Israel’s apology to Turkey over the 2010 Mavi Marmara killings might lay the groundwork for direct intervention in Syria by NATO and Israel.
Syria: Chess Match Turned Free-for-All
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Middle East & North Africa
Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Pieces (4/1)
Missile defense, drones, and other instruments of the devil.
Don’t Blame the Iraq Debacle on the Israel Lobby
Right-wing Israeli governments and their U.S. supporters deserve blame for many policies that have led to needless human suffering, increased extremism in the Islamic world, and decreased security, as well as rampant violations of international legal principles. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, is not one of them.
Key Fact Suppressed in the Israel-Turkey Reconciliation Story
The discrepancy is significant because it reduces the Israeli violence to an exclusively Turkish grievance.
Hey Congress: Sequester Apartheid!
Thousands of lobbyists descended on Capitol Hill in early March to voice their concerns over sequestration cuts. But these lobbyists were not asking Congress to restore funding to schools, hospitals, or shelters. Instead, they were demanding that Congress fully fund military aid to Israel, aid which helps Israel continue its occupation and apartheid policies toward Palestinians.
Is a Desperate Assad Lashing Out With Chemical Weapons?
A UN fact-finding commission will investigate the charges.
King Abdullah of Jordan Learns How Loaded His Gestures, Words, and Facial Expressions Are
The carelessness with which King Abdullah conducted his Atlantic interview was a disaster that could easily have been prevented.
Echoes of Occupy in Western Sahara
Even with millions of dollars of aid at its disposal, it seems unlikely that Morocco will be able to put off the issue of Western Sahara’s right to sovereignty indefinitely. The Gdeim Izik case has drawn the scrutiny and condemnation of the international press, and already the sentenced prisoners have planned a hunger strike to protest their trial and the torture many of them received while detained.
The Somaliazation of Syria
As Syria’s civil war enters its third year, the country’s humanitarian crisis worsens each day and the Levant grows increasingly vulnerable to the conflict’s spillover. Unless a tactical shift in the balance of power occurs, it is unlikely that either the regime or the rebels will gain control of Syria’s entire territory, leaving open the possibility that the state will fragment along sectarian lines.
America’s Other Dark Legacy In Iraq
Although the breathtaking violence that attended Iraq’s descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the 10-year-old war, what’s often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.