International Viewpoint

International Viewpoint

Trump Visits Arab Kings: Making Deals, Accepting Bribes, Shifting Policy

6 hours 48 minutes ago

President Donald Trump visited three of the Persian Gulf monarchies last week, receiving adulation, praising the feudal regimes, making deals, and accepting bribes while also carrying out a significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy. Amidst beautiful palaces and mosques, surrounded by Arabian horses, and watching sword dances, Trump and the monarchs heaped praise on each other.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / United States (USA), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Dan La Botz

“The crisis of liberal hegemony is the reason why so many Europeans are turning to the extreme right”

6 hours 54 minutes ago

Exiled Russian political scientist and activist Ilya Budraitskis explains the causes of the rise of the extreme right, the goals of the new fascists, and what lessons the radical left should draw from the 20th century for the fight against fascism. He makes a few suggestions for where anti-fascist politics could begin today in this interview by Philipp Schmid (BFS Zürich) first published in Sozialismus.ch.

- Features / Germany, Russia, Far Right
Ilya Budraitskis, Philipp Schmid

Three Requisites for Syria's Reconstruction Process

18 hours 40 minutes ago

For the country's revival to be successful after years of war, inclusion of the population and democratization during the transitional period will be necessary, or national cohesion may be undermined.

- Features / Syria
Joseph Daher

Solidarity with Leonidas Iza, the Ecuadorean Indigenous leader – Against the far-right's plans to reform the constitution and destroy rights

1 day ago

Since the re-election of Daniel Noboa as President of Ecuador on 13 April, his hard-right, Trump-like administration, and most of the Ecuadorean establishment, have launched a ferocious campaign against Leonidas Iza, the President of CONAIE (the Confederation of Ecuador's Indigenous Nations), and former presidential candidate of the Indigenous and plurinational movement, Pachakutik. They see him, and the communities, movements and struggles that he represents, as the main obstacle to their plans for a radical neoliberal reform to the constitution.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / Ecuador
Iain Bruce

Kashmir, India, Pakistan: on the history and internationalist stakes of a state of war

1 day 22 hours ago

This article attempts to take stock of the recent ‘hot' crisis between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Many factors need to be taken into account. Recent events are undoubtedly part of a long history of military tensions and wars dating back to the disastrous partition imposed on the sub-continent by British imperialism in 1947. In recent years, however, profound changes have affected the countries concerned, as well as the geopolitical environment, regional management of water resources and the weapons used. So we cannot assume that history will simply repeat itself almost identically. This is perhaps the main question before us: what's new? The answer, of course, lies primarily with the left-wing organisations in the region. I shall confine myself to submitting some elements of analysis or hypotheses for discussion and criticism, even if I have to revise later my copy.

- Features / Pakistan, India, Kashmir
Pierre Rousset

“We want to be able to look further than the end of the month”

3 days 1 hour ago

Parliamentary elections will take place in Portugal on Sunday 18 May. This report on a Left Bloc electoral meeting gives a flavour of the campaign.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / Portugal
Esquerda.net

“For the Neofascists, the Law of the Jungle is the Only One That Makes Sense”

4 days 3 hours ago

Where did the “global neofascist axis” come from, and where is it going? What destabilizing effects might Russia's war in Ukraine have? Ilya Budraitskis and Gilbert Achcar discuss the current conjuncture

- IVP604 - May 2025 / United States (USA), Russia, China
Gilbert Achcar , Ilya Budraitskis

The fight for democracy, social justice, and equality in the Caucasus

5 days 19 hours ago

The country of Georgia, a small nation of 3.8 million people in the Caucasus, has been thrown into a profound crisis. Its people have risen up against the ruling party, Georgian Dream, over the passage of its Russia-style “foreign influence law,” homophobic anti-LGBTQ propaganda law, rigging of the recent election, and suspension of accession talks for membership in the EU.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / Georgia
Ashley Smith, Collective

What Will an American Pope Mean for the US?

6 days 19 hours ago

The conclave of cardinals has for the first time elected a pope from the USA, a man who has been critical of the policies of President Donald Trump and Vice-president J.D. Vance. What will the choice of this American to be head of the Catholic Church mean for the US?

- IVP604 - May 2025 / United States (USA), Religion
Dan La Botz

Francis. The Pope Who Spoke Softly—and Carried the Same Big Stick

1 week ago

Pope Francis was better than his predecessors. He integrated climate change into the Church's concerns and widened space for discussion of social justice. His reign as Pope left the Catholic Church a marginally better place for the poor and the weak. He named more Cardinals from the Global South, where most Catholics live.

- Features / Religion
Adam Novak

The Unexpected Pope

1 week ago

The Marxist scholar proposes a reading of the ruptures that marked Francis's papacy, particularly his commitment to the poor and his ecological sensitivity. Was Bergoglio merely a parenthesis in the long history of the Catholic Church or the beginning of a different path?

- Features / Ecology and the Environment, Religion
Michael Löwy

From the front line: a critical look at Indo Pak War 2025

1 week 1 day ago

On the morning of 7 May, when I answered my doorbell and went outside looking for who rang, my neighbor loudly asked me to turn off all my lights. This command signaled to me that we are living in a moment of war.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / Pakistan, India
Farooq Tariq

Ukrainian socialist: Five main problems with the US-Ukraine mineral deal

1 week 2 days ago

The minerals deal signed between Ukraine and the United States reflects US capital's desire to gain unhindered access to Ukraine's mineral resources. It also gives the US new leverage over Ukraine's economic and political situation. In contrast, there are no obvious benefits for Ukraine, despite it ceding sovereignty.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / United States (USA), Ukraine
Vitaliy Dudin

Syria: Fishing in Troubled Waters

1 week 3 days ago

Israel has accustomed us to fishing in troubled waters. The Zionist state has long been interested in sowing discord and fanning its flames in striving to redraw the map of the Middle East in its image, so that the logic of sectarian and ethnic fragmentation prevails over the logic of citizenship and shared loyalty to a state that merges sectarian and ethnic groups into a single melting pot while preserving their rights. Inspired by the Roman Empire's famous principle of “divide and conquer”, Israel has sought, since its inception, to exploit the differences it found in its immediate and distant surroundings, playing sectarian minorities against the regional Sunni majority and ethnic minorities against the Arab majority: Druze, Christians, Kurds, and others – even Shiites during the time of the Shah of Iran, before that country became a hotbed of anti-Israel hostility and contributed in turn to fuelling Shiite sectarianism in neighbouring Arab countries in an effort to expand its regional influence.

- IVP604 - May 2025 / Syria, Israel
Gilbert Achcar

New Disorder, Geopolitical Transition and Militarization of Europe

1 week 3 days ago

The new era that the reactionary bloc grouped around Trump aspires to impose on a global scale has just begun, but we are already seeing the contradictions and resistances of different scope that are manifesting themselves in the face of that project. I will try to point out in this article some of the features that characterize this historical moment to then enter into its implications in Europe.

- Rearming Europe / Spanish state, War drive/Anti-war movements
Jaime Pastor

Radical Socialist Statement on Operation Sindoor

1 week 3 days ago

The Indian Armed Forces have launched Operation Sindoor which has carried out strikes in as many as nine places spread over three cities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Punjab province while a counter-strike by Pakistan, also to be condemned, has led to lives lost in Poonch. All this is an extremely worrisome development, though not entirely unexpected.

- News from around the world / Pakistan, India, Kashmir
Radical Socialist
Checked
2 hours 56 minutes ago
International Viewpoint
International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
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