Category: Foreign Policy in Focus

Foreign Policy in Focus

The Democrats’ Support for Bush’s War

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Foreign Policy In Focus | May 31, 2007, By Erik Leaver, Stephen Zunes
The capitulation of the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership to the Bush administration’s request for nearly $100 billion of unconditional supplementary government spending, primarily to support the war in Iraq, has led to outrage throughout the country. In the Senate, 37 of 49 Democrats voted on May 24 to support the measure. In the House, while only 86 of the 231 Democratic House members voted for the supplemental funding, 216 of them voted in favor of an earlier procedural vote designed to move the funding bill forward… [source]

U.S. Role in Lebanon Debacle

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Foreign Policy In Focus | May 18, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continues to resist pressure that he resign following the publication late last month of the interim report by a special Israeli commission on Israel’s war on Lebanon last summer. Military chief Dan Halutz has already been forced to step down and Defense Minister Amir Peretz has announced he will also be resigning shortly…

The Democrats and the “Human Shields” Myth

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Foreign Policy In Focus, May 17, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
Also at Common Dreams and TheFreeLibrary.com.
Israelis from across the political spectrum, emboldened by the interim report from the government’s Winograd Commission, which investigated Israel’s ill-fated assault on Lebanon, are expressing regrets over last summer’s conflict with their northern neighbor. Uproar over the way a relatively minor border incident managed to escalate into a full-scale war is leading to demands for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation…

Washington Takes Aim at Syria

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Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, May 2, 2007
While Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s willingness to meet with Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallim during last week’s conference on Iraq is a welcome sign, most signals coming out of Washington in recent months are far more ominous. Indeed, the strident opposition by the Bush administration of the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of Congress to Syria last month is not just another indication of the administration’s pathological opposition to engaging in dialogue with governments it doesn’t like. It may be a sign that the Bush administration is considering military action against Syria, either directly or through its proxy Israel.

U.S. Blocks Israel-Syria Talks

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Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, May 1, 2007
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes [source].
Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel where they had left off three years earlier, but Israel, backed by the Bush administration, refused. Assad eventually agreed to reenter peace negotiations without preconditions, but even these overtures were rejected…

Iran in Iraq?

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Foreign Policy In Focus, April 14, 2007
By Stephen Zunes [PDF & source]
Faced with growing public opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, the Bush administration has been desperately trying to divert attention to Iran. Washington has gone so far as to make a series of dubious and unfounded charges that blame the Iranian government for the difficulties facing American forces fighting the Iraqi insurgency. Despite the absence of any credible reports of Iranian involvement in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, President George W. Bush last month formally authorized U.S. forces to “kill or capture” suspected Iranian agents in Iraq…

Somalia as a Military Target: Updated

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Foreign Policy In Focus | January 14, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
The U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and subsequent U.S. air strikes and naval blockade against that east African country mark another dangerous chapter in the Bush administration’s war against Islamic nations. And, despite no authorization from Congress for the United States to become engaged in that country’s civil war and despite the failure of President Bush to consult with Congress as required by the War Powers Act, the new Democratic leadership in Congress apparently has no objections to this dangerous and illegal escalation…

Annotate This: Escalation in Iraq

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Foreign Policy In Focus | January 11, 2007, By Stephen Zunes
On January 10, George W. Bush finally delivered a speech on his new Iraq policy. Originally planned for before Christmas, the plan’s chief element—an increase in U.S. soldiers on the ground—received much criticism and was therefore postponed. The speech has already drawn negative responses from senior House Democrats, who have vowed to block funding for the increase in troops, from the American public, 61% of whom oppose the build-up, and was skeptically received by some key Republicans. The Arab world, too, has voiced doubts about the plan…

Saddam’s Execution

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Foreign Policy In Focus | January 2, 2007,
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
The execution of Saddam Hussein, though he was undeniably guilty of a notorious series of crimes against humanity, represents a major setback in the pursuit of justice in Iraq. The trial and the sentence were both problematic. The opportunity for future trials, and to present evidence of U.S. complicity in some of Saddam’s crimes, has been lost. And the overall message — that leaders face justice only if they run afoul of U.S. authority – undermines international legal norms…

Reasons to Like Ike

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Foreign Policy In Focus | December 30, 2006,
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
The fiftieth anniversary of the Suez Crisis came and went this past November without much notice. That’s too bad because the Bush administration could learn a lot from the crisis, which ensued when the armed forces of Great Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt, then under the rule of Gamal Abdul-Nasser. In a move that earned the United States respect around the world, the administration of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower denounced the tripartite invasion as a violation of international law and used America’s considerable diplomatic leverage to force a withdrawal of these American allies…

Falling In Line on Israel

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TomPaine.com Nov. 15, 2006, by Stephen Zunes
[Source link is no longer available]
The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law…

The United States, Israel, and the Possible Attack on Iran

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Foreign Policy In Focus, CommonDreams.org,
and Z Network, May 2, 2006
With even mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post and The New Yorker publishing credible stories that the United States is seriously planning a military attack on Iran, increasing numbers of Americans are expressing concerns about the consequences of the United States launching another war that would once again place the United States in direct contravention of international law. The latest National Security Strategy document published earlier this year labeled Iran as the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country. This should be an indication of just how safe the United States is in the post-Cold War world, where the “most serious challenge” is no longer a rival superpower…