The Progressive, April 22, 2019: As chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002, Biden stated that Saddam Hussein had a sizable arsenal of chemical weapons as well as biological weapons, including anthrax, and that “he may have a strain” of smallpox, despite UN inspectors reporting that Iraq no longer appeared to have any weaponized chemical or biological agents…
Category: Middle East
Middle East Overview
U.S. Recognition of Israel’s Golan Annexation a Threat to World Order
March 25, 2019 in The Progrssive, AntiWar.com and Common Dreams: Trump’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…
‘More AIPAC Than J Street’: Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy In Focus, January 28, 2019:
January 2017 Harris sided with Trump in criticizing the outgoing President Obama’s refusal to veto an otherwise-unanimous, very modest, and largely symbolic UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. [Source]
Rescinding a Human Rights Award to Angela Davis Was Cowardly and Unfair
The Progressive, January 10, 2019: The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which had described activist, author and scholar Angela Davis, professor emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, as “one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak,” before rescinding plans to present her the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award next month.
Politicians Are Not Going to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable
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…
Despite Everything, U.S. Troops Should Leave Syria
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 States should remain in that country…
George H W Bush’s Legacy and US Wars in the Middle East
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 Middle East foreign policy…
Dems Eye Hawkish Eliot Engel to Chair House Foreign Affairs Committee
The Power of Nonviolent Action in Conflict Zones
American Friends of Combatants for Peace, 15 October 2018
By Professor Stephen Zunes, for the conference
“Beyond Dialogue—Nonviolence and Social Action”
Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salam, Israel [source]
Under Trump U.S. Contempt for International Law Intensifies
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?
Pompeo’s Iran Speech a Prelude to War?
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…
The Robust Opposition: The Modern History of Israel/Palestine
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 achieve peace and how any real solution must be precipitated by American Jews pressuring their elected officials.
Analyst Stephen Zunes Looks At The Middle East
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…
Trump’s Dangerous Abrogation of the Iran Deal
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 control and international security and more firmly establishes the U.S. as a rogue nation.
History Shows Hypocrisy of US Outrage Over Chemical Weapons in Syria
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…
News on Syria? Why Are Left Activists Falling For Fake News On Syria?
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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 has taken on a new urgency. Inspectors with the Organization For the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are still awaiting access to the sites of the attack. Is it possible to accept that Syria’s government really did attack civilians and still be against U.S. militarism in Syria? Dr. Zunes posits it absolutely is.
Interview: Stephen Zunes Explains AAR panel cancellation and Trump’s Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital
Global Journal of Peace Research and Praxis
Volume 2, Number 1 (Spring 2018)
Dr. Stephen Zunes discussed his views on the abrupt cancellation of a panel he was scheduled to participate in at the 2017 American Academy of Religion’s annual conference. President Trump’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has thrown the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians back into the American public’s consciousness. Those who study this conflict, or have a personal connection to it, realize that in terms of foreign policy and academia, the relevancy and divisiveness of this issue never waned…
Why the United States Can’t Lead on Syria’s Chemical Weapons Atrocities
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 to lead…
Trump’s Middle East Policy: The Ironies of Hawkishness
Al Jazeera Report March 8, 2024: Despite broken campaign promises, Trump has pursued reckless and militaristic policies, deepening U.S. military involvement, backing the Israeli colonization and annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories, deepening ties to Arab autocrats, and threatening war with Iran.
With ISIS In Retreat Why is the Syria War Expanding?
Rising Up with Sonali, February 14, 2018: Instead of the Syrian war winding down, there seems to be an escalation involving an ever-growing number of countries: Iran, Turkey, Russia, Israel, the U.S….