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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hidden Hands in the Middle East

Exploring Geopolitical Trends in the Region

Charlie O'Neill • August 12, 2019

• 2,200 Words • 83 Comments • Reply

The Western public has been so poorly served, in recent years, by its supposed world-class media organisations that any semblance of a coherent narrative explaining world events and tying together their deeper, underlying, causes to one another, has almost completely disappeared from the programming of the major networks. More often than not, international affairs are... Read More

Is a New US Mideast War Inevitable?

Pat Buchanan • July 19, 2019

• 900 Words • 80 Comments • Reply

In October 1950, as U.S. forces were reeling from hordes of Chinese troops who had intervened massively in the Korean War, a 5,000-man Turkish brigade arrived to halt an onslaught by six Chinese divisions. Said supreme commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur: "The Turks are the hero of heroes. There is no impossibility for the Turkish Brigade."... Read More

Turkey Calls Trump's Bluff

Eric Margolis • July 13, 2019

• 700 Words • 64 Comments • Reply

Turkey has just called Donald Trump’s bluff by going ahead with the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. The outrage in Washington is volcanic. Trump is vowing to rain fire and brimstone sanctions down on the disobedient Turks. The S-400 is Russia’s premier anti-air missile. It is believed highly effective against all forms of aircraft... Read More

Turkey’s Erdogan Meet’s China’s Xi: Sultan Shines in the Court of the Dragon King

Erdogan looks set to buy Russian missile defense system in defiance of US and NATO, tying his cart to China and Russia

Pepe Escobar • July 10, 2019

• 900 Words • Leave a Comment

Turkey is a key hub in the emerging New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative. Erdogan is a master at selling Turkey as the ultimate East-West crossroads. He has also expressed much interest in joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), led by Russia-China, whose annual summit took place in Bishkek a few days before... 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

Jamal Khashoggi Died for Nothing

Let the cover-up begin

Philip Giraldi • October 30, 2018

• 1,500 Words • 175 Comments • Reply

The angst over the Jamal Khashoggi murder in the Saudi Arabian Consulate General building in Istanbul is already somewhat fading as the media has moved on in search of fresh meat, recently focusing on the series of attempted mail bombings, and currently on the mass shooting in Pittsburgh. But the affaire Khashoggi is still important... Read More

Khashoggi, Erdogan and the Truth

Craig Murray • October 24, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 115 Comments • Reply

The Turkish account of the murder of Khashoggi given by President Erdogan is true, in every detail. Audio and video evidence exists and has been widely shared with world intelligence agencies, including the US, UK, Russia and Germany, and others which have a relationship with Turkey or are seen as influential. That is why, despite... Read More

Idlib Residents Declare Hatred for All Sides in Syria's Civil War

Patrick Cockburn • October 12, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

“People in Idlib hate all those with power over them,” says Ahmad Abu Omar, 33, a history teacher living in the province, the last opposition enclave in the west of Syria. He says that the three million people of Idlib fear a return of government forces, but are almost equally hostile to the armed opposition... Read More

The Syrian Ceasefire Proves How Far Putin Has Come Out on Top

Patrick Cockburn • September 23, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 9 Comments • Reply

A ceasefire seldom gets a good press. If it succeeds in ending violence or defusing a crisis, the media swiftly becomes bored and loses interest. But if the fighting goes on, then those who have called the ceasefire are condemned as heartless hypocrites who either never intended to bring the killing to an end or... Read More

Turkey Now, America Later?

Ron Paul • August 27, 2018

• 500 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

President Trump recently imposed sanctions on Turkey to protest the Turkish government’s detention of an American pastor. Turkey has responded by increasing tariffs on US exports. The trade war is being blamed for the collapse of Turkey’s currency, the lira. While the sanctions may have played a role, Turkey’s currency crisis is rooted in the... Read More

America the Punitive

Philip Giraldi • August 17, 2018

• 800 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

There has been a dramatic shift in how the United States government carries out its business internationally. Admittedly, Washington has had a tendency to employ force to get what it has wanted ever since 9/11, but it also sometimes recognized that other countries had legitimate interests and accepted there was a place for diplomacy to... Read More

Turkey on a Roll

Eric Margolis • June 30, 2018

• 700 Words • 23 Comments • Reply

Few phobias run deeper in Europe than the fear and hatred of Turks. For at least six hundred years, Europe was locked in innumerable wars with first Seljuk, then Ottoman Turks. My big St Bernard is a descendant of dogs bred to attack Arab and Turkish raiders coming over Switzerland’s St Bernard Pass. Today, by... Read More

