April 26, 2017

Trump's Phone Call to Erdogan: Was It a Mistake?

Let's provide the most important answer right away – yes, it was! Who is Tayyip ErdoДџan, anyway?  Before anything else, he is a hardcore Islamist who dreams of transforming Turkey into a jihadist state.  He is also the man who...

May 23, 2016

Turkey: Friend or Foe?

The most ignored feature of the 2016 election campaign, that in so many respects turned out to be unique, is that no one among the candidates tried to provide an answer to two seemingly simple but critically important questions.  The first: ...

August 11, 2015

Hillary Clinton and the Benefits of Silence

Let’s clear up a potential misunderstanding from the very beginning: the uniqueness of the strategy behind the election campaign 2016 of the former Secretary of State Clinton involves two layers of silence. The first one is practiced by Ms. ...

June 30, 2015

Russia is not the Main Enemy

One of the most disturbing and dangerous dimensions of the contemporary world political panorama is the growing tension between the United States and the Russian Federation. Future historians will try to find an explanation involving the staggering b...

July 17, 2014

Obama and Erdogan on the Road to Damascus

Some days ago President Obama submitted to Congress his proposal for a five hundred million dollar package designed to finance the actions of the “moderate Syrian opposition,” against the regime of President Bashar Assad. President Obama...

April 7, 2014

Putin's Crossroads

Many years ago when Russia and Ukraine emerged from beneath the rubble of the Soviet Union, the Western experts were trying to outguess the shape of the future political system of Russia.  Those assessments turned out to be wrong. The only opini...

February 24, 2014

What is Behind the American Fiasco in the Middle East?

Most likely future historians will be amazed by the size and the endurance of the wall surrounding the truth about the disastrous results of the errant strategy applied by American diplomacy in the Middle East. The first brick in the foundation ...

February 7, 2014

The Morning After in Afghanistan

It is abundantly clear that if under President Bush the American victory in the Afghan War became impossible, it was under President Obama when the U.S. defeat became inevitable. The biggest mistake of the Bush administration was the draining of the ...

January 19, 2014

Syria -- Battleground of America and Russia

On September 12, 2001, the prestigious French newspaper Le Monde published an article by Jean-Mary Colombani. The main message reverberated around the world in just one memorable phrase: "We are all Americans." The Russian government didn't make...

June 5, 2013

Is There Any Exit from the Syrian Civil War?

As far as President Obama's policy with regard to the Syrian civil war is concerned, it has only one positive feature -- at least the United States hasn't so far got involved in a military conflict. At the same time however everything else went wrong...

May 2, 2013

The Turkish Role in the Syrian Civil War

When the top U.S. policymakers decided that the Syrian crisis required some international partner to deal with its challenges, the choice of the Obama-Clinton tandem fell on Turkey. Was this choice correct? The answer to this question is a complex on...

February 5, 2013

Obama's Egyptian Dilemma

At the same time that the Obama administration has decided to provide Egypt with the most sophisticated varieties of American weaponry, mass protests against the increasingly dictatorial regime of Mohamed Morsi reached a magnitude that threatens the ...

January 30, 2013

The Importance of Mali

Media coverage of the French reaction to the establishment of an Islamic enclave in Mali creates the impression of a limited operation conducted by a small military contingent. The vastness of one of the largest and poorest African countries has...

July 29, 2012

The United States, Russia, and The Syrian Crisis

The most important international factor that influences the Syrian crisis is the politics of the United States and Russia.  In the eyes of the majority of the American observers, the primary factor for the continuing bloodshed in Syria is the di...

March 24, 2012

Vladimir Putin and the Future of Russian Anti-Americanism

The first logical question involving Russian anti-Americanism is:  What were the origins and dynamics of the phenomenon?   Secondly:  What is its role in the politics of President Putin?  And last, but not least, what are the...

January 15, 2012

Washington, Moscow, and the Invisible Tip of the Syrian Iceberg

The obvious truth is that Syria is in deep crisis.  What remains unclear is the vast area encompassing the answer to some important questions involving the regime that ruled Syria for decades.  For instance, what are its strengths (if any) ...

March 16, 2011

The Russian Dilemma

In the totalitarian Soviet Union, the older generations grudgingly respected America, and most of the youth secretly admired her.  But in present-day post-communist Russia, the United States is hated by the majority of the population.  In f...

February 2, 2011

Egypt, the United States, and the Ghost of Khomeini

Are there any similarities between Iran of 1978 and Egypt of 2011?  Sadly, yes.To start with, autocratic leaders who gradually managed to alienate the majority of their populations ruled both countries for thirty years.  Both statesmen supp...

December 26, 2009

America and Russia: Rivals United by a Common Enemy?

Don't assume that Russia and America will be adversaries forever. Given the nature and the magnitude of the negativity marking the current stage of the American-Russian relations, the very thought of an alliance between the two countries looks outrig...

November 14, 2009

Bill Clinton in Kosovo

Inevitably, some extraordinary security measures were taken in Kosovo's capital in connection with William Jefferson Clinton's recent visit. The former president of the United States undertook a long journey to the middle of the Balkans in order to t...