“The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness… They conferred against the Government the right to be let alone — most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” ~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) The rapid spread of public surveillance cameras represents something far more consequential than a new […]

Two men, one word. Next Monday, at Kingston Crown Court in London, a 72-year-old grandfather goes on trial for terrorism; the evidence is a tweet of seven words, and the maximum sentence is 14 years. Nine months ago, a man who founded al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch and carried a $10 million American bounty on his head […]

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States spent $21 trillion on its military between 2001 and 2024 (in constant 2024 dollars), equal to the combined military spending of the next eighteen countries. Iran barely made that list at all, spending only 2% of what the US did, and SIPRI estimated […]

Someone had to organize the catering; that’s the detail that got me. From the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Arab states have issued a steady stream of condemnation – labeling it genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing – even as they’ve been secretly deepening their military ties with the very state carrying it out. The […]

CNN reported this weekend that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has privately urged senior Trump administration officials to look for an “off-ramp” from the war with Iran. According to three sources familiar with the discussions, Caine has warned that further escalation could backfire and that airpower alone is unlikely to […]

They took her trainers. That is the detail that survives, once the rest is stripped away – the belongings removed from the corpse, the shoes pulled from her feet, the shallow hole in woods sixty kilometers west of Kyiv. Anastasiia Berezovska had been shot in the back of the head, then shot again as she […]

The Trump administration marked the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of U.S. independence with a series of statements in support of American empire. Despite the fact that Trump campaigned against endless war and the White House issued a National Security Strategy that rejected “global domination,” the Trump administration celebrated the nation’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary by glorifying empire as one […]

The war between the United States and Iran is rooted in events stretching back more than seventy years. As the major media continues to ignore the history, it is important to understand this essential backstory. If you’re wondering why the United States and Iran have been bitter antagonists for more than a half century, and […]

It is damn obvious that Washington has lost Donald Trump’s idiotic war on Iran. After all, it is now five months since the opening salvos of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, which was advertised to last only 3-4 weeks. Instead, the conflict has settled into a grinding, inconclusive stalemate at best, and, more importantly, […]

On July 23, President Donald Trump threatened to carry out his “biggest attack yet” on Iran after nearly two weeks of renewed U.S. airstrikes. That same day, the House voted 214–208 to direct the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, while a parallel Senate effort failed 47–49. The contrast sharpened a question […]

Vice President JD Vance has struggled to justify his shifting rhetoric on Iran. Once thought of as the standard-bearer of a right-wing, non-interventionist school of foreign policy thought, Vance has been forced to repeatedly contradict himself in an effort to sell this war to the American public. Once the bombs started dropping, JD Vance folded […]

On Friday, July 31, 2026, Lieutenant Commander James M. Ennes, Jr., US Navy, ret., slipped his cable and unfurled his sails. With the Great Pilot at the helm, he set a course to his final home port. LCDR Ennes, then Lieutenant Ennes, was serving aboard the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) when, on June 8, 1967, Israeli […]

The events in Tell, southwest of Nablus, were not an isolated act of violence. They were a warning. For years, Israel has treated Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank as open spaces for military raids, settler invasions, land theft and collective punishment. The expectation was that Palestinians would endure the violence, bury their dead […]

Reprinted with permission from The Jason Jones Show substack. Have you seen the ruling classes’ latest ploy for holding onto power rather than allow the public to hold them accountable through straightforward and honest elections? It’s clear as day to anyone with eyes to see. And the fact that the powerful now operate as much […]

Although 81 years have passed since the atomic bombing of Japan in August 1945, the rulers of major nations continue their reckless march toward a nuclear holocaust. The nine nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea), possessing some 12,100 nuclear warheads, are all busily upgrading and expanding […]

Historically, one of the greatest dangers to a major power in the international system is letting smaller allies and clients drag that power into an unwise war. Both the United States and leading European powers seem inclined to make that blunder with respect to the Baltic republics. Too many U.S. policymakers have not only tolerated […]

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory. When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful reason for doing so. His director of national intelligence and his own CIA had publicly […]

As the war in Iran has reached its fifth month, progress fails to be made and opposition continues to mount. And while President Donald Trump certainly deserves his fair share of the blame, the playbook he’s using is in no way his own. Since the Cold War, the United States has become the preeminent world […]

Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. Oman and Iran appear close to a temporary arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially providing both an exit from the current round of fighting and the foundation for a more durable maritime order. Washington should welcome such an agreement – even if it acknowledges a degree […]

Reprinted from The Realist Review. “The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms…” Such was the view of the English novelist Evelyn Waugh’s finest fictional creation, Guy Crouchback, in the days following the announcement of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The parallels […]