US foreign policy

Thousands of Cubans bid farewell to Fidel Castro on Monday, filing into a plaza where he often railed against American imperialism. The same morning, the first regularly scheduled flight from the United States in more than 50 years landed in Havana, a potent example of the newly opened doors between the former rivals.

In a special UpFront interview, renowned US academic and public intellectual Noam Chomsky sits down with Mehdi Hasan to discuss the implications of a Donald Trump presidency, on both domestic and global issues.

It can be expected that a lengthy period of mourning will take place in Cuba and that his funeral will see the record attendance of many worldwide leaders, President Obama included. The US leader will probably exploit the occasion to promote the rapprochement with Cuba, likely making positive and upbeat remarks about Castro's life and legacy in order to advance his agenda of winning the islanders' support.

On 26 July 1953 an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in an attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente province. Most of the guerrillas were killed. Castro was tried and defended himself with a masterly speech replete with classical references and quotations from Balzac and Rousseau, that ended with the

The Batista dictatorship was overthrown in January 1959 by Castro’s guerrilla forces. In March, the National Security Council (NSC) considered means to institute regime change. In May, the CIA began to arm guerrillas inside Cuba. “During the Winter of 1959-1960, there was a significant increase in CIA-supervised bombing and incendiary raids piloted by exiled

President-elect Donald Trump’s authoritarian style and personality, which attracted an overwhelmingly authoritarian following, is manifesting itself in the selection of his national security team. The appointment of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as the national security adviser is particularly worrisome because of the general’s lack of experience in strategic policy and his controversial stewardship as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Flynn had advised Trump through his campaign and was once considered a potential running mate. The retired Army lieutenant general served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the service that specializes in providing intelligence to the military until he was forced out in 2014 after reported leadership clashes.

Just days after the U.S. presidential election, newspapers allied with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) published stories alleging that elements of the U.S. government would conspire to prevent Donald Trump from governing. Trump, the consensus in the pro-government media held, was a better choice for Turkey: As a billionaire who is outside of the Washington mainstream, he is above influence from members of the Gulen Movement, some of whom gave money to Hillary Clinton’s super-PAC.

These libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's commitments around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and “nation-building,” curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments and intervene militarily only to protect American interests.

Mike Pompeo, named Friday by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, tweeted on Thursday that he was looking forward to “rolling...