Category: Foreign Policy

Assessing a Murder Case Against Putin

Once Western media demonizes a foreign leader it becomes hard to assess allegations because if you express doubt, you’re dubbed an “apologist.” But careful analysis is still crucial as Russia Insider editor Alexander Mercouris offers on the British claim that Russian…

The Iraq War’s Known Unknowns

Exclusive: In September 2002, as the Bush-43 administration was rolling out its ad campaign for invading Iraq because of alleged WMD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff received a briefing about the paucity of WMD evidence. But the report was shelved and the…

The Limits of Jihadi Nihilism

The West has committed many sins against the Muslim world, making moral pronouncements from Washington, London or Paris ring hollow, but more and more Muslims are recognizing that the violent nihilism of jihadi terror is morally reprehensible and must be…

US Abets Saudi War Crimes in Yemen

U.S. officials are quick to decry “human rights violations” in “enemy” states, but different rules apply to “allies” such as Saudi Arabia, which is committing war crimes in Yemen and executing dissidents at home while the Obama administration aids and…

Yemen as Vietnam or Afghanistan

From the Archive: With U.S. weapons, Saudi Arabia is waging a brutal air war on impoverished Yemen, turning a long-simmering civil war into a proxy fight with regional rival Iran, a scenario that reminded retired U.S. emissary William R. Polk…

Can US Break with Jihadist Allies?

Exclusive: The Obama administration finds itself caught in the contradictions of its Syrian policy, having backed radical jihadists to achieve another “regime change” but now finding that its opportunism is spreading chaos beyond the Mideast into Europe. But can the…

Encountering a Sophisticated Putin

Pretty much all that Americans and much of the West get to hear about Russian President Putin is heavy-handed propaganda often read over images of him riding shirtless on a horse. He’s either a bully or a buffoon. But editors…

The Game of Demonizing Putin

Official Washington influences the opinions of the American people about world affairs by demonizing certain foreign leaders, making them objects of both revulsion and ridicule, thus justifying “regime change” strategies, a particularly dangerous game when played against nuclear-armed Russia, as John…

Learning to Love — and Use — the Bomb

Exclusive: The endless demonizing of Russian President Putin is the new fun game in Official Washington as neocons dream about “regime change” in Moscow and military contractors drool over huge profits from “modernizing” America’s nuclear arsenal, with few thoughts about…

Islamic State’s Bloody Decline

Washington’s pundit class has interpreted the Islamic State’s recent turn toward international terrorism as proof of its growing strength, but it may actually represent the opposite, the group’s recognition that its “caliphate” is under stress and shrinking, observes ex-CIA analyst…