Mehdi Hasan: America

Rick Santorum, Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania senator, may be relatively unknown but he almost beat GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney in yesterday's Iowa caucus, trailing Romney by a mere eight votes. Let's be clear: Santorum won't be the Republican nominee come November. But he will now be the subject of countless media profiles, debates and discussions - as well ... read more

US warns Iran over threat to block oil route

screams the headline on the BBC website. According to the report:

The US Navy has said it will not tolerate disruption to a vital oil-trade route, following an Iranian threat to close it.

Iran warned it would shut the Strait of Hormuz if the West imposed more sanctions over its nuclear programme.

The BBC report read more

I spent much of the weekend in various Twitterspats with pundits (professional and self-appointed) and a Labour member of Parliament too. The issue? Iran. Yep, a mere mention of the word sends normally sane and rational (dare I use this word anymore?) people, on the left and the right, into spasms of hysteria.

I wrote a column for Friday's Guardian, entitled (read more

There was a time when I had a lot of admiration for the work of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its Nobel-prize-winning chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, stood up to the Bush administration over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the 2003 invasion in 2003 - and was vindicated by the subsequent, post-war ... read more

Prior to September 2008 and the near-meltdown of the global financial system, who had ever heard of the credit rating agencies? Who could name the so-called big three (Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch), which exerted such huge power and influence over the global economy?

That's all changed now. The decision by  read more

Are you as fed up as I am with critics of Israel's belligerence being smeared as anti-Semites? Or how any reasoned and evidence-based discussion of the pernicious influence of the pro-Likud Israel lobby -- specifically, Aipac -- on US politicians ends up being dismissed as a conspiracy theory?

In this week's New Statesman, I wrote a column in which I highlighted ... read more

The news of the death of Salman Taseer, the secular Muslim governor of Punjab Province, came as a profound shock. Not because of the killing itself, as such acts of murder and violence have tragically and depressingly become part of daily life in the self-proclaimed "Islamic Republic" of Pakistan, but because he was slain by one of his own bodyguards.

As the Guardian's read more

The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us: "You went after WikiLeaks' domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don't like the site. If that's the way governments get to behave, we can live with that."

*  read more

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, one of America's leading liberal commentators, used his New York Times column yesterday to issue a devastating crititique of Barack Obama in the wake of the president's decision, on Monday, to introduce a pay freeze for federal government workers across the United States.

The Princeton professor describes the move as ... read more

It's been nearly two years since he left the White House with the lowest domestic and global approval ratings of any US president in living memory. But, it seems, we still can't get enough of George W Bush.

This morning's papers lead with extracts, snippets and lines from Bush's new memoir, Decision Points. The Times (£) is serialising the book and has an exclusive interview with "read more

The typically excellent Gary Younge, in today's Guardian, takes on the myths surrounding the so-called Tea Party movement across the pond:

The "Tea Party" does not exist. It has no members, leaders, office bearers, headquarters, policies, participatory structures, budget or representatives. The Tea Party is shorthand for a broad, shallow sentiment about low taxes and small government shared by loosely affiliated, somewhat like-minded people. That doesn't ... read more

The MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, my second-favourite US broadcaster (after Jon Stewart!), concluded his show on 27 October with this "special comment" on the right-wing, populist Tea Party movement and the dangers it poses to American democracy and civil rights. It's long – around 20 minutes – but it's well worth watching. Or, alternatively, you can read the transcript of ... read more