... major energy players to gain access to Iran’s hydrocarbons.
Hence, Russia's assessment of the emerging environment in Iran should not be simplistic. On the one hand, a strong Tehran appears a promising ally in countering the Islamic threat in Syria and Iraq, but on the other, Western appetites for Iranian oil and gas may result in the emergence of a weighty rival in the European gas market.
Hence, Russia is in a position to offer Iran multifaceted military support with the prior coordination of steps ...
Dr. Glen Segell
(Fellow – The Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies,University of Haifa, Israel)
The Southern flank of Europe is the Mediterranean Sea. It is a small sea and many countries rely on the freedom of both sea and air traffic for their economy. On the one hand there was optimism that the Arab Spring would bring greater freedom for the individual in countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There was further optimism that the North African countries of Tunisia...
By Zhyldyz Oskonbaeva (RIEAS Senior Advisor & Eurasian Liaison)
On a number of levels, the situation between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the ethnic Kurds of Syria, Iraq and Turkey is creating a power shift that no one is discussing. In this article, I will explain why: 1) The Kurds have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve a political homeland; 2) Tehran's strategy of expanding Shia influence over the ...
Patrick Adams (Strategic Analyst & RIEAS Research Associate)
A victory for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria would have a wide range of economic, social and political consequences. Economically, there would be a significant and damaging effect on the world's oil supply. Socially, not only would Iraq and Syria be affected but any country with a ...
... on the territory of Iraq, many war crimes, mass executions of Iraqi and Syrian military, as well as genocide against adherents of different faiths
[5]
. The immediate goal of the organization is to create an Islamic Sunni state on the territory of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, governed by Sharia law. In the longer term, it plans to expand the country's borders to the “classical caliphate,” stretching from Spain to India.
Further pumping of weapons into an already highly explosive region is fraught ...
Quentin de Pimodan
(Author based in the Middle East)
Al Baghdadi's major strategic failure has been his choice of the Fertile Crescent as the region for the establishment of his Khilafa. His dream of reestablishing a Sunni caliphate with roots in Iraq and Syria will eventually be crushed by the field's realities and only exposes his own lack of knowledge about the region. Not that a Sunni leadership would be impossible to carry on the lands of the ancient Omayyad and Abbasid's caliphates,...
... Sahel.
How has the rise of the Islamic state influenced the situation in Iraq?
The rise of the Islamic State has severely aggravated the situation in Iraq. What other conclusion can we arrive at, if the area that the Islamic state controls today in Iraq and in Syria is more than the territory of Great Britain? Moreover, the Islamic State has managed to establish a certain level of order in the area under its control, revive economic life and gain the sympathies of the majority of the population, which it controls ...
... one well-known person, who cannot certainly be referred to as "a foreign policy bureaucrat."
It is not surprising that this expert proposes that Moscow solve the agonizing problem of the possible return home of fighters (who are battling in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, including as part of IS) by introducing a "severe" (does he mean using torture?) visa regime "with the countries of Central Asia and with Turkey as transit points for terrorists." As if this would prevent those ...
... by yet another political earthquake, raising the possibility of another Afghanistan located right in the heart of the Middle East. Within just a very small number of days, the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), known in Iraq and Syria for appalling atrocities and militant fanaticism, was able to occupy the two-million person city of Mosul, the second largest in Iraq, and vowed to march victoriously on Baghdad.
As of writing, the ISIL fully or partially controls Nineveh, Samarra ...
... positions of his friends, and alienate all neutrals while he was gradually winning the war, and at a time when UN chemical inspectors were in Damascus? The sceptic observer cannot help but remember the false intelligence on which the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was founded; Saddam Hussein did not in fact possess weapons of mass destruction. The parallel is inescapable. In May, Carla Del Ponte, leading member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, asserted that there had been “strong, concrete suspicions” and evidence that Syrian rebels had used the nerve-gas Sarin. This means two things. First, there are indeed double standards regarding the US stance towards the use of chemical ...
