International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

9/11: A Quarter Century of Imperial War

Gilbert Achcar — 2026-09-11T10:03:06Z

“Absolutely, I hold on to hope, hope rooted in the new generation and its capacity to invent new forms of struggle, as we have seen recently with the Moroccan Gen Z movement, an extraordinary moment, with thousands of young people mobilising and using modern technology to coordinate their action. I make a crucial distinction between optimism and hope, they are not the same thing at all. Optimism is the belief that the best outcome will happen. Hope is the belief that a better outcome is possible, with no guarantee attached. I can keep hoping, while recognising that today the balance of evidence weighs heavily toward pessimism.”

- IVP620 - September 2026 / Palestine, United States (USA), Syria, MENA (Middle East/North Africa), Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen

Climate events provoke tensions in the Arab world

Luiza Toscane — 2026-08-02T08:54:03Z

The countries of the Arabic-speaking region experienced floods last winter (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia). Six months later, the region is experiencing extreme temperatures: from 40° to 50° in the Maghreb and 50° and more in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, with an average of 35° in Gaza (meaning 50° in tents). Deaths due to the heatwave are estimated to be in the hundreds in Tunisia.

- IVP619 - August 2026 / Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Climate, Yemen, Oman

Trump's barbarous war on Iran, part of a long history of war crimes

Dan La Botz — 2026-04-07T05:22:33Z

President Donald Trump's war on Iran is barbarous, cruel, vicious, undertaken and carried out without a bit of concern for the millions of human beings it is affecting in Iran, in the region, and throughout the world. The nature of the war was revealed on the first day, 28 February , when the United States hit a school in Minab and killed an estimated 175 people, 100 of them children. Attacks on civilians are a war crime, all too common a war crime in all modern wars. Now Trump is threatening an even greater war crime.

- IVP615 - April 2026 / United States (USA), Iraq, Vietnam, Iran

Impact of Israeli Genocidal War in Gaza on the Middle East

Joseph Daher — 2024-01-20T16:57:00Z

THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION army is continuing more than 100 days after its outbreak to wage a genocidal war against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. This immediately followed the October 7th Hamas attack, which led to the death of 1,139 persons, including 695 Israeli civilians, 373 members of the security forces and 71 foreigners.
The 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are living under a constant Israeli bombardment of unprecedented violence. By mid-January 2024, according (…)

- IV588 - January 2024 / Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Yemen

Putin's war in Ukraine: In Saddam Hussein's footsteps

Gilbert Achcar — 2022-02-27T08:26:21Z

There is a striking parallel between Vladimir Putin's behaviour in Ukraine and Saddam Hussein's behaviour in the past. The two men resorted to force, accompanied by remarkably similar claims, to achieve expansionist ambitions.

- IV565 - February 2022 / Iraq, Ukraine

The US Lost in Afghanistan. But US Imperialism Isn't Going Anywhere.

Gilbert Achcar — 2021-09-06T06:51:51Z

The United States suffered grave losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. But we shouldn't mistake revisions of US military strategy after calamitous failures for a turn away from US imperialist ambitions.

- IV560 - September 2021 / United States (USA), Iraq, Afghanistan

The Other Regional Counter-Revolution: Iran's Role in the Shifting Political Landscape of the Middle East

Danny Postel — 2021-07-14T07:48:02Z

“The counter-revolution confronting the Middle East today in this period of dramatic upheaval is not headquartered in a single capital. Riyadh and Tehran form what we might think of as a regional counter-revolutionary hydra.”

- IV558 - July 2021 / Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia

Their anti-imperialism and ours

Gilbert Achcar — 2021-04-07T18:46:18Z

The logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a recipe for empty cynicism.

- IV555 - April 2021 / United States (USA), Iraq, Libya, Imperialism

After the Pandemic Subsides, We May See a Third Wave of the Arab Spring

Ashley Smith, Gilbert Achcar — 2021-01-20T10:53:42Z

“There's still a very long way to go in this long-term revolutionary process. The good news is that people are learning what they're up against and drawing lessons from both defeats and victories.”

- IV552 - January 2021 / Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Arab Revolutions, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Bahrain

From one Arab Spring to another

Gilbert Achcar — 2020-07-26T07:20:56Z

The crisis of the neoliberal stage of capitalism has been unfolding spectacularly under our eyes in recent months, provoking ever greater social upheavals in an ever greater number of places.

- IV546 - July 2020 / Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Arab Revolutions, Sudan