US-Turkish relations are experiencing difficulties. It would appear that neither Ankara nor Washington can continue the “strategic partnership” in deterring Russia and the tactical cooperation against Assad. There have appeared unconfirmed reports that the US have withdrawn their nuclear munitions from Turkey. But the recent statements by the Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak that Turkey…
Taiwan deployed jets and navy vessels after a group of Chinese warships entered the country’s air defense identification zone. The aircraft and vessels were deployed to “surveil and control” the passage of the Chinese ships, a government spokesperson said. China’s Soviet-built ‘Liaoning’ aircraft carrier led warships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, while returning from…
It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia. The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who…
As recently as two years ago, Saudi Arabia’s half century-long effort to establish itself as the main power among Arab and Islamic states looked as if it was succeeding. A US State Department paper sent by former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in 2014 and published by Wikileaks spoke of the Saudis and Qataris as…
An interview with an Arab Israeli who has been leading delegations from Physicians for Human Rights to the Gaza Strip for 30 years. Salah Haj Yahya, 50, who lives in Taibeh, runs a mobile clinic on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights and leads medical teams going to Gaza. We met at a Tel Aviv…
US commander of US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General John Nicholson’s December 2016 briefing was paradoxical and perhaps indicative of the bankrupted foreign policy that defines America’s occupation in Afghanistan. The US Department of Defense published General Nicholson’s full briefing titled, “Department of Defense Press Briefing by General Nicholson in the Pentagon Briefing Room.” In it,…
