Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
War & Peace

Dealing with Iran’s Hardliners

by , , | Apr 4, 2008

Last month in Iran, supporters of a long-shot parliamentary candidate stuck campaign materials to a handful of chickens and set them loose in the village in what a local official called “a new way to campaign.” Though the chickens were an innovative way to remind voters that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad failed to deliver on his campaign promise to put a chicken in every pot, this candidate and others were forced to find obscure ways to reach voters because they were prohibited from putting their faces on campaign materials. Because of this and other arbitrary election rules, the large margins of victory by conservative hardliners in the March 14 election came as no surprise.

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The Other Guantanamo

by , | Apr 3, 2008

On the small, remote island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean halfway between Africa and Indonesia, the United States has one of the most secretive military bases in the world. From its position almost 10,000 miles closer to the Persian Gulf than the east coast of the United States, this huge U.S. air and naval base has been a major, if little known, launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past year, the Bush administration has made improvements that point toward its use in a possible attack on Iran. The administration recently admitted what it had long denied and what journalists, human rights investigators, and others had long suspected: The island has also been part of the CIA’s secret “rendition” program for captured terrorist suspects.

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Arms Race in Space

by , | Mar 31, 2008

When the United States recently shot apart a crippled spy satellite over the Pacific Ocean, it also tested an offensive anti-satellite weapon and the potential for ballistic missile defense. “The shot,” as the Pentagon called the $100 million operation conducted on February 20, came immediately after Russia and China put forward a detailed, but flawed, proposal for a treaty to ban space weapons at the United Nations. In response, the United States immediately reaffirmed its unwillingness to participate in any arms control accord covering space.

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Korean Bases of Concern

by , | Mar 31, 2008

Last month the New York Philharmonic grabbed the world’s attention by performing Dvorak’s New World Symphony in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The Philharmonic may well have chosen Dvorak’s piece as an overture for a new world of peace. With negotiations over security issues in Northeast Asia making some progress, the United States and North Korea have been inching closer.

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The Costs of War

The Costs of War

by , | Mar 26, 2008

Five years ago the United States attacked and occupied Iraq. It has lost militarily, politically and morally. The end of the war may be in sight. But the consequences will endure, as will the deep-seated impulse among America’s leaders for global intervention without constraint.

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The Andean Crisis

The Andean Crisis

by , | Mar 19, 2008

On the first day, Colombian military and police forces launched an attack on an encampment of the Colombian guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in Ecuadorian territory, killing over 20 people.

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Illustrating War

Illustrating War

by , | Mar 18, 2008

On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush held an Iraq War victory celebration aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Lincoln, a moment of triumph that has since metamorphosed into the very embodiment of folly as the bloody war continues to grind on. On that faraway date Bush stood beneath a mammoth banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” Ed Koren has memorialized the event very differently from what the president intended.

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