United States

The Obama administration can learn from its first year's setbacks to guide the country in the right direction in 2010.

Naked empire

In November 2008, Americans, recoiling from the Bush nightmare, voted for “hope” and “change”, but Obama turned out not to be exactly what they voted for.

Almost one year: Assessment

Saul Landau

We have made the transition from a President who both horrified and amused us to one who simply disappoints.

Obama, an “F” in political theory

Atilio Boron

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech was not much different from the ideological tone set by Bush Jr. and his cronies.

Our jobs crisis needs drastic action

John Cavanagh

Sarita Gupta

Obama's recovery plan has helped to slow the job loss, but we need a full-scale emergency relief plan that goes much further.

Dissidents make noise -- oops, news

Saul Landau

Duplicity in language of the US administration coincides with stupidity of its policy.

More Than Backpedaling on NAFTA

Manuel Perez Rocha

Obama has not just backpedaled from his campaign commitments to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He has ended up expanding the accord which will remove even more checks and balances on the exchange of capital, services, and goods.

The embargo: Nothing succeeds like failure

Saul Landau

Will Obama have the courage to break with the incongruous Cuba policy he inherited from previous administrations?

Barack Obama, Iran, and the nuclear danger

Mariano Aguirre

The tensions over Iran's nuclear programme resemble the prelude to the Iraq war of 2003. But the new conditions of international politics could yet be turned to advantage in finding...

What's behind Obama's rhetoric of nuclear restraint?

Achin Vanaik

The discourse of concern about nuclear non-proliferation by the biggest and most obscene of all nuclear culprits – the US – serves admirably as one line of attack on countries like Iran and as a disguise for the US’s deeper and wider motives in West and East Asia.