Sam Heller | سام هيلر
@AbuJamajem
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Researcher and analyst looking at Lebanon, Syria and the wider neighborhood. @TCFdotorg @CenturyIntl Fellow. Former @CrisisGroup . "Jamajem" means ☠️.
Beirut / Athens
Joined September 2011
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My latest for
@TCFdotorg
/
@CenturyIntl
, on the nature of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and U.S. policy elites' seeming inability to see the war for what it is:
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EU foreign policy chief says European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, in offering unconditional support for Israeli response to Hamas attack, does not speak for EU:
Full remarks:
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Pretty explosive claim to attribute to anonymous "whistleblowers" in an article with no byline
Maybe The Telegraph is a bad newspaper
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From Wednesday: MP
@fmakhzoumi
submits draft legislation to further amend Lebanon's banking secrecy law in line with
@IMFinMENA
feedback.
تقدمت بمشروع قانون لتعديل بعض مواد قانون سرية المصارف بما يتماشى مع تمنيات صندوق النقد الدولي ولما لرفع السرية المصرفية من دور فعال في البدء بمسيرة الإصلاح وتطبيق الشفافية ووقف الهدر والفساد. من الضروري إدراج هذا المشروع على جدول أعمال أول جلسة تشريعية لمناقشته وإقراره، فرفع
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So, fun fact, Chicago occupies a place in the Syrian popular consciousness as a sort of ultraviolent gangland nightmare.
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The Bodega Boys'
@desusnice
and
@THEKIDMERO
weigh in on the debate over ISIS/"ISIS" attacks.
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If the IDF doesn’t produce something more substantial from this hospital, it definitely makes it look like neither the Israelis nor the Americans ( 👇🏻) actually know who or what the IDF is attacking in Gaza.
Just firing blind into this dense urban zone.
The IDF has begun releasing visuals from their raid on Al-Shifa Hospital last night. They reportedly spent at least 10 hours inside parts of the complex. Here's a breakdown of what they claim to have found 🧵
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Update from Beirut: I’m fine, just a little bloody.
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1. Notes on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's apparent death in Syria's Idlib province:
• THREAD •
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Iraqi prime minister condemns U.S. “assassination” of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis, whose killing, as an Iraqi official, is “an aggression against Iraq – its state, government and people.” Says act is “grievous breach” of conditions for U.S. forces’ presence...
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You have to understand, in American culture exploding someone on a busy street without advance warning or permission is a sign of respecting your sovereignty
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Excited to announce I'll be joining
@CrisisGroup
next month, where I'll be coming on as Senior Analyst for Non-State Armed Groups. Looking forward to contributing to
@CrisisGroup
's analysis, and to its broader mission to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict.
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My latest for
@CrisisGroup
: Salafi-jihadism is a specific thing, and one that has changed dramatically in recent years. Raising alarms over hundreds of thousands of dubiously defined "jihadists" will only yield ill-considered and counterproductive policy.
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New message from U.S. Embassy Amman to southern rebels: Make your own decision, but “you should not base your decision on the assumption or expectation of military intervention by us.”
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Beard stuffed into a balaclava makes your head look like a big peanut
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It’s not hard-nosed bargaining or
#Winning
if your foreign interlocutors – allies and adversaries alike – decide you’re such an unreasonable jerk that it’s not worth talking to you:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled his Europe trip at the last minute after Luxembourg's foreign minister and top European Union officials declined to meet him, European diplomats and other people familiar with the matter said
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This gets at an asymmetry between the U.S. and its regional adversaries that advantages the latter, and regularly frustrates U.S. efforts to establish deterrence: these groups are weaker, but they have a sky-high pain tolerance.
They’re from here! They have people ready to die!
If you’re a superpower that can’t suffer an average rate of one dead soldier per 38 days of intense regional conflict without behaving like you’ve arrived at a 9/11-type decision point, maybe massive military entanglements in the Middle East are not for you?
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NYT’s “Welp, public opinion is split, no good options for Biden” framing seems wrong to me.
Yes, most Republicans want the war to continue. But independents do not, and Democrats overwhelmingly do not!
Who does Biden expect to vote for him next year?
"That split appears to leave the president with few politically palatable options."
He should choose the option that upholds human rights and international law, which is what he promised during his campaign. Support a ceasefire.
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Firqat al-Hamzah was among the beneficiaries of the U.S. T&E effort – the DoD program, not even the covert CIA one.
Another video filmed by a Syrian mercenary geolocated to Azerbaijan by
@AKMcKeever
The mercenary identifies himself as a member of the Turkish-backed Hamza Division, Farouq Brigade, a group led by Abu Zaid. He brags about the corpses of the Armenian "pigs"
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Syria’s most advanced, threatening air defense systems are Russian-operated, and Israel enters Syrian airspace with advance notification to Russia, per the two countries’ standing agreement. Russia tolerates Israeli action as long as it doesn’t threaten Russia’s Syrian ally.
Remember when Obama said Syria’s air defenses presented too great a risk for US fighter jets. Well, Russia’s S-300 hasn’t stopped Israel from stomping on Iran in Syria.
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This probably ought to be a scandal: Syrian rebel whose faction (51st Brigade) received overt train-and-equip assistance from the Pentagon threatens to fight U.S. forces in Manbij alongside Turkish military, promulgates anti-American propaganda:
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“Lulz, see you later, assassinated Iranian civilian scientist” seems like one of those things that probably goes over better in a weird DM group than out in the world, in more normal company
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My latest for
@WarOnTheRocks
:
Don't be fooled by sanctions proponents' moralizing: Burying Syria under U.S. sanctions for a policy aim that is unreal while those sanctions do civilian collateral damage that is very real is gross and wrong:
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Why is the culpability and legal accountability of foreign ISIS members who came to do terrible things in Syria and Iraq being discussed only in terms of their countries of origin? Why is that the reference point, instead of the countries whose people they murdered and abused?
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Jeez, what a story. ISIS explosives expert defects, flees to Turkey, joins FSA, dies defusing ISIS IEDs in north Aleppo.
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New: Whatever else Syrian rebels were, whatever the reasons to back them – they weren't a "counter-terrorism force."
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Iraqi resistance coordinating body says that if Israel follows through with threatened offensive on Lebanon, Iraqi factions will treat U.S. targets in Iraq and across the region as legitimate targets:
New statement from Kata’ib Hizb Allah: "The Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee Met and Decided That If the Zionists Carry Out Their Threats Against Lebanon, the Pace and Type of Operations Against Them and the U.S. Will Escalate In Iraq & the Region"
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Understandable that focus now is on Elizabeth Tsurkov’s safety.
But also remember that she not only put herself at risk, but also put everyone she dealt with in Iraq (and Lebanon, apparently) in legal jeopardy and real danger.
Full extent of fallout for locals still unclear.
Iraqi parliament passes by consensus expansive law criminalizing normalization with Israel (including person-to-person contacts and online interactions), with penalties up to and including death:
Text:
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Pointing to the multiple causes of privation and hunger in Syria can sometimes seem like a way to camouflage the one cause that interested Western governments are actually able to affect: sanctions.
The growing incidence of hunger among Syrians is the result of the regime's decision to destroy the country to keep Assad in power, the Lebanese banking crisis, endemic corruption, COVID-19 economic slowdown & Western sanctions
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Highly recommended: Aaron Faust’s “The Ba’thification of Iraq,” on the Ba’ath’s program to control every level of Iraqi society, and to reorient and mobilize society’s constituent parts toward regime ends:
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Actually an incredible burn of Joe Biden by bin Laden.
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Encouraging step: As part of broader review of U.S. sanctions' impacts on COVID-19 pandemic response, U.S. Treasury issues general licenses for transactions and activities related to COVID-19 relief to Iran, Syria and Venezuela:
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This here is bananas:
What do people think it actually means to "destroy" a group like Kataib Hizbullah?
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U.S. officials reportedly had to tell their Israeli counterparts that there's no such thing as a "limited" invasion of southern Lebanon that avoids a major escalation, because of course there isn't, you absolute goons:
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You are Israeli
Your involvement on Lebanon is not welcome
And please stop trying to do fun Twitter bants with Lebanese who face legal risk if they talk back
@AbuJamajem
Given that Hezbollah's involvement in drug manufacture & smuggling is well-documented, I wonder what made you think this tweet was appropriate. Is it my nationality? If so, American analysts (you included) shouldn't be commenting on AQ, which killed thousands of Americans.
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My new report for
@TCFdotorg
: Syrians are hungry, in unprecedented numbers – WFP reports nearly 60 percent of the country's population is food insecure. So what's behind Syria's hunger crisis? And what can U.S. and other Western policymakers do about it?
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People are understandably seized with the point on "voluntary" (asterisk asterisk asterisk) emigration in Likud lawmaker Danny Danon's mooted plan for Gaza, but point five sounds like dividing Gaza into internationally supervised reeducation camps:
Recently there is a growing international discourse on the post-war scenario, with various suggestions being made, many of which are dangerous to the state of Israel. To address this, I have published a 5-point plan in Newsweek magazine for the day after our definitive triumph
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Totally absurd if the Biden administration is considering airdropping aid into Gaza:
The United States did this for people on Mount Sinjar who were surrounded by ISIS. Gazans are cut off by the Israelis, whom we continue to support!
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So maybe next time don’t listen to the people who said the U.S.’s killing of Qassem Suleimani would somehow “restore deterrence,” or that Iran would be cowed into inaction by the threat of overwhelming U.S. force.
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Not only is this not true, in either Iraq or Lebanon; but additionally, attempts by Americans to glom onto these protests and recast them as basically anti-Iranian actually work against progress, by freaking out Iran-friendly Iraqis and Lebanese who need to be part of a solution.
Millions of Lebanese & Iraqis are on the streets protesting against illegal occupation of their countries by the Islamic Republic, and its support for their corrupt political elites. Iranians on the streets once again against illegal occupation of Iran by the Islamic Republic.
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"Nobody asked you" encapsulates what may be the Western policy establishment's greatest analytical failure over the course of Syria's war – the idea that the Assad-led Syrian system was مفعول به, an object to be acted upon, without independent agency in its own war for survival.
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"More than anyone" – didn't ISIS commit genocide against the Yezidis?
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My latest, for
@WarOnTheRocks
: What global threat does a "de-territorialized" Islamic State pose, post-"caliphate"? A detailed look at planned attacks in Lebanon last year can help demystify the group's non-territorial external operations capability:
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Map of Idlib's de-escalation zone, from
@CrisisGroup
's Monday briefing:
All eyes now on today's meeting of Astana guarantors Iran, Turkey and Russia in Tehran.
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My latest: Turkey's intervention in Syria's northwest is, as best as I can tell, something deeply unattractive – a risky, unpalatable deal with Idlib's jihadists. It may also be only way to avert a battle that would be disastrous for millions of civilians.
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So, huh, someone made an account that translates Trump's tweets about the Islamic/Arab world into Arabic.
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Would be interested to know how progressive
@RepBarbaraLee
squares her participation in this (good) Venezuela letter – which criticizes sanctions' indiscriminate impacts – with her co-sponsorship of this (bad) new Syria sanctions bill:
RM
@RepGregoryMeeks
@JoaquinCastroTX
@RepMcGovern
@RepBarbaraLee
lead letter with colleagues calling on
@POTUS
to prioritize avenues for constructive engagement with
#Venezuela
on democracy, human rights & diplomatic relations.
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Not to suggest these governments are benign, but there are probably limits to how much they can improve the lives of suffering Iranians and Venezuelans after you’ve unleashed the U.S.’s full political and economic power to make those Iranians’ and Venezuelans’ lives worse.
In other words nothing that will improve the lives of suffering Iranians and Venezuelans.
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Following Abu Ali al-Askari post on Telegram saying Iraqis prepared to arm "the Islamic Resistance in Jordan" against Israel, "Iraqi resistance sources" tell
@AlakhbarNews
'
@fakar_fathel
that Iraqi factions have already connected with Jordanian resistance:
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New from
@CrisisGroup
: Our report on what‘s left of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the risk of the group's resurgence – a risk that is newly acute as Turkey launches a military intervention into northeast Syria that could shake both countries:
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.
@nytimes
’
@liamstack
,
@RajaAbdulrahim
and
@arijetalajka
on the Israeli military’s humiliating and degrading treatment of these Gazan civilians:
For the recently initiated, incensed at images of detained Palestinian men in Gaza stripped down of their clothes, please understand this isn’t done to humiliate. It’s an act of protection — not just for
@IDF
but civilians, from this well-established Hamas/PIJ tactic. 2/2
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1. On
@CSIS
’s latest report on Salafi-jihadist militancy globally () and the alarming headlines it’s inspired about multiplying jihadists (), I’m unconvinced – both by the numbers, and what they can usefully tell us.
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Another A+ example of this incoherence: The U.S. pronouncing, “the Syrian government must take action to save lives”:
Which “Syrian government” is that? The one you’re trying to starve into non-existence, but which still governs most Syrians inside Syria?
Totally predictable that a state like this, when starved of resources, would prioritize the coercive parts we don't like over the distributive parts we do like.
Economic pressure on Damascus means that a government that already had a big, terrible stick can't afford carrots.
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.
@matthew_petti
on the Houthis' interdiction of Red Sea shipping as a sort of mirror-image version of "responsibility to protect" and the United States' unilateral sanctions:
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New from me: If America intervenes in Syria, U.S. action should be aimed narrowly at deterrence – not regime change.
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"Informed source" to
@AlwatanSy
on Moscow meeting:
• Agreed on full Turkish withdrawal, and Turkey affirmed respect for Syria's sovereignty, integrity;
• Discussed implementing March 2020 agreement on M4;
• Agreed PKK main threat to Syria and Turkey.
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On America’s seeming policy flip-flops in Syria: This isn’t the battleship of the U.S. government reversing course, one day to the next. It’s blocs inside USG pushing against each other – in public – with an executive who’s only intermittently engaged, but still has final say.
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For an indication of the hierarchy of U.S. relationships in and around Syria: For as long as I’ve worked on this, if you talk to U.S. officials who are speaking carefully, they don’t call the SDF “allies.” The SDF are “partners.” The Turks are “allies.”
As to the status of our Kurdish allies, the Administration has yet to tell the American people what happens to the Kurds - who fought so hard for us - when we leave.
Is there a plan to protect our allies post withdrawal?
Need answers now.
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New “Wilayat al-Sham” video – the latest in a series of renewed pledges of allegiance by Islamic State “provinces” worldwide – seems to show how far aboveground the group can operate in Syria’s central Badiyah, without the U.S.-led Coalition overhead.
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"No no, you don't understand: in America, an attempt by a partisan mob to terrorize legislators and violently overturn a democratic election that is *ultimately quelled and unsuccessful* is actually part of the process"
"Not like some banana republic"
🇺🇸
In the wake of yesterday’s reprehensible attack on the U.S. Capitol, many prominent people – including journalists and politicians – have likened the United States to a banana republic. The slander reveals a faulty understanding of banana republics and of democracy in America.
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Resident of Saraqib, Idlib: Just nuke us and get it over with.
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.
@nytimes
's
@SarahAlmukhtar
, "Most Chemical Attacks in Syria Get Little Attention. Here Are 34 Confirmed Cases." Includes my thoughts.
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Pretty sure
@USTreasury
just sanctioned (L, ) a "Vetted Syrian Opposition Group" to which
@DeptofDefense
previously paid more than $8 million in stipends (R, ).
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New from me, for
@TCFdotorg
: "America Had Already Lost Its Covert War in Syria—Now It’s Official."
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Our latest at
@CrisisGroup
: On the seemingly imminent Syrian military offensive on Idlib and what can be done to convince Damascus and its allies – Russia, in particular – that a bloody, politically costly victory in Idlib would be a mistake.
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.
@kshaheen
talks to rebels who can see the strings on them, but don't have much choice but to get yanked around:
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My latest for
@CrisisGroup
: When analyzing ISIS's capabilities in Iraq, it's a mistake to get hung up on comparisons to its 2014-15 apex, or the immediate lead-up. ISIS "resurgence" will probably look less like its "caliphate" – more like its 1 May attack.
