The consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran will exacerbate the Islamic Republic’s ongoing economic crisis and bring it even closer to political collapse than ever before, the outcome of which is unwittingly being facilitated by the government’s mismanaged response to this disease as a result of the narrative corner that it’s backed itself into…
President Trump will likely sell the U.S.–Taliban deal as a peace agreement and a U.S. military withdrawal. It is neither. The deal only reduces troop strength to 8,600 from 13,000, and Trump has said even minor complications will serve as justification to halt or reverse this reduction. The U.S. military has little left to offer…
It’s been a dramatic few days in Syria. The Syrian Army pushed across Idlib Province to retake major strongholds of Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists who have controlled the region for years thanks to support from Turkey. This provoked a major escalation from Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Major offensives by the jihadists, backed by Turkish armor and…
Fighting in northern Syria has escalated as Syrian forces retake the last remaining bastions of foreign-funded militants and encircle, cut-off, and in some cases catch in the crossfire their Turkish backers. Turkey had been making some promising steps in the right direction since Washington’s disastrous proxy regime-change war in Syria began unraveling – yet it…
The Trump administration, anxious to be able to claim that it fulfilled its campaign pledge to end war in Afghanistan, pressed for a signed peace deal, leaving it to the Afghan government and the Taliban to hammer out the details. The ink was barely dry on the historic US-Taliban Peace Agreement, however, when the Taliban…
“Long Live Democracy!” cried “student” protesters at Thailand’s Thammasat University as local and Western media organizations reported “hundreds” gathered to decry the disbanding of Thai political party, Future Forward. However, the Western media’s eager support for the small mob complete with quotes of support from the US Embassy in Bangkok should be the first clue that it…
