SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
cuban missile crisis
Could the UN Secretary-General’s 'Good Offices' Help to End the Iran War?
Given the two-week ceasefire, the recent appointment of an experienced personal envoy for the Middle East conflict by UN Secretary-General Guterres and the establishment of a UN Task Force to facilitate the opening of the Strait of Hormuz offer hope for lasting peace.
Apr 09, 2026
While the whole world held its breath, hoping for some way the overcome the ultimatum that President Donald Trump had given to Iran, Pakistan, working feverishly as a third-party mediator (with the help of Türkiye, Egypt, and other regional powers, as well as China), was able to obtain a last-minute agreement from the parties for a two-week cessation of hostilities which would allow commercial shipping to resume (with Iranian supervision) through the Strait of Hormuz.
Although widely welcomed, this brief ceasefire is only the beginning. To bring about a lasting end to the war, over the next two weeks the mediators will have to become involved in intensive negotiations with all of the parties to find a peace settlement acceptable to all.
This will require considerable in-depth, in-person consultations by the mediators with each of the parties to understand the issues and interests of each and to go beyond their incompatible positions to find common ground and develop creative solutions that reconcile differences, especially those related to each party’s security concerns.
Much of this work is best done through intensive shuttle diplomacy, wherein those acting as third parties discuss the issues and possible components of agreements through separate talks with each party. This is preferable to face-to-face plenary meetings between the parties, which are often unproductive, since the parties typically just reiterate and insist on their already well-known confrontational positions. Such work requires sufficient time, considerable finesse and creativity, as well as close coordination between all of those involved. Knowledge of previous peace processes and the substance of peace agreements is also very important.
If successful, however, the UN’s assistance with a viable solution would not only resolve the dangerous hostilities in the Middle East, but could also offer a more permanent off-ramp for the Trump administration.
Two recent initiatives by the United Nations secretary-general may prove useful in this regard. On March 25, Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Jean Arnault, a seasoned peacemaker with 40 years of experience in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, as his “personal envoy of the secretary-general on the Middle East conflict and its consequences” to carry out good offices on his behalf. Although perhaps not widely known, the secretary-general’s good offices functions (often carried out through “quiet diplomacy”) have been widely used since the UN’s inception 80 years ago, in large and small conflicts around the world, with considerable success.
In some situations, the secretary-general’s envoy has worked on their own directly with the parties; in other cases, the envoy has worked in close coordination with a small group of UN Member States. In this situation, the UN secretary-general’s personal envoy could offer his assistance to the already-existing group of state mediators led by Pakistan in their efforts to arrive at a peace agreement. Given the extremely short time frame available, such assistance should be welcomed.
It is likely that Iran will also welcome the involvement of a personal envoy of the secretary-general, since in 1988, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Representative on Iran-Iraq, Jan Eliasson, helped bring about the end of the very long and destructive Iran-Iraq war. In this and other conflicts, the secretary-general’s good offices have been acceptable to conflicting parties because the UN is viewed as impartial, unlike mediation efforts by states, which have their own interests. As well, the deep experience of UN mediators in applying constructive problem-solving approaches to conflict resolution makes them attractive as third party mediators.
A second recent initiative by Secretary-General Guterres that may prove to be very helpful is the creation of a UN Task Force to facilitate resolution of maritime problems in the Strait of Hormuz. This initiative was based on previous UN experience at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whereby UN involvement helped overcome the cessation of maritime grain shipments from Ukraine, as well as food and fertilizer from Russia, which were causing a world food crisis.
After extensive talks hosted by Türkiye, with UN assistance, the Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed by Ukraine and Russia, as well as by Türkiye and the UN, in separate but concurrent “mirror” agreements. The first outlined the safe export of grain and related food and fertilizers via demined corridors in the Black Sea, with Türkiye inspecting ships on their way to Ukrainian ports to ensure they weren’t carrying weapons. The second outlined a set of procedures for getting food, fertilizer, and raw material exports safely out of Russia.
Drawing on this previous experience, The UN Task Force will involve some of the same UN specialized agencies that were helpful in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, such as the International Maritime Organization. The Task Force is meant to work out constructive and “operational maritime solutions” that will help to secure the evacuation of over 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers currently stranded in the Persian Gulf, as well as facilitate humanitarian corridors for the safe passage of goods.
Since it came to power, the Trump administration has generally ignored the capacities of the United Nations; its history and experience; and its universally-accepted authority. If successful, however, the UN’s assistance with a viable solution would not only resolve the dangerous hostilities in the Middle East, but could also offer a more permanent off-ramp for the Trump administration.
Although not widely known, it is now well-documented, that, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, UN Secretary-General U Thant played a pivotal role in helping to avert a nuclear war and resolve the worst international crisis since the end of the World War II, by using his good offices to make proposals to US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for de-escalation and the ultimate resolution of the crisis.
