Foreign Policy Category Archive

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How the Pro-War “Left” Fell for the Kurds in Syria

Max Parry • December 22, 2019

• 2,900 Words • 133 Comments • Reply

The October decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria did not only precipitate the Turkish offensive, codenamed ‘Operation Peace Spring’, into Kurdish-held territory which followed. It also sparked an outcry of hysteria from much of the so-called “left” that has been deeply divided during the 8-year long conflict over... Read More

Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera

The Israel Lobby’s Hidden Hand in the Theft of Iraqi and Syrian Oil

Agha Hussain and Whitney Webb • December 10, 2019

• 4,100 Words • 71 Comments • Reply

The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. Kirkuk, Iraq — “We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re... Read More

The One Insurmountable Obstacle to Peace in Syria

Mike Whitney • December 4, 2019

• 2,000 Words • 136 Comments • Reply

The Turkish army did not invade Syria to attack the Kurds. That's simply not true. The actual target of the Turkish operation (Peace Spring) was a group of separatist militants (The YPG) who have waged a bloody 30 year-long terrorist war on the Turkish state killing upwards of 40,000 people. With the assistance of US... Read More

Erdogan's Ethnic Cleansing of the Kurds Is Still Happening

Patrick Cockburn • November 15, 2019

• 1,100 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

Mass expulsion or the physical extermination of an entire ethnic or religious community – ethnic cleansing – is usually treated by the media in one of two different ways: either it receives maximum publicity as a horror story about which the world should care and do something about, or it is ignored and never reaches... Read More

The White House Plan to Strangle Iran

Philip Giraldi • November 2, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 29 Comments • Reply

There is a certain irony in President Donald Trump’s frequently expressed desire to withdraw from the endless wars that have characterized the so-called “global war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush in 2001. The problem is that Trump has expressed such sentiments both when he was running for office and also as recently as... Read More

Rebuilding Syria – Without Syria’s Oil

Compare US pillaging with Russia-Iran-Turkey’s active involvement in a political solution to normalize Syria

Pepe Escobar • November 1, 2019

• 900 Words • 3 Comments • Reply

What happened in Geneva this Wednesday, in terms of finally bringing peace to Syria, could not be more significant: the first session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. The Syrian Constitutional Committee sprang out of a resolution passed in January 2018 in Sochi, Russia, by a body called the Syrian National Dialogue Congress. The 150-strong committee... Read More

An Imperfect Bit of Statecraft

Trump cancels the pullout from Syria then flip-flops, threatens war with Turkey and gives money to terrorists

Philip Giraldi • October 29, 2019

• 1,800 Words • 206 Comments • Reply

The long nightmare in Syria might finally be coming to an end, but not thanks to the United States and the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump's boast that “this was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else” was as empty as all the other rhetoric coming out of the White... Read More

Caliph Closure: ‘He Died Like A Dog’

Pepe Escobar • October 29, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

He died like a dog.” President Trump could not have scripted a better one-liner as he got ready for his Obama bin Laden close-up in front of the whole world. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, fake caliph, ISIS/Daesh leader, the most wanted man on the planet, was “brought to justice” under Trump’s watch. The dead dog caliph... Read More

The Killing of ISIS Leader Baghdadi Does Not Solve All Problems.

Patrick Cockburn • October 28, 2019

• 900 Words • 27 Comments • Reply

At the height of the al-Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq in 2006-07, US commanders, whose troops were suffering serious casualties from roadside bombs, developed a strategy. They sought to identify, kill or capture the leaders of the cells planting the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in the belief that this would cripple the bombing campaign. Many such... Read More

Trump Flip-Flops on Syria Withdrawal. Again.

