The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Hezbollah, the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are preparing for a joint advance on the ISIS border strongholds of al-Bukamal and al-Qaim. On Saturday, the Iraqi Army and the PMU launched an anti-ISIS operation in the border area, liberated the border town Akashat, the H-3 station, Akashat…
The Wolfowitz Doctrine and the document A Clean Break, set out contemporary US policy against Russia, China and the Middle East dating back to the 1990s. These documents, while still influential in Washington, have been abject failures on many fronts. In the 1990s, US officials, all of whom would go on to serve in the…
Throughout the conflict in Syria, the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian/Iranian and Hezbollah allies have tended to operate in different regions vis-a-vis the Kurdish led US proxy army known as the SDF. Over the last year however, this has increasingly changed. As Syrian forces along with their allies continue to liberate Deir ez-Zor city…
Recently, a columnist-friend, Matt Kenney, sent me a 25-year-old newspaper with his chiding that my column had been given better play. Both had run in The Orange County Register on June 30, 1991. “Is there no room for new nations in the New World Order?” was my title, and the column began: “In turning a…
Less than a month remains before the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, the pace of preparation being intensified at a literally accelerated pace as the fateful date for all Kurds approaches. It is common knowledge that the referendum will include the entire region of Kurdistan as well as the areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, such…
The creation of a sovereign Kurdish state in Iraq could result in the remapping of the Middle East and the collapse of the established status quo, Israeli political analyst Avigdor Eskin writes for RIA Novosti. Eskin notes that regardless of the potential repercussions the Iraqi Kurds are determined to hold an independence vote on September…
