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matt duss
Analyst Calls for Smashing the US Network That Paved Way for Trump’s Iran War
"This stupid war isn’t just an indictment of the Trump administration, it’s an indictment of the entire machinery of DC warmongering."
Mar 11, 2026
While President Donald Trump is the person primarily responsible for launching an unprovoked US war against Iran, one foreign policy expert argued on Wednesday that the president couldn't have done this without help from a large network of war advocates.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), noted in a Wednesday social media post that Trump's decision to attack Iran didn't come out of nowhere.
"This stupid war isn’t just an indictment of the Trump administration," he argued, "it’s an indictment of the entire machinery of DC warmongering, think tanks, journalists, lobbyists, Republicans and Democrats, who have spent decades inflating threats. We need to smash that machinery."
Duss didn't name any specific DC foreign policy power players in his post, although less than an hour later he heaped scorn on Samantha Power, who served as US ambassador to the United Nations under former President Barack Obama and as director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under former President Joe Biden.
Duss reposted a video of Power recently being asked why she didn't speak out more against the genocidal assault that Israel waged against Gaza given that she had written an entire book calling out the US for past inaction to stop genocides in foreign lands.
Power responded that she did her very best to get aid to Palestinians while running USAID, but said that ultimately she couldn't "just get up and decide today what US foreign policy is."
Duss, however, argued that this was a cop-out and said that someone of Power's stature could have made a difference by speaking out.
"Sometimes it is better to work inside to make a bad policy better," he wrote. "But Power is different. She had enormous credibility she could’ve used to sound the alarm on the Gaza genocide. She chose status, and ends as a cautionary tale."
"There are hundreds of people who could’ve run USAID just as well as Samantha Power," he added. "There are few who could’ve made as much of an impact by speaking out publicly."
Duss' critique of the US foreign policy establishment was echoed by Ben Rhodes, a former national security official in the Obama administration, who argued on Wednesday that the Iran war is partly the result of "a few dozen well-funded, oft-quoted, DC Blob 'experts' who have maniacally advocated for this outcome for 15 years."
In a Tuesday post, Rhodes noted that he and other foreign policy experts had long foreseen the negative consequences of attacking Iran, such as the energy supply crisis created by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and that these predictable disasters were ignored by DC war advocates.
"Nearly everyone I know who opposes this war has predicted these exact consequences for over a decade. Trump decided to listen to Bibi and the most insular, hawkish, dead-enders imaginable," he wrote, using Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nickname.
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'Stupidity' of Iran War Becoming Increasingly 'Undeniable Even to Its Supporters,' Says Analyst
"We’re entering an even more dangerous moment," said foreign policy expert Matt Duss.
Mar 10, 2026
President Donald Trump may believe that his unprovoked and unconstitutional war with Iran is "very complete, pretty much," but one foreign policy expert thinks that is highly wishful thinking.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), argued in a Tuesday social media post that the negative consequences of Trump's attack on Iran are just starting to be felt, with no option for a quick ending.
"We’re entering an even more dangerous moment," Duss wrote, "as the stupidity of this war becomes undeniable even to its supporters, who realize they’re about to be revealed as morons yet again and are desperate to turn this into something they can spin as a win. Their only option is escalation."
Shortly before Duss offered his analysis of the situation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a news conference in which he dialed up belligerent rhetoric against Iran while declaring the war "a laser-focused, maximum-authority mission, delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision."
Hegseth is serving a buzzword salad this morning: "Overwhelming and unrelenting precision. No hesitation. No half measures. As President Trump declared yesterday, we're crushing the enemy is an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force" pic.twitter.com/WQ19jkPpJB
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 10, 2026
"No hesitation, no half measures," Hegseth continued. "As President Trump declared yesterday, we're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force."
Hegseth's bluster did not impress Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who vowed on Tuesday to drag Hegseth before the Senate to answer questions about the war, which the president launched early on a Saturday morning without any authorization from the US Congress.
"I'm joining together with my allies in the United States Senate to use the leverage we have to force a debate and a vote in the Senate on the authorization of war," Murphy said. "I think if the Senate took that vote, it would fail, and that would allow us to stop this illegal, disastrous war in Iran."
Murphy went on to note that "the Constitution is crystal clear" that Trump does not have the power to unilaterally declare war, even though that is precisely what he did less than two weeks ago.
"You should be furious about that," Murphy said, "because this is maybe the most dangerous thing a president can do: Send your sons and daughters to die overseas without your consent."
A group of us in the Senate are demanding public hearings on Trump's disastrous war with Iran with Secretary Hegseth and Rubio. And we've introduced a half dozen war powers resolutions to force the Senate to vote every day on the war if the hearings don't happen. pic.twitter.com/UayrSfoJEb
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 10, 2026
Murphy's statement earned kudos from Duss, who promoted his message on social media.
