News Abroad

The War Over Jerusalem

by Daniel Mandel

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are foredoomed for now. The party conference of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah in August – where the platform, resolutions and speakers from Abbas down rejected Israel’s self-identity as a Jewish state and any attempt to delegitimize terrorism against her – tells us as much. But diplomatic flurry often obscures matters, and one might bel

Looking for a Common Language at Copenhagen

by Kenneth Weisbrode

So much emphasis about the global summit at Copenhagen has been on the substance-climate change-that the format of the meeting has been over

Obama, Copenhagen, and the Global Warming Skeptics

by Walter G. Moss

Thanks in part to the influence of such conservative thinking, as well as that of lobbyists like those from ExxonMobil, global warming skepticism is much higher in the United States than in most other leading economic nations.

The Neglected Art of Diplomacy

by Kenneth Weisbrode

It has become a commonplace that the post-Bush era is one of the unclenched fist. Gone are the days of military “cakewalks,” shock and awe. G

Iraq: Your Next Holiday Destination

by Scott Laderman

Craving warm weather? Looking for somewhere a little different to take the family next year? Iraq, it turns out, is once again open to tourists. Technically, it was never closed. But as unfortunate traveler

Thinking Outside the Box: What Obama Could Have Said

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Much of the American public is skeptical about the value of Obama's plan, announced in his address of December 1, to send another 30,000 U.S. troops to fight an apparently endless war in Afghanistan, and with good reason.  If, after eight years of sending U.S. and NATO soldiers to wage this war, al Qaeda maintains its foothold

Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration Can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace

by Antony Adolf

The Swiss are usually characterized as among the most hospitable people in the world, especially when it comes to keeping foreign coff

The Obama Non-Doctrine

by Emily S. Rosenberg

In September, 2002, George W. Bush addressed cadets at West Point and advanced his “Bush Doctrine.” Elaborated over the next year, it had two critical features:  The United States would wage preventative war tied to future imagined attacks. The United States was engaged in nothing less than global transformation. Many commentators, noting President Bush’s lofty rhetoric about using military force to end war and to spread American-style democracy globally, labeled hi

Obama’s Contributions to a Dying Empire

by Francis Shor

Old habits die hard, especially imperialist ones. Imperial imperatives, whether economic, geopolitical, or ideological, persist because the ruling elites are dependent on them. In order to conceal imperialist objectives, presidents and other leaders of the US political

Darfur: Time To Let The People Speak

by Linda Bishai

Located in the heart of a poverty-stricken region of Africa, with no history of tourism or known exports, Darfur has nonetheless become a familiar name in American and European households.  Numerous rallies, c

How to Get Out of Afghanistan

by William Polk

In its war in Afghanistan, the United States has come to a crossroads.  President Obama will be forced to choose one of four ways ahead.  The choices are expensive and dangerous for our country; so we must be sure that he chooses the least painful, least expensive and safest of the possible choices. The first possible choice is to keep on doing what we are now doing.  That is, fighting the insurgency with about 60,000 American troops and 68,197 mercenaries at a

Why We Need to Make Sure We Know Our Enemies Today as well as We Knew the USSR by the End of the Cold War

by David C. Engerman

            November marked the anniversaries of two events that defined the twentieth century: the Bolshe

Why It Is Time for a Much More Critical History of Human Rights

by Eric D. Weitz

On his Asia visit of the last few days, President Obama artfully dodged many of the burning issues relating to China's miserable record on human rights. But he did

Thanksgiving for Truman's Cabinet Committee on Food

by William Lambers

During Thanksgiving week in 1947, the Truman administration had food very much on their minds. No, not planning a feast at the White House. In fact, the New York Times reported that President Truman and his family denied themsel

Who's Afraid of World Government?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

A few weeks ago, Glenn Beck of the Fox News Channel, with that hysterical flourish that has made him the darling of rightwing extremists, proclaimed:  "America, if . . . you're not really into that whole One World Government thing, watch out."  This kind of warning, regularly issued on Fox News, seems rather absu

Secretary Clinton -- Leader or Figurehead?

by Kenneth Weisbrode

Several bomb blasts accompanied Hillary Clinton's recent trip to Pakistan. This was a wake-up call in more ways than one. The moment had come for Clinton to act more boldly as the nation's top diplomat. Historically our best secretaries of state have been those who think creatively and move assertively. Likewise our most effective foreign policies have come under strong and secure secretaries of state. Of course, the verdict is far from in on Secretary Clinton, but if she doesn't lo

Guantanamo, USA: The Untold History of America's Cuban Outpost

by Stephen Irving Max Schwab

Despite the negative attention that Guantánamo continues to receive because of its infamous detention/interrogation center, most critics are only vaguely aware that it is also a

What Is Zionism?

by Alex Grobman

Zionism — the Jewish national renaissance movement — is one of the most misunderstood

How James Monroe Policies Might Help Obama Triumph over Foreign Foes

by Harlow Giles Unger

As President Obama struggles to end threats to American security in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, he might find solutions in policies that one of his earliest predecessors, James Monr

The Cost of Empire

by Deepak Tripathi

President Barack Obama is having a bad time. The health reforms he so confidently promised have been bogged down in Congress for months; his Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, said the other day that the pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay priso