Foreign Policy Category Archive

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A New Definition of Warfare

Sanctions can be more deadly than bullets

Philip Giraldi • January 21, 2020

• 1,600 Words • 88 Comments • Reply

Supporters of Donald Trump often make the point that he has not started any new wars. One might observe that it has not been for lack of trying, as his cruise missile attacks on Syria based on fabricated evidence and his recent assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have been indisputably acts of war. Trump... Read More

For the 0.5% Not the 99.5%

Gilad Atzmon • January 20, 2020

• 1,200 Words • 49 Comments • Reply

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, then the British Labour Party is institutionally insane and beyond recovery. Labour’s leadership candidates didn’t learn a thing from their Party’s humiliating electoral defeat last month. Instead of returning to universal anti racist politics consistent with so-called ‘Labour values,’ the... Read More

$Polish \"Neo-Nazi\" Protest$

The Battle for Auschwitz

Israel Shamir • January 20, 2020

• 2,300 Words • 200 Comments • Reply

On Friday, January 17, 2020, three thousand salvos shook the earth of the Russian capital city; the sky over Moscow had been emblazoned by glorious fireworks. This was the repeat of the memorable salute given seventy-five years ago, on January 17, 1945 by 24 salvos of 324 heavy cannons at liberation of Warsaw by the... Read More

Pompeo to Iraq: If You Kick Us Out, We Will Bury You

Mike Whitney • January 20, 2020

• 1,700 Words • 12 Comments • Reply

The Trump administration is threatening to destroy Iraq's economy by withholding a critical source of money that is controlled by the Federal Reserve. The threat is a response to the Iraqi parliament's unanimous decision to end Washington's 17 year-long military occupation. The Iraqi people and their representatives in parliament are incensed by the recent assassination... Read More

How Expansive Is FBI Spying?

Ron Paul • January 20, 2020

• 500 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

Cato Institute Research Fellow Patrick Eddington recently filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out if the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever conducted surveillance of several organizations dealing with government policy, including my Campaign for Liberty. Based on the FBI’s response, Campaign for Liberty and other organizations, including the Cato institute and... Read More

Remarks on the US/China “Trade Deal”

Paul Craig Roberts • January 18, 2020

• 400 Words

The first thing to understand is that it is not a trade deal. It is Trump backing off his tariffs when he discovered that the tariffs fall on US goods and American consumers, not on China. Trump is covering his retraction by calling it a trade deal. China’s part of the deal is to agree... Read More

Ike Was Right

Eric Margolis • January 18, 2020

• 700 Words • 25 Comments • Reply

Congress just passed a near trillion dollar military budget at a time when the United States faces no evident state threats at home or abroad. Ike was right. Illustrating Ike’s prescient warning, Brown University’s respected Watson Institute just released a major study which found that the so-called ‘wars on terror’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and... Read More

How a Hidden Parliamentary Session Revealed Trump’s True Motives in Iraq

Whitney Webb • January 17, 2020

• 4,600 Words • 143 Comments • Reply

The U.S. is adamant that its assassination of Qassem Soleimani and refusal to leave Iraq is about protecting Americans, but a little known Iraqi parliamentary session reveals how China increasingly strong ties to Baghdad may be shaping America’s new Mideast strategy. Since the U.S. killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi... Read More

Could This (Finally!) be the End for the Atlantic Integrationists?

The Saker • January 17, 2020

• 1,500 Words • 220 Comments • Reply

By now we all have heard the news, the entire Russian government has resigned and a new Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, has been appointed. And we also know that the Internet has exploded with all sorts of speculations about what this all could mean. Alas, until we know who will be included in the new... Read More

Pompeo Says Gangland-Style Hit on Soleimani Was "Restoration of Deterrence"

Mike Whitney • January 17, 2020

• 1,200 Words • 194 Comments • Reply

America's "shadow president", Mike Pompeo, has acknowledged that the assassination of Iran's highest-ranking military general, Qassem Soleimani, was part of a broader strategy to restore "real deterrence" by eliminating presumed enemies of the United States. Pompeo's comments at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute on January 13, put to rest earlier claims that the Iranian general had... Read More

