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Category Archives: middle east

Galloway on Assad. Damo on Starmer

4 Jan

In a footnote to the previous post I wrote: More on Sykes-Picot here. For why I doubt that a third way, neither empire nor Ba’athism, was ever on the cards, see Syria – how Trotskyism got it so wrong. As … Read More »

middle east, uk 3 Comments

Three video shorts to start 2025

2 Jan

My December 14 post, On Syria, chess, and Nat King Cole, generated this three-way exchange below the line. I’m dressed in a rather fetching red: You really think [Assad] a good man? A kind leader? At least read Syrian Gulag … Read More »

china rising, middle east, russia, usa Leave a comment

Syria: will Turkiye prove the big winner?

27 Dec

Nine days ago, in Syria glimpsed through the fog of war, I spoke of: … the well meaningly clueless, and the less well meaningly calculating, [who] celebrate the fall of the region’s last Ba’athist government to Turkish, Israeli and Western … Read More »

middle east, russia Leave a comment

Syria glimpsed through the fog of war

18 Dec

While the well meaningly clueless, and the less well meaningly calculating, celebrate the fall of the region’s last Ba’athist government to Turkish, Israeli and Western backed terrorists risibly referred to as “rebels”, this post offers the views of three men … Read More »

middle east 6 Comments

Did the empire strike back in Syria?

16 Dec

The unipolar moment is no more and Western powers now rely on certified terrorists to help them achieve short-term Pyrrhic victories. Even as the loud cheers still echo, there’s no reason to believe the misadventure in Syria will be worth … Read More »

middle east, western decline 2 Comments

On Syria, chess, and Nat King Cole

14 Dec

When I say I was wrong about Syria, I don’t mean I’ve at last acknowledged Bashar al-Assad to be the monster depicted by an empire-serving propaganda blitz for which ‘universalists’ Owen Jones and George Monbiot gave left-liberal cover. While I’ve … Read More »

china rising, middle east, russia, usa 11 Comments

Bashar al-Assad was no Michael Corleone

10 Dec

As the blame game continues for those who, whatever our other faults, are not too deluded to see in Syria’s fate a far-reaching disaster, one valiant attempt to peer below the mire of claim and counter-claim is given here by … Read More »

middle east Leave a comment

Vanessa Beeley weeps for Syria

10 Dec

Of many truth inversions by our lovely corporate media on matters Syria, one is that journalists who do the job they claim to be doing, and report from the land they play so pivotal a role in depicting, are reviled … Read More »

middle east 1 Comment

Syria’s tragedy: why states must protect their information space from the US

8 Dec

Podcasting a few hours after I’d posted on the fall of Assad, Brian Berletic moved from an incisive thirty-five minute exposition on what happened, to a more general observation: Although the multipolar world grows economically, even militarily; surpassing the US … Read More »

china rising, middle east, russia, western decline 6 Comments

HTS’s triumph is a blow not just to Syria

8 Dec

What to say other than that I read Syria wrong or, worse – though it’s too early to call – read the Axis of Resistance wrong. In my last post but one I acknowledged the terrible danger for that long … Read More »

middle east 4 Comments

Posts pagination

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tune for the day

Iranian children’s choir: Light within us

last 350 posts (most recent first)

  • Israel’s goals (in under three minutes)
  • Fool or liar? Starmer gets Cooked
  • Sheffield, UK: Silent March for Palestine
  • Russia’s UN Envoy roasts Kaja Kallas
  • Blockade: US empire is evil, not stupid!
  • Can’t believe I agree with Tucker Carlson!
  • Orbán defeat is a victory for empire
  • Israel strikes Caspian to provoke Russia
  • Israel in Lebanon
  • Keswick, Darlington, Saltburn & Durham
  • The voice of Hind Rajab
  • Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Lebanon
  • Brian Berletic: “this ‘ceasefire’ is a trap”
  • Brilliant rescue – or failed uranium grab?
  • Insider dealing: how could it not happen?
  • Varoufakis on form over Iran fallout
  • Iran: global impact will be devastating
  • Israel & USA – does the tail wag the dog?
  • Hezbollah v army of rapists
  • Woodland stroll to Grindleford Station
  • From my anti-imperial scrap book
  • Craig Murray: “Trump is no clown”
  • Why are America’s rulers allowing this?
  • The Iran war is unlikely to end soon
  • Where’s Netanyahu …
  • Game theory says Iran should go nuclear
  • Iran has the upper hand
  • Iran: matters arising
  • Donald who?
  • Iran’s more clinical realities
  • Israel – you’ve got a lot of nerve!
  • Iran holds firm; US-Israel cracks appear
  • Iran: is Trump seeking an off ramp?
  • Iran’s war of economic attrition
  • Richard Murphy: false equivalence on Iran
  • This criminal war
  • Thoughts on the war, Day 4
  • Trump’s Operation Epstein Epic Fury
  • A green light for Britain’s left?
  • Rain in Ambleside, war clouds over Iran
  • Thought showering
  • Is it to be war on Iran? Part 5
  • America: lawless abroad, lawless at home
  • “We’re on a runaway train”
  • Is to be war on Iran? Part 4
  • On Israel, Epstein and the elephant
  • Was Navalny frog-poisoned?
  • Is it to be war on Iran? Part 3
  • Is it to be war on Iran? Part 2
  • Britain’s High Court finds Palestine Action ban “unlawful” – but it’s still in force
  • The Bad Trump theory of history
  • Is it to be war on Iran? Part 1
  • Epsten-Israel .. union flags .. shopping
  • Yes, Chomsky too
  • Sunday shorts
  • Yes, we can blame it all on the empire!
  • Media silence on Epstein-Israel ties
  • Mainly Epstein
  • From mea culpa to Milosevic
  • Appeal: Palestine Solidarity Campaign
  • More on the empire’s zugzwang …
  • Has the US empire hit zugzwang?
  • Iran, Western idiots, Guardian and BBC
  • Will this ‘beautiful armada’ deliver WW3?
  • Minnesota: Kristi’s “a pathological liar”
  • Understanding Carney at Davos
  • How fiction advances empire agendas
  • Why didn’t China prop up Iran’s rial?
  • Arms fairs and Gaza, Greenland, Iran, info hegemony and a violently dying US empire
  • Europe psycho-analysed …
  • Mist in the park on Sunday
  • CIA/Mossad fingerprints are all over this!
  • Iran, and liberal blindness to empire
  • Padley Gorge to Grindleford and back
  • From Minnesota to Middle East, by way of UK, Venezuela and China
  • Tehran tells Trump: “destroy us, and we destroy Israel”
  • They who damn Tehran and Washington
  • I will not cheer for regime change in Iran!
  • Renee Good and America’s corruption
  • A US Greenland grab makes evil sense
  • When criminals show their true face …
  • Venezuela: Brian Berletic weighs in
  • The criminal act of a criminal empire
  • Israel: ‘Caitlin Johnstone is top antisemite’
  • Col. Baud is tip of an iceberg. Here’s why
  • America’s chaotic foreign policy
  • US paints itself into a Venezuelan corner
  • Elon Musk gets $150 billion payday
  • More dishonesty at the Jerusalem Post
  • AI fakery in a ‘post truth’ era
  • Waddya mean: “Globalise the Intifada”?
  • Does China have Maduro’s back?
  • This really can’t be said too often …
  • Genocide apologist takes to the Guardian to exploit Bondi Beach atrocity
  • Owen Jones on Bondi Beach weaponised
  • The Bondi Beach attack
  • Reith lecturer calls for ‘moral revolution’
  • Don’t worry, be happy …
  • Primal Scream gig antisemitic? WTF?!?
  • US “madness disguised as strategy”
  • US seizes Venezuelan oil tanker
  • The gentle art of existential inquiry
  • Why China beat the USA on rare earths
  • Two musings on life, love and genocide
  • Venezuela killed the Monroe Doctrine
  • The mesmerising chimera of “me”
  • Media Lens on the failure of success
  • Venezuela: follow through or dial down?
  • Mearsheimer: “The US will not invade Venezuela”
  • Murdoch shills for war on Venezuela
  • Palestine: Labour’s war on NHS workers
  • From Japan ‘Ukrainised’ to Caribbean plunder – a dying empire imperils us all
  • How wealth disparity erodes democracy
  • Israel’s right to self defence …
  • What price British justice? State v Palestine Action
  • Why I keep quoting Caitlin
  • Brian Berletic on Venezuela
  • Winter rains hit Gaza
  • Will the US invade Venezuela?
  • Empire amok, Starmer on the ropes
  • But when you kiss a dollar bill …
  • The New York Times: a party to genocide
  • Sachs on Venezuela
  • Let’s talk about Venezuela
  • Richard Bruce Cheney – curriculum vitae
  • My enduring image of the late Mr Cheney
  • Fast shut-downs of crap canards #6348
  • On the nature and origins of Islamism
  • Korybko on Mali, Caitlin on media
  • Blue remembered Levers Water
  • Are US elites seeing the light on China?
  • Roaming charges on a benighted planet
  • Ceasefire? A short history of Israel
  • Why aren’t we celebrating a “ceasefire”?
  • Can the West turn Lukashenko?
  • One day everyone will have always …
  • What price AI?
  • Dark drama from Delhi
  • Israel sexually abused Greta Thunberg
  • Swarm! A systems view of class rule
  • Gaza, London – and faces of protest
  • Faith, hope and clarity on Gaza
  • Gaza Protest: Forged Solutions, Sheffield
  • On Gaza, power, justice and peace
  • More on the Manchester murders
  • Meanwhile at a synagogue near me …
  • Job done, Sir Keir: you may now leave
  • Road to WW3, Part 5: information space
  • The seeds of fascism, part 3
  • I was wrong (again) about Palestine
  • Sachs on Ukraine and Western decline
  • Dancing fruit
  • The seeds of fascism, part 2
  • The seeds of fascism, part 1
  • Jonathan Pye on the death of discourse
  • ‘Sparta non merci!’ – Zionist disowns Bibi
  • Enter the dragon?
  • Even the Guardian has its Owen Jones
  • Even the Guardian wants the ban lifted
  • Three more shorts on Sunday
  • The martyrdom of Charlie Kirk
  • First they came for the Spaghetti
  • Israel has never ruled the-West
  • Imagine your city under siege
  • They just bombed Greta’s boat
  • Road to WW3. Part 4: ‘Only Connect’
  • Under pressure: Maduro and Corbyn
  • Dear Britain …
  • Even the Guardian thinks Yvette’s a liar
  • Gaza is a mirror on Western civilisation
  • Effecting change – or blowing off steam?
  • Idiocracy! Our profit-driven infantilisation
  • Evil ayatollahs bomb Oz synagogues!
  • Nessun Starmer
  • Right Alexander: let’s talk about Germany
  • Georgia on my mind
  • Meditations on a sinking ship
  • Labour: fearmongering party to genocide
  • Yvette Cooper takes to The Observer
  • Four nights in Lakeland
  • Half-Baked Alaska
  • Two shorts on the UK Israel Lobby
  • Palestine Action – “Yvette is lying”
  • Britain is broke?!? That’s absurd …
  • Do the UK cops want the ban lifted?
  • Ursula – “in Russia you’d be arrested!”
  • Yesterday in Parliament Square, London
  • Palestine Action? Meet Lord Dannatt!
  • Dutch authorities: “Israel a state threat”
  • Palestine Action: Craig Murray reports
  • A Ukraine update
  • 7/10/23. What was Israel supposed to do?
  • Roger Waters meets Chris Hedges
  • It’s the economy, stupid!
  • Will ‘Your Party’ fall to IdPol? Ask Mr Pye!
  • Palestine Action set to challenge UK ban
  • So little. And so-o late …
  • Trump dictates terms to VDL
  • Gaza: the Golgotha and the Stalingrad …
  • Sweeteners for Streeting
  • Paul Mason: “crack-smokingly inaccurate”
  • Francesca – “this speaks to who they are”
  • Ex UN chief on why Gaza is starving
  • Road to WW3. Part 3: capturing minds
  • “First they came for Palestine Action …
  • Rain did not stop play protest
  • Road to WW3. Part 2: 12 day war
  • A nuclear war in Europe?
  • Road to WW3. Part 1: Iran
  • “Don’t mention the dead children!“
  • Epstein and the criminally insane
  • Affirmation? From the criminally insane?
  • Wishful thinking at The Economist. Again.
  • Richard Murphy on neoliberal academia
  • Israel’s crimes: too depraved to be true?
  • To Kill a War Machine – update
  • The British in Palestine, 1936-1939
  • “We were the Nazis, they the Jews”
  • The genocide-haters of Glastonbury
  • The “Jew-haters” of Glastonbury
  • A little more on June 13 and all that
  • Everybody should see this film!
  • June 13 was a game changer
  • No one has the right to abandon Gaza
  • Bibi accuses Haaretz of “Blood Libel”
  • So Palestine Action are terrorists?
  • Ceasefire schmeasefire!
  • Why Iran? Context & Consequences
  • The war so far …
  • Iran is not backing down
  • This won’t be a short war (nukes aside)
  • “Israel’s strategy leads to nuclear war”
  • All eyes are now on America
  • “Demand an end to this madness!”
  • Israel is a US proxy, not its puppet master
  • “The planet is hostage to a death cult”
  • One more on the US-Israeli war on Iran
  • Iranian nukes? It’s regime change, stupid!
  • Israel needs Iran to strike back …
  • Iran goes soixante-neuf
  • Iran in the empire’s cross-hairs
  • Global Delinquents in Syria: Part 1 of 2
  • War on Iran? A monumental folly!
  • Greta Thunberg: kidnap on the high seas
  • Gaza. French is “sorry”, Dylan “too clever”
  • The dangerous idiocy of Piers Morgan
  • In praise of MADNESS
  • Russia’s Pearl Harbour? I think not …
  • Keir Starmer: a dead man walking
  • Gaza – what can I do FFS?!?
  • Ukraine: a NATO division of labour (b)
  • Ukraine: a NATO division of labour (a)
  • Gaza – lies and ‘spiritual’ cant
  • Yes – it really is a genocide!
  • 3 for Sunday: Gaza, Trump, Doug Murray
  • US Embassy shootings: the gunman’s tale
  • Lowkey on “corporate capture” at the BBC
  • Gaza – hats off to Gary Lineker!
  • London: “No ‘both sides’ to a genocide!”
  • Norway boycotts the rogue state
  • After 19 months of war crimes, The Independent says it’s “time to speak up”
  • Who said (war) crime doesn’t pay?
  • Three Sunday shorts on China
  • On Israel the tide is turning
  • Those Houthi missiles: Part 2
  • Omit, obfuscate, gaslight: BBC on Gaza
  • Those Houthi missiles: Part 1
  • Electoral reform – an aspirin for cancer
  • Feed Gaza, just feed Gaza …
  • Fat is a socialist issue
  • 15 dead medics: a tale in GuardianSpeak
  • Don’t ever say “fuck Israel, free Palestine”
  • Method in madness; Trump’s tariffs Part 4
  • Method in madness; Trump’s tariffs Part 3
  • Israel is About to Empty Gaza
  • Method in madness; Trump’s tariffs Part 2
  • Method in madness: Trump’s tariffs Part 1
  • The far right will blame the Jews
  • UN: “Israel rapes its Palestinian hostages”
  • Bath & the Somerset Levels
  • Do you think we’ll get away with this?
  • Palestine Rally in Sheffield in pictures
  • Fighting talk from the EU: Part 3
  • Fighting talk from the EU: Part 2
  • Genocide: the last chapter
  • “We are alone. Nobody cares”
  • Trump does not seek peace in Ukraine
  • A Ukraine timeline
  • Yanis: Europe’s dream is dead
  • Fighting talk from the EU: Part 1
  • Islamist terror grips “liberated” Syria
  • Syria’s Kristallnacht
  • Trump as backstabber: a myth is born!
  • On Zelensky’s ordeal at the Oval Office
  • Look what they did to Syria, ma …
  • For Gaza the future is bright!
  • Because I object to genocide …
  • Bibi & Co have zero interest in a ceasefire
  • Ukraine: Trump’s good cop to Biden’s bad
  • Team Trump stuns Europe’s leaders
  • We are a grandfather
  • Media collusion in genocide
  • Israel – what can a poor girl do?
  • All mouth and no Baltic trousers
  • Burbage Rocks today
  • Trump throws Zelensky onto the third rail
  • More on USAID and narrative control
  • So Trump is to cancel USAID?
  • Ukrainian gun crime and the legacy of war
  • Gloves off in Gaza
  • Owen Jones on Sir Keir Starmer
  • In the park today
  • The western way of genocide
  • Trump’s Iron Dome: Rods from God
  • DeepSeek – and Mandy Rice-Davies
  • Silicon Valley just got DeepSeeked!
  • Owen Jones on Team Starmer
  • US decline – what’s Trump gonna do?
  • 16 scintillating minutes on “austerity”
  • The heartless idiocies of Team Starmer
  • Two new takes on the Heart of Darkness
  • What is to be done?
  • “Donald Trump is the empire unmasked”
  • Western values
  • Saturday’s Palestine rally in London
  • Gaza ceasefire: what did Trump tell Bibi?
  • The economic illiteracy of Rachel Reeves
  • Israel has failed on every front
  • Friday on Watendlath Fell
  • Thursday on Cat Bells
  • Syria’s new justice minister
  • On the state we’re in
  • Galloway on Assad. Damo on Starmer
  • Three video shorts to start 2025
  • It’s another year, folks …
  • Why do we have a mental health crisis?
  • Notes on the West’s economic decline
  • Syria: will Turkiye prove the big winner?
  • Will China Just Stop Oil?
  • Jack is looking at Anne …
  • On controlling the narrative
  • Syria glimpsed through the fog of war
  • Did the empire strike back in Syria?
  • On Syria, chess, and Nat King Cole
  • Bashar al-Assad was no Michael Corleone
  • Vanessa Beeley weeps for Syria
  • South Korea – the Kiev connection
  • Syria’s tragedy: why states must protect their information space from the US
  • HTS’s triumph is a blow not just to Syria
  • A Gaza Lad, and a Man in Full
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