By insisting on fixing or abrogating the Iran nuclear deal, the United States may be ostracized. And being pushed hard, Iran will retaliate. President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to deliver an Iran policy speech on October 12 to decertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as he believes that the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with…
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just visited Tehran and met with President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. That’s a major geopolitical move by any standards. Iran and Turkey are both part of the Astana negotiations aimed at effecting closure in Syria. Both are regarded by Beijing as key nodes in its Belt and…
Even in this era of global paradigmatic changes, Saudi Arabia’s shifting grand strategy is perhaps one of the most surprising developments to occur thus far, but the fast-moving Russian-Saudi rapprochement is likely to provoke an Iranian “zero-sum” reaction which could complicate Moscow’s multipolar efforts in managing the “New Middle East”. Most observers were taken aback…
The US President Donald Trump described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the harder side to convince in his efforts to mediate between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to well-placed sources. A Western diplomat who was briefed on Trump’s comments, which came during a meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York, told Haaretz…
The Iraqi government has banned international flights to the Kurdish capital Irbil from 6pm this Friday, isolating the Kurds in Iraq to a degree they have not experienced since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The isolation is political as well as geographical as traditional Kurdish allies, like the US, UK, France and Germany,…
A profound shift in geopolitical alliances is occurring which tends to undermine US hegemony in the broader Middle East Central Asian region as well as in South Asia. Several of America’s staunchest allies have “changed sides”. Both NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are in crisis. Turkey and NATO NATO is characterized by profound divisions,…
