To quote Andrew Bacevich: “There is no doubt that U.S. Special Operations forces are hard at it in lots of different places. It does not follow that they are thereby actually accomplishing anything meaningful.’”
Read more...A look at the wreckage the US has created in the Middle East, and an assessment of the prospects.
Read more...An in-depth look at the US’s big-ticket intelligence apparatus that can’t shoot straight in the Middle East. A bug or a feature?
Read more...How the US persists in trying to build foreign armies that fail again and again.
Read more...Will the Turkish Stream project be a casualty of Putin’s bold moves in Syria?
Read more...US experts try to claim the Russians are vulnerable in the Middle East as the window for US intervention closes. A German military analyst: “The Red Army is invigorated to a level that has never been fielded on the Middle Eastern map.”
Read more...A concise, high-level overview of the main issues at play in the Syrian conflict.
Read more...Can Russia succeed in creating an anti-Saudi bloc to split OPEC by taking advantage of having oil supplies less vulnerable to transit risk?
Read more...Obama has decided to use “democracy” as a weapon of coups to turn recalcitrant countries into failed states.
Read more...If all Henry Kissinger contributed to the Middle East were a regional arms race, petrodollar addiction, Iranian radicalization, and the Tehran-Riyadh conflict, it would be bad enough. His legacy, however, is far worse than that: he has to answer for his role in the rise of political Islam.
Read more...European leaders are still in denial about the seriousness of the refugee crisis and are focused on what amount to stopgap measure.
Read more...The US has special ops missions in 70% of the countries in the world,, more than at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more...A detailed discussion of how the US-Iran nuclear agreement is leading to considerable changes in alliances and priorities in the Middle East.
Read more...Private-equity-backed providers undercut charities in providing refugee services. It’s not hard to imagine how the results are coming in.
Read more...Five countries, and not necessarily the ones you’d expect, are particularly vulnerable to protracted low oil prices.
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