Iran has, predictably enough, taken a hard line on the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. There were public demonstrations in several Iranian cities following Friday prayers and statements by President Hassan Rouhani and other senior politicians. Notably, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, warned:…
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order to withdraw his county’s forces from Syria makes sense militarily, politically, and strategically. The war has been won. Job done. Now it’s time to win the peace. Making a clear-cut end to military operations in Syria in this way only emphasizes what everyone knows, or should know. The Syrian state…
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the spin from Washington and Riyadh–and the journalists and think tank analysts only too eager be spun–has been outrageous. The level of sheer delusion is stupendous. This post will offer an anatomy of delusion and why it means only more suffering and bloodshed…
If the struggle to liberate Aleppo was Syria’s Stalingrad, the operation to liberate Idlib, just begun, is its Battle of Berlin. At stake in what promises to be the last major military operation undertaken by government forces and its allies is the complete extirpation of Salafi-jihadi groups and their allies from Syrian territory. As such, when it has been accomplished…
The Office of the Istanbul Prosecutor has issued arrest warrants for two “former” CIA agents, accusing them of involvement in the failed July 2016 coup attempt against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. US media and various Washington think-tanks have dismissed the charges as “implausible” and a “likely tit-for-tat” response of Erdogan for the…
What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they were charged at least as reprehensible. In the relatively recent past,…