"This is the way," wrote Duss. "No business as usual."
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Trump CIA Intervention in Venezuela Risks Another US War of Choice, Experts Warn
“Using covert or military measures to destabilize or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy," said a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Oct 17, 2025
President Donald Trump's authorization this week of Central Intelligence Agency operations aimed at toppling Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prompted warnings from foreign policy experts of yet another US war of choice and the introduction of a bipartisan Senate resolution aimed at blocking unauthorized military action against the South American country.
“Reports that the Trump administration has authorized covert efforts seeking to foment regime change in Venezuela are deeply concerning," Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said Thursday in a statement.
"These reports follow on the administration’s unlawful and unauthorized use of military force against vessels and their crews in the Caribbean—which constitute extrajudicial killings," added Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
🚨New Statement by @mattduss.bsky.social in response to reports that the Trump Administration has authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela. internationalpolicy.org/publications...
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— Center for International Policy (@cipolicy.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Trump said Wednesday that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the South American nation "for two reasons"—at least the first of which is a lie.
“Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”
There is no credible evidence that the Venezuelan government has systematically or deliberately released prisoners and sent them to the United States. The claim—which has been popularized by Trump and some Republicans—has been repeatedly debunked by experts and US officials.
As for drugs, while Venezuela is a transit point for cocaine—mostly produced in neighboring Colombia—the amount of narcotics entering the United States via the country is relatively insignificant compared with routes via Mexico, Central America, and the Pacific coast.
Approximately 90% of US-bound cocaine enters the country via Mexico, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration and other government agencies. Venezuela is also not a significant source of fentanyl, which is the leading cause of overdoses in the US and is also trafficked primarily through Mexico.
“Using covert or military measures to destabilize or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy, which undermined the human rights and sovereignty of countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean," said Duss.
According to John Coatsworth, a historian specializing in Latin America, the US has launched at least 41 interventions that successfully overthrew governments in the hemisphere since 1898. The number of US military interventions in the region is much higher.
The US has been meddling in Venezuelan affairs since the 19th century, going back to an 1895 boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain and possibly earlier. Since then, Washington has helped install and prop up brutal dictators and assisted in the subversion of democratic movements, including by training Venezuelan forces in torture and repression at the notorious US Army School of the Americas.
This century, successive US administrations beginning with George W. Bush have worked to thwart the Bolivarian Revolution launched by former President Hugo Chávez and continued under Maduro. Under Trump, the US has deployed a small armada of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of Venezuela, a rattling of proverbial sabers familiar to students of US imperialism in Latin America.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have also died as a result of US economic sanctions on Venezuela, according to research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“The CIA has been sent to Venezuela for regime change," Maduro said Thursday in Caracas. "Since its creation, no US government has so openly ordered this agency to kill, overthrow, or destroy other countries."
“If Venezuela did not possess oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water, the imperialists wouldn’t even look at our country," he added.
Duss noted that the United States is "still dealing with many of the harmful consequences of these disastrous interventions in today’s challenges with migration and the drug trade."
"Such interventions rarely lead to democratic or peaceful outcomes," he stressed. "Instead, they exacerbate internal divisions, reinforce authoritarianism, and destabilize societies for generations."
As Tim Weiner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of multiple histories of the CIA, said in a Friday interview with CNN senior politics writer Zachary Wolf, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro "survived covert action under presidents from [Dwight] Eisenhower onward and outlived them all."
Weiner said that even operations considered successes created tremendous problems.
“The successes, for example, in Guatemala, ushered in dictatorships and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,” he said, referring to the 1954 CIA overthrow of reformist Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz—codenamed PBSUCCESS—which led to decades of bloody repression and a US-backed genocide against Indigenous Mayan peoples.
Writing for Responsible Statecraft on Thursday, Joseph Addington, associate editor and Latin America columnist at The American Conservative, asserted that any US invasion of Venezuela "comes with a number of costs and risks American policymakers should bear in mind and carefully weigh against the potential benefits of intervention."
"There is no free lunch in geopolitics," he argued.
Addington cited an example of the US ousting a drug trafficking leader, who was an erstwhile ally and CIA asset:
The most obvious costs are those of the initial invasion. The American invasion of Panama in 1989, to overthrow the government of Gen. Manuel Noriega, was carried out by a force of some 27,000 US troops, 23 of which were killed and hundreds more wounded. Venezuela is vastly larger than Panama, and while its military is very poorly equipped, it likewise dwarfs the forces that were available to Noriega. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates an invasion of Venezuela would require nearly 50,000 troops, some of which will not return home. Any American government should be extremely conscientious about the causes on which it spends the lives of American soldiers.
