Joel Rayburn
@joel_rayburn
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Founder/Director, American Center for Levant Studies. Also Hudson Institute. Former diplomat & military officer. Views expressed here are my own.
Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
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Repeated Israeli strikes to disable Damascus and Aleppo airports are, to my mind, a strong indication that 1) the Iranian regime is trying to move strategic weapons to or via Syria to open a northern front and 2) the Israelis are determined to preempt that.
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Bashar al Assad's fate will be determined in Kherson and Crimea. If Vladimir Putin loses his war in Ukraine, eventually Bashar al Assad will lose his war in Syria. If Putin falls from power in Moscow, Assad will fall from power in Damascus.
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When the day comes that the Iranian people free themselves from the chains Ali Khamenei & his Islamic Republic have placed on them, the world is going to see a joyous volcanic eruption of Iranian creativity & culture that has been suppressed for so long. It will change the world.
Dancer
#MortezaGhaderi
was arrested shorty after performing this routine in front of the aptly named Azadi (freedom) Tower in Tehran. #مرتضی_قادری
#MahsaAmini
#IranProtests
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Bizarre that any western power would consider recognizing a Taliban government as the legitimate authority in Kabul. On what basis of international law? It’s a Pakistani-backed regime change by force. Placing women & Hazaras in the TB “cabinet” wouldn’t change its illegality. 1/3
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خلال فترة ولايتي، أستطعت أن أشهد على كل الجرائم التي ارتكبت بحق الشعب السوري. لقد كانت الأدلة على جرائم النظام ساحقة. سأقف دوما مع الشعب السوري وأنا واثق من أن العدالة ستتحقق.
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To put the Ukrainian gains into perspective, in three days they’ve recaptured an area (8370 sq km) almost as big as Cyprus (9251 sq km) and bigger than Delaware (6446 sq km).
According to this map by the Ru MoD, the RuAF have retreated to behind the Oskil river. This would mean Ukraine just liberated 8370 km2.
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Too much international silence on the situation in Deraa, Syria, where there are many reports the Assad regime aims to forcibly displace thousands of people who were under the protection of the Russians’ so-called reconciliation agreements. Forcible displacement is a war crime.
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هنا من واشنطن، نرى وبوضوح أن نظام الأسد لن يستطيع التهرب من ضغوطات قانون قيصر ولن يستطيع تجاوز العزلة الدولية.
رسالتي إلى النظام السوري في نهاية مهمتي:
لم يعد لكم مكان تذهبون إليه، ليس لديكم خيارا سوى الخضوع ل 2254.
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منذ أربع سنوات، قام بشار الأسد بقصف #خان_شيخون بغاز السارين وقتل 93 سوري. إن هذه الحقبة المريرة تذكر العالم كله بوجوب إستمرار عزل نظام الأسد حتى تتحقق المساءلة الكاملة عن كل الفظائع التي عانى منها الشعب السوري على يد الأسد.
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Intelligence services everywhere should examine closely, and publicly explain, why they ALL vastly overestimated Russian military capability over the past 15 years. Because that overestimation has led to some very bad appeasement policies on several continents.
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رسالتي إلى أصدقائي السوريين لا تقلقوا لأن أمريكا قوية والشعب الأمريكي متوحد وسيكون دوما هناك انتقال سلس للسلطة في الولايات المتحدة. إنه شيء نفتخر ونسعد به. وأنا أتمنى وأدعو الله لكل أصدقائي السوريين وواثق أنه سيحصل يوما ما أن يكون لديكم ذات السعادة والفخر
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Imagine, some producer at Sky News said, “Hey, let’s invite genocidal dictator Bashar al Assad’s pathological liar spin doctor onto our program to talk about saving the Syrian people.”
Adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban: 'All we want from Europe and the US is to lift sanctions - if they lift sanctions the Syrian people will be able to take care of their country'
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
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Sorry, not believable. At no time in his 34-year rule has Ali Khamenei wanted a “broader conflict” with the United States. That’s why he uses proxies. And it’s why whenever the US retaliates strongly against him, he backs off.
