As the midterm election draws near, a number of Republicans in tough races are distancing themselves from President Trump’s war. The war is unpopular because it has inflicted economic pain on the already-suffering American people. No, I am not talking about the Iran War. I am talking about President Trump’s tariff war. The Tax Foundation […]

Treasury Secy Scott Bessent clearly endeavors to be the second Pete Hegseth of Trump World, albeit via packing heat in the form of economic missiles rather than the kinetic kind. In fact, however, his ballyhooed Operation Economic Outcast actually amounts to the greatest windmill tilting operations since Don Quixote himself. So let’s cut to the […]

Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi‘s Substack:  Michelle Brohard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler, speculated in a recent interview with energy analyst Rory Johnston (@commoditycontext) that the reason why more crude is getting through the Strait of Hormuz may be because some countries are paying Iran a toll, possibly up to 20% […]

Reprinted from John’s Substack:  The Trump administration and its supporters – including the Wall Street Journal editorial page – are working overtime these days to spin the news around the Iran war to make it appear that the US is winning and Tehran had better submit to Washington’s demands before it is wrecked, maybe even […]

Looking across the devastated landscape of the Gaza Strip, where surviving generations now carry the permanent physical and psychological scars of war, the ultimate indictment of our era is damning:  The world watched the horror unfold  in real-time, possessed all the legal, political and institutional mechanisms to stop it, and did nothing. For months, then […]

Thomas Cromwell was the Lord Chancellor of England for much of the reign of King Henry VIII. He engineered the convictions and executions of many whom Henry wanted out of the way, including his two predecessors in office — one of whom was St. Thomas More — and even the king’s second wife, Queen Anne. […]

For decades, American support for Israel was a bipartisan consensus. It was believed that only fringe figures, kooks, or antisemites would question the close bond between the two nations, and that this was a relationship forged on the grounds of mutual geopolitical interests. Well, after years of Israel conducting a mass slaughter of innocent civilians […]

When I first saw footage of Gaza doctor Munir al-Bursh and his family kneeling beside the white-shrouded body of his son, surrounded by mourners, I thought it was an old video. It was not. My conclusion, however, was understandable. In December 2023, only months after the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the al-Bursh […]

It’s easy to forget that the western media – the so-called “free press” – likes to distinguish itself from media in authoritarian regimes on the basis that, unlike them, it asks critical questions of the powerful, reports facts objectively, and formulates its analyses dispassionately. They do propaganda, we do news – or so the western […]

In his fiery speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against accusations of genocide levelled against Israel, as many delegates walked out and hundreds of protesters rallied against him across Manhattan. After Netanyahu had downplayed Israeli settler violence, rejected Gaza genocide and presented a number of misrepresentations, his speech […]

On Sunday morning, without notice, a private plane carried Benjamin Netanyahu out of Israel and into Abu Dhabi. Channel 12 broke the story while he was still on the ground. A day later both governments confirmed the meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, calling it a conversation about bilateral relations. The Israeli account gave the […]

“God help the Nation when it has a President who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do.” ~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his White House Staff Secretary, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster These words are quoted in a book about Eisenhower’s foreign policy called Ike’s Bluff – President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle To […]

For decades, the architecture of West Asia has rested on a comforting fiction: that Pax Americana could indefinitely manage the region through the policy of offshore balancing, security guarantees to autocrats and the supreme might of the U.S. military. That order is gone. Not bruised, not bending, but wholly vaporized. Washington’s illusion that it could […]

Most indicators suggest that the Republicans in the House and Senate are going to face a brutal backlash from the American people in November. Polling with generic ballots suggest a big win for the Democrats and likely the loss of Republican control of both houses of Congress. There is little reason to cheer a Democratic […]

‘Page Six Hollywood’ recently declared: “War of Open Letters Erupts Between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine Factions in Hollywood.” Only a few years ago, a headline like this would have seemed unthinkable. The article described an increasingly open struggle between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel forces within the entertainment industry. On one side are artists and other industry figures […]

Dear Members of Congress, In truly deranged remarks to world leaders at the UN, Donald Trump declared that “I have a big decision to make,” whether to negotiate a deal with Iran or instead to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and drive Iran “into hell with no chance of survival.” He posed it as his personal […]

“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.” ~ Justice Hugo Black, New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) “National security” has become the government’s all-purpose permission slip to behave badly. They have become the magic words that can make constitutional restraints disappear – especially […]

Smoke rose over Riyadh last week as Houthi forces launched strikes on the Saudi capital, as well as on crucial oil infrastructure in major coastal cities. It has been a disastrous month for Saudi Arabia as Houthi forces have made substantial gains along the west coast of Yemen. The Yemeni group scored massive victories in […]

The Donald pulled no punches at the UN today. It was all hell and brimstone on the Iranian War file. Once again, and perhaps for the 15th time, he promised to “annihilate” a nation that arose originally upwards of 2,700 years ago: I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with […]

The Trump administration came perilously close to launching another bombing campaign against Yemen this weekend. According to a September 20 New York Times report, US commanders had approved their targets, American troops were loading bombs onto warplanes, and an attack on Yemen’s Ansar Allah forces was about to begin when President Trump abruptly reversed course. […]