International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, August 6, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [Source Link]
Though the Bush administration has repeatedly emphasized its desire for democratization and regime change in Iran, there are serious questions regarding how it might try to bring this about. There is, however, little question about the goal of toppling the Islamist government, with the Bush administration threatening war, arming ethnic minorities, and funding opposition groups. These efforts come in spite of the 1981 Algiers Accords, which led to the release of American hostages seized from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran…
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HOW THE HAWK KILLS THE DOVE
August 5, 2005 by Stephen Zunes [source links are no longer available]
In a country wracked with violence, more than 100,000 Iraqis marched peacefully through the streets of Baghdad on 19 January 2004 demanding direct elections. Shouting ‘No to Saddam!’ and ‘No to America’, the nonviolent throng – many of them linking hands – marched for three miles to the University of al-Mustansariyah where speakers called for direct elections and a constitution based on justice and equality… Nonviolent actions have reined in despots and ousted dictators around the globe. But could Iraqis – left to their own devices – have toppled Saddam Hussein?
Iran: Threatening or Threatened?
CommonDreams.org, July 30, 2005 By Stephen Zunes
Given the prospects of possible U.S. military action towards Iran, it is important to take a critical look at the major concerns the Bush administration and Congressional leaders of both parties have put forward regarding the Islamic Republic. Though there is much to say about the opportunism and double-standards in the Bush administration’s denunciations of the Iranian regime’s refusal to allow for a genuinely democratic opening (see my article “The United States and the Iranian Election,” Common Dreams, June 28), there is little debate regarding the repressive and anti-democratic nature of the Iranian regime…
The U.S. and Iran: Democracy, Terrorism, and Nuclear Weapons
Columbia.edu & Foreign Policy In Focus, July 25, 2005 By Stephen Zunes
The election of the hard-line Tehran mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over former President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani as the new head of Iran is undeniably a setback for those hoping to advance greater social and political freedom in that country. It should not necessarily be seen as a turn to the right by the Iranian electorate…
Bush Administration Stokes Dangerous Arms Race on Indian Subcontinent
Foreign Policy In Focus, July 20, 2005
By John Gershman, Stephen Zunes [source]
For more than two decades, arms control experts have argued that the most likely scenario for the hostile use of nuclear weapons was not between the former Cold War superpower rivals, an act of terrorism by an underground terrorist group, or the periodically threatened unilateral U.S. attack against a “rogue state,” but between India and Pakistan…
Israeli Human Rights Abuses and the U.S. Attack on the United Nations and the NGO Community
By Foreign Policy In Focus and Common Dreams, June 30, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [source]
The Bush administration, like its predecessors, has frequently taken advantage of the idealism and values of the U.S. citizenry to justify foreign policies that most Americans would otherwise find morally unacceptable. The recent emphasis on justifying Washington’s imperial goals in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East in the name of spreading liberty and democracy is a case in point. The fact that the United States is the world’s principal supporter of autocratic Middle Eastern regimes is conveniently overlooked…
Bush Speech Reveals Administration’s Ongoing Deceptions on Iraq
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS, September 28, 2005
By Erik Leaver, Stephen Zunes [source]
As popular domestic opposition to the administration’s policies in Iraq reaches new highs, President George W. Bush’s efforts to justify the ongoing war seem to have reached new lows. Indeed, in the president’s nationally-televised June 28th speech from an Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was clearly straining to defend his disastrous decision to invade and occupy that oil-rich Middle Eastern country…
The United States and the Iranian Election
CommonDreams.org, June 28, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [source link’s no longer available]
The election of the hard-line Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over former president Hashemi Rafsanjani as the new president of Iran is undeniably a setback to those hoping to advance the cause of greater social and political freedom in that country.
It should not necessarily be seen as a turn to the right by the Iranian electorate, however. While Rafsanjani was portrayed as a more moderate conservative, the fact that this 70-year-old cleric had become a millionaire while in government service and was widely seen as the penultimate wheeler dealer of the political establishment was apparently perceived by many Iranians as of greater importance than his modest reform agenda. By contrast, the victorious campaign of the young Tehran mayor focused upon the plight of the poor and cleaning up corruption…
Bush Administration Support for Repression in Uzbekistan Belies Pro-Democracy Rhetoric
Foreign Policy In Focus and Antiwar.com June 25, 2005.
