By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 10, 2015
This is the fourth of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. The first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq; the second part looked at the policy’s application in Syria; the third part looked at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and this part is a conclusion. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 3, 2015
This is the third of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. The second part looked at the policy’s application in Syria; this part will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 29, 2015
Assad meeting with the boss
This is the second of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. This part will look at the policy’s application in Syria; part three will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 25, 2015
This is the first of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looks at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. Part two will look at the policy’s application in Syria; part three will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 19, 2015
Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi
Last week, Lee Smith wrote of the reasons that it was likely that there was a foreign hand, quite probably that of a State, in the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish deli in Paris. Smith noted that the French believe that the funding and weapons for the attacks came from abroad. Smith pointed to the historical record, in which terrorism in Paris is typically not carried out because of religion—or not directly: it might come from States that see themselves as god’s representatives on earth—or community grievances, but “because you’re getting paid to stage an operation on behalf of a particular cause or regime.” Smith gave three cases, and they seemed worth expanding on. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 31, 2014
In early August, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) arrested Abu Ahmad Jumaa, the leader of Liwa Fajr al-Islam (Islamic Dawn Brigade), which had been loyal to al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Jabhat an-Nusra but which had then-recently defected to the Islamic State (I.S.). In response, Nusra and I.S. fighters poured across the border into Arsal, Lebanon, where Jumaa was being held, and after five days of clashes the Salafi jihadists withdrew, taking with them thirty Lebanese security personnel. Five of the thirty are now dead: one from his injuries, the other four murdered—at least two of them beheaded. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 11, 2014
As a final act while the Democrats hold their majorities in Congress, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a report on December 9, the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program”, known to the Twitterverse as the “Torture Report”. This has reignited the debate about America’s use of harsh interrogation methods, the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs), against al-Qaeda operatives in the shadow of the 9/11 massacre. The politics surrounding this matter—even on basic questions, such as whether discomfort works to induce cooperation in detainees—are poisonous, and the publication of this partisan Committee Study has done nothing to assist this environment. One means of trying to get at the truth is to examine a counterpoint, the 2012 book, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, a memoir by Jose Rodriguez, the man who oversaw the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Centre from 2001 to 2004. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 12, 2014
In a post yesterday I listed the operations Israel has so far carried out in Syria. Between 2007 and 2011, Israel eliminated several senior terrorists inside Syria and destroyed a nuclear-weapons facility. Since the war began in 2011, Israel has mostly carried out airstrikes in Syria to prevent Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) transferring advanced weaponry to the IRGC’s Lebanon-based branch, Hizballah. Rather than updating the prior post, which was on a slightly separate matter, this post will be kept as a rolling tally of Israeli operations in Syria, focused only on those since war broke out. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 11, 2014
On Sunday night, five “nuclear energy engineers who worked in the scientific research centre near … Barzeh,” Damascus, were killed when their bus was ambushed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. One of the engineers is believed to be Iranian technician. Whether they were killed by gun-fire or by a bomb is unclear.
The research centre referred to is the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), and this event has an analogue in Syria: At the end of July 2013, a rebel mortar shell hit a bus carrying staff from the SSRC in Barzeh, killing six and injuring nineteen.
The SSRC is located in Jamraya in Mount Qassioun, five miles above Barzeh. The SSRC is entwined with Syria’s military-intelligence apparatus—which is to say the people running Syria before the war—and is responsible for research and production of “nuclear, biological, chemical, and missile-related technology.” Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 27, 2014
Ali Khamenei
When the next—and supposedly final—round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program end next month, there are three possible outcomes:
How did we get here? Continue reading
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