KPFT Pacifica: Arab Voices Radio July 11, 2012
Dr. Stephen Zunes’ segment begins at 14 minutes.
Category: Foreign Policy
Interview: U.S. Mid-East Policy in Relation to the Ongoing Uprising in Bahrain (audio)
Source is no longer available online. See related links.
U.S. in No Position to Condemn Alleged Russian Transfer of Helicopter Gunships to Syrian Regime
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has claimed that “there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria,” though the Russian government denies the accusation. If true, it would be highly disturbing, given the Syrian regime’s widespread use of such weapons against unarmed civilians. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have called for an immediate end of arms transfers to the Syrian regime, particularly of weapons that have been used to target civilians… Thousands of Salvadoran civilians are believed to have been killed by U.S.-supplied helicopter gunships during the 1980s…
Congress Pushes for War with Iran
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
In another resolution apparently designed to prepare for war against Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 401–11 vote, has passed a resolution (HR 568) urging the president to oppose any policy toward Iran “that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat…” Indeed, the rush to pass this bill appears to have been designed to undermine the ongoing international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program…
Obama, Palestine, and the United Nations
Tikkun magazine, March 2, 2012: For the Palestinian Authority to win UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, it would have to overcome major hurdles presented by the Obama administration. Back in 1948, Israel achieved its independence through a U.S.-backed UN General Assembly resolution. Credit: Ramzy Taweel (Cartoon Movement). For those of us who hoped that President Barack Obama would usher in a new era supporting international law, the United Nations, and Israeli-Palestinian peace, 2011 proved to be a profoundly disappointing year.
[Also archived at Duke University Press]
Iraq: Remembering Those Responsible
Truthout Published 1 January 2012: Also at Common Dreams, Transnational.org, Peace and Justice Post and ZNetwork
The formal withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this month has led to a whole series of retrospectives on the invasion and the eight and a half years of occupation that followed as well as a host of unanswered questions.. of critical importance at this juncture is that we not allow the narratives on the war to understate its tragic consequences or those responsible for the war — both Republicans and Democrats — to escape their responsibility…
Obama Ad Condemns Israel Aid Opponents
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
December 14, 2011 and at Common Dreams.
An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!”
This struck me as odd for two reasons: First, it is disingenuous and misleading… Secondly, millions of Americans—particularly younger voters—support zeroing out aid to Israel on human rights grounds.
Obama to Aid Uzbek Dictatorship
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies November 9, 2011, By Stephen Zunes. Also: Eurasia Review, Truthout, Huffington Post, Antiwar.com and Scott Horton Show: The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, in a move initiated by the Obama administration, has voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet…
U.S. policy undermines moderate Palestinians
National Catholic Reporter October 28, 2011
The Palestinians declared an independent state back in 1988, which has been recognized by more than 130 of the world’s nations. The Obama administration, however, insists that it is still too early for Palestine to be admitted into the UN.
Answering Obama’s UN Address
September 30, 2011. Source is no longer available.
Although his September 21 address before the UN General Assembly contained a number of positive elements, in many ways it also contained many of the same kind of duplicitous and misleading statements one would have expected from his predecessor. Excerpts below…
The Legacy of 9/11 and the War on Intellectuals
Truthout & Huffington Post Sept. 10-11, 2011: Ten years after 9/11, for the first time, a plurality of Americans recognizes that US policy in the Middle East played a major role in the attacks. As a Middle East specialist, I engaged in scores of interviews and wrote a number of widely circulated articles in the days, weeks and months following the terrorist strikes arguing this very point…
Congress and Its Colonialist Agenda
Truthout & Salem News (Oregon) July 15. 2011
Up until the mid-20th century, Western attitudes regarding national freedom essentially went like this: the independence of white Western nations (Great Britain, France, the United States etc.) was a given. Independence for nonwhite, non-Western nations (such as those in Africa, the Middle East and Asia), however, could only be under conditions granted by the occupying powers. The time at which these nations could be free, their specific boundaries and the conditions of their independence could only be reached through negotiations between the colonial occupiers and representatives
Progressive Defense of Weiner Overlooks His Right-Wing Foreign Policy
Truthout June 20, 2011: A surprising number of progressives have been expressing regret at the resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York) … What is disturbing, however, is the way Weiner is being treated as if he was a leading progressive voice on Capitol Hill despite his decidedly right-wing political agenda, particularly on foreign policy…
Netanyahu’s Speech and Congressional Democrats’ Embrace of Extremism
Truthout June 3, 2011:
As Israeli opposition parties, peace and human rights activists, and editorialists denounced their prime minister’s intransigence in the face of President Barack Obama’s peace initiative, Congressional Democrats here in the United States have instead joined their Republican counterparts in lining up to support the right-wing Israeli leader’s defiance…
On Obama’s Middle East Speech (audio)
Source link and recording are no longer available. Find related links.
Obama’s Mideast Speech: Two Steps Back, One Step Forward
Foreign Policy In Focus /Institute for Policy
Studies May 20, 2011 & Huffington Post
President Barack Obama’s May 19 address on U.S. Middle East policy… failed to consistently assert principled U.S. support for human rights, democracy, or international law…
Two Views on Obama’s Speech on Mideast (audio)
The Peter Collins Show May 20, 2011
Zunes has praise for Obama’s rhetoric, but says he maintains double standards and a strong US bias toward Israel. Obama restates America’s commitment to Israeli security, while trying to nudge it into a meaningful peace process and calling for a secure Palestinian state. We talk about the extreme reaction from the Netanyahu government and its American supporters, and some of the historical context for Obama’s call to use the pre-1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations…
Mitchell’s Inevitable Resignation
Truthout May 16, 2011. Also in Huffington Post and ZNetwork
At age 77, George Mitchell’s resignation as President Barack Obama’s envoy on Arab-Israeli affairs may have indeed been for personal reasons, as he claimed. More likely, however, it came out of frustration at the Obama administration’s failure to pressure the right-wing Israeli government to make the necessary compromises for peace…
CrossTalk on Arab Awakening: Burying Bahrain (video)
CrossTalk April 2011 on RT
On this edition of Peter Lavelle’s CrossTalk: how long will Bahrain remain in blackout? Why does the West appear so powerful in Libya and not in Bahrain, where people crave for basic freedoms? And how does Bahrain match with the so-called US support of the Arab revolutions? CrossTalking with Stephen Zunes, Husain Abdulla and Matthew Shaffer. CT on FB: www.facebook.com/crosstalkrulez
Video has been removed from YouTube
Obama’s Veto on Israeli Settlements Demonstrates Contempt for International Humanitarian Law
Huffington Post March 21, 2011
The US veto of a mildly worded UN Security Council resolution supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and reiterating the illegality of Israeli settlements in occupied territories leaves little doubt that… Obama shares his predecessor’s contempt for international law. All fourteen of the other members of the Security Council voted for the resolution — which was cosponsored by a nearly unprecedented majority of UN members…