The Current Discussion: Are we witnessing a pro-regime coup in Iran? What should the world do in response? How will the election aftermath affect Iran's projection of power into the Middle East?

Street protests in Iran are both inspiring and alarming. It is always inspiring when people decide to stand up for their rights, undeterred by repression. What's alarming is that it's unclear whether what we are witnessing is a mere power struggle or a popular movement for change.

By change, I mean that the protesters would succeed in forcing the highest echelon of power to concede to a more transparent and more open system - one that allows wider diversity of views and political movements.

It may be too much to expect that the current protests would end the era of Wilayat Al Faiqih, the supremacy of religious authority over Iranian politics and society. But if the protests evolve into a more organized movement, they will accomplish the long-standing demands of the more progressive reformists for an end to the monopoly of a tiny group of religious and social elite on political and economic decision-making.

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The U.S. decision to lift travel restrictions on Cuba is a welcome step. But it does not go far enough.

It is high time to get rid of one of the last legacies of the cold era. It is time to go all the way and lift the embargo on Cuba. The embargo is not only a form of collective punishment against the Cuban people, but is remnant of the imperious notion that the U.S.-led world capitalist economy is better or the only way to progress and prosperity. The global recession, and the collapse of many institutions in the U.S. and beyond, have made the claim of the ultimate and irreversible victory of capitalism both outdated and ridiculous.

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Israeli Arabs, who are Palestinians who remained in their towns and villages after the 1948 creation of Israel, are not a threat to the Jewish state. The real threat is Israel's racist insistence on maintaining the Jewishness of the state by any means.

The idea of maintaining a predominant Jewish majority, if not an all-Jewish population, is not new. It is inherent in the Zionist ideology and a continuation of the systematic expulsions and ethnic cleansing that continue today inside Israel proper and the occupied West Bank. Israel still refuses to acknowledge its original sin, let alone apologize for it. It continues to fulfill its dream through racist policies, territorial expansion, expropriation of lands and eviction of Palestinian inhabitants.

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The Current Discussion:What's the biggest mistake Barack Obama could make in his first six months in foreign policy?

The inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American President, is itself an inspiration of hope for a better world. It has sent a message of goodwill even to the most skeptical spectators around the globe. But he can easily shatter people's glimmer of hope if he does not really and truly break away from an American foreign policy of ruthless hegemony imposed by ruthless military force.

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The Current Discussion: Will Pakistan be better or worse off after Musharraf?

Pervez Musharraf's reign had to end. He had ignored the will of the people far too long by catering to Washington's whims and exercising oppression and suppression of the people. It is time for all leaders to know that serving the so called "War on Terror" should not, and cannot, be a substitute for domestic sources of legitimacy. Many leaders use the already destructive war on terror to prolong their rule and rely on Washington's support to evade accountability and transparency at home.

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Americans appear bent on either launching a strike or steps of covert action to create dynamics that will make it impossible to avoid waging war against Iran.

The U.S. and Israel have been actively engaged in a news media war to provoke an Iranian reaction that would justify a war, or at least a military action as a prelude to war.

This military action, strongly advocated by the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near Studies, could either be an American or an Israeli limited strike.

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The Current Discussion:Israel celebrated its 60th birthday last week. Will it survive to celebrate its 100th?

Israel is not sustainable as an exclusivist Jewish state that thrives on the continued dispossession of Palestinians and on territorial colonization – except, that is, through perpetual American aid and military wars.

The history of the conflict has not been solely defined by Israeli military supremacy, but also by all forms of Palestinian resistance. From the outset, Palestinians did not submit to a fate of forced exile, displacement and occupation: The establishment of the state of Israel was also the beginning of a Palestinian movement to reclaim a collective people’s identity.

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Before getting into a serious discussion about engaging Hamas, several points of principle have to be clarified.

First, Hamas should be recognized and dealt with as a legitimate and elected representative of the Palestinians people.

Second, the US and other Western governments have no right to boycott or impose a blockade on the Islamic Resistance Movement or any Palestinian group.

Third, neither American nor Israeli officials have the right to determine Palestinian representatives in general or at the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in particular.

And fourth, Israel should be subject to the same conditions that the world demands from Hamas and Palestinians as preconditions to engaging in the so-called peace process.

As the situation stands now, we are witnessing a "process" that has turned into a farce and serves only as a façade to cover continued Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands.

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If progress is to be made in the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel must first acknowledge that Hamas is not the problem. The Israeli occupation and impunity are the problem.

Israeli aggression and violations of Palestinian human rights started long before Hamas was even born. Israel has always dealt with the Palestinians as a population that has to be controlled, subdued – even crushed. We may disagree with Hamas’s ideology, but it has gained legitimacy through its resistance to an occupying force, and through fair elections.
Elected representatives of Hamas are as legitimate as President Mahmoud Abbas. But the world, led by the U.S., has chosen to deal selectively with the elected representatives of the Palestinian people and has resorted to its usual acts of collective punishment, bombing and killings. Israel claims that rockets propelled from Gaza are a justification for disproportionately unleashing its advanced military arsenal.

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The Current Discussion: With Castro gone, will Cuba become America's 51st state?

The assumption that with Fidel Castro gone Cuba could become America's 51st state is in itself a vindication of the Cuban leader's position towards Washington.

The U.S. has never accepted Cuba an independent entity – yet it has also never looked at it as part of its sovereignty. In America’s view, it’s nothing more than a tiny island that has rejected its “subservient place” as dictated by the tyranny of geography. Pre-revolutionary Cuba was never respected in the least as a country of vibrant people with aspirations, hopes and dreams of their own. Post-revolutionary Cuba was subjected to hostility, suffocation, constant intimidation and even aggression by its northern powerful neighbor.

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