By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Arabic reports that Turkey has launched a land invasion of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria, home to some 500,000 Kurds. Turkey has also flooded Arab fundamentalist fighters into the region, calling them “Free Syrian Army.” The move comes after some 72 Turkish F-16s […]
The worst thing about Year One of Trump: Fascistization of Cable News
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – American mass media journalism is broken. There are some simple elements of US journalistic practice that have proved easy for special interests to hack, and the editors at least have allowed themselves to be used by sinister forces. (I am speaking primarily of television news here, […]
Syria: Turkey Begins Military Operation against US-Allied Kurds in Afrin
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters reports that on Friday, Turkey began cross-border shelling of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria. There are also reports of busloads of Sunni Arab guerrillas of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who had been sheltered in Turkey, being sent into Afrin. The region is […]
A Mountain Kingdom? Iraqi leaders unconcerned About New PKK ‘Region’
Special Correspondent | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – Late last month the Kurdistan Worker’s Party – an organization some describe as terrorist – declared a region of self-rule in the Qandil mountains. Strangely enough, nobody seems all that upset about their claim. The road into the Qandil mountain area run by the PKK. Only […]
Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s angry threat to invade a Syrian Kurdish canton in response to the US announcement that it would train and arm a 30,000-man Syrian Kurdish border force produced anxiety in Moscow. Russia has made a big bet, worth billions of rubles and involving […]
Thanks to all our Generous Supporters for an Amazing Fundraiser
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Many, many thanks to all our very generous and committed contributors for another successful fundraiser! Your donations are key to our plans for a significant redesign and for gradually moving to becoming a magazine. The internet environment is increasingly unpredictable and possibly hostile to small blogs […]
Trump Admin Commits to Forever War in Syria against Iran
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave a talk Wednesday at the right wing Hoover Institution that hovers over Stanford University, in which he committed to a Forever War in Syria. The talk was a mishmash of incompatible talking points and full of inaccurate and tendentious assertions, […]
As US throws Kurds under the Bus, Is Turkey preparing to invade Syria?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The BBC reports that Turkish armed forces are massed on the border with Syria in preparation for a possible move into the Kurdish-held areas of Afrin and Manbij. The Kurdish militia, the YPG, took Manbij away from ISIL with US support. Afrin, home to some 500,000 […]
Turkey threatens war against US/Kurdish Force in Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US announcement that it would form a 30,000 strong policing force in northeast Syria from the YPG leftist Kurdish militia has provoked unprecedently strong words from Turkey, and signs of an unusual convergence of Syrian and Turkish foreign policy objectives. In the cross-hairs are 2,000 […]
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