Chaotic Haggling Follows Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Plan
Turkey spars with US National Security Advisor John Bolton as Russia and Iran emerge the main beneficiaries of a messy American withdrawal from Syria.
Turkey spars with US National Security Advisor John Bolton as Russia and Iran emerge the main beneficiaries of a messy American withdrawal from Syria.
Trump’s move to pull out of Syria has been called a surrender and a betrayal of allies. Yet it may increase American leverage in an extremely messy situation.
Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, which has stunned friends and foes alike, brought attention to strategic American vulnerabilities on the ground.
Over the past few days, NATO heavyweight Turkey has once again bombed the Syrian Kurdish forces who have been key to the effort to defeat the Islamic State, just as the jihadists launched a desperate counterattack in Syria, killing up to 70 pro-American forces. Turkey has long been accused of directly or indirectly propping up […]
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Independent longtime Middle East journalist and former ABC News foreign correspondent Charles Glass provides a blunt primer on the current state of play in Syria and the broader Middle East.
After the fall of the Syrian Kurdish city of Afrin on March 18, the Turkish operation in Syria has entered a particularly dangerous phase, with relations between the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the US fast approaching a make-or-break point. Turkey has set its sights on the next big Kurdish-held city in […]
It is increasingly difficult to understand who is allied to whom in the brutal civil war that has devastated Syria for almost seven years. The danger of accidental big-power conflict, which has rarely been greater in the past three decades, is compounded by threats to the existence of NATO and even the UN. In […]
Amid major cracks in the NATO alliance and a violent scramble for the endgame in Syria, five major powers are on a collision course with each other.
Following several days of intense artillery bombardment and air strikes, the Turkish army launched a ground invasion of the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin on Monday. WhoWhatWhy reported on the likelihood of such an operation last August. Many experts are now saying what we wrote months ago: that the Turkish operation tests American resolve […]
A day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to attack Kurdish forces in Syria, social media were abuzz with reports of an impending Turkish operation against these troops, who have been the main US ally on the ground against the Islamic State. https://twitter.com/metesohtaoglu/status/923178493269237760 The enclave of Afrin and the Kurdish-held city of […]
Why an impending Turkish attack on the main Western ally against ISIS on the ground in Syria threatens to drag the US deeper into another Middle Eastern quagmire.