As a German student studying in Washington, it's sometimes hard for me to believe the absurdities the U.S. political system produces. The ongoing U.S. government shutdown—the product of an inability by political elites to forge lasting compromises, as well as the...
Breaking the Cycle of Counterinsurgency
This September marked a potential turning point in America’s long and seemingly bottomless appetite for war. The Obama administration made a pitch for U.S. military intervention against Syria, and the American public didn’t buy it. Across the country, people...
Leak of an Al Qaeda Plot Presents Larger Problem for U.S. Intelligence Than Snowden
In the New York Times, Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt report that documents Edward Snowden released might have caused less short-term damage than leak of an Al Qaeda plot in August. After media reports, Al Qaeda significantly reduced its use of a major...
Syria: What’s Next?
World BeatIt started as a peaceful revolt. It descended into a civil war that has so far claimed over 100,000 casualties and ejected nearly one-third of the population from their homes. Even worse, it has broadened into a regional conflict in which neighboring...
How Syria Brought the U.S. and Iran Together
This year's UN General Assembly may well be remembered as the beginning of the end for Washington's decades-long standoff with Tehran. And none of it would have been possible if the Obama administration had gone ahead with its plan to attack Syria. A few weeks ago,...
Bashir Embarrassment Avoided. Now What?
Cross-posted from the United to End Genocide blog. A colossal embarrassment was avoided when Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, apparently changed his mind about coming to the United States to address...
U.S. Needs to be R2P’d
Writing for the Guardian, and re-posted at AlterNet, Henry Porter makes the case that the scale of gun violence in America renders it, in effect, a civil war. Figures, especially if they’re staggering, can render us none. But the way Porter has framed the number of...
Israel on the Sidelines
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren recently spelled out quite clearly for MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell his government’s attitude toward possible new openings in relations between the United States and Iran. Mitchell had asked him: “What is Israel's posture towards this...
Iran’s Rouhani Makes His Debut on the World Stage
In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered a carefully worded and prudent message that stood in contrast to his predecessor's more defiant addresses at the summit. While Rouhani did not make any grand...
Steven Pinker’s “Better Angels” Ignores Demons That Lie Dormant
In this month’s Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (behind a paywall), esteemed atrocity authority Robert Jay Lifton addresses the “emerging school of thought” that “contends that the world is becoming increasingly safe.” For example he singles out Steven Pinker, who,...