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…
Category: US Middle East Policy
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
Senate Again Undermines Obama’s Middle-East Peace Efforts
Huffington Post October 11, 2010. Also by ZNetwork.
Once again, as President Barack Obama began pressuring the right-wing Israeli government to freeze the expansion of its illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, leading Congressional Democrats have joined in with Republicans to try to stop him.
Obama and the Denial of Genocide
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, March 11, 2010; also Armenian National institute, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, CommonDreams, History of Macedonia, & Huffington Post: The Obama administration, citing its relations with Turkey, has pledged to block the passage in the full House of Representatives of a resolution passed this past Thursday by the Foreign Relations Committee acknowledging the 1915 genocide by the Ottoman Empire of a 1.5 million Armenians. Even though the Obama administration previously refused to acknowledge and even worked to suppress well-documented evidence of recent war crimes by Israel, another key Middle Eastern ally, few believed that the administration would go as far as to effectively deny genocide. [source]
Obama’s Human Rights Record a Disappointment
60 Second Expert: The U.S. in Yemen
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
January 15, 2018 by Stephen Zunes and Gabriela Campos.
Much attention has recently been focused on the poverty-stricken country of Yemen. The planning of the Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight by al-Qaeda members in Yemen and other incidents have revealed that al-Qaeda cells in Yemen represents a genuine threat. However, if the U.S. yet seeks a military solution to a complex political, social and economic situation, however, it could prove disastrous to both Yemen and U.S. security interests.
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. Forty percent of Yemenis are unemployed and live on a per capita income of $600 per year. As a result, though there is much need for sustainable economic development in the country, most U.S. aid has been military particularly since the growing prominence of al-Qaeda in the country.
As Washington contemplates whether to increase its military role in Yemen, it must keep in mind that Yemen is one of the most complex societies in the world with considerable tribal divisions and political rivalries, including two other major insurgencies unrelated to al-Qaeda. Thus, sending U.S. forces or increasing the number of U.S. drone strikes carries serious risks. Such actions could result in the expansion of armed resistance, and the strengthening of Islamist militants and anti-American sentiment.
Any military action against al-Qaeda and Islamists should be Yemeni-led. Washington should also press Yemen’s increasingly autocratic government to become more democratic and less corrupt. There should also be a significant increase in development aid for the poorest rural communities that have essentially served as havens for radical Islamists and the growth of al -Qaeda’s presence in Yemen.
Read Zunes’s full article.
The U.S. Attack on Syria: Implications for the Next Administration
Huffington Post, Jan 7, 2009 The raid by U.S. forces into Syria in late October was not only a major breach of international law, but has resulted in serious diplomatic repercussions which will likely harm U.S. strategic interests in the region. On October 25, four U.S. Army helicopters entered Syrian airspace from Iraq, firing upon laborers at the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal; two of the helicopters landed and eight commandoes reportedly stormed a building. By the time it was over, eight people had been killed… [source]
The Iranian Uprising is Home-Grown, and Must Stay That Way
Common Dreams June 19, 2009
The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society…
Why American Neo-Cons Wanted Ahmadinejad to Win
Huffington Post, July 18, 2009| Updated May 25, 2011
The only people happier than the Iranian elites over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently stolen election win Friday, were the neoconservatives and other hawks eager to block any efforts by the Obama administration to moderate U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic. Since he was elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad has filled a certain niche in the American psyche formerly filled by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi as the Middle Eastern leader we most love to hate. It gives us a sense of righteous superiority to compare ourselves favorably to these seemingly irrational and fanatical foreign despots. Better yet, if these despots can be inflated into far greater threats than they actually are, these supposed threats can be used to justify the enormous financial and human costs of maintaining American armed forces in that volatile region… [source]
Will Democrats Finally End their Support for West Bank Settlements? (Part Two)
Huffington Post, July 10, 2009
(This is the second of a two part series: click here for part one)
Recent calls by President Barack Obama for the government of Israel to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank marks a sharp reversal from Democratic Party policy toward the Israeli colonization of Palestinian land. Indeed, for the past 20 years, Democrats in Washington have largely supported such Israeli expansionism in which Israeli occupation forces confiscate Palestinian land in territories seized in the June 1967 war to build Jewish-only communities… [source]
How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 8, 2009
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems. [source]
Defending Israeli War Crimes
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
May 28, 2009, by Emily Schwartz Greco and Stephen Zunes
In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its recent war on the Gaza Strip, 10 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli action. It is virtually unprecedented for state attorneys general — whose mandates focus on enforcement of state law — to weigh in on questions regarding the laws of war, particularly in a conflict on the far side of the world. More significantly, their statement runs directly counter to a broad consensus of international legal opinion that recognizes that Israel, as well as Hamas, engaged in war crimes. [source]
Interview: The Afghanistan Mess (audio)
CourageToResist.org May 10, 2009: “Middle East scholar Dr. Stephen Zunes talks about how U.S. imperial hubris helped create, and continues to deepen and intensify the deadly chaos in Afghanistan. “The war not only was raised some moral and legal questions, but it has not resolved the situation, it has made matters worse. The problem is that there has been a gross oversight on the military side of the equation. The really important issues have been overlooked…”
Pelosi the Hawk
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS April 27, 2009, by John Feffer & Stephen Zunes
Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war.