Ron Paul • October 28, 2019

• 500 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

President Trump is reversing his foreign policy decisions so quickly these days that it almost seems like he overturns himself before making the decision in the first place. Last week he was very clear that the US was pulling its troops out of Syria. “Bringing soldiers home,” he said. “Let someone else fight over this... Read More

Baghdadi Had No Real Answer to the Crumbling of His Caliphate

Patrick Cockburn • October 27, 2019

• 1,000 Words • 48 Comments • Reply

The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis and the self-declared caliph of Islamic State, will be a serious, though not terminal, blow to the ferocious jihadi movement he has headed since 2010. The place where he was finally located – in the Barisha area north of Idlib city in northwest Syria, close... Read More

The Final Outcome of the Multiple Syrian Wars Is Now in Sight

Patrick Cockburn • October 25, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 21 Comments • Reply

The sectarian and ethnic civil wars that have ravaged a large part of the Middle East over the past 40 years are coming to an end. Replacing them is a new type of conflict in which protests akin to popular uprisings rock kleptocratic elites that justify their power by claiming to be the defenders of... Read More

Imperial Capital But America-First Nation

Pat Buchanan • October 25, 2019

• 900 Words • 54 Comments • Reply

"Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand," said President Donald Trump in an impassioned defense of his decision to cut ties to the Syrian Kurds, withdraw and end these "endless wars." Are our troops in Syria, then, on their way home? Well, not exactly. Those leaving northern Syria went into Iraq. Other U.S.... Read More

Vladimir Putin, Syria’s Pacifier-in-Chief

Russia-Turkey deal establishes ‘safe zone’ along Turkish border and there will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols

Pepe Escobar • October 24, 2019

• 1,000 Words • Leave a Comment

The negotiations in Sochi were long – over six hours – tense and tough. Two leaders in a room with their interpreters and several senior Turkish ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map to pacify northeast Syria, finally. The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward – riffing on... Read More

Revisiting the Win-Win-Win-Win Outcome in Syria

The Saker • October 23, 2019

• 7,100 Words • 220 Comments • Reply

In his recent article "The Road to Damascus: How the Syria War Was Won" Pepe Escobar summarized the outcome of the war in Syria in the following way: This otherwise excellent summary overlooks two out of three members of the "Axis of Kindness", including Israel and the KSA. Of course, later in his analysis Pepe... Read More

Tulsi Gabbard Is Right, and Nancy Pelosi Wrong. It Was US Democrats Who Helped Cultivate the Barbarism of Isis

Jonathan Cook • October 21, 2019

• 2,100 Words • 103 Comments • Reply

There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria. One does not need to defend Trump’s actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure of US forces from... Read More

The Mother of All Messes in Syria

Eric Margolis • October 19, 2019

• 700 Words • 16 Comments • Reply

What a mess. The imperial cooks in Washington have turned poor Syria into a poison pit of warring factions, with disastrous results for all. Henry Kissinger once quipped that it is more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy. A good example is how Washington used the Kurds in Syria to fight ISIS and then... Read More

The Road to Damascus: How the Syria War Was Won

Following the Damascus-Kurdish alliance, Syria may become the biggest defeat for the Central Intelligence Agency since...

Pepe Escobar • October 18, 2019

• 2,600 Words • Leave a Comment

What is happening in Syria, following yet another Russia-brokered deal, is a massive geopolitical game-changer. I’ve tried to summarize it in a single paragraph this way: Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. Yet that hardly begins to tell the whole story. Allow me to briefly sketch in broad historical strokes... Read More

Is Putin the New King of the Middle East?

Pat Buchanan • October 18, 2019

• 800 Words • 135 Comments • Reply

"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's Telegraph. The article began: "Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the US." "Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was... Read More

Turkey's Syria Invasion Rapidly Backfiring for Ankara

Patrick Cockburn • October 16, 2019

• 700 Words • 46 Comments • Reply

Turkey’s Syrian venture is rapidly turning sour from President Erdogan’s point of view. The Turkish advance into the northeast is moving slowly, but Turkey’s military options are becoming increasingly limited as the Syrian army, backed by Russia, moves into Kurdish-held cities and towns that might have been targeted by Turkish forces. It is unlikely that... Read More

Trump Wants to End the "Stupid Wars"?

Let's see what he actually does

Philip Giraldi • October 15, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 339 Comments • Reply

The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines. Trump has inevitably muddied the waters by engaging in his usual confusing explanations coupled with piles of invective heaped upon critics. The... Read More

Kurds Face Stark Options After US Pullback from Northern Syria

Forget an independent Kurdistan: They may have to do a deal with Damascus on sharing their area with Sunni Arab refugees

Pepe Escobar • October 15, 2019

• 1,800 Words • Leave a Comment

In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing: here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a “false premise.” No wonder the Pentagon is not amused. Trump’s tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical... Read More

Is the Interventionists' Era Over for Good?

