Israel/Palestine Peace Talks
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has emerged from intensive discussions with the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority having arranged the resumption of so-called peace talks. This is...
View ArticleU.S. Government Espionage
Espionage is an eternal activity of governments. Once upon a time, governments spied primarily on other governments. Today, they spy on everybody, and I do mean everybody. We all have learned recently,...
View ArticleArmies in Power
It is almost always bad news when armies are in power. In Egypt, the army has been the deciding force since 1952. The recent destitution by the Egyptian army of President Mohamed Morsi was not a coup...
View ArticleU.S. Military Strike in Syria on Hold
For the past month at least, the world seems to have been discussing nothing but whether, how, and when the United States will engage in a punitive air strike of some sort against the Syrian regime of...
View ArticleHeroic Leniency: Iran and the United States
In the diplomatic negotiations that are now quite unexpectedly blossoming between Iran and the United States, one has to say that the Iranians have shown the greater capacity for verbal formulas that...
View ArticleThe Samson Complex
In the Bible there is a famous story of Samson, who is a hero. There are many interpretations of the meaning of the tale in which Samson, an Israelite, and someone of God-granted strength, pulls down...
View ArticleConsequences of U.S. Decline
I have long argued that U.S. decline as a hegemonic power began circa 1970 and that a slow decline became a precipitate one during the presidency of George W. Bush. I first started writing about this...
View ArticleCivil War Nearing End in Colombia
There has been civil war in Colombia more or less continuously since 1948. It seems it may finally be coming to an end. It is ending the way most other long-lasting civil wars end. A changed...
View ArticleFrance’s Aggressive Foreign Policy
In the last few years, France has asserted herself on the international scene in a very active way – first under President Nicolas Sarkozy and then even more under President François Hollande. She led...
View ArticleKarzai Demands Respect
Pres. Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is not taken very seriously in the United States – not by the government, the media, or the general public. One good piece of evidence: On December 10, he gave a long...
View ArticleSouth Africa after Mandela
The icon is dead. Long live what? The world was treated in December 2013 to a celebration of Nelson Mandela’s funeral that was incredible. The elegies were never-ending. More heads of state and...
View ArticleSyria: Intractable Dilemmas for Everyone
There was a time when all, or almost all, actors in the Middle East had clear positions. Other actors were able to anticipate, with a high degree of success, how this or that actor would react to any...
View ArticlePanic About World Deflation
Not so long ago, the pundits and the investors saw the “emerging markets” – a euphemism for China, India, Brazil, and some others – as the rescuers of the world-economy. They were the ones that would...
View ArticleThe Geopolitics of Ukraine’s Schism
Ukraine has been suffering a profound internal schism for some time now, one that is threatening to become one of those ugly civil wars that are occurring in more and more countries. The boundaries of...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia: Besieged and Fearful
The Saudi regime has long been considered a pillar of political stability in the Middle East, a country that commanded respect and prudence from all its neighbors. This is no longer true, and the first...
View ArticleU.S.-Iran Negotiations: Parallel Dilemmas
For the last month or so there have been formal negotiations between the United States and Iran on nuclear questions. Actually, the negotiations had been going on unofficially and secretly for over six...
View ArticleLibertarian Politics in the United States
The general elections of most countries with parliamentary systems have largely functioned in the same way. They have had some regular alternation between two parties, one ostensibly left-of-center and...
View ArticleContinuing Nuclear Proliferation
The United States and Iran are in the midst of difficult negotiations about the possible acquisition by Iran of nuclear weapons. The likelihood that these negotiations will result in an agreed-upon...
View ArticleThe Neo-Zapatistas: Twenty Years After
On January 1, 2014, the Ejército Zapatista de Libéración Nacional (EZLN) celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its uprising in Chiapas. This year, they are engaging in a self-appraisal. In April, in...
View ArticleThe Center Isn’t Holding Very Well
The list of countries with enduring and worsening civil strife is growing. A short while ago, the world media were highlighting Syria. Now they are highlighting Ukraine. Will it be Thailand tomorrow?...
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