By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian Civil War has a domestic, a regional and an international dimension. Domestically, it has become a fight between some largely rural Sunni Arabs (though some are urban as in Ghouta), mostly now of a fundamentalist cast, on the one hand; and on the other […]
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Syria
Washington’s Supreme Hypocrisy on Chemical Weapons and Civilian Deaths
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army in Idlib is an atrocity and the pictures of dead children tug at the heart. But the outrage of American politicians inside the beltway about it draws on the myths of American exceptionalism and Alzheimer’s of the […]
Has Trump deferred to Russia in Syria?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Elizabeth Palmer reported from Ankara last Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had difficult and inconclusive discussions with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan concerning Syria. After the meeting he said publicly, that the “longer-term status of President (Bashar) Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.” […]
Putin and the Ayatollahs: How Russia’s Alliance with Iran is reshaping the Middle East
By Clément Therme | (The Conversation) | – – Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, will meet for the eighth time in four years from March 27 to 29. According to the Tehran Times, both sides are “preparing more than ten documents for signing” on various economic and political issues. The […]
41 Killed in US Attack on Syrian Mosque
TeleSur | – – “It was right after prayers at a time when there are usually religious lessons for men in it,” one witness told AFP. On Thursday the U.S. government confirmed that it carried out an airstrike in Syria which, according to AFP, struck a mosque killing 46 civilians. A spokesperson for U.S. Central […]
Trump & Saudi Arabia: Oil Boycott or Bromance?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump is meeting this week with Muhammad bin Salman, the deputy heir apparent of the Saudi Arabian throne and the minister of defense. He had lunch with him at the White House on Tuesday, and will have more extended talks on Thursday, according to white House […]
Do Syria’s Kurds hold the Key to the future of the Middle East?
By Clemens Hoffmann and Can Cemgil | (The Conversation) | – – The Trump administration’s plans for the war against the so-called Islamic State (IS) are at last becoming clear. And it seems his still-young government has chosen which ally to put first: the Syrian Kurds. On February 24, the US’s top commander in the […]
Syria: As 400 more Troops go in, What’s Trump’s Mission?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US had about 500 troops embedded with the People’s Protection Units (Kurdish acronym YPG) until this week, when another 400 were deployed, along with heavy artillery. It is rumored in the Arabic press that yet more troops, perhaps as many as 2000, will soon be […]
As Civil War heats up in S. Syria, Palestinian Refugees displaced Again
Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency responsible for providing services to some five million Palestinian refugees, released a statement on Wednesday expressing concern over the escalation of violence in the city of Deraa in southern Syria. “Fighting among parties to the […]