"The real risks of such an operation, however, come after the invasion," Addington said. "Toppling Maduro’s government is one thing; there is no real chance that the impoverished and corrupt Venezuelan armed forces can put up a serious fight against the American military. But occupying and rebuilding the country is another, as the US learned to its chagrin in the Middle East."
Duss noted that “Trump ran as an anti-war candidate and casts himself as a Nobel Prize-worthy peacemaker," and that "a majority of Americans oppose US military involvement in Venezuela."
"Lawmakers must make clear that Trump does not have the American people’s support or Congress’ authorization for the use of force against Venezuela or anywhere else in the region," he said.
On Friday, a bipartisan group of US senators—Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)—introduced a war powers resolution that would bar US military action within or against Venezuela.
“I’m extremely troubled that the Trump administration is considering launching illegal military strikes inside Venezuela without a specific authorization by Congress," Kaine said in a statement. "Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere."
"If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea," he added, "they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an authorization for use of military force."
It's the second time Kaine and Schiff have tried to introduce such a measure. Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joined his GOP colleagues in voting down a Venezuela war powers resolution. Paul joined Democrats and independent Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King (Maine) in voting for the legislation.
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'Infinitely More Honest': Trump DOD Rebrand Revives 'Department of War' Moniker
Many anti-war figures actually welcomed the news, with one professor calling the Department of Defense name "a euphemism for an institution that is mostly focused on wars of imperial aggression."
Sep 05, 2025
In his latest attempt to project an image of strength for an empire in a state of decline, US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, a move that would ultimately require congressional authorization.
"I think it's a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now," Trump explained during a signing ceremony for the move.
When floating the name change idea last month, Trump said that "I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that."
Indeed, on Friday Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill meant to coincide with Trump's decree. The Department of War name dates back to the 18th century but hasn't been used since the National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Military Establishment (NME)—a name that was changed to Department of Defense because the acronym NME sounded too much like the word "enemy."
"The United States military is not a purely defensive force," Scott said in a statement. "We are the most lethal fighting force on the face of the planet—ready to defeat any enemy when called upon. Restoring the name to Department of War reflects our true purpose: to dominate wars, not merely respond after being provoked."
The move faces considerable opposition from lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy combat pilot who, in a dig at Trump, quipped that "only someone who avoided the draft would want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War," and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), who argued that "Americans want to prevent wars, not tout them."
However, others noted that "War Department" is a moniker befitting a nation that has attacked, invaded, or occupied others in all but a handful of the Defense Department's 78-year history, and which has a global military footprint of hundreds of overseas bases.
well, it’s truth in advertising and it’s honest, which is rare for Trump
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— David Sirota (@davidsirota.com) September 4, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Many "non-interventionists and foreign policy realists" concur that the name change "is just more honest," as Jack Hunter wrote for Responsible Statecraft.
Pointing to this week's deadly US strike on an alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's threat of more such attacks to come, former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said Friday on social media that if Trump "keeps sending US forces to blow up alleged (but unproven) drug traffickers, he should call it the Department of Summary Executions."
Keeping with that theme, photojournalist Joshua Collins said on social media that "I actually think calling it 'the Department of War' is infinitely more honest. Because that's exactly what it does."
"Maybe while they're at it though, they can rename ICE 'the Department of kidnappings, extortion, forced disappearances, and human trafficking," Collins added, referring to Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement anti-immigrant blitz.
Jason Hickel, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, said on social media that "this is wonderful news."
"The US 'Department of Defense' has never been primarily about defense; it is a euphemism for an institution that is mostly focused on wars of imperial aggression," he wrote. "At least now there is no pretending otherwise."
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, wrote: "I'm glad Trump is changing the name of the Defense Department to the War Dept because it has never been about defense. And calling it the 'Department-to-make-the-merchants-of-death-rich' is kind of long."
Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) remarked: "Department of War? More like Department of Distraction... Epstein."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Friday that no matter what the president calls the Pentagon, "Trump is really good at renaming things, but bad at keeping Americans safe and prosperous."
"He ran as the supposed anti-war candidate but has proven to be just the opposite," Duss noted. "This stunt underscores that Trump is more interested in belligerent chest thumping than genuine peacemaking—with dangerous consequences for American security, global standing, and the safety of our armed services."
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Fury Grows Over Democratic Complacency in Face of Looming War of Choice in Iran
"It's embarrassing that some problematic far-right figures are speaking out more forcefully against direct military action than the so-called leaders of the opposition," said the executive director of Our Revolution.
Jun 19, 2025
With just a relative handful of Democratic lawmakers backing legislation that would compel President Donald Trump to obtain congressional approval for an attack on Iran and many more Democrats voicing support for Israel as it kills hundreds of Iranian civilians while continuing its annihilation of Gaza, progressives on Thursday implored voters to pressure their representatives to oppose yet another U.S. war of choice.
