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Why is Mitch McConnell so afraid of John Bolton?

Why is Mitch McConnell so afraid of John Bolton?

Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III write: The importance of John Bolton’s offer to testify if subpoenaed in the impeachment proceedings against President Trump cannot be overstated. In a single stroke, Mr. Bolton, the former national security adviser, elevated truth and transparency over political gamesmanship. The Senate must take him up on his offer, as well as demand the testimony of President Trump and the administration officials he has barred from testifying. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell,…

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Those financing climate disaster need to learn from indigenous wisdom

Those financing climate disaster need to learn from indigenous wisdom

Tara Houska writes: “This way of life is not primitive, it is not uncivilised,” I gestured to the image on the screen just above my head. It showed my longtime teacher, Dennis Jones, knocking manoomin (wild rice), the grain sacred to Anishinaabe people, into a canoe. I snapped that photo of us harvesting wild rice years back, before a new pipeline called Line 3 threatened to carry a million barrels of tar sands per day from Alberta through some of…

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Statistic of the decade: The massive deforestation of the Amazon

Statistic of the decade: The massive deforestation of the Amazon

Aerial view of deforested area of the Amazon rainforest. PARALAXIS/Shutterstock.com By Liberty Vittert, Washington University in St Louis This year, I was on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Decade. Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” competition, the international statistic is meant to capture the zeitgeist of this decade. The judging panel accepted nominations from the statistical community and the public at large for a statistic that shines a light on…

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What makes us unexceptional

What makes us unexceptional

Corey S. Powell writes: One of the greatest debates in the long history of astronomy has been that of exceptionalism versus mediocrity—and one of the great satisfactions of modern times has been watching the arguments for mediocrity emerge triumphant. Far more than just a high-minded clash of abstract ideas, this debate has shaped the way we humans evaluate our place in the universe. It has defined, in important ways, how we measure the very value of our existence. In the…

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Attacking Iran’s cultural sites would violate the Hague Cultural Property Convention

Attacking Iran’s cultural sites would violate the Hague Cultural Property Convention

John Bellinger writes: On Sunday, President Trump — as he is wont to do when criticized — doubled down on his threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites if Iran attacks the United States in response to the killing of Qassim Suleimani. Although the United States is not a party to the Rome Statue, which makes intentional attacks on historic monuments a war crime, the United States is a party to the 1954 Hague Convention on Protection of Cultural Property in…

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Secret Iranian spy cables show how Qassim Suleimani wielded enormous power in Iraq

Secret Iranian spy cables show how Qassim Suleimani wielded enormous power in Iraq

Murtaza Hussain writes: In the four decaes since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, few Iranian leaders have achieved the global profile attained by Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the military commander killed in an American airstrike on Thursday. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Suleimani emerged as the United States’s most capable adversary in that country. His American counterpart at a key point during the occupation, Gen. David Petraeus, described Suleimani as “a truly evil figure” in a letter to Robert Gates,…

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Iran’s cyber attack on casino boss Sheldon Adelson provides lesson on strategy

Iran’s cyber attack on casino boss Sheldon Adelson provides lesson on strategy

Bloomberg reports: As the U.S. awaits possible retribution over a recent airstrike that killed a top general, there’s at least one American businessman who can attest, in detail, to what happened after he provoked Iran. In October 2013, Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and prominent supporter of conservative politicians and Israel, appeared on a panel in New York in which he suggested that the U.S. could send a message to Iran, regarding its nuclear ambitions, by detonating an American warhead…

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Suleimani appears almost as potent in death as he was in life

Suleimani appears almost as potent in death as he was in life

Robin Wright writes: The flag-draped coffin of General Qassem Suleimani was thronged by wailing mobs in Tehran on Monday, as the fallout from his death, in a U.S. air strike, accelerated with breathtaking speed. Iran has not seen such an outpouring of emotion on the streets since the death of the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wept openly—as did other political leaders and military officers—as he prayed over the casket. Esmail Gha’ani, Suleimani’s…

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The outpouring of grief for Qassim Suleimani is Iran’s first act of retaliation

The outpouring of grief for Qassim Suleimani is Iran’s first act of retaliation

Azadeh Moaveni writes: The last time I wrote seriously about a war with Iran was in 2012. It had been an especially fraught year, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards running naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, Israel and the United States conducting joint drills, and the safety of oil shipping lanes looking entirely unassured. Oil prices rattled skittishly, everyone suddenly monitored ships, and headlines speculated that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear sites. My assignment was to consider “the day after” —…

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If the world ran on sunshine, it wouldn’t fight over oil

If the world ran on sunshine, it wouldn’t fight over oil

Last September, Bill McKibben wrote: We are sadly accustomed by now to the idea that our reliance on oil and gas causes random but predictable outbreaks of flood, firestorm and drought. The weekend’s news from the Gulf is a grim reminder that depending on oil leads inevitably to war too. Depending on how far back you want to stand, the possibility of war with Iran stems from a calculated decision by Tehran or its Houthi allies to use drones and…

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‘Silent death’: Australia’s bushfires push countless species to extinction

‘Silent death’: Australia’s bushfires push countless species to extinction

The Guardian reports: Close to the Western River on Kangaroo Island, Pat Hodgens had set up cameras to snap the island’s rare dunnart – a tiny mouse-like marsupial that exists nowhere else on the planet. Now, after two fires ripped through the site a few days ago, those cameras – and likely many of the Kangaroo Island dunnarts – are just charred hulks. “It’s gone right through the under storey and that’s where these species live,” said Hodgens, an ecologist…

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Unintended consequences of assassination widen as Trump threatens further escalation of violence

Unintended consequences of assassination widen as Trump threatens further escalation of violence

The New York Times reports: The consequences of the American assassination of a top Iranian general rippled across the Middle East and beyond on Sunday, with Iran ending commitments it made to limit its nuclear fuel production and Iraqi lawmakers voting to expel American forces from their country. Steeling for retaliation from Iran, an American-led coalition in Iraq and Syria suspended the campaign it has waged against the Islamic State for years, and hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to…

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Stupid officials offered a stupid president a stupid option. Then they were stunned he took a stupid action

Stupid officials offered a stupid president a stupid option. Then they were stunned he took a stupid action

The New York Times reports: In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump. They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options…

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Suleimani’s death is a huge blow to Iran’s plans for regional domination

Suleimani’s death is a huge blow to Iran’s plans for regional domination

Hassan Hassan writes: The killing of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani could prove to be the most consequential US slaying of an enemy operative in recent memory. It will eclipse in its significance the killing of Osama bin Laden almost a decade ago or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October. Not because it might spark another Middle East war, as many have warned, or merely because Suleimani was irreplaceable. Rather, his killing came at a time when the project he had…

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