Middle East Monitor | – – The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria on Monday, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from Daesh, Reuters reports. Green was accompanied by head of the […]
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US Foreign Policy
Pence starts Middle East tour in Egypt, pledges ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ support
Middle East Monitor | – – US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation’s fight against militants. Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after […]
A Second Korean War, this Time with Nukes?
( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Most people intuitively get it. An American preventive strike to wipe out North Korea’s nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, or a commando raid launched with the same goal in mind, is likely to initiate a chain of events culminating in catastrophe. That would be true above all for the roughly […]
12 Strong. The Inside Story on the Making of a (Refreshingly Accurate) Hollywood War Epic
By Brian Glyn Williams (with Julie Romei) | (Informed Comment) | – – When I received a phone call from a representative for famed producer Jerry Bruckheimer to visit the remote mountains of New Mexico to see the filming set for the forthcoming Afghan war movie, 12 Strong: The True Declassified Story of the Horse […]
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 […]
Trump as the Termite-in-Chief boring away at Global American Influence
By Alfred W. McCoy | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – As 2017 ended with billionaires toasting their tax cuts and energy executives cheering their unfettered access to federal lands as well as coastal waters, there was one sector of the American elite that did not share in the champagne celebration: Washington’s corps of foreign policy experts. […]
Unused to Real Journalists, Trump envoy to Hague Stunned at Questions on his Bigoted Lies (Video)
Pete Hoekstra told Whoppers defaming Muslims and the Netherlands
Iran’s Khamenei: Trump Unbalanced, Playing Crazy Games, but Iran policy will Fail
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iran’s clerical leader, Ali Khamenei, gave a speech in Qom on Tuesday, in which he warned Donald Trump that his “crazy games” would not go without a response. Western news outlets such as the NYT tried to represent this speech as a threat, and some outlets […]
America’s Biggest Mideast Foreign Policy Challenges in 2018
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In some ways, the United States faces a more favorable foreign policy environment in 2018 than it has in some years, with regard to facts on the ground. Ironically, some of the more severe challenges emanate not from objective conditions abroad but from the erratic and […]