... objective reasons. To begin with, there are many players in the region that claim a leading role, primarily, Saudi Arabia and Iran, cooperation between which is seriously complicated by religious divergence. The same applies to Egypt that was historically ... ... I don’t see any streamlined collective security system in the Middle East.
The main goal today is to end the conflict in Syria and embark on economic recovery there. Russia will not be able to do this single-handedly but from the viewpoint of the ...
The Mutating Inter-Relations among the Key Actors in the Syrian Conflict: Russia, the United States, Turkey, Iran and Israel
The Syrian crisis continues to bring new surprises. Analysts are becoming increasingly concerned with the “mutating” configuration of relations among the global and regional actors, driven primarily by the developments in Idlib Governorate....
... 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... ... massacre mainly Sunni rebels and civilians with the help of Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iran just for Russia's having a naval base on Syria’s coast and a few... ... than those gains would help them: Russia is particularly vulnerable to Sunni extremist terrorism for a number of clear reasons and its moves in Syria, as I have written before...
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 ... ... Qaddafi’s regime, Assad’s military was much stronger and, unlike Qaddafi’s, had strong patrons in Russia and Iran who would complicate and increase the costs of any Western intervention and made the prospects of any success for the Syrian ...
... Andendall and by Tuck Magazine.
Other articles in this series:
Grading Obama’s Middle East Strategy (Sensibly): Part II: Syria
The cocks who crow “failure” every time the sun rises about the Obama Administration’s overall Middle ... ... terrible policies of local rulers, from Hosni Mubarak in Egypt to Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to (the recently departed) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and also from the actions of a number of other foreign patrons, ...
... 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 ... ... into being an apartheid-like political pariah within the Western world.
4.) There’s a good chance for a thaw/deal with Iran in the near future.
More than any president since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Obama has shown an energy and a willingness ...
... 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 ... ... problems for the U.S., the region, and the world. U.S. support would also strengthen an Iraqi government that was in line with Iran in many ways and had resisted accommodating the U.S. government when it came to a whole array of issues. Helping Maliki’s ...
... of the recent Islamic attack on the Kenyan shopping centre?
Israel views Iran as its enemy, and is particularly concerned by Iran’s nuclear program. Although Rouhani announced it was purely peaceful, there are doubts about this, and not only in Israel.
I do not think international terrorism ever disappeared. The recent events in Kenya seem to suggest that Al-Qaeda-related entities have become even more audacious, and that they continue to expand their area of action. It has long been known that they have been present in Syria and other Arab countries, fuelling instability. The terrorist attack in Kenya is yet another reminder of how dangerous and ...
