Regime Change

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stands before laying a wreath at the mausoleum of Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, March 30, 2017. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Turkey has uncovered a dramatic shift in US policy toward Syria, as Tillerson declared in his visit with Turkey’s Foreign Minister that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be left up to the Syrian people.

Hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during a visit to Turkey that the fate of Syrian President Assad should be decided by the Syrian people – reversing the Obama administration’s demand that Assad must go as part of any Syrian peace settlement – Nikki Haley, the US’s ambassador to the UN, has confirmed that there has indeed been a change in US policy, and that the US is indeed no longer ‘focused’ on getting President Assad to go.

An offensive launched two weeks ago by Al-Qaeda in the northern areas of Syria’s Hama province appears to be unravelling, with Jihadi forces in the area coming under heavy bombing by the Russian air force and forced onto the retreat by a counter-attack launched by the Syrian army.

Every few years Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenko has what seems to be an obligatory dispute with Russia, generally over energy prices. In both the 2004 and 2007 spats, the crisis was amicably solved in short order.
But during each disagreement, Lukashenko tended to purposely exaggerate the nature of the dispute in order to enhance his own personal prestige. It’s all a bit childish, as Russia and Belarus form a Union-State, making Russia and Belarus the two closest fraternal states of both the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eurasian Union.

Syrian rebels walk in an alley in Idlib, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012. (AP Photo)
DAMASCUS —(Editorial) During the past six years, a country that was previously absent from mainstream media coverage has taken center stage in the news. One needs only to turn on the TV, read a newspaper or hop online to hear about the ongoing conflict in Syria – a conflict that has been described as this decade’s most brutal humanitarian crisis.

On Monday, FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time publicly that the bureau is officially investigating hotly contentious allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election — but, even if proven true, such geopolitical escapades better characterize the routine behavior of accuser than of accused.

MINNEAPOLIS —  Though it’s been nearly six years, the subject of the Syrian conflict remains as contentious as ever. While those who characterize themselves as pro-regime change have monopolized the wider conversation on Syria, even the most tame opposition against foreign intervention, or the CIA-backed rebels—who now come in varying flavors of extremism—continues to be taboo.

(MPN) As the Syrian conflict has dragged on for the better part of six years, foreign troops have continually played a major role in the fighting and in the conflict’s escalation, causing some to comment that Syria’s so-called civil war is really a proxy war between competing geopolitical interests.

(ANTIMEDIA) Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the politician who previously accused the U.S. of arming ISIS, is still calling on the U.S. government to stop its disastrous regime change policies in the Middle East.

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
It should come as no surprise that a film celebrating the White Helmets scooped up an Oscar for best short documentary. Might as well hand the Oscar to ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Far from a humanitarian organisation, the White Helmets are an Al Qaeda staffed propaganda group that is embedded with brutal jihadists looking to overthrow the sovereign government of Syria.