Marc Lynch's new column at Foreign Policy explores the contradiction in Washington's rhetoric of democracy and reform with its active support for tyranny and repression in Saudi Arabia and the surrounding Gulf states. This is an old narrative. Yes, there is a...
John C. Kiriakou, the former CIA agent who blew the whistle on the agency's waterboarding, was just sentenced to 30 months in prison. The Obama administration absolved the torturers and the higher-ups who destroyed the videotapes and other evidence of torture - and...
In his Senate confirmation hearings to be the next Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry declared US foreign policy "is not defined by drones and deployments alone," as he tried to emphasize humanitarian assistance and development projects instead of American...
The unprecedentedly harsh economic sanctions regime Washington has imposed on Iran "really has reached its end," according to Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. Nasr, born in Tehran, is well within the...
In his questioning of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today, Sen. Rand Paul characerterized the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi as the "worst tragedy since 9/11." I'm glad that Rand made it warm for Hillary, but the invasion of Iraq was a much greater...
The Obama administration's diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program is in shambles. In the broadest terms, this is because the so-called diplomatic opening Obama initiated upon coming into office never actually happened; Washington has been more apt to continue to...
Washington claims its only direct involvement in France's military intervention in Mali includes the US Air Force flying in French soldiers and 124 tons of equipment. Beyond that, the Pentagon will only admit vaguely to "intelligence support." Whether the US is flying...
On a dusty football pitch in Bahrain, a convoy – or rather, a pack – of police 4x4s screeched into the crowd that had gathered there, scattering panicking protesters. As they circled at high speed, passing through the crowd, it was not clear if they were actively...
