While Brazil's “strategic allies” --Germany and France-- are now turning away Syrians and other refugees Brazil has already provided asylum to 2,900 people presumed to be Syrian nationals fleeing the bloody civil war. The United States, which open sources indicate is spending billions of dollars to provide asylum to refugees from many nations, including Syria, operates sophisticated screening operations to examine the backgrounds of asylum seekers. As seen by the refugee ...
... 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, ...
... big payoffs in recent months, most especially with Cuba and Iran, so such talk should also not be immediately written off. Furthermore, there is at least a chance that the recent agreement with Iran will spur further cooperation between Iran and the United States, with Syria perhaps being the most pressing and obvious case for such cooperation apart from the problem of ISIS. Only time will tell, especially given the conflicting messages coming out of media and official sources. But if some sort of a safe-zone is established ...
... 21st, 2015
Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse here and also published by Stupidparty Math v. Myth thanks to Patrick 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 East strategy—and we will be hearing their mindless crowing at its highest decibels since the competition within 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 ...
... “Sunni Awakening” with its “Sons of Iraq.” The combination of increased U.S. military effort and increased 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 Sunnis with their brutality and extreme form of Islam; sure, the old Baathists were still there, ready to fight the Iraqi ...
