News Abroad

Death of a Diplomat and a New START in Arms Control

by Richard A. Moss

That Dobrynin is as sharp as a tack,” Henry Kissinger marveled to President Nixon in the Oval Office.  “The way that he edited that letter of yours…He actually strengthened it.”Kissinger’s discussion with the president – recorded on February 23, 1971, one week after the installation of Nixon’s secret White House taping system – was focused on a largely deceptive document:  a letter from Nixon to Alexei Kosygin designe

American Mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq

by Deepak Tripathi

A little more than a year after Barack Obama succeeded George W Bush as president, United States military hardware and troops are transferring to the A

Americans Know That Israel is Their Ally

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

In a recent interview New York Senator Chuck Schumer noted that there is a battle going on inside the Obama administration about Israel and added correctly that such a battle is not unusual.  The State Department tends to be

Norman G. Finkelstein: Israel Overreached in Gaza

by Aaron Leonard

Norman Finkelstein has just completed a new book, This Time We Went Too Far:  Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion (OR Book April 2010).  Finkelstein is a controversial scholar who has written extensively on Israel and its role in the Middle East.  His new book examines the Israeli invasion of Gaza of December 2

What Is My Peace Plan for Israel?

by Daniel Pipes

My peace plan is simple:  Israel defeats its enemies.Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace.  Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins.  This makes intuitive sense, for so long as both sides aspire to achieve their ambitions, fighting continues or it potentially can resume.The goal of victory is not exactly something novel.  Sun Tzu,

Pedophilia, the Pope and the Jews

by Gustav Schonfeld

During the last few years, many Catholic priests have been accused of sexually abusing boys and girls.  In most cases, the children did not complain, but if parents found out they, too, kept quiet, because they eit

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Past & Present

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The opening this May of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference at the United Nations seems likely to feature a conflict that h

Winning All the Battles but Losing the War, Just Like Hannibal

by Robert O'Connell

In late 218 B.C.E. Hannibal led an army across one of the highest passes in the Alps and invaded Italy.  Staging the assault from his family’s base in Spain, itself an empire-within-an-empire, he had basic

Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.: Islam’s Luther—or its Don Quixote?

by Timothy R. Furnish

The most high-profile and articulate proponent of “moderate” Islam on the American scene today is Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona physician, U.S. Navy veteran and–based on a recent hour-long phone interview—all-around nice guy.  Dr. Jasser appears regularly on TV and radio sh

America and the Dictators, From Ngo Dinh Diem to Hamid Karzai

by Alfred W. McCoy

The crisis has come suddenly, almost without warning. At the far edge of American power in Asia, things are going from bad to much worse than anyone could have imagined. The insurgents are spreading fast across the countryside. Corruption is rampant. Local military forces

A Brief History of Chechen Terrorism

by Thomas R. Mockaitis

Emergency responders at the site of the 2010 Moscow Metro bombing.Editor's Note: This article was originally titled "Female Suicide Bombers are Nothing New." The Moscow Metro bombing detailed in the article was the second most recent Chechen terrorist attack in Moscow -- the most recent was the Domodedovo International Airport bombing in 2011, which killed 37 people.

What We Choose to Remember: Jerusalem in World History

by Judith Mendelsohn Rood

As I prepare to participate in a conference called “What We Choose to Remember” at the University of Portland on the Holocaust and the Arab-Israel Conflict next week, I have been thinking more and more about the c

Oh, Canada: Why Anti-Zionism Festers in a Country Otherwise Known for its Friendliness

by Gil Troy

Although the two-week period in March designated as Israeli Apartheid Week sputtered this year, attracting few participants, it highlighted a great Canadian anomal

Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration

by Peter Dale Scott

Alfred McCoy's important new article for TomDispatch (March 30, 2010) deserves to mobilize Congress for a serious revaluation of America's ill-considered military v

Can Anyone Pacify Afghanistan, the World's Number One Narco-State?

by Alfred W. McCoy

In ways that have escaped most observers, the Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit.After a year of cautious debate and costly deployments, President Obama

Is START Really a Beginning?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Does the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on April

The Decentralization of Morocco's Monarchy

by Yossef Ben-Meir

In a speech on Nov. 6, 2009, King Mohammed VI of Morocco stated his intention to press ahead with decentralizing the kingdom, and that the “Saharan provinces” will be among the first regions to experience its benefits.  The date marked the 34th anniversary of the Green March, when 350,000 unarmed Moroccans crossed into Spain's former Sahara colony, now internationally referred to as the Wes

Haiti's Revolution Fueled the Rise of Big Sugar in Cuba and Louisiana

by Elizabeth Abbott

Even before last January’s devastating earthquake, Haiti was routinely disparaged as a “basket-case” or “failed state” unable to feed, police or govern itself.  Yet two centuries

When Israel Stood Up to Washington

by Daniel Pipes

As U.S.-Israel tensions climb to unfamiliar heights, they recall a prior round of tensions nearly thirty years ago, when Menachem Begin and Ronald Reagan were in charge.  In contrast to Binyamin Netanyahu's repeated apologies, Begin adopted a quite different approach.The sequence of events started with a statement from Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Asad that he would not make peace with Israel "even in a hundred years," Begin responded by making the Golan Heights part of

Micro-Geography Matters in Jerusalem

by Dror Wahrman

Over the past couple of weeks the fate of Jerusalem emerged as the most visible hot spot in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Obama’s administration has been putting pressure on Israel to stop its construction in East Jerusalem, which is projected as the Palestinian capital in a future two-state solution.  Netanhayu, on his part, vows to continue building in Jerusalem, the eternal Jewish capital, “like all Israeli governments since 1967,” and claims not to