Trump’s surprise announcement that the US will be “coming out” of Syria “very, very soon” probably won’t lead to the full-fledged retreat that some people are expecting, but this tactical downscaling would nevertheless be a response to the “Rojava Civil War” if it does indeed happen, and the influence of Turkey’s looming anti-terrorist intervention in…
In a sensational interview with the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto leader Muhammad bin Salman has blamed the US and its allies for putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to export the extremist Wahhabi ideology during the Cold War as a means to counter the influence of the Soviet Union in the wider…
It’s exceptionally rare for Russia and the US to agree on just about anything at all nowadays, which makes it all the more remarkable that they’re on the exact same page in condemning the Houthi’s missile strike on Saudi Arabia. The War on Yemen has been going on for over three years already, and while…
There are few countries on earth more oppressive than Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy shaped by Sunni theocracy. It stones adulterers and hurls gay men off buildings by judicial decision. The State Department routinely, matter of factly, reports widespread human rights abuses in the country. International human rights organizations use Saudi Arabia as the poster…
One of the more intriguing news reports about the rapid rise to power of the 32-year-old Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), concerns how he isolated his mother, placing her under house arrest for a time. He kept her away from his father, the mentally declining King Salman, and devised phony explanations to the…
Until he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance in February, presidential adviser Jared Kushner was known around the White House as one of the most voracious readers of the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified rundown of the latest intelligence intended only for the president and his closest advisers. Kushner, who had been tasked…
