The RPI Challenge

Forget the mad spinning. Here it is, in a nutshell, what it really takes for Iran and the P5+1 to clinch a game-changing nuclear deal before the new July 7 deadline. Iran and the P5+1 agreed in Lausanne on a “comprehensive plan of action,” taking into account delicate constitutional considerations in both the US and Iran. A crucial part of the plan is the mechanism to get rid of sanctions. Lausanne – and now Vienna – is not a treaty; it’s an action plan. There will be a declaration when a deal...

One notable consequence of the Ukraine conflict and the ongoing confrontational stand-off between the West and Russia is the dramatic surge in military spending among several European countries. However, this unprecedented militarization of economies across Europe portends a disastrous Greek-style future of crippling debt for these same countries. Those most at risk from a future hangover of military overspend in the years ahead include the Baltic states, Poland and the Scandinavian countries....

To understand today’s crises in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, one must grasp their shared Lebanese connection. This assertion may seem odd. After all, what’s the big deal about Lebanon? That little country hasn’t had top headlines since Israel deigned to bomb and invade it in 2006. Yet, to a large extent, the roots of the bloody tangle now enmeshing the Middle East lie in Lebanon: or to be more precise, in the Lebanon policy of Israel. Rewind to the era before the War on Terror. In 1995, Yitzhak...

The photos from Greece showing long lines at ATMs are astonishing. Even after the deposit outflows from Greek banks over the past weeks, there are still large numbers of people who are trying to get their money out of the banking system. With the banks closed, ATMs are the only way for people to get any cash. Let’s not beat around the bush in describing what is happening: this is a bank run. Even though Greece has a deposit insurance scheme that covers up to €100,000 in savings accounts, trust...

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it…. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them...

The Electric Yerevan protest provides us with an excellent opportunity to review some of the basic underlying mechanics and psychology of the Color-Spring tactic. It is important to share these publicly, for it is indeed probable that the Color-Spring tactic will be increasingly applied in the world as a "hybrid soft-power/hard-power tactic". A moral principle held by Gene Sharp, who was one of the tactic's main developers, was that violence is not necessary for revolution. What is strange,...

By ruling for the government in the case of King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court once again tied itself into rhetorical and logical knots to defend Obamacare. In King, the court disregarded Obamacare’s clear language regarding eligibility for federal health care subsides, on the grounds that enforcing the statute as written would cause havoc in the marketplace. The court found that Congress could not have intended this result and that the court needed to uphold Congress’s mythical intention and...

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, took the podium during last week's meeting of NATO defense ministers to hype the Russian threat to NATO while downplaying recent NATO military moves on Russia's border.While criticizing "a more assertive Russia investing heavily in defence," Stoltenberg countered that, “We do not seek confrontation [with Russia], and we do not want a new arms race.” He then announced that the new enhanced NATO Response Force will...

Imagine that Russia announced that it was reconstituting the Warsaw Pact and that Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Bolivia had signed on as members. Imagine also that Russia fomented a regime-change operation in Mexico that succeeded in ousting the democratically elected president of the country and installing a pro-Russia ruler in his stead. Imagine that Russia then embarked on a plan to build military bases and install missiles in all of those countries, including...

In one form or another, the US has been at war with Iraq since 1990, including a sort-of invasion in 1991 and a full-scale one in 2003. During that quarter-century, Washington imposed several changes of government, spent trillions of dollars, and was involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. None of those efforts were a success by any conceivable definition of the term Washington has been capable of offering. Nonetheless, it’s the American Way to believe with all our hearts...

It looks like open season has been declared on the battle flag of Army of Northern Virginia, which is commonly referred to as the Confederate battle flag. But, if you are looking for a flag to ban as racist, you might as well start with the American flag. After all, the American flag is associated with the United States government that sanctioned slavery from the enactment of the US Constitution in 1789 to the addition of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865 — months...

While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the...

Words seem to mean different things in the Middle East. “Training” is a new term for escalation, and “Iraq” seems more and more like the Arabic word for Vietnam. But the terms “slippery slope” and “quagmire” still mean what they have always meant. In 2011, making good on a campaign promise that helped land him in the White House, President Barack Obama closed out America’s eight-year war in Iraq. Disengaged, redeployed, packed up, departed. Then America went back. In August 2014, Obama turned...

“No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.”—Texas Rangers In one swoop, on June 22, 2015, a divided US Supreme Court handed down three consecutive rulings affirming the right of raisin farmers, hotel owners and prison inmates. However, this push back against government abuse, government snooping and government theft only came about because some determined citizens stood up and took a stand against tyranny. The three cases respectively deal...

The story published in the Washington Post on 13 June shows how the US military service chiefs - who make decisions on war policy in light of their own institutional interests - prefer an inconclusive war with ISIS and existing constraints on US involvement, to one with even the most US limited combat role. The resistance of top US military officials to deepening US military involvement in the war against ISIS came in the wake of a major policy debate within the Obama administration following...