Showing 71 - 80 of 96
Time to annul Suu Kyi's Nobel Prize
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/02/2018
» Nobel Peace Prize winners sometimes go on to undistinguished later careers, and some seem to have got the prize by mistake. Barack Obama, for example. But there has never before been one who went on to become a genocidal criminal.
Will the US betray the Syrian Kurds?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/01/2018
» Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an angry man at the best of times, but on Monday he outdid himself: "This is what we have to say to all our allies: Don't get in between us and terrorist organisations, or we will not be responsible for the unwanted consequences." That was a barely veiled threat that he will use force against American troops if they try to stop him from attacking the Syrian Kurds.
Fallout of Trump move on Jerusalem could be 'ugly'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/12/2017
» "All of us are saying: 'Hey, United States, we don't think this is a very good idea'," said Jordan’s King Abdullah II in 2002, when it became clear that President George W Bush was going to invade Iraq. But Mr Bush didn’t listen, and it turned out to be an extremely bad idea.
Philippine insurgency stems from lack of compromise
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/06/2017
» A month ago, hardly anybody outside the Philippines had ever heard of Marawi. Now it's the latest front in the war against the Islamic State (IS). More evidence, if you needed it, that the terrorism associated with the IS will go on long after Mosul and Raqqa have been liberated and "Caliph Ibrahim" (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) has been killed or captured.
The root of Islamist terrorism
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/06/2017
» It happens after every major terrorist attack by Islamist terrorists in a Western country: The familiar debate about who is really to blame for this phenomenon. One side trots out the weary old trope that the terrorists simply "hate our values", and other side claims that it's really the fault of Western governments for sending their troops into Muslim countries.
'Principled Realism' without principles or realism
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/05/2017
» The media mostly missed it (or chose to ignore it as a piece of meaningless rhetoric), but Donald Trump proclaimed a new doctrine in his speech to the assembled leaders of the Muslim world in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. It goes by the name of "Principled Realism", though it didn't offer much by way of either principles or realism. In practice, it mostly boiled down to a declaration of (proxy) war against Iran.
The North Korea crisis: Why now?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/05/2017
» Apart from Donald Trump's need for a dramatic foreign policy initiative, is there any good reason why we are having a crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons testing now?
Washington: The playbook is back
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/05/2017
» It was striking, in US media coverage of US President Donald Trump's first hundred days in office, that most observers noted with relief that his foreign policy has turned out to be less radical than they feared. In fact, it's not radical at all. He has already fired cruise missiles at a Middle Eastern country, a ritual that has been observed by every American president since Bill Clinton.
Trump took the bait in Syria attack
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/04/2017
» Donald Trump has spent a lot of time in the courts, so he must be familiar with the legal concept of "cui bono" -- "who benefits?" When a crime is committed, the likeliest culprit is the person who benefited from the deed. But he certainly did not apply that principle when deciding to attack a Syrian government airbase with 59 cruise missiles early Friday morning.
Choose a side: Donald Trump and the Sunni-Shia war
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/03/2017
» The Sunni-Shia civil wars in Iraq and Syria are both nearing their end, and in both cases the Shias have won -- thanks largely to American military help in Iraq's case, and to a Russian military intervention in Syria. Yet Russia and the United States are not allies in the Middle East. At least not yet.