Portside

As Saudi Arabia continues its air assault on Yemen’s Houthi insurgents, supporters and opponents of the Riyadh monarchy are reconfiguring the political landscape in a way that’s unlikely to vanish once the fighting is over. The Saudis have constructed what at first glance seems a formidable coalition consisting of the Arab League, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Turkey, and the United States. Except that the “coalition” isn’t as solid as it looks.

While the Syrian opposition is understandably bitter that the YPG and YPJ withdrew most of their energy from the war with Assad, leftists worldwide should be watching the remarkable efforts being made by Syrian Kurds and their allies to build a liberated area where they can develop their ideas about socialism, democracy, women, and ecology in practice.

Claims Iran is supplying the Houthis with weapons ignore the fact the group was already flush with American arms from ex-president Saleh.

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The GOP (with aid from some hawkish Democrats) is intent on killing any possibility of a final agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. They hope to put together a veto-proof majority to pass the Nuclear Agreement Review Act - S.615, introduced by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), that will torpedo any agreement reached with Iran. Take Action Now!

Netanyahu should accept the American offer of dialogue on the draft agreement reached in Lausanne, instead of signalling his intent to scupper it out of hand.

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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was given repeated access to millions of Americans to talk trash about the deal over the weekend and to make mostly false allegations about its contours. What does he want? Netanyahu wants to keep Iran poor and undeveloped. He wants to make sure that “crippling” sanctions aren’t lifted. He wants to keep Iranians in grinding poverty.