Pat Buchanan • October 15, 2019

• 900 Words • 47 Comments • Reply

President Donald Trump could have been more deft and diplomatic in how he engineered that immediate pullout from northeastern Syria. Yet that withdrawal was as inevitable as were its consequences. A thousand U.S. troops and their Kurdish allies were not going to dominate indefinitely the entire northeast quadrant of a country the size of Syria... Read More

President Trump Is Right on Syria

Let’s Hope He Follows Through this Time

Boyd D. Cathey • October 14, 2019

• 1,500 Words • 111 Comments • Reply

The unified foreign policy establishment in Washington, the Deep State politicos—from Lindsey Graham and Lynne Cheney in Congress, to the inveterate Never Trumpers like Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal, [“he’s (Trump) all impulse, blithely operating out of his depth”], to the near totality of the progressivist Left (e.g. Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and... Read More

Washington Is Wrong Once Again – Kurds Join Assad to Defend Syria

Ron Paul • October 14, 2019

• 600 Words • 16 Comments • Reply

When President Trump Tweeted last week that “it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars,” adding that the US would be withdrawing from Syria, Washington went into a panic. Suddenly Republicans, Democrats, the media, the think tanks, and the war industry all discovered and quickly became experts on “the Kurds,”... Read More

Cautious Optimism on Turks and Kurds

Israel Shamir • October 13, 2019

• 2,600 Words • 155 Comments • Reply

Amid the usual hysterics of ‘impending genocide’ and ‘brutal betrayal’, the long-expected Turkish operation in northeast Syria is rolling, and Turkish troops accompanied by their Syrian rebel allies quickly advance into the former US occupation zone east of the Euphrates River, pushing the Kurdish nationalist militias away from the border. The American soldiers withdrew from... Read More

Turkey Beats the War Drums

Eric Margolis • October 12, 2019

• 800 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

More war in wretched Syria. Half the population is now refugees; entire cities lie shattered by bombing; bands of crazed gunmen run rampant; US, French, Israeli and Russian warplanes bomb widely. Now, adding to the chaos, President Donald Trump has finally given Turkey, NATO’s second military power, the green light to invade parts of northeastern... Read More

The Vacuum Left by the US in Syria Clears a Breeding Ground for ISIS

Patrick Cockburn • October 11, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 50 Comments • Reply

“Never get into a well with an American rope” goes the saying spreading across the Middle East, as the US abandons its Kurdish allies in Syria to a Turkish invasion force. People in the region are traditionally cynical about the loyalty of great powers to their local friends, but even they are shocked by the... Read More

Kurdish Soldiers Always Feared Trump Would be a Treacherous Ally

Patrick Cockburn • October 9, 2019

• 1,000 Words • 56 Comments • Reply

In a field beside a disused railway station on the plain just south of the Syrian-Turkish frontier, a brigade of Syrian Kurdish soldiers were retraining in order to resist an invasion by the Turkish army. “We acted like a regular army when we were fighting Daesh [Isis],” Rojvan, a veteran Kurdish commander of the YPG... Read More

Communists and Neo-Cons Join Together to Condemn Trump Military Withdrawal from Syria

Eric Striker • October 7, 2019

• 700 Words • Leave a Comment

Self-described socialists, anarchists, Republicans and Zionists have united to condemn Donald Trump's surprising new announcement to withdraw from Syria, a decision that has the support of a majority of Americans. This will be a huge stride towards finally ending the 8-year-old conflict in Syria and bringing the nation back to normalcy. The extreme-left and the... Read More

Syrian tank near Idlib facing Uyghurs and other terrorists

March of the Uyghurs

Again, The West Tries to Destroy China, Using Religion and Terror

Andre Vltchek • July 23, 2019

• 8,200 Words • 285 Comments • Reply

They are everywhere, where their Western, Gulf states and Turkish handlers want them to be. Their combat as well as political cells and units are based in Syria and Indonesia, in Turkey and occasionally in Egypt. When they are told to kill, they murder with unimaginable brutality; decapitating, or cutting to pieces priests, infants, old... Read More

Debunking the Rumors About Russia Caving in to Israel

The Saker • July 4, 2019

• 4,500 Words • 222 Comments • Reply

This Spring saw a sudden increase in the volume of articles in the so-called "alternative media and blogosphere" about Putin "selling out" Syria or Iran to the Israelis and their US patrons, or both. What was particularly interesting about this campaign is that it was not triggered by any kind of event or statement by... Read More

The Western Media Is Key to Syria Deceptions

The media are not a watchdog on power but the public relations arm of giant corporations pursuing their narrow interests...

Jonathan Cook • May 27, 2019

• 2,700 Words • 13 Comments • Reply

By any reckoning, the claim made this week by al-Qaeda-linked fighters that they were targeted with chemical weapons by the Syrian government in Idlib province — their final holdout in Syria — should have been treated by the western media with a high degree of scepticism. That the US and other western governments enthusiastically picked up those claims should... Read More

A Week in the Life of the Empire

The Saker • May 9, 2019

• 2,000 Words • 134 Comments • Reply

Introduction It is sometimes helpful not to look at any one specific issue in detail, but rather make a survey of ongoing processes instead. The resulting picture is neither better nor worse, it is simply different. This is what I want to do today: to take a bird's eye view of our suffering planet. Putin... Read More

Will the Trump Administration Go to War Next?

The Saker • April 11, 2019

• 2,300 Words • 219 Comments • Reply

Ever since Mr. MAGA made it to the White House, I have been awed by the level of sheer stupidity and, frankly, the immorality of this administration. Obama was almost as incompetent and evil, but Trump truly brought about a qualitative change in what we could loosely refer to as the "average White House IQ."... Read More

Trump's Neocons See Erdogan as Their Ticket to a Region-Wide M.E. War

Mike Whitney • April 6, 2019

• 1,800 Words • 63 Comments • Reply

Turkish troops and armored units are massed along Turkey's southern border awaiting orders to invade northern Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to clear a ten mile-deep swath of land east of the Euphrates River in order to remove terrorist-linked militants (YPG) currently occupying the territory. The proposed offensive would put US Special Forces... Read More

Venezuela, a New Syria

Israel Shamir • April 2, 2019

• 1,900 Words • 158 Comments • Reply

A few days ago, an Ilyushin IL-62M liner carried over a hundred Russian soldiers and officers to Caracas. Symbolically, they made a stopover in Syria, as if saying that Venezuela is the next country after Syria to be saved from ruin and dismemberment. The military mission was led by the Head of General Staff, General... Read More

How the Islamic State's Brutal Project Was Finally Overthrown

Patrick Cockburn • March 24, 2019

• 900 Words • 9 Comments • Reply

Up to its dying days the self-declared Islamic State has retained the ability to top the news agenda, even as its fighters were losing their last battle for bomb-shattered villages in the deserts of eastern Syria. When their spokesman promised retaliation for the massacre of Muslims in the Christchurch mosques his threat was taken seriously.... Read More

Whose Interests Are Served by the US Occupation of East Syria: America's or Israel's?

Mike Whitney • March 11, 2019

• 1,500 Words • 6 Comments • Reply

What is Israel's stake in east Syria? Has Israel influenced Washington's decision to maintain a long-term military presence in Syria? How does Israel benefit from the splintering of Syria into smaller statelets and from undermining the power of the central government in Damascus? Did Israel's regional ambitions factor into Trump's decision to shrug off Turkey's... Read More

Trump's Plan to Stay in Syria Leaves Erdogan No Good Options

Mike Whitney • March 6, 2019

• 1,900 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

In the last 24 hours, the Trump administration has intensified its attacks on Turkey which has significantly strained relations and increased the prospect of a military confrontation. The present situation is extremely tense and could explode without warning and without the American people having any idea of the dramatic events that preceded the clash. As... Read More

Trump Is Right About Syria. It's Time to Pack Up and Go Home

Mike Whitney • February 27, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 12 Comments • Reply

Here's what most people don't understand about the war in Syria: The combat-phase of the war is largely over. What's left is an arduous mop-up operation in the Idlib demilitarized zone and a potentially explosive standoff between the United States and Turkey in the north. For a while it looked like the US-Turkey confrontation would... Read More

Will Trump's Dithering Trigger a Turkish Invasion?

Mike Whitney • February 25, 2019

• 2,700 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

The Turkish government is not going to let terrorists occupy territory on their southern border any more than the United States would allow al Qaida cells to occupy camps along the US-Mexico border. Turkey simply cannot allow the current arrangement to continue, mainly because these groups (The Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF) pose a clear... Read More

Why Attack Shamima Begum? We Caused the Mess to Begin with

Patrick Cockburn • February 16, 2019

• 1,100 Words • 21 Comments • Reply

A tidal wave of hypocrisy has greeted the discovery of the Bethnal Green schoolgirl and Isis bride Shamima Begum in a refugee camp in eastern Syria. Grandstanding politicians like Sajid Javid, the home secretary, say they will do everything to stop her coming back to the UK and might seek to put her on trial... Read More

President Starts a War? Congress Yawns. Threatens to End One? Condemnation!

Ron Paul • February 11, 2019

• 500 Words • 3 Comments • Reply

Last week’s bipartisan Senate vote to rebuke President Trump for his decision to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan unfortunately tells us a lot about what is wrong with Washington, DC. While the two parties loudly bicker about minor issues, when it comes to matters like endless wars overseas they enthusiastically join together. With few... Read More

Venezuela: Let’s Cut to the Chase. Will China’s Petroyuan Displace America’s Petrodollar?

Pepe Escobar • February 1, 2019

• 1,300 Words • Leave a Comment

Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey. It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye. Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of... Read More

Trump’s Withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria Are Hardly ‘A Gift to Putin’

Why would Moscow want to fight terrorists without the US? It doesn’t

Stephen F. Cohen • January 30, 2019

• 600 Words • Leave a Comment

Manichaean Cold War myopia and ludicrous Russiagate allegations have produced one of the worst periods of American “geopolitical” thinking in recent decades. Consider President Trump’s recently announced withdrawals of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan. Instead of applauding these long-overdue steps, the bipartisan US political-media establishment has denounced them as “Trump’s gifts to Putin.” But... Read More

How We Have Failed to Learn the Lessons of the Rise and Fall of ISIS

Patrick Cockburn • January 27, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 19 Comments • Reply

It is always pleasing for authors to find out that they have readers in far flung places. It was therefore surprising but gratifying to see a picture of a battered copy of a French translation of a book I wrote called The Jihadis Return abandoned by Isis fighters, along with suicide vests and homemade explosive... Read More

Why Trump Doesn't Always Get It Wrong on the Middle East

Patrick Cockburn • January 24, 2019

• 600 Words • 25 Comments • Reply

Must one talk of Donald Trump? One must and not just because of the power of his position as US president, but because the nature of his foreign policy is misunderstood. I was answering questions about the future of the Middle East at a meeting of Independent subscribers on Tuesday evening when there was a... Read More

Syria, Then and Now: Liberated of Western-Backed Terrorism

Max Parry • January 22, 2019

• 3,400 Words • 55 Comments • Reply

In a surprise turn of events, last month U.S. President Donald J. Trump made the abrupt unilateral announcement that American troops would begin to withdraw from Syria. The unexpected decision provoked the wrath of the foreign policy establishment and bipartisan ‘war party’ in Washington who immediately denounced it as a premature, reckless move that would... Read More

Refugees Are in the Channel Thanks to the Actions of the West

Patrick Cockburn • January 12, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 36 Comments • Reply

A black rubber inflatable boat was found abandoned earlier this week on the shingle at Dungeness on the Kent coast. Eight men, reportedly Iranians or Kurds, were later found close to the beach or in the nearby village of Lydd. An Iranian living in south London was later charged with helping the migrants to cross... Read More

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"Syria" Items Across Entire Archive

Category Classics

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV

Laurent Guyénot

• 381 Comments • Reply

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.

Sydney Schanberg

• 148 Comments • Reply

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars