Two big powers arm-wrestle in Syria. Neither one is the United States.

Just World Editor Blog, Global Balance, Syria

It is just as well that, when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin March 5, Turkey’s President Rejep Tayyip Erdogan did not look up to his right. If he had, he would have seen towering over him a lofty statue of Russia’s Catherine the Great, who in the 18th century sheared Erdogan’s Ottoman forebears of much of their European territory and many of their rights in the shared Black Sea.

Foreign jihadis playing a big role in Syria’s Idlib

Just World Editor Blog, Syria

The thousands of highly motivated foreign fighters at all ranks of the fighting forces that control Syria’s Idlib enclave pose a particular challenge to policymakers worldwide trying to deal with the bitter fighting in the enclave and the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from it.