“Sykes-Picot is breaking; putting it back together, even in a different shape, will be a long and bloody affair”. So wrote Tim Marshall back in 2016 in his book Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know about Global Politics — essentially...
As a last major event while still on the ground in Saudi Arabia, and before embarking for Qatar, President Donald Trump met with Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa. This signifies a monumental, historic shift in the entire regional order. We are witnessing...
A British diplomatic source tells me that “President” al-Jolani aka al-Sharaa has assured the UK that Syria will “normalise relations” with Israel, recognise the State of Israel and exchange ambassadors, by the end of 2026. This is part of a deal in exchange for...
The second of the photographs in this article shows me being honoured by Damascus’ Sunni community, who presented both me and Syria’s Grand Mufti with expensive robes; I quickly gave away to a local Sunni, who appreciated the robe much more than a potato muncher like...
While many in Washington claim to defend Christianity and Western values, their policies have led to the systematic annihilation of some of the world's oldest Christian communities. The same politicians who posture as defenders of faith have not just turned a blind...
When I was a child attending Cleveland Indian baseball games at the old Municipal Stadium a thin man in an Indians’ baseball cap ran up and down the aisles hawking scorecards and calling out, “Scorecard, scorecard, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” He...
The Syria story, it seems, is not so simple as “President Assad fell” and the “technocratic Salafists“ rose to power. At one level, the collapse was predictable. Assad was known to have been influenced by Egypt and UAE for some years past. They had been urging him to...
James Jeffrey, former US Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, in a March 2021 interview with PBS Frontline, laid out very plainly the template for what has just happened in Syria this month: “Syria, given its size, its strategic location, its historical importance, is the...
Starting Monday night and into Tuesday, large demonstrations broke out in Christian areas of Damascus and other parts of Syria over the continued presence of foreign jihadists in the country. The ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has vowed to protect the sizeable...
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his Results of the Year annual marathon yearender interactive televised discussion with the Russian public and the media in Moscow on December 19, spoke at some length on the recent developments in Syria. These...
Syria has entered the abyss – the demons of al-Qa’eda, ISIS, and the most intransigent elements of the Muslim Brotherhood are circling the skies. There is chaos, looting, fear, and a terrible passion for revenge scalds the blood. Street executions are rife....
Triumphant rhetoric in the corridors of Washington, DC celebrating the collapse of the Syrian government as a major victory over Russia is both foolish and short-sighted. I will explain. Let’s start with the situation in Ukraine. There is a growing atmosphere of...
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 US has made "direct contact" with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani which now holds Damascus and most major Syrian cities in the wake of Assad's fall. "We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties," US...
What is clearly a joint US-Israeli plan to remake the Mideast map is now well underway. Changes will be seismic. The Biden administration, by now almost totally controlled by pro-Israel neocons, is making its final major moves by loosing a Parthian shaft into the...
To all intents and purposes Syria has ceased to be a sovereign state and is in the process of being partitioned. A new international proxy war has been ignited in the region, with known terrorists empowered. When states disappear, so do people. CrossTalking with...
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