Trump Cries Havoc! – Dogs (still) Kenneled

  JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs June 10, 2017 Donald Trump in the last few days has given the world a master class on how ignorance and miscalculation by a United States president can trigger conflict and set the stage for war. Look

Battle Ends, Bloody Syrian War Grinds On

By Laila Bassam, Angus McDowall and Stephanie Nebehay  Rebel resistance in the Syrian city of Aleppo ended on Tuesday after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody retreat, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in

Putin, Grand Master of the Great Game, awaits next opponent

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs October 1, 2016 When the new United States president moves into the Oval Office early next year, at the top of her foreign policy priorities will be what to do about Vladimir Putin. Forget the various manifestations of

Bush’s War on Terror Unending

Fifteen years ago George W. Bush launched the “War on Terror.” It was an incalculable strategic mistake, and there is no end in sight JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs September 24, 2016 Fifteen years ago this week President George W. Bush uttered a few phrases that have tainted much

Iranians close in on Aleppo, not Mecca

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs September 10, 2016   There will be no Iranians this year among the two million Muslims who make the hajj pilgrimage to the holy sites at Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia that starts on Sunday, September 11.

Turkey’s Shock Waves Slam Middle East

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs July 30, 2016 The fascist coup of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – for that is what it is – has thrown a large boulder into the boiling, muddy waters of the Middle East. Turkey’s fellow Sunni Muslim

Five years on, Arab Spring’s thirst for blood still unsated

JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs January 23, 2016 In an eerie reflection of the start of the Arab Spring five years ago, tens of thousands of Tunisians took to the streets on Friday demonstrating outrage at the death of a young man protesting his

Saudi Arabia upheaval will soon rock Middle East and beyond

Politics are heating up in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the three-cornered contest in the Middle East between modernity, theocracy and absolutism, a contest waged between warring proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, and felt in corners of the world from

On Middle East context and media

  Put events in the Middle East in context, Thoughtlines columnist Jim McNiven urges in a new column. “Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are working their way through a kind of 100-years of religious war, partially similar to that between Protestants and Catholics that

Replace Westphalian Nationalism with Green Unity: Chris Wood

National sovereignty, no matter how zealously protected, cannot achieve natural security, writes Chris Wood in today’s Natural Security column. Critical ecological infrastructure can only be assured if we get past misguided nationalisms, nativism and deep-rooted tribalisms —  past a way of thinking about the world