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Archives for October 2019

Iraq
On Yom Kippur, remembering the Diversity Iraq’s Mosul has Lost with Nationalism and ISIL

On Yom Kippur, remembering the Diversity Iraq’s Mosul has Lost with Nationalism and ISIL

The Conversation

By Stephennie Mulder | – On Yom Kippur each year, as Jews around the world pray for atonement, the biblical Book of Jonah is read in its entirety. Jews recall the story of how God summons Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to tell its inhabitants to turn from their evil deeds. At […]

Uncategorized
Trump’s Undeclared State of Emergency

Trump’s Undeclared State of Emergency

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Trump is counting on his base to endorse his increasingly open law-breaking. It may not end well. Trump’s public appeal to China last week to help with uncovering dirt on the Biden family was both a brazen flouting of the law and (it pains me to say) an astute […]

Iraq
Iraq protests expose the crisis in the regime’s integrity

Iraq protests expose the crisis in the regime’s integrity

Middle East Monitor

By Abdulwahhab Badrakhan | – A third wave of protests in Iraq, following those in 2015 and 2018, continues to shake the three pillars of the regime — the constitution, electoral law and an independent judiciary — although protesters’ basic demands are not political. There is, nevertheless, a general conviction that they are impossible to […]

Featured
Is Trump's Syria Policy about to Loose 12,000 ISIL Terrorists on the World?

Is Trump’s Syria Policy about to Loose 12,000 ISIL Terrorists on the World?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tessa Fox at Al Jazeera writes that Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of U.S. special operations forces from northern Syria in expectation of a Turkish invasion could throw the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia cultivated for the past four years by the US into confusion. Moreover, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army may […]

Constitution
High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century

High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century

Andrew J. Bacevich

(Tomdispatch.com ) – There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they think. From the time of Donald Trump’s election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed fashion, Trump has […]

Donald Trump
Trump decision to withdraw troops from Syria opens way for dangerous Middle East power play

Trump decision to withdraw troops from Syria opens way for dangerous Middle East power play

The Conversation

By Tony Walker | – US President Donald Trump’s precipitate announcement he was withdrawing American forces from northeast Syria to enable Turkey to assert its authority along the border risks wider regional bloodshed – and further destabilisation of one of the world’s most volatile corners. If implemented against a furious pushback from his own side […]

Houthi
Is Najran the Saudi Frontline in its Failing Yemen War, or its Achilles Heel?

Is Najran the Saudi Frontline in its Failing Yemen War, or its Achilles Heel?

Middle East Monitor

By Omar Ahmed | – The 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun is famed for his treatise Al-Muqqadimah and is regarded as “the father of social science”; he wrote about the rise and fall of states and civilisations. Tunis-born, his ancestors hailed from Yemen’s Hadramawt. He is notable for popularising the notion of ‘asabiyya which […]

Donald Trump
Winners and Losers from Trump throwing Syrian Kurds under the Bus

Winners and Losers from Trump throwing Syrian Kurds under the Bus

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The reasons for which the Washington Establishment is appalled at Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US special operations troops from northern Syria are not necessarily the right ones. Former special presidential envoy for combating ISIL Brett McGurk wrote, “Trump tonight after one call with a foreign leader provided a gift to […]

Iran
Lots of Countries have Enriched Uranium - How Iran's Program Fell on the Wrong Side of History

Lots of Countries have Enriched Uranium – How Iran’s Program Fell on the Wrong Side of History

The Conversation

By Joseph O’Mahoney | – As tensions remain at fever pitch between Tehran and Washington, Iran continues to breach limits agreed in the 2015 Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Since Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in May 2018, its future has become more and more uncertain. […]

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