Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 4

No, the Syrian Kurds are not Terrorists

On January 20, Turkey invaded the Kurdish region of northwestern Syria to destroy what it calls a terrorist army. No, it is not fighting ISIS. It is, quite the contrary, fighting the American-backed militia that effectively destroyed ISIS and helped liberate the city of Raqqa last October.

According to Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) are a terrorist organization backed by the United States. That sentence right the...

Time to Kick Turkey Out of NATO?

The case for evicting Turkey from NATO got stronger this week.

First, the United States announced the backing of a border security force drawn mainly from the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Rojava, the quasi-independent Kurdish region in northeastern Syria along the Turkish border. Then Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will “strangle” that American-backed force “before it’s even born.” Russia, Iran and Syria’s Assad regime are standing with Erdogan.

The YPG, along with the...

Iran's Protests Reveal the Truth About Hassan Rouhani

The protests that rocked Iran in December and early January largely fizzled out after the government arrested more than 3,000 people. We’ll have to wait to find out if this was the beginning of an era of upheaval or a brief spasm of malcontent followed by a longer period of silent malaise. Either way, it should put to bed once and for all the myth that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is some kind of reformer.

Rouhani famously ran as a so-called “moderate” during the farcical 2013 election wh...

Is Iran's Regime About to Fall?

The Islamic Republic of Iran is convulsing again. The largest anti-government protests since the Green Movement erupted in 2009 began last month in the city of Mashdad and spread throughout the country, with demonstrators chanting “death to the dictator,” “death to Hezbollah,” and “death to the Islamic Republic.”

Iranian security forces deployed both violence and street theater to retaliate, killing more than twenty people and imprisoning hundreds of others, and ginning up massive pro-governm...

Islamic Governments Cede West Jerusalem to Israel

Last week in Istanbul, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) recognized East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. They made the announcement with a barrage of angry rhetoric, of course. Israel is a “racist” state, and the Trump administration’s recognition earlier this month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is "an attack on the historical, legal, natural and national rights of the Palestinian people, a deliberate undermining of all peace efforts, an impetus to extremism and terroris...

Jerusalem is Israel’s Capital and Always Will Be

Enough with the pearl-clutching already. Donald Trump’s statement on Wednesday that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is more bipartisan than anything he has ever said and likely ever will say as president.

In 1995, the United States Congress, with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, passed a law declaring that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.” This la...

Donald Trump Kicks Syria’s Kurds to the Curb

The Trump administration says it will stop supplying weapons to Kurdish fighters in Syria, though Turkey’s government first announced it last Friday. “Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a press conference, “and that the YPG won’t be given arms and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago.”

Initially, there were grounds to believe this might not be true. Under the increasingly authoritarian rule of Pres...

Is Lebanon’s Prime Minister a Saudi Hostage?

Last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri flew from Beirut to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and resigned his post in a televised address, blaming an assassination plot against him and Iranian interference in his homeland. Hezbollah, Iran’s pet terrorist army in Lebanon and Syria, claimed the Saudis placed him under house arrest.

I dismissed that accusation as ludicrous. Why on earth would Hariri’s Saudi allies force him to quit and imprison him? How could Hezbollah explain reports that Hariri wa...

How to Avoid a Nuclear War with North Korea

The LA-based Jewish Journal asked me to write an essay about how to avoid a nuclear war with North Korea. Here’s the first part.

The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the border between North and South Korea is often described as the most dangerous place in the world. It’s a no man’s land 160 miles long and 2 1/2-miles wide, wrapped with electrical fencing and laced with antipersonnel mines.

At the so-called Joint Security Area, North and South Korean soldiers stare holes through each other, with...

Hezbollah Consolidates Its Stranglehold Over Lebanon

Saad Hariri resigned his post as Lebanon’s prime minister, citing an assassination plot brewing against him, presumably from his former government coalition partner Hezbollah. “Wherever Iran settles,” he said in a televised speech, “it sows discord, devastation and destruction, proven by its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries.” Iran’s hands in the Middle East, he then said, “will be cut off.” He delivered that speech and resignation not from Beirut but from Saudi Arabia.

I...