Geography Archives: Iraq

The “Iranian people” have not spoken. What’s happening in Iran today is a developing conflict between two forces that each represent millions of people.  There are good people on both sides and the issues are complicated.  So before U.S. progressives decide to weigh in, supporting one side and condemning the other, let’s take a little […]

  The US war machine continues to inflict untold miseries on the people of the world and particularly those of the Muslim faith.  Barack Obama, the first black president in the history of the United States, has repeatedly promised to repair some of the damage wreaked by his predecessor on the international stage.  But the […]

  The military coup currently underway in Honduras is a hard coup accompanied by various vain attempts to make it appear soft and “constitutionalist.”  Behind the coup are diverse social, economic, and political forces, of which the most important is the administration of President Barack Obama.  No important change can happen in Honduras without Washington’s […]

There is a difference between the outlook of a secular generation of Iranian youth, yearning for a life in which religion (in the form of a clergy directing a theological state) refrains from meddling in their personal lives and individual fates as citizens, and the foreign and domestic policy considerations of the reformist trend.  A […]

Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation.  Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has […]

The five senators voting against $106 billion for Obama’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were three reactionaries — Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), and Enzi (R-WY) — and only two progressives Feingold (D-WI) and Sanders (I-VT). Not voting were two sick senators, Byrd (D-WV) and Kennedy (D-MA), and one just disgraced one — Ensign (R-NV). A […]

(This missive is directed at the non-Iranian “peace organizations” who are presently issuing “statements” on the Iran events for whatever organizational purposes they have in mind.  It is not at all intended to be critical of most of the excellent analysis and information exchange occurring, particularly within the Iranian communities.) We Americans love to shoot […]

Barack Obama’s Cairo speech heralds a shift from the Islamophobic rhetoric of the Bush regime, but not from the long-term aims of the U.S. empire. Predictably, Barak Obama’s speech in Cairo came under hysterical criticism from the right.  Sean Hannity screamed that Obama gave “sympathizers of 9/11” a voice on the world stage, Charles Krauthammer […]

Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections Executive Summary: In a new public opinion poll across Iran before the critical upcoming June 12, 2009 Presidential elections, a plurality of Iranians said they would vote for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranians also continue overwhelmingly to favor […]

On the US-Iran relationship, President Obama seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth.  From one side we hear promising messages of dialogue and a “new beginning” with Iran; from the other side provocative words that seems to be coming right out of the mouth of his predecessor, George W. Bush. For example, […]

  Every so often someone comes along who is so brave and so inspiring that you just can’t sit by and remain silent when you learn they need your help. We’re writing to you today about one of these rare people. His name is Ezra Nawi. You’ve probably never heard of him, but because you […]

A community in northern Israel has changed its bylaws to demand that new residents pledge support for “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land” in a thinly veiled attempt to block Arab applicants from gaining admission. Critics are calling the bylaw, adopted by Manof, home to 170 Jewish families in Galilee, a local “loyalty […]

  Dietrich Eichholtz.  Krieg um Öl: Ein Erdölimperium als deutsches Kriegsziel 1938-1943.  Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2006.  141 pp.  ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4; EUR 19.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4. Dietrich Eichholtz does not mince words.  From the first page of this powerfully argued book, his underlying argument is clear: “The imperialist interest in oil played a role in the […]

Juan Cole.  Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.  Illustrations, maps.  xi + 279 pp.  $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-230-60603-6. Juan Cole’s Napoleon’s Egypt tells the story of revolutionary France’s attempt to conquer Egypt and the cultural interchanges that resulted.  Although various aims drove the effort, the main motive was a prerevolutionary […]

  نصير شمة يعزف غارسيا لوركا Naseer Shamma was born in 1963, in Al Kut, Iraq.  He is one of the greatest oud players.

Talks between Barack Obama and the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships over the past fortnight have unleashed a flood of media interest in the settlements Israel has been constructing on Palestinian territory for more than four decades. The US president’s message is unambiguous: the continuing growth of the settlements makes impossible the establishment of a Palestinian […]

  Peter Sluglett.  Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country.   New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.  318 pp.  $24.50 (paper), ISBN 978-0-231-14201-4. The current war in Iraq has had many ironic consequences, the least sordid being perhaps the belated interest in Iraq’s history.  As Peter Sluglett confesses in the opening pages of the reissue […]

  Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism?  The question sounds naïve, silly even.  Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved.  If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]

On Memorial Day this year, many veterans marched in local parades and remembered what it was like to be in the military.  A number of Veterans For Peace members saw this picture in the May 24 edition of the Juneau Empire and made the comments that follow it. Alaska Army National Guard Staff Sergeant Michael […]

Would Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu say the magic words “two states” after his meeting with President Obama?  All Israel held its breath.  (He didn’t).  The gap between the two is wider than those words could ever have bridged, however.  Obama, I believe, sincerely — perhaps urgently — seeks a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, a […]