Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist and senior analyst, is a professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. He is the author, along with Jacob Mundy, of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010).
The Russian and Chinese veto of the moderate and reasonable UN Security Council resolution was unconscionable, but the United States may have its own hypocrisy to thank.
A Facebook advertisement sends the message that the Obama campaign does not welcome concerns about human rights.
Never before has Congress restricted the right of the White House or State Department to meet with representatives of a foreign state, as this bill proposes.
Washington is courting a dictator in order to continue its war in Afghanistan.
Until there is a change in the Obama administration’s policies, the president has little credibility in preaching to the world about the importance of peace.
Nine people were killed when Israel intercepted Gaza-bound aid ships last year. Now a new flotilla is planned, but Instead of condemning the murder, the Obama administration appears to be giving the right-wing Israeli government a green light to flout international law and human rights.
The United States must stop providing military support for the autocratic regime in Yemen.
Barack Obama’s Mideast speech shows that the United States has not yet adapted to the regional realities brought about by the Arab Spring.
Democratic protests have nearly dislodged the autocratic leader of Yemen, yet the Obama administration has yet to commit fully to a post-Saleh era.
The grievances expressed in bin Laden’s manifestoes can still replenish the ranks of jihadis.
Can an airstrike ever be humanitarian?
Another autocratic U.S. ally in the Arab world faces a non-violent challenge.
The non-violent pro-democracy struggle in Bahrain has failed to gain support from the Obama administration.
The protests in Egypt will produce a democracy, not a theocracy.
Tunisia is not the only democracy movement in the Muslim world, but will the United States provide consistent support to them all?
In recent decades, largely nonviolent insurrections such as Tunisia’s have toppled corrupt authoritarian rulers from the Philippines to Serbia to the Ukraine.
Congress has turned a blind eye to the Israeli government’s repression of its own citizens.
The U.S. invaded Iraq despite warnings that its Christians would suffer reprisals.
Democrats push through yet another anti-Palestinian resolution.
Despite last month’s fraudulent parliamentary elections, the Obama administration appears to continue its support for the Mubarak dictatorship in the face of growing popular resistance.