Make Sense of the world
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The hardest part of publishing articles in the news is drafting the story’s headline. Headlines serve two essential purposes: to give a general idea of the subject that the article exposes and to trigger the reader’s curiosity or interest. Because the headline must be pithy, the second...
In an article published by Fair Observer, political analyst Amin Farhad provides some much-needed clarity on the ambiguous situation concerning the US military presence in the Middle East after the strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on January 3. Although there has been a...
Despite knowledge of his illness, I was stunned and saddened by the death on January 10 of Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman. I had come to know Sultan Qaboos, who ruled Oman for 49 years, as an American diplomat. I served two assignments in Oman, as deputy chief of mission between 1998 and 2001, and...
At his speech on January 8 following the Iranian missile attack on Iraqi bases hosting American forces, US President Donald Trump announced, with his usual tone of self-congratulation, that "Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for...
Following Iran’s missile attacks on a two US airbase, one outside Baghdad and the second near Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, US President Donald Trump almost triumphantly announced that Iran is now standing down in their the two countries’ intensified conflict following the killing of Quds Force...
A large number of people seem to believe that World War III has begun with the drone strike that killed Iran's Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani, on January 3. On December 27, a US military contractor was killed in a rocket attack in Iraq, and the US responded with a bombing...
As vice president to Barack Obama, whose proudest claim to honor and presidential stature was the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Joe Biden understands what it means — at least in terms of political marketing — to fulfill the requirements of justice. Commenting on the US drone...
The assassination of the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani, by the United States on January 3, along with his right-hand man in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was a surprising move for many. Soleimani’s assassination increased pressure on President Donald Trump in...
When people live (and die) with a binary vision of the world, the same object may end up with two opposite meanings. This tends to be the norm in wartime, but the trend toward reducing everything to a binary opposition has increased radically in recent years, even in times of peace. The instinct...
In the days since the January 3 assassination of Major General Qassem Suleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, on the orders of US President Donald Trump, the world has anxiously waited to see whether, where and how Tehran would fulfill its pledge to wreak vengeance on the Americans. Thus far,...
On December 22, 2019, the Independent High Commission for Human Rights of Iraq announced the assassination of 26 activists who participated in anti-government demonstrations that began on October 1. Half of the assassinations took place in the capital, Baghdad, and the rest in the...