$Turkey\$

Erdogan’s Turkey: When Knives Cut Both Ways

Brett Redmayne-Titley • April 6, 2018

• 2,500 Words • 6 Comments • Reply

On the streets, cafes, and carpet shops of Istanbul a very different story than the one presented by western media is developing about the true allegiance of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While he continues to play a dangerous international game between Russia and the NATO/ Israeli/ US alliance his biggest future enemy walks the... Read More

US Troops Will Remain in Syria Despite Trump Comments to Contrary

Patrick Cockburn • April 4, 2018

• 800 Words • 20 Comments • Reply

Donald Trump has decided to keep US forces in Syria for a limited period, ending speculation about an immediate pull-out fuelled by the president himself. He agreed at a National Security Council meeting that the 2,000 US troops backed by massive airpower should stay in Syria where they support the Kurds in the east of... Read More

Turkey 'To Launch Wider Offensive Against Kurds' After Taking Afrin

Patrick Cockburn • March 19, 2018

• 700 Words • 14 Comments • Reply

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is threatening to follow up the capture of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin by launching an across-the-board military offensive against the remaining Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria and the main Yazidi population centre in the Sinjar region of Iraqi Kurdistan. He claimed that the next target of Turkish troops would... Read More

After My Recent Trip to Syria, I Knew Afrin's Fall Was Inevitable

Patrick Cockburn • March 18, 2018

• 900 Words • 9 Comments • Reply

The fall of Afrin city to the Turkish army and Syrian rebel forces was inevitable, but the situation remains full of dangers. A central question now is whether or not the takeover of this Kurdish enclave will lead to the ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish majority there. The first act of the fighters of the... Read More

How the Syrian Conflict Became a War of Ethnic Cleansing

Patrick Cockburn • March 12, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

Syrian Arab militiamen leading the Turkish attack on Afrin in northern Syria are threatening to massacre its Kurdish population unless they convert to the variant of Islam espoused by Isis and al-Qaeda. In the past such demands have preceded the mass killings of sectarian and ethnic minorities in both Syria and Iraq. In one video... Read More

While the World Looks Away, Civilians in Afrin Are Being Slaughtered

Patrick Cockburn • March 9, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

On a green hillside in Afrin in northern Syria, Arab militiamen allied to the Turkish army which invaded this Kurdish enclave seven weeks ago have captured a group of terrified looking Kurdish civilians. The unformed and heavily armed militiamen are shouting “pigs”, “pimp” and “PKK – Kurdistan Workers Party – pigs” all the while chanting... Read More

Syria Braces for Dramatic Escalation Set to be 'Bloodier Than Ghouta'

Patrick Cockburn • March 7, 2018

• 1,300 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

In a field beside an abandoned railway station close to the Turkish border in northern Syria, Kurdish fighters are retraining to withstand Turkish air strikes. “We acted like a regular army when we were fighting Daesh [Isis] with US air support,” says Rojva, a veteran Kurdish commander of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). “But now... Read More

Inside the Small But Important City of Manbij in Syria

Patrick Cockburn • March 2, 2018

• 1,100 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

Manbij is a good place to understand the jigsaw puzzle of competing fiefdoms into which Syria is now divided and the reasons why the multiple wars that have torn the country apart will go on for several more years. A largely Arab city with a population of 300,000, it is situated east of Aleppo and... Read More

Escalation in Syria – How Far Can the Russians be Pushed?

The Saker • February 16, 2018

• 2,700 Words • 637 Comments • Reply

Events in Syria have recently clearly taken a turn for the worse and there is an increasing amount of evidence that the Russian task force in Syria is being targeted by a systematic campaign of “harassing attacks”. First, there was the (relatively successful) drone and mortar attack on the Russian Aerospace base in Khmeimin. Then... Read More

Turkey Accused of Recruiting Ex-Isis Fighters to Attack Kurds in Syria

Patrick Cockburn • February 7, 2018

• 1,000 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

Turkey is recruiting and retraining Isis fighters to lead its invasion of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, according to an ex-Isis source. “Most of those who are fighting in Afrin against the YPG [People’s Protection Units] are Isis, though Turkey has trained them to change their assault tactics,” said Faraj, a former... Read More

The Syrian Madhouse Gets Even Crazier

Eric Margolis • February 3, 2018

• 800 Words • 17 Comments • Reply

Last summer, I was positioned just across the border from the Syrian town of Afrin around which Turkish and Kurdish and, possibly, American forces, are now poised for a head-on clash. It seems crazy to me that anyone would want to fight over this one-donkey farm town. We were there on a mission to rescue... Read More

