Syria

By Mairead Maguire | (Inter Press Service) |- – BELFAST (IPS) – In November 2015 I visited Syria together with an International Peace delegation. This was my third visit to Syria in the last three years. As on previous occasions I was moved by the spirit of resilience and courage of the people of Syria. […]

Counter-Terrorism

How his Syria Intervention brought Putin in from the Cold in 2015

contributors

By Carl Schreck | ( RFE/ RL | – – In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama fielded a question about Russia while addressing a group of American business leaders in Washington. President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine and “backward-looking” policies, Obama said, are “isolating Russia completely internationally.” If it was Russian expansionism last year […]

Iraq

What It Takes To Defeat ISIL’s Ideology

contributors

By Charles Recknagel | RFE/RL Daniel Koehler is among a handful of people in the West who work with Islamist militants returning from Syria in an effort to reintegrate them into normal life. A native of Germany, he works with such former fighters and their families in countries across Europe and in North America and […]

Featured

The Regime Strikes Back: Syrian Gov’t advances, Bolstered by Russia

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russia’s aerial intervention in Syria is apparently yielding some modest battlefield advances for the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russia is also resupplying the Syrian Arab Army, training it in tactics, and giving it strategic advice. The big news is that Russia airstrikes on the secret […]

Barack Obama

Did Obama Really “Surrender the Middle East to Putin?”

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – A perusal of the “writing on the hall” commentary of the Right Wing in the last two months–since a small Russian force of 2,000 was inserted into the remaining Syrian government-controlled portions of Syria on September 30th–leads to one inevitable conclusion. Namely, that Obama’s “inactivity, […]

Syria

Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?

contributors

By Nadir Firat | (Informed Comment) | – – Riza Saka, a lawyer turned TV pundit, declared that “Turkey has nothing to fear” from the shooting down of the Russian SU-24 plane. In one of the most popular political debate shows on Turkish TV, he declared this suggesting that Russia has much to lose if […]

Militarization

5 Questions For Syria Hawks

contributors

David M. Faris | (Informed Comment) | – – Last month’s horrific attacks in Paris and last week’s massacre in California – which was at most loosely connected to Daesh (ISIS/ISIL)– have renewed calls for more robust U.S. intervention in Syria. The momentum toward escalation is hardly limited to the political right: Opinion polling suggests […]

Bernie Sanders

Clinton: Trump chief recruiter for ISIL; Sanders: Take out Daesh First, Assad Later

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The second Saturday-night Democratic debate had a lot of discussion on foreign policy. It is a shame that the Democratic National Convention put it on a Saturday, when its audience was much lower. Many Bernie Sanders supporters believe that the DNC supports Sec. Hillary Clinton and […]

Syria

Where are women’s voices in the Syria peace talks?

contributors

Lisa Davis | (OpenDemocracy) | – – The US may be tempted to congratulate itself for wrangling Russia to the table for today’s meeting on Syria’s peace talks. Yet an indispensable party is missing: Syrian women. Today, we face the prospect of a Middle East peace conference with disappointment at its delay and frustration that, yet again, […]