Attention to the Unseen

Sarah Kreps writes: Crises and controversies involving Iran and North Korea have dominated the foreign affairs news recently, so it is all too easy to forget that the United States remains involved in the two longest — and costliest — wars of its history: Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan started in 2001 and continues to this day. The Iraq War, begun in 2003, still involves between 5,000 and 9,000 American troops. Those conflicts have cost a combined $2…

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Mohamad Bazzi writes: Donald Trump is quietly escalating America’s role in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, disregarding the huge humanitarian toll and voices in Congress that are trying to rein in the Pentagon’s involvement. Trump administration officials are considering a request from Saudi Arabia and its ally, the United Arab Emirates, for direct US military help to retake Yemen’s main port from Houthi rebels. The Hodeidah port is a major conduit for humanitarian aid in Yemen, and a prolonged battle…

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Anne Applebaum writes from northern Poland: Scruffy, yellowish-brown buildings are bunched around a long courtyard; portable toilets and generators have been set up on the dusty ground beside. Inside, military-grade laptops, the kind that don’t break if you drop them, are arrayed along a series of tables, their cables spooling off onto the floor. Men from different countries, some dressed in camouflage, talk in low voices. A large map of Europe’s Baltic coast has been projected onto one of the…

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The Washington Post reports: After seven years of war, Syrian government forces have taken full control of the area around their capital, Damascus, freeing up an overstretched military to move against the country’s few remaining rebel pockets. The battle for Damascus ended this week with an offensive against the Islamic State group among the ruins of a former Palestinian refugee camp in the southern suburbs after other rebel forces were defeated in a nearby enclave. More than 1,000 civilians were…

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Business Insider reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Moscow’s Victory Day parade on Wednesday. Hours later, a massive air war broke out in which, Israel says, it destroyed dozens of Iranian sites in Syria. Statements from Netanyahu suggest that Putin may have given the green light before the attack. Netanyahu left Russia saying that “there is a need to ensure the continuation of military coordination between the Russian military and the Israel Defence…

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Haaretz reports: A barrage of 20 rockets was fired Wednesday night from Syria towards Israeli military outposts in the Golan Heights. No injuries were reported. Several rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. The Israeli army is attributing the attack to members of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The rocket fire struck near the border with Syria. The military said intelligence assessments earlier in the week anticipated that after U.S. President Donald Trump announced…

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NBC News reports: An Israeli airstrike on the western Syrian city of Hama on Sunday killed two dozen Iranian soldiers and targeted arms recently delivered from Iran, said three U.S. officials, and is the latest sign that Israel and Iran are moving closer to open warfare. “On the list of the potentials for most likely live hostility around the world, the battle between Israel and Iran in Syria is at the top of the list right now,” said one senior…

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The Washington Post reports: Missile strikes at two Iran-linked bases in Syria caused huge explosions and killed dozens of pro-government fighters, a monitoring group said Monday, in an attack seen as Israel’s latest blow in a shadow war to contain Iranian influence. Syrian state media reported major blasts in parts of Hama and Aleppo provinces about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. It did not identify the targets, but other pro-government media outlets said they were weapons depots for the Syrian regime and…

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The New York Times reports: North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, told President Moon Jae-in of South Korea when they met that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States would agree to formally end the Korean War and promise that it would not invade his country, a South Korean government spokesman said Sunday. In a faith-building gesture ahead of a summit meeting with President Trump, Mr. Kim also said he would invite experts and journalists from South Korea…

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Ankit Panda writes: With less than a week to go before he sits down with his South Korean counterpart, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made an impressive set of declarations. Following a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s Central Committee this week, Kim declared, among other things, that North Korea would shut down its nuclear testing site—known as Punggye-ri—and stop testing its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs). If there’s one thing the North Koreans are good at, it’s messaging…

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Simon Tisdall writes: There were fireworks, concerts, torch processions and parties throughout the country. In Jerusalem the night sky was illuminated by 300 drones that coalesced to form images of favourite Israeli symbols, such as the national flag and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. The celebrations included a live, televised retelling of Jewish history dating to biblical times. In one scene children with yellow stars pinned to their clothes fled marching Nazi soldiers. Another showed pioneers…

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Robin Wright writes: As many of us spent the weekend celebrating Easter brunch or a Passover Seder, Mike Pompeo secretly slipped into North Korea to test the prospects for President Trump’s most daring diplomatic gambit. The C.I.A. director’s covert talks with North Korea’s mercurial young leader, Kim Jong Un, apparently went well. “Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, shortly before his golf game with the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. “Details of…

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Ynet reports: The US-led attack on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities did not achieve most of its objectives and will not deter President Bashar Assad, according to Israeli intelligence assessments. “If President Trump had ordered the strike only to show that the US responded to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, then that goal has been achieved,” according to a senior defense establishment official. “But if there was another objective—such as paralyzing the ability to launch chemical weapons or deterring Assad from…

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