Geography Archives: Iraq

Patrick Cockburn is the Baghdad correspondent of the Independent and the author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq and Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. How do you interpret the latest election results in Iraq? Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister, has obviously done well and so has his […]

A legal battle being waged by Palestinian families to stop the takeover of their neighborhood in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers has received a major fillip from the recent souring of relations between Israel and Turkey. After the Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip in January, lawyers for the families were given access to […]

The media landscape in the US is changing rapidly.  As all forms of journalists face massive layoffs, analysts fear that journalism’s role as a counterforce against the powerful is in jeopardy.  For progressives and radicals working in media, it’s important to not only question what format news will come in, but also how to approach […]

  On March 24, 1999, NATO began an aerial bombing campaign against what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.  For 78 days, bombs rained down on military targets and civilian infrastructure under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention.’  Operation Allied Force precipitated the displacement of over one million people and directly resulted in the deaths […]

From the Bush Wars (more Iraq than Afghanistan) to the Obama Wars (more Afghanistan and Pakistan than Iraq). . . . Scenes from the “March on the Pentagon” RallyVideo by William Hughes Hollywood San Francisco Atlanta St. Paul, Minnesota Madison Tacoma

  اعتراض دانشجویان پلی‌تکنیک به پروژه دفن شهید Beating their chests and wearing black, a procession of young men and women filed toward the gates of Tehran’s Amir Kabir Polytechnic University on February 23.  The mourners — drawn primarily from the ranks of the Basij militia and unaffiliated hardline Islamist vigilantes — were carrying the […]

The Roman historian Tacitus denounced Roman imperialism for its plunder and destruction of its colonies, declaring, “They make a desert and call it peace.”  No phrase is more apt in describing what the U.S. has done in Iraq. Two new studies released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Oxfam reveal the devastating toll on […]

Obituaries for the Islamic Republic of Iran appeared even before it was born.  In the hectic months of 1979 — before the Islamic Republic had been officially declared — many Iranians as well as foreigners, academics as well as journalists, participants as well as observers, conservatives as well as revolutionaries, confidently predicted its imminent demise.  […]

“Religious despotism is most intransigent because a religious despot views his rule as not only his right but his duty.” — Abdolkarim Soroush The French philosopher Michel Foucault, at the request of one of Italy’s biggest dailies Corriere della Sera, went to Iran to cover the growing unrest and protests against the increasingly despotic regime […]

Barack Obama announces that everyone is coming home except for several dozen thousands of soldiers. President Barack Obama: Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. Jon Stewart: War — is — over . . . . (swaying to the song “Happy Xmas […]

Peter Wien.   Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian, and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941.   SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East Series.  London: Routledge, 2006.  x + 162 pp.  $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-36858-2; $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-46182-5. Sometimes — when read against the backdrop of a particular time and place — a book resonates beyond the immediate […]

In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and […]

  Gauging from the events in Iran’s bazaars, October 2008 had an uncanny resemblance to October 1978.  During the Islamic revolution, bazaaris, responding to the ancien régime’s misconceived scheme to address rampant inflation by identifying and prosecuting alleged profiteers, had organized nationwide closures.  Three decades later, bazaaris in Isfahan and subsequently in Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz, […]

  Throughout the Middle East, actors across the political spectrum cooperate in ways that were unprecedented before the democratic openings of the early 1990s.  Even though few of these openings have advanced toward democracy, groups that had never previously worked together — indeed, some with long histories as rivals — now routinely cooperate in a […]

The election of Barrak Obama to the office of president of the United States has generated tremendous elation and enthusiasm in the U.S. and around the world.  The rise of Obama has been accompanied by the rise of hope and anticipation that a new and better world is about to begin.  Some Obama enthusiasts have […]

An evening of films and discussion with speakers from:Big Noise Films – IVAW – UFPJ – The Indypendent Obama’s Iraq is an evening of short films never before seen in America.  Shot on the other side of the blast shields in Iraq’s walled cities, it covers a very different side of the war than is […]

Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective.  His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme.  Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric.  Yet the […]

  Economic ignorance is widespread in the United States. People think they know something about the subject, but few do.  My mother is convinced that China is the cause of all our economic problems.  When I challenge her, she doesn’t think it matters that I have spent forty years studying and teaching the dismal science.  […]

A delightful surprise awaited us as the 3rd phase of Digna Rabia (Dignified Rage) began on January 2nd.  Philosophers, writers, activist organizations, journalists, musicians, and the EZLN participated in panels, all addressing the general theme of Otro Mundo, otra política (Another world, another politics).  Several thousand packed the CIDECI auditorium to overflowing and managed to […]

When Israel’s 18th parliament opened today, there was only one Arab woman among its intake of legislators. حنين زعبي Haneen Zuabi has made history: although she is not the first Arab woman to enter the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, she is the first to be elected for an Arab party. Sitting in her home in […]