Attention to the Unseen

ABC News reports: President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Turkey’s offensive in Syria “a bad idea” that the United States did not support, hours after Turkey launched a long-planned military offensive in northeastern Syria. “The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea,” Trump said in a statement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced via Twitter on Wednesday that the incursion has begun, with a mission to…

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Elizabeth Tsurkov writes: The looming Turkish offensive on northeastern Syria is the culmination of incoherent U.S. policy concerning the conflict in Syria, which has prioritized finding short-term fixes over attempting to address any of the dynamics driving the violence. The scope of the Turkish invasion, made possible through the withdrawal of U.S. troops from parts of the border region, remains unclear. The offensive will likely precipitate mass displacement, and if the military action extends beyond the takeover of a few…

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The New York Times reports: First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially saw them as isolated, unconnected attacks. Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are…

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Newsweek reports: Donald Trump got “rolled” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a National Security Council source with direct knowledge of the discussions told Newsweek. In a scheduled phone call on Sunday afternoon between President Trump and President Erdogan, Trump said he would withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria. The phone call was scheduled after Turkey announced it was planning to invade Syria, and hours after Erdogan reinforced his army units at the Syrian-Turkish border and issued his strongest threat…

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Martin Chulov writes: In early 2015, as Islamic State trampled over armies of the Middle East and menaced the west, the US turned to the Kurds for help. It was a familiar call, having been repeated over the decades whenever Washington needed a friend in the region. The outcome has been similar too. Four years on, the people who helped safeguard the global order have been abandoned by the US on the eve of a Turkish push into Kurdish lands…

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Last month, an open letter from national security professionals to Western governments warned [PDF]: ISIS may have been defeated on the battlefield; but thousands of Western fighters and their families remain in detention in Syria and Iraq. We do not expect terrorists to attract much sympathy. But the majority of detainees are not terrorists; they are children. At the largest detention camp, al-Hol in northeastern Syria, around two-thirds of the approximately 70,000 detainees are under the age of twelve. The…

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Mark Bowden writes: For most of the past two decades, American troops have been deployed all over the world—to about 150 countries. During that time, hundreds of thousands of young men and women have experienced combat, and a generation of officers have come of age dealing with the practical realities of war. They possess a deep well of knowledge and experience. For the past three years, these highly trained professionals have been commanded by Donald Trump. To get a sense…

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Molly K. McKew writes: A year ago, I was in Kiev when a young Ukrainian soldier was killed. Olesya Baklanova, 19, enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces as soon as she was eligible and fought to be assigned a combat post. Deployed to the front lines of her country’s war against Russia, she was killed during the night while manning an observation post, shot by a sniper stationed among the Russian and proxy forces dug in a few hundred meters…

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The Associated Press reports: As dozens of heads of state convene for the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York this week, the lingering conflict in Syria is taking a back seat while tensions in the Persian Gulf and global trade wars take center stage. Now in its ninth year, many Syrians fear the unresolved war has become a footnote in a long list of world crises, with weary leaders resigned to live with President Bashar Assad ruling over a…

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Robert F. Worth writes: Gulf leaders have become uneasy about the mismatch between Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and his actions. In June, he threatened Iran with “obliteration” after it shot down an unmanned American drone, and then backed away from a planned retaliation at the last minute. His decision to fire John Bolton, his hawkish national security adviser, has strengthened a belief that Mr. Trump does not want war. But many feared he would stumble into one. The Emiratis now appear…

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June 23, Meet the Press: WATCH: Trump tells Chuck Todd that he wants to talk with Iran with “no pre-conditions.” #MTP #IfItsSunday pic.twitter.com/kie0I91ZbA — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 23, 2019 August 28, Mareike Transfeld wrote: Last month, the UAE said it would withdraw its troops from the northern port of Hodeidah. In reassuring the international community that it had coordinated this with Saudi Arabia, it explained it was just trying to follow terms set down by a United Nations…

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The Associated Press reports: A weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies and halved the kingdom’s oil production threatened Sunday to fuel a regional crisis, as Iran denied U.S. allegations it launched the assault and tensions remained high over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal. Iran called the U.S. claims “maximum lies,” while a commander in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reiterated its forces could strike U.S. military bases across the Mideast with its arsenal of ballistic missiles….

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The Associated Press reports: With a series of tweets, President Donald Trump has upended nearly a year of U.S.-Taliban negotiations on ending America’s longest war. He has “called off” the talks and asserted that a planned secret meeting between him and Taliban leaders at Camp David, set for Sunday just days before the 9/11 anniversary, is now canceled. Some question whether it was a face-saving attempt after the deal his envoy said had been reached “in principle” faced serious challenges….

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