US President Donald Trump (R) met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Oval Office of White House, Feb. 4, 2025 Seldom, if ever, one gets to pick up the threads of what one had written 3 days back as conjectures. But my prognosis that “the sea side view” of Gaza is mesmerising President Donald …
Trump turn is bad news for West Asia
Palestinians make their way back to their homes in the ruins of Gaza On February 4, the international community will get to see President Donald Trump wading into the midstream of West Asia’s crisis, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters the Oval Office hoping for an opportunity to shape US regional policy. Do you …
Syria enters new era amidst uncertainties
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (L) and Syria’s Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Damascus, Jan. 30, 2025 The appointment of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as Interim President on January 29 marks the advent of a new era in Syria’s history. The New York Times in a feature article …
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Russia-Iran treaty signifies a ‘breakthrough’ in ties
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, Moscow, January 17, 2025 Russia and Iran, as two immediate neighbours and great powers with a glorious history, had a difficult, chequered relationship through centuries. It goes to the credit of Iranian pragmatism that it learned to live with …
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Trump bends the arc of history in West Asia – Part II
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff (R) met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025 Trump frogmarches Netanyahu down the deep stairs President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their key operative in the White House, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, hopelessly underestimated President-elect Donald Trump’s quick reflex action to demolish their …
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Trump bends the arc of history in West Asia – Part I
An April 2023 satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC showing construction on an underground facility in the tangled mountains somewhere near Iran’s Natanz nuclear site which has been targeted by Israeli sabotage attacks multiple times Iran’s Islamic revolution is in transition My one-week visit to Tehran to observe the presidential election last June came …
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Trump unveils the Greater America project
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump addressing a press conference, Mar-a-Lago, Florida, January 7, 2025 On Tuesday, at a press conference at his Florida mansion, President-elect Donald Trump took his gloves off, after showing monumental patience in the face of the shenanigans by the lame duck president Joe Biden and his inner circle to “do an Obama” …
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Ukraine war turns into absurdist fiction
President-elect Donald Trump with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on Saturday Jan. 4, 2024 ESTRAGON: Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me! VLADIMIR: Did I ever leave you? ESTRAGON: You let me go. — Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett One great transformation of the …
US-India: Diamonds are not forever
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Beijing, Sunday, April 28, 2024 The US state department disclosed on Thursday in an accounting of gifts received from foreign leaders during 2023 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s was the “priciest” gift that President Biden received, rather, his wife Jill Biden received — a …
Kiev plays games with Russian gas transit
A section of Bratstvo (“Brotherhood”) transit gas pipeline, in a forest near Mukachevo, western Ukraine (File photo) The dataset by the Brussels-based think tank Brugel aggregating the data on European natural gas import flows and storage levels puts in perspective Ukraine’s decision to halt the transit of Russian gas to Europe. The statistics reveal that …
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