War

By Amin Saikal, author of Zone of Crisis: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq The Middle East and its wider eastern environs are in the grip of multiple humanitarian and geopolitical crises. The entire region from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria to Palestine and Libya is shattered by more violence than usual and long-term […]

Iraq

Turkey’s Caution on ISIL War: “It’s far away for them but very close to us”

contributors

By Ali Murat Yel, Editor-in-Chief TurkeyAgenda In the United States the public has difficulty in understanding the reluctance of Turkey to join the international coalition that is going to war in the heart of the Middle East. But the answer is simple: it is a matter of geography. I still remember Turkish people’s reaction against […]

European Union

Obama & Cameron find little Enthusiasm at NATO for new Iraq War

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The NATO summit in Wales was supposed to be all about getting out of Afghanistan. Instead, two new issues dominated it– the Ukraine and ISIL in Iraq and Syria. British prime minister David Cameron joined Barack Obama in castigating NATO members for paying ransoms to ISIL and for not stepping up to […]

Eastern Europe

Ukraine: What is the word for What is Happening There?

contributors

By Daisy Sindelar via RFE/RL Oleksandr Chernov, a doctor and journalist from eastern Ukraine, spent 10 days as a captive of pro-Russian separatists based in Slovyansk. During that time he was blindfolded, brutally beaten, and interrogated by separatist leader Igor Strelkov. He watched a hardened militant break down in tears after accidentally shooting a stray […]

Barack Obama

Obama’s budding Cambodia Policy in Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Former British ambassador to the United States Sir Christoher Meyer is advocating that the US and Western Europe stop advocating the overthrow of the Baath regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and instead coordinate with it to move against the so-called “Islamic State,” which controls some predominantly Sunni Muslim desert towns on […]

Iraq

Five things to Know about the Peshmerga Fighters of Iraqi Kurdistan

contributors

AJ+ “The Peshmerga are seen as one of the only forces who can defeat the Islamic State group, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL. But who are the Peshmerga and what are they fighting for?” AJ+ The Peshmerga of Iraqi Kurdistan

Featured

ISIS to US: We’ll drown you in Blood; beheads US Journalist, Holds Tikrit

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The Iraqi military made a push on Tikrit north of Baghdad on Tuesday, but had to call off their campaign when they ran into minefields, booby-trapped buildings, sniping and artillery and mortar fire on the part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which now styles itself the “Islamic State” […]

Iraq

Iraq Intervention? More like Ceaseless Escalation

contributors

By Elliott Colla, author of Baghdad Central While visiting Baghdad last year, I was struck by what Iraqis said every time I tried to apologize for the 2003 invasion: “Don’t apologize for that. We needed an invasion to get rid of Saddam Hussein.” And then they would add, “But you do need to apologize for […]

Apartheid

Unlike Iraq, Iran, Libya, N. Korea, Israel has Impunity from Defying UNSC (Gaza Ceasefire)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The United Nations Security Council is theoretically a sort of sovereign in international law. If it designates a regime like that of Gaddafi in Libya as a threat to international peace, it can deputize the nations of the world to remove it. One major exception to UNSC authority is Israel, which routinely […]