Germany's Forgotten Pensioners

Eric Striker • January 17, 2020

• 500 Words • 18 Comments • Reply

According to the technocratic consensus, developed countries with high median ages and low birth rates need mass migration to pay for pensions. What they don't explain is how importing millions of people to gain employment as cleaners, Uber drivers and retail workers at reduced wages in big expensive cities is going to replenish the coffers... Read More

The Roots of American Demonization of Shi’a Islam

Pepe Escobar • January 17, 2020

• 2,300 Words • 211 Comments • Reply

The US targeted assassination, via drone strike, of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, apart from a torrent of crucial geopolitical ramifications, once again propels to center stage a quite inconvenient truth: the congenital incapacity of so-called US elites to even attempt to understand Shi’ism - thus 24/7 demonization, demeaning not only Shi’as by also Shi’a-led governments.... Read More

America's Long History of Meddling in Russia

Ted Rall • January 17, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 6 Comments • Reply

Russia — OK, not the actual Russian government but a private troll farm company located in Russia — bought $100,000 worth of political ads on Facebook designed to change the outcome of the 2016 election. Except that only a small fraction of those ads were political. Also except that the small fraction was divvied up... Read More

The US and Iran’s Perpetual Almost-war Is Unsustainable

Patrick Cockburn • January 17, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 31 Comments • Reply

Today Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei gave his first Friday sermon in Tehran for eight years to an audience of thousands, as he tried to calm down the furious public reaction to the Revolutionary Guards mistakenly shooting down a Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers, then proceeding to lie about their responsibility for three days. Khameinei... Read More

Who Targeted Ukraine Airlines Flight 752? Iran Shot It Down But There May be More to the Story

Philip Giraldi • January 15, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 393 Comments • Reply

The claim that Major General Qassem Soleimani was a “terrorist” on a mission to carry out an “imminent” attack that would kill hundreds of Americans turned out to be a lie, so why should one believe anything else relating to recent developments in Iran and Iraq? To be sure, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 departing... Read More

The Labour Party

Gilad Atzmon • January 15, 2020

• 800 Words • 110 Comments • Reply

Historically, a popular coup against an opposition party is rare. In the last General Election Corbyn’s Labour provided us with just such an exceptional spectacle. Labour managed to alienate its voters. Its leader turned his back on its strongest allies including, among others, Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson. For some reason Corbyn’s Labour turned itself... Read More

Battle of the Ages to Stop Eurasian Integration

Coming decade could see the US take on Russia, China and Iran over the New Silk Road connection

Pepe Escobar • January 15, 2020

• 1,600 Words • 41 Comments • Reply

The Raging Twenties started with a bang with the targeted assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani. Yet a bigger bang awaits us throughout the decade: the myriad declinations of the New Great Game in Eurasia, which pits the US against Russia, China and Iran, the three major nodes of Eurasia integration. Every game-changing act in... Read More

How an Israeli Spy-Linked Tech Firm Gained Access to the US Gov’t’s Most Classified Networks

Whitney Webb • January 14, 2020

• 3,900 Words • 33 Comments • Reply

Through its main investors, SoftBank and Lockheed Martin, Cybereason not only has ties to the Trump administration but has its software running on some of the U.S. government’s most classified and secretive networks. If the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the... Read More

China, Number One Economic Power for Half Decade, Dashes On

Ignorance or Denial by the U.S. Poses Grave Dangers

John V. Walsh • January 14, 2020

• 3,600 Words • 191 Comments • Reply

The recent China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai attracted little attention in the Western press but it is one more reminder that China is an economic and trading powerhouse that has surpassed the US. That is right, the word is “surpassed.” The CIIE also serves to remind us that China’s economic power now stands... Read More

Trump and Congress Double Down on Demonizing Iran

Will the national security nightmare ever end?

Philip Giraldi • January 14, 2020

• 1,600 Words • 259 Comments • Reply

If one seriously seeks to understand how delusional policymakers in Washington are it is only necessary to examine the responses by the president and Congress to the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. The first response came in the form of a Donald Trump largely incoherent nine-minute self-applauding speech explaining what he had done... Read More

Trump's In-Kind Contribution to Bernie

Pat Buchanan • January 14, 2020

• 800 Words • 35 Comments • Reply

The directed killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran's blood-soaked field marshal in the "forever war" of the Middle East, has begun to roil the politics of both the region and the USA. A stunned and shaken Iran retaliated by firing a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq. Yet, before launching the attack, Iran... Read More

The Iranian Protests Are a Washington Orchestration

Paul Craig Roberts • January 13, 2020

• 300 Words

It is difficult to know who is the most stupid, the protesting Iranian students or the Iranian government. The Iranian government, like the governments of Russia and China, permits NGOs financed by their Washington and British enemies, to operate in Iran. Insouciant, indeed stupid, Iranian students receive money, encouragement, organization, and protest power from the... Read More

World War III

C.J. Hopkins • January 13, 2020

• 1,900 Words • 105 Comments • Reply

So, 2020 is off to an exciting start. It’s barely the middle of January, and we’ve already made it through World War III, which was slightly less apocalyptic than expected. Forensic teams are still sifting through the ashes, but preliminary reports suggest that the global capitalist empire has emerged from the carnage largely intact. It... Read More

US to Iraq: ‘Vote All You Want, We’re Not Leaving!’

Ron Paul • January 13, 2020

• 600 Words • 6 Comments • Reply

President Trump’s decision earlier this month to assassinate Iran’s top military general on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraqi government – has damaged the US relationship with its “ally” Iraq and set the region on the brink of war. Iran’s measured response – a few missiles fired on an Iraqi base after... Read More

Trump’s Killing of Soleimani: New “Worst Mistake in US History”

Kevin Barrett • January 12, 2020

• 2,000 Words • 243 Comments • Reply

Donald Trump occasionally utters unspeakable truths. In March 2018 he called Bush Jr.’s decision to invade Iraq “the worst single mistake in US history.” Earlier, Trump had said that Bush should have been impeached for launching that disastrous war. Yet on January 2 2020 Trump made a much bigger mistake: He launched all-out war with... Read More

Of Aircraft, Horses and Zebras

The Saker • January 12, 2020

• 1,300 Words • Leave a Comment

When you go to vet school, they teach you a simple principle: if you are under a bridge and you hear hooves, think of horses first, but don’t forget there are also zebras out there. This is exactly what comes to my mind when I hear all the speculation about the shooting down of the... Read More

Letter to the Young People of Hong Kong

Andre Vltchek • January 12, 2020

• 1,400 Words • 11 Comments • Reply

Now that your city has been in flames for more than six months, your families divided, and no end to the violence is in sight, I have decided to write this short essay, in the form of an open letter, to the young people of Hong Kong. First of all, I want to ask: Why?... Read More

The Iranian Aftermath

Israel Shamir • January 12, 2020

• 2,000 Words • 16 Comments • Reply

Trump was panting heavily, like Darth Vader on the Death Star. The mike was too close to his mouth. His laboured speech and strange look did not match the comforting words as he spoke to the American people. But the meaning was clear: the world sheriff had received a ringing slap in the face. First... Read More

Code-Panic: A Controlled Opposition Spectacle

Gilad Atzmon • January 12, 2020

• 300 Words • 60 Comments • Reply

Ariel Gold is the national co-director of CODEPINK, an American female “grassroots peace and social justice movement” that claims to work “to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations.” Ariel claims to support the Palestinians and oppose Israel. She has published articles in Jewish progressive outlets such as the Forward, Tikkun Magazine and Mondoweiss. On January 3rd,... Read More

Iran’s Accidental Downing of a Ukrainian Plane Is Already Being Used to Smear MH-17 Skeptics

Max Parry • January 11, 2020

• 2,300 Words • 107 Comments • Reply

When the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media to post a single image of the American flag to the adulation of his followers. Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant of the other flag synonymous with U.S. foreign policy, that of the ‘false flag’ utilized... Read More