While Trump has reportedly approved plans to join a war that fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is meant to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons that every U.S. administration this century—including his own—says Tehran is not trying to build, Democratic pushback against possible war has largely been limited to three pieces of proposed legislation that would require lawmakers' approval for military action, as mandated by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, also known as the War Powers Act.
"If your argument is that Trump is an authoritarian danger to democracy but sure, let's follow him into another war, you are a complete fraud."
Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt) No War With Iran Act, which has just seven co-sponsors, would prohibit use of federal funds for an attack on Iran. A separate Senate bill introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) would also block Trump from waging war on Iran absent congressional approval, while a similar measure put forth in the House by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California has drawn the support of 15 Democratic colleagues.
Meanwhile, under relentless pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—which spent over $100 million in the 2024 election cycle on largely successful efforts to oust progressive opponents of Israel's war on Gaza—dozens of congressional Democrats have voiced support for Israel's unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran, which has killed or wounded around 2,000 people and prompted Iranian retaliation that has left hundreds of Israelis dead or injured.
On Wednesday, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution praising and expressing support for Israel's so-called "preemptive" war on Iran. Sherman's measure is backed by more than a dozen Republican lawmakers and a pair of Democrats, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.). Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have both also publicly backed Israel.
"This is now defining for the Democratic Party," Khanna asserted in the face of his party's ambivalence. "Are we going to criticize the offensive weapons for Netanyahu and the blank check? Are we going to stand up with clarity against the strikes on Iran? Are we going to actually be the party of peace, or are we going to be just another party of war?"
On @chrislhayes.bsky.social, I called on @schumer.senate.gov to support @kaine.senate.gov, @sanders.senate.gov, Rep. Massie & my resolution opposing a war in Iran. This is a defining moment for our party where too many blundered in supporting the Iraq war.Now we need to be clear — no war in Iran.
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— Ro Khanna (@rokhanna.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Other Democrats, including but by no means limited to Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio)—who have collectively raked in more than $2.2 million in campaign cash from the pro-Israel lobby, according to Track AIPAC—have voiced support for attacking Iran.
"The Democratic Party has an AIPAC problem," Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese told Common Dreams Thursday. "Too many of its leaders seem more afraid of crossing a powerful lobbying group than they are of dragging the U.S. into another costly regime change war."
"It's embarrassing that some problematic far-right figures are speaking out more forcefully against direct military action than the so-called leaders of the opposition," he added. "Much like [former President] Joe Biden's indefensible handling of the genocide in Gaza, this is yet another example of Democrats squandering their credibility with young, progressive, and independent-leaning voters."
RootsAction national director Norman Solomon—author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death—told Common Dreams Thursday that "current members of Congress, in effect, belong to a war party or a peace party—and it has nothing to do with whether they have a 'D' or an 'R' after their names."
"Many Democrats in Congress—who were silent while Trump killed the Obama-era nuclear deal during his first term and then President Biden refused to revive it—are now trying to score partisan points against Trump without clearly and emphatically opposing any U.S. direct attack on Iran, let alone opposing Israel's immense war crime of launching an aggressive war on Iran," he added.
Like Solomon, progressive economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs noted that "there are warmongers in both parties, and peacemakers in both parties."
"An antiwar coalition is possible but needs to be bipartisan," he told Common Dreams.
Some of the most vocal opponents of a U.S. attack on Iran—a country that hasn't started a war since the mid-19th century when it was the Persian Empire, but has endured U.S. regime change and destabilization efforts for 70 years—have been Iranian Americans.
"There is deep frustration and disappointment across our community with the Democratic Party's overall reluctance to meet the moment with the urgency and moral clarity it demands," Isabella Javidan, communications manager at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told Common Dreams Thursday.
"While some lawmakers are thankfully backing War Powers Resolutions to prevent unauthorized U.S. military involvement, too many Democrats are either silent or hedging, despite an illegal and catastrophic assault that has already killed hundreds of civilians in Iran and dragged the U.S. to the brink of war," Javidan continued.
"This isn't just about diplomacy or restraint, it's also about preventing history from repeating itself," Javidan added. "The U.S. has been here before, and we know what happens when political leaders fail to speak out against reckless, one-sided escalations. Many in our community are alarmed that, despite the human toll, there's an absence of strong Democratic leadership publicly opposing the warpath being laid out by Netanyahu and endorsed by some in Congress."
Referring to the recent U.S. intelligence assessment which, like several before it, concluded that Iran is not seeking nukes, Branko Marcetic lamented in a Jacobin article published Wednesday that "pro-war officials, both Democrat and Republican, have simply decided to pretend this never happened."
