March, 2024

• 2 March

  Noxious Narratives: Algerian Anti-Moroccan Propaganda

  Man is, by nature, a story-telling animal. We live and die by narratives, the stories we tell about the world and ourselves. Religion, love, family, the nation – all are sustained and nurtured by these narratives. And stories can be beautiful or terrible, or both. While the West had and …

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• 2 March

  When Foreign War Policy Becomes Domestic Electoral Policy

  It is a basic tenet of American politics that foreign affairs do not decide presidential elections, but that is not to say that foreign affairs do not play a role in elections. In Miami we would always see the candidates come down, do a photo op at a local Cuban …

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• 2 March

  Is Gaza Really the Biggest Case of Arab Suffering?

  

  What would a Sudanese person watching that country’s renewed civil war — which has killed 14,000, displaced eight million, and threatens 17 million with famine in less than a year — think when they this CBS headline: “Gaza faces unprecedented desperation.” Sudan has a population of 46 million, Gaza only …

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• 2 March

  Beware of Falling BRICS

  As Russia continues to press forward with its doomed war in Ukraine and China watches its economic miracle erode, the leaders of both countries are in desperate need of allies. This is what made the BRICS summit, a meeting of the off-and-on alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South …

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• 1 March

  What Does General Zaluzhny’s Dismissal Mean for Ukraine?

  

  There are no grounds for the doom-filled prophecies that without Zaluzhny, Ukraine faces disaster. But the circumstances of the general’s departure do leave the impression of a president who is overreaching his hand by more or less openly putting narrow and selfish interests before considerations of state. The strained relationship …

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• 1 March

  Iran ‘biggest state sponsor of terrorism,’ John Bolton says as proxies battle Israel

  

  The former US ambassador to the United Nations told Al Arabiya English that Iran is the “world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism,” as Tehran-backed Palestinian, Lebanese and Yemeni armed groups continue to engage with Israel in a months-long conflict that erupted after the October 7 attack. John Bolton, who was …

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• 1 March

  Transnistria Ups the Ante Amid Creeping Pressure From Moldova

  

  An extraordinary parliamentary session in Transnistria was a bid to attract international attention and a signal that the de facto state is ready to escalate. The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the more confident neighboring Moldova’s authorities feel in their long-running conflict with the breakaway state of Transnistria. Moldova …

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• 1 March

  More Anti-Russian Hysteria From the New York Times

  

  A little while back, I challenged a group of graduate students to find one article in the New York Times written in the last five years that had anything favorable to say about Russia. Their extensive research turned up one article published in 2021 that described the beneficial effects of …

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• 1 March

  Treasury Sanctions Network Financing Houthi Aggression and Instability in Yemen

  WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating members of a smuggling network that helps fund Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and the Houthis in Yemen. Led by Iran-based Houthi financier Sa’id al-Jamal, this network generates tens of millions …

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• 1 March

  Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023

  

  As the full-scale war in Ukraine enters its third year, Russia has doubled down on its worldwide efforts to undermine Kyiv’s international standing in an attempt to erode Western support and domestic Ukrainian morale. Years of close monitoring of not only state-sponsored media such as Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, …

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