Middle East

The Turkish Role in Assad’s Downfall: By supporting the rebels who overthrew the Syrian leader has Ankara bitten off more than it can chew?

By Philip Balboni | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – After tenaciously holding on to power for more than a decade of war, the government of Bashar al-Assad crumbled in two weeks of limited fighting. Overwhelmed by a surprise blitzkrieg assault, the Syrian army seemed to melt away in the face of a surprisingly […]

Kurds

The self-governing Kurdish northeast of Syria comes under attack, with Country in Flux

The Conversation

By Pinar Dinc, Lund University (The Conversation) – After more than a decade of brutal civil war, it took Islamist militants just 11 days to sweep through Syria and topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The offensive, which has been driven by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has forced […]

Featured

With HTS rule of Syria and Taliban in Afghanistan, did the U.S. lose the “War on Terror”?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – US policy in the Middle East is a dinosaur-like holdover from two eras, the Cold War and the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT). Here I would like to raise the question of whether the U.S. lost both. The United State government does a lot o hand waving about human rights, […]

Hizbullah

How Israel’s regional War contributed to the Fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria

The Conversation

By Daniel L. Douek, McGill University (The Conversation) – When Hamas strategist Yahya Sinwar ordered the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis, he was planning to deal a mortal blow to an Israel weakened by internal divisions. Sinwar, killed by Israeli forces in Gaza a year later, likely did not imagine […]

Israel/ Palestine

Everyone (Sort of) Loves a Disrupter: Time to Boycott the US?

John Feffer

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Liberals hate Trump, no question about it. He’s the definition of illiberal: authoritarian, racist, sexist, and downright nasty. Not only that, he’s a living repudiation of the liberal delusion that America runs on meritocracy. But you want to know a dirty, little secret? In back alleys, encrypted group chats, and off-the-record […]

Featured

UN Demands immediate Gaza Ceasefire as Israel’s Cabinet of Horrors Continues – 53 Killed, as 65K lack Food, Water, Medicine

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that the Israeli military killed 53 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday. The Israeli Air Force intentionally targeted residential buildings in the north and the south of the Strip, in Beit Lahiya and in the Al-Janina neighborhood east of Rafah City. The Israeli Air Force […]

Iran

Iranian Leader Blames Assad’s Downfall On U.S., Israel, And Turkey

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

( RFE/ RL ) – Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in his first public comments since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the rebel uprising that toppled the regime over the weekend. Khamenei on December 11 also implicitly blamed Turkey for the lightning push of Syrian rebels […]

Israel/ Palestine

Hamas – Hemmed in and Isolated – finds itself with few Options for the Day after the Gaza War

The Conversation

By Mkhaimar Abusada, Northwestern University (The Conversation) – In early December 2024, Hamas announced a major concession: It was prepared to cede future governance of Gaza to a unity Palestinian committee, working alongside its chief political rival, Fatah, to create the body. Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has since expressed hesitancy […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Nominee for Ambassador to Israel is an End Times Fanatic and Palestine Denialist; What could Go Wrong?

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Trump’s second-term nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel is former Arkansas Governor, Rev. Mike Huckabee. He is an Evangelical Zionist, who has repeatedly claimed that there are no Palestinians, and brutally dismissed the right of the Palestinian people to their own land. A former US ambassador, Luis […]