by Jim Lobe
via IPS News
Despite Thursday’s announcement that President Barack Obama has decided to provide direct military assistance to Syrian rebels, what precisely the administration has in mind remains unclear.
Analysts here are also questioning whether the decision is part of a deliberate strategy – and, if so, what that strategy [...]
by Farideh Farhi
via IPS News
Iran’s June 14 presidential election results, announced the day after, was nothing less than a political earthquake.
The centrist Hassan Rowhani’s win was ruled out when Iran’s vetting body, the Guardian Council, qualified him as one of the eight candidates on May 21.
Furthermore, a first-round win [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
The Obama Administration’s options for avoiding deeper involvement in Syria are dwindling fast. With Russia and Hezbollah increasing their activities on the Syrian front, Obama may have a very hard time fending off the growing domestic and international pressure to take action, if that is what he still [...]
by Mitchell Plitnick
While Secretary of State John Kerry was in Israel declaring his aim to “exhaust all the possibilities of peace” to try to stop wasting the Obama Administration’s time and energy on the futile effort to find a resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, Congress was illustrating once again [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
All eyes are on US President Barack Obama as he contemplates how to deal with the fact that the Syrian government might have crossed a red line he never should have drawn. The Israelis, even while abstaining from pressuring Obama to act in Syria, meanwhile know [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
The new Israeli government features a security braintrust that might be a bit more reasonable on Iran, but is likely to be even more hawkish both in the immediate region and within the country itself. Gone are voices from the Israeli right who favored a more reasoned [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
All was not as it seemed during President Barack Obama’s appearances in Jerusalem and Ramallah, where he addressed audiences of Israelis and Palestinians. On the surface, it looked like Obama was swearing fealty to Israel, and pledging unconditional US support for any and all Israeli actions. But a [...]
via Lobe Log
by Daniel Luban
The death of Hugo Chavez has triggered a predictably dizzying amount of commentary, and I’ll leave it to the experts to evaluate his complicated legacy in Venezuela and in Latin America more broadly. The accusations of “totalitarianism” from the right were clearly absurd and hypocritical — whatever his [...]
via Lobe Log
by Robert E. Hunter
To say that President Barack Obama’s visit this spring to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan is the proverbial gamble is an understatement. He may end up (rightly) congratulating himself on his wisdom and courage in taking this step and doing so at this time — and [...]
From IPS News- Rebuilding Zimbabwe’s Health System
- U.S.-Taliban Talks Set to Begin
- U.S. and Rest of G8 Won’t Follow UK on Corporate Transparency
- Opponents Question Proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal
- Job Creation Looming Challenge for Post-2015 World
- Hunger Persists in Latin America’s Bread Basket
- No Hunger in Brazil by 2015
- Rural Mexican Communities Protest Wind Farms
- Clean Ripples Spread Across East Europe
- Colombia, the United States, and Montesquieu