As explained by the authors of an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the good offices of the secretary-general can offer a unique contribution to world peace:
For U Thant and his UN organization, the Cuban Missile Crisis was their finest hour... It was the week the United Nations helped the superpowers pull back from nuclear destruction. The nuclear clock did not strike midnight, largely because Thant facilitated face-saving and de-escalation, transmitted messages, traveled to Cuba, fostered restraint and hope, and made significant proposals, including the idea for the final settlement of the crisis... it is appropriate to finally give U Thant credit for his remarkable contribution to averting doomsday.
Let us hope that Secretary-General Guterres and his special envoy will be able to play a similarly constructive role in another extremely dangerous conflict and remind the world of the vital role that the UN has played and can continue to play in preventing and resolving violent conflicts among its member states.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump 'Choosing From the War Crimes Menu' With 'Quarantine' on Venezuela Oil Exports
"Economic strangulation is warfare and civilians always pay the price," lamented CodePink.
Dec 25, 2025
President Donald Trump has ordered US military forces to further escalate their aggression against Venezuela by enforcing a "quarantine" on the South American nation's oil—by far its main export—in what one peace group called an attempted act of "economic strangulation."
"While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking [for]," a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
The move follows the deployment of an armada of US warships and thousands of troops to the region, threats to invade Venezuela, oil tanker seizures off the Venezuelan coast, Trump's authorization of covert CIA action against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and airstrikes against boats allegedly running drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that have killed more than 100 people in what critics say are murders and likely war crimes.
This, atop existing economic sanctions that experts say have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans since they were first imposed during the first Trump administration in 2017.
"The efforts so far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the US," the official told Reuters.
The official's use of the word "quarantine" evoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, an existential standoff that occurred after the John F. Kennedy administration imposed a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from being deployed on the island, even as the US was surrounding the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons.
"This is an illegal blockade," the women-led peace group CodePink said in response to the Reuters report. "Calling it a 'quarantine' doesn’t change the reality. The US regime is using hunger as a weapon of war to force regime change in Venezuela. Economic strangulation is warfare and civilians always pay the price. The US is a regime of terror."
Critics have also compared Trump's aggression to the George W. Bush administration's buildup to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, initially referred to as Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). But unlike Bush, Trump—who derided Bush for not seizing Iraq's petroleum resources as spoils of war—has openly acknowledged his desire to take Venezuela's oil.
"Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it,” he Trump said on Monday. “Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”
On Wednesday, a panel of United Nations experts said that the US blockade and boat strikes constitute "illegal armed aggression" against Venezuela.
Multiple efforts by US lawmakers—mostly Democrats, but also a handful of anti-war Republicans—to pass a war powers resolution blocking the Trump administration from bombing boats or attacking Venezuela have failed.
The blockade and vessel seizures have paralyzed Venezuela's oil exports. Ports are clogged with full tankers whose operators are fearful of entering international waters. Venezuela-bound tankers have also turned back for fear of seizure. Although Venezuelan military vessels are accompanying tankers, the escorts stop once the ships reach international waters.
According to the New York Times, Venezuela is considering putting armed troops aboard tankers bound for China, which, along with Russia, has pledged its support—but little more—for Caracas.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The US Advances Its Dystopian Plan to Destroy China
Western media tells you that China is the most aggressive nation on Earth, but China has shown extreme restraint in the face of U.S. military buildup and hostile rhetoric calling for war.
Aug 01, 2025
Imagine: It’s the summer of 2025, and the United States has been surrounded by foreign military bases. The bases have been built by some antagonistic country on the other side of the world that drones on about the inevitability of war. Leaders of the nation pump billions into their military, drumming up advanced AI weaponry, building long-range ballistic missile systems targeting the most populated U.S. cities, and sending thousands of troops to the Caribbean in preparation. Large-scale war games are held throughout the region, including drills that simulate nuclear war on the U.S. In the next two years, they say. War is coming, and we need to be ready. Meanwhile, back on domestic soil, the nation’s top thinkers gather to plan the collapse of the U.S. government, releasing a 120-page document outlining the steps to take after the war leaves nothing but dust and instability behind.
But wait. You don’t need to imagine. That is happening, just not to the United States. No, the U.S. is not the victim at all—the U.S. is the antagonistic country on the other side of the world, bloating its military, prepping for war, and outlining the collapse of another nation’s government.
The U.S. has built over 300 military bases in the Asia Pacific alone, installed long-range missile systems pointed at China’s largest cities, and held joint war exercises with regional allies simulating nuclear war with China. And just last week, the federally funded Hudson Institute released its 128-page plan for the collapse of China’s government.
