Arab World

Human Rights Watch | – – Unlawful Attacks Harm Economy, Show Need for Victim Compensation (Beirut) Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes have unlawfully hit numerous factories, warehouses, and other civilian economic structures in Yemen. “The repeated coalition airstrikes on civilian factories appear intended to damage Yemen’s shattered economy long into the future,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, senior […]

Iran

Is Iran winning their Mideast Cold War with Saudi Arabia?

contributors

By Robert Harvey | (Project Syndicate) | – – LONDON – A cold war is taking place in a very hot place. A key component of the sectarian competition between Shia and Sunni Islam in the Middle East is geopolitical, with Iran facing off against Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in a struggle for […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syrian Troops foil al-Qaeda riposte in Aleppo as France warns al-Qaeda could replace ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Even as the Syrian army defeated a counter-offensive by al-Qaeda in Syria and its battlefield allies at Aleppo, French President Francois Hollande warned that al-Qaeda should not be allowed to replace the declining Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Syria. On Saturday and Sunday, al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front) […]

Iraq War

Why you can’t explain the Iraq War without mentioning oil

contributors

By Bulent Gökay | (The Conversation) | – – Well before the US and UK led the invasion of Iraq, the two countries were under suspicion about their intentions for Iraq’s oil. When asked on February 6 2003 in a BBC Newsnight programme whether the war in Iraq was about oil, Tony Blair responded: Let […]

Bashar al-Assad

If East Aleppo Falls to Regime, is the Syrian War over?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters is reporting that the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies have taken Malah Farms to the northwest of the city and so have cut the last remaining road by which the rebel forces in East Aleppo were resupplied with armaments. (Reuters is too […]

Bush

The other Casualty of Iraq War: The Country’s Whole Health System

contributors

Ahmed Aber | (The Conversation) | – – Thirteen years ago, American and British troops launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraqis were promised freedom from tyranny, but the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi state apparatus as well as the cycle of violence that continues to this day destroyed the health system that cared for the […]

Iraq War

Surprise! It was a War Crime

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | (Informed Comment) | – – So now it’s official. The British Chilcot Report confirms what the world has known for 13 years: the invasion of Iraq was a legal, strategic, and moral disaster. The report runs to 12 volumes – 2.5 million words – but its primary author, Sir John Chilcott, […]

Iraq

The Iraq War Never Ended: An Interview with Anand Gopal

contributors

An Interview with Anand Gopal by Charles Davis | ( TeleSur) | – – The United States is winning the war on terror, just as it always has. The Islamic State group is “on the defensive,” Col. Steve Warren told reporters earlier this year. In Iraq, it has reportedly lost 40 percent of its territory […]

Houthi

On top of Saudi-Houthi War, South Yemen yearns to Secede!

contributors

By Hannah Porter | (Informed Comment) | – – While UN-brokered peace talks between Houthi rebels and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government-in-exile struggle to reach a political resolution to end a 15-month-long war, a rift between Yemen’s North and South is deepening, with the vast majority of the country’s six million Southerners demanding full secession. Heading the […]