How to Truly ‘Build Back Better’ on Climate
The Build Back Better program isn’t just inadequate on climate—it may be a disaster. Here’s what movements are demanding next.
Biden’s AUKUS Alliance is Taking the World to the Brink of a New Cold War
Given the 20 years of disastrous warfare during the “war on terror,” what business does Washington have building a new military alliance in Asia?
Can We Avoid a War with China?
The cold war in the Taiwan Strait threatens to turn hot.
Our Future vs. Neoliberalism
Bolivia is leading the way in channeling public discontent with neoliberalism into progressive alternatives.
Review: Patriot Acts
The world started to make sense to Zac Reed when he accepted a new religion into his life. As he describes his story in the new book of oral histories titled Patriot Acts, assembled by Alia Malek, Reed’s conversion to Islam erased everything he had done for his country. He’d served in the military, volunteered for Desert Storm as part of the National Guard, and worked as a firefighter. But his life of service didn’t protect him from being detained and interrogated as part of the religious profiling that took place in the United States after 9/11.
What if Arbabsiar Was All About the Drugs, Not Terror?
Manssor Arbabsiar’s terrorism plans may have come at the urging of an undercover DEA informant, at the direction of the FBI.
What War Between Iran and Saudi Arabia Might Look Like
The outcome of a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran might depend on who gets the most third-party assistance.
Unlikeliest of Bedfellows: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and a Mexican Drug Cartel
And you thought Colin Powell’s claims of Iraqi WMD before the UN was the low point of U.S. foreign policy.
Resolution against the Machine
Communities all over the United States are reeling from budget cuts. Military contractors, meanwhile, have remained fat and well-fed on the one part of federal spending that so far hasn’t been touched by budget-cutting fever: the Pentagon. One community recently decided to call attention to this disparity. In Montgomery County, a relatively wealthy Maryland suburb of Washington, DC, Peace Action Montgomery got together with a group of City Council members to craft a simple, straightforward resolution.
The Prisoner Swap
Like so many other diplomatic and political initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent announcement of a new prisoner release is based on the same solution that has been proposed dozens of times before – only to collapse because the time, and usually Israeli political will, wasn’t right. In this case, the separate announcements made by Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, asserted that Hamas would release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006, while Israel would release 1023 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom had been in jail for decades.
The Price of the Libya Intervention: Surface to Air Missiles for All
Enough surface-to-air missiles have disappeared in Libya to turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone.
UN Origins Project Series, Part 6: The Things We Fight For
It was the economic deprivation of the 30s that allowed totalitarianism to flourish and shatter the fragile peace that followed World War I.
Pakistan’s Little-Known Payback to the U.S. for Drone Attacks on Its Soil
Most Americans aren’t aware that the Pakistani military actually mounts attacks on Afghan soil.
Arab Spring, Israeli Isolation
With the Arab uprisings gradually reconfiguring the regional political landscape, Israel is finding itself increasingly isolated. For at least a decade, Israel has identified Iran as its main strategic nemesis, but the Arab spring has rekindled simmering tensions between Israel on one hand, and Arab states as well as Turkey on the other.