International Politics and Economy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Earlier this month, the Trump administration released its new National Security Strategy, or NSS. Normally, such documents are poor predictors of what’s likely to happen in the real world. They are more like branding tools that communicate the attitudes of a given administration while rarely offering a detailed or accurate picture […]

Artificial Intelligence

From Sykes-Picot to Silicon Valley: Why Middle East Fault Lines now run through American Tech

Jasim Al-Azzawi

( Middle East Monitor ) – In 1916, the Middle East was partitioned by its rulers with ink between Britain and France. A hundred years later, with borders drawn by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, territories continue to contend with claims to legitimacy, sovereignty, and foreign intervention. The Middle East holds a reset, but not in a […]

American Jews

In 2025, 65% of Americans view Muslims Favorably, 85% view Jews Favorably

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development and director of the Critical Issues Poll at the University of Maryland has the results of a sounding done this past summer on American attitudes to Jews and Muslims. The PDF of his conclusions and those of his colleague Michael […]

Authoritarianism

Sudan’s Agony: Surprising Lessons for the US Resistance to Trump

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Follow a line south and west from the Gaza strip, continue through Egypt, and you’ll end up in another place where a genocide is in progress. It’s one we don’t hear much about in the United States, probably because it’s happening in an African nation, one of those places Donald Trump […]

Corruption

At Trump’s Prompting, Israel’s Netanyahu seeks a Pardon, But Israeli Law may not Work that Way

The Conversation

By John Strawson, University of East London (The Conversation) – The interesting thing about Benjamin Netanyahu’s call on Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pardon him for charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, is that he has not been found guilty on any of them. The trial is made up of three separate but […]

censorship

Labeling dissent as Terrorism: Trump’s NSPM-7 raises Constitutional Alarms

The Conversation

By Melinda Haas, University of Pittsburgh (The Conversation) – A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, is a presidential directive that for the […]

Arab Spring

Great Powers and the People: The Divergent Paths of the Egyptian and Syrian Revolutions

Mehmet Rakipoglu

Exeter, UK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The Arab revolutionary wave that began in 2011 presents two of its most significant, yet fundamentally divergent, case studies: Egypt and Syria. While both nations experienced the overthrow of long-standing authoritarian regimes, the mechanisms, actors, and ultimate outcomes of their revolutions differed significantly. A comparative analysis reveals […]

Featured

Sorry, White Nationalists, Europeans were Black until the Rise of Rome, and Rome was Multiracial

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We live in a time when a once level-headed anti-populist politician such as J. D. Vance has increasingly adopted the language of white nationalism, signing on to the Great Replacement theory that nefarious forces, often coded as Jewish, are bringing in immigrants to replace “white” Americans, attacking “multiculturalism” and aligning […]

Arms Sales

A 40-year Fight against Cluster Bombs offers Lessons to stop the US-Israel Weapons Pipeline

Waging Nonviolence

The Honeywell Project in Minneapolis showed how to beat a weapons maker: obstruct operations, recruit workers as allies, build camaraderie and persist no matter what. Joseph Mogul ( Waging Nonviolence ) – After more than two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, popular outrage has mounted against the weapons manufacturers enabling the slaughter. The antiwar […]