Iran's goal is to draw the US into a broader conflict: senior intelligence source tells me.
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The Middle East crisis is dangerous but not complicated. It’s simply the result of the U.S & allied failure to deter Khamenei & his Revolutionary Guards. There’s no need to panic or to overcomplicate matters: just do what’s necessary to restore deterrence.
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Prediction: the states of Russia, China, and Iran will each collapse within the next decade. Here’s why I think so:
🧵
1/11
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إلى كل السوريين:
لن أتوقف عن العمل من أجل العدالة والسلام لكم ولن يتوقف زملائي في وزارة الخارجية. نحن كـلنــــــا متفقون أن مصالح وقيم الولايات المتحدة تدعو إلى نوع مختلف من الحكومة في دمشق، حكومة تعامل شعبها والعالم كله بشكل مختلف.
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Dangerous situation on Turkey-Syria border:
* Turkish airstrikes in Kobane & elsewhere in N. Syria
* Ankara retaliating for 13 Nov Istanbul bombing it says was done by Syria-based YPG
* With key US interests at stake, this crisis demands more USG attention than it’s getting.
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The UN Secretary General is all smiles meeting in Baghdad with the grinning terrorist Qais Khazali, who killed hundreds of US troops, murdered 1000s of Iraqis, & routinely bombards US personnel in Iraq & Syria.
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لقد وصل نظام الأسد لحدوده وما سيحصل الآن هو انهيار أكبر ضمن صفوفه، أسبوع وراء أسبوع وشهر وراء شهر.
إذا تمكن الشعب السوري من البقاء متحـــــدا، حتما ستتاح له الفرصة لتشكيل مستقبله، ربما في وقت أقرب مما يعتقد الكثير من الناس.
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First step down the road to being sanctioned. The US doesn’t like to sanction allies, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, as we saw in Aug 2017 and Oct 2019.
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Over the past 5-6 days the Ukrainians have captured enough Russian tanks & combat vehicles to outfit multiple brigades. 20+ tanks visually confirmed captured on Sunday alone. Many of the Russian losses will go straight into the Ukrainian order of battle. What a fiasco for Moscow.
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Bombshell audio leaks coming out of Baghdad exposing corruption at Iraq’s Central Bank: $8 BILLION diverted to Iran-backed militias, among other crimes. Acting CBI head Ali Al Allaq is coming to DC next week—US officials should demand answers for why Iraqi $ went to Iran. 1/4
الجزء الأول من التسريب الذي يجمع احمد الچلبي مع علي العلاق محافظ البنك المركزي و اللواء حسين الشمري مدير مكافحة الجريمة المنظمة
التسريب حول ارتفاع الدولار و تهريبه خارج العراق و من هم المتورطين
✋لمشاهدة التسريب كاملاً اضغط على الرابط
#حرب_التسريبات
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THREAD:
Assad's economy & state are collapsing:
- No fuel.
- No electricity.
- No commerce.
- Streets empty.
- Assad just prints money to pay salaries/bills. Result: inflation making basic needs unaffordable.
- Pound crashed to 5,900 per $, making imports impossible.
1/6
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WARNING: The Turkey-PKK conflict needs to move way up the USG’s priority list. The Biden admin must send an envoy to the region ASAP to deal with this crisis before it explodes again. Washington always prefers to ignore this conflict, but that approach isn’t sustainable anymore.
Turkey is blaming the PKK for the deadly bombing in Istanbul
Our
@ariel_margalith
asks security analyst
@OmerOzkizilcik
— Could Ankara launch a retaliatory offensive in northern Syria as it did following a wave of violence in 2015-2017?
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Folks, pay attention to what is happening in Suwaydah in southern Syria. Big protests against the Assad regime in this Druze city; Assad forces fired on the crowd, killing a protester; the city is enraged. More to come.
