... that have targeted Turkmen—on the border area of Turkey and Syria. Turkey is supporting these Turkmen rebels against Assad ... ... rebels and civilians with the help of Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iran just for Russia's having a naval base on Syria’s ... ... volatile domestic security situation with its own people and an ISIS franchise running amok in the Sinai (one which apparently ... ... help them: Russia is particularly vulnerable to Sunni extremist terrorism for a number of clear reasons and its moves in Syria,...
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 ... ... Syria is currently the largest and deadliest. Here, as in other situations, we have a crisis in which we must be careful not to blame Obama too much but must also note the... ... 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...
... 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... ... January 2009 and America was not in the midst of the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. Still even more amusing and amazing are that many of... ... 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...
... back to haunt us: though Joe Biden recently got in trouble for saying so, support for ISIS and other Islamic extremists and terrorists from very wealthy individuals motivated... ... 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... ... 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...
... 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... ... groups calling themselves first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have been the worst, most... ... 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...