In a separate piece for Responsible Statecraft, Marcetic noted that even progressive Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon referenced "Iran's nuclear ambitions."
Ironically, much of Trump's 2016 foreign policy platform involved excoriating the Bush administration's lies about Iraq's nonexistent quest for weapons of mass destruction.
"Trump is now a fingernail's length away from doing exactly what he bashed Bush for doing in order to kickstart his political ascent," Marcetic wrote for Jacobin.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former senior foreign policy adviser to Sanders, said on social media that "any Democrat who can't stand up and speak out now against the Trump-Netanyahu regime change war should not even consider running in 2028. You're not who this country needs."
"Seriously," Duss continued, "if your argument is that Trump is an authoritarian danger to democracy but sure, let's follow him into another war, you are a complete fraud."
"Any Democrat who can't stand up and speak out now against the Trump-Netanyahu regime change war should not even consider running in 2028."
Duss quipped, "I'll be accepting apologies from everyone who insisted we needed to welcome Bill Kristol in our coalition," referring to the "never-Trump" neoconservative co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, who has been an Iran hawk for decades.
There's a politically expedient motivator for eschewing war on Iran—it's unpopular among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. An Economist/YouGov poll published earlier this week found that 60% of all respondents oppose U.S. involvement in the war, while just 16% supported military action and 24% were unsure. A slim majority of 2024 Trump voters don't want war with Iran and slightly more Republican respondents than Democrats support U.S. negotiations with Iran.
Astonishing that only 16% of Americans think the US should join Israel’s war on Iran but so few Democrats are speaking out against it. The gaping disconnect between Dem politicians and the Dem base we saw on Gaza continues to cripple effective opposition.
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— Abu Aardvark’s Ghost (@abuaardvark.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 9:11 AM
"What this all boils down to," said Solomon, "is the imperative for all of us to demand that the U.S. not engage in any military action against Iran and insist that Israel halt its war of aggression—and that the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran for a new nuclear deal be resumed and completed for an agreement."
"As constituents, we need to let all elected officials know that pursuit of peace is essential—and anything less is an insane push toward nuclear annihilation," he added.
Disclosure: The author of this article recently served as the co-chair of San Francisco Berniecrats, an Our Revolution affiliate.
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Israeli Attacks Kill 70+ as Netanyahu Delays Cabinet Vote on Cease-Fire Deal
"Despite the jubilation of the population in Gaza as well as that of the families of hostages held by Hamas, there have already been signs that Netanyahu has no interest in a lasting cease-fire."
Jan 16, 2025
Israeli attacks have reportedly killed more than 70 people in the Gaza Strip in the hours since a multiphase cease-fire agreement was announced Wednesday, a deal that sparked cautious hope for an end to a 15-month U.S.-backed assault that has decimated the Palestinian enclave and created one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in modern history.
Israel's cabinet was expected to meet Thursday to approve the cease-fire and hostage-release deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement accusing Hamas of reneging "on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last-minute concessions."
"The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement," said Netanyahu, who is facing backlash from far-right groups and lawmakers over the deal.
Hamas rejected Netanyahu's claim that it is backing off the agreed-upon deal, with senior officials reiterating the group's commitment to the cease-fire in response to the Israeli prime minister.
"There is no basis for Netanyahu's allegations that the movement has backed down from the terms of the cease-fire agreement," said one Hamas official.
At a Wednesday press conference announcing the deal, Qatar's prime minister expressed hope that "the coming days will not see any military operations," with the cease-fire supposed to take effect on Sunday.
But those hopes were quickly dashed as Israeli forces continued their bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 73 people—including 20 children—and injuring hundreds more in attacks across the territory following news of the deal, which was a product of months of negotiations.
Al Jazeera reported that one of the Israeli attacks hit a school housing displaced people in Gaza City.
The deal's announcement, while welcomed by humanitarian groups and Palestinians displaced by Israeli bombing, was met with some trepidation given Netanyahu's insistence last month that Israeli forces "will return to fighting" once hostages are freed.
"There is no point in pretending otherwise," the prime minister said, "because returning to fighting is needed in order to complete the goals of the war."
Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Wednesday that "despite the jubilation of the population in Gaza as well as that of the families of hostages held by Hamas, there have already been signs that Netanyahu has no interest in a lasting cease-fire."
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), warned Wednesday that "there are many ways" the deal could fall apart.
"Netanyahu has reportedly assured his right-wing ministers that he will resume the war after phase I 'until Hamas' defeat,'" Duss noted. "If, as another Israeli report claims, [U.S. President-elect Donald] Trump has secretly offered support for more settlements in the West Bank in exchange for Netanyahu backing the Gaza cease-fire, a return to large-scale violence against West Bank Palestinians (as opposed to the smaller-scale violence that they endure every day) is simply a question of when, not if."
