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Barnett Rubin gives us a thoughtful call to arms on how to prevent war with Iran at the Global Affairs blog. After analyzing the way the Bushies would probably go to war if they can, Rubin writes: ‘ The immediate goal for Democratic presidential candidates and the Democrats (and sensible Republicans) in Congress should be […]

Tom Engelhardt’s essay, “The Empire of Stupidity,” discusses Iraq, Vietnam and ‘victory culture.’ Engelhardt is author of the recently reissued The End of Victory Culture“, with a new preface and conclusion. It is in some ways an answer to Frederick Jackson Turner’s conundrum– if the Frontier had been so central to American identity, what would […]

As Barnett Rubin notes at the Global Affairs blog, Haleh Esfandiari has been allowed to leave Iran and has met her husband, Shaul Bakhash, in Vienna. I am so happy that my friend is free, though I regret the continued imprisonment of three other Iranian-American intellectuals (not to mention many, many prisoners of conscience.) And, […]

More from Barnett Rubin on signs of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran at the Global Affairs blog. He quotes Alex Debat from the Times of London: “the Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days.”

Here’s some light reading for your Labor Day weekend. Afghanistan is pretty clearly becoming a problem for the US diplomatically and militarily of a major sort that would be front page news if it weren’t for the even more deadly horror show in Iraq. Barnett Rubin weighs in on the release of the Korean hostages […]

A Government Accounting Office report has found that the Iraqi government has not met 13 of 18 benchmarks set by the US Congress. The report was leaked before it could be doctored by the Bush administration, which promptly denounced it and pledged to . . . doctor it. Another thing that could be said is […]

Barnett Rubin relays a message from a well-connected friend in Washington on the Cheney Administration’s plans to roll out a military confrontation with Iran in September. He writes at the Global Affairs blog: ” My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way: […]

First Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was read to step into the vacuum when the US was forced out of Iraq. He oddly said that Iran’s friends, including Saudi Arabia, would help in this task. The hyper-Sunni Saudi government is actually not very friendly with Shiite Iran at all. Then Bush rattled sabers […]

The great shame of it all is that Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General despite it being widely known that he had played a central role in attempting to authorize the use of torture on prisoners in US custody. He had tossed aside the US Constitution’s own prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” (such […]