... ambitious. For this reason, the authors propose focusing on the following four main issues: terrorism, nuclear weapons, the Syrian crisis and the security architecture in the Middle East.
At the beginning of 2010, Russia and Turkey had different views ... ... adversary"was gone. NATO started looking for new “threats,"eventually identifying a number of Middle Eastern states, such as Iran, Syria and Iraq [
13
]. As Western rhetoric about the danger of the Iranian nuclear program and the need to “deter” Iran ...
... the U.S. military downed a Syrian aircraft that was purportedly threatening U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Force militias, which Washington says were fighting the Islamic State. For its part, Damascus
claims
that its fighter jet was likewise attacking Islamic State forces
8
.
Can the U.S. and Europeans find ways to better coordinate their strategy with Russia, Syria and Iran — and seek out a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Can Turkey and other states help mediate the Syrian conflict while ultimately bringing the Syrians, Iranians and Saudis into a peace accord?
How should the U.S., Russia, and Europeans ...
... the region. The only exception to this has been Turkey, which in November 2015 shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border—an act that impaired Russian-Turkish relations until Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized to ... ... retains flexibility in the region, maintaining a margin for maneuvering in both its alliances and conflicts, except for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, against which its commitment is complete.
Russia’s close relations with Iran have had a bearing on Moscow’s ties to Israel, as well as its links to a number of Arab countries, above all in the ...
... Group recently released a
briefing
on Russia’s partial pull-back of forces from Syria, its implications on the ceasefire as well as on Moscow’s wider strategy... ... sometimes provide air cover to certain FSA groups during joint operations against the Islamic State. The fact that Moscow never stopped reaching out to opposition groups... ... presence before these vulnerabilities get discovered.
The changing dynamic of the Russia-Iran alliance
The survival of the Syrian government with Assad as the president is paramount...
Question: Who has provoked the Ukrainian crisis? Was Moscow aware of the geopolitical, economic and reputational price it would have to pay for Crimea’s reunification with Russia? Do you think it was too high in the context of Russian-Ukrainian relations? Is there a lasting solution to the Ukrainian crisis?
Sergey Lavrov:
The Ukrainian crisis was not incidental, but rather the result of systemic problems that have been accumulating in European affairs and international relations over the past...
... caliphate. Its activists denounce and condemn the Arab national movements and states. The Islamic State has huge resources and ideological appeal, control vast territories, and... ... opposition should be renounced.
EPA / YOUSSEF BADAWI / Vostock Photo
Georgi Asatrian:
The Syrian Zugzwang
Second, Russia was ready to proceed with a new activist policy in the... ... its indispensability as a major international player. Hence, it's policy vis-a-vis Iranian nuclear program and its intervention in Syria.
Third objective can be reached...
... confrontation in Syria between the Syrian regime and the radical opposition represents, together with the actions of the “Islamic State” (IS), the main military-political crisis in the Middle East today. It has also become one of the most acute ... ... world powers. The leading countries of NATO and the European Union (EU), Russia, China and key regional states – Turkey, Iran, Israel, the GCC members and the Arabic countries neighboring Syria - have all focused their attention on the Syrian conflict.
The crisis can be considered part of “the Arabic spring”,...
....S. Navy carrier-based jet fighters
struck Islamic State artillery units
near Erbil, marking the start of a new war.
That is not quite the case, of course. The second horseman of the Apocalypse has not left these lands at least from the start of the Iran–Iraq war in 1980. Only the protagonists change (with the exception of Iraq itself). The new force is the Islamic State of Iraq, a terrorist group that sprang up in Iraq and achieved success in the civil war in Syria, success that enabled it to reformat itself, expand and get a new name – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) – and make a triumphant return to Iraq. During a lightning offensive in the summer of 2014, ISIS instantly occupied ...
