Syria

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Like many American boys of the baby-boomer generation, I played “war” with those old, olive-drab, plastic toy soldiers meant to evoke our great victory over the Nazis and “the Japs” during World War II. At age 10, I also kept a scrapbook of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and […]

Iraq

Washington Chooses Genocide over Diplomacy in the Middle East

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also […]

Featured

Top 3 Things Biden could Do instead of intensively Bombing Iraq and Syria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration launched 85 air strikes on Friday against small bases of the Party of God Brigades (Kata’ib Hizbullah), an Iraqi Shiite militia active in Iraq and Syria. The organization is likely the culprit in Sunday’s drone strike against the Tower 22 US base in the far north of […]

Houthi

Biden Must Choose Between a Ceasefire in Gaza and a Regional War

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – In the topsy-turvy world of corporate media reporting on U.S. foreign policy, we have been led to believe that U.S. air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria are legitimate and responsible efforts to contain the expanding war over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while the actions of the Houthi government in […]

Bashar al-Assad

Domicide: the Destruction of Homes in Gaza reminds me of what happened to my City, Homs

The Conversation

By Ammar Azzouz, University of Oxford | – This article accompanies an episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast featuring an interview with the author, Ammar Azzouz. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 has forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes. At least 43% […]

Featured

US Troops in Iraq, Syria, targeted by Shiite Militias in Sympathy with Occupied Palestinians of Gaza

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Wednesday, Al-Quds al-`Arabi reports two rockets were fired at `Ayn al-Asad base in al-Anbar Province, Iraq, where US troops are stationed. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin both put pressure on Iraqi prime minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani. Al-Sudani reaffirmed his determination to […]

Climate Crisis

From Egypt’s Nile to Iraq’s Tigris-Euphrates, only Water Diplomacy can Forestall Coming Climate Conflicts

Middle East Monitor

By Prof. Dr. Aysegul Kibaroglu ( Middle East Monitor ) – One of the most pressing issues of the 21st century is the management and allocation of the limited freshwater resources in the world. Since an important number of those water resources are trans-boundary, crossing the political boundaries of more than one nation, the […]

Afghanistan

How 9/11 Bred a “War on Terror” from Hell

Tomdispatch

By Norman Solomon | – [Today’s piece is adapted from the introduction to Norman Solomon’s book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine (The New Press, 2023).] ( Tomdispatch.com) – The day after the U.S. government began routinely bombing faraway places, the lead editorial in the New York Times […]

Featured

Putin’s Assassination of Prigozhin Decapitates Wagner’s Empire in Libya, Sudan, Syria and E. Europe, and Puts Oligarchs on Notice

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Russia confirmed Tuesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, ex-convict oligarch and leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, died in a plane crash last week. Prigozhin had, in fact, been a dead man walking ever since he masterminded an aborted mutiny against Russia’s military leadership on June 23 of this year. His […]