US Foreign Policy

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In an exclusive, Reuters reports today that the Trump administration is going into the Iraq reconstruction conference in Kuwait next week with no plans to contribute a dime to the effort. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will attend. Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi estimates that Iraq […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: Deir al-Zor attack on US Troops, allies, Shows their Vulnerability

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US troops and the Kurdish and Arab fighters among whom they are embedded came under a coordinated attack by pro-Damascus militias on late Wednesday into Thursday morning. The action took place in Deir al-Zor Province, in Syria’s far east. It is possible that the pro-regime militias […]

Featured

Trump declines to Sanction Russia, Spurring Speculation about Putin Hold

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Trump administration has refused to implement new sanctions on the Russian defense sector, as mandated by Congress’s “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” or CAATSA. Congress passed the bill last year and it was reluctantly finally signed by Trump in August. It is vaguely worded […]

Kurds

Ankara warns US spec ops to Abandon Kurds or risk Turkish Attacks

contributors

TeleSur | – – Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag also stated that “those who support the terrorist organisation will become a target in this battle.” Turkey’s government has urged the United States to rein in its support for pro-Kurdish fighters, otherwise, they risk engaging with Turkish troops on the battlefront in Syria. The statement, […]

Afghanistan

US Pentagon will Keep fighting in Syria until they win the Vietnam War

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Vietnam: it’s always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures. A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a century later, they’re […]

Fossil Fuels

It is all about the Oil: US Diplomats on Mideast Obsession

contributors

By Edward Hunt | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – A Rare Glimpse into the Inner Workings of the American Empire in the Middle East In recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, four former U.S. diplomats provided remarkably candid commentary on recent U.S. involvement in the Middle East, revealing a number of […]

Pentagon

Top Trump officials, in Syria’s Raqqa, vow “Stabilization” w/out “Reconstruction”

Juan Cole

Middle East Monitor | – – The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria on Monday, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from Daesh, Reuters reports. Green was accompanied by head of the […]

Egypt

Pence starts Middle East tour in Egypt, pledges ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ support

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation’s fight against militants. Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after […]

North Korea

A Second Korean War, this Time with Nukes?

Rajan Menon

( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Most people intuitively get it. An American preventive strike to wipe out North Korea’s nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, or a commando raid launched with the same goal in mind, is likely to initiate a chain of events culminating in catastrophe. That would be true above all for the roughly […]