Turkish Invasion Pits Neocons Against Traditional Imperialists

Mike Whitney • February 1, 2018

• 1,800 Words • 12 Comments • Reply

US foreign policy in the Middle East is not merely adrift, it is in a state of severe crisis. Even as Turkish tanks and warplanes continue to pound US allies in northwestern Syria (The Kurds), powerbrokers in the White House and the Pentagon are unable to settle on a way forward. The frantic attempts to... Read More

By Remaining in Syria the US Is Fuelling More Wars in the Middle East

Patrick Cockburn • January 27, 2018

• 1,200 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

Seldom has an important new US foreign policy crashed in flames so quickly and so spectacularly, achieving the very opposite results to those intended. It was only ten days ago that the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson unexpectedly announced that American military forces would remain in Syria after the defeat of Isis. Their agenda... Read More

Uncle Sam Dumps the Kurds (Yet Again)

The Saker • January 26, 2018

• 2,400 Words • 100 Comments • Reply

The drama which is unfolding in northern Syria is truly an almost ideal case to fully assess how weak and totally dysfunctional the AngloZionist Empire has really become. Let's begin with a quick reminder. The US-Israeli goals in Syria were really very simple. As I have already mentioned in a past article, the initial AngloZionist... Read More

Tillerson's Blunder Incites Turkish Invasion

Mike Whitney • January 26, 2018

• 1,900 Words • 66 Comments • Reply

The Trump administration has drawn Turkey deeper into the Syrian conflict by announcing a policy that threatens Turkey's national security. Washington's gaffe has pitted one NATO ally against the other while undermining hopes for a speedy end to the seven year-long war. Here's what's going on: On January 18, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson... Read More

Manbij Becomes Key as US Looks to Rein in Turkey's Syrian Offensive

Patrick Cockburn • January 24, 2018

• 600 Words • 27 Comments • Reply

The US is trying to prevent the fighting in Afrin between Turkish forces and Syrian Kurds spreading east into the main Kurdish enclave in Syria where US troops are based. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to drive the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters not just from Afrin, but from Manbij, a strategic... Read More

Syrian Kurdish Forces Launch Powerful Counterattack Against Turkey

Patrick Cockburn • January 22, 2018

• 800 Words • 14 Comments • Reply

Turkey is hoping for a quick victory in Afrin, but its soldiers and allied Syrian militiamen are facing counter-attacks by Kurdish forces on villages close to the border. The Kurds are reported to be readying reinforcements to join the battle from their bases in north east Syria where they have thousands of troops who until... Read More

A US-Turkish Clash in Syria?

Pat Buchanan • January 19, 2018

• 900 Words • 38 Comments • Reply

The war for dominance in the Middle East, following the crushing of ISIS, appears about to commence in Syria -- with NATO allies America and Turkey on opposing sides. Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria's border enclave of Afrin, occupied by Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds... Read More

Washington's Wonderful World of Corruption

Top officials sell out to anyone for anything

Philip Giraldi • November 7, 2017

• 1,400 Words • 140 Comments • Reply

One of the interesting side benefits, if one might call it that, of the everlasting investigation into Russiagate is the window provided on the extreme corruption of U.S. politicians and government officials. It has become evident that anyone can seemingly buy political and media support for nearly anything as long as enough money is put... Read More

The Middle East Pivot

Erdogan’s Turkey and Seven Deadly Sins

James Petras • October 13, 2017

• 1,500 Words • 40 Comments • Reply

Introduction Multiple wars ravage the Middle East. Turkey has inserted itself into the middle of most of these regional conflicts and ended up a loser. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has intervened and formed alliances with a rogue’s gallery of imperial warlords, terrorists-mercenaries, Zionist expansionists, feudal potentates and obscure tribal chiefs, with disastrous economic,... Read More

Russian Views on the Separatist Referendums in Spain and Iraq

The Saker • October 5, 2017

• 2,200 Words • 181 Comments • Reply

The recent referenda in Catalonia and Kurdistan, while by no means crucial developments for Russia, have resulted in a lively debate in the Russian media and the Russian public opinion. The Kremlin itself has refrained from making any strong statements, possibly indicating that there might be several schools of thought on these issues in key... Read More

The Kurdish Independence Referendum Was a Political Miscalculation

Patrick Cockburn • October 1, 2017

• 1,100 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

The Iraqi government has banned international flights to the Kurdish capital Irbil from 6pm this Friday, isolating the Kurds in Iraq to a degree they have not experienced since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The isolation is political as well as geographical as traditional Kurdish allies, like the US, UK, France and Germany,... Read More

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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