... Kerry’s then-ongoing diplomatic efforts to win cooperation with the Russians on Syria, as all recent diplomatic talks with them on Syria had been a farce. The same... ... unsurprisingly, Putin was emboldened on all these fronts.
Even during Kerry’s fastidious diplomacy, on September 19th Russia deliberately bombed a well-known UN aid convoy heading... ... heart von Clausewitz’s maxim that “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means,” something that Obama seems to have missed. Putin had...
... commercial dispute court in Stockholm, Sweden.
If it seemed the players of Team Putin gave up too easily on having RUE taken out of the game, they had other plans in motion to counter Tymoshenko’s effort to limit Russian influence in Ukrainian politics.
Criminal Scheme #2: Manafort Key Agent in Laundering Dirty Gas Money to U.S. During Crackdown
Even before Putin agreed to let Tymoshenko kill RUE, his agents—including Firtash, Mogilevich, and Yanukovych (the latter with Manafort ...
... importantly, leadership from the United States. Since then, it has failed to effectively deal with conflict in Libya, Ukraine, and Syria, all within or near its periphery. The situation in Syria has led to refugee and migrant crises unseen in the world or Europe ... ... refugees.
Leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany, trying to show kindness and compassion to refugees, may be ousted sooner by politics rather than later for her troubles, and other governments balk at attempts to coordinate regional refugee and economic ...
... Russian fighter-bomber jet that Turkey alleges violated its airspace. The Russian jet had been bombing Turkmen positions/villages—part of a series of Russian bombings in recent days that have targeted Turkmen—on the border area of Turkey and Syria. Turkey is supporting these Turkmen rebels against Assad that Russia is bombing, and had previously asked Russia not to bomb them. Turkey also claims it warned the plane ten times before it fired, but Russia denies this. The alleged violation of ...
... are able to strike anywhere, including Russia itself.
By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) October 2nd, 2015
@ValkryV
Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse
AMMAN — Anyone who’s been paying attention to the Syrian vortex of death, and Russia’s role in this vortex, knows that Putin’s motivations are not terribly difficult to understand and are, in fact, obvious. They generally run on three levels:
1.) Preserve the regime of Bashar al-Assad, ...
A Sensible Grading of Obama’s Middle East Strategy: The Syrian Civil War
Grading Obama on what has—and has not—been done by his administration regarding the Syrian Civil ... ... elected). Furthermore, if Obama was able to muster Congressional support, it would empower him that much more in the public and politics senses. And yet, Obama’s putting so much power and influence in the hands of Congress on so crucial an action showed ...
... of the curve compared to many in realizing American troops could not bring about the politics necessary to stabilize Iraq, but he did so in a responsible, gradual way that... ... 2011. We will come to ISIS (and Obama’s mild military reengagement in Iraq) and Syria as separate issues.
Israeli/Palestinian Peace
Here, one may be tempted to... ... consequences for such mistreatment.
Grade: D+
Obama deserves some credit for robust public diplomacy consistently condemning Israeli settlement expansion and even condemning the...
... Russia, America, and the state of their relationship is the lack of measured and reasoned commentary. Make no mistake, though, the problems between Russia and America are serious and affect a whole host of major issues around the world from wars in Syria and Ukraine to global energy distribution, access, and prices, to space exploration and militarization, just to name a few.
Perhaps this is understandable, given the nature of the history of the most serious, dangerous rivalry the world has ever ...
... and investing in the region.
2.) America’s involvement in the Arab Spring will likely remain limited.
Even in situations like in Egypt, for many years one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, Obama and Americans, as was/is the case in Syria and Iraq, seems to prefer a “don’t do stupid shit” (to quote the president) approach.
Obama has—correctly—realized that it is immoral, ineffective, counterproductive, and far costlier for the U.S. to default to forcing ...
... political effort towards enlisting Sunni Arab Iraqis to fight extremists, especially in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Syria’s border, saw the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia and similar extremist Sunni groups that had alienated local ... ... country of Iraq in the face of such a reckless and violent onslaught and possible formal disintegration?
The Solution: Local Politics First, or No Cavalry
Obama brilliantly approved and executed a plan that minimized the potential pitfalls and maximized ...
