Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. If you’ve followed my interviews, you know I’ve been warning about the high likelihood of a third round of the war – one that would almost certainly be far more intense than the previous two. I’ve also argued that, given Trump’s erroneous reading of the current balance, perhaps […]

Three days after terrorists killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stood behind a pulpit at the Washington National Cathedral and spoke to a nation in shock. “Our responsibility to history is already clear,” he proclaimed, “to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” […]

Over the last several weeks in the lead up to the 25th anniversary of al Qaeda’s attack on the U.S., I’ve had American and foreign journalists ask me the same question: how did 9/11 change America? My answer has generally been some version of this: 9/11 didn’t change us, we allowed it to change us, […]

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in  –  and the West in general  –  into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden (October 2001) “GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.” – President Donald Trump (September 2026) Days before the 25th anniversary […]

U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch zionist, recently made waves when he referred to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank as “terrorists.” “It’s an act of terror,” Huckabee said. “I’ve been criticized a little bit for calling that terror, but terror is when a person is forced to change his or her […]

A failed war does not end when the drones stop flying. It creates a new danger: A government that refuses to admit defeat and a president who, having failed abroad, seeks muscular victories elsewhere. The war against Iran is a case study in the limits of military power, the dangers of presidential overreach and the […]

As Israel’s war on Gaza enters a grim third year, the prevailing narrative developed by mainstream Western media serves as a masterclass in institutional complicity; filtering genocide through a lens of manufactured neutrality. Since October 2025, when the so-called ceasefire – which Israel has repeatedly violated – began, the tragedy in Gaza has been effectively […]

Reprinted from The Realist Review. Washington is more united than is often thought. Despite the ruptures with an imagined past that have been said to have been caused by the chaos agent in the White House, the foreign policy consensus (underwritten by the national religion of American exceptionalism) has shown itself to possess a remarkable […]

A quarter-century has passed since the terrorist attack that killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. During the first seven years after that mass atrocity, Pentagon spending doubled. The aftermath of 9/11 was also a huge boost for “the intelligence community.” Despite – and because of – their failure to […]

The Trump administration sent Congress its civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. Asked what the deal permits, the president wrote: There will be no enrichment of material. His own Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, has said the opposite. The agreement gives Riyadh a pathway to enrich uranium on its own soil, and in doing so […]

The death of Palestinian artist Sliman Anis Mansour stirred powerful memories. He passed away at Al-Makassed Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem on August 24, at the age of 79, bringing to a close a legacy that cannot truly be described, but only experienced. His life almost exactly spanned the age of the Palestinian Nakba. He […]

The jury took just two hours. Tony Greenstein – Jewish socialist, anti-Zionist – had faced fourteen years under the Terrorism Act for three social media posts and a blog article opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Crown called it “inviting support for Hamas.” The jury called it something else. Section 12 of the Terrorism Act […]

American bombs are now falling on Tehran, and while Donald Trump ultimately pulled the trigger, administrations before him—Republican and Democrat alike—constructed the gun, and even loaded it. In 1995, US president Bill Clinton issued executive orders banning US investment tied to Iran’s petroleum sector and, soon after, most US trade with and investment in Iran. […]

While many mainstream commentators blanch at the characterization of the United States as an empire, the hard data show that it is today impossible to seriously dispute. The U.S. military operates between 750 and 800 bases around the world, located in around 80 foreign countries and territories. Because there is no fixed or standard definition […]

There is a point in the decline of republics when the problem is no longer that government breaks its own laws. Governments will always behave unlawfully. The deeper problem comes when the constitutional machinery designed to prevent those acts stops functioning — when spending becomes detached from arithmetic, presidential power becomes detached from law, and […]

Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. A final deal between the United States and Iran is slipping further out of reach. Since the Memorandum of Understanding collapsed in July, the prospects for reviving it have deteriorated by the day. While Tehran publicly demands a return to the MOU, Trump’s current position is that even […]

On August 30, U.S. forces struck two Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island near the Strait of Hormuz, saying the systems posed a threat to shipping. Iran answered by launching ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan. The exchange revived a seemingly simple question: What is the next response supposed to change? In the war […]

Today, the West Bank is a nightmare of vicious settlement expansion, land seizure, economic strangulation, settler violence and forced displacement. With the collusion of the Israeli military and police, the Israeli-occupied territories are effectively ruled by the Messianic far-right settlers who see their mob-like racist pogroms of Palestinians as a divine step to Final Redemption. […]

Reprinted from Andy Worthington’s website. Many thanks to Dr. Dianne Woodward, a former lecturer in Biological Sciences, and a manager at the Galilee Foundation, a UK charity empowering Palestinian youth since 2007, for writing a compelling article for Al Jazeera, “Toxic waste of war on Gaza reached Israel”, highlighting how the ecocidal impact of Gaza’s […]

Some people say that being anti-war is to be against “the troops” – the Americans who in the past were drafted to fight and today volunteer to serve. But that is a superficial criticism that distracts from what the criticism of U.S. wars really should be. Many of us believe in a strong national defense. […]