Geography Archives: Iraq

  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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

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” […]

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 […]

The antiwar movement is all but dead and buried.  Turnout at the March 20th, 7th year anniversary of the Iraq invasion in Washington D.C. was pitiful, estimated at approximately ten thousand.  To make matters worse, approval of the war in Afghanistan has not fallen, but slightly increased in the last few months as U.S. marines […]

The absence of US-Iranian rapprochement will perpetuate the new Middle Eastern Cold War, imposing costs on the United States, Iran and other regional and international players.  However, in strategic terms, the heaviest costs of continued US-Iranian estrangement are likely to be borne by the United States.  In particular, lack of productive relations with Tehran will […]

  Jeff Halper: We’re one of the leading — I would say, modestly — peace and human rights organizations in Israel.  We started about thirteen years ago.  I’ve been involved for forty years in the Israeli peace movement.  During the Oslo peace process, during the 90s, the Israeli peace movement also, like other Israelis, invested […]

  What is the characteristic of the Latin American Left today? 20 years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, there was no revolution foreseeable on the horizon.  However, it didn’t take long before a process began to emerge in Latin America with Hugo Chávez.  We have gone on to form governments with anti-neoliberal programs, though […]

Lowkey (born Kareem Dennis, 23 May 1986) is a British musician, poet, playwright, and political activist of English and Iraqi descent.  Check out Lowkey’s MySpace page: .  For bookings, email . | | Print

  “What is it that they have against Iran?  If you look at it, it’s only that Iran is rising as a competitor of Israel.  There is no other basis for this animosity.” — Aijaz Ahmad Aijaz Ahmad: The US is running out of all options.  You mentioned this possible agreement.  Iran has actually agreed […]

There are two countries in the world which are routinely described by American politicians across the political spectrum as having a “special relationship” with the United States — Israel and the United Kingdom.  We have all grown more familiar than we probably like to acknowledge with Israel using its channels to Capitol Hill and in […]