Geography Archives: Russia

The United States has already lost the war in Afghanistan, just as it has lost the war in Iraq. President Barack Obama’s vast expansion of the Afghan war announced Dec. 1, and the extension of the violence into neighboring Pakistan, are intended to camouflage the reality of defeat, as was the Bush Administration’s “surge” in […]

Iran is not going to the 2010 World Cup, but there is another football being kicked around in the domestic Iranian media: the extent of poverty in Iran. Last month, the Statistical Center of Iran reported that 70 percent of Iranians earn less than a monthly income of $450 for a household of five.  This […]

1. Where We Are: a) The world has entered a depression, whose greatest impact is yet to come (in the next five years). b) The United States has entered a serious decline in geopolitical power, whose greatest impact is yet to come (in the next five years). c) The world environment is entering into serious […]

  The talks between the G5 plus 1 and Iran are careening toward a premature breakdown.  If they do fall apart, it will be due in large part to a serious diplomatic miscalculation by the Obama administration. Along with its European allies, the Obama administration seized on a plan that cleverly asked Iran to divest […]

  1. Impact on Women in Different Social Groups Financial and economic crises and a rapid loss of existential security are nothing new for women and men in the former socialist bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).  These crises have been a permanent condition of everyday life for the majority of populations in […]

Take a look at the map.  Afghanistan is next to or near Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India.  These are all countries that are vitally important to the United States as key allies or enemies, and as potential economic and political competitors.  Afghanistan is also next to Turkmenistan and other Central Asian Republics that are […]

On November 7, 2009, the Western media devoted ample space to the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez.  The news from Havana about the dispute between the dissident and Cuban authorities circled the world and overshadowed the rest of the news.1 Sanchez recounted her mishap in detail on her blog and in the press.  In doing so, […]

The defeat of the Marxist emancipatory project has brought an end to radical secular universalism.  The result has been twofold: identity politics and their post-modern ideologies of difference have become the legitimating motifs of Western democracies, whilst radical political Islam has taken the anti-systemic baton of secular Marxism, but subverted it with a brand of […]

(PU) Last night, in another embarrassing lapse of security, nine Secret Service agents were trampled to death when approximately 658,000 U.S. residents of every race, age, and sexual orientation mobbed the White House, demanding admission to a state dinner.  Most explained that their reason for crashing the dinner was to have a chance at appearing […]

By giving Israel veto rights and threatening more sanctions, the U.S. is squandering the best chance we have for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. Ordinarily, it would have been easy to dismiss the latest resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency censuring Iran as a text, drafted by idiots, full of sound […]

  Jean Paul Sartre in the fifties made the somber remark that things were so bad at the Sorbonne in the 1920s that the University did not even have a Chair in Marxism.  In asserting the fact at that time, he was of course assuming that things at mid-century had changed dramatically and that Marxism […]

  Daljit Dhaliwal: What do you make of Iran’s announcement to build ten new nuclear enrichment facilities? Ervand Abrahamian: It sounds impressive, but it should be taken as grandstanding for internal public opinion.  Iran is trying to look tough: it’s going to stand up tall against the United States.  The question is what Iran actually […]

  Addressing delegates at the International Encounter of Left Parties held in Caracas, November 19-21, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stated: “the time has come for us to convoke the Fifth International.”  Face with the capitalist crisis and the threat of war that is putting at risk the future of humanity, “the people are clamoring for” […]

  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s controversial visit to Brazil further underscored the independence of this country’s diplomacy, and gave Tehran a chance to defend its points of view on the construction of a lasting peace in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad’s one-day trip to Brasilia Monday was the third visit to Brazil by a Middle Eastern […]

  Lula from Brazil and Ahmadinejad from Iran.  What is this — the new axis of evil?  No — Luladinejad is a new axis of business. In the latest round of the increasingly warm embrace between Latin America and the Middle East, Lula and Ahmadinejad, meeting in Brazil, signed agreements on energy, trade and agricultural […]

  Introduction to Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People by Bertell Ollman The Invention of the Jewish People is divided into two parts.  The first is a long section on the theory of nationalism, whose main characteristic, according to Sand, is the tendency to invent a past that suits the current needs and […]

OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state.  In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding.  Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather […]

  One side is the barely veiled alliance between Washington and Micheletti.  The other side consists of the Constitutional Zelaya Government, the National Front against the Coup d’Etat and the principal former presidential candidate linked to the latter who has decided to boycott the November 29 elections.  The candidate had formally taken his final position […]

  Abstract: Using Jowett and O’Donnell’s system of propaganda analysis, the present case study concentrates on America’s dominant propaganda messages, techniques, and media channels used in Iran during the time period between 1951 and 1953.  The chosen period is of historical significance since it entails the Iranian nationalization of oil crisis and the 1953 coup […]

The End of Poverty? is a kind of bookend to Capitalism: A Love Story: if Michael Moore’s movie examines how private enterprise operates at home, writer/director Philippe Diaz ‘s documentary explores what happens when that economic system is exported to the Third World.  As scathing exposes of exploitation these nonfiction films share much — ironic […]