"So long as the Palestinian people live under occupation, and the Israeli government steadily consolidates that occupation as a single undemocratic state, neither Israelis nor Palestinians will ever know the security and peace that both peoples desire and deserve," Duss added. "The path toward both will require a level of vision and courage that is currently in very short supply."
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Progressive Foreign Policy Expert Says Americans Are Tired of Democrats Being 'Party of War'
"It's time for Democrats to offer Americans a new and affirmative vision of U.S. foreign policy, one that boldly and unashamedly embraces global peacemaking as an essential component of our own security and prosperity."
Jan 09, 2025
"Democrats have become the party of war" and "Americans are tired of it."
That's the message that Matt Duss, a former top aide to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who is now the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, imparted in an opinion piece published Thursday in The Guardian.
"In defending the militarist status quo, Democrats ceded the anti-war lane to Republicans," Duss wrote. "As they enter the political wilderness, it's time to reckon with what they got so wrong."
Among other things, what they got wrong during Vice President Kamala Harris' failed 2024 Democratic presidential bid, according to Duss, was embracing figures like former CIA director Leon Panetta and "torture advocate" Liz Cheney in a bid to woo right-wing and moderate voters.
As President-elect Donald Trump's campaign painted the Republican nominee—who fulfilled his 2016 campaign promise to "bomb the shit out of" Islamic State militants and "take out their families" with devastating results—as the "
candidate of peace," Democrats "left the anti-war lane wide open for him by leaning into a tired, curdled militarism as a substitute for an actual foreign policy vision," Duss said.
"It's time for Democrats to offer Americans a new and affirmative vision of U.S. foreign policy, one that boldly and unashamedly embraces global peacemaking as an essential component of our own security and prosperity," he wrote. "One that insists that keeping Americans safe does not require spending more on defense than the next 10 countries combined."
Duss continued:
Our leaders should be clear about the genuine security threats that our country faces, but decide, at long last, to stop being drawn into dumb bidding wars about being "tougher on Russia/terrorism/China/whatever"—a framing designed to sustain the hawkish status quo. They should broaden the national security conversation to include the challenge of domestic and global inequality and the grievances it powers. They should articulate not just a domestic but a global pro-worker agenda—in addition to a global corporate minimum tax, a global minimum wage, for example. Make clear that a foreign policy fit for this era doesn't pit the security and prosperity of Americans against workers in other countries but recognizes that our security and prosperity are bound together.
"All of this will of course require confronting the various defense, business, and foreign lobbies that distort and constrain our policy discussions, which is why a strong anti-corruption plank is essential for any such platform," Duss said.
That's a tall order. Reflecting on President Joe Biden's term, Duss asserted: "I never imagined I would write this, but by the end of his presidency he will have done more damage to the so-called 'rules-based order' than Trump did. Fifteen months and counting of support for Israel's horrific assault on Gaza has violated virtually every international norm on the protections of civilians in war and left America's moral credibility in tatters. Biden showed that international law is little more than a cudgel to be used against our enemies while being treated as optional for our friends."
"In his 2020 election victory speech, Biden proclaimed: 'I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe. And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example,'" Duss recalled. "It's a nice line, but Biden showed that he sees it as little more than that. The question now for Democrats is whether they can actually mean it, or if they even want to."
Addressing the recent phenomenon of Republicans being perceived as the anti-war party of the working class—even if such perception is divorced from reality on both fronts—Duss lamented that "this year's Democratic ticket failed to provide a sufficient response."
"Instead of responding to the right's tech oligarch-funded faux-populism by offering a genuine alternative and attacking the real sources of our country's insecurity, they leaned into a defense of a militarist status quo that most Americans rightly recognize as broken," he added. "They must not make that mistake again."
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'Sick Joke': Progressives Roundly Reject Idea of Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair
"No amount of rebranding can change the fact that Rahm Emanuel's political career has been an abject failure—neoliberal centrism is exactly the wrong direction for the Democratic Party," said one critic.
Nov 15, 2024
Progressives were left fuming and flummoxed over reporting Friday that Rahm Emanuel is considering running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, with many leftists wondering whether the party has learned anything from its loss of the White House, Senate, and, arguably, the country's working-class voters.
Axios first reported that Emanuel—President Joe Biden's ambassador to Japan and a former congressman, Chicago mayor, and chief of staff to former President Barack Obama—is mulling whether to seek the top DNC post. Current DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who was elected to the post in 2021, is unlikely to seek a new term, which would begin in March.
Emanuel has some powerful backers among the war-and-Wall Street wing that has dominated the Democratic party for decades.
