United States Archives - Page 8 of 18 - Foreign Policy In Focus

U.S. Blocks Israel-Syria Talks

by John Feffer, Stephen Zunes | May 1, 2007

Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel where they had left off three years earlier, but Israel, backed by the Bush administration, refused. Assad eventually agreed to reenter peace negotiations without preconditions, but even these overtures were rejected.

The Frankenstein Alliance

by John Feffer, Emanuel Pastreich | Mar 9, 2007

If you read U.S. newspapers through a security lens, you might get the impression that Washington is well on its way to containing China economically, politically and militarily. China is portrayed in the media as America’s enemy of choice: the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Report states explicitly that “of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter-strategies.”

The Vishnu Strategy

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jan 30, 2007

“The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy.” According to the great Hindu text Bhagavad-Gita, Vishnu delivered that speech to Prince Arjuna before a great battle almost eight millennia ago. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer paraphrased it in 1945 to describe the explosion of the atomic bomb. The latest channeling of the Hindu god can be found in an Israeli commander’s evaluation of last summer’s war with Lebanon: “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.”

Strategic Partnership or Strategic Competition

by John Feffer, Bonnie Glaser, James Nolt | Nov 28, 2006

As part of our China Focus, we asked two leading scholars to reflect on the tensions and possibilities in U.S.-China relations. Bonnie Glaser is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. James Nolt is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. We asked them first about the potential for a strategic security partnership between the United States and China, then about their economic relationship.

Iraq, Elections, and the Costs of War

by Erik Leaver | Oct 31, 2006

For the first time in recent history, a foreign policy issue is at the top of the electorate’s mind as they head to the polls. Clearly the Iraq War loomed over the mid-term elections before October rolled around, but with the U.S. death toll reaching its highest mark since November 2004, reports arguing the Iraqi death toll now tops 655,000, new estimates on the cost of the war reaching 1 trillion dollars, and Bush’s PR team quickly putting window dressing on his vow to “stay the course”, the elections are being called a referendum on Iraq.

Chain-Gang Economics

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Oct 30, 2006

ÂThe world is investing too little,Â according to one prominent economist. ÂThe current situation has its roots in a series of crises over the last decade that were caused by excessive investment, such as the Japanese asset bubble, the crises in Emerging Asia and Latin America, and most recently, the IT bubble. Investment has fallen off sharply since, with only very cautious recovery.Â

Negotiating and Looking Tough: The Mirrored Policies of the U.S. and Iran

by Farideh Farhi, Erik Leaver | Oct 3, 2006

September was a hopeful month for those interested in the de-escalation of tensions between the Unites States and Iran. The extension of a U.S. visa by the Bush Administration to the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami despite vociferous conservative opposition was seen as a sign of possible change in U.S. foreign policy. In addition, a mixture of softer words employed by Iran’s current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN and in his many media appearances in the U.S. regarding Iran’s intentions in the region brought hope of possible movement in Tehran.

The Thai Coup

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Sep 29, 2006

Even before the military ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on September 19, Thai democracy was in severe crisis. The country had suffered a succession of elected but do-nothing or exceedingly corrupt regimes. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which for all intents and purposes ran the country with no accountability from 1997 to 2001, further eroded the legitimacy of Thai democracy by imposing a program that brought great hardship to the majority. Thaksin stoked this disaffection with the IMF and the political system to create a majority coalition that allowed him to violate constitutional constraints, infringe on democratic freedoms, and using the state as a mechanism of private capital accumulation.

A Siamese Tragedy

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Sep 29, 2006

The military coup in Thailand is the second high-profile collapse of a democracy in the developing world in the last seven years. The first was the coup in Pakistan in October 1999 that brought General Pervez Musharraf to power. There are some disturbing parallels between the two events. Both coups have been popular with the […]

Oil Trip

by fpifadmin | Sep 27, 2006

It is almost impossible to imagine, as we sit in a well-lit, fully functioning gas station on Main Street, USA, that a community blessed with oil riches under its soil could look as impoverished as Yenagoa in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa.