Tag: Syria

NYT Protects the Fogh Machine

Exclusive: In crises ranging from the Iraq War to civil conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, the New York Times has steadily transformed itself into a propaganda organ, promoting false U.S. government narratives rather than providing objective information to its readers,…

Obama’s Options on Iraq

Instead of sending U.S. troops back to Iraq to fight a resurgent Sunni jihadist insurgency, the Obama administration should put the squeeze on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to stop pouring billions of dollars into these radical groups, says…

Obama’s Half-Billion to Syria’s ‘Moderates’

President Obama’s plan to spend another half-billion dollars on Syria’s “moderate” rebels will add more fuel to the destructive violence just as the killing was finally dying down. It’s also hard to see how this investment will promote serious negotiations, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…

Understanding Islamic Fundamentalism

Islamic Fundamentalism frightens the West and that fear has motivated a fierce retaliation deploying more weapons and inflicting more slaughter. But in not understanding what drives the jihadists the military strategies may be making matters worse, observes ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk.

Iraqi Chaos May Give Kurds a State

Millions of Kurds live in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria but the British-French imperial division of the region left them without a state of their own, adding to the region’s tensions. But some Kurds see the current chaos in Iraq…

The Wisdom of Lawrence of Arabia

A century ago, during World War I, a British intelligence officer known as “Lawrence of Arabia” deeply understood the Mideast and saw hope for rational politics, but Western imperial ambitions intervened to ensure regional instability, as Bill Moyers and Michael…

America’s Blunderbuss Wars

U.S. policymakers and pundits proclaim that America’s role in the world is all for the good. But more objective observers see a pattern of clumsy and brutal interference that can touch off cascades of chaos and death, as ex-State Department official William…

Obama’s True Foreign-Policy ‘Weakness’

Special Report:  President Obama has shied away from confronting Washington’s neocons who continue to exercise undue influence at think tanks, on op-ed pages and even inside Obama’s administration. With the new Iraq crisis, Obama’s timidity is coming back to haunt him, writes Robert Parry.

Avoiding the Iraq-Syria Abyss

The urge to expand wars in the Middle East, rather than find pragmatic ways to tamp them down, is even more absurd when set against the potential for peaceful cooperation in the region and the desperate need for the world to address existential…

Misreading Benghazi and Terrorism

The Republican case of a Benghazi terror “cover-up” never made much sense because President Obama immediately called it an “act of terror.” But now other parts of the GOP’s contorted narrative are collapsing as well, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…