Unidentified militia group shot down helicopter with laser weapons in Wardak March 18 killing Afghan military personnel. The “hidden agenda” of the war on terror in Afghanistan has been an open secret. The first inkling of its geopolitical character came when it transpired that even after installing a pro-US regime in Kabul in 2002-2003, Pentagon …
Russia takes charge of Nagorno-Karabakh
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev (C) and Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan (L), Moscow, Jan. 11, 2021 The trilateral meeting of the leaderships of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Kremlin on January 11, exactly two months after the ceasefire in the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, can be seen as a robust …
US may annoy adversaries but means no harm
The US Congress in night session after rioters were evicted and Capitol building was sanitised, Washington, DC, January 6, 2021 Atonement becomes an inevitable process as the decline of a superpower begins accelerating. But imperial powers find it genuinely difficult to learn to become a ‘normal’ country. That dichotomy could cause traumatic events. The sack …
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Preview signals Biden’s foreign policy shifts
Iran says it has resumed enriching uranium to 20% purity In his first media interview, the incoming US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has given a preview of Joe Biden administration’s foreign policy directions in regard of Russia, Iran and China. Major shifts can be expected in the policies toward both China and Iran while …
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Assertive Germany muddles Iran issue
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin attended ceremony on the arrival of first of four German-made corvettes, Haifa, Israel, Dec. 2, 2020. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, in a speech in Moscow on December 8 dwelt on the western attempts lately to maintain the model of a unipolar world order. He said the European Union’s dalliance with …
India’s Gulf strategy is chasing Chinese phantoms
Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani (R) received External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Manama, Dec 24, 2020 The Chinese statement of December 2 at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the ‘Question of Palestine and the Situation in the Middle East’ should trigger introspection in New Delhi. Without doubt, this …
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Saudi overtures to Qatar and Turkey bring results
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (R) welcomes Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 26, 2020 A rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is on cards. An announcement can be expected in a matter of days. Kuwait, which had been mediating between Riyadh and Doha hinted on November 27 that a breakthrough …
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Biden inherits Middle East’s grapes of wrath
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) received US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Neom, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 22, 2020 On the arid landscape of the Arabian deserts, the outgoing US president Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner planted a sapling called the Abraham Accords last August. They forecast it to be the harbinger of …
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Biden casts a spell on Arabia’s shifting sands
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman (L), called Turkish President Recep Erdoğan (R) on Nov. 20, 2020 to discuss reset of relations. The controversial meeting between Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (commonly known as MbS) in Neom, the mega-city under development on the Red Sea coast, on November 22 drew world …
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France challenges Russian peacekeeping in Caucasus
A Russian peacekeeper patrols at checkpoint outside Askeran, Nagorno-Karabakh, November 19, 2020. (AFP Photo) The trilateral agreement on November 10 between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia over Nagorno-Karabakh is leading to a geopolitical struggle in the Caucasus. So long as Armenia and Azerbaijan were ferociously fighting, the great game lurked in the shade. But no sooner …
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