After the Syrian government agreed to attend peace talks – and the rebels refused unless they were given US weapons – President Obama succumbed and agreed to ship the weapons, an approach favored by the neocons and one likely to cause more bloodshed not less, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.

Many Americans, particularly the young, are angry over government spying — and are cheering on leakers who release “secret” documents. By taking the “establishment” side of this debate, President Obama risks discrediting government just as it is needed on global warming and other critical issues, writes Robert Parry.

Saad Hariri and Hassan Nasrallah represent both the vitality and the dysfunction of the Lebanese political governance system that has allowed itself repeatedly to become the main proxy gladiators' arena for Middle Eastern and global powers, argues Rami G. Khouri.

There are some Kurdish militants, particularly in Istanbul and other large cities, who have joined the rebellion, as individuals. But the PKK has carefully avoided any statement on the uprising, writes Immanuel Wallerstein.

For all the handwringing over this NSA activity, private companies accumulate far more intrusive personal information, and they’re not subject to any legal oversight, reports Doug Daniels.

We are asked to balance “preventing terrorism” against “protecting privacy.” It is hard to demonstrate what terrorism would have occurred without preventative measures, and privacy is as much a feeling as a circumstance, says Jaron Lanier.

The Tsarnaev brothers who are of Chechnyan descent and Adebolajo who is of Nigerian descent fit the last creation of al-Qaeda and its affiliates who are now recruiting individuals vie Cyberspace and utilize the same medium to supply them with blue prints for bomb making from readily available materials or launching unexpected attacks on soft targets, reckons Fathi El-Shihibi.

Now the ethno-religious sects are uniting - against each other. The Syrian civil war has united the Shiites - from Lebanon to Iran - in defense of the Alawite semi-Shia regime. The Sunnis from all over the place rally to the cause of the majority Sunnis, writes Uri Avnery.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden explained his decision to leak top-secret documents as a response to America letting a ragtag group of terrorists scare the country into accepting a near-Orwellian surveillance state, a choice that can be challenged, says Norman Solomon.

Despite his insistence on optimism, Ramzy Baroud finds the current political discourse hateful, polarizing and unprecedentedly defeatist.

Although he refuses to brand himself as a 'reformist' (eslahtalab) and prefers to call himself 'independent,' Rowhani is now seeking to harvest the political capital derived from the emerging consensus in the reformist camp, notes Kaveh L. Afrasiabi.

Young citizens in our region two years ago shattered old autocracies and created new rules for public power and legitimacy, but they have not yet been allowed to share in the continued shaping of new governance systems or national values. They are now reassessing all the joy and bitterness of these complex experiences, notes Rami G. Khouri.

Comparing President Obama to President George W. Bush—and glibly popularizing phrases such as “George W. Obama”—is just plain silly. It’s comparing, well, apples and invasions. President Bush opted to use the military to invade entire nations in search of terrorists, some of whom didn’t even exist, argues Robert Dreyfuss.

As Manning’s trial proceeds to its foregone conclusion, Chase Madar explains just why the greatest threat to the United States is not terrorism but secrecy and clueless foreign policy.

Americans are finally waking up to what George W. Bush created with his “war on terror” – and what Barack Obama has continued – a national security state that violates privacy and dispatches “special ops” teams or lethal drones to roam the world killing “terrorists,” a topic addressed by “Dirty Wars” and Lisa Pease.

Edward Snowden, the person who disclosed top-secret documents on the US government’s massive surveillance programs, is reportedly in Hong Kong and seeking asylum from countries that value openness and freedom, conditions seen as slipping away at home, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

Most major think tanks and important advocacy groups now have Arab Americans in residence or on staff. We are part of coalitions dealing with foreign and domestic policy concerns—something that was denied to us three decades ago, says James Zogby.

Pervasive right-wing propaganda – relying on false allusions to the Founding myth and bigoted illusions about non-white minorities – has sucked millions of Americans into an unrealistic ideology centered on hatred of government. Lawrence Davidson encountered that reality on a vacation cruise.