Santa Cruz Sentinel March 29, 2013 | UPDATED: Sept. 11, 2018
[Republished by Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and Truthout] This month’s 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq raised the question why the U.S. made such a tragic choice. As many of us argued in the lead-up to the war, claims that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” the Iraqi government had operational ties to al-Qaida were false. Similarly, the corrupt and repressive sectarian government the U.S. helped establish in Baghdad has undermined any pretense the war was about promoting democracy.
Category: Foreign Policy in Focus
Foreign Policy in Focus
The Mali Blowback: More to Come?
Foreign Policy In Focus February 1, 2013
[Republished by Transnational.org & ZNetwork]
The French-led military offensive in its former colony of Mali has pushed back radical Islamists and allied militias from some of the country’s northern cities, freeing the local population from repressive Taliban-style totalitarian rule. However, despite these initial victories, it raises concerns as to what unforeseen consequences may lay down the road. Indeed, it was such Western intervention—also ostensibly on humanitarian grounds—that was largely responsible for the Malian crisis in the first place…
The Case Against Kerry
Foreign Policy In Focus January 3, 2013
[Republished by Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, the Institute for Historical Review, Transnational.org; and associated interviews]
President Obama’s selection of John Kerry as the next secretary of state sends the wrong signal. His record in the U.S. Senate, where he currently chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, has included spurious attacks on the International Court of Justice, unqualified defense of Israeli occupation policies and human rights violations, and support for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Furthermore, his false claims about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and his repeated denials of well-documented human rights abuses by allied governments raise serious questions about his credibility.
Susan Rice Would Have Been a Bad Secretary of State Anyway
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
December 17, 2012, By Stephen Zunes.
The mainstream media was too willing to focus on spurious criticisms of Susan Rice from the right while ignoring legitimate criticisms from the left. U.S. UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s announcement she would withdraw her name from consideration to be the next Secretary of State is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it marks yet another example of the Obama administration’s failure to defend its appointees [and] On the other hand, Rice’s lack of support for international humanitarian law and her willingness to state demonstrable falsehoods…
Abetting the Carnage in Gaza
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, November 26, 2012
The Obama administration’s unconscionable decision to block a ceasefire effort by the UN Security Council not only resulted in additional civilian deaths but also serves as an indication that, despite the president owing his re-election to the hard work of his progressive base, his foreign policy will continue to lean to the right. Related links.
Obama, Romney, and the Foreign Policy Debate
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies October 23, 2012 [Republished by Huffington Post, Transnational.org]
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the third and final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign was the similarity between the two candidates on many basic foreign policy issues… Both candidates agree on American exceptionalism…
Remembering George McGovern
Truthout October 22, 2012. Also see Zunes’ article in Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and 1993 interview with McGovern in The Progressive.
Getting to know George McGovern – who died Sunday morning at age 90 – as a friend, collaborator, co-author and co-teacher has been among my proudest, and most fulfilling experiences. As a 15-year-old high school sophomore, I volunteered for his 1972 presidential campaign. McGovern won my county (one of the few in the South that went Democratic that year), but lost the state and the nation in a near-record landslide, thanks in large part to attacks by the right wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries and the dirty tricks by the campaign of incumbent President Richard Nixon during the fall campaign. These illegal acts, along with the resulting cover-ups, eventually led to impeachment procedures that forced Nixon’s resignation…
Embassy Protests and Middle East Unrest in Context
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, September 17, 2012
Republished by: Arthur’s Peace Blog, Eurasia Review, Huffington Post, Middle East Spectator, Transnational.org
It seems bizarre… some media pundits are criticizing Arabs as being “ungrateful” for U.S. support of pro-democracy movements when, in reality, the U.S. initially opposed the popular movements that deposed Western-backed despots in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and remains a preeminent backer of dictatorships in the region today…
The Case Against War: Ten Years Later
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 11, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Republished by: Common Dreams, Transnational.org, The American Bear, and Promised Land Museum.
“Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website, in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002, and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year-old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies. In the articles, I correctly predicted that an invasion would result in sectarian violence, terrorism, Islamist extremism, and a bloody counterinsurgency war that would be the most elaborate and expensive deployment of U.S. forces since the Second World War…”
Democratic Leaders Undermine Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Their Own Procedures
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 6, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Also by Antiwar.com, Reddit and Transnational.org.
In a stunning violation of its own rules, the wishes of the majority of delegates at its national convention, and positions taken by the UN and virtually every other country, Democratic Party leadership pushed through a platform amendment with barely half the delegates present and, allowing for no discussion or debate, stating, Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel,” and should be “undivided”…
California State Assembly Seeks to Stifle Debate on Israel
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. Republished by Huffington Post, Transnational.org, et al. The California State Assembly has just passed a bipartisan resolution (HR 35) by voice vote, which constitutes a serious attack on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty to raise awareness about human rights abuses by U.S.-backed governments. While purporting to put the legislature on record in opposition to anti-Semitism on state university campuses, it defines anti-Semitism so widely as to include legitimate political activities in opposition to Israeli government policies.
U.S. Shares Responsibility for Rachel Corrie’s Death
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. by Stephen Zunes; Republished by Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, Eurasia Review, Transnational.org, and others. On August 28, an Israeli court rejected a civil lawsuit against Israeli occupation forces for the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist killed in the Gaza Strip, upholding a severely flawed internal Israeli military investigation. Amnesty International strongly condemned the decision…
Divesting from All Occupations
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies July 25, 2012.
Republished by Transnational.org et al.
In response to ongoing violations of international law and basic human rights by the rightist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu in the occupied West Bank and elsewhere, there has been a growing call for divestment of stocks in corporations supporting the occupation… Still, the campaign has scored notable successes…
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…
Remembering Israel’s West Bank Offensive
Eurasia Review, IHaveNet.com & Foreign Policy In Focus./
Institute for Policy Studies April 18-19, 2012:
Ten years ago this month, following a particularly deadly series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an assault on several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. The Bush administration largely supported the Israeli offensive, even as hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of young men detained without charge amid widespread reports of torture. Both Israeli and international human rights groups condemned the widespread violations of international humanitarian law.
Syrian Repression, the Chinese-Russian Veto, and U.S. Hypocrisy
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, February 7, 2012
Also Eurasia Review, Global Policy Focus, Middle East Spectator, The Indypendent, Democratic Underground, Mulay Smara, Alternatives International Journal and Transnational Blog
Just as France shields Morocco from accountability for its ongoing occupation and repression in Western Sahara, and just as the U.S. shields Israel from having observe international humanitarian law, Russia and China have used their permanent seats on the UN Security Council to protect the Syrian regime from accountability for its savage repression against its own citizens. Although inexcusable, the self-righteous reaction by U.S. officials betrays hypocrisy on a grand scale…
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…
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…