Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Trump met behind closed doors on Monday with President Ahmad al-Sharaa of Syria for about an hour. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also met with his opposite number, Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani. One of the topics of discussion, according to the Syrian press, was ways […]
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US Foreign Policy
On the Occasion of Dick Cheney’s Passing: “All the Vice President’s Men”
Richard Bruce Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States, is dead at 84. He broke with the Republican Party at the end of his life and voted for Kamala Harris, perhaps aware of the way in which his own politics had turned the country to the far right. Long before Trump, Cheney purveyed […]
Conflicting Visions of an International Force for Gaza in Istanbul and Washington
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Two visions of the future of Gaza are congealing, in two different power centers. One is the Arab and Muslim foreign ministers who met Monday in Istanbul, including Türkiye, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Tuesday morning that the […]
What I saw in Vietnam, 50 Years after the War and Ecocide
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – This year 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Vietnam from the “American War.” The war officially ended in 1973 but the remaining Americans fled South Vietnam in chaotic air and sea lifts two years later as North Vietnam forces invaded to unite their country. […]
The World confronts the Genocide Washington is trying to Bury
( Code Pink ) – On October 4th, 2025, in an interview with Axios, President Trump stressed that one of the main goals behind his Gaza plan was to restore Israel’s international standing. “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world,” Trump said. “Now I am gonna get […]
Juan Cole on Gaza, U.S. Policy, and the Future of the Middle East
I was welcomed onto David Lin’s Podcast, “The David Lin Report” to talk about Gaza, the Middle East and the US-China rivalry. Embedded video and transcript below. He describes it this way: The David Lin Report! I’ll be reporting on the most impactful market-moving events, as well as interviewing experts in finance, economics, science, and […]
Terror from the Skies in the Middle East: Israel and the Ghost of Bomber Harris
Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com . Check out the great Tom Engelhardt’s introduction at that site, where he reminds us of the eerie similarity of today’s Washington strategy toward the Middle East, of intensive bombardment, to that of Nixon-Kissinger in Southeast Asia. For people of my generation, it raises the sad question […]
How Trump is Demolishing U. S. Global Power and its World Order
( Tomdispatch.com ) – In his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, which is eerily evocative of our current political plight, Gabriel Garcia Marquez described how a Latin American autocrat “discovered in the course of his uncountable years that a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth, [and] […]
The Gulf Cooperation Council, NATO, and the Collapse of Collective Security
San Marcos, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Within the span of 24 hours in early September, Russia deployed drones into Polish airspace, and Israel launched an aerial attack in Doha, Qatar. Although few commentaries were made connecting the two events, both states deployed airpower to regional collective security organizations, specifically the Gulf Cooperation […]
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