commentary

[Prefatory Note: Based on Javad Heiran-Nia’s Interview (1 Feb 2020) on ‘the deal of the century.’]

Rodrigo Craviero Supplemental Interview Questions
 
Q: What kind of comments would you add?
 

On the Eve of the Release of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century
 
[ Based on CORREIO BRAZILIENSE, Jan. 28, 2020, Interview by Rodrigo Craveiro on Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’]
1– Why are Palestinian leaders rejecting to talk with president Trump about this new peace plan?

[Prefatory Note: This post was initially published on January 27, 2020 in a Turkish online publication, Fikir Turu, and is slightly modified below.]
 
The Decline of International Law
 
There is widespread agreement that international law is experiencing a sharp decline in
relevance when it comes to foreign policy, especially in the eye of the public. At first glance,

[Prefatory Note: The essay below, longer than most of my posts, started off as a tribute to my friend David Krieger, serving as a chapter in a forthcoming book honoring his dedication to the abolition of nuclear weaponry by way of a treaty regime being prepared under the editorship of Rick Wayman, now President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Krieger’s successor. In the modified form published below the essay calls attention to the generally unappreciated tensions between managing nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether.

[Prefatory Note: The post below is a somewhat amplified version of an interview with C. J. Polychroniou, journalist and professor of political economy at West Chester University, which was published on January 7, 2020 in the online journal, Global Policy.

Four Reflections on What Would Help Democrats Defeat Trump
 
 

[Prefatory Note: Below is a Letter to Members of Congress with an initial group of signatories; there are many more that have been gathered but not listed here. If you wish to add your signature, please send your name and affiliation to Vida Samiian, vidasamiian@gmail.com who helped compose the original text, and now with the logistics of the initiative. If you agree with the argument, please do join us by adding your name.

[Prefatory Note: At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays, by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 forsome glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course, here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions, yet hovering over the public marketplaces ofthe world I cringe beneath menacing storm clouds and below chaos and misery, and catastrophes waiting to happen.

[Prefatory Note: This is a modified version of an earlier text published in TMS (Transcend Media Service) in the December 23-29, 2019 edition. For the sake of discouraging anti-Semitism and restoring freedom of expression in Western constitutional democracies denouncing the branding of those in solidarity with struggles for justice and rights on behalf of the Palestinian people should be high on the policy agenda of 2020, and yet we have so far heard only the silence of the lambs in the debates of Democrats seeking the presidential nomination.]