From the moment I cross the rickety pontoon bridge from Iraq into Syrian