evin prison. Dubbed “the hikers” due to the fact that they were on a hiking trip in […]
General Jones at the Washington Institute: Still Getting the Iran-Palestine Connection Wrong
National Security Adviser James Jones was the headline speaker at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy‘s 25th-anniversary gala dinner in Washington last night. Substantively, General Jones’ speech focused on “two defining challenges” confronting the United States and its allies in the region: “preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, […]
Why Iran Won’t Attack Israel
Palestinians are in Israel today because they managed to survive the depopulation of 1948, the year the Jewish state was founded (Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel’s population). Ironically, while Benny Morris’ scholarship suggests that the mere existence of these Palestinians in Israel — and millions more in the occupied territories — irks him, Israel’s […]
An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. […]
The Global Securitization of Religion
My first thought upon reading the Chicago Council’s report “Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy” is that the title is misleading. This report is not about engaging religious communities abroad — one hears little if at all from such communities — nor does it say anything particularly new. There is, […]
Will Feminism Be Articulated to the Left or to the Right?
EA: You are one of the leading theorists trying to develop the notion of the public sphere. In what ways has globalisation affected the public sphere? Has the public sphere become more transnational? NF: Today, the flow of public political discourse does not respect borders, but is often transnational. The result is a serious […]
Iran: New Challenges in the New Year
About one month after the beginning of the new Iranian calendar year (21 March 2010), and following the international recognition of Norouz by the United Nations General Assembly, Iran is facing new challenges. Some of the challenges are domestic, while others emanate from Iran’s regional and international policies as well as international pressures put […]
Green Scare: The Making of the New Muslim Enemy
The events of September 11 laid the basis for the emergence of a vicious form of Islamophobia that facilitated the U.S. goals of empire building in the 21st century. This form of Islamophobia focused on the enemy “out there” against which the U.S. supposedly had to go to war to protect itself, from Afghanistan to […]
China Will Do Whatever It Wants to Do . . . about Its Currency and Iran
The United States and China seem to have reached an agreement with regard to the exchange rate between their two currencies. The agreement is that the U.S. government will stop yelling about it, and China will do whatever it wants to do, which will probably include some modest rise in the renminbi some time in […]
The Islamic Republic and the World: Two Reviews
Maryam Panah. The Islamic Republic and the World: Global Dimensions of the Iranian Revolution. Pluto Press, 2007. 232 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7453-2622-1, ISBN10: 0-7453-2622-6. Review of The Islamic Republic and the World Maryam Panah offers a refreshingly different and powerful account of the causes and consequences of the Iranian Revolution. Drawing on recent developments within […]
The Bank Loan That Could Break South Africa’s Back
Just how dangerous is the World Bank and its neo-conservative president, Robert Zoellick, to South Africa and the global climate? Notwithstanding South Africa’s existing $75 billion foreign debt, last Thursday the bank added a $3.75bn loan to Eskom for the primary purpose of building the world’s fourth-largest coal-fired power plant, at Medupi, which will spew […]
Victims of Empire
Jim Frederick. Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. 439 pages. Cloth. $26.00. Black Hearts is not a story about your father’s army, or your grandfather’s — this is a tragic narrative of soldiers of the American empire running amok. In recounting the rape of […]
Iran Reacts to Becoming a U.S. Nuclear Target
As we noted last week, the Obama Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, issued last Monday, included a provision asserting a U.S. prerogative to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapons states that Washington deems not be in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Following the release of the Nuclear Posture Review last week, both President Obama and […]
Getting the Iran-Palestine Connection Wrong
In his column, the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius presents an important piece of reporting about the Obama Administration’s approach to Iran and the Palestinian issue. David opens his column by citing “two top administration officials” as telling him that President Obama is seriously considering putting forward an American plan for a two-state solution to the […]
Iraq: Collateral Murder
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time […]
“Israeli Nation” vs. “Jewish State”
A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state. Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction […]
Lies, Damn Lies, and Forbes: What the Turkish President Didn’t Say about Iran
Author’s note: This is a response to Claudia Rosett’s “Turkey Tilts toward Iran,” published on 26 March 2010 by Forbes.com. Forbes columnist Claudia Rosett — who just so happens to be “a journalist-in-residence” with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank — feigns her regret for having to report a “disturbing talk” […]
How Many Vets Have Been “Wounded” in Iraq and Afghanistan?
During the House debate over the Kucinich resolution calling for a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rep. Bob Filner, chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have gone to the VA for service-related injuries. The video of Filner’s statement […]
