In the Venezuelan crisis, said President Donald Trump in Florida, “All options are on the table.” And if Venezuela’s generals persist in their refusal to break with Nicolas Maduro, they could “lose everything.” Another example of Yankee bluster and bluff? Or is Trump prepared to use military force to bring down Maduro and install Juan…
Singapore, aiming high for the status of Asia’s unofficial capital, seems like the ideal venue for a conference to discuss how the Middle East could learn a few lessons from ASEAN’s multi-layered relations with China, especially involving partnership in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But first, let’s get things straight….
Showing that he is adopting the neoconservative playbook every day he remains in office, Donald Trump handed the neocons a major win when he appointed Iran-contra scandal felon Elliott Abrams as his special envoy on Venezuela. Abrams pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information on the secret sale of US weapons for…
What a job Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did in Europe last week. If the objective was to worsen an already critical trans–Atlantic rift and further isolate the U.S., they could not have returned to Washington with a better result. We might have to mark down this foray as among…
The transnational region of Balochistan risks becoming another Kurdistan-like fault line as long as Iran continues to be tricked into worsening relations with Pakistan, with the worst-case scenario being that the Golden Ring’s weakest link undermines the entire geopolitical project that it has such a serious stake in securing. “Blood Borders” Iran’s uncharacteristically bellicose rhetoric…
Warsaw, Poland is not a fun place to visit in darkest February, but that is where the US just staged an anti-Iranian jamboree of 60 client states that brought derision and scorn from Europeans and much of the Mideast. The point of this cynical exercise was to lay the diplomatic groundwork for an anti-Iranian coalition…