How the US Runs Iraq

Eric Margolis • January 11, 2020

• 700 Words • 12 Comments • Reply

What ever happened to Iraq? Is it not an independent country with a democratic government thanks to the 2003 US invasion? So says Washington. The murder of senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani suddenly shone a strobe light on ‘independent’ Iraq, and what we saw was not pretty. Welcome to the new Imperialism 101. Iraq’s... Read More

The Danger In Threats

Paul Craig Roberts • January 11, 2020

• 200 Words

The high tensions caused by Washington between the US and Iran are to blame for the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down. “Human error at a time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.” Just as the Iranian commander misinterpreted the airliner’s maneuver as a strike on a military base, an American or... Read More

Did Pompeo Dupe Trump Into the Soleimani Hit??

Mike Whitney • January 10, 2020

• 1,800 Words • 228 Comments • Reply

Donald Trump is under the illusion that the fracas with Iran is over. He thinks that Iran's pinprick missile strikes on US bases in Iraq have assuaged Tehran's thirst for revenge. But he's wrong. The missile strikes were merely the first salvo in an epic cage match between Iran's Axis of Resistance and its 70... Read More

Iran Is Not What You Think

Ted Rall • January 10, 2020

• 1,200 Words • 11 Comments • Reply

War, many people believe, often results from cultural differences and misunderstandings. President Donald Trump's assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani has Americans considering the possibility that we may soon add Iran to our list of unwinnable wars in the Middle East. As that calculus unfolds, no one questions the assumption that there are irreconcilable differences between... Read More

Joe Biden Was Right—Partition Iraq! But That Was Back In 2006

John Derbyshire • January 10, 2020

• 900 Words • 32 Comments • Reply

See, earlier, by Steve Sailer: The Partition Possibility, November 30, 2003 Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, available exclusively at VDARE.com Big news of the week: the arm-wrestling bout with Iran. Again, as I said last week, there is no market here for Great Game strategizing. I'd like for us to tip over the chess-board... Read More

The West Is Still Buying Into Nonsense About Iran’s Regional Influence

Patrick Cockburn • January 10, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

I was in Iraq in April 1991 when government security forces crushed the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, killing tens of thousands and burying their bodies in pits. I had been expelled from Iraq to Jordan at the start of the rebellion in March and then, to my surprise, allowed to return, because Saddam... Read More

America the Repugnant. Assassinating Foreign Leaders Is an Act of War

Philip Giraldi • January 9, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 56 Comments • Reply

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies.... Read More

Battle of Empires: Why Han China Is Defeating Self-Hating America

James Kirkpatrick • January 9, 2020

• 1,500 Words • 24 Comments • Reply

Another Chinese national has been just accused of spying against the U.S. [A Chinese ‘tourist’ accused of espionage is the latest example of a growing threat to US Security, by Justin Rohrlich, QZ, January 5, 2020]. It’s just another skirmish in the simmering war between China and the U.S. The U.S. is ill-prepared because the... Read More

I Was Harassed and Wrongfully Detained At the Airport

Eric Striker • January 9, 2020

• 1,300 Words • 250 Comments • Reply

Editor's Note: I have corrected the article to reflect new information. It all started yesterday evening when I arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport in the rustbelt township of Moon, Pennsylvania for a flight to Boston. I approached the Kiosk to print my ticket and immediately got an error, asking I go get my boarding pass... Read More

The U.S. As the Globe’s Judge, Jury & Executioner

Ilana Mercer • January 9, 2020

• 1,400 Words • 147 Comments • Reply

Qassim Soleimani, an Iranian major general, was assassinated by a U.S. drone air strike, at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). Soleimani was traveling with one Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was an Iraqi, born and bred. Al-Muhandis was even elected to the Iraqi Parliament, in 2005, until the U.S. intervened. (Yes, we intervene in other nations’... Read More

The Saker Interviews Michael Hudson

The Saker and Michael Hudson • January 9, 2020

• 2,400 Words • 75 Comments • Reply

The Saker: Trump has been accused of not thinking forward, of not having a long-term strategy regarding the consequences of assassinating General Soleimani. Does the United States in fact have a strategy in the Near East, or is it only ad hoc? Michael Hudson: Of course American strategists will deny that the recent actions do... Read More

Trump to de-Escalate: Intelligence Source

Pepe Escobar • January 9, 2020

• 700 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

President Donald Trump will de-escalate the crisis with Iran when he speaks to the nation at 11 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, a U.S. intelligence source has told me. Last night Iran retaliated for the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani with missile strikes on two U.S. military bases in Iraq. So far there have... Read More

Trump Backs Away from Threats to Retaliate for Iranian Missile Strikes, Promises New Sanctions

Whitney Webb • January 8, 2020

• 700 Words • 1 Comment • Reply

Following Iran’s military response to the deaths of Soleimani and his Iraqi ally, Trump’s tone — at least publicly — was dramatically less bellicose than his recent tweets promising to strike Iranian territory should Tehran retaliate against the US. WASHINGTON DC — In a statement delivered late Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump made it clear... Read More

The State of the Iranian Crisis

Paul Craig Roberts • January 8, 2020

• 400 Words

Readers are asking my take on the Iranian retaliation and Trump’s response. I think a deal might have been arranged between Washington and Tehran via a third party. The Iranian attack resulted in no US casualties. Thus, it serves both Iran’s purpose of retaliating and Trump’s purpose of interpreting the Iranian retaliation to be, in... Read More

Clausewitz, Trump and Soleimani

American politics is a continuation of Israel’s wars by different means

Gilad Atzmon • January 8, 2020

• 900 Words • 81 Comments • Reply

The 19th century military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz observed that war is the continuation of politics by different means. This is an apt description of Iranian military strategy and geo-political affairs. It is consistent with the rationale that guided General Qasem Soleimani for the last two decades. As a superb military strategist Soleimani grasped that... Read More

The Justice Department Is Devoid of Justice

Paul Craig Roberts • January 8, 2020

• 900 Words

In the United States the criminal justice (sic) system is itself not subject to law. We see immunity to law continually as police commit felonies against citizens and even murder children and walk away free. We see it all the time when prosecutors conduct political prosecutions and when they prosecute the innocent in order to... Read More

Iran Will Make Huge Political Gains Out of This Crisis

Patrick Cockburn • January 8, 2020

• 700 Words • 30 Comments • Reply

The Iranian missile attack on two US bases in Iraq is symbolic retaliation for the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani on 3 January. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said there would be direct action against the US by the Iranian armed forces, and this has now happened. The message is that the Iranian leadership... Read More

Iranians carried the coffins of top general Qassem Soleimani and his allies in Kerman, Iran,...

The Donald’s Assassination of General Soleimani—As Stupid As It Gets

David Stockman • January 7, 2020

• 3,100 Words • 251 Comments • Reply

During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one height to yet another. But nothing—just plain nothing—compares to the the blithering stupidity of the Donald’s Iran “policy”, culminating in the mindless assassination of its top military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem Soleimani. To... Read More

Italy: Facebook Forced to Pay Restitution to Italian Nationalists It Deplatformed

Eric Striker • January 7, 2020

• 700 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

In September of last year, the Zionist social media page Facebook engaged in electoral meddling by arbitrarily banning the large accounts of radical nationalist parties Forza Nuova and CasaPound. In a rare victory for free speech in the West, Judge Stefania Garrisi found that Facebook had violated the rights of CasaPound in civil court in... Read More

Killing Inside Iraq to Punish Iran

Trump-Pompeo foreign policy is not only incoherent, it is insane

Philip Giraldi • January 7, 2020

• 2,200 Words • 355 Comments • Reply

President Bill Clinton once launched a mini-cruise-missile-war on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan to serve as a distraction from the Monica Lewinski scandal. It must be considered that Donald Trump might be doing something similar within the context of his currently ongoing impeachment crisis, but the back story to the two developments is somewhat different.... Read More

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"Foreign Policy" Items Across Entire Archive

Category Classics

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV

Laurent Guyénot

• 381 Comments • Reply

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.

Sydney Schanberg

• 148 Comments • Reply

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars