PATRICK LAWRENCE: Moscow’s Difficult Decision on Idlib
Turkey’s leader, who nurses dreams of some kind of neo–Ottoman restoration across the Middle East, is now on a reckless tear. As Recip Tayyip Erdogan prosecutes his latest military intrusion southward into Syria, all the old mythologies about the Turkish president and…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A Sudden-Seeming Power Shift in the Middle East
Despite the high-speed impression created by events in the past few weeks, the shifting trends of Russian and U.S. influence on the region have been underway for years. Rarely do world events move at the velocity they now assume in the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Predictable Mess on Syria’s Border with Turkey
Trump just missed an opportunity to pull back troops without inducing another bloodbath. In less than a week, a new front has opened in Syria’s 8-year, all-but-over war, featuring hot- and cold-running proxies from its earliest days. Syrian sovereignty is…
Sharmine Narwani on the end of the Syrian war and the “post-imperial Middle East”
Middle East correspondent Narwani sees a new era emerging in Asia, while Trump, Pompeo and Bolton bluster In part one of my exchange with Sharmine Narwani, the Beirut-based correspondent dissected the just-ended Syrian conflict as one of the very few journalists…
Reporter Sharmine Narwani on the secret history of America’s defeat in Syria
After years covering the “main battlefield in World War III,” Narwani says everything you think you know is wrong When the war in Syria was recently declared decisively over, there were few correspondents or witnesses to turn to for a…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Pompeo, Pence & the Alienation of Europe
If the objective was to further isolate the U.S., the two officials could not have done a better job last week, writes Patrick Lawrence. What a job Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did in Europe…
Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria
It would be nice to think the president has final say on foreign policy, given the U.S. Constitution. But the misleading troop withdrawal announcement, followed by Trump’s boastful tweet, suggests the exact opposite, says Patrick Lawrence. The announcement on Wednesday…
America’s Absence in Istanbul: A Sign of Decline, Not Surrender
Team Trump missed the summit on Syria. In that, Patrick Lawrence sees another sign of Washington’s failure to accept its loss of diplomatic primacy. Lost in the Memory Palace: US Leads, But No One Follows You would hardly know it from…
The Trump Administration’s Spoiler Foreign Policy
U.S. strategy abroad is assuming a curious shape. Whether the president or his minders are running affairs, Patrick Lawrence sees the U.S. being reduced to playing a spoiler role in the Middle East and Northeast Asia. It is not possible…
What happens when Assad wins the war in Syria?
There are many significant consequences to this outcome, and it’s crucial that we understand them Given the unexpected pace of events in recent weeks, the end of Syria’s seven-year agony appears to be very near. It is now all but…
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