Foreign Policy in Focus

There’s no way for a dictator to bow out gracefully.

U.S. officials revive discredited reports that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer implicated in case planned the infamous 2007 Mahdi Army attack on U.S. troops in Karbala, Iraq.

The foundations of the tightly interconnected world we live in now were laid in the early days of World War II by leaders hoping to prevent the next great war.

Free trade has starved Mexico and stuffed transnational corporations.

Ghana is the latest focus of oil companies. Can it escape the resource curse?

The United States is ultimately chasing al-Qaeda, not the LRA, in East Africa. And this may end up abetting Yoweri Museveni’s crackdown on Ugandan democracy.

One does not have to be a member of the Supreme Leader’s fan club to be skeptical of the Iran assassination allegations.

The current U.S. strategy to confront its antagonists reflects a decade of missteps and misunderstandings.

Congress finally balks at feeding the exotic flowers in our national Giant Shop of Horrors: our nuclear weapons program.

Our plane was one hour away from landing when the pilot announced, “There’s been a major earthquake in Japan and Narita is shut down.” It was March 11th, 2011. I was en route to Japan to teach my film, ANPO: Art X War in art, film and history classes at the American School in Tokyo the following week. Or so I thought. I could never have imagined I would arrive to witness Japan’s greatest postwar disaster. Or the resonances my film would assume in its wake.

‘There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one’s native land.’ Euripides, 431 BC

Three women are sharing the 2011 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Going into the 2012 elections, the president is desperate to create jobs and willing to sacrifice the environment in order to secure a second term.

The generals of Burma’s ruling junta have set aside their uniforms, but they still resemble a military dictatorship.

Washington’s poor response to the Arab Spring has severely damaged its ability to mediate the situation in Syria.

The assumption of power by Syrian President Assad’s father, Hafez, came at ironic cost to his own people, the Alawites.

A new book of oral histories gives voice to those who suffered from the curtailment of civil liberties after 9/11.

Alleged would-be assassin Manssor Arbabsiar may have been more interested in cashing in on a drug deal than pulling off acts of terrorism.

In the event of war, Iran’s missiles could wreak havoc with Saudi Arabia.

Shifting the Iranian threat into high gear in time for the election.