Is the United States a war-happy nation? With the situation surrounding the Strait of Hormuz escalating, columnist Abd Al Bari Atwan of Samidoon in the Palestinian Territories writes that American embargoes invariably lead to war, and with the U.S. economy in crisis, a war with Iran that would boost weapons sales may be precisely what Washington wants. For Samidoon, Abd Al Bari Atwan writes in part: There is an Arabic proverb: “A criminal always hovers near the scene of the crime.”...

Like Saddam Hussein, are Iranian leaders boasting of their nuclear program and military prowess when in fact they are quite weak? Ahmed Al-Jarallah, the editor in chief of Kuwait’s Al-Seyassah, warns Iranian leaders to step back from the brink and retract their threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which 40 percent of the world’s oil flows – before it is too late. Al-Seyassah editor in chief Ahmed Al-Jarallah starts out this way: The international isolation...

Four of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council will see political changes at the top this year – including the United States. According to Stefan Kornelius of Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, these decisions, out of the hands of most of the world’s people, could decide the type of civilization most of us end up living in: some form of democracy or as the Chinese call it, ‘benevolent autocracy.’ For the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius writes in...

America is far from being the only country currently obssessed with presidential politics and national elections. After a year of astounding despotic topplings and revolutions, is Vladimir Putin’s reign over the vast territories of the Russian Federation finally coming to an end? For Russia’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, journalist and opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza bravely explains why a Russian Foreign Ministry human rights report critical of the United States shows that a typically...

How sorry is the present state of Iraq – and how bitter do some Iraqis feel about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and withdrawal? For Iraq’s Azzaman, columnist Fateh Abdulsalam accuses President Obama of brazenly using the Iraq withdrawal to his political advantage and leaving the country ‘with a government reveling in the joys of its own corruption and the opportunistic use of the symbols of office to attain personal privilegeS and self aggrandizement.’ For Azzaman,...

Despite recent unrest over the rule of Vladimir Putin and the perception that the recent Duma elections were rigged in favor of his party, many Russians regard him as a hero that has protected the nation from Western interests seeking to undermine Russian influence. For the Komsomolskaya Pravda, columnist Dmitry Voskoboinikov writes that whatever warts Putin and Russia may have, at least they aren’t being governed by Goldman Sachs retreads like Greece, Italy and the European Union. For the...

Arranging smooth successions has been the bane of despots since the dawn of history – and today’s North Korea is a perfect example. Does the death of Kim Jong-il mean the beginning of the end of the Kim dynasty? Columnist Sohn Gwang-joo of South Korea’s Daily North Korea explains why contradictions in the system coupled with the inexperience of the country’s new despot make it highly unlikely that the Kim dynasty will long survive the Pyongyang shark tank. For the Daily...

Is America’s fear of terrorism putting a chill on essential scientific research? For Italy’s La Stampa, columnist Piero Bianucci warns that the White House, in an unprecedented move to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on an even more deadly form of bird flu, has persuaded science journals Science and Nature to censor themselves, undermining the free flow of information that scientific progress depends on. For La Stampa, Piero Bianucci writes in part: The long wave of...

Is the Internal Revenue Service suborning European Banks to keep tabs on their American customers? According to this editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, a number of German Banks have ‘understandably’ decided to drop their U.S. customers due to the expense of complying with IRS data provisions and for fear of being on the wrong side of the American tax collector. The Financial Times Deutschland editorial says in part: If some European banks are now concluding...

Is Newt Gingrich suited to be president of the United States? Trending negative on this question along with much of the rest of the world is columnist Patrik Eschemeyer of Switerland’s News. Eschemeyer labels the entire Republican field with the exception of John Huntsman as ‘madcap’ – and he regards Newt Gingrich as a ‘pig.’ For the News, Patrik Eschemeyer starts out this way: At the moment, we in Europe are busy gazing at our navels, what with the euro and...

Now that U.S. forces are either out or about to leave, there is significant Iraqi hand-wringing over whether it was wise to force them to go now. For Sotal Iraq, columnist Amran Al-Obaidi writes that the decision-making process that has led to the American withdrawal was flawed, and that Iraqis who have demanded a complete U.S. pullout were more interested in scoring political points than the security and rebuilding of Iraq. For Sotal Iraq, Amran Al-Obaidi writes in part: In the early stages of...

Newt Gingrich’s comment that Palestinians are an ‘invented people’ is proving to be one of the most globally devisive of the 2012 campaign season – particularly in the Muslim world and especially among Palestinians. For Samidoon in the Palestinian Territories, columnist Abd Al Bari Atwan expresses the frustration felt among Palestinians over the wider meaning of Gingrich’s comment, and issues a renewed call to arms for Palestinian youth. For Samidoon, Abd Al Bari...

