Among the many memories I have of growing up in Tehran are of my elementary school days in Ms. Naji’s class. On one occasion, she assigned a poem by the celebrated 13th century Iranian poet and mystic, Saadi Shirazi. Our class was asked to write our reflections on...
The mainstream media is full of reports that Venezuela is threatening to go to war in order to steal most of Guyana. But it is neither clear that Venezuela is threatening war, nor that annexing the territory would be theft. On December 14, under pressure from the...
Just before leaving town for Christmas break, the US House gave Americans a last-minute holiday gift: a nearly trillion dollar military spending bill filled with lots of goodies for the special interests and the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, the rest of...
In my childhood, we at least acknowledged the ominous existence of nuclear weapons, no matter how weirdly. I’m thinking about those times we kids spent at school “ducking and covering” under our desks, practicing for… yes, the atomic annihilation of New York City by...
There is a growing body of compelling evidence showing that Russia and Ukraine were involved in serious negotiations to end the war in Ukraine right after it started on 24 February 2022. These talks were facilitated by Turkish President Recep Erdogan and former...
Reprinted with permission from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The United States should not be part of a post-war stabilization force in Gaza. There are some proposals circulating in Washington for a U.S.-led post-war force, but this would be deeply...
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated sixty years ago. If he had lived and won a second term, the Israeli Palestinian conflict would have evolved differently. Possibly the path toward Israeli apartheid and genocide in Gaza could have been avoided. In his short...
David Arakhamiya’s recent interview enhances our understanding of the diplomatic course of the war in Ukraine in two crucial ways. Despite the political West’s insistence that Vladimir Putin had more expansive goals for invading Ukraine, Arakhamiya says that Moscow...
Zelensky’s fame and glory in the West are indisputable, and his rise to celebrity status is remarkable. The transition from a comedian who played the piano on stage with his pants down to a politician who was compared by the media to Abraham Lincoln, Winston...
