Not only has Sykes-Picot survived in the Middle East, it has beaten back all challengers.
Not too long ago, the know-it-all set was unanimous in its view that Sykes-Picot was dead.
Is there an ‘Arab NATO’ in Trump’s Middle East toolbox?
The odds are that Washington’s latest creation will come up short both as a symbol of unity and as an effective military alliance against ISIS and Iran.
The Trump administration is searching — so far without success — for a mechanism to define and fortify its alliances with friends in the Middle East.
Idlib understandings set the stage for next battle
Turkey and the US have failed to isolate jihadi forces from those of the legitimate opposition, despite commitments to do so.
The long-anticipated, epic battle to determine who rules in Syria’s Idlib province has been postponed. The agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not resolve the contest between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the rapidly dwindling opposition. Rather, it represents an important chapter in the shaping operations by all contestants to maximise their fortunes as the Syrian endgame unfolds.
Trump’s Middle East ‘Deal of the Century’ Creeping Into View
Russia Has Become an Unusual Broker in Golan Heights 2.0
The long-disputed territory between Syria and Israel found its way onto the dais in Helsinki. Here's why.
A Syrian fighter jet was shot down Tuesday afternoon by the Israeli Air Force, which claimed the plane had penetrated Israel’s airspace near the Golan Heights. Syrian officials say the jet crashed in southwestern Syria, and was hit while engaged in raids in their airspace over an area known for ISIS activity.
Is Washington Playing Iran’s Useful Idiot in Syria?
Apart from the lingering campaign against ISIS, the U.S. effort there is imploding while Tehran holds the cards.
Washington has been on the offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran for close to half a century. Largely as a result, Iran, a rounding error in the superpower sweepstakes, has gone from strength to strength, challenging American power throughout the region, most notably in Iraq and Syria.
The Diplomatic Knives Are Out After Trump’s Embassy Move
Trump's man is now installed in Jerusalem—and we all all know which side he's on.
The deed is done. The U.S. Embassy in Israel is now officially in Jerusalem. Other than that, the Trump administration insists, nothing has changed. But Washington has thrown a stink bomb into the party, destroying an international consensus forged over the last century on how to address the city’s status.
US Recognition of Jerusalem: A Twenty-First Century Balfour Declaration
The US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to establish an embassy there is the most consequential American diplomatic action to address the Israel-Arab conflict in half a century. It ranks no less in importance than the decision of the Truman administration to recognize the fledgling state of Israel seven decades ago, and perhaps even the monumental Balfour Declaration offering critical imperial support to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Both declarations represent critical milestones in the effort to win recognition and support for core elements of the Zionist agenda.
Obama’s Failure Set Stage for Trump’s Unilateral Israel Policy
Not since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 has there been such a decisive thumb on the scale for the Zionist cause.
The move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and establish an embassy there is the most consequential American diplomatic action in the the Israeli-Arab conflict since the Truman administration’s recognition of the fledgling Israeli state seven decades ago. It ranks up there with the Balfour Declaration, which, in 1917, offered the Zionist movement, then a small minority in Palestine, critical imperial support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Washington Couldn’t Beat Assad, So It Will Punish His People
A coalition of spoilsports is withholding aid until the regime goes. It's ordinary Syrians who will suffer.
The bombs continue to fall over Syria to the consternation of all concerned. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad warns of a conflict on Syrian soil that will embroil Israel, Iran, and Russia. “Things,” he says, “could spin out of control.”
Violence in Gaza Today Captures the Attention of…No One
More than 1,400 have been wounded in clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli military. The media has barely noticed.
Gaza is back in the headlines, grabbing, if only for a moment, the fickle international spotlight. The two million Palestinians living in the 141-square-mile spit that hugs the Mediterranean have no such luxury.
CENTCOM Commander Admits Failure in Syria Strategy
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this month, CENTCOM commander General Joseph L. Votel set about talking straight on Syria. Votel, in a colloquy with Senator Lindsey Graham that was refreshing for its brevity and candor, acknowledged that the principal ambition of U.S. policy towards Syria—the removal of President Bashar al Assad at the behest of a motley assortment of Islamist and reformist oppositionists—has failed.
The way forward for Palestine: Fatah, Hamas, and Dahlan
In the Turk-Syrian-Kurd Dance, the U.S. Has Two Left Feet
Netanyahu’s West Bank Annexation Talk Was No Gaffe
With the White House firmly on his side, Bibi's biggest challenge is to restrain his appetite.
Hands have been wringing over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s revelation that Israel has been discussing its annexation of the West Bank—long a diplomatic taboo—with the Trump White House.
Lebanon and Israel's Precarious Peace
The latest evidence of the evolving nature of the war in Syria was on display Saturday, Feb. 10, when Israel mounted what a senior Israeli officer called “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has conducted against Syrian air defenses” since the 1982 Lebanon war. The unprecedented encounter was precipitated by the intrusion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace and led to the downing of a top-of-the-line Israeli F-16 by Syrian air defenses.
Lebanon and Israel's precarious peace
AHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images
The latest evidence of the evolving nature of the war in Syria was on display Saturday, Feb. 10, when Israel mounted what a senior Israeli officer called “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has conducted against Syrian air defenses” since the 1982 Lebanon war. The unprecedented encounter was precipitated by the intrusion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace and led to the downing of a top-of-the-line Israeli F-16 by Syrian air defenses.
