Iran has filed a lawsuit against the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demanding compensation over the seizure of USD 2 billion worth of the country's assets by a top American court. ››read more

Muhammad-AliIn the history of our movements for peace and for justice, the most strategic activists, analysts, and cultural workers were always those who understood the centrality of racism at the core of U.S. wars. They grasped the ways in which U.S. militarism relied on racism at home to recruit its cannon-fodder and to build public support for wars against “the other” — be they Vietnamese, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, Somalis, Yemenis, Afghans, or anyone else.

It was Muhammad Ali who first described the Vietnam-era draft as “white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from the red people.” He said no to the draft, refused to step forward to accept the legitimacy of the coerced registration, and was convicted of felony draft resistance. Even though he faced years in prison, he insisted, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.” ››read more

Cameron claimed that Corbyn’s opposition to airstrikes showed he was a terrorist sympathiser and the Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn made a much-lauded speech full of bombast about supporting British airstrikes against Isis in Syria as being equivalent of battling Franco in Spain in 1936 and Hitler in 1940. The degree to which this was phony posturing on the part of Cameron and Benn is highlighted by the fact that neither has shown concern that the RAF’s actions against Isis in Syria in the six months since the famous House of Commons’ vote have been very limited. Out of 3,787 airstrikes by the US-led coalition of air powers in Syria up to 1 June, only 237 were carried out by non-US aircraft. ››read more

The US is “ready to de facto ally” with its archenemies from Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria as part of its “obsession” by using “so-called moderate” groups to overthrow the Syrian government, former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, told RT in an exclusive interview. ››read more

On the surface, it would seem that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be the worst of enemies — and indeed, they’ve never had diplomatic relations.

After all, the Saudis have championed the cause of the Palestinians, who are oppressed by the Israelis. Israelis say they’re besieged by Muslim extremists, and many of these extremists are motivated by the intolerant, Wahhabi ideology born and bred in Saudi Arabia.

But beneath the surface, these two old adversaries actually have a lot in common. In fact, in the contemporary Middle East, they’ve become the strangest of bedfellows. ››read more

"Of all the people who opposed the war in Vietnam, I think that Muhammad Ali risked the most. Lots of people refused to go. Some went to jail. But no one risked as much from their decision not to go to war in Vietnam as much as Muhammad Ali. And his real greatness can be seen in the fact that, despite all that was done to him, he became even greater and more humane." ››read more

The United States has asked Russia not to target al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria the Nusra Front arguing that airstrikes by Moscow could also hit other rebel groups, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published Saturday.
“They [the U.S.] are telling us not to hit it [al-Nusra Front], because there are also ‘normal’ opposition groups [on those territories],” Lavrov said in an interview with local Russian media that was published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website according to Russia Today website. The Russian top diplomat also stressed that “such opposition groups should leave terrorist positions,” adding that “we have long agreed on that.” ››read more

The U.S. drone campaign isn’t exactly a covert operation, though the CIA has generally refused to acknowledge its role in the attacks (the Pentagon is more open about its use of drones for strikes on more conventional military targets). But critics of drone attacks — myself included — have long argued that all the civilian casualties caused by drone attacks will produce blowback. Drone strikes and the anger they generate effectively serve to recruit people into the Taliban and other extremist organizations.

Even those involved in the program have come to the same conclusion.

Consider, for instance, this impassioned plea to President Obama from four Air Force veterans who piloted drones. “The innocent civilians we were killing only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS, while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool,” they argued in a letter last November. “The administration and its predecessors have built a drone program that is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.” ››read more

A new report from the IAEA has once again affirmed that the Iranian government is complying with the P5+1 nuclear deal, and that Iran’s stockpiles have all remained below the limits set forth in the deal.

The deal went into effect in January, unfreezing large amounts of Iranian assets and ending a number of sanctions on the nation in return for setting limits on their civilian nuclear program. The US has been under fire from Iran and the EU for reneging on parts of the relief promised, particularly continuing to threaten European banks that do business with Iran under the terms of the deal.A new report from the IAEA has once again affirmed that the Iranian government is complying with the P5+1 nuclear deal, and that Iran’s stockpiles have all remained below the limits set forth in the deal. ››read more

At great expense, the president has bolstered all three components of the nation’s “nuclear triad”: the strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles. This was the price paid for securing Republican support in 2010 for the ratification of a modest bilateral arms reduction treaty with Russia.

Obama’s much-publicised “nuclear security summits” largely ignored the greatest source of nuclear insecurity in the world today: 15,000 nuclear weapons, including 1,800 on hair-trigger alert. Instead, they focused on measures to keep “vulnerable nuclear material” out of terrorists’ hands – a vital endeavour, certainly, but for all the fanfare the results were small. ››read more

The kingdom is mobilizing its Gulf allies to make sure that, more than four months after the lifting of sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Iran’s opening-up to the global economy doesn’t go smoothly. Last month the Saudis scuttled a bid to stabilize crude prices because it would have allowed their bitter foe to grab a larger share of oil markets. And in Dubai, once their main gateway to the world, Iranian businessmen privately complain of increasing restrictions. ››read more

Iran’s parliament today voted on a bill requiring the government to request compensation from the United States for damages caused by the CIA’s 1953 imposition of a coup d’etat against Iran’s democratically elected government. ››read more

All those interests combine to ensure that this administration and its successor will continue to issue ritual denunciations of Iran’s “nefarious activities” in the region. Thus, the chasm between US rhetoric on Iran and political reality can only widen in the years to come. But the harsh rhetoric will limit how far cooperation between Tehran and Washington can go. ››read more

Investigators for the 9/11 commission would later describe the scene in Saudi Arabia as chilling.

They took seats in front of a former Saudi diplomat who, many on the commission’s staff believed, had been a ringleader of a Saudi government spy network inside the US that gave support to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers in California in the year before the 2001 attacks. ››read more

The gradual erosion of the cease-fire in Syria over the past month is the result of multiple factors shaping the conflict, but one of the underlying reasons is the Obama administration’s failure to carry out its commitment to Russia to get US-supported opposition groups to separate themselves physically from the Nusra Front – the al-Qaeda organization in Syria. ››read more

Stephen KinzerWhen debate over the nuclear deal was raging last year in Washington, opponents relentlessly repeated a potent argument. They insisted that the deal made no sense because Iran is untrustworthy and never keeps its promises. Now, a new kind of Iran-related panic has broken out in Washington. This year’s fear is the opposite of last year’s. Opponents of the deal say it must be junked because Iran is living up to it. “Iran has complied,” the Congressional Research Service reported last month. Its conclusion is hard to dispute. Iran has dismantled more than 12,000 nuclear centrifuges, shipped 98 percent of its nuclear fuel to Russia, and poured cement into the core of its heavy-water reactor. This has set off waves of outrage in Washington and Tehran. The prospect that the nuclear deal might actually work terrifies hard-liners in both capitals. ››read more

On the surface, it would seem that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be the worst of enemies and indeed, they have never had diplomatic relations. After all, the Saudis have championed the cause of the Palestinians, who are oppressed by the Israelis. Israelis say they are besieged by Muslim extremists, and many of these extremists are motivated by the intolerant, Wahhabi ideology born and bred in Saudi Arabia.

But beneath the surface, these two old adversaries actually have a lot in common and have become the strangest of bedfellows. ››read more

The United States has forcefully backed the Saudi-led war. In addition to sharing intelligence, the U.S. has sold tens of billions of dollars in munitions to the Saudis since the war began. The kingdom has used U.S.-produced aircraft, laser-guided bombs, and internationally-banned cluster bombs to target and destroy schools, markets, power plants, and a hospital, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.

Despite all that, U.S. officials have done little to explain this support, have failed to explain the U.S. interests in the campaign, and have made scant mention of the humanitarian toll. In the absence of an official response, The Intercept raised those concerns with half a dozen former senior diplomatic officials, including U.S. ambassadors to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. ››read more

Hillary ClintonPublicly, Clinton backed the White House at the time, writing to lawmakers that they should “give diplomacy a chance to succeed.” But privately, she was influenced by several lawmakers and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who predicted that more sanctions would force the Iranians to cave on their demands, The Times reported.
“She would have squeezed them again,” an unnamed source who worked with Clinton for several years told The Times. Ultimately, Obama and Kerry convinced lawmakers to hold off on that round of sanctions, a feat that may have been complicated if there was discord between the president and the Secretary of State. ››read more

The consequences of the JCPOA falling through would not only be on the size and scope of the Iranian nuclear program. For Iran, the JCPOA was a criterion for judging whether it could trust the West to cooperate on other issues. If the United States faithfully abides by its commitments under the deal, then the view of Iranian leaders towards broader negotiations would be positively affected. However, if the United States acts with ill intent and makes it difficult for Iran to receive the benefits it is due under the deal, then the belief of Iranian leaders that the United States is insincere and cannot be trusted will be reaffirmed. Years of diplomacy will be undone and a zero-sum mentality will once again take hold between the two countries — with disastrous consequences for the region. ››read more