"If they said, 'Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?' I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee," prominent political consultant David Axelrod, who ran both of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, said Wednesday on his podcast.
Axelrod followed up the next day with a post on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, in which he wrote of Emanuel, "Dude knows how to fight and win."
Reaction came fast and furious, with Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the group Progressive Massachusetts, asking on the social network Bluesky, "How is this not a sick joke?"
Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) writing on X that "if you assembled a team of top scientists and told them to come up with a plan to ensure that the Democratic Party continues to lose working-class voters, I doubt they could do better than 'Make Rahm Emanuel head of the DNC.'"
Comedian, author, and podcaster Kate Willett
said on X: "If I had to pick one individual who set the stage for what seems like it may be decades of Trumpism, it's Rahm Emanuel. Imagine if Obama had saved peoples' homes in 2008 and put the bankers in jail? Truly fixed healthcare? Rahm worked diligently to make sure that didn't happen."
Miles Kampf-Lassin, the senior editor at the progressive website
In These Times, wrote, "I've said it before and can't believe I have to say it again: No amount of rebranding can change the fact that Rahm Emanuel's political career has been an abject failure—neoliberal centrism is exactly the wrong direction for the Democratic Party."
Hafiz Rashid argued Friday in a
New Republic article that, if he wins the post, Emanuel could be "the worst possible DNC chair."
"The fact that Emanuel has been disconnected from local and state politics for years... seems unlikely to help," Rashid asserted. "Democrats are currently expected to tap someone with expertise at the grassroots level and an understanding of how Democrats are winning elections now—two things Emanuel sorely lacks."
Apparently questioning the strategic wisdom of Vice President Kamala Harris' failed Democratic presidential run, Warren Gunnels, a staff director for Sanders,
said on X, "Ruling Elite: Let's get Dick Cheney's endorsement and anoint Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair."
"One word," he added. "No."
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Did Plutocrats Like Mark Cuban and Tony West Help Sink Harris?
"We could see it happening in real-time, right after the convention, when the party consultants and the big donors got their hooks in," said one critic. "They'll be fine though."
Nov 07, 2024
While much ink has been spilled on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's relationship with the world's richest person, tech billionaire Elon Musk, the Republican's electoral victory this week has also provoked conversations about how the very wealthy plutocrats behind Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris may have contributed to her loss.
After Trump's win, The Atlantic's Franklin Foer reached out to folks in the inner circle of President Joe Biden—who passed the torch to Harris after a disastrous debate this summer—for their postmortem. The staff writer reported Thursday that although Biden advisers "were reluctant to say anything negative about Harris as a candidate, they did level critiques of her campaign."
According to Foer:
One critique holds that Harris lost because she abandoned her most potent attack. Harris began the campaign portraying Trump as a stooge of corporate interests—and touted herself as a relentless scourge of Big Business. During the Democratic National Convention, speaker after speaker inveighed against Trump's oligarchical allegiances. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York bellowed, "We have to help her win, because we know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends."
While Harris was stuck defending the Biden economy, and hobbled by lingering anger over inflation, attacking Big Business allowed her to go on the offense. Then, quite suddenly, this strain of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer. (West did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) To win the support of CEOs, Harris jettisoned a strong argument that deflected attention from one of her weakest issues. Instead, the campaign elevated Mark Cuban as one of its chief surrogates, the very sort of rich guy she had recently attacked.
Responding on social media, Drop Site News' Ryan Grim said: "Reporters always heard that Tony West was functionally one of Kamala's most important advisers. Still galling to read this. I wonder who West even voted for."
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, declared that "we could see it happening in real-time, right after the convention, when the party consultants and the big donors got their hooks in. They'll be fine though. They're already onto their next contracts, or their next vacation home. And that should piss you off."
Progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg argued that "if we want to get out of this wilderness we need to purge every one of the Tony West crony corporatists in this party. Democrats need to be able to point to and talk about villains. Tony West is one of those villains."
Revolving Door Project founder and executive director Jeff Hauser put out a lengthy statement in response to the reporting that, as he summarized, "West convinced Vice President Harris to ratchet down her populist messaging lest it upset the Silicon Valley and Wall Street elites he was courting on her behalf."
Hauser highlighted that Foer's article also came after Cuban last month "bragged about his role in exiling a Harris surrogate" and former staffer of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "for the sin of supporting a wealth tax during a television appearance."
Harris on Tuesday "ran far stronger in the states that she saturated with television ads than the ones she did not. Those TV ads were, as Semafor's David Weigel observed, 'grinding on this economic message (anti-price gouging, Medicare covering home care, etc),'" he noted. "It's impossible to know whether the additional two points or less needed by Harris in the pivotal states would have been secured by basing her public 'earned media' and social media messaging on the same populist economic platform which informed her television ads."
