Al-Sharaa, Petraeus, and the End of the War on Terror: A Most Revealing Episode at the UN General Assembly

Recently Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly al-Julani) met with David Petraeus at the UN General Assembly. It was a unique moment that quite a few news outlets found worthy of note. And while some saw it has symbolic, few reflected on its actual meaning.
They tended to focus on how far al-Sharaa had come, how he had once been a prisoner of the US, and a member of al Qaeda. And yet (supposedly) he has renounced his previous Salafism and is now being put forward as a leader that will turn Syria toward Western Liberalism, democracy, and the rule of law - or so they hope.

Erdogan, the Kurds, and the Caucasus

https://www.politico.eu/article/abdullah-ocalan-pkk-recep-tayyip-erdogan-turkey-kurdistan/

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Turkey-celebrates-peace-with-the-PKK-but-tightens-its-grip-on-the-CHP-with-hundreds-of-arrests-63483.html

https://www.turkishminute.com/2025/07/17/syrian-kurdish-official-rejects-turkish-calls-to-lay-down-arms-says-sdf-seeks-integration-instead/

Erdogan has been in power for over twenty years and his tenure has been transformative - breaking with decades of Kemalism and Ataturk's secular vision for a modern Western-leaning state. Erdogan has shifted Türkiye to a presidential system, securing his power and while he is certainly a strong-man and authoritarian, his rule and word are not absolute.

The Shattering of Syria

The fall of the Assad regime is by all accounts a monumental development in the history of the modern Middle East, and it came rapidly and unexpectedly. Though in some respects the war which began in 2011 has never fully ended, it was assumed that Assad had effectively won and as recently as last year there was talk of trying to bring Syria back into the international community. The war was by all accounts over. The resistance was reduced to a small and contained area. The country was far from healed or duly re-constituted, but the notion that the regime would fall seemed distant at best.

Albright's War to Break Yugoslavia

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/08/how-madeleine-albright-got-the-war-the-u-s-wanted/

Elich speaks of the US wanting war in 1999 and setting up negotiations with the Serbs to fail. This is true but is no less so when it comes to the first phase of the Yugoslav break-up in 1991. The US played a role in facilitating the split that would lead to independent nations like Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia - and a bombing campaign in 1995.

Discerning Trueman's Confusion

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/12/has-hitler-won-on-the-left

Carl Trueman of Grove City College laments the moral decline in society and the kind of confusion that would lead to people celebrating the 7 October Hamas attack on Southern Israel.

More Right-Wing Rehabilitation, Revision, and Anachronism Concerning the Crusades

https://issuesetc.org/2022/07/29/2101-christian-crusaders-raymond-ibrahim-7-29-22/

This was but another ridiculous interview I found on Issues Etc., yet another case at the attempted rehabilitation of The Crusades. Ibrahim inadvertently all but confesses that his work is not just revisionism but hagiography focusing on the 'heroes' of The Crusades.

The Geopolitics of the Kazakhstan Protests, the Ukraine Crisis, and Eurasia's New Cold War (II)

The Central Asian states which were run by former Soviet apparatchiks (turned into authoritarian capitalists) relied upon energy revenue and the extraction of natural resources – and in the post-Soviet setting Western corporations flooded into the region to develop these sectors. Wall Street scored major victories and wealthy oligarchies developed in the Central Asian states. Needless to say corruption is endemic. This new post-Cold War political order and economic development in part explains the ongoing tensions with Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan. The logistics of getting resources out of landlocked Central Asia proved daunting and were never resolved. The ruling oligarchies were plugged into the energy economy and these countries rely on this money to function and pay the bills as it were.

Macron and the New Edict of Fontainebleau

In October 2020, French president Emmanuel Macron proposed new education legislation that was meant to counter the influence of subcultures within France – particularly those of a religious nature.

Afghanistan and Iraq at the End of the Trump Era

The panicked reaction to Trump's planned troop withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan has been palpable. The media and the US Establishment in general are hostile to the move and trying to sound the alarm. And yet at the same time they struggle with providing solid reasons for remaining in these seemingly endless conflicts – both of which have gone sideways and evolved into something other than what they originally were purported to be.

New Testament Christianity, Homeschooling and the Collapse of French Pluralism

https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/8340/evangelicals-react-to-frances-plans-to-fight-islamist-separatism

I am certain that attitudes have changed in Europe since I spent considerable time there in the 1990's. At that time homeschooling was novel and while it was becoming popular in the United States, such expressions of individualism and counter-culture were not popular in Europe – even among Christians.

A New Phase in the Syria War: The Kurds Betrayed Again and the Turkish Invasion of Rojava

I've been writing about Syria and the Kurds for many years as I was fascinated by these topics long before they became part of the nightly news cycle.

With that perspective I can honestly say that I've been more or less dismissive with regard to the present commentary on the part of the Establishment media and certainly the statements being made by the Right and the Evangelical audience.

