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 […]
Geography Archives: Middle East
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 […]
Gap Between Latin America and Washington Still Growing
Washington’s foreign policy establishment — and much of the U.S. media — was taken by surprise this week when President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, stated that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) should lay down their arms and unconditionally release all of their hostages. The FARC is a guerrilla group that has been fighting […]
Three Days in Cairo: Egyptian Workers Impose a New Agenda
The road from the airport to the hotel shows the story: modern buildings partly conceal dilapidated, crowded structures that seem on the verge of collapse. Ancient jalopies chug along as if by inertia, while the latest luxury models zip past them. Huge billboards advertise multinational corporations. All this goes side by side with centuries-old […]
Their Crisis or Ours? The Battle over the World’s Food Supply Relocates to Rome
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is currently holding an emergency summit in Rome that will be focusing on the ongoing global food crisis, but rejuvenating and protecting agriculturalists does not seem to be on the agenda. In the past couple of months, the attention of the world has been directed at the issue […]
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 […]
Key Contrasting Congresses in Germany
Three all-German congresses were held this past weekend, all important but very different. The bad news first: The beautiful old city of Bamberg hosted the national congress of the National Party (NPD) — the main neo-Nazi party. All attempts to bar it from the city’s Congress Hall foundered on a Bavarian court decision, since the […]
A Tale of Two Cities: Istanbul and Sharm al-Sheikh
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s May 21 announcement that Israel and Syria will soon begin indirect negotiations in Istanbul, mediated by the Turkish government, should not have surprised anyone. As Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha-Aretz (May 22, 2008), “exchanges [with Syria] have been ongoing for a long time.” What seems to have changed is […]
Gone with the “W”
Hillary Rodham Clinton was not a liberal, but the news media seldom realized it when surrounded by campaign placards and press kits, as a throng of reporters in the Oval Office were on this bright, cold day in January 2009. “Fiddle dee dee, I can’t tell you people apart,” chirped Hillary, her blue eyes fluttering […]
Lessons the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Hold for the War in Iraq?
David A. Bell. The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. x + 420 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-618-91981-9. The concept of “total war” is not a new one to historians, particularly those of the twentieth century. For many, the […]
In Lebanon, the Spectre of Peace
Hezbollah is the big winner in the accord on Lebanon signed in Doha, Qatar. But everyone — including Washington — is welcoming this asymmetrical compromise. Why? Hard bargaining is underway. . . . In the Middle East, neither the worst nor the best is ever certain. But what happened in Doha, the capital of Qatar, […]
So Much for the Success of the Surge
The relative decline in violence in Iraq that Bush, McCain, and other supporters of the war have attributed to the “surge” appears to have reversed. Al Qaeda and others in the Sunni resistance began stepping up their attacks at the beginning of the year and Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army has been battling US and […]
CPR for the Anti-War Movement
It is fair to say that the anti-war movement in the US is moribund. A movement that put a million people in the streets a month before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has drawn as many as half-a-million protesters to protests as recently as January 2007 has failed to mobilize anything even near […]
Brick by Brick: Building Labour Solidarity with Palestine
Attention all unions, workers, and rank and file activists working in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice: You are invited to a three-day conference to help build and share strategies to support the movement for Palestinian rights in our workplaces, our unions and our communities. Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1, 2008 in […]
Iran: The Evil State versus the Good People?
Marjane Satrapi’s film Persepolis must have made George Bush and his new ally Nicolas Sarokzy quite happy. After all, despite Satrapi’s rhetoric against the two leaders, her film’s core argument is one that Bush and Sarkozy have long been busy constructing: the evil state versus the wonderful people. Aesthetically, Persepolis is a refreshing and beautiful […]
We Fought Apartheid; We See No Reason to Celebrate It in Israel Now!
We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse today to celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East. While Israel and its apologists around the […]
An Arab Woman Running for Mayor of Tel Aviv
Anyone walking a month ago along Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel Aviv’s central streets, was probably surprised to see some 200 Arab women along with Jewish artists and intellectuals, marching to demand the right to work in dignity. Only a couple of days after the attack in Jerusalem, these women made their presence felt […]
On the Fortuitous Poverty of Memory
On May 17, 1987, a double act of Exocet missiles skimmed through the air and slammed into the American Perry-class frigate the USS Stark. The first Exocet antiship missile punched into the warship “at 600 miles per hour and exploded in the forward crew’s quarters.” The warhead failed to detonate but managed to smash through […]
Palestinian Refugees inside Israel Itself
It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country’s forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue. […]