This is just one episode in a long history of efforts by Pelosi to undermine international humanitarian law, regarding actions by a country she has repeatedly referred to as America’s most important ally in the Middle East. It’s also part of her overall right-wing agenda in the Middle East. As the powerful Speaker of the House, Pelosi could very well undermine efforts by President Barack Obama in the coming years to moderate U.S. policy toward that volatile region. [source]
The U.S. and Afghan Tragedy
Foreign Policy In Focus, February 18, 2009 [source]
By Khushal Arsala, Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
One of the first difficult foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration will be what the United States should do about Afghanistan. Escalating the war, as National Security Advisor Jim Jones has been encouraging, will likely make matters worse. At the same time, simply abandoning the country — as the United States did after the overthrow of Afghanistan’s Communist government soon after the Soviet withdrawal 20 years ago — would lead to another set of serious problems…
Neocons 1, Obama 0
Foreign Policy In Focus, March 16, 2009 [source]
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes.
The Obama administration’s choice to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC) recently withdrew in face of a concerted right-wing attack. Veteran diplomat Chas Freeman would not have had to face Senate confirmation. Instead, he had to face attacks in the right-wing press and blogosphere. His withdrawal was a victory for Bush-era neoconservatives and their allies regarding intelligence and broader Middle East Policy…
Obama and Israel’s Military: Still Arm-in-Arm
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS March 4, 2009
by John Feffer, Stephen Zunes | [source<]
In the wake of Israel's massive assault on heavily populated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip earlier this year, Amnesty International called for the United States to suspend military aid to Israel on human rights grounds. Amnesty has also called for the United Nations to impose a mandatory arms embargo on both Hamas and the Israeli government. Unfortunately, it appears that President Barack Obama won't be heeding Amnesty's call.
Congressional Support for Israel’s War on Gaza Shows Bipartisan Hostility toward International Law
Huffington Post, March 19, 2009 | Updated May 25, 2011
By Stephen Zunes [source]
Last month’s decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, backed by an overwhelming majority of her Democratic colleagues, to go on record in support of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip does not give much hope that the expanded Democratic majority will be much more sensitive to human rights than we have seen after years of Republican rule. In a direct challenge to the credibility of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross and other reputable humanitarian organizations, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress went on record in a January 9 vote that the Israeli armed forces bear no responsibility.
Holbrooke: Insensitive Choice for a Sensitive Region
Foreign Policy in Focus, January 30, 2009 [source]
Obama’s choice for special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, arguably the most critical area of U.S. foreign policy, is a man with perhaps the most sordid history of his largely disappointing foreign policy and national security appointments. Richard Holbrooke got his start in the Foreign Service during the 1960s, in the notorious pacification programs in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. This ambitious joint civilian-military effort not only included horrific human rights abuses but also proved to be a notorious failure in curbing the insurgency against the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. [Also at OurCampaigns.com]
Virtually the Entire Dem-Controlled Congress Supports Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza
Alternet January 13, 2009, by Stephen Zunes [source]
In a direct challenge to the credibility of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross and other reputable humanitarian organizations, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress has gone on record supporting President George W. Bush’s position that the Israeli armed forces bear no responsibility for the large and growing numbers of civilian casualties from their assault on the Gaza Strip. As of this writing, at least 400 civilians have been killed by Israeli forces, primarily using U.S.-supplied weaponry.