The idea involves playing both sides against the middle, keeping options open, promising support for both sides, a strategy to benefit the manipulator – dirty politics, the way America operates, why it can never be trusted. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavasoglu, Trump “instructed (the Pentagon) in a very open way that the YPG…
The Chinese Ambassador to India suggested that his country could rename and even reroute the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, popularly known as CPEC, in order to appease New Delhi. His Excellency Mr. Luo Zhaohui proposed this controversial idea in a speech at the Centre for Chinese and South-East Asian Studies late last week, which is the second…
Washington and Israel demand regime change in Syria, along with removal of Iranian and Hezbollah forces involved in combating ISIS and other terrorists. Despite most of Syrian territory liberated from US-supported terrorists, winning the peace remains a formidable challenge. Washington, NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their rogue allies won’t tolerate conflict resolution unless their unacceptable…
Western think tanks have been increasingly busy cultivating a narrative to explain the sudden and spreading presence of militants linked or fighting under the banner of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) across Southeast Asia. This narrative – these think tanks would have audiences believe – entails militants fleeing Syria and Iraq, and entrenching themselves amid…
What a disastrous past week it’s been for Saudi Arabia’s international public relations. It’s hard to imagine how it could possibly become more ignominious or cringe making for the House of Saud. But of course, how could it be otherwise? When the oil-rich kingdom is run by a father-and-son clique, cosseted by venal super-wealth, and…
“Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.” — Thucydides You’ve heard the platitude that hindsight is 20/20. It’s true enough and, though I’ve been a regular skeptic about what policymakers used to call the Global War on Terror, it’s always easier to poke holes in the past than to say what you would…
