Hiding behind the US, and with an enormous military for a country its size, Israel is accustomed to bombing and attacking targets in sovereign nations all over the Middle East—Syria, Iran, etc.—with complete impunity. That may be about to change, as Iran serves notice that the rules of the game are now being completely rewritten.
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ABDEL BARI ATWAN—In recent days, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to adopt the intermediary role – that Israel is now seeking – to extract himself from a similar dilemma. He tried to cloak his bias towards Ukraine by presenting himself as a mediator in this crisis, but was also ignored.
Erdogan is already too neck-deep in his Ukraine faux pas for Putin to forgive. In recent months, Turkey and Ukraine have been discussing the joint production of ships, turbine engines and military aircraft. The Turkish president has sent around 500 Turkish Bayraktar drones worth $69 million to Ukraine, condemned the Russian annexation of Crimea, and dropped into Kiev for a photo op at the height of the crisis.
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—Nor are they taught the history of the mid-late 19th century, when the birth of Western Liberal Democracy created not just famines on purpose in places like Iran, India, Ireland and elsewhere, but the inequalities and catastrophes which literally created the Third World as we know it today. They don’t know who I am talking about when I bring up Adolphe Thiers, the French liberal politician who collaborated with the German Empire’s Bismarck to lay siege to France’s capital for months in what’s known as the Paris Commune of 1871. The treasons of Western Liberal Democracy are as hushed up as they are rewarded – Thiers became the first president of France’s Third Republic.
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KIM PETERSEN—What will be a surprise to most people is the solidarity shown by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) toward its longtime partner Syria. (Albeit this is no surprise to readers of another of A.B. Abram’s excellent books, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power. Review.) Gains made by the invading forces would be substantially rolled back with the entry of Russia, an event deplored by some leftists. Among the reasons for a Russian entry was fear of Islamist terrorism approaching its frontier.
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PEPE ESCOBAR—Raisi’s main theme is ‘resistance,’ and that was imprinted in all of his meetings. He duly emphasized the Afghan and Iraqi resistances: “In modern times, the concept of resistance plays a central role in deterrence equations.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran is all about that resistance: “In different historical periods of Iran’s development, whenever our nation has raised the banner of nationalism, independence, or scientific development, it has faced sanctions and pressures of the Iranian nation’s enemies,” Raisi emphasized.
