Why the Fall of Syria Checkmates Russia & Iran
Why the Fall of Syria Checkmates Russia & Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oytfhLUy0Fg
Tag: Middle East
Why the GERMANS (and Europeans) don’t understand the Arab-Israeli conflict
Why the GERMANS (and Europeans) don’t understand the Arab-Israeli conflict
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGDhBY4V_CI
Middle East Dialogues: Tarek Masoud in conversation with Einat Wilf
Middle East Dialogues: Tarek Masoud in conversation with Einat Wilf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdmDEXatXts
The Atlantic Should Not Find Out About a War Before Congress Does
“Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, reported on Monday that he had been added by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to an encrypted Signal group chat with the White House’s principals committee to discuss U.S. war plans in Yemen. Goldberg received the first message at 11:44 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, and around two hours later, the White House announced a new air campaign against Houthi forces. The National Security Council confirmed the group chat was real and claimed Goldberg was added by accident.”
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“The constitutional and policy merits of war are two separate questions, but they’re impossible to fully disentangle. The point of asking Congress for a declaration of war is to allow the people’s representatives to weigh the pros and cons in a deliberate, transparent way. War is the most serious decision a government can make. Citizens of a republic should not have to perform Kremlinology—or wait for an official to fat-finger his contact list—to figure out what their leaders are planning.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/25/the-atlantic-should-not-find-out-about-a-war-before-congress-does/
Operation Iron Wall: Israel’s War and Annexation in the Era of Trump
Israel failed in its primary objective to destroy Hamas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wUxKxBFFo
Was the Las Vegas Bombing a Case of the Afghan War Coming Home?
“The attack on Nimruz was, in fact, worse than what came before. Rather than the usual strikes on empty buildings at night, the U.S. military bombed buildings full of people during the day, and it was “the first time that UNAMA had received allegations of civilian casualties of such a scale,” according to the UNAMA report.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/06/was-the-las-vegas-bombing-a-case-of-the-afghan-war-coming-home/
Has Trump Cut a Deal To Get U.S. Troops Out of Syria?
“Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Gen. Mazloum Abdi make an odd couple. Abdi is a Kurdish rebel leader whose secular army boasts all-women units and fights alongside the U.S. military. Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Golani, is a former franchisee of Al Qaeda who runs the new Islamist government in Damascus.
Yet the two men, both of whom traded in their military fatigues for ill-fitting suits, were shaking hands and grinning for the camera on Monday. They had an agreement—at least in principle—for Abdi’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to merge into the government in exchange for Sharaa recognizing Kurds’ hard-won rights. The exact details would be hammered out by the end of 2025 by a newly formed committee.”
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“President Donald Trump has long wanted to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. But his previous attempt to do so, in October 2019, was a violent catastrophe. Turkey took Trump’s withdrawal announcement as a green light to attack the SDF, and hawks in the administration played what they openly called “shell games” to keep U.S. forces in the country anyway.
A deal between the SDF and the central government might be the best opportunity for a graceful U.S. exit. In fact, Syria TV claims that the deal between Abdi and Sharaa was inked as a direct response to Trump telling his generals to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/14/has-trump-cut-a-deal-to-get-u-s-troops-out-of-syria/
Trump Attacked Biden’s ‘Crazy’ Yemen War. Now He’s Reopening It.
“Candidate Donald Trump thought that bombing Yemen was “just a failed mentality” when then-President Joe Biden did it. “It’s crazy. You can solve problems over the telephone. Instead, they start dropping bombs. I see, recently, they’re dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don’t have to do that. You can talk in such a way where they respect you and they listen to you,” Trump said in a May 2024″
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“Trump is now dropping bombs all over Yemen. Over the weekend, the U.S. military launched its first air raids on Yemen in months, hitting targets around the country and killing at least 53 people. Sources in the administration have told The New York Times that the attacks will continue for weeks”
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“Instead of calling Biden a warmonger, as he had a year ago, Trump claimed on Sunday that Biden’s “pathetically weak” policy had allowed “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism” against American shipping.”
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“Trump’s notoriously hawkish national security adviser, Mike Waltz, thinks this campaign will be different. “These were not kind of pinprick, back and forth—what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible,” he told ABC on Sunday.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/17/trump-attacked-bidens-crazy-yemen-war-now-hes-reopening-it/
‘Pray for us. They’ve arrived’: How Syria descended into revenge bloodshed
“Monitoring groups including Syria Network for Human Rights (SNHR) – an independent UK-based group – said over 1,000 people died in the violence, more than half killed by forces aligned with the new authorities and others by Assad loyalists. SNHR said the dead included 595 civilians and unarmed fighters, the vast majority Alawite.”
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“The mass killings were mostly carried out by gunmen from various factions aligned with the new government, including GSS, according to several of the witnesses.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pray-us-theyve-arrived-syria-134559936.html
Who Is the Palestinian Columbia Student Detained For His Protest Activity?
“In a previously unreported interview, Khalil also told Reason about his life story. “I was born in a refugee camp in southern Damascus. My grandparents were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in 1948,” he said. “They stayed in the closest camp to Palestine, and they lived and died in that refugee camp.”
As Syria fell into civil war, Khalil moved to neighboring Lebanon. He worked as a local manager for two British government programs, the Chevening Scholarship and the Conflict, Stability, and Security Fund, according to his LinkedIn profile. In 2023, he enrolled in a master’s program at Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs.
Khalil told Reason that he was not worried about the political repercussions of being such a high-profile activist, because he wasn’t planning to go back to Lebanon and Syria. Nor was he worried about how it would affect his career prospects in America, because “I wouldn’t work for an institution that doesn’t value Palestinian lives. So if they don’t want to employ someone who is standing for Palestine, that’s my gain,” he said.
The prospect that he might be arrested by the U.S. government seemed so remote that it didn’t come up.
It’s not clear exactly which legal authorities the Trump administration used to revoke Khalil’s green card, nor how that will hold up in court. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
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“”The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder studying in this country legally—is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights,” the New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman declared in a statement. “Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation.””
https://reason.com/2025/03/10/who-is-the-palestinian-columbia-student-detained-for-his-protest-activity/