Western media tells you that China is the most aggressive nation on Earth, but China has shown extreme restraint in the face of U.S. military buildup and hostile rhetoric calling for war. If the opposite were true—if China had surrounded the U.S. with missiles, troops, and bases—the U.S. would have already considered that an act of war. Just think back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba almost led to the U.S. declaring full-scale nuclear war.
We must reject the path of endless war and build a world based on mutual respect, not militarism.
Luckily, the facts speak louder than U.S. war propaganda, and these are the facts: The U.S. has over 700 foreign military bases, while China has just one. The U.S. has surrounded China with over 300 military bases, while China has zero in the entire Western Hemisphere. The U.S. has launched 251 military interventions since just 1991, while China hasn’t intervened in any country for 50 years.
And on July 10, 2025, the U.S. and its allies began conducting the largest military exercises in the Pacific since World War II. Nicknamed Resolute Force Pacific, or REFORPAC 2025, the exercise will involve over 350 aircraft, more than 12,000 service members, and will take place at more than 50 locations across 3,000 miles in the Pacific, including Hawaii, Guam, Japan, and international airspace. The U.S. Air Force says these exercises will “prove how we’ll fight and win” a war against China.
China’s “acts of aggression,” as labeled by mainstream Western media, are often just its own defensive military exercises that it conducts in response to the constant war games off its shores. But please, let’s be honest with ourselves—what country wouldn’t respond that way? If anything, it’s an act of restraint to clear preparation for war.
Just last week, the Hudson Institute (which has received millions from the U.S. Department of Defense) held a conference to discuss the collapse of China’s government and released a 128-page document outlining the plan. The document is heinous and dystopian, outlining a gradual invasion of China through clandestine information campaigns, cultural and psychological restructuring, military intervention, and an overall manipulation of the soul of China from the shadows.
Phase 0 will begin before the collapse. U.S. Special Operations Forces will use psychological and political warfare to sow division between the government, the military, and the people—the government has already funded billions of U.S. tax dollars to do just that. They plan to twist narratives to undermine China’s history, exploit trauma, and mock the Communist Party of China (CPC) through information campaigns. Phase 1 will go into play after China’s collapse, which is U.S. occupation in everything but name. U.S. forces will be deployed to China’s cities and embedded into China’s military. A new puppet government will adhere to the whims of U.S. leaders. Anyone sympathetic to the CPC will be “controlled” while U.S. forces conduct action raids to secure nuclear weapons. And finally, Phase 2 will attempt to rewrite national consciousness by installing a U.S.-approved version of history. They will create a “Voice of China” modeled after the “Voice of America,” the people will be reeducated about the evils of communism, and a “sad but transparent” period of national mourning will pave the way to a new China shaped entirely by the United States.
The rest of the document outlines how to precisely target China’s facilities, restructure China’s financial system to suit U.S. interests, secure assets, restructure the military, and conduct a “reconciliation” campaign. At the end, the document mentions an imaginary, arbitrarily drawn line across China separating East from West, and discusses potentially splitting or partitioning territories. It also considers name changes for China, such as Taiwan or the Chinese Federal Republic.
The document is as Orwellian as it sounds, written by “experts” such as Miles Yu, Ryan Clarke, and Gordon G. Chang. Chang is one of the most frequently cited “China experts” in the U.S., but he’s not an expert so much as a propaganda mouthpiece. He has built an entire career out of making bold, spectacularly wrong predictions about China’s collapse, all while reinforcing U.S. imperial talking points.
His most infamous claim came in his 2001 book, The Coming Collapse of China, in which he confidently declared that the Chinese Communist Party would fall by 2011 at the latest. When that didn’t happen, he extended the deadline... and extended it again. He even made Foreign Policy’s “10 Worst Predictions of the Year” twice. Over two decades later, not only has China not collapsed, but grown into one of the world’s most powerful economies and a leading force in global diplomacy and development.
Despite his long track record of failure, Chang remains a regular on Fox News, a speaker at military think tanks like the Hudson Institute, and a go-to figure for anti-China hardliners in Washington. Why? Because he tells them exactly what they want to hear. His role is simply to justify aggression, stir up fear, and promote regime change narratives under the cover of “expertise.” In truth, Gordon C. Chang is no more than a state-aligned propagandist, useful only because he reinforces the U.S. imperial worldview so Congress can use more of your tax dollars to go to war on China.
People like Chang will keep returning to live congressional hearings and federally funded organizations like the Hudson Institute to justify U.S. war and domination abroad. It’s time to demand that lying imperial mouthpieces like Chang no longer get uplifted to be used as a means for global death and destruction—not in Congress, in academia, or anywhere. We must reject the path of endless war and build a world based on mutual respect, not militarism. But that future requires us to stop imagining that we are always the victims and start recognizing when we are the aggressors.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular