There has been a flurry of “What next for Syria?” articles in the wake of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s hurried exit from Syria and the takeover of much of the country by al-Qaeda’s rebranded local forces. Western governments and media have been quick to celebrate the...
US Officials Take Credit for Regime Change in Syria
Officials in the Biden administration are taking credit for creating conditions in Syria that enabled opposition forces to overthrow the Syrian government. Now that opposition forces have ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, administration officials are insisting...
A Case of the ‘Empire First’ Folly In Spades
If there was ever a moment that laid bare the utter stupidity and futility of Washington’s Empire First policy it surely is the smoking ruins of Syria that emerged last week. The latter was the desultory culmination of Washington’s 13-years-long effort to destroy the...
Sometimes It Is Hard To Understand Volodymyr Zelensky
The Russian Armed Forces are pushing west through the Donbas region of Ukraine. Their advance has consistently been called slow, but this is no longer true. In October and November, Russia captured over 1,500 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. The pace has...
Can Trump Trump China (or Vice Versa)?
Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela: President-elect Donald Trump will face no shortage of foreign-policy challenges when he assumes office in January. None, however, comes close to China in scope, scale, or complexity. No other...
Washington’s Long Flirtation with Syria’s Extreme Islamists
The collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian government in late November and early December 2024 occurred with stunning speed. There was little question that Joe Biden’s administration and several U.S. allies, especially Turkey, were pleased with the outcome. Washington...
The Day the Media Decided Militant Jihadism Was Respectable
Here is a very strange thing. For years, western media outlets and politicians have been recklessly indifferent to the fact that Hamas is not a jihadist movement, like al-Qaeda or Islamic State, but a specifically *Palestinian* national resistance movement – if one...
What Are We Doing in Syria?
My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost. As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no...
The Hypocrisy of Bombing Iran
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly expressed concern that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb on his watch. In considering his options to prevent that, The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering the possibility of airstrikes on Iranian nuclear...


