The US President Joe Biden (R) welcomes visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Washington, July 27, 2021 The US President Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team seems increasingly unsure of the ground beneath their feet. They can see that the edifice that their 78-year old chief is erecting stands on shaky ground. But they lack the presence of …
US airstrikes in Iraq, Syria: preemptive or provocative?
The US military carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, targeting operational and weapons storage facilities of Iran-backed militia Unusual for a Sunday, John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, rushed to clarify that the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in the weekend targeted facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups to launch attacks on American …
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Coup attempt in Jordan leaves a trail
“What happens in the Middle East has a way of making itself felt everywhere around the world,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein while addressing the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 15th January 2021 A coup attempt is an orphan unless it succeeds. Therefore, all we can say is that a coup was in the making in …
Ebb and flow of Iran’s influence in Iraq
Iraqi militia fighters attacked the US Embassy, Baghdad, Dec 31, 2019. Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is an unenviable situation for a politician. A tragic case in modern times was of Hafizullah Amin, the Cold War era Afghan communist politician who tried to reduce his country’s dependence on the former Soviet …
US lowers threat perception on Iran
The drawdown of US military presence in the Middle East, especially from Saudi Arabia, may not be an automatic open sesame — to borrow the magical phrase in the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”— leading to the hidden treasure of regional peace and stability, but it does open up a tantalising vista …
Covid-19 confronts American exceptionalism
The coronavirus-struck USS Theodore Roosevelt nuclear aircraft carrier went into ‘self-isolation’ in Guam base after disembarking 5000 sailors on board. File photo. The greatness of the classical Greek tragedies lies in their humanising effect on the spectator or reader — “catharsis”, the purification or purgation of emotions, a metaphor first used by Aristotle in the …
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Trump’s Iran sanctions policy on the turn
The past week witnessed a sudden spurt of tensions in the US-Iran standoff. There was intense speculation that to divert public attention in America from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump might order a military attack on Iran. Trump himself fuelled the speculation with the sudden outburst in a tweet on April 1: …
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Russians are coming — to the Indian Ocean
The Cold-War hypothesis that the Soviet Union was hoping to “wet its toes” in the Indian Ocean was in reality an extension of the geopolitical construct known as the “Anglo-Russian Question” that was written about by Lord Curzon, onetime viceroy of British India (1899-1905). We now know that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was due …
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Iran: Nothing is forgotten, nothing is forgiven
Satellite images show extensive damage to Ain Al Asad air base in Iraq which was hit by Iranian missiles on Jan 7, 2020 President Trump’s credibility is so low that it is difficult to contest the perception that he blundered into the recent confrontation with Iran by ordering the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head …
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A forlorn hope in US-Iran confrontation
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading the prayer before the coffin of Qassem Soleimani, Tehran, Jan. 6, 2020. To his right, President Hassan Rouhani, Speaker of Majlis Ali Larijani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Gen. Hossein Salami. A new dynamics is forming in the week since the assassination of the charismatic Iranian …