The Kurds have been betrayed by the US on multiple occasions and while there was some protest in the wake of the Gulf War, for the most part few have cared... except now the situation is in reference to Syria and the presidency of Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia and Iran: 1979 and the Islamic Narrative

In 1979 a group of Salafis overtook the Grand Mosque at Mecca. This group deliberately associated themselves with the Ikwhan movement from the days before the Saud family formally took over the reins of the new kingdom. As ultra-conservatives they believed the Saud family had been morally and theologically compromised. They had become too friendly with the West and were no longer worthy of being the guardians of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. The house of Saud was illegitimate.

Dispensationalism, Daniel's Vision of the Ten Toes and Biblical Numerology

In retrospect it's fascinating to me that while I was growing up as a Dispensationalist during the Cold War one of the great fears was the European Economic Community. Based on Dispensationalism's misreading of Daniel we all looked for the future European Union to be the fulfillment of a 'Revived' Roman Empire.

Summing up and the Christian Response: Part 6 of the series on American Evangelicals, War, and Iran

Iran is the hub of the Shiite world and represents the foundation, center, and caretaker role of Greater Persian culture. Shiite Palestinians, Lebanese and many Azeris look to Iran as a cultural and religious leader. On the eastern side, Hazara, Tajiks and to some extent the Ismaili community are also naturally inclined to Iran. The Iranians are very bitter that what should be their great regional role has been taken from them, or at the very least reduced by numerous powers throughout history and up to today. The French have at times shared a similar bitterness with regard to their role in Europe, a shadow of what it once was, and their former Empire.

Islam's Inescapable Trap: Part 5 of the series on American Evangelicals, War, and Iran

The 19^th and 20^th century proved pretty humiliating for much of the world. The West climbed to the top and has, up to now dominated the planet. The 20^th century in particular has been a time of grief for the Islamic world. They have been brought low and are most humiliated by their own inter-cultural betrayals...nouveau oil elites selling out the Islamic world for Western treasure, and dictatorial leaders often acting as Western ‘strongmen’.  Both camps due to Western acquiescence have capitulated to Israel's existence and even 'right' to exist. And the fact that these regimes terrorize their own people, engage in inter-Islamic war, and all the while using Western purchased armaments also adds insult to the injury.

Islam Part 3- The Devil Went Down to Florida

I find this story to be beyond outrageous. It is both shameful and sad, but is also an opportunity. I continually talk about the effects of Sacralism on the mind of its adherents. Many of you have no doubt heard about the Florida Family group putting pressure on Lowe’s and other companies becauseof their commercials running on a show called: All American Muslim.

The issue? The reality show portrays American Muslims as normal people, not Koran chanting extremists who want to kill. It’s subversive because we might think that Muslims are just…normal, lost people.

So our duty is to oppose this show and those who advertise on it…if we let this go on…it will destroy America and especially…yes, families in Florida.

Emmanuel Goldstein Is Dead- The Power Paradigm, Bin Laden, Pakistan, and Three Cups of Castor Oil

Emmanuel Goldstein.

If you don't know what that refers to, then you definitely need to read George Orwell's 1984. Of the two major dystopian books, I think Huxley's Brave New World is probably closer in its hyperbolic view of our society, but Orwell's work is also indispensible in its assessments of power, media, and language.

Today while working, I listened to NPR's constant coverage of the Bin Laden killing which virtually lasted the entire day. Rather than real analysis, the supposedly left-wing NPR gave endless "double-plus good's" to the Military Establishment, interviewed soldiers, militaristic generals, and an endless stream of Establishment media experts and think-tank gurus who are often the very people shaping the policies…at least they're the folks that are turned to for strategic thought and analysis. I was very disappointed with NPR today. Not once in all their discussions about the so-called War on Terror and American policy objectives in Asia and the Middle East did anyone really call into question the official Washington line of American Superiority and Dominance…the one perpetuated by the supposedly 'leftist' Obama.

Islam Today Part 1: A Complex of Cultures

A common historical and geo-political error is to view cultures or movements in monolithic categories or terms. By oversimplifying there is a tendency toward sweeping generalization, wrong questions, and the obvious wrong answers.
In Cold War era geo-politics the most poignant example of this can be found in the Western assessment and interpretation of Communism. Only after the Sino-Soviet Split and a bit of reflection regarding Vietnam did American policymakers and advisors begin to grasp their error. Sadly the Korean and Vietnam Wars had already happened. But even the wisdom gained by the 1970's played out in Détente and Realpolitik was abandoned by the Reagan White House in the 1980's. Conservatives with their tendency to simplify the message, marketing ideological soundbites, in the end won the day, and right up until the end of the USSR, most Americans believed they had God on their side in the war against the Evil Empire. While no one laments the fall of that or any Evil Empire, those who claimed and still claim to have God on their side have learned nothing, and march on in blind ignorance, regardless of the domestic and international costs of their Sacralist wars and worldview.

If Orwell taught us that Power needs an enemy to help manipulate the masses, then when Soviet backed Communism fell we should have expected a new enemy to appear shortly thereafter. Those wielding Western Power needed a justification to continue expanding, and leaders have long known that fear is a powerful tool to help them to that end. It creates a malleable public practically begging the State to expand.