Middle Orient

The U.S. transferred the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) – a light multiple rocket launcher mounted on a standard Army Medium Tactical Vehicle (MTV) to the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the YPG terrorists in Syria, sources said Tuesday. HIMARS was transferred to the U.S.base in northern Syria’s Deir el-Zour province, …

Debating Israel’s One-State Reality Dangerous DelusionsMichael Oren Anyone seeking to understand why U.S. policy in the Middle East keeps failing—especially on the Israeli-Palestinian issue—need only read “Israel’s One-State Reality” (May/June 2023) by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. The essay suffers from the same refusal to face …

Hezbollah finds itself near another verge today, that of remaining relevant in the evolving Lebanese state. Hezbollah’s military show of force on May 21 in the southern town of Aramta sent several messages, not least to Israel. In the shadow of regional reconciliations—between Saudi Arabia and Iran first, followed by …

At a time of renewed regional dialogue and an apparent opening between Iran and its neighbors, one could be surprised by the appointment of Ali Akbar Ahmadian, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a member of the Expediency Council, as the new secretary of the Supreme …

Latest developments South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will investigate U.S. allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, his office said Sunday in a statement. South Africa denies the allegations which have caused a diplomatic row among the U.S., South Africa …

The head of Turkey’s election board has declared President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the winner of the country’s historic runoff vote, extending his presidency until 2028. “Based on provisional results, it has been determined that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been elected president,” Supreme Election Council Chairman Ahmet Yener was quoted as …

Sunday’s election, one of the most heavily contested in Turkey’s modern history, saw President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leading the presidential vote with 49.5 percent against his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu (44.9 percent), as the country heads to a run-off for the first time ever on 28 May. Turkey also held its …

Atatürkism… tried to reinvent Turkey’s identity as a modern state claiming Hittite and Celtic roots, distancing itself from the “decadent Orient” and hoping to regain its proper place in the family of European nations. More importantly, Atatürk introduced the concept of secularism, using the French term laïcité, to end the …

Since 2021, the Biden Administration has been cozying up to Iran in a way that has often seemed agonizingly embarrassing to entice it back to the disastrous 2015 “JCPOA” nuclear deal of the Obama Administration. Mercifully those efforts did not succeed: the new deal would still most likely have enabled …

Turkey’s influence in Africa has been growing massively over the past 20 years and whoever wins Sunday’s presidential run-off will have to consider where next to take the relationship. Ever since Recep Tayyip Erdogan took power in Turkey two decades ago, first as prime minister then as president, he has …