By Stephen Zunes [source]
Recent revelations that the United States successfully blocked a call by NATO for an international investigation of the May 13 massacre of hundreds of civilians by the government of the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan serves as yet another reminder of the insincerity of the Bush administration’s claims for supporting freedom and democracy in the Islamic world and the former Soviet Union…
Bush Administration Attacks on Amnesty International: Old Wine, New Bottles
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS, June 6, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [source link’s no longer online]
In what appears to be a concerted effort to discredit independent human rights advocates, the Bush administration and its allies in the media have been engaging in a series of attacks against Amnesty International, the world’s largest human rights organization and winner of the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize… [source not available]
Undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—It Didn’t Start With the Bush Administration
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS, June 1, 2005
Stephen Zunes [Source link is no longer available]
Most of the international community and arms control advocates here in the United States have correctly blamed the Bush administration for the failure of the recently completed review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the course of the four-week meeting of representatives of the 188 countries which have signed and ratified the treaty, the United States refused to uphold its previous arms control pledges, blocked consideration of the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, refused to rule out U.S. nuclear attacks against non-nuclear states…
U.S. Supports Repression in Uzbekistan
National Catholic Reporter, May 1, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [find source at TheFreeLibrary.com]
In the city of Andijan in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, a large demonstration took place May 13, protesting government corruption, repression and the country’s worsening poverty. Soldiers fired into the crowd, killing more than 500 civilians. Rather than condemning the massacre, the White House called for “restraint” from both sides and claimed that Islamic “terrorist groups” may have been behind the protests that prompted the shootings…
Arms transfers to Pakistan undermine U.S. foreign policy goals
National Catholic Reporter, May 20, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [find source at TheFreeLibrary.com]
The Bush administration’s decision to sell sophisticated F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan raises questions regarding the administration’s stated commitment to promote democracy, support nonproliferation and fight terrorism and Islamic extremism. Pakistani Gen. Pervaz Musharraf, who overthrew the democratically elected government in 1999, continues to suppress the established secular political parties while allowing for the development of Islamic political groups…
The U.S. Role in the Breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS, May 1, 2005 By Stephen Zunes
In the time since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000 and the subsequent Palestinian uprising, details have emerged that challenge the Clinton administration’s insistence—reiterated by leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as by much of the mainstream media—that the Palestinians were responsible for the failure to reach a peace agreement and for much of the violence that has engulfed Israel and Palestine since then…
Recognizing Power of Nonviolent Action
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS & International Center
for Nonviolent Action, March 31, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [source]
You probably didn’t notice, but February 20 was Nonviolent Resistance Day. One might think this would be cause for celebration by an administration committed to expanding freedom and democracy. But there weren’t any special ceremonies at the White House or resolutions in Congress. For despite all the rhetoric lauding freedom and democracy, the U.S. government has rarely supported, and has often opposed, nonviolent movements working for democratic change…
Crediting Bush for Growing Lebanese Demands for Freedom Misplaced
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS March 22, 2005 &
Antiwar.com, March 26, 2005 By Stephen Zunes [source]
In a mirror image of those who blame everything wrong in the world on President George W. Bush, a surprising number of people are now giving him credit for the recent show of force by hundreds of thousands of Lebanese protestors demanding an end to Syria’s overbearing influence in their country. It is extremely doubtful that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has had anything to do with the inspirational “people power” demonstrations in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Many leading members of the Lebanese opposition–such as the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose assassination prompted the recent wave of anti-Syrian protests–were outspoken opponents of U.S. policy in the region, including the invasion of Iraq…
Iraq: Two Years Later
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS October 2, 2005,
By Erik Leaver, Stephen Zunes [source]
In a series of articles written between June 2002 and February 2003, I predicted that if the United States invaded Iraq, it was highly unlikely that we would find any of the weapons of mass destruction or WMD programs that the Bush administration and the congressional leadership of both parties claimed Iraq possessed in their effort to justify an American takeover of that oil-rich country. I also predicted that no operational links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaida would be found and that a U.S. invasion would encourage terrorism rather than discourage it. Finally, I predicted that we could find ourselves virtually isolated in the international community facing a bloody counter-insurgency war with no end in sight….
President Bush’s Foreign Policy Discussion in the 2005 State of the Union Address
Foreign Policy In Focus, October 3, 2005
By John Gershman, Stephen Zunes [source]
The foreign policy segments of President George W. Bush’s February 2 State of the Union address spoke to values and concerns that resonate with the majority of Americans from across the political spectrum. Unfortunately, much of what was said during his speech was quite misleading. Below are excerpts from the speech, followed by a short critical analysis…
A Critique of the Most Misleading Statements in the Foreign Policy Segments of President Bush’s 2005 State of the Union Address
Common Dreams, February 27, 2005, by Stephen Zunes
[source is no longer available]. Also see East Bay Times
The foreign policy segments of President George W. Bush’s February 2 State of the Union address spoke to values and concerns that resonate with the majority of Americans from across the political spectrum. Unfortunately, much of what was said during his speech was quite misleading. Below are excerpts from the speech, followed by a short critical analysis…
Iran Nuclear Program Creates a Furor Likely to Be Futile
CommonDreams.org, February 24, 2005
By Stephen Zunes [source no longer available]
Having already successfully fooled most of Congress and the American public into believing that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration is now claiming that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. If we decide to once again believe such claims, do we risk being drawn into another disastrous military confrontation based upon false allegations? Or, if we reject such claims, will we — like the villagers in the famous fable of the boy who cried, “Wolf!” — find out too late that the alarm this time was for real?