Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, December 1, 1999
There is little hope for real progress in the Israeli-Syrian peace talks unless the Clinton Administration is willing to uphold human rights and international law along with its commitment to Israel’s legitimate security needs. Since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, these issues have been at the heart of the dispute. [Source]
Year: 1999
Iran: Time for Detente
Foreign Policy In Focus, November 1, 1999; Download PDF
The strident anti-Americanism of Iran’s Islamic regime has been a direct consequence of past U.S. interference in Iranian internal affairs. Iran’s control by anti-Western elements has been a major obsession for U.S. policymakers, resulting in stringent economic sanctions and other measures. Despite recent reforms, the U.S. has been hesitant to forge closer relations with Iran due to lingering hostility to the Islamic government and a fear that supporting moderates would create a backlash against them. The ongoing struggle in Iran between Islamic reformers and Islamic hard-liners, along with struggles within the U.S. foreign policy establishment between hawks and those seeking accommodation, has left U.S.-Iranian relations in a state of flux. A three-way power struggle between popular moderate Islamist President Mohammed Khatami, hard-line clerics, who still wield substantial influence (and control the police and courts), and resistance movements seeking more radical changes has left the future of Iran in question. Iran—with its strategic location, 60 million inhabitants, and control of 10% of the world’s oil reserves—remains a major concern to those who formulate U.S. foreign policy…
[POST UPDATED FROM FPIF.ORG JANUARY 23, 1997]
U.S., Greece, and Turkey
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, November 1, 1999
[Source] President Bill Clinton’s visit to NATO allies Greece and Turkey is raising new questions about the ongoing strategic relationship the United States has with these two historic rivals, particularly in the light of the anti-American demonstrations which delayed and shortened the planned presidential visit. It was U.S. support of the pro-Western governments of these two countries in the late 1940s against a widely-perceived communist threat which most historians point to as the origins of the Cold War…
Nonviolent Action and Human Rights
October 20, 1999, by Stephen Zunes
Mission for Establishment of Human Rights;
© Copyright 2003 American Political Science Association (APSA)
[Source] Nonviolent action campaigns have been a part of political life for millennia. History records many instances of groups rising to challenge abuses by authorities, demand social reforms, and protest militarism and discrimination. In recent years, however, the number of such movements has increased, as has their success in advancing the cause of human rights and toppling or dramatically reforming repressive regimes. In the twentieth century, nonviolence became more of a deliberate tool for social change, moving from being largely an ad hoc strategy growing naturally out of religious or ethical principles to a reflective and, in many ways, institutionalized method of struggle…
NATO’s Rush to War in Yugoslavia
Peace Review 11:3 (Fall 1999): 447-454. By Stephen Zunes.
The United States-led war against Yugoslavia continued for more than ten weeks despite the many ways it could have been avoided or ended sooner, and despite the opposition and uneasiness it generated even among its initial supporters. This essay outlines some of the reasons why the war was wrong from a moral, legal and utilitarian perspective…
A Tragic Miscalculation
Common Dreams by Stephen Zunes, April 13, 1999
[Source is no longer available]
There is little hope that Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic’s cease fire overtures mount to anything significant. Indeed, he has largely won the war on the ground. By contrast, NATO bombs have done a lot of damage, but have little more to show. Indeed, NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia tragically illustrates the limits of air power, however massive and well-coordinated, in achieving political goals…
Continuing Storm: The U.S. Role in the Middle East
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, April 1, 1999
[Source] Throughout the centuries, Western nations have tried to impose their order on the region now commonly known as the Middle East. For certain periods of time they have succeeded, only to find themselves at the receiving end of a popular and oftentimes violent backlash. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph in the Gulf War, the United States stands—at least for a time—as the region’s dominant outside power…
Bombing Is Not The Answer
Common Dreams by Stephen Zunes, March 24, 1999
[Source is no longer available]
The ongoing threats of NATO air strikes against Serbia to end the Milosevic regime’s repression against Kosovo’s Albanian majority is a prime example of the wrong policy at the wrong time. The cause is certainly just: The Serbian authorities have imposed an apartheid-style system on the country’s ethnic Albanian majority and have severely suppressed cultural and political rights. However, this suppression has been ongoing since Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989…
The Role of Non-Violent Action in the Downfall of Apartheid
Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1
(Mar., 1999), pp. 137-169, March 1, 1999, by Stephen Zunes
Against enormous odds, non-violent action proved to be a major factor in the downfall of apartheid in South Africa, and the establishment of a democratic black majority government, despite predictions that the transition could come only through a violent revolutionary cataclysm. This was largely the result of conditions working against a successful armed overthrow of the system, combined with the ability of the anti-apartheid opposition to take advantage of the system’s economic dependence on a cooperative black labour force. This article traces the history of nonviolent resistance to apartheid, its initial failures, and the return in the 1980s to a largely non-violent strategy which, together with international sanctions, forced the government to negotiate a peaceful transfer to majority rule…
[former link is no longer available:
http://stephenzunes.org/articles/JournalModAfStudies1999nonviolence.pdf]