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Watched that BBC Captagon doc and got to the part where BBC rode along with Idlib "border guards" and uncritically relayed their allegations that "the criminal regime" and 4th Division are behind the Captagon trade without mentioning those guys are HTS:
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In statement, Al-Qaeda's General Command hails U.S.-Taliban agreement on U.S. exit from Afghanistan – "a manifest victory" and "a humiliating defeat for America and its allies" – and implicitly instructs the global jihadist movement on how to understand the deal.
• THREAD •
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Also, generally: Beware Western Syria commentators who, as there’s seemingly less to usefully add about Syria policy, pivot instead to advocating some ill-defined, aggro anti-Iran agenda regionally:
“Lulz, see you later, assassinated Iranian civilian scientist” seems like one of those things that probably goes over better in a weird DM group than out in the world, in more normal company
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What if we just agree to skip ahead a few years, to when everyone regrets levying crushing sanctions on Syria?
You know, after they've achieved no useful policy end, and have immiserated Syrians across the country who have no meaningful say in the character of the Syrian regime.
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Former Syria envoy Michael Ratney examines U.S. stabilization efforts through the particularities of the Syrian conflict, in which – in contrast to other recent and formative stabilization efforts – the U.S. was stabilizing in opposition to the state:
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Was it really that someone "seized" on the Palestinian issue, symbolically? Or more that Hamas was capable, practically, of beating and invalidating Israel's model of unilateral security, in a way that no one – Israelis included ��� seems to have anticipated?
In Victoria Nuland’s exit interview with
@nahaltoosi
, she makes an admission that senior Biden aides still won’t accept when reflecting on their Middle East policy: their enthusiasm to embrace Trump’s Abraham Accords model as a “cure-all” was a mistake
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Sure, Putin can try to conspicuously cut Assad down to size, either yesterday in Hmeimim or last month in Sochi.
But when Assad refuses to countenance a Russian-brokered political settlement and rides the Russian military to victory on Assad’s own terms, who’s the boss then?
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The myth of Western "non-intervention" in Syria is so weirdly resilient
The news that a European country deported refugees back to a country where they are not safe (refoulement) used to be a big deal. The Syrian war has made a laughing stock of international law norms. Non-intervention has a price.
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As ISIS loses Tal Abyad, Ahrar commander asks what exactly ISIS was expecting when it picked a fight with the world.
http://t.co/miUS23lnsa
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What if people advocating war stuff for a decade just have to look at pictures of Syria, to remind them of that one time they visited
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New on
@WarOnTheRocks
, my Idlib policy: This is nuts, enough already – we need to help these people get to safety.
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2. Baghdadi's death seems unlikely to have an immediate impact on the group's operations.
U.S. officials told
@CrisisGroup
they believed the Islamic State's top leadership was issuing broad guidance to the global organization, not day-to-day direction:
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If U.S. sanctions snare the United States’ Emirati ally for re-investing in Damascus – a move actually meant partly to dilute Iranian influence in Syria, made by an implacable foe of Iran – that would seem strategically backward.
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And Qatar is as dangerous as North Korea, because I guess this Bannon-Saudi-Emirati alignment is a thing in the real world that we live in.
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Must-read:
@972mag
's
@yuval_abraham
on the wide-open targeting procedures that have led the Israeli military to kill thousands and thousands of civilians in Gaza:
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Deterrence restored 😎
Nailed it
So nine months after America deterred Iran by assassinating Qassem Suleimani, America may close its massive embassy in Baghdad because of threats from Iran
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Assad visited Abu Dhabi less than two months ago, where he met with the leader you personally gave the
@WashInstitute
’s Scholar-Statesman Award months previous:
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For countries aiming to check Iran’s influence, there’s more than one approach to Syria:
• Write off Damascus as hopelessly Iran-owned and oppose it, or
• Co-invest in Damascus to diversify its base of support and reduce its reliance on Iran, strengthening an independent Syria.
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Squads of can-do Lebanese youth volunteers cleaning out wrecked neighborhood apartments:
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New from me for
@WarOnTheRocks
, on how the Syrian war's various parts fit together: "The Signal in Syria's Noise":
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I've had U.S. officials tell me they like working with YPG because when YPG run up against ISIS, they keep going.
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