Middle East 4 ChangeThe Embalming of Syria
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Edward Hunt The Syrian civil war, which has been raging since 2011, is one of the worst tragedies of the early twenty-first century. Approximately half a million people…
Trump Administration declares US an Occupying Power in Iraq
Monday, January 13, 2020
Juan Cole The Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdulmahdi late last week requested a meeting with the US government to plan out the departure of US troops, which has…
For a workers movement to stop US war on Iran
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Oakland Socialist The best – the only – way to build a successful movement against a US war on Iran is to build a workers movement that includes…
Iraq’s Worst Fears Have Come True: a Proxy War on Its Doorstep
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Patrick Cockburn Iraqis have a well-honed instinct about approaching danger which stems from their grim experience during 40 years of crisis and war. Three months ago, I asked…
Trump Unites Iran and Iraq . . . against the United States
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Juan Cole As is always the way with Western colonialists, Trump administration figures such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo gave it out on Friday that the people…
Iran’s Military Strategy
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Hadi Ajili and Mahsa Rouhi On 20 June 2019, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down a United States RQ-4A Global Hawk BAMS-D surveillance drone over the…
When You Follow the Gun Trail, You Can End Up in Expected Places
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Robert Fisk I’ve always wanted to find out where the guns came from. Who were the ‘willing accomplices’ to the wars I witnessed? In 1996, I traced to…
Erdogan’s Ethnic Cleansing of the Kurds is Still Happening
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Patrick Cockburn Mass expulsion or the physical extermination of an entire ethnic or religious community – ethnic cleansing – is usually treated by the media in one of…
Up In Smoke: The Neocon Assault on Syria Is Finally Over
Saturday, October 26, 2019
David Stockman By a vote of 354-60 last week the U.S. House of Representative proved that Imperial Washington is addicted to war, and that the level of ignorance,…
The Wounds of War
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Kathy Kelly Its economy gutted by war, Afghanistan’s largest cash crop remains opium. Yet farmers there do grow other crops for export. Villagers in the Wazir Tangi area…
No to the invasion and occupation of northeastern Syria by the Turkish army
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
The Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists condemn Turkeys invasion of Northeastern Syria and its deadly assault on the Kurds. Last week, after U.S. president Trump…
Erdoğan gets green light
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Esen Uslu The months-long bargaining for a tit-for-tat deal with Turkey has eventually reached its culmination, with Donald Trump withdrawing his token forces from the Turkish-Syrian border area….
A Year After Khashoggi’s Murder, Saudi Arabia is Lurching Toward Chaos
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Robert Fisk The Saudis are taking a pasting. Video pictures from the Houthis of Saudi soldiers and their allies killed or surrendering inside the Saudi border town of…
Three Saudi Brigades Annihilated in Devastating Houthi Offensive in Saudi Arabia
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Federico Pieraccini Many may have hitherto been led to believe that the Houthis were a ragtag armed force lacking in sophistication. Many, seeing the drone and missile attacks…
A Bold Reconceptualization of the Compulsory 1923 Greco-Turkish Exchange of Populations
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Elektra Kostopoulou. Humanism in Ruins: Entangled Legacies of the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange. by Aslı Iğsız. Stanford University Press 2018. At the start of 2019, almost eighty million people…
Yemen: The Deeper Meaning in a Lost War
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Alastair Crooke. It’s pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and, notes Bruce Riedel, “the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners”. Saudi proxies in Aden – the seat…
The Fighting Dramatically Escalates As Both Sides Prepare For “The Final War” Between Israel And Iran
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Michael Snyder Are we about to see World War 3 erupt in the Middle East? Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian…
Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field Ends War On Yemen
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines….
Rattling the Nuclear Cage: India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and the US
Monday, August 19, 2019
Robert Fisk. We like our anniversaries in blocks of 50 or 100 – at a push we’ll tolerate a 25. The 100th anniversary of the Somme (2016), the 75th anniversary of…
Persian Gulf: Tanker wars and propaganda
Monday, July 29, 2019
Yassamine Mather. The conflict between Iran and the United States is in its early stages, yet we are already witnessing war propaganda, and the presentation of outright lies…
It’s Trump Who Needs to be Deterred From War Not Iran
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Robert Fisk. It’s about time we wised up to what is going on in this utterly farcical “crisis” in the Gulf, this charade of lies and pomposity which…
Turkey’s arms industry is on a war footing – High-risk foreign adventures
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Esen Uslu. In the aftermath of the defeat of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Istanbul mayoral elections, the survival instincts of his…
US Media Creating a Climate for War With Iran
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Media outlets are creating a climate for a US military attack on Iran by hyping the idea that Iran is an imminent threat to peace, by failing to…
Making Peace: A poem by Denise Levertov
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
A voice from the dark called out, ‘The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of…
Iran Had the Legal Right to Shoot Down US Spy Drone
Monday, June 24, 2019
Marjorie Cohn. The New York Times is reporting that on June 20, President Trump ordered military strikes against Iran to retaliate for its shootdown of a U.S. drone, but then pulled back…
Persian Gulf: The War Of Oil Tankers
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Dr Alias Ankle. The economic war waged by Trump’s administration against Iran seems to have been escalated to involve false flag attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf…
Turkish doctors imprisoned for stating: War is a global threat to public health
Friday, June 21, 2019
We condemn unequivocally the sentencing to prison of Turkish doctors promoting peace. A 2000 World Health Organization working paper begins with two simple declarations: “The first principle of…
U.S. Rushes to Blame Iran for Tanker Attacks as Much of World Pushes for Diplomacy
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Vijay Prashad. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are again ratcheting up as the Trump administration accused Iran of orchestrating an attack Thursday on Japanese and Norwegian oil…
Arms Manufacturers Tell Investors That Iran Tension Fuels Business
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Lee Fang. Defense executives from around the country crowded into Goldman Sachs’ glimmering tower in downtown Manhattan in mid-May, eager to present before a conference of bankers and financial analysts….
Empire and the War in Yemen: A Conversation with Afrah Nasser, Stacey Philbrick Yadav, and Adam Hanieh on The Dig Podcast
Saturday, May 25, 2019
The United States has played a major role in fomenting violence across Yemen, backing the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led forces attacking the country while also conducting a…