Transcaucasian Trail: Ancient lands & new frontiers in great game Three days into the renewed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in the Transcaucasian region — also known as South Caucasus — it is becoming clear that the binary narrative dished out by western commentators of this being a Turkish-Russian clash of wills and strategies is either simply …
Continue reading “The Time of Troubles in Transcaucasia – Part 1”
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz transits the Strait of Hormuz as the flagship of US Carrier Strike Group, Sept 18, 2020 (US Navy photo) The US Fifth Fleet announced on September 18 that a Carrier Strike Group comprising USS Nimitz passed through the Strait of Hormuz with the guided-missile cruisers USS Princeton and USS Philippine …
Continue reading “Pompeo threatens to light the fuse in Persian Gulf”
Iranian military delegation led by Defence Minister Gen. Amir Hatami examining Russian weaponry, Moscow, August 24, 2020 The US President Donald Trump’s legacy in the Middle East is going to be that he scattered the region’s Arab unity once and for all. What the successive waves of Cold War, oil, petrodollar, terrorism, political Islam or …
Continue reading “Trump sets the Israeli cat among Arab pigeons”
Libya’s Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj (C) met with Turkish Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar (R) and Qatar Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah (L), Tripoli, Libya, August 17, 2020 Sweeping geopolitical assumptions are being made regarding the Israel-UAE agreement to establish diplomatic relations. Basically, the deal legitimises a previously existing two-decades old relationship. See …
Continue reading “Israel-UAE deal doesn’t herald a geopolitical formation”
Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton said Israel should act now ahead of US election to strengthen its security interests. The former US National Security Advisor John Bolton is a paradox in some ways — an extreme right winger with working class background, an outlier like Richard Nixon who had to run twice …
Continue reading “Bolton forewarns Israel on US policy shifts”
President Trump’s crowded White House press conferences to discuss the coronavirus have become daily events, Washington, DC, March 13, 2020 It often puzzles me what transpires during high-level visits by world leaders. The substantive content of such events laced with pomp and glory impacting inter-state relations is generally handled by sherpas, quietly and unobtrusively. (Of …
Continue reading “We desperate Indians also need ventilators, Mr. Trump”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) at New York on Sept 26, 2019 Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his 6-day long visit to the US with a bang — a stunning stage appearance with President Trump at the Howdy Modi in Houston last Sunday. But on Thursday, he ended up …
(Russian President Vladimir Putin met US President Donald Trump at Osaka on June 29, 2019) Although G20 summit in Osaka achieved nothing and there were no breakthrough decisions, a pleasant feeling had appeared momentarily that in the disjointed world situation, all the participants in the event at least reconfirmed their commitment to continue efforts to improve the global trade …
Continue reading “Israeli attack on Syria is a message for Russia”
(Donald Trump signed an executive order for new sanctions against Iran on June 24, 2019) The US President Donald Trump is learning that Persian is a tricky language and does not easily yield its hidden charms to westerners. The western media attributed to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani a remark during his televised speech on June …
It is going to be 30 years in another six months since the USS Abraham Lincoln, named in honour of the 16th US President, was commissioned on Nov.11, 1989 as the 5th Nimitz-class aircraft carrier of the American Navy. Now, as it leaves Croatia and heads toward the Persian Gulf, the carrier would have mixed …
