Tag: United States

An edited version of this article appeared in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on Jan. 10, 2020. Amidst the high stakes drama that is...

An edited version of this article appeared in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on January 10, 2020. The US drone attack that killed Iranian...

It has always been a mistake for the United States to treat disputed territories in the West Bank as occupied. For one thing, it was impossible for Israel to “occupy” Palestinian territories because no such state has ever existed.

US policy has been a mix of guns and butter in Iraq since 2003: offering military training and arms and trying to butter up some officials that Washington thought would be its champions in Baghdad. But at every turn an Iranian octopus was lurking, outplaying the ham-fisted American attempts to exert influence

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has today welcomed the statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announcing that "The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements [in the West Bank] is not, per se, inconsistent with international law."

After six years, the tanks of the Syrian Arab Army are rolling back into Qamishli, Raqqa, Tabqa, Tal Tamr, Kobani, Manbij, al-Malikiya and the other towns east of the Euphrates. This is taking place not because the SDF has been militarily defeated. Rather, as needs to be stated plainly, it has been betrayed. By its allies.

One would not be surprised if in the aftermath of the US withdrawal, Iran becomes more risk-tolerant when it comes to taking on Israel

Israel has always sought to ‘defend itself, by itself’... But with the US alliance looking much less reliable today, some serious rethinking by Israel’s political and military leadership on how best to do this needs to be underway

Baghdadi’s death is certainly a victory, although it does not affirm Trump’s reasoning for his precipitous withdrawal from much of northeastern Syria nor his abandonment of the US partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)... Nor does Baghdadi’s death mean the threat posed by the Islamic State is over.

This Update deals with the consequences of the Turkish invasion of Kurdish-controlled northern Syria over the last few days, and its effective green-lighting by US President Donald Trump earlier this week.