The Progressive, August 5, 2025, by Stephen Zunes [source & audio]
It would be a mistake to view the U.S. bombing of Iran and support for Israel’s twelve-day war on that country as simply about preventing the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Ultimately, it’s about punishing Iran for its refusal to acquiesce to the hegemonic aspirations of the United States and its Middle Eastern allies. There was a time when Iran was the most important ally of the United States in the region. In 1953, the CIA facilitated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government following its nationalization of the country’s oil resources…
Category: Foreign Policy
Bipartisan US Push Tries to Label Democratic African Government as “Terrorist”
Truthout, August 2, 2025, By Stephen Zunes [podcast & source]
The UN treats the Polisario as the legitimate representative of the Western Sahara people. Washington’s designation of armed groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) has always been politicized, but it may now reach a new level of absurdity thanks to a bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced by Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California), targeting the Frente Polisario, the government of Western Sahara, officially known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Morocco, an important U.S. ally, invaded Western Sahara in 1975 on the eve of its independence from Spain and currently occupies nearly 80 percent of the territory…
Iran Vows Stronger Response If U.S., Israel Attack Again
FO° Talks July 30, 2025 [25 mins.]
Fair Observer’s Rohan Khattar Singh speaks to Professor Stephen Zunes about Iran, Israel and the United States… Trump has brought back the “Maximum Pressure” policy back on Iran with new sanctions, and for the first time, direct military strikes on Iranian soil. Zunes doesn’t believe Iran was building nuclear weapons, but after the recent strikes by Israel and the US, Tehran would now like to build some as a deterrent and is now closer to Russia and China. Also Israel’s military operations and Apartheid conditions in Gaza…
Interview: Ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza
KPFA Evening News (Sunday) – July 27, 2025 [begins at 4:40]
Panetta’s false charges of terrorism make no sense
First published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel July 11, 2025, by Stephen Zunes:
“My guest editorial from the Santa Cruz Sentinel takes on Rep. Jimmy Panetta for his bill that would designate the government of Western Sahara as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, even though they have never engaged in terrorism nor ever collaborated with a terrorist group.”
Interview: What’s the real motive behind Israel’s involvement in Syria?
Al Jazeera English Inside Story July 17, 2025 (16.5M subscribers):
Zunes joins a Syrian and Israeli analyst on latest developments in Israel’s war on Syria.
Video: Israelis continue to say no to war.
Zunes Facebook Video July 17, 2025: Meanwhile, the Trump administration and the leadership of both parties in Congress continue to say yes. As the U.S./Israeli-imposed famine on Gaza increases, I keep getting solicitations to contribute to Democratic candidates who insist on arming and funding Israel’s siege, bombing, and occupation. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership refuses to support their party’s nominee for New York City mayor who opposes such war crimes…
Video: What are the chances of a Gaza ceasefire deal soon?
CNA (Channel News Asia) July 6, 2025 (9 mins.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said July 6 he hoped an upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump could “help advance” a Gaza ceasefire deal, after sending negotiators to Doha for indirect talks with Hamas. Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern studies program at the University of San Francisco, discusses on CNA’s Asia First why he believes a lasting ceasefire in Gaza remains unlikely.
CNA.Asia & CNA YouTube channel
US Threatens UN Members Seeking Two-State Solution to Israeli-Palestine Conflict
Inter Press Service, UN June 13 2025 (IPS) By Thalif Deen [source]
Zunes quoted on the extreme efforts the Trump administration is taking to prevent the emergence of even a Palestinian mini-state alongside Israel, including threats of “diplomatic consequences” against countries if they attend a UN conference on a two-state solution
End Times Militarism
Counterpunch, May 26, 2025, by Daniel Falcone [source].
Quotes Zunes on Trump’s dangerous militarism, despite isolationist rhetoric
Interview: Iran and the U.S. Now
July 3, 2025, Pacifica Radio/KPFA: Zunes discusses Iran and the United States following the latest bombing and war in a wide-ranging interview (starts at 5:40)
Interview: Updates on the Iran-Israel War: Conversations with Leading Analysts
Counterpunch July 1, 2025: Zunes discusses the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran along with Professors Richard Falk and Lawrence Davidson.
Did Washington Post amplify Moroccan propaganda?
African Digital Democracy Observatory
Disinfo.Africa quoted Zunes June 27, 2025:
Washington Post echoes disputed claims that Saharan mercenaries were captured in Aleppo:
On April 12, 2025, the Washington Post published a story describing the new Syrian government’s alleged efforts to dismantle illicit Iranian supply lines running through southern Syria… largely to aid Hezbollah in their war against Israel [and] implicated soldiers from an Algerian-based nationalist movement in the Iran-Hezbollah conspiracy. [But] this TruthAfrica investigation shows, the central pieces of evidence for these allegations appear to be a distortion of an Algerian ambassador’s statements and an inauthentic document… Steven Zunes told Truth Africa, “The Hezbollah/Iran connection is utter nonsense… The idea that [The Polisario Front] would be lying with this autocratic, reactionary Shia group,” he told us, “just seems quite absurd….”
Interviews: U.S. bombing of Iran and ceasefire
Aired June 23-27, 2025, KTVU-2, Bay Area Fox affiliate:
3 interviews analyzing the U.S. bombing of Iran and the subsequent ceasefire
Authoritarianism and Resistance: What the World Can Teach Us
May 17, 2025, Stephen Zunes’s keynote
address at the 2025 Western Washington
Fellowship of Reconciliation Spring Assembly
Interview: Middle East expert weighs in on Iran-Israel conflict and ceasefire
KTVU Fox TV-2, Bay Area station, June 24, 2025
following yesterday’s ceasefire announcement.
Interview: Iran and ongoing violence, the broader context
WORT-FM Madison, WS, June 24, 2025:
Negin Owliaei and Zunes examine the U.S. war on Iran and its broader context. (55 mins.)
Interview: Israel, Iran and the U.S.
Santita Jackson Show Sunday, June 22, 2025 [Second Hour]
Also see Zunes’s Facebook notes on Iran, Israel and Palestine
Interview: CBS on US bombs Iran
CBS Bay Area affiliate KPIX June 22, 2025 [10 mins.]
Zunes argues why the action was unnecessary and what the implications for the future might be.
No Iranian threat ‘other than having US regional interests challenged’
Al Jazeera June 22, 2025 [source], 3-minute video,
also World News, Virtual Jerusalem, Israel Insider, Ticker:
Zunes says the suggestion that Iran posed any kind of threat to the US is “totally nonsense”… “Iran has no capabilities of reaching the United States with its missiles or other kinds of weaponry… And if the concern was about their nuclear programme eventually being militarised to make nuclear weapons, Trump would not have destroyed” the 2015 nuclear deal… “I have a feeling he’s been wanting to launch war on Iran for some time…” contrary to what Trump had campaigned on… [Iran has] “a number of options… They can attack US forces directly. There are up to 40,000 Americans within the range, not just of Iranian missiles but of drones and other weaponry… You have the fleet in the Persian Gulf, just off the Iranian coast. They can be vulnerable as well if they attack… it could impact global shipping, impacting oil prices and indeed the entire global economy… You also have proxy militias in Iraq who could target American bases there… So there are a number of ways American forces could be vulnerable, and I would be surprised if the Iranians don’t target at least some of these.”