Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. The Trump administration believes it has turned the tables on Iran. Washington assesses that the rerouting of maritime traffic through the Omani corridor, combined with a global shift away from Persian Gulf oil, has reduced the effectiveness of Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. At the same […]
Hasn’t Bill O’Reilly done enough harm beating the drums for America’s failed foreign wars? But he’s still around somewhere, trying to top his earlier act with more of his trademark fever-swamp rants, now offering advice to President Donald Trump on the Iran War. His latest advice is the stuff of world historic war crimes. The […]
A Trump-Kim summit would be a spectacle like no other. A carnival extravaganza with the Korean Peninsula holding center stage, and every handshake, expression, seating arrangement, and stray remark dissected by troupes of North Korea pundits across the world’s news networks. But like any great traveling carnival, a few days later ticket holders will be […]
Consider this hypothetical: Two apartment buildings share a single parking lot. Management from both Building A and Building B are engaged in negotiations over how the parking lot will be organized, painted, maintained, and paid for. Across the street is a restaurant. The restaurant’s customers primarily come from Building A, and internal studies have shown […]
Six months after Trumpy & Bibi launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28th, the so-called kinetic campaign has settled into a costly stalemate, at best. And a de facto military defeat as a practical matter. In fact, what began as another furious “shock and awe” military offensive designed to quickly and fatally degrade […]
As the 2026 midterms approach, a nationwide poll released in early August delivered a warning that goes to the heart of the Republican Party’s political identity: for the first time in nearly a decade, voters said Democrats were better stewards of the economy than Republicans. For years, Republicans benefited from a broad perception that they […]
“President Donald Trump’s decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea,” Matthew Lee and Ben Finley write for the Associated Press, “does not just slight a longtime ally but raises broader concerns about the security interests of the United States in Asia and elsewhere.” Trump’s reason for supposedly, and in unspecified ways, downsizing […]
The US increasingly prioritizes technological dominance, supply-chain security, industrial protection and strategic competition with China. Under Trump, this approach has become openly transactional and unilateral: tariffs, market access and security instruments are used to compel partners and competitors alike. The EU, by contrast, seeks regulatory power, industrial resilience, climate leadership…
Last week we heard that US sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships in the Middle East were being fed food that, from photos that surfaced in the media, looked worse than what you would feed a dog. Parents and spouses of service members risked disciplinary action against their loved ones […]
It is now official: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly rejected the core conditions of the Board of Peace framework, explicitly stating that Israel will neither adhere to a ceasefire nor withdraw its forces from Gaza. During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu stated with unambiguous language: “Israel rejects the 15-point document published by […]
“The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness… They conferred against the Government the right to be let alone — most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” ~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) The rapid spread of public surveillance cameras represents something far more consequential than a new […]
Two men, one word. Next Monday, at Kingston Crown Court in London, a 72-year-old grandfather goes on trial for terrorism; the evidence is a tweet of seven words, and the maximum sentence is 14 years. Nine months ago, a man who founded al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch and carried a $10 million American bounty on his head […]
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States spent $21 trillion on its military between 2001 and 2024 (in constant 2024 dollars), equal to the combined military spending of the next eighteen countries. Iran barely made that list at all, spending only 2% of what the US did, and SIPRI estimated […]