Lobelog

Palestinian men watch Donald Trump give a foreign policy speech in a cafe in East Jerusalem, December 6, 2017. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Under Trump, Arab support for U.S. hits lowest point in years

Polling in 11 Arab countries finds that only 12 percent of people in the Arab world have a positive view of U.S. foreign policy. Nearly 90 percent say they would oppose their country recognizing Israel diplomatically. By Derek Davison A year and a half into his presidency, Donald Trump’s two biggest beneficiaries in the Middle…

By +972 Magazine July 18, 2018

An American sailor stands lookout aboard a guided missile cruiser with the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier seen in the background. (U.S. Navy photo/William Jenkins)

Beyond American hegemony and a liberal international order

With Trump’s departure from the Iran deal, many are mourning the ‘rules based international order.’ But Trump is not the problem: the world has changed, and the idea that the U.S. dominates the world by dint of power, values, wisdom, even God’s decisions is a myth. By Gordon Adams America’s place in the world is…

By +972 Magazine May 24, 2018

American billionaire businessman Sheldon Gary Adelson (L), and his wife Miriam Ochshorn attends the Israeli Presidential Conference at the International Conference Centre in Jerusalem May 13, 2008. (Olivier Fitoussi /FLASH90.)

For Adelson-funded organization, anti-Semitism is not a problem

Right-wing Jews like Sheldon Adelson have no problem shelling out money for the European ‘New Right,’ even if it means flirting with anti-Semites. By Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton A familiar group of super-hawkish, anti-Iran U.S. billionaires has been spending millions of dollars on a rather eclectic and somewhat bizarre organization of mainly foreign leaders. This organization, the…

By +972 Magazine March 11, 2018

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits across from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on June 30, 2015, in Vienna, Austria, before a one-on-one meeting amid negotiations about the future of Iran's nuclear program. (State Department photo)

The Iranian nuclear deal remains the least bad option

Pulling the U.S. out of the deal — or provoking Iran to pull out — would mean abandoning the least bad option for dealing with an Iran that can produce highly enriched uranium. By Peter Jenkins Abbas Araghchi was in London last week. Araghchi, one of Iran’s deputy foreign ministers, was a negotiator of the Joint Comprehensive…

By +972 Magazine March 1, 2018

President Donald Trump (Joyce N. Boghosian/White House photo)

Killing the Iran deal with a thousand cuts

Much like President Trump is undermining his predecessor’s other flagship achievement, the Affordable Care Act, the president is attacking the Iran nuclear agreement piecemeal. The result will be tragic. By Paul Pillar Don’t be either fooled or relieved by President Trump’s waiving, for now, of nuclear sanctions on Iran, and thus his forgoing of an…

By +972 Magazine January 15, 2018

American billionaire businessman Sheldon Gary Adelson (L), and his wife Miriam Ochshorn attends the Israeli Presidential Conference at the International Conference Centre in Jerusalem May 13, 2008. (Olivier Fitoussi /FLASH90.)

Bannon: Adelson drove Jerusalem embassy move

An excerpt from a new book on the Trump presidency confirms: the right-wing billionaire and Netanyahu backer has been a driving force behind the administration’s foreign policy decisions. By Eli Clifton Candidate Donald Trump claimed that he wouldn’t be beholden to campaign donors and slammed his Republican primary opponents as puppets of their wealthy patrons. “Sheldon…

By +972 Magazine January 5, 2018

Is Sheldon Adelson behind Trump’s decision on Jerusalem?

The Jewish-American casino mogul, also a major supporter of Prime Minister Netanyahu, has reportedly grown impatient with Trump’s delays to follow through on his campaign promise to move the American embassy. By Eli Clifton President Donald Trump is expected to announce U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Wednesday, and possibly his intention to…

By +972 Magazine December 5, 2017

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, May 23, 2017. (Flash90)

Stuck between Trump and Netanyahu, Abbas is running out of options

U.S.-led negotiations are the only game in town for the Palestinian Authority — Abbas doesn’t have many choices available. But according to those close to him, he is unsure about how to proceed given that the goal posts have been moved yet again.

By Dalia Hatuqa September 10, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 21, 2017. (White House photo)

What’s the story with the siege on Doha?

It is very difficult to accept at face value this newfound determination to defeat terrorism by the Gulf states by humiliating a smaller neighbor whose differences consist primarily of alternative choices of distasteful proxies. By Gary Sick There are several things that I find confounding about the current conflict within the GCC: First, as a…

By +972 Magazine June 20, 2017

President Donald Trump with senior advisors in a makeshift situation room at Trump’s Mar a Lago estate in Florida, April 7, 2017. (White House photo)

Can the Iran Deal survive the Trump administration?

From a White House flirting with a policy of regime change to a changing political reality in the Gulf to the terror attacks in Tehran, the Iranian nuclear deal’s survival is anything but guaranteed. By Derek Davison The Iran nuclear deal—Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—is facing multiple threats, and whatever hope there may…

By +972 Magazine June 14, 2017

Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka seen wearing a medal from the Vitzei Rend, a Hungarian group listed by the State Department as having collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. (Fox News screenshot)

ADL demands Trump advisor disavow ‘anti-Semitic hate groups’

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka following a series of investigations that began with reporting by Lobelog, and published on +972. By Eli Clifton Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka has had a rough two weeks. It began with LobeLog’s report that he wore the medal of Vitezi…

By +972 Magazine February 26, 2017

A test launch of the Iranian Emad intermediate-range ballistic missile, October 11, 2015. (Mohammad Aaah/Tasnim News Agency)

What ‘putting Iran on notice’ really means

It’s high time for the United States to interject some realism into discussions about Iranian missiles. By Greg Thielmann Iran’s January 29 flight test of a medium-range ballistic missile helped prompt an ominous if ambiguous warning by U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on February 1: “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on…

By +972 Magazine February 8, 2017

Speaker Paul Ryan meets with the President and Vice President-elect, Donald Trump and Gov. Mike Pence on Capitol Hill after their election. (Office of the Speaker of the House)

Prominent Iranian-Americans to Trump: Keep the nuclear deal

Thirty-seven leading Iranian Americans pen open letter to President-elect Trump, urging him to keep the Iran deal. Abandoning it, they write, will ‘once again put the United States and Iran on the path of war.’ By Jim Lobe In a particularly eloquent and straightforward defense of the Iranian nuclear deal, 37 prominent Iranian Americans have…

By +972 Magazine January 8, 2017