Not surprisingly, Arabs aren’t taking too kindly to Newt Gingrich’s recent comment that the Palestinians are an ‘invented people’ seeking little more than the destruction of Israel. For Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran, K. Selim writes that if Gingrich makes his way into the White House, at least Arabs will be able to stop pretending that there is any hope of Washington being a fair arbiter. For Le Quotidien d’Oran, K. Selim starts out this way: Palestinians are “a...

Are the American-based credit rating agencies in cahootz with the U.S. government? Columnist Anna Szabó of Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet Konyvek sees a war on Europe and specifically Hungary in the latest credit rating downgrades by Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, and exorts Europeans to create their own credit rating agency that would be independent of U.S. influence and offer more accurate forecasts. For Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet Konyvek, Columnist Anna Szabó writes in part: The...

Has the very foundation of modern democracy been superseded without anyone noticing? Columnist Nicolas Demorand of France’s Liberation warns that democratic politicians have a new master – and it isn’t the constitution or the voter. For Liberation, Nicolas Demorand starts out this way: Executive, legislative, judiciary: political philosophy teaches that a democratic state is based on the separation of these three powers, but also on the counterbalancing dynamic that each exerts...

Will the newly-launched Community of Latin American and Caribbean States end up displacing the Washington-based Organization of American States, as Venezuela President Hugo Chavez hopes, or will it fizzle out as so many previous attempts at Latin American unification have done? Columnist Nelson Ortega from Venezuela’s Aporrea is certain that the formation of CELAC is the culmination of Simon Bolivar’s dream of a unified Latin America – free of Yankee influence. In classic style...

Are the once all-powerful credit-rating agencies, the most important of which are American – becoming irrelevant to the markets and those who invest in them? According to this editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, despite the fact that Standard and Poor’s threatened to downgrade eurozone debt last week, European markets have hardly moved. The editorial board of the Financial Times Deutschland starts out this way: Tuesday’s experience with the powerful rating...

Could it be that part of America’s plan for the Iraqi invasion was to undermine the Iraqi family by luring women and girls to work for the occupation? For Oman’s Al Watan in an article reminiscent of the type of content we published at the height of the war, columnist Walid Al Zubaydi writes that the way U.S. immigration officers insult Iraqis granted asylum in the U.S. is a consequence of the scheme, and that without the Iraqi resistance, the Americans would have succeeded in undermining...

Does the global “Occupy” movement reflect the very best of Western dedication to social and economic justice – or is it just a craven reflection of a civilization in moral decline? Columnist Iulian Leca of Romania’s Voxpublica writes that juxtaposing the mad rush for Black Friday shopping bargains against images of the protests exposes the ‘Occupiers’ as no better than the adolescent vandals that ravaged London just a few months ago for lack of the latest audio...

Will the Community of Latin American and the Caribbean States, the new organization that pointedly excludes the U.S. and Canada, prove to be more than a footnote of history? This news item from Venezuela’s El Universal, the first of a series of CELAC articles we are working on, covers the opening session of the event, which featured a speech by Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Chavez implored his guests from around the region not to allow CELAC to gather dust like so many previous Latin American...

Calls for the legalization of drugs are coming from the strangest places these days – like from the president of the world’s leading cocaine exporter. Columnist Antonio Caballero of Colombia’s Semana writes that while he may be ‘the most submissive servant of the United States among world leaders,’ Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has done something not even Washington’s leading adversaries have done: publicly raise the possibility of legalization. For Semana,...

As the global financial crisis has worsened, Europeans could only look on with envy as the United States continued to issue debt and successfully sell it – and at amazingly low interest rates. That’s because America has a central bank empowered to be the ‘lender of last resort,’ which means that if private investors don’t buy U.S. Treasury Bonds, the FED will. According to Ulrike Herrmann of Germany’s Die Tageszeitung, it is time the E.U. empowers the European...

Is Iraq in for a re-eruption of the kind of ethnic and religious strife it experienced during the height of the U.S. occupation? For Iraq’s Al Iraq News, Dr. Fadhil Al Badrani warns his countrymen that unless Iraqi leaders ‘review their political inclinations and renounce their differences,’ those fearing a U.S. pullout – and those celebrating it – will end up as ‘wood’ for the fire that will engulf the country when America leaves. For Iraq’s Al...

With the world looking to Berlin to save the euro, Germans may be reevaluating their decades of nearly constant criticism of the way the United States wields its influence. Die Welt columnist Clemens Wergin warns his readers not to expect gratitude from Europeans for saving the common currency, and lays bare the irony of Europe’s growing need for German help – and its fear of German power. For Germany’s Die Zeit, Clemens Wergin begins his exposition of how Germans have learned...

Is NATO pondering an Arab-backed, Libya-like invasion of Syria? Are Israel and the West planning to strike Iran’s nuclear program? Columnist Mohamed Kawash of Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm writes that the Arab street has a sinking feeling that history is about to repeat itself. For Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Mohamed Kawash writes in part: How similar today is to yesterday. History is repeating itself. We are now living in an atmosphere like that before the Iraq War, but the goal is now...