Israel launched a series of missile strikes on targets close to Damascus International Airport late Saturday night. The strikes, which are the latest in a long line of aggressive interventions into the Syrian conflict by Tel Aviv, were reportedly aimed at destroying a weapons depot belonging to Iranian forces or the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The…
George Washington’s Farewell Address — one of the most important documents of America’s Founders — warned against any and all permanent alliances; he said, on 19 September 1796: The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or…
GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION In order to understand Turkey’s approach toward the conflict in Syria, one first needs to explain the military situation there as of September 2018. There are localized clashes between militant groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA)…
When I first traveled to Israel-Palestine in 1994, during the heady early days of the Oslo peace process, I was expecting to see more of the joyful celebrations I’d watched on television at home. The emotional welcoming of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat back to Palestine. The massive demonstrations for peace on the…
Though US President Donald Trump’s Middle East “deal of the century” hasn’t been publicly announced, elements have dribbled out via leaks in the media and from Palestinian leaders. In the latest bit of Chinese water torture, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said that when he met with Trump adviser Jared Kushner and envoy Jason…
President Putin’s decision to remove Russia from the International Criminal Court in 2016 over its hyper-politicized reports about the country’s activities during the 2008 peace-enforcement operation against Georgia and 2014 reunification with Crimea inadvertently gave “normative legitimacy” to Trump leaving the organization too, though Moscow could never have expected that Washington would then take everything…
