Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a major and extremely embarrassing foreign policy speech in Cairo on Thursday, which is probably inconsequential since his major talking points departed from the positions of his president, Trump. Also, aside from some generals and kings and princes, nobody in the region agrees with anything he said. Pompeo’s message […]
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Arab World
Turkey’s Erdogan snubs Bolton for support of Kurdish YPG: ‘He made a grave Mistake’
By Luana Sarmini-Buonaccorsi and Fulya Ozerkan in Istanbul – Ankara, Turkey | AFP | – US National Security Advisor John Bolton was in Ankara to discuss the planned US withdrawal from Syria Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday condemned comments by a key US envoy over the future of a US-allied Syrian Kurdish militia […]
UN Takes Charge of Saudi Girl in Thailand seeking Asylum, Fearing Family Violence
Thai police said that they had allowed the Saudi girl, Rahaf Mohammed Al-Qunun, to leave Bangkok airport under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Al-Qunun tweeted a photo of UN staff with Thai security after she left her room as well as a copy of her passport that she had […]
President Bolton overrules Feckless Trump Tweet on Syria Withdrawal
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Last Two Neoconservatives in the Trump administration, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have swung into action to repeal Trump’s troop withdrawal from Syria. Bolton visited Israel to reassure prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu that the US will look after the interests of allies as […]
Saudi Men can no Longer Divorce Wives without Telling Them
Saudi courts now have to inform wives by text message that their husbands want a divorce in a bid to end surprise separations on the part of their husbands. Starting Sunday, courts in Saudi Arabia are required to notify wives by text on any rulings confirming their divorces. However, women still remain subject to male […]
Trump’s Remark that Iranians ‘Can do what they want’ in Syria Mocked in Mideast
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Christian-owned Lebanese daily al-Nahar (The Day) mocked Trump’s remark this week that Iran can do whatever it wants in Syria after the US military withdrawal (“they can do what they want there, frankly”). A columnist for the newspaper, Monalisa Fariha, entitled her piece, “Iran will get out of Syria […]
The US Should Leave Syria, but Must Protect its Kurds from Turkey
By Stephen Zunes | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Donald Trump’s sudden decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria appears to have been impetuous and ill-considered — apparently a result of a conversation with Turkey’s autocratic president Recep Erdoğan. That doesn’t mean, however, that the United States should remain in that country. It’s […]
Al-Qaeda-Linked Guerrillas make Gains in Northwest Syria
Clashes among rival Syrian rebel factions have spread across northwest Syria, rebels and residents said on Thursday, in the latest bout of tit-for-tat fighting between opponents of President Bashar al Assad’s rule, Reuters reports. Infighting has long plagued Syria’s armed opposition since the uprising against Assad began in 2011. Turf wars have helped the Syrian […]
Trump Spews Incomprehensible Nonsense on Kurds, Syria, Afghanistan
“A Commentary on the words that spewed from Trump’s mouth at his news conference during a cabinet meeting on January 2, 2019,” or, “A Ph.D. who has been teaching at a public Ivy since 1984 is forced to spend his time chasing the rabid ferrets running around in the head of a decrepit reality t.v. […]








