Category: Foreign Policy

US Bombing Syrian Troops Would Be Illegal

Exclusive: Secretary of State Kerry met with dissident State Department “diplomats” to hear their call for U.S. airstrikes on Syrian government troops, but the plan is both dangerous and illegal, writes Marjorie Cohn.

New Cold War Feeds War Machine

The apparent madness in the Obama administration starting a new Cold War with Russia and China makes sense if viewed from the perspective of the Military-Industrial Complex, which must justify ever-larger budgets, as Chuck Spinney explains.

How US Wars Have Bred Terrorism

The Reagan administration inadvertently created Al Qaeda by arming the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s, then George W. Bush’s Iraq War gave rise to ISIS. So, one might draw a lesson about overusing military force abroad, says Ivan Eland.

Lost History of Iran’s 1981 Coup

The U.S. mainstream media avoids the word “coup” when a disfavored leader is ousted, but the silence around Iran’s 1981 coup also may have served Ronald Reagan’s political self-interest in keeping secret his own “coup,” as Mahmood Delkhasteh reflects.

Israel’s Water Siege of Palestinians

Neocon domination of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has foreclosed serious debate over Israel’s strangling control of Palestinian water resources and what that means for the future of that ghetto-ized population, as Chuck Spinney explains.

US Game-Playing Means Hot Syrian Summer

As Iran and Russia sense they’ve been “had” by President Obama over the Syrian “cease-fire” — and other U.S. deceptions — the prospects rise for a climactic battle in Syria, writes ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke from Beirut.

WPost’s ‘Agit-Prop’ for the New Cold War

Exclusive: The Washington Post, the neocons’ media flagship, has fired a broadside at a new documentary after it blasted a hole in the side of the anti-Russian Magnitsky narrative, which helped launch the new Cold War, writes Robert Parry.

Destroying the Magnitsky Myth

A new documentary blows apart the West’s Russia-bashing narrative about the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, so the response has been to stop the public from seeing the film while calling it Russian “agit-prop,” as Gilbert Doctorow explains.

Orlando Massacre as Anti-Gay Hate Crime

The Orlando massacre was primarily a hate crime against gays, aided by lax gun laws, rather than a terror strike by an ISIS acolyte — and thus the media/political analysis is wide of the mark, writes Lawrence Davidson.

Trump as the ‘Relative Peace Candidate’

Hillary Clinton has shown no real remorse over her support for neocon “regime changes,” aggressive wars and belligerence toward Russia, leaving the oft-obnoxious Donald Trump as the relative peace candidate, says John V. Walsh.