While Obama has raised many hopes and achieved a rhetorical break with the totalitarian language of the Bush administration, his choice of advisers indicates regression rather than progression. Yet if his promise turns out to be meretricious, the world’s rocky relationship with the United States will deteriorate even further.

By and large the war in Afghanistan has been met with a chronic state of ambivalence by the international media after the onset of the war in Iraq. The situation grows direr every day and the author questions whether the objectives set forth by the U.S government are working or could have ever worked.

It is Iran’s ability and willingness to contribute to stabilise the Middle East, and the hardcore realpolitik pursued to this end, that compelled the Bush administration to pursue higher level security talks with the Islamic Republic, says the author. It remains to be seen if the next President in the White House will appreciate these changing realities within the region, or will continue to huff and puff like an exhausted diva forced to share the grand stage (of world politics) with others.

• Why Iran is the Biggest Obstacle for Negotiations Between Israel and Syria
  por Jana Beris
• The futility of sanctioning Tehran
  por Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

Recently, officials in Washington D.C., London, and Paris have claimed that, for ordinary Iraqis, the security situation has been improved by the surge in U.S. troops. However, the Iraqi people continue to suffer, with thousands dead, millions injured, and millions more displaced. What led to this anarchic situation and how can it be contained?

• The United States Takes Turkey Out of Iraq
  por Ildefonso González Blasco
• Why the US is losing in Iraq
  por Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

The author argues that far from being isolated, Iran is embedded in myriad political and economic relations with global outreach. Sanctioning Iran is thus a futile strategy and needs to be substituted with a systematic effort to establish diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, once the belligerent Bush and Ahmadinejad administrations leave office.

Understand why the United States and his allies are unable to win in Iraq in spite of their overwhelming military force. Understand which is the role that plays the merger of the Wahhabi neo-fundamentalism, the Arab ultra-nationalism and the Shia revolutionism.

• Turkey´s diplomatic coercion with Iraq
  por Ildefonso González Blasco
• Protecting Americans by Spying at Home
  por Eric Napoli
• The Cold War with Iran
  por Ricardo Israel Zipper
• Uprising Against the 'War on Terror'
  por Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

The author discusses his views about a form of new anti-Iranianism referring to a general attitude of disrespect and vengefulness supported by the American media post 9-11, sighting examples such as the visit of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to New York.

• The Cold War with Iran
  por Ricardo Israel Zipper

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam writes on how with the growing conflict in Somalia, and the rising tension over Iran‘s nuclear program, it is the United States that has worsened the situation, taking violent, unjust, unilateral action with disastrous results. The War on Terror, Moghaddam writes, has been used as an excuse to perpetuate illegal intervention, international anarchy, and hegemonic control of the world. And while Iran is currently being portrayed as a danger to regional security, it is the US and Israel that present the real dangers. The rational majority must rise up against the dangerous ideology of US Foreign Policy in favour of coexistence and positive solutions to endemic problems.