1 كَيْ يَمشِي الحُبُّ حافِياًيَطرُقُ أبوابَ الخَنادِق So that Love can walk about Barefoot, knocking at The doors of trenches. 2 كَيْ تَلبسَ الفَراشَةُ واقِيَة الصدرِ عِندَ بوَّابَةِ كُلِّ زَهرة So that Butterflies can wear Chest armors At the gate of every rose 3...
Swords Into Solar Panels: Re-Purposing America’s War Machine
A trillion dollars. It's a lot of money. In a year it could send 127 million college students to school, provide health insurance for 206 million people, or pay the salaries of seven million schoolteachers and seven million police officers. A trillion dollars could do...
An African-American Perspective on U.S. Exceptionalism*
Cross-posted from AjamuBaraka.com. In his recent op-ed in the New York Times, Vladimir Putin raised hackles among the talking-heads across the U.S. when he questioned the wisdom of President Obama’s evocation of the narcissistic idea of “American exceptionalism.”...
Obama Fumbles Syria Policy
President Obama announced in a speech to the nation on Tuesday night that he will delay a congressional vote on authorizing U.S. strikes on Syria. This comes in light of a Russian-brokered deal that has seen Syria commit to giving up its chemical weapons. “It’s too...
Why Obama Can’t Make Peace in Israel-Palestine
Chief among the reasons to be skeptical about the Obama administration’s latest gambit for peace in Israel-Palestine is its own record on the subject. Barack Obama's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Josh Reubner, resembles hammering a square...
Has Nuclear Disarmament Passed Its Sell-by Date?
From the Partial Test-Ban and nuclear Non-Proliferation treaties through Reykjavík in the eighties to START I in 1991, arms control was beginning to look like it might corral nuclear proliferation by other countries and on our own soil. Instead, institutional...
The Disease of Short-Termism
It was famously described as the “end of history.” The collapse of Communism and the victory of liberalism near the end of the 20th century seemed to suggest that the great ideological conflicts of the previous eras had come to an end. A new and powerful consensus...
An Off-the-Cuff Breakthrough on Syria
John Kerry may have just accidentally earned himself a Nobel Peace Prize. In off-the-cuff remarks to reporters, the Secretary of State reiterated his support for a U.S. attack on Syria, saying Bashar al-Assad could only ward off a U.S. strike by turning over his...
The Hill to the Rescue on Syria?
Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend to unveil arguably the most...
Syria: Suddenly a Race to Peace?
Suddenly it seems as if the United States is competing with Russia to find an alternative to attacking Syria. As we posted this morning: “The Syrian government has accepted a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control to avoid a possible...