The Post-Partisan Emporium

  The US Empire is Retrenching, Bringing Imperialism Home Karen Kwiatkowski The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding may be signed already. If it is, 60 days of retrenchment, rejuvenation and rest may be on tap. Donald Trump certainly needs it , and so does the world. The latest US war – for Israel, as admitted by Trump, Rubio and Hegseth – has truly changed the Middle East, but not in the way Israel intended, nor the United States. The national security states in both the US and Israel no doubt had different expectations. For Israel, accelerating its ongoing genocide in Gaza, further fracturing the West Bank, and expand the northern “border” to the Litani River, seizing a fifth of Lebanon’s territory and permanently displacing a quarter of the Lebanese population, were among them. For the United States, perhaps the fundamental objective was nothing more than please let this be the last time we have to fight a war for Israel. On the surface, this latest episode of Bomb Iran! serve...

  When Argument Becomes Opium: Amartya Sen, Indian Paralysis, and the Indianization of the West Words without actions and the magic of turning defeat into victory Hua Bin I wrote an essay titled “The Myth of India Becoming the Next China” last November to debunk a popular but fallacious Western narrative. https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-india-becoming-the-next The essay continues to get views and feedback. A reader recommended the 2005 book The Argumentative Indian , by an Indian author Amartya Sen, to understand the cultural roots of the state of affairs in the self-claimed Bharat empire. I got a copy and skimmed through. While Sen’s title seems to suggest a cultural weakness, his central argument is the opposite. India, Sen argues, possesses a millennial tradition of public debate, skepticism, and pluralism. This argumentative heritage, far from being a weakness, is the true source of Indian democracy’s resilience. It is why famines have been prevented, why secul...