Writing about upcoming battles, making predictions is a dangerous thing. Saddam and his “mother of all battles” is a case in point. However, the complex situation in Northern Syria in the 2nd week of March, 2017 has all the earmarks of a wartime comedy farce. The battle for Raqqah against whoever is there claiming to…
On January 29, 5-year-old Sinan al Ameri was asleep with his mother, his aunt, and 12 other children in a one-room stone hut typical of poor rural villages in the highlands of Yemen. A little after 1 a.m., the women and children awoke to the sound of a gunfight erupting a few hundred feet away….
In the same week that the United States sent thousands of additional troops to Kuwait for deployment in Iraq and Syria, Russia was busy pursuing a heavy-duty diplomatic deployment. The contrast speaks of a paradigm-shift in geopolitics. Russia has become the main player in the future of the vital Middle East region, where the US…
It seems that we missed a crucial exchange from yesterday’s Sore Loser Summit in Moscow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Moscow on Thursday to complain to Putin about big, bad Iran and how tragic it is that Tehran destroyed legions of “moderate” rebels and ISIS fanatics in Syria. Here’s Netanyahu, tissue in hand,…
Nearly straight away in office, Trump proved he’s the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents. He’s continuing naked aggression in multiple theaters, upping the stakes in Syria and Yemen, increasing numbers of US combat troops in both countries, perhaps more headed for Iraq. At the urging of CENTCOM chief General Joseph Votel,…
The U.S. military is sending an additional 2,500 ground combat troops to a staging base in Kuwait from which they could be called upon to back up coalition forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The deployment will include elements of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which is based at…
