All Commentaries
Timoney Time in Bahrain
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has hired John Timoney, the former police chief of Philadelphia and Miami, noted for his heavy-handed policing of demonstrations.
The Apple Connection
Ever since the beginning of the current global economic crisis, the focus of both critical analysis and public odium has been speculative capital. In the populist narrative, it was the breathtaking shenanigans of the banks in an atmosphere of deregulation that led to the economic collapse. The “financial economy,” characterized as parasitic and bad, was contrasted to the “real economy,” which was said to produce real goods and real value. Resources flowed into speculative activities in finance, resulting in a loss of dynamism in the real economy and eventually leading to credit cutoff at the height of the crisis, causing bankruptcies and massive layoffs.
Israel’s War on Democracy (and Why Americans Should Be Concerned)
Right-wing legislators, militant settlers, and a growing religious divide in the Israeli army threaten to silence internal opposition to the Netanyahu government.
Does U.S. Believe Arms Deal With Bahrain Will Encourage Human Rights?
A $53 million U.S. arms sale, put on hold in November pending an investigation into Bahraini security forces human rights violations, is being pushed forward by the Obama Administration despite opposition by Congress and human rights observers.
Avoiding a War in the Persian Gulf
With tensions between the United States and Iran rising over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, the prospect of an accidental or deliberate military provocation in the region has increased dramatically. Direct military conflict between the two sides is more likely now than at any point since diplomatic relations were severed in 1980.
The Sick Man of North America
A century ago, the Ottoman Empire was falling apart as a result of disastrous wars and economic decline. Dubbed “the sick man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire was not ultimately able to pull itself together. It expired in the flames of World War I, but not before pulling down a good chunk of the world order with it.
The Next Marx
Lenin graces the cover of a recent issue of The Economist. The Financial Times is running an entire series on the “crisis in capitalism.” Francis Fukuyama, a recovering neoconservative, makes a plea in Foreign Affairs for the left to get its intellectual act together. And that noted class warrior Newt Gingrich has been assailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for being a ruthless moneybags.
Excuse me? Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? What parallel universe did we all just stumble into?
We’re America and We’ll Breach Whatever Perimeter We Want
What if Iran’s Republican Guard we’re conducting operations at the U.S. border with Mexico?
A Year after Tahrir
The Arab revolts that began in December 2010 have immediate, material causes. But their deeper wellspring has been the determination of Arab peoples to reclaim their historical agency from both the condescension of outsiders and the mind-numbing repression of Arab rulers.
Pit of Pits: Los Alamos Proposed Plutonium Facility
The United States nuclear-weapons program, stockpiled with nuclear-warheads, need not concern itself with manufacturing them for a generation, if ever.