By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian war limps along at the margins. It is over where it matters but continues in key demographic pockets. The two most significant are East Ghouta near the al-Assad-held capital of Damascus and the province of Idlib in the northwest of the country. East Ghouta […]
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Eastern Europe
Putin’s Medieval Romanticism and Russia’s Lurch Right
Dina Khapaeva | (Project Syndicate) | – – As much of the world makes amends for social and political injustices of the past, Russia is lionizing its despots, raising statues to the worst of them. Behind this phenomenon is an ultra-nationalist brand of conservatism that seeks to take Russian politics back to the Middle Ages. […]
Putin’s talk of Draw Down in Syria isn’t about Russia leaving, but staying
By Moritz Pieper | (The Conversation) | – – Standing on the Russian military airbase at Khmeimim on his December visit to Syria, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will withdraw the bulk of its forces from Syria following the “successful intervention” in Syria’s armed conflict. This is Putin’s second withdrawal announcement within two years. And […]
Smoking Gun: Did the Russians admit to Interference in the US Election?
By Don Van Atta | (Informed Comment) | – – A little-noticed Russian diplomatic approach to the US on 17 July amounted to an official admission by the Russian Federation that it interfered in the 2016 US election through cyberwar techniques including hacking and spreading fake news. Those facts are now widely known, but some […]
How Eastern Europe failed at Democracy & Invented Trumpism Instead
By John Feffer | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – He was a rich businessman, an outspoken outsider with a love of conspiracy theories. And he was a populist running for president. In 1990, when Donald Trump was still beyond the furthest outskirts of American politics, Stanislaw Tyminski was trying to become the new president of […]
Former CIA Dir.: Trump is afraid of Putin Kompromat
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Two former intelligence officials on Sunday more or less said openly that Trump is compromised by Russia. Jake Tapper asked former CIA head John Brennan about Trump’s statement on Friday that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said that Russia did not interfere in […]
Lebanon Hizbullah leader: Saudis dictated Hariri resignation
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Secretary-General of Hizbullah, the Lebanese party-militia, Hassan Nasrullah, gave a major speech Sunday in the wake of the resignation of prime minister Saad Hariri. Nasrullah characterized this step as a Saudi move dictated to Hariri by Riyadh. Lebanon’s three big religio-ethnic groups are Sunnis, Shiites […]
Iran’s Khamenei to Putin: Isolate US by dumping the Dollar
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin visited Tehran on Wednesday for consultations with President Hassan Rouhani and the country’s clerical leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei is quoted by Tahrir [Liberation] as saying that Russia and Iran could cooperate to isolate the United States and […]
How dangerous to Trump are charges against Manafort, Gates & Papadopoulos?
By Rachel Caufield | (The Conversation) | – – Five months into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of cooperation between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, Americans are seeing the first legal maneuvers in the case. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates surrendered to U.S. District […]