"However, it is clear that the more successful paid media message was more populist and less informed by plutocrats like Cuban and West," Hauser continued. "Further, it seems exceedingly likely that downballot Democrats outside the swing states would have benefited from an ecosystem featuring the type of messaging we heard at the Democratic Convention."
"In a populist moment in which the candidates were battling for the mantle of change, the sitting vice president had to be identified as clearly against some powerful institutions," he added. "Her campaign showed early signs of an aggressive message, arguing that her record as California attorney general included taking on crooked big banks and shady student loan servicers."
"While VP Harris stuck to a comparably anti-plutocratic message in her television ads, she did not in her interviews and public appearances. This divergence appears to have been based on the advice of plutocrats," Hauser concluded. "Hopefully future candidates will learn from this, and oppose plutocrats consistently."
Appearing on CNN this week, Kate Bedingfield, Biden's former White House communications director, suggested the issue is not confined to Harris.
"I think Democrats across the board clearly have a challenge connecting with working-class voters. This is not unique to Vice President Harris' campaign," she said. "This is a demographic shift, a realignment in this country that's happened over the course of the last 10 years."
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020 but spent this cycle campaigning for Harris—said Wednesday that "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
Sanders also asserted that "the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control" the party are unlikely to "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign" or "understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing."
Proving his point, Jaime Harrison, a former lobbyist for giant companies who now chairs the Democratic National Committee, claimed Thursday that Sanders' analysis was "straight up BS" and listed achievements of the Biden-Harris administration.
Responding to Harrison on social media, Michael Sainato, a labor reporter with The Guardian, said that "being pro-worker means being clear about who and what is anti-worker and the Democratic Party has failed miserably at that."
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'This Must Stop': UN Chief Condemns March to All-Out War in Middle East
"We absolutely need a cease-fire," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Oct 01, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday that "escalation after escalation" in the Middle East is pushing the region to the precipice of all-out war, a message that came after Israel invaded Lebanon and Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel.
"I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict," Guterres wrote on social media as news of the Iranian missile fire broke and Israel called up reservist brigades and other armed forces to take part in the ground assault on Lebanon.
"This must stop," Guterres added. "We absolutely need a cease-fire."
Hours earlier, Stéphane Dujarric—a spokesperson for Guterres—said the U.N. chief believes that "an all-out war must be avoided in Lebanon at all costs, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon must be respected."
Other U.N. officials issued similarly urgent statements in the wake of Israel's U.S.-backed ground invasion of Lebanon, which followed weeks of bombing that killed more than a thousand people and displaced around a million.
Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Tuesday that "we are gravely concerned by the widening hostilities in the Middle East and their potential to engulf the entire region in a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe."
"The prospects that the situation may deteriorate further with terrible impact on civilians, and that it could rapidly expand to embroil other states in the region, are real," Throssell added. "With armed violence between Israel and Hezbollah boiling over, the consequences for civilians have already been terrible—and we fear a large-scale ground invasion by Israel into Lebanon would only result in greater suffering."
"Turning a blind eye to the deteriorating catastrophe in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory will not help in finding a solution to the deteriorating situation in Lebanon."
Hours before Israel launched its invasion of Lebanon, a group of U.N. experts condemned Israel's "use of the same destructive violence that was applied in Gaza to its attacks on Lebanon" and said that "we should step back from the brink."
"The fundamental regional factors that feed the escalation of violence, including the supply of arms, technical assistance, and training to non-state actors, extrajudicial killings, and continuing illegal occupation of Palestine, must be central to the sustainable search for peaceful solutions,” the experts said. "Turning a blind eye to the deteriorating catastrophe in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory will not help in finding a solution to the deteriorating situation in Lebanon."
The statements from U.N. officials came shortly before Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel, a move that Iran said was retaliation for Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoushan.
Earlier Tuesday, an unnamed official from the Biden White House warned that "a direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran," heightening concerns of more direct U.S. involvement in the escalating regional conflict. The Pentagon announced Monday that it would send a few thousand additional troops to the Middle East—including "squadrons of F-15E, F-16, and F-22 fighter jets and A-10 attack aircraft, and the personnel needed to support them"—as Israel prepared to invade Lebanon.
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, said Tuesday that the Biden administration "must realize that months of failure to impose meaningful consequences on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu for grave international humanitarian law violations and obstructing a cease-fire in Gaza has contributed to the disregard for U.S. and international concerns with which Israel has now acted in Lebanon."
"The ability of the United States to prevent an all-out war that could draw in the U.S. and Iran and imperil millions in the region, including American personnel, rests on whether President Biden is finally willing to take the steps necessary—including suspending offensive weapons deliveries—to prevent a horrific conflagration," Duss added.
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