Conflict and war

By Gareth Porter* I’m glad that the United States and Iran reached an agreement in Vienna after nearly two years of negotiations and 35 years of enmity. A failure to do so under present political conditions would certainly have left a festering conflict with unpredictably bad consequences. And the successful negotiation of such a far-reaching agreement in which both sides made significant concessions should help to moderate the extreme hostility that has been building up in the United States over the years. But my enthusiasm for the agreement is tempered by the fact that the US political process surrounding the Congressional consideration of the agreement is going to have the opposite effect. And a big part of the problem is that the Obama administration is not going to do anything to refute the extremist view of Iran as determined to get nuclear weapons. Instead the administration is integrating the idea...

, terrorist pogrom in which 48 activists opposed to the Western-backed Maidan regime in Kiev were killed; most of them burned alive as Ukrainian ‘nationalists’ shot at them, tossed three Molotov cocktails into their building and sang the Ukrainian national anthem.”, writes Gordon Hahn today, a highly respected expert on Ukrainian and Russian affairs. So who is right and who is wrong? Of course the first quote above simplifies a horrifically complicated situation and is only true for one area. Nevertheless, this snapshot shows that the Russian observers can be fair. As I write both sides – the Ukrainian government’s army and the Russian-supported rebels – are fighting flat out to take control of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine – again reported on by the OSCE. Although many areas of the East are quiet the cease-fire negotiated by President Vladimir Putin, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande is in...

By Farhang Jahanpour The announcement of the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is a rare moment in history that gives us hope and provides a basis for optimism. By contemplating what the alternative would have entailed, any agreement, no matter how defective, is a great achievement and has to be welcomed. However, the indications are that, as the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has declared at a joint press conference with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, there has been a win-win agreement that will benefit everyone. In short, they have made history. Ms. Mogherini said: “It is a decision that can open the way to a new chapter in international relations. I think this is a sign of hope for the entire world.” The Iranian foreign minister echoed those sentiments and described the deal as “a historic moment”. He continued: “Today could have been...

and punished for years for not having nuclear weapons?

By Gareth Porter In the final phase of the negotiations with Iran, the US-led international coalition is still seeking Iran’s agreement to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit any military facilities it deems suspicious and to interview a selected list of Iranian nuclear scientists. Such measures are not necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its commitments under the agreement, but they are necessary to manage the political threat from the pro-Israel extremists in the Senate to sabotage the whole agreement. To fend off that threat, the Obama administration made the spurious claim that it had succeeded in getting Iran to agree to the demand for IAEA inspection of any site it found suspicious. In fact, Iran had agreed only that IAEA would have “enhanced access through agreed procedures” – as reflected in the wording of the joint statement of the P5+1 and Iran on 2...

Lecture at World Congress of Faiths, Annual General Meeting, London School of Economics, University of London, May 20, 2015 Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today, and for giving me the opportunity to share with you my journey for the common good, a journey which I began many years ago, when as a young man I left Iran for England in 1972 in my search for life’s bigger picture. Friends, I very much like to set the scene by reading a short statement, giving you a brief background to my presentation, my abstract, if you will: First: This presentation is dedicated to the youth of the world, our children and grand- children, who are the unfolding story of the decades ahead. May they rise to the challenge of leading our troubled world, with hope and wisdom in the interest of the common good to a better future...

It isn’t helpful to pre-position heavy materiel in Eastern Europe if it is peace you want…

Af Claus Kold Kampflys opgaver Hvis vi i Danmark står over for en anskaffelse af nye kampfly til omkring 40 milliarder, så må man gå ud fra at forholdet mellem det købte og opgave vejer tungt, og at dette forhold er blevet grundigt undersøgt. Det virker imidlertid ikke sådan. Nok er flyenes teknikker blevet grundigt diskuteret, men hvor er diskussionerne, om kampflyene passer på de opgaver, som fremtidens væbnede konflikter udgør? Krig mellem stater – symmetrisk krig Argumenterne for at anskaffe nye kampfly hviler på en bestemt stats- og samfundsmodel, med nogle tilhørende antagelser/faktorer. Disse faktorer er så at sige bygget ind i flyenes teknik, men de diskuteres som teknik og ikke som antagelser/formål. I denne tekst vil jeg derfor tage udgangspunkt i denne tænknings egen logik, da det samtidig er den, der er herskende i Folketinget, i Forsvaret og i store dele af dansk sikkerhedspolitisk tænkning, og se om...

Af Jan Øberg Det er utilstedeligt at vi endnu ikke har skyggen af en ordentlig, informeret debat om sikkerhedspolitikken og økonomien forud for beslutningen. Årsagen er at der ikke findes nogle for samfundet gode argumenter for dem. Alle partier med undtagelse af Enhedslisten mener at Danmark bør anskaffe nye kampfly – der i bedste fald vil være i funktion om 5 år. Dagens pris – afhængig af antallet fly – er på 30 milliarder kroner – godt 5000 kroner per mand, kvinde og barn i vort land – og mindst 100 milliarder kroner til brugsomkostninger frem til 2045. I dagens tal kostede Storebæltsbroen 37 milliarder. Debatten har hidtil ikke handlet om hvad i alverden vi skal med disse maskiner, kun om valget mellem tre typer. Fakta og problemer holdes helt bevidst i det dunkle og skal skydes ud til efter valget for derpå at træffe beslutningen hurtgit så ingen opdager...

Violence is to harm and hurt body, mind, spirit, even lethally, suicide, homicide, genocide (“cide”, from Latin “caedere”, falling). The focus here is on body violence, “sui” standing for Self, “homi” for Other. They do not exclude each other, they can be combined. We have in mind US shootings-killings in recent decades, often at schools, spraying Others with bullets, in the end also Self, at his own hand or somebody else’s, with a gun. The killing by somebody else may or may not have been expected, but exposure to such extreme risk makes intention likely. In short, homicide and suicide. Both-And. Hitler sacrificed millions of Germans and committed suicide. We are used to seeing suicide as the consequence of life being intolerable: “I am better off leaving this world”; and homicide as other(s) being intolerable, “the world is better off without you”. These tragic, aggressive outcomes of double frustration may...

Editor’s note This is a grand essay on the dimensions, history, structures of the Middle East/Palestine-Israeli-Western conflict over about 100 years. It is extraordinarily rich – but doesn’t cause the reader to drown in too many details. I highly recommend it to any student – young or old, journalist and politician – whose understanding of the issues may be based on the woefully biased, general account in Western mainstream media. – Jan Oberg Preliminary Observations In this period when the centenary of the genocidal victimization of the Armenian people in 1915 is being so widely observed and discussed, it seems especially appropriate to call attention to the comparable victimization of the Palestinian people. This second story of prolonged collective victimization also received its jump start almost a century ago with the issuance by the British Foreign Office of the Balfour Declaration supporting the Zionist movement project of establishing a Jewish...