Troop withdrawal

The full-court press on Iran that President Donald Trump has put into play has not yet resulted in changes to Tehran’s regional strategy. Iran’s influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen is growing, and now Tehran intends to outplay Trump in Afghanistan.
Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (NSC), spoke in this vein during his visit to Kabul on Dec. 26 for talks with his Afghan counterpart, Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan president’s national security advisor.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of an imminent withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria summoned a predictable paroxysm of outrage from Washington’s foreign policy establishment. Former Secretary of State and self-described “hair icon” Hillary Clinton perfectly distilled the bipartisan freakout into a single tweet, accusing Trump of “isolationism” and “playing into Russia and Iran’s hands.”

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis would be “retiring” in February and that a replacement for Mattis would soon be named.

WASHINGTON — In what is being characterized by some as a “drastic reversal,” reports in both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have claimed that the Trump administration is set to rapidly withdraw U.S.

On this long-awaited episode Christoph and I begin with a close look at the recent assassination of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov.  We analyze this bizarre case and the myriad explanations given by the Russian government as to who was really behind it.  Christoph and I discuss the links between Nemtsov’s alleged killers and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.  Christoph breaks down how this killing has exposed the deep divisions between the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Kadyrov and his cronies.  We explore why the FSB has been behind all of the major news leaks relating to this case, and