Iran Policy and Misusing the Fear of Terrorism
by Paul R. Pillar The history of U.S. administrations manipulating the issue of terrorism for purposes unrelated to terrorism predates Donald Trump’s presidency. One reflection of this history is the...
View ArticleGlobal Watchdog Takes Saudi Arabia to Task on Terrorism
by James M. Dorsey A Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report criticizing Saudi Arabia’s anti-money laundering and terrorism finance measures puts the kingdom on the spot 17 years after the 9/11...
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Who Will Benefit from Yemeni Oil Exports?
by Rauf Mammadov and Theodore Karasik Yemen is fracturing into microstates. Localism is driving politics in the country more than ever before. Unanswered questions about who in Yemen will benefit from...
View ArticleIn the Heart of a Dying Empire
by Tom Engelhardt When you think about it, Earth is a relatively modest-sized planet — about 25,000 miles in circumference at the Equator, with a total surface area of 197 million square miles, almost...
View ArticleInterview with Emile Nakhleh
by Hasan Mesut Onder Hasan Mesut Onder: Is America an empire that wants to maintain its global hegemony, a center power trying to create order in the new world through democratic values, or a state...
View ArticleHating Muslims in the Age of Trump
by Juan Cole These days, our global political alliances seem to shift with remarkable rapidity, as if we were actually living in George Orwell’s 1984. Are we at war this month with Oceania? Or is it...
View ArticleThe Pentagon Has Won the War that Matters
by William Astore As America enters the 18th year of its war in Afghanistan and its 16th in Iraq, the war on terror continues in Yemen, Syria, and parts of Africa, including Libya, Niger, and Somalia....
View ArticleA Reckoning for Raqqa
by Laila Ujayli Before the start of the Syrian war, my family used to spend summers in Raqqa, the eastern city that the self-described Islamic State (ISIS or IS) illegitimately claimed as its capital....
View ArticleWill House Democrats End U.S. Involvement in Yemen War?
by Giorgio Cafiero The success of congressional Democrats, who took back control of the House of Representatives in yesterday’s midterm elections, poses new challenges for the White House. It will no...
View ArticleEU-Saudi Relations After Khashoggi: Business as Usual?
by Eldar Mamedov More than one month after the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, the issue refuses to fade away into oblivion. As part of an effort to...
View ArticleHow the Saudis with U.S. Help Made the Middle East “a Very Dangerous Place”
by Emile Nakhleh The Middle East, like the rest of the world, is a “very dangerous place!” according to President Trump. The Saudis, with America’s tacit help, made it so. President Trump’s bizarre and...
View ArticleIran: Does President Trump Have a Case?
by Peter Jenkins The Iranian nuclear problem has been on my mind for the last 15 years, and I am a fan of the diplomatic solution that was found in July 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of...
View ArticleTerrorism in Chabahar
by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi On December 6, Iran’s Chabahar port was the target of a terrorist attack when a vehicle laden with explosives was detonated in front of a police station, killing two and injuring...
View ArticleRightsizing the Transnational Jihadist Threat
by Sam Heller A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has warned that the worldwide jihadist menace is more dangerous than ever. The November 2018 report, “The...
View ArticleIs Donald Trump an Asteroid?
by Tom Engelhardt Sixty-six million years ago, so the scientists tell us, an asteroid slammed into this planet. Landing on what’s now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, it gouged out a crater 150 kilometers...
View ArticleSyria Policy: The Hawks’ Talons Sink Deeper into Trump
by Paul R. Pillar Amid the chaos that is the making of foreign policy in the Trump White House, one can only guess about any conversations between the president and National Security Advisor John...
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What Will Happen to U.S. Military Bases in Syria?
by Nick Turse The U.S. military is finally withdrawing (or not) from its base at al-Tanf. You know, the place that the Syrian government long claimed was a training ground for Islamic State (ISIS)...
View ArticlePompeo’s Blind Revisionism in the Middle East
by Laila Ujayli In Cairo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked his audience to accept the (false) “truth” that “America is a force for good in the Middle East” because ignoring it results in “bad...
View ArticleMaking Sausage Out of Syria Policy
by Gary Sick Foreign policy, to paraphrase Bismarck, is like sausage: you’d rather not see it being made. In fact, even when the final results are not particularly appetizing, the foreign policy...
View ArticleTrump Punts on Syria
by John Feffer Donald Trump wants to pull U.S. troops out of Syria as quickly as possible. Well, it’s Wednesday, so that’s what the president wants now. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe he’ll insist that...
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