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As the Arab Spring morphed into a bloody civil war in Syria in 2011, there was an opportunity for the country’s Kurdish movement to establish, develop and consolidate an autonomous administration. Kurds in Syria have been under long-time oppression by the government of both Hafez al-Assad and...
Since October 2018, when the new Iraqi government took office, President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi highlighted that the war-torn country was never again to be involved in regional disputes and that it was time for a new political order. President Saleh defines Iraq's future...
US President Donald Trump rose to hyperbolic heights of hyperreal narration last weekend as he described the Pentagon’s successful takedown of the Islamic State (IS) group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in Syria. The world will undoubtedly be a better place without Al-Baghdadi, but much of...
On October 22, the presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, held a seven-hour summit in the resort town of Sochi to discuss Turkey’s incursion into northeastern Syria. Many experts and journalists are portraying the agreed deal as a success for Ankara and Moscow...
The sad tragedy of US President Donald Trump’s precipitous decision to suddenly abandon the Kurds of northern Syria is that it may have been inevitable. Turkey had long warned the Americans that it viscerally opposed its partnership with the People’s Protection Units (YGP) — a Syrian Kurdish...
The Americans call the five-day halt to Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria a ceasefire, while the Turks prefer to call it a pause. The Kurds call the incursion something else. For them, and for American soldiers who fought with them in the war against the Islamic State (IS), as well...
The Mexican city of Culiacan, in Sinaloa state, has come into the spotlight in recent days due to the dramatic capture and release of one of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons, Ovidio Guzman, known as “El Chapito.” El Chapo is one of the most prominent narcos in cartel history, with many...
As Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates continue their blockade of Qatar, the pair often justify their campaign by accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism. Most analysts have cast this claim as hypocritical, given Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s history of links to extremist groups from...
Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless US wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes his predecessors for their martial mistakes. But like the old saw about the weather, Trump talks a whole lot about endless wars but doesn’t do...
Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has been consumed by a destructive domestic struggle for power aggravated by the involvement of major external players. By 2014-16, two main centers of power emerged. The so-called “western bloc,” nominally led by Fayez al-Sarraj, rests on...
“The Youth in Iraq have a mad stare of despair on their faces. They have seen nothing, but Sanctions and War.” These were the words of a UN official stationed in the International Zone in Baghdad back in 2011. This month, there have been massive protests in different parts of Iraq as a result...
