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Yemen's Turn

Tariq Ali on Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis. A social anthropologist on the background to the 2011 uprising and devastating US–Saudi war.

Between Past and Future

Responding to Asef Bayat, Tariq Ali argues that any adequate analysis of the outcomes of the Arab Spring must reckon with Washington’s tight defence of its interests in the region. The dynamics of the revolts located in a long history of Western intervention.

Leaving Shabazz

Tariq Ali on Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. The political formation of one of America’s most gifted black orators.

On Mao’s Contradictions

Tariq Ali on Rebecca E Karl, Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World. Level-headed exploration of the Great Helmsman’s life and legacies.

President of Cant

From declamations in Cairo to silence over Gaza, occupation of Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Tariq Ali asks what has changed in us foreign policy since the departure of Bush.

Death of a Comrade

Tariq Ali pays tribute to Peter Gowan, long-standing friend and mainstay of NLR’s editorial board, and his unique combination of analytical acuity, appetite for debate and generosity of spirit.

Afghanistan: Mirage of the Good War

Reasons for the West’s stalemate in Afghanistan sought neither in lack of troops and imperial treasure, nor in Pakistani obstruction, but in the very nature of the occupation regime. Tariq Ali on the actual results of ‘state-building’ in the Hindu Kush, as a broken country is subjected to the combined predations of NGOs and NATO.

The Life and Times of Simón B

Tariq Ali on John Lynch, Simón Bolívar: a Life. The Liberator as pragmatist, and his legacy from the colonial Andes to the Caracas of today—a prophylactic portrait for the times?

Mid-Point in the Middle East?

As fears are voiced within the US establishment of impending debacle in Iraq, a survey of the embattled landscape from Baghdad, Ramallah and Tehran to Beirut and Damascus. American control is slipping, Ali argues—but it is too soon to count on imperial defeat.

Remembering Edward Said

The physical and moral courage of a unique writer, and fighter—leading Arab intellectual, unconforming cultural theorist, champion of the Palestinian cause in the heartland of Israeli overseas power.

Re-Colonizing Iraq

The American expedition to Baghdad, and world-wide reactions to the new imperium. From mass demonstrations against the war to the diplomatic hypocrisies colluding with it. The UN as framework of blockade and intervention yesterday, and mask of reconstruction tomorrow.

The Colour Khaki

Pakistan’s latest bout of military rule, as castle on the Pentagon’s West Asian chessboard: façade and realities of Musharraf’s dictatorship, and the complicity of clerical opposition to it.

Throttling Iraq

The bombing and starving of Iraq are nearing their tenth year. Catechisms and consequences of the Anglo-American blockade, as a defining memorial of the Clinton and Blair regimes.

The Arrival of the Taliban

Tariq Ali on John Cooley, Unholy Wars, and Ahmed Rashid, Taliban. How the US fought its proxy war in Afghanistan, and what kind of Islamist regime has resulted.

Springtime for NATO

“When Western leaders assemble in Washington, later this year, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of nato, how will they assess the Balkan campaign of Spring 1999? The aim of the summit is a new mission statement for nato, transforming it from a defensive alliance into a . . .” read more

The Luck of a Crazy Youth (Interview with Ernest Mandel)

“Ernest, you were ten years old when Hitler seized power in Germany and sixteen when World War Two broke out. It was surely an awful time to be young, especially for someone like you, from a Jewish background. What are your first memories of that period?” read more

Literature and Market Realism

“These are strange times. Capitalism, crippled by its own contradictions—there are thirty million people out of work in the oecd countries alone—is nonetheless triumphant. From New York to Beijing, via Moscow and Vladivostok, you can eat the same junk food, watch the same junk on television and, . . .” read more

Introduction to a Speech in Tashkent

“The speech published below was delivered in Tashkent, ussr, during the last week of April 1985, at a conference on ‘Peace and Security in Asia’ jointly organized by the United Nations University in Tokyo and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Such events are not new, but the . . .” read more

Strategic Aspects of Asia in the Global System

“Capitalism, born in Europe, utilized the continent of its birth as a launching pad to colonize the rest of the world. World economics in the shape of the global market paved the way for world politics. Expansionist capital created the conditions for wars and revolutions on an unprecedented . . .” read more

Midnight’s Children

“Midnight’s Children has been widely acclaimed as a literary tour de force. It has won plaudits for its author, Salman Rushdie, from critics throughout the Anglo-Saxon world and has been awarded the prestigious Booker Prize. Rushdie has been compared, at different times, to Gunter Grass and Gabriel . . .” read more

Socialists and the Crisis of Labourism

“British politics today no longer lags behind economics. Hitherto, the hundred-year decline of British capitalism’s relative strength in the world economy, so often analysed, so rarely even temporarily checked, has been accompanied by a relative stability of the country’s political system. Of the major imperialist powers, only two . . .” read more

The Fall of Congress in India

“The outcome of the 1977 general election represents a watershed in the history of modern Indian politics. For four whole days the Indian electors—almost 200 million men and women—flocked to the polling booths in town and countryside. Deprived by the Emergency of virtually all forms of extra-parliamentary dissent . . .” read more

Introduction to Damodaran

“On 26 June, Indira Gandhi introduced a State of Emergency which led immediately to the arrest of several hundred opposition leaders and to the imposition of a draconian press censorship on the country’s normally vigorous bourgeois press. Emboldened by the feeble response to these measures, Indira Gandhi induced . . .” read more

Bangla Desh--Results and Prospects

“The struggle in Bangla Desh between the Bengali liberation forces and the armed might of West Pakistani capital represents both a continuation of the mass movement which erupted in 1968–69 and a qualitative break. In that sense we can say that the present course of events in East . . .” read more

Revolutionary Perspectives for Pakistan

“The revolutionary upsurge which erupted in both parts of Pakistan from October 1968 to March 1969 and which resulted in the overthrow of the dictator Ayub, marks a turning point in the history of the IndoPak sub-continent. It shows quite clearly that despite the siege mentality of Pakistani . . .” read more