With oil prices having more than doubled over the last 12 months, various reasons are being cited for the price increases. Adhip Chaudhuri, a visiting professor of economics at Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar, explains the cause and effect of high oil prices. Is the increase in oil prices plunging the global economy into […]
Geography Archives: Iraq
SEIU: Debating Labor’s Strategy
Introduction by Michael D. Yates Over the past several years, a vigorous debate has taken place within organized labor and among its allies over how best to rebuild a dying labor movement. Much of the is debate has centered around the actions and arguments of the leaders of the nation’s largest union, The Service […]
Meeting Bashar al-Assad
He receives us at the door, at the entrance to a one-story house located on the hills of Damascus. No protocol, no security measure: we are not searched, nor are our recording devices inspected. “Here is the house where I read, where I work. There are only this room, a conference room, and a kitchen. […]
An Iranian’s Letter to the US Congress
Honorable Ladies & Gentleman! National Call-in Day on Iran Blockade Resolutions Wednesday, July 9 is a national call-in day for H.Con.Res 362, the blockade resolution. Call your member of Congress and ask him or her not to support a blockade on Iran. It was with great dismay that I, and many of my fellow […]
Iran-US: A Gesture for Peace
July the 3rd marked the 20th anniversary of the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US-guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, killing all its 290 passengers. The timing of the shootdown in 1988 and the circumstances surrounding it were significant in that they contradict the US government’s official position describing the incident as wholly […]
Is Iran Currently an Existential Threat to the United States? A Side-By-Side Comparison of Military Capabilities
A side-by-side comparison of the two countries’ conventional military capabilities demonstrates the overwhelming superiority of the United States. It is time to inject realism into discussions about U.S.-Iranian relations. Hyping the threat about Iran obscures the bottom line: Iran does not currently represent an existential threat to the United States or its allies, and […]
An Open Letter to Barack Obama on Iran
Dear Senator Obama, We the undersigned may have different views on U.S. foreign policy with respect to Iran. We all, however, are deeply concerned about the stories in the press in the past few weeks suggesting that the Bush administration might be considering a military strike on Iran, that it might give a green light […]
Evaluation of the June 28-29, 2008 National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation
Our overall assessment is that the conference was an overwhelming success. Over 400 people from many parts of the country and Canada attended, including a bus of 44 — mostly youth — from Connecticut (see breakdown by states below*). The conference met its main objective, which was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the […]
When the Tough Decide to Become Diplomatic
President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy. In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the “Axis of Evil” — composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — […]
OPEC Warns against Iran War
Oil prices rise and rise. New record on Thursday: a barrel (159 liters) of oil costs more than US$145 for the first time. In the event of an attack on Iran, prices could really explode. Yesterday, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri, warned. “It would be […]
Arroyo Welcomes More US Participation in the “Killing Fields” of the Philippines in the Guise of Humanitarian Intervention
A historic event worthy of the Guinness Book may have occurred in Washington in the last week of June. The worst “torture” president that the United States has ever had met the most corrupt and brutal president ever inflicted on the Filipino people. Grotesque or farcical? Bush is now credited with the horrendous deaths […]
Iraq: We All Work for the Casino in the Green Zone
As you know, there’s a talk of developing the Green Zone. The Marriott Hotel chain is here, and I too am involved in hospitality. I’m representing interests that are building a hotel. . . . Five stars, a casino, gambling, and it’s going to be here in the Green Zone. The sponsors are a […]
Anti-FSLN Opposition Seeks Unity to Topple Ortega Government
On June 11 the axe of Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) came down on the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS1) and the old historic Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN), now a tiny shell of its former self. The CSE unanimously decided to deregister both parties on the grounds that they had failed to fulfill the requirements […]
On a Quest for Secular Piety: Reviewing Tarek Fatah’s Chasing a Mirage
Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (CM). With a book being favorably reviewed in the Canadian (and US and UK) media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, and the Asper-family owned newspapers (Ottawa Citizen and […]
Class Struggle, Fossil Fuels, and Environmental Catastrophe
The excavation of fossil fuels was a one-time bonanza: it provided cheap energy that temporarily quadrupled the earth’s carrying capacity in terms of human population. Instead of an ever tightening immiseration of the working class and overthrow of the capitalist system, as expected by Marx, the one-time gift of fossil fuels led to a standoff […]
The Indian Judiciary, the Salwa Judum Criminal Vigilantes, and Political Prisoner Dr. Binayak Sen
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its June 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. When the issue is class struggle, everyone knows that today’s judiciary in India exhibits no qualitative difference from that of the British colonial regime. When workers try to […]
Naval Blockade against Iran?
The USA and the EU planning to escalate confrontation with Iran. A military blockade discussed. In the conflict over Iran’s civilian nuclear program, the United States and Europe are intensifying confrontation. At the top of the measures that are now being discussed is an international naval blockade by a “coalition of the willing.” As in […]
A Region in Chaos: An Interview with Dr. Mohssen Massarrat
Mohssen Massarrat, born in Tehran in 1942, is Professor of Political Economy and International Relations at Universität Osnabrück. Deutsche Militärzeitung: Professor Massarrat, William Fallon, US Commander responsible for the Middle East, unexpectedly resigned after just one year. A cause for his resignation is obviously the US policy toward Iran. Admiral Fallon criticized the US […]
Decision Looms: Escalate, or Retreat and Retrench?
Across the Middle East, the Bush-Neocon post-9/11 project faces failure. In the last month alone, Washington has had to endure one humiliation after another: In Lebanon, the pro-U.S. government (prodded by Israel and/or Washington) announced a set of steps aimed at Hezbollah. Hezbollah and the broader Lebanese opposition movement — which together represent the majority […]
The Delusion of the “Clash of Civilizations” and the “War on Islam”
The rhetoric about a “clash of civilizations” and a “war on Islam” has found its way easily into Arab intellectual discourse, where it has taken solid root, along with other similar “concepts” (or what I’d rather call “non-concepts” — like the term “terrorism” — since they are extremely vague and yet ideologically loaded) that were […]
