... genuine opportunities to influence the course of events in the region, as there is virtually no other way to achieve its goals without having to interact with all the players individually. However, for Russia, the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel on Syrian territory is a result of its diversified policy in the region.
Political Extremist Groups and Islamic
Movements in the Middle East and North Africa
It is becoming vital for all those involved in the affairs of the Middle Eastern countries to pay ...
... Ottoman Empire. These differences are partly due to the future desire of the Syrian leadership of Arab unity, which has served as a time bomb for the current conflict in the country.
The second period is associated with the conflict between independent Syria and Israel, which in its active phase, lasted from 1948 to 1973 (corresponding to chapters II and III of the publication). The foreign policy priority of the Syrian leadership was the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict through armed struggle with Israel....
... one of the leading countries of the Arab world, is effectively excluded from the process of finding a Middle East settlement, which undoubtedly helps the state of Israel to integrate the occupied Syrian Golan Heights into its own territory.
Russia and Israel in Syria, Allies or opponents?
RIAC webinar (in russian)
Objectively speaking, the crisis in relations between Turkey and Israel is helpful to neither side. Turkey and Israel have far more interests and points of contact in common than they have grounds ...
... Syrian conflict and revealed a tendency of establishing new states in the region on the ethnic and religious basis.
Druze – the origins
The Druze are a unique ethnoreligious minority, living mainly in the mountainous and desert areas of Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. The Druze religious and everyday life customs differ markedly from those of the rest of the population in the region. So, the Druze
believe in reincarnation
; they do not observe certain traditional religious rituals, including the ...
... into invading Iraq.
Having said this, I will am quite happy to repeat that I find the Obama Administration’s foreign policy to be far from perfect, and have made some of my own disagreements with it quite vocally and publicly on matters from Syria to Israel/Palestine, among others. So I write this neither as an apologist nor as a hater, but as someone who has studied the Middle East for much of the past fifteen years (including some studying abroad in the region and, most recently, actually living ...
... on Russia in the oil and gas market for some time. It's significant, however, that in this case the concerns of Israeli leaders were not taken into account. I recall that in the recent past, Moscow canceled the delivery of analogous weapon systems to Syria because of Israeli objections, as Putin mentioned in his TV appearance.
No less surprising was Moscow’s decision to refrain from vetoing the draft UN Security Council resolution on Yemen that didn’t include all of Russia’s proposals. Words of ...
... attend the upcoming meeting of the coalition scheduled for the end of February in Washington (
Al-Monitor
, 25.02.2015
). However, the situation became even more complicated due to the “Israeli factor.” On January 18, 2015, well-planned Israeli airstrikes against a convoy in the Quneitra District of Syria injured many members of Hezbollah and killed some key personalities of its military wing, namely
Imad Mughniyeh’s
(who was killed in February 2008) son “Jawad” Jihad Mughniyeh and cousin Jihad Mustafa Badr Al Din, field commander ...
... Iranian troops are fighting the opposition in Syrian territory
[9]
. Sources also indicate Iranian weapons supplies to the Syrian army
[10]
. Notably, Saudi Arabia was a key opponent to Iran’s invitation to the Montreux forum
[11]
.
Iran and ... ... organization was eager to see links with Iran return to their pre-war level
[13]
. The two sides were also motivated by the Israeli Army’s unprecedentedly lengthy and bloody operation in the Gaza Strip. According to Iran’s Rahbar Ali Khamenei,...
In light of the recent developments in Syria and the apparently imminent US military intervention, the blog will take a short break from its relatively academic style and its thematic focus in order to brainstorm and share some thoughts on the broader picture of what is happening in the geopolitical ...
