Afghanistan Ready to Play Connector Role in Eurasian Integration

Afghanistan Ready to Play Connector Role in Eurasian Integration

One of the top roller-coaster sagas in what, some years ago, I christened Pipelineistan, has yielded a definitive twist. The US$8 billion,1,814-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) was officially inaugurated on Friday, in full pomp, and with proceedings broadcast live on Afghan TV, on the Turkmen-Afghan border close to Herat. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani hosted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan…

Syria, Turkey, Russia and the Kurds: the Struggle for Afrin

Syria, Turkey, Russia and the Kurds: the Struggle for Afrin

The complexities of the fighting in Afrin have – unsurprisingly – confounded most people, to the points where understanding of what is actually going on there is becoming very difficult and is causing much misunderstanding. Deciphering Russian policy with respect to the Afrin conflict between Turkey and the Kurds is causing special problems. The most…

“The Road to Tehran Goes Through Damascus”: If Syria Falls, America’s War on Iran Begins?

“The Road to Tehran Goes Through Damascus”: If Syria Falls, America’s War on Iran Begins?

Trump is continuing the same foreign policy as the Obama Administration on Syria to remove its President, Bashar al-Assad from power. The Trump Administration claims that they are still serious threats of ISIS and other terrorist groups within Syria. Ironically, Trump also claimed in a number of occasions that it was the U.S. that had…

Numbers Matter: China’s Three ‘Navies’ Each Have the World’s Most Ships

Numbers Matter: China’s Three ‘Navies’ Each Have the World’s Most Ships

As a friend’s five-year-old puts it, “China has three navies: the regular navy, the police navy and the sneaky navy.” Each of these three sea forces is the world’s largest of its type by number of ships—at least by some measures. China is truly a maritime power in its own right, and its sea forces’…

Netanyahu Besieged

Netanyahu Besieged

The best Prime Minister the country has ever had. This is how Benjamin Netanyahu is referred to by his numerous supporters. He is the longest-serving one, since the founder of the Jewish state, David Ben Gurion; he served longer than Vladimir Putin. But now apparently he is on the way to follow his predecessor Prime…