Tag: Barack Obama

Israel Tests the Bounds of Its US Clout

Israeli resistance to deals on Palestinian peace and Iran’s nuclear program has strained U.S.-Israeli relations and will test if Congress is more loyal to Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Obama. But the tension underscores a deeper division between the two countries, says ex-CIA analyst…

Treating Putin Like a Lunatic

Exclusive: Official Washington treats whatever comes out of Russian President Putin’s mouth as the ravings of a lunatic, even when what he says is obviously true or otherwise makes sense, as the New York Times has demonstrated again, writes Robert…

Neocon Sabotage of Iran-Nuke Deal

Congressional neocons are determined to sink negotiations to constrain but not end Iran’s nuclear program all the better to get on with bombing Iran at the heart of their agenda. They are now disguising their sabotage as a constitutional argument,…

The Neocons — Masters of Chaos

Exclusive: America’s neoconservatives, by stirring up trouble in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, are creating risks for the world’s economy that are surfacing now in the turbulent stock markets, threatening another global recession, writes Robert Parry.

Misdiagnosing What Ails US Schools

The American Right likes to bash public school teachers for supposedly deviating from an “America-can-do-no-wrong” approach to history and generally “failing” the students, but that is a misdiagnosis of the problem, says Lawrence Davidson.

James Risen’s Painful Truths

President Obama promised a “transparent” administration but the American people didn’t know the transparency would go only one way, letting the government look at the people while blocking the public’s view of the government, a reality described in James Risen’s new…

The War Responsibility of Congress

Looking nervously toward the November elections, members of Congress ducked the issue of authorizing U.S. military attacks on targets in Iraq and Syria, but that evasion of responsibility is not what the Founders had in mind, writes the Independent Institute’s…

Obama’s Much-Conflicted Syrian Policy

President Obama’s policy toward Syria is getting pulled in so many directions that it lacks any coherence, especially since the U.S.-backed Syrian “moderate” rebels are in a tacit alliance with al-Qaeda’s offshoots that are the target of the U.S. airstrikes,…

An Imperial Death Grip on Democracy

Official Washington controlled by a lethal mix of politics, ideology, media and money has an imperial death grip on what’s left of the American democratic republic, a hold so suffocating that it’s hard to envision any move to escape. But some…

Ducking War Responsibilities

Conservatives insist that they revere the U.S. Constitution, but congressional Republicans as well as Democrats hastily fled Washington to hit the campaign trail rather than vote up or down on authorizing new wars in Syria and Iraq, an abdication of…