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It’s so heartwarming to see Assad addressing the Arab Summit as his First Lady of Syria, Luna Shibl, looks on with pride.
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If I were in the Biden administration’s shoes tonight, I would announce that I’m immediately starting a program to train Kurdistan Regional Government forces to operate the Patriot anti-missile system.
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It also demonstrates that if the Israelis were to decide that Assad must pay the price for hosting Khamenei & Nasrallah’s northern front, the Israeli air force can take out any target (and anyone) in Damascus just as easily as they can take out the airport.
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General Raymond T. Odierno. Deepest condolences to his family for the loss they have suffered. And no words can express what the Army family is feeling today. We have lost our Chief.
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None of what is happening in the Middle East today had to happen. The US since 2021 has allowed the Iranian regime to run riot and the Iranians have deliberately set the region on fire. This is the absolutely predictable consequence of willful American negligence and weakness.
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This cannot be allowed to go on. These are acts of war by the Supreme Leader and his regime.
Large explosions in Erbil with suspected Iranian drone/ballistic missile strike on US military base
#Kurdistan
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People are learning in real time that Ivy league fellowships & "Foreign Affairs" articles don't translate into foreign policy acumen. Many lionized Biden's team in 2021. Now they've delivered 3 straight years of foreign policy failures. They don't understand how the world works.
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Iraq is a big, strategically important country of about 45M people and GDP of almost $300B (per IMF). The US should’ve built a coherent policy to try to keep the country stable and out of IRGC hands. But Washington failed to do so, and now we see the consequences.
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To the Afghan, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Iranian people: the world looks dark now, but this is not the end. What you are seeing from the US right now is not the real America, and it’s not what Americans want for us or for our friends. A change will come.
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Many in the U.S. are expressing shock over
@POTUS
Biden’s threat of an arms embargo on Israel. Personally, I’m not surprised. This is the logical conclusion of his policy toward Israel and Iran since he took office. It’s built on Obama’s policy of appeasing Tehran via the JCPOA.
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During my tenure, I was able to witness all the crimes committed against the Syrian people. The evidence of the regime's crimes is overwhelming. I will always stand with the Syrian people. And I am confident that justice will be served.
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Based on my experience with the Syrian conflict, I always assume every Russian cease fire announcement is just a ruse.
I spent years working on ceasefires in Syria, which involved Russia.
Russia bent, broke, and outright demolished ceasefires with impunity.
We should treat any ceasefire announcements by Russia with that history firmly in mind.
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Looking at listings of earthquakes to hit Turkey and Syria, I can’t find something stronger than the 7.8 magnitude quake that just happened. And it was followed by a strong 6.8 aftershock. The 1999 quake that killed 17,000 was 7.4. This is very bad.
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So Ayman Zawahiri was in Kabul, even though we were told for years the Taliban had broken ties with Al Qaeda? I guess he just wandered up to Kabul incognito, then, unbeknownst to the Taliban and to Pakistan’s ISI.
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Attacking civilian targets to terrorize them and cause mass casualties is General Surovikin’s way of war. And it’s no mistake; it’s exactly what Putin hired Surovikin to do, just as the General did so many times in Syria.
It is a deliberate decision to launch the strikes when Kyiv’s streets are at their busiest. Just as it is a deliberate decision to strike Zaporizhzhia residential buildings at night, killing Ukrainians in their beds.
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Mr. President
@POTUS
, you failed to prevent this from happening. Your policy of appeasing Tehran from your first week in office led the Supreme Leader to conclude he can attack Americans with impunity. You must hold the Iranian regime accountable, now.
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Iran is a country ready to explode. Westerners haven’t noticed, but popular anger against the regime is sky high. The violent scenes coming through are astonishing. People want to tear the regime limb from limb. No one can say when it will happen, but any event could trigger it.
“Noble Voria Ghafouri, you speak for our country.”
Soccer fans in Aryamehr (Azadi) stadium shout their support for prominent footballer Voria Ghafouri after he criticizes the regime.
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It is impossible to pressure the Iranian regime to stop oppressing the Iranian people and stop destabilizing the region while simultaneously pursuing a sanctions relief deal with that same regime.
As I said on
@BBCHARDtalk
, we can and must support the Iranian people's fundamental rights and at the same time pursue our national interests in countering Iran's other provocative and destabilizing policies.
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هذا اليوم هو آخر يوم لي في وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية، تشرفت بالخدمة كمبعوث لسوريا ونائب لمساعد وزير الخارجية لمدة عامين ونصف.
إني فخور جدا بأكثر من مئة شخص يعملون في ثلاثة قارات حول العالم وهم ملتزمون بقلبوهم وأرواحهم نحو تنفيذ سياسيتنا في سوريا وأعرف أن المهمة ستستمر بدوني أيضا.
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This is the U.S. Congress’s response to the normalization of Assad.
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4 years ago, Bashar al-Assad attacked
#Khan_Sheikhoun
with sarin gas, killing 90+ Syrians. This grim milestone reminds the world why the Assad regime’s isolation must continue until there is full accountability for the atrocities the Syrian people have suffered at Assad’s hands.
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Such a disingenuous statement by
@JakeSullivan46
. US mil leaders were given an absurd countrywide troop cap of 600 to 700 troops by
@POTUS
and then had to say, well, we can’t hold both Bagram and Kabul airport with that, so we guess we’ll have to focus only on Kabul.
Jake Sullivan says top military brass chose which airport to launch evacuation from Afghanistan. “Their advice was to close Bagram and focus on Kabul.”
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The Arab capitals’ normalization of Assad without any preconditions is a policy that is doomed to fail, just as it did after he killed Rafiq Hariri. What we have to determine is what the real policy should be after normalization collapses. 1/
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Eleven years is enough time to conclude that Assad cannot win the war he is prosecuting against the Syrian people.
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Syrians I spoke to were not grateful for President Obama’s retrospective regret about 2009. They believe the US failure to support the Green Revolution was a major factor that emboldened Assad & his Iranian allies to murder hundreds of thousands of Syrians from 2011 to now.
Kudos to
@BarackObama
for admitting his mistake in 2009 and making it clear that the United States needs to support the
#IranRevolution
#IranProtests2022
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العالم كله يرى أن نظام الأسد سقط من خلال سعيه دائما للحل العسكري بينما الحل الوحيد في سوريا هو سياسي يلتزم بقرارات الأمم المتحدة 2254 بما يتضمن انتقال سياسي في دمشق وليـــــــــــس هناك حل آخر.
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Today Ray Odierno, one of America’s greatest generals, was laid to rest in Arlington cemetery. Odierno was the epitome of an American: family emigrated from Italy in 1890; he grew up a star athlete in NJ; played football & baseball at West Point. 1/5
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To all Syrians: I will never stop working for justice and peace for you. Nor will my
@StateDept
colleagues stop. We all agree: America’s interests and values BOTH call for a different kind of government in Damascus, one that treats its people and the world very differently.
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Too many otherwise rational people in DC asserting that U.S. actions to stop the Iranian regime from killing Americans will put us on a slippery slope to Vietnam redux or WW3. Wrong. Those kinds of wars become far more likely if we don’t stop Tehran from killing Americans.
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Iranian state media today admitted & then quickly deleted the amazing admission that Iranian Amb to Yemen Irloo is same person as IRGC cdr Shahlai, who smuggled EFPs into Iraq, plotted with his American cousin to kill Saudi Amb Jubeir at Cafe Milano, & fired missiles at Riyadh.
IRNA has deleted the portion of its report that said Shahlai and Irlu were one and the same. Screenshot of original report is provided here for the record.
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The world should absorb the fact that:
- Assad can never win. He will never regain his strength.
- Syria will never be stable under his rule.
- The Syrian people will never stop opposing him.
Time to implement policies recognizing this. Anything else is unrealistic.
6/6
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Today the House of Representatives rejected, by a vote of 394 to 24, a proposal to lift US sanctions on Syria. The vote showed yet again that Congress will simply never relieve pressure on Assad. The Congressional pressure policy vs Assad is permanent.
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In Baghdad no one dares speak the truth. The Iraqi PM and spokesmen live fearfully under the thumb of the thuggish Kata’ib Hizballah. They know very well KH/IRGC, not the Americans, are the biggest threat to themselves & the country. They employ Orwellian language to stay safe.
American forces has repeated irresponsibly all the actions that would undermine the established understandings and hinder the initiation of bilateral dialogue. It conducted a blatant assassination through an airstrike in the heart of a residential neighborhood in the capital,
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Last week the US House voted 389-32 for the “Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act.” Huge condemnation of Assad.
Few noticed, however, that the bill explicitly kills the “Arab gas pipeline” idea the Biden admin championed. The bill makes any such deal involving Assad illegal.
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On top of the catastrophe that is befalling 38 million Afghans, there are American and other western citizens with no clear way out of Afghanistan right now. The failure by U.S. leaders to plan to avert this disaster is simply astonishing.
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Do you ever notice how critics of US sanctions on the Assad regime never comment on any kind of injustice in Syria—except for the damage they falsely claim US sanctions are doing? These people couldn’t care less about mass murder, chem wpns, or detainees. They should be ignored.
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No coincidence Arab countries are normalizing with Assad just days after the Biden admin misguidedly weakened Syria sanctions. Thankfully, today the House will send a better signal via a bipartisan resolution opposing lifting sanctions on Assad & calling for a mechanism to stop
A delegation of senior Arab lawmakers, headed by Iraq's parliament speaker, met Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Sunday, showing further signs of a thaw in ties that were largely cut over a decade ago
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17 years ago today Rafiq Hariri and 21 other Lebanese were assassinated in Beirut. The day will come when the Assad regime is put on trial alongside Hizballah for this crime orchestrated by Bashar, Nasrallah, & Soleimani and carried out by Mughniyeh, Badradin, & Rustum Ghazaleh.
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It was
@SecBlinken
’s policy that compelled those Afghans to have to flee their own country in the first place. It is not something to be proud of.
As I said in my testimony today, Americans continue to welcome families from Afghanistan into our communities, helping them resettle as they start new lives. And that’s something to be proud of.
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For some, whatever the issue in Syria, their answer is always to stop pressuring Assad/Iran. In article after article they argue now is the time for the U.S. to exit & let Assad & Iran have their way. Slapping a "realism" label on defeatist appeasement doesn't make it realistic.
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Regional attempts to normalize Assad are doomed to fail. They will always be limited by America's permanent unwillingness to see Assad rehabilitated, as well as by Assad's permanent unwillingness to do the bare minimum the "normalizers" require to justify their appeasement.
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If the US and its allies deter Khamenei and the IRGC from their unchecked (so far) aggression, every other regional conflict will become solvable: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Tehran won’t stop waging war on Saudi Arabia, regardless of any agreement, & China won’t stop Tehran from doing so. HOWEVER. The very fact of the Beijing-brokered talks is an enormous slap to US influence, one the Biden & Obama admins have brought about.
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US Army Sergeant Ahmed Al Taie was unavailable for comment. Because Qais Khazali’s men kidnapped him, drove him to Iran, and murdered him. And then Qais spent 6 years trying to extort $$$ from his family before finally returning his remains in 2012. CC
@antonioguterres
The UN Secretary General is all smiles meeting in Baghdad with the grinning terrorist Qais Khazali, who killed hundreds of US troops, murdered 1000s of Iraqis, & routinely bombards US personnel in Iraq & Syria.
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Based on my anecdotal personal experience, I’m extremely sorry to say that Afghans who are on a US evacuee list have a very, very slim chance of getting into the airfield. Evacuees who are working with other nations such as UK, FR, GE, or others have a far better chance.
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Our indispensable NATO alliance with Turkey; our campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq; our cooperation with Turkey on Ukraine and other crises; our military presence in NE Syria and Iraq—all these US interests are at risk if this Turkey-PKK conflict can’t be resolved.
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There are many urgent problems to confront in Syria. In my view, our top two concerns are 1) to compel Assad to stop waging war against the Syrian people & leave power; and 2) to totally roll back the IRGC. For all other issues, I’m open to suggestions as to order of priority.
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Strong statement from
@SenTedCruz
on Brazil's outrageous decision to allow Iranian warships to dock at Rio--just 18 days after
@POTUS
hosted Lula in DC. Brazil is now enabling Tehran to threaten the Western Hemisphere on top of the threat they pose in the Middle East & Europe.
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تعازيّ لعائلة وزملاء عزيزنا لقمان سليم. لقد كان قائدا شجاعا بأفكاره، ليس لمليشيات، وبالتالي لا يمكن هزيمته أبدا. أعداؤه لا يعرفون حتى الآن أنهم قد خسروا بالفعل. لن يستطيعوا إيقاف رؤيته بلبنان حر لجميع الأطفال اللبنانيين. ستعيش رؤيته طويلا بعد أن يتحول أعداؤه إلى تراب.
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For USA & Europe, there will still be dangers, but the future looks bright compared to that of the China-Russia-Iran alliance. The latter’s client states Syria, North Korea, Belarus, Hizballah, etc have no future at all. They’ll collapse with their patrons. Good riddance.
11/11
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Qais Khazali had five US soldiers executed in Karbala in January 2007. Has the US statute of limitations expired for that crime?
I really don't understand this!
The
#US
SD & US Treasury D both designated
#Iran
's proxy in
#Iraq
,
#AAH
, as a foreign
#terrorist
organization. Head of AAH is designated global terrorist.
Yet, US officials, US think tanks, and US experts participate normally in the same event!
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Dear Bashar, if this is what you call “bypassing Caesar,” then you’re doing it wrong.
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It’s past time for senior US officials such as
@secblinken
to discard the fiction that the Iranian regime isn’t directing Hamas, Hizballah, Iraqi Hashd, & Houthis. They are. Any child can see it. Saying otherwise is nothing but a dishonest cover for a failed appeasement policy.
Breaking: Iran helped plan Hamas’s attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting last Monday
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Putin's people claim Ukraine is preparing to attack itself with a dirty bomb so as to falsely blame Russia. This is the same game Moscow played whenever Assad used chemical weapons in Syria: claim the Syrian opposition bombed themselves so as to implicate Assad.
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So what should be done?
- Deprive Assad of $ to run his security state & crack down on dissent. Crush his Captagon revenues. Reinstate Caesar Act enforcement.
- Warn of consequences for crackdown. Expand prosecutions. Create international tribunal.
- Stop all normalization.
5/6
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Based on the deep military weakness Russia is displaying, Russia should be afraid of escalation with practically ANYBODY.
Why are we so afraid of escalation with Russia? Russia should be afraid of escalation with us.
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Good thing the Houthis and the IRGC can’t read twitter. Otherwise they’d get advance warning, and the US strike would wind up hitting only empty buildings and being insufficient to restore deterrence.
A senior Israeli official tells me a U.S. strike against the Houthis in Yemen is close
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Big escalation by the Iranian-backed militias in Baghdad over the past 48 hours as they directly challenge PM Kadhimi’s government by force. There’s no way this would be happening other than at the direction of Ismail Qaani and the IRGC-Quds Force.
Residence of the Iraq Prime minster Mustafa Al-Kadhemi was targeted tonight in the Green Zone, possible with a drone.
#Iraq
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In announcing his absurdly implausible 95% election “victory,” Assad is simply reconfirming his own illegitimacy. No one in the U.S. is fooled. All the Syria experts in DC predicted a fake election, and the only surprise is that Assad decided to claim such a ridiculous number.
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Today is my last at the State Department. I’m honored to have served as Syria envoy and DAS for 2.5 years. I’m so proud of State’s Syria team, 100+ amazing professionals worldwide, all committed heart and soul to our Syria policy. I know they will continue the mission without me.
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If the Iranian regime can sanction UK government ministers, explain to me again why the UK government can’t sanction the IRGC?????
UK Defense Secretary
@grantshapps
who was recently sanctioned by Iran's Foreign Ministry: "Iran is responsible for much regional instability thru' their illegal network of terror proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah & Houthis + Iran linked militias + their direct attacks. So, if Iran thinks
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Calm down. A single drone attack against a single warehouse in Isfahan ≠ World War 3. Breathe.
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BUT-
- Destitute Syrians see Assad security/militias still enjoying fuel/resources.
- Also see Assad mafia's lives of luxury, dining at restaurants/clubs where 1 meal costs more than avg annual salary.
- Syrians also know Assad & mafia are making $ billions in Captagon trade.
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By not enforcing oil sanctions, not responding forcefully to IRGC attacks on US troops, and issuing obtuse statements that disconnect the dots across the region, the Biden admin is creating the impression they intend to return to “de-escalation” talks with the Iranian regime
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“And President Raisi, may I present Luna Shibl.”
“Oh, Madame First Lady, I’ve heard so much about you!”
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Hey, Luna Shibl: since you’re taking a break from chewing gum to delve into military matters, here’s a little 2018 battle between the US and the Wagner Group you might want to study up on:
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- Blatant inequality & corruption are enraging Syrians, even regime loyalists.
- The wall of fear is coming down again. Desperation & anger combining to make Syrians fearless of regime crackdown, like 2011.
- Recent unrest in Druze city of Suwayda was a sign of more to come.
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People ask why the US/UK signalled tonight’s air strikes in advance. It’s presumably meant to give IRGC (& probably Hizballah) personnel in Yemen time to leave target areas & ensure no Iranian or Lebanese casualties, so the escalatory cycle ends.
BREAKING: Politico reports that the US and UK are carrying out strikes on Yemen with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands.
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Criticism of the abandonment of Bagram airbase is not just a technicality. We’re seeing the consequences of forcing a massive evacuation through, as a BBC guest just put it, “a one-runway airport in the middle of a city of 5M people.” There must be a reckoning for this decision.
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The Houthis are an IRGC-Quds Force sock puppet. There is ZERO chance the Houthis attacked a US target of their own volition. This was an Iranian regime attack on US forces.
It was the US military that fired at least some of the Patriots that intercepted ballistic missiles over Abu Dhabi last night. The Houthis claimed they were targeting the US airbase. A new twist in an alarming escalation that puts UAE on the front line
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So Hizballah fires an Iranian missile at a soccer field, killing and wounding dozens of kids, and the Biden team blames…Israel’s prime minister?
Do they have any blame left over for Nasrallah and Khamenei, maybe?
The Biden team had been concerned about this kind of mass casualty event that would escalate the conflict beyond the ongoing tit for tat cross border attack. The goal had been to secure a ceasefire in Gaza that would allow all regional militias to take a step back. The VP & POTUS
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Another of the Assad regime’s proven methods of having the Iranians “leave” Syria is for IRGC and Hizballah personnel to put on Syrian army uniforms and receive Syrian ID cards. Et Voila! Suddenly the Iranians are gone!
Iran-backed militia forces in Syria have started removing the Islamic Republic's flags from their bases, apparently upon the request of the Damascus government which has allegedly promised Arab countries that Iran-backed militias will exit Syria.
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For 20+ years the Iranian regime has been building a proxy army in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, & Yemen. No one should be surprised that they’re now unleashing it. They were always going to do so. It was naive to think otherwise—and worse yet to allow them the money to fund it.
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