While attention is now fixed on the complex clash of Israeli, Syrian and Iranian interests in Syria, to judge by the heated rhetoric being lobbed by top Israeli and Lebanese officials, an ever more destructive war on this troubled front may loom on the horizon. Chest-thumping declarations promising to bomb Lebanon into the Stone Age and equally ominous promises by Hezbollah to take the next war into Israel frame this over-the-top interchange.
As long as fundamental issues like land and maritime borders remain unresolved, a war along Israel’s northern frontier does indeed remain an option. But Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri reflected a far more sober and reassuring consensus—shared by top political and security figures in both capitals and beyond—when he warned that the parties are more likely to blunder into the next war than intentionally precipitate one. As he explained in a recent interview,
“The only threat I see is that Israel will take any measures against Lebanon because of a certain (mis)calculation. And this is the real threat. There are other challenges, but we can manage them because we have the will to do so, but if Israel decides to wage a war against Lebanon, this is impossible to explain.”
The terrible cost of another war is well understood by all parties, and stands as perhaps the most effective impediment to precipitous action or miscalculation of the kind that sparked the 2006 war. “We did not think, even one percent, that the [incident precipitating the conflict] would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude,” acknowledgedHezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah after the August 2006 cease-fire. “You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.”
The current contretemps between Lebanon and Israel is focused on two specific issues: the contested location of the 1949 Armistice Line and the maritime border, and Israeli claims, yet to be confirmed or acknowledged, of Iran’s construction of facilities in Lebanon to produce precision-guided munitions for Hezbollah’s arsenal.
The border between Israel and Lebanon has never been fixed. Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was acknowledged by the marking of a U.N.-demarcated Blue Line—268 blue markers placed along the 74.4 mile (120 kilometer) frontier. For more than two years Israel has been fortifying this border, in part as a national strategy to place a hard border around Israel’s entire perimeter, including Gaza, Egypt, Jordan and the West Bank. Lebanon argues that the concrete barrier is being constructed in part on Lebanese territory, a claim that Israel rejects.
In an unusual reflection of national solidarity, Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker recently issued a joint statement noting that Israel’s actions on the border represent, “a grave breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.”
In the wake of this declaration, Hezbollah noted its “support [for] the stances of the president, the prime minister and the parliament’s speaker against this new form of aggression, and stress that we will object to any harm to (Lebanon’s) oil and gas rights.”
The long-running dispute over the maritime border is focused on a 533.2-square-mile (860-square-kilometer) triangle-shaped expanse in the Mediterranean. Lebanon’s recent decision to award a tender in disputed Block 9 to a consortium of international oil and gas companies—including French Total, Italian ENI and Russian Novatek—was criticized by Israel as “very provocative,” even as it proposes discussions to resolve the issue diplomatically. Empowering the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, to conduct a dialogue on the maritime border is one option raised in recent discussions.
Miscalculation on either of these border issues can precipitate war. However, Hezbollah’s dogged pursuit, with critical Iranian assistance, of an expansive military arsenal is at the heart of the regional conflict, particularly as the endgame of the Syrian civil war unfolds. Israel has identified Hezbollah’s acquisition of precision-guided munitions, constructed or transferred under Iranian supervision in Syria or Lebanon, as an intolerable violation of the informal yet effective “rules of the game” that have deterred war since 2006. On at least one occasion Israel has bombed a suspected arms production site in Syria and has regularly stymied Iranian efforts to supply Hezbollah’s increasingly sophisticated and lethal arsenal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has charged that Lebanon is becoming “a factory for precision-guided missiles that threaten Israel.” Ironically, unlike its relative freedom of operation in the skies above Syria, Israel has refrained from hitting suspected Hezbollah locations in Lebanon—an uneasy recognition of the still-effective “red lines” uneasily governing the standoff. According to retired Brig. Gen. Maroun Hitti, Prime Minister Hariri’s Advisor for Security & Defense,
“Neither Israel nor Lebanon will tolerate making Lebanon a missile factory for Iran. Netanyahu's accusations are based on false intelligence. The Lebanese government repeatedly asked for proof, and gave assurances to take the necessary actions to avoid such situation. Until today, no proof [was] given.”
Netanyahu has made clear the gravity of the situation. “These missiles pose a grave threat to Israel, and we will cannot [sic] accept this threat,” Netanyahu explained after a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I explained our policy. These are not idle words. The Russians understand our position, they understand well the significance that we give to these threats.”
These are fighting words to be sure. But it is also the case that the dialogue of threats is an integral and almost unremarkable element of the system of deterrence that has evolved between Israel and Hezbollah over the last generation. Bombastic statements and indeed occasional, limited military action to support them have prevented war in Lebanon for a decade, even as the region has imploded. How long such “rules of the game” will deter the next war is anyone’s guess.
Trump’s Middle East ‘Deal of the Century’ Coming Into Focus
The rub: After the confetti falls, Palestinians won't be able to exercise true sovereignty, anywhere.
Donald Trump’s promise of “a deal of the century” to end the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is getting legs. After a year of discussions led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the main elements of the president’s design are coming into view. But it’s not exactly what the Palestinians want to see.
Israel and the Syria Conflict – Challenges and Opportunities
After more than six years, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and untold billions in economic costs, the endgame defining the future role of Hezbollah and Iran in Syria has begun. A Russian-Iranian-Turkish entente is establishing the diplomatic, territorial and operational infrastructure aimed at marginalizing and isolating irreconcilable elements militarily and expanding both the circle and effectiveness of intra-Syrian “reconciliation” efforts to enlarge and consolidate the reconstitution of state authority throughout the country.
