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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If Baghdad Wants Us Out, Let's Go!

Pat Buchanan • January 7, 2020

• 900 Words • 88 Comments • Reply

Fifteen years after the U.S. invaded Iraq to turn Saddam Hussein's dictatorship into a beacon of democracy, Iraq's Parliament, amid shouts of "Death to America!" voted to expel all U.S. troops from the country. Though nonbinding, the expulsion vote came after mobs trashed the U.S. embassy in an assault that recalled Tehran 1979. What provoked... Read More

American Leadership Is Discredited — Will a New Leader Step Forward?

Paul Craig Roberts • January 7, 2020

• 500 Words

This morning (January 7) Pompeo, the embarrassment we suffer as our Secretary of State, was on TV promising to “confront and contain” Iran. A political general was featured declaring that he had seen the intelligence reports and was certain that the murder of Soleimani had stopped an attack. If the general saw any such “intelligence”... Read More

Iran's Hero Has Fallen, and Now the World Is an Even More Dangerous Place

Andre Vltchek • January 7, 2020

• 1,200 Words • 3 Comments • Reply

They say he came from a humble background, and worked himself up the ranks, becoming, as many believe, the second most powerful man in Iran. They say he had the chance to become the next Supreme Leader of the country. Whenever I visit Iran, I am told how much he is loved by his people.... Read More

Putin Should Take Control of the Iranian Situation Out of Israel’s Hands

Paul Craig Roberts • January 6, 2020

• 400 Words

At this time, it is up to Israel whether or not war occurs between the US and Iran. Israel very much wants this war as a means of putting Iran and Syria into chaos, thus leaving Hezbollah isolated and unsupplied. Then Israel can succeed in occupying southern Lebanon. The American neoconservatives want Iran in chaos,... Read More

Israel’s Fingerprints Are All Over the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani

Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo • January 6, 2020

• 1,500 Words • 161 Comments • Reply

By killing top Iranian military commander, Qasem Soleimani, American and Israeli leaders demonstrated the idiom ‘out of the frying pan into the fire.’ US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are both politically and legally embattled – the former has just been impeached and the latter is dogged by an Attorney General... Read More

Figures on Left and Right Come Out in Support of Unpopular Anti-Iran Antagonism

Eric Striker • January 6, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 9 Comments • Reply

A number of figures in the alt-media and extreme-left movement have surprised their audiences by rationalizing the Trump administration's Israeli-directed push towards war with Iran. The consensus between high profile voices on the Zionist "far-right" and anarcho-neocon "far-left" in America and Britain reflect the party line in Israel, where even Amir Peretz of the ostensibly... Read More

Why I Don’t Trust Trump on Iran

Ron Paul • January 6, 2020

• 600 Words • 27 Comments • Reply

President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. I don’t believe them. Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three... Read More

US Actions in Iraq Could Plunge the Country Into Crisis Once Again

Patrick Cockburn • January 6, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

The assassination of Qassem Soleimani has capsized Iraqi politics in the most dangerous of ways, making it possible that the country will be plunged once again into a state of permanent crisis and war from which it has escaped in the last two years. President Trump is threatening sanctions against Iraq if it expels the... Read More

Financial N-Option Will Settle Trump’s Oil War

Pepe Escobar • January 6, 2020

• 1,300 Words • 18 Comments • Reply

The bombshell facts were delivered by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, during an extraordinary, historic parliamentary session in Baghdad on Sunday. Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from... Read More

Short “intermission” of Sorts with a Few (Apparently Needed) Explanations

The Saker • January 5, 2020

• 2,900 Words • 20 Comments • Reply

I feel that there is a need to clarify a few things here which apparently baffle and perplex many. Since the beginning of this crisis the Saker Community worldwide (literally!) has been crazy busy trying to keep up with the events and make sense of what seems totally insane. I have been working nonstop for... Read More

America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East

Michael Hudson • January 5, 2020

• 3,700 Words • 188 Comments • Reply

The mainstream media are carefully sidestepping the method behind America’s seeming madness in assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard general Qassim Suleimani to start the New Year. The logic behind the assassination this was a long-standing application of U.S. global policy, not just a personality quirk of Donald Trump’s impulsive action. His assassination of Iranian military leader... Read More

The US Is Now at War, de-Facto and de-Jure, with BOTH Iraq and Iran

The Saker • January 5, 2020

• 1,700 Words • 32 Comments • Reply

The blowback has begun First, let’s begin by a quick summary of what has taken place (note: this info is still coming in, so there might be corrections once the official sources make their official statements). Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between... Read More

Putin’s Hour Is At Hand

Paul Craig Roberts • January 4, 2020

• 800 Words

Vladimir Putin is the most impressive leader on the world stage. He survived and arose from a Russia corrupted by Washington and Israel during the Yeltsin years and reestablished Russia as a world power. He dealt successfully with American/Israeli aggression against South Ossetia and against Ukraine, incorporating at Crimea’s request the Russian province back into... Read More

The Mafia Would Have Been Proud

Eric Margolis • January 4, 2020

• 600 Words • 35 Comments • Reply

The US drone strike at Baghdad airport that killed Iran’s top commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and a senior leader of Iraq’s Shia militia, has set the Mideast on fire. The Trump administration, which authorized the assassination, called it a ’pre-emptive’ strike. Iran branded it ‘outright murder.’ Soleimani was Iran’s second most powerful figure and a... Read More

Foul Murder of Another Nation’s Hero

An American Disgrace

Diana Johnstone • January 4, 2020

• 500 Words • 8 Comments • Reply

The criminal assassination of General Qassem Soleimani was not only an act of war, it was an act of low treachery and crass stupidity. Among the self-justifying lies, leaders of the perpetual war regime in Washington claim that locating the targeted military leader was a brilliant accomplishment of U.S. intelligence. Not at all! The Lebanese... Read More

Putin Will Restrain Iranian Retaliation

Paul Craig Roberts • January 4, 2020

• 400 Words

A number of intelligent analysts predict Iranian retaliation for Washington’s murder of a high Iranian official who was in Iraq on a diplomatic mission. I understand their logic. However, I wonder. Putin doesn’t want war. Why should he when Washington’s arrogance is destroying the US and the empire. Even Germany has had enough of Washington... Read More

The Soleimani Assassination

The Long-Awaited Beginning of The End of America’s Imperial Ambitions

Philip Giraldi • January 3, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 712 Comments • Reply

The United States is now at war with Iran in a conflict that could easily have been avoided and it will not end well. There will be no declaration of war coming from either side, but the assassination of Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani and the head of Kata’ib Hezbollah Abu Mehdi Muhandis... Read More

The Line in the Sand

Eric Striker • January 3, 2020

• 1,100 Words • 427 Comments • Reply

Most Americans did not know Qasem Soleimani until the Israelis found the perfect opportunity to have him assassinated. They gave the Pentagon the orders and kindly handed Donald Trump all the credit while he ate his ice cream and watched it on TV. So far, Trump's post-hoc rational for murdering the most important military official... Read More

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"Iran" 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