Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Commentaries
Interview with R. Victoria Arana

Interview with R. Victoria Arana

by , | Apr 10, 2008

R. Victoria Arana was born in Lima, Peru. She is a graduate of Vassar College, Princeton University, and the George Washington University – where, respectively, she studied Romance languages and literatures, Middle Eastern culture and literature, and English literature and literary criticism. Today, she teaches in the English department at Howard University. Her most recent publication is World Poetry from 1900 to the Present (NY: Facts on File, 2007). Here she talks with FPIF’s E. Ethelbert Miller about new black literature in Britain and its take on empire.

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Approaching Tibet

by , | Apr 9, 2008

In western China, the low-grade civil war that has brewed for decades in Tibet has recently expanded. The upcoming 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising of 1959, combined with China’s Olympic games this summer, have created an environment that Tibetan separatists believe to be especially conducive to achieving their goals. The emotional power of the date and the chance to act while China is incapable of closing itself off due to the presence of foreign journalists have emboldened activists both within and outside Tibet. As a result, the protests now threaten to erupt into a full-scale rebellion that could create widespread violence across the four provinces with large populations of ethnic Tibetans.

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Tibet’s Dangerous Game

by , | Apr 8, 2008

China take heed: a new generation of Tibetan youth is coming of age and these young people have little interest in playing by the rules of the game to which you are accustomed. As protests evolved into riots and riots turned into violence over the last several weeks in Tibet, it became increasingly clear that Tibetan youths do not plan on maintaining the status quo ante that has characterized Sino-Tibetan relations over the last generation. The recent escalation of violence between China and Tibet illustrates why China cannot continue to react to Tibetan discord in a typically authoritarian manner, particularly in light of the increasing role of exiled Tibetan youths in Tibet’s independence movement.

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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 Candidates on Iran

by , | Apr 4, 2008

Although Iraq and the economy tend to dominate the headlines, Iran is never far from the news cycle – or from the speeches of the leading U.S. presidential candidates. In a recent trip to the Middle East, John McCain reiterated his concern about “Iranian influence and assistance to Hezbollah as well as Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Iran also received the attention of President Bush when he insisted last month that Iran is developing nuclear weapons in order to “destroy people.” Implausible and unsubstantiated as this claim might be, it represents a popular thread of argument in the Iran debate.

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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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