The latest instalment of wildly popular videogame Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare, shows the narratives of today’s games can reveal the motives behind real-world politics. Over the past decade, fictional…
New order: Iran’s annual military parade.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
The mess in the Middle East is forcing states into actions that previously appeared unimaginable. Sworn enemies are suspending or at least compartmentalising grievances. The idea that an American secretary…
For many, the recent Brazil torture report is only a starting point – but so far it is a strong step in the right direction.
EPA/Fernando Bizzera, Jr
The world quietly celebrated Human Rights Day (December 10) earlier this month. That week, two big, interrelated human rights events occurred. The first was the well-publicised revelations that America’s…
The fence at Abu Ghraib prison, 2006.
EPA/Wathiq Khuzaie
Among the litany of abuse documented in the War on Terror, the revelations in the US Senate’s recent “torture report” on the treatment of detainees held in CIA “black sites” -secret overseas prisons where…
Torture victims will soon be lining up to sue the US. What are their chances?
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
The US Senate’s report on the torture carried out by the CIA makes shocking reading. Questions will be asked about whether individual victims can sue for compensation for losses suffered, and where they…
Listen up historians!
President Obama image from www.shutterstock.com
Aided and abetted by a disciplined Republican party, a common meme in the American media is the foreign policy failure of the Obama administration. The purported evidence is there for all to see. It includes…
The start of a beautiful friendship? The US’s John Kerry and Iran’s Javad Zarif.
EPA/Carolyn Kaster/Pool
It’s a desperately sad historical irony: in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq because its secular dictator was allegedly about to supply Islamist terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. About three…
A military campaign against Islamic State forces will offer no long-term resolution to Iraq’s extremist problem.
YouTube/VICE News
To explain the disaster befalling Iraq, as well as the rise of Islamic State (IS), you have to go back a century – before modern Iraq even existed. That’s not to discount the shared culpability of Iraq’s…
They are all Republicans but do these senators agree on US foreign policy?
Larry Downing/Reuters
The midterm elections have come and gone. After months of speculation, the results were largely predictable. The Republicans solidified their position in the House and took the Senate. A sixth year president’s…
Committed to boots on the ground … at West Point.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Instigated once again by events in the Middle East, talking heads in Washington have renewed a debate about whether America should have a grand strategy and, if so, what form it should take. This extends…
Over it: Iranian president Hassan Rouhani (L) and his foreign minister Javad Zarif.
EPA/STR
Since Hassan Rouhani was elected Iran’s president in June 2013, relations between Iran and the United States have significantly improved – though they remain very fragile. To explain why, most analysts…
Barack Obama is reluctant to jump in with both feet with a major military intervention in Iraq and Syria.
EPA/Valda Kalnina
US president Barack Obama has yet to work out exactly what America’s strategy is in confronting Islamic State (IS), and has been foolish enough to say so in public. Cue the foreseeable torrent of point-scoring…
In telegraphing toughness on foreign policy issues, Hillary Clinton hopes to send the message that the US will act like a great power when she’s president.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
Few people expected the opening shots of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to be fired across the bow of the Obama administration. Yet in a recent interview, the former secretary of state took aim…
Tough decision: Barack Obama with the National Security Council.
EPA/Pete Souza
Barack Obama’s decision to authorise the bombing of the forces of the Islamic State, or ISIS as it is commonly known, in northern Iraq has justifiably caught many observers by surprise. After all, the…
Iraq is rapidly spiralling into a humanitarian catastrophe, with the persecuted Yazidi religious minority facing genocide.
EPA/Mohammed Jalil
US president Barack Obama has confirmed that the US military made targeted airstrikes and carried out a humanitarian operation in Iraq, marking the deepest US engagement in the country since US troops…
Don’t make me bring Angela into this.
Alexei Nikolsky/EPA
The tragic circumstances surrounding the downing of Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH17 remain unclear. The three parties who might be responsible – the Ukrainians, the Russians and the rebels – all blame each…
Provocative words chucked out by Hagel.
EPA/Robert Ghement
When US defence secretary Chuck Hagel recently accused China of destabilising the Asia region to an audience in Singapore, he knew he was preaching to the converted. China’s modern-day development is complex…
Yes we can (I’ve checked this with my legal team).
EPA/Evelyn Chavez
With the world focused on ISIS and Iraq, last month US Special Forces carried out a capture operation in Libya against Ahmed Abu Khattala, the suspected ringleader of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi. The…
Hard sell: can Obama convince Americans to trust Iran?
EPA/Martin Simon/Pool
Charles Dudley Warner’s oft-quoted suggestion that “politics makes strange bedfellows” is never better illustrated than the prospect of a rapprochement between Iran and the United States. Stimulated by…
Dorothy Parker famously reacted to the ringing of the telephone with the phrase, “What fresh Hell is this?” Occupants of the White House could be forgiven for having adopted the same practice when it comes…