Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have formed a new military and trade partnership separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The move came on the eve of the GCC summit in Kuwait, which opened on Dec.5. The top-level meeting was supposed to last for two days but was closed in a few hours to end…
Unfortunately, the long awaited diplomatic breakthrough in the ongoing Syrian settlement process, which was discussed at the end of the last month by the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran in Sochi, failed to come to fruition. On the very same day that Putin was holding negotiations in Sochi he was contacted by Israeli Prime Minister…
The best solutions to difficult problems are simple. The Columbus Egg. The Gordian Knot. The Procrustean Bed. So many people strained their fingers trying to untangle the messy knot, until Alexander came and slashed it open with one fine stroke of his mighty sword. Wise men vainly tried to make an egg stand upright on…
US President Donald Trump’s expected announcement of plans to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has quickly whipped up a furore, with pundits and foreign leaders warning of intifada-style upheaval and the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Which begs the simple question: why announce the move? Trump has spoken of a desire to…
The orchestrated hostility toward Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea protects the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex by convincing the American public that the US is threatened by enemies. It also keeps alive Democratic Party hopes that Trump can be removed from office, and it has prevented President Trump from normalizing relations…
Bashar al-Assad, when he arrived in Sochi on 20 November for a meeting with President V. Putin, was evidently premature in his declaration that ISIS had been completely defeated in Syria: in one day, on 27 November, ISIS carried out a counter-attack in the area between Abu Kamal and Mayadin. The Syrians suffered serious losses in their…
