Geography Archives: Middle East

Last year, we took the Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick to task for stories he published that relied “almost entirely on unnamed U.S. officials and a known terrorist organization” to advance “Iraq-redux” claims that the Islamic Republic is seeking to build nuclear weapons.  Now, Warrick published a front-page story in the Washington Post — a story […]

On a television channel on counting day, the panellists discussing the assembly election results were asked to offer advice to the Left, which had lost both the large states it ruled, one of them quite massively, on how it should reform itself for a future resurrection.  The overwhelming opinion among them was that it should […]

  Mere days after the Egyptian Military Council received a cash payment of $4 billion from Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian government uncovered an Iranian spy in Egypt.  It is widely known in the Arab world that countries that receive cash payments from Saudi Arabia usually uncover Iranian plots days after the arrival of the cash. […]

  Greenwashing Apartheid: The Jewish National Fund’s Environmental Cover Up.  JNF eBook (Volume 4).  May 15, 2011. The 63-year old State of Israel has had overwhelming success at hiding its true intentions and purposes, effectively whitewashing actions which, if properly understood, would be extremely disturbing to most people.  Thus the passage of laws discriminating on […]

Dubbed Egypt’s “Second Day of Rage,” this Friday protest in Tahrir could never live up to the standard set by the first one. . . .  The rally drew tens of thousands to Tahrir, despite the boycott by the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that little has changed since the toppling of the former president Hosni Mubarak.  […]

The last thing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev did before departing for France to attend this week’s Group of Eight summit meeting in Deauville was place a call to Damascus. Prima facie, one may think the call made sense, since, as Reuters reported, “Syria’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests” is going to be high on the agenda […]

In the long and impressive catalogue of Michal Kalecki’s contributions to economics, the proportion of writings devoted to what is now called “development economics” is relatively small.  And most of his work in this area is concise to the point of being terse, in short articles that simply state some crucial principles, typically without much […]

Testimony before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight, and Government Spending, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the U.S. House of Representatives, at the Hearing on “How Federal Reserve Policies Add To Hard Times At The Pump,” 25 May 2011 Thank you, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Kucinich, and other members of the Subcommittee, […]

  May 24, 2011, 19:30 In continuation of the telephone conversation between the presidents of Russia and Syria held on April 6, 2011, and on the eve of his trip to France for a G8 summit, Dmitry Medvedev stated the principled position of the Russian Federation regarding the events in Syria and around it.  The […]

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela communicated by telephone with his brother, the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad, in order to convey to him a personal greeting full of affection and hope at a moment when the imperialist forces are unleashing violence against the Syrian people. President Hugo Chávez received […]

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has taken note of the decision announced by the State Department of the United States to impose sanctions against our national company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in the context of the unilateral US policy of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, known as the Comprehensive Iran […]

Elias Muhanna: Since when have Middle Eastern governments, or any governments for that matter, managed to stifle religious parties in the Middle East by preventing them from coming to the fore?  If they pass a political parties law in Syria but they don’t allow religious parties, don’t you think that’s just gonna blow up in […]

Libya is neither Tunisia nor Egypt.  The (Gaddafi) bloc in power and the forces fighting against it have no analogues in Tunisia or Egypt.  Gaddafi has never been anything but a clown whose vacuous thought is reflected in the famous “Green Book.”  Operating in a still archaic society, Gaddafi could get away with adopting successive […]

Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 23 May 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. Gil Ronen, “South Sudan Wants Ties with Israel” (Arutz Sheva, 17 February 2011); “Israel Hopes to Attain a New African Ally in S. Sudan” (Jerusalem Post, 29 February […]

Arguably the most important reason for the international interest in Iran is its strategically pivotal geography.  Like some of its Muslim neighbours, it has tremendous oil and gas reserves.  For the United States, the revolution in Iran was nothing less than a geopolitical shock. Revolutionary dynamics in the Arab World have recently rekindled the debate […]

The parties involved in the revolt in Syria so far have not made their programs public.  Undoubtedly, the drift of the Ba’athist regime, won over to neoliberalism and singularly passive in the face of the Israeli occupation of Golan, is the reason for the uprising of people.  However, the CIA’s intervention must not be ruled […]

President Obama’s speech to the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on Sunday predictably offered lots of “red meat” for pro-Israel constituencies.  But, in heavily veiled language, the President also made an enormously important point about the evolving character of international relations in the 21st century and what that means for the United […]

(Scene: an elevator, downstage right.  Stuck inside are ROY COHN and ETHEL ROSENBERG, characters in Tony Kushner’s landmark play, Angels in America.  McCarthyite lawyer, ROY prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of spying for the USSR and executed in 1953.  ETHEL now paces impatiently, pushing elevator buttons.  Above the stage, captions from recent […]

I’ve talked with the Syrian president, our brother Bashar, a couple of minutes ago.  Syria is a victim of a fascist onslaught.  God Help Syria! Hugo Chávez Frías is the president of Venezuela.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. Karin Leukefeld, “Syriens Kommunisten sehen »Chance« für Veränderungen” (junge Welt, 14 May […]

ICC to Sudan: “Who committed the crimes of genocide?” STL to Lebanon: “Who killed Hariri?” Justice, however, is asleep when it comes to Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan. . . . Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 9 March 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational […]