Elections aren’t until Oct. 20, but disinformation campaigns are in full swing.
Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region will hold elections on Oct. 20. Although the formal campaign has not yet begun, the so-called “shadow media” is already in full swing spreading disinformation, promoting political spin, and attacking rivals.
The German daily Die Welt has just revealed the existence of a 17-page peace agreement that could have ended the war in Ukraine just weeks after Russia began its invasion. Negotiators from both sides had worked hard on the agreement between February and April 2022, and the original version of this special document has now been made available to the German media. “In March 2022, only a few conditions were missing for the resolution of the conflict, which was to be ‘negotiated by Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky at a summit meeting – which never took place’”.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Assad regime has seen measured advances in its situation that fall well short of real success.
The war in Gaza has had a paradoxical effect on Syria and the Assad regime in Damascus. Escalating tensions between Iran and Israel in the shadow of the Gaza conflict have heightened the risk that Syria may be drawn into a war that it can ill afford. Yet, the conflict has also shifted international attention back to the Middle East, including Syria. After a challenging 2023 marked by setbacks for the regime—the failed reconciliation between Syria and Türkiye, the stalled process of rapprochement between Syria and the Arab countries, and a worsening economic situation that ignited protests, notably in Suwayda—Syria has regained some significance, breathing new life into previously stalled political processes.
In a diplomatic move, Türkiye is seeking BRICS membership, potentially expanding its alliances beyond traditional Western partners while maintaining its NATO membership. Meanwhile, Iran is set to supply Russia with ballistic missiles within days, potentially escalating the war, as some Ukrainian allies have yet to deliver on promises made at the July NATO summit.
For many years now, Hezbollah has served as a major instrument of Iran to take over Lebanon, not only as a territory but as a sovereign state. Many Western countries would like to avoid that and invest in the former “Pearl of the Middle East”, led by France. These efforts are futile in view of the Iranian circumvention apparatus, who’s main mechanism is allocated in the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon. No matter how much pressure is put on a state level, Hezbollah will survive and even prosper, as long as one does not put an end to Hezbollah’s control over these main smuggling routes.
This is a premium article for paid subscribers that covers the recent trend of declaring the rebirth of ‘maneuver warfare’ as product of the perceived “success” of the Ukrainian operation in Kursk. In the piece I refute these conclusions by explaining how maneuver warfare is in fact a misunderstood, and deliberately misleading, concept which uses outdated combat stereotypes from WWII and beyond in a disingenuous attempt to paper over shifting modern paradigms.
The Israeli political and security objectives of the military operation in the northern West Bank and the Jordan Valley are numerous and complex and are linked in their timing to the course of confrontation on other fronts, especially the fronts of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and the seriousness of the development of the situation in the West Bank is not only related to the course of the Palestinian arena, but affects the Jordanian interior.
Here are the full comments that I gave to The Epoch Times’ Nalova Akua about Africa’s role in the New Cold War, excerpts of which were included in his article titled “South Korean Government Gives Export Boost to Companies Trading in Africa”.
The challenge ahead is a formidable one that will require the military-intelligence services to fully focus on this newly metastasized terrorist threat in order to emerge victorious, which in turn necessitates their top brass giving them the order to abandon the all-out nationwide crackdown against the opposition. Pakistan’s prior large-scale anti-terrorist operations succeeded precisely because those carrying them out weren’t distracted by political witch hunts, which COAS Munir would do well not to forget.
While the Pakistani-Taliban security dilemma owes its origins to “innocent” misperceptions of the other that were previously manageable since neither suspected that any adversarial third party was meddling in these mutually sensitive issues, this dynamic has now evolved to the point where both suspect their counterparts of colluding with their hated enemy (if not outright being under their influence) in ways that threaten their objective national interests.