Expert Analyst: International Politics, Middle East & Nonviolent Action
The White House has ordered an aircraft carrier strike group off the coast of Iran and a fleet of bombers have flown to U.S. air bases near that country, while preliminary plans are apparently underway to send 120,000 U.S. troops to the region.
There is little question that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is bad news. Some of its units have engaged in severe repression of nonviolent dissidents, supported Assad’s brutal counter-insurgency operations in Syria, backed hardline Islamist militia in several foreign countries, and more.
Anyone wondering about former Vice-President Joe Biden’s fitness for the presidency ought to be concerned about the recent allegations of inappropriate touching. But there is another issue that deserves consideration: his key role in making possible an inappropriate and utterly disastrous war.
The Trump Administration’s decision to recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights—Syrian territory seized in the June 1967 war—marks a serious violation of fundamental principles of international law.
Harris is being embraced by many progressive Democrats, and she’s branding herself as a progressive. Yet in the course of her little more than two years in the U.S. Senate, she’s taken some foreign policy positions that should give pause to supporters of human rights and international law.
Sojourners January 2019: Despite manifold horrors inflicted by the Saudi regime over the years, it was not until the grisly murder of a well-connected exiled journalist in early October that public attention has finally been given to the monarchy’s savagery…
Z Network, January 4, 2019: Donald Trump’s sudden decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria appears to have been impetuous and ill-considered — apparently a result of a conversation with Turkey’s autocratic president Recep Erdogan. That doesn’t mean, however, that the United…
Yes! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali Download the Audio or Video (24 min.) The 41st U.S. president, George H. W. Bush has died at 94. The media’s usual posthumous praise does not begin to capture Bush’s ugly legacy, particularly in…
The Progressive November 14, 2018
August 22, 2018 in The Progressive, and Common Dreams: While many express concern that Vice-President Mike Pence, a Christian supremacist with more consistently hard right wing views than Trump, could replace him, Zunes argues Trump will likely be forced from office and…
The Aijaz Qureshi Show (43 min.):
Truthout, June 5, 2018, by Stephen Zunes: What is Gaza’s hope for the future after the fallout over the US embassy move and the Iran deal exit?
The Progressive, May 23, 2018: The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech targeting Iran may have created a new benchmark for hypocritical, arrogant, and entitled demands by the U.S. on foreign governments…
Video interview with Lauren Steiner, May 19, 2018: Overview of the Zionist project, the wars of 1948, 1967, the first and second Intifada, the various peace talks, the change in Israel over the years making it harder and harder to…
WORT, Madison, Wisconsin, May 17, 2018 (Soundcloud, 29 mins.): This week, mass Palestinian protests at the fences around Gaza have been met with violence from the Israel military. A look beyond the headlines…
The Progressive, May 9, 2018: Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the U.S.—strikes a dangerous blow against arms…
The Californian, April 27, 2018, by Stephen Zunes The stunning rejection of Dianne Feinstein’s expected endorsement for another term as California’s senior U.S. Senator the Democratic State Convention in February was based not just upon concerns about her age and…
Truthout April 24, 2018: There are serious legal and strategic concerns regarding the decision by the U.S., along with France and Great Britain, to bomb Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma…
‘ On Rising Up with Sonali April 18, 2018: After President Donald Trump declared “Mission Accomplished” in Syria in the wake of US air strikes last week, the question about the veracity of reports on the chemical attack in Douma…
The Progressive April 11, 2018: The repeated use of these horrific and illegal weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s repressive regime deserves a strong international response. Unfortunately, given its history of politicizing the issue, the U.S. is in no position…