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John Bolton tried his best. The national security adviser entered the Trump administration as a predictable warmonger with an unslakable thirst for power. He streamlined the national security apparatus to maximize his access to the president. At least at first, he played the role of loyal...
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy is largely based on its revolutionary anti-Western rhetoric and hostility toward the US and some of Washington’s close allies in the Middle East. Since 1979, Tehran has relied on local proxies in the region, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as a...
Little research has been done on the financing of radical-right terrorist groups, especially when it comes to Germany. However, the finding within terrorism research that “money is the lifeblood of any organization, including the ones waging clandestine wars,” as Dipak K. Gupta puts it, also...
Early in the morning on August 28, the former head negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), Iván Márquez, announced via a YouTube video the official rearmament of a faction of FARC in what appears to be the eastern plains on the Colombian border with Venezuela and...
Fact 1: The June 3, 1947, partition plan announced by the British government and its 1947 Indian Independence Act pertained only to the directly-administered British provinces and other territories. Note that there were 565 princely states that covered 40% of the area of pre-independent India...
Headlined “U.S. Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War,” the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here's the first paragraph: “American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to...
On August 14, a major explosion occurred in the gas transportation pipeline of the Electricity Distribution Station of Alhartha, located in Iraq’s southern governorate of Basra. Although local sources have talked of some “technical cause,” the blast’s reason remains unclear. In the...
Tensions are rising in South Asia after India ended the special status for Jammu and Kashmir by revoking Article 370. Lockdown continues in the Indian state as key leaders are in custody, communications are blocked and thousands of troops patrol the streets. Across the border, Pakistani Prime...
Over the last few weeks, the northwestern area of Idlib province in Syria has come under constant bombardment from regime forces and its allies. With a disturbing civilian casualty count mounting and a nation in upheaval after years of civil war, waning global attention is causing concern that one...
Recent clashes in Aden lay bare the untenable sociopolitical status quo in southern Yemen. Weeks of attacks and conspiracies reveal a strained Saudi-Emirati alliance and unaddressed southern Yemeni grievances. A tenuous partnership between forces of the Saudi-backed, internationally-recognized...
In a regional environment where the slightest miscalculated move on one side can trigger an equally miscalculated reaction from the other, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions on August 5 over Jammu and Kashmir are simply bizarre. Article 370 of the Indian Constitution had...
