The Comment Factory

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Since 2002, Joost Hiltermann has managed a team of analysts based in the Middle and North Africa to conduct research and write policy-focused reports on factors that increase the risk of and drive armed conflict

That’s a possibility. It’s only a possibility but I think whether that grassroots movement inside the Democratic Party develops or not what is most important is the development of a mass movement outside of the party system. That is, yes, the streets. The kind of movement that in the years of the civil rights movement against racial segregation or in the years of the movement against the Vietnam. A movement that is outside of the orthodox political institutions but which creates an atmosphere in the country and enlists enough people in its cause and frightens the establishment sufficiently so that something is changed

“It is not often we are permitted a glimpse into the personal lives of Iraq’s leaders,” said the letter to the Foreign Office, “so by way of introduction, I enclose a touching account of a day in the life of President Saddam Hussein.”

David Edwards parses Obama’s words on Iraq, and the slavish media reaction.

While calls to boycott Israel are understandable, there is little evidence that sanctions are an effective way to weaken to a government. Many times it leads to the impoverishment of civilians and the strengthening of the targeted administration.

In an exclusive interview, Matt Kennard talks to Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz on Iraq, Latin America and free-market fundamentalism.