Syria

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 […]

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Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash

Juan Cole

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 […]

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Trump Admin Commits to Forever War in Syria against Iran

Juan Cole

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, […]

Donald Trump

As US throws Kurds under the Bus, Is Turkey preparing to invade Syria?

Juan Cole

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 […]

Iran

Iran says planned US-backed force inside Syria would fan war

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday a new US-backed, 30,000-strong force inside Syria constituted a breach of international law and Syrian sovereignty, joining Syria, Turkey and Russia in a vehement rebuke of the plan. On Sunday, the US-led coalition said it was working with its Syrian militia allies, […]

Bashar al-Assad

Turkey threatens war against US/Kurdish Force in Syria

Juan Cole

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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Nearly a year after Trump bombed Syria, al-Assad and Russia extend control

Juan Cole

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 […]

Donald Trump

America’s Biggest Mideast Foreign Policy Challenges in 2018

Juan Cole

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 […]

Bashar al-Assad

Russia: Permanent Bases planned in Syria to fight Terrorism

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (informed Comment) | – – The US military says that the number of ISIL fighters in eastern Syria has fallen from 3000 a month ago to only 1000 today. Moreover a lot of the latter are fleeing into al-Assad-controlled territory, a severe security concern for the Syrian state. The US is […]