ERBIL, Iraq — In 2010, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria asked President Barack Obama in a private letter to sponsor new peace talks between Syria and Israel, a diplomatic chimera for a string of American presidents. The major sticking point was control of the Golan Heights, a rocky, strategic plateau at the flammable juncture between […]
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On April 9, Israelis will go to the polls to choose their next government. The campaign has largely been a referendum on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should remain Israel’s leader in light of his expected indictment in three corruption cases for bribery and breach of trust. With those scandals front and center, policy disagreements […]
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With a midday tweet on Thursday, President Trump voiced his support of Israeli control over the Golan Heights, reversing decades of American policy. The move thrust the Golan Heights — a fertile plateau beside the Sea of Galilee that has been one of Israel’s quieter frontiers for a half-century — back into international headlines. The […]
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By Bob Dreyfuss, an investigative journalist and founder of TheDreyfussReport.com. He is a contributing editor at the Nation, and he has written for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the American Prospect, the New Republic, and many other magazines. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist […]
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Since Rami Malek’s eloquent acceptance speech for the best actor award at the Oscars last Sunday, in which he talked about his Egyptian roots, social media has been abuzz with Arab pride. “No waaaaaaay!!! FREAKIN’ RAMI MALEK WON!!!! Arab Pride right here! We are so, so proud!” read one tweet. […]
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Yves here. I would not underestimate the stupidity of the US, given that our strategy in Venezuela, and potentially in Iran, seems to be based on the same fallacy as our invasion of Iraq: “They will welcome us with flowers.” And John Bolton seems even more than most neocons to […]
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This week, the United States and Poland will be co-hosting a summit in Warsaw to “Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East.” More than 70 countries have been invited, a departure from the Trump administration’s usual unilateralism. Unfortunately, history suggests the conference won’t amount to much. […]
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Pope Francis starts a landmark, three-day visit to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, becoming the first pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church to visit the Arabian Peninsula. The visit offers a rare note of hope for Christians in the Middle East, who in recent decades have come under intense […]
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AL MUGHAYIR, West Bank — A gang of a dozen or so armed Jewish settlers descended from a hilltop outpost to the Palestinian village below and opened fire, witnesses said. Israeli soldiers arrived, and instead of stopping the settlers, the witnesses said, they either stood by or clashed with the […]
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John Limbert belongs to an exclusive club — the 52 American diplomats held hostage by Iran for 444 days during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since that crisis, which began 40 years ago next month, the two countries shared an enmity that has only grown worse under President Trump. Secretary of […]
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Yves here. I am surprised that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about not caring about Trump’s agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all […]
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CAIRO — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out a new manifesto for American action in the Middle East on Thursday, telling a university audience here that “the age of self-inflicted American shame is over” and that the United States would take a far more activist role in the region, […]
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CAIRO — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scathingly repudiated President Barack Obama’s approach to the Middle East on Thursday, using a speech in Cairo to reject what he called the previous administration’s timidity toward Islamic extremism and misguided outreach to Iran. A decade after Mr. Obama delivered a landmark speech, […]
Read MorePresident Donald Trump defended his decision to fire his Defense Secretary Gen. Jim Mattis, saying he was not pleased with progress on the war in Afghanistan. “What’s he done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good, not too good,” Trump said. “I’m not happy with what he’s done in Afghanistan, and […]
Read MoreAccording to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill, a slim majority of surveyed U.S. voters support President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria and limit the country’s military presence in Afghanistan. Fifty-two percent of those surveyed stated they back the president’s decision, which shocked the nation when it was announced. […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Turkey is threatening to invade Syria to eradicate Kurdish fighters. Syrian forces are rolling toward territory the Americans will soon abandon. Israel is bombing Iran-backed militias deep inside Syria. And Russia could soon move to crush the last vestige of the Syrian anti-government insurgency. The Syria that […]
Read MoreNBC News and a variety of other media outlets falsely reported that President Donald Trump did not visit U.S. troops in a combat zone during Christmastime. NBC has yet to retract its demonstrably fake headline, and has left the fake story up on its website as of publication of this article. On Wednesday afternoon, White […]
Read MorePresident Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump made a secret Christmas trip to visit the troops in Iraq, the White House revealed Wednesday. The president and the first lady departed late on Christmas night from Andrews Air Force base. The news was confirmed by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Twitter. President Trump […]
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Jim Mattis, as secretary of defense, has done his best to preserve and defend the system of global alliances that the United States spent the last 70 years building and leading. In his resignation letter on Thursday, Mr. Mattis wrote that the United States was the “indispensable nation in the […]
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Yves here. This Real News Network interview with Patrick Cockburn is an antidote to much of what you are seeing and hearing about Trump’s decision to have the US pull out of Syria. BEN NORTON: It’s The Real News Network, and I’m Ben Norton. In a shock to the world, […]
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The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou produced a market meltdown in the morning, with the Dow down over 700 points, with stock retracing to only small losses for the major indices by the end of the session. However, the US extradition request, which presumably will lead to her being […]
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Yves here. We’ve attempted to be restrained in countering the Bush hagiography, since even though there is a great deal not to like about Bush the Senior’s actions and the revisionist history about them, it still seems a bit mean-sprirted to criticize him so close to his funeral (as in […]
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