Kurds

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US troops in Syria operating north of Manbij have been fired on twice in the last couple of weeks. The attackers are fundamentalist remnants of the Free Syrian Army, backed by Turkey. The US has tried to persuade rebel groups to concentrate their firepower on ISIL […]

Iraq

Who defeated ISIL? Obama’s Quiet Strategy, not Trump’s Bluster

contributors

Bryan G. Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – Book excerpt from the just-published Counter Jihad: America’s Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria [CLICK]: At the time of the writing of this book [in July 2016], Iraqi Army ordinance specialists are cleaning the town (Ramadi) of thousands of IEDs planted by ISIS. ISIS fighters […]

Authoritarianism

Turkish Legislators hold Sit-in to protest Creeping Dictatorship

contributors

TeleSur | – – Under the changes, lawmakers can also vote to ban for three sessions fellow parliamentarians who use expressions such as “Kurdistan” or “Kurdish provinces.” Turkey’s main opposition staged a sit-in late Wednesday to protest proposed changes to parliamentary procedures which they say will restrict lawmakers’ ability to challenge President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling […]

Kurds

Have Syria’s Kurds invented a Democratic Neo-Socialism?

contributors

Dmitry Petrov | (OpenDemocracy.net) | – – In an effort to get through to the Syrian Kurdish autonomous region, I met kindred spirits and found out more about the political and cultural landscape of Iraqi Kurdistan. Sulaymaniyah’s Market Square. Image courtesy of the author.Tossing about on a broken bed in a cheap hostel in the […]

Barack Obama

Obama’s last Victory: Syrian Democratic Forces hold Parts of ISIL Capital

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. – T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” Whatever the fate of the world, Eliot’s verse is appropriate to […]

Donald Trump

Trump sends US Troops to Patrol Turkish-Syrian Border as Ankara Threatens US Allies

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Only one fighting force in Syria is practically speaking taking on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the ground, and that is the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whose fighters are leftist Kurds of the “People’s Protection Units” (YPG). They are joined by some rural Arab clans […]

Donald Trump

Kushner of Arabia: Can Trump’s Son-in-Law Figure out Iraq?

contributors

By Shahram Akbarzadeh | (Informed Comment) | – – Days before President Donald J. Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on Syria, his son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Iraq to learn first-hand how the Iraqi government assesses the security situation, more than a decade after the United States delivered regime change to that country. The issues facing […]

Bashar al-Assad

Has Trump deferred to Russia in Syria?

Juan Cole

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.” […]

Authoritarianism

In Erdogan’s Turkey, an Artist is Jailed for Painting Reality

contributors

TeleSur | – – A Turkish court has handed down a two-year, nine-month and 22-day jail sentence to a Kurdish artist because of her painting of a Kurdish village being razed by Turkish security forces. Turkish Artist Zehra Doğan Sentenced to Prison for Painting of Kurdish Town Attack — Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) March 24, 2017 […]