... he expects from the Syrian constitution talks, how the U.S. is exerting pressure on Iran via sanctions and what the EU and Russia have in common when it comes to the Middle... ... U.S. raid. What do you make of his death and what consequences could that have for ISIS and international terrorism as a whole?
Andrey Kortunov, Michel Duclos:
Helping... ... is usually even more of a risk. The main priority now is to resolve the issue for thousands of ISIS fighters and affiliates, as well as wives and children who are in prison...
... Southern Caucasus, in trade and investment, in energy and in tourism. The second was Iran — another difficult ally, which played an active role in many international matters... ... that call for significant adjustments in the Russian strategy.
First, the defeat of ISIS, which is definitely a positive development for everybody engaged in Syria and... ... pull Moscow to its side of the conflict. The risks of alienating either Teheran or Jerusalem, or even both of them, are on the rise.
Finally, if Damascus finally has a complete...
... jihadists by helping Shiite Alawite Assad 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 new bases inside Syria as well as a client ... ... Iran, and Hezbollah and that Egypt’s own explosive and volatile domestic security situation with its own people and an ISIS franchise running amok in the Sinai (one which apparently was able to blow up a Russian airliner) will not be major liabilities....
... are coming from all over the world—even young girls from the West—to join ISIS in Syria (some 30,000 over the past few years, according to a recent major report)... ...
See, here’s the thing: with Russia clearly siding with Shiite Alawite Assad and Iran against Sunnis, now more clearly than ever with the activities of the past week... ... little further into Russia itself. This restive population includes hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees now, most of whom will have legitimate gripes against Russia...
... Eastern conflicts, the civil war raging in 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 missed opportunities where his substantive ... ... 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 ...
... a residual force would have been better but that is 100% on Maliki not granting immunity and having already committed to his Iranian allies that he would see our troops out in 2011. We will come to ISIS (and Obama’s mild military reengagement in Iraq) and Syria as separate issues.
Israeli/Palestinian Peace
Here,... ... Israel announced the construction of 1,600 settlement housing units to be built on illegally occupied, disputed land in East Jerusalem (which was occupied in 1967 along with the West Bank and Gaza and which Israel has held in defiance of multiple binding ...
... Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states comes 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 by the Saudi state-sponsored and ever-present-throughout-the-Gulf ... ... 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 ...
... coming under intense pressure. With no progress on the political front, even Maliki’s closest allies, including the Shiite Iranian regime (arguable even a bigger supporter of him than the U.S.), began to distance themselves from him and abandon him.
The Obama Administration Makes Its Move: Checkmate on Maliki
Tens of thousands of Yazidis were running out of time, though, and facing genocide, and ISIS kept making gains, even threatening Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. With intense pressure coming at Maliki from all angles,...
