books

In Syria, Keeping the Faith

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd Boston Review
In Burning Country, journalist Robin Yassin-Kassab and human rights activist Leila Al-Shami make plain that no matter how long the Syrian war rages or how distant a political settlement may appear, the world owes it to the Syrian people to hear their stories and support their cause. The book portrays the opposition as a movement of protest against Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime, something missed abroad amid the factionalism and power politics driving the conflict.

books

America's War for the Greater Middle East

Steve Donoghue Christian Science Monitor
This new book by a retired Army colonel and emeritus professor of history at Boston University tells the story of decades of US policy failures in the Middle East.

New York Times Parody Edition

Ten thousand copies of a special supplement of The New York Times created by Jewish Voice for Peace focused on Israel and Palestine.

The Second Tunisian Revolution

Giuliana Sgrena il manifesto
Protests expanded across the country this week in reminiscence of the Arab Spring. Unemployment is high, and citizens are unhappy with the pace and direction of reform.

Doubling Down on a Failed Strategy The Pentagon’s Dangerous “New” Base Plan Ring War in the Middle East

David Vine TomDispatch
It’s worth asking what those special ops forces of “ours,” relied on ever more heavily from one administration to the next, and settling into so many bases, actually represent. It’s hard to argue that they are there for the defense of this country. Like the bases themselves, they are, it seems, carrying out the increasingly messy business of empire in the far reaches of the planet. They are, you might say, Washington’s imperial shock troops.

The Saudis Are Stumbling. They May Take the Middle East with Them

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
America's leading Sunni ally is proving how easily hubris, delusion, and old-fashioned ineptitude can trump even bottomless wealth. The price of oil dropped from $115 a barrel in June 2014 to around $44 today. While it costs less than $10 to produce a barrel of Saudi oil, the Saudis need a price between $95 and $105 to balance their budget. The country's leaders are now burning through their foreign reserves to make up the difference.

How the U.S. Created Middle East Mayhem

Rebecca Gordon TomDispatch
To this day, it remains difficult to take in the degree to which the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq destabilized the Greater Middle East from the Chinese border to Libya. Though you’ll seldom find it mentioned in one place, five countries in the region -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen -- have all disintegrated as nation states. Three were the focus of direct American interventions, the fourth (Yemen) was turned into a drone hunting ground.

Are the U.S. and Russia Forming 5 New States in the Middle-East?

Keith K C Hui Foreign Policy in Focus
The Middle-East map is being redrawn in Syria and Iraq by Moscow and Washington. The Obama Administration is co-leading with the Kremlin to help slice the Syria-Iraq area into five or more political states so as to deconflict this region and hopefully reduce the attractiveness of ISIL.

After Obama: Clinton vs. Sanders

John Feffer Foreign Policy in Focus
Hillary Clinton just laid out a hawkish foreign policy vision in a major speech. How do her views stack up against those of Bernie Sanders, her challenger from the left?
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