Op-ed

Just three or four years ago, no one was talking seriously about a role for Russia in the Middle East. It is indeed amazing how Vladimir Putin, with minimum investment, has achieved all this in such a short time. He is now publicly invited by Saudi Foreign Minister …

Stephen Blank The Balkans are burning. Europe’s refugee crisis has now entwined with the general crisis of governance afflicting the Balkans, and reached its apogee in Macedonia. Between April 13 and 14, Macedonian rioters burned the presidential office and destroyed the building housing the country’s Ministry of Justice …

Ariel Noyola Rodriguez The year 2016 has hardly begun and the losses in different stock markets around the world care colossal: nearly 8 trillion US dollars during the first three weeks of January according to the calculations of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The Government of the …

Washington is about to kick off a third American military program aimed at training so-called “moderate rebels” inside Syria. Incredible as it may seem, Washington is about to kick off a third American military program aimed at training so-called “moderate rebels” inside Syria; the US authorities are currently considering Ankara’s request to re-start the …

Plummeting oil prices may challenge the established geopolitical status-quo and even result in war and turmoil, experts warn. Will the petroleum-centric world of the past half-century be restored again soon? The current slump in oil prices has affected giant oil corporations and the ancillary businesses; it also threatens to undermine …

2016, bound to be a crisis year, is Barack Obama’s last year in office. It is also the year that will shape the security strategy for the next president. The civil war in Syria and the terrorist threat from the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq will test …

Dr Ahmed Al-Burai If Deniz Zeyrek, a famous leftist journalist in Turkey, was to say, “The state of Israel and its people are undoubtedly sincere friends of Turkey and our condemnations until now are aimed at some extreme illegitimate actions of the Israeli government,” he would be condemned …

Abdel Bari Atwan Saudi Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz surprised everybody with a sudden announcement that a new 34-nation military alliance of Moslem countries had been established and that its HQ is to be in Riyadh. Pakistan was astonished to find it was named as …

Mike Whitney Would you be willing to defend your country against a foreign invasion? That’s all Putin is doing in Syria. He’s just preempting the tidal wave of jihadis that’ll be coming his way once the current fracas is over. He figures it’s better to exterminate these US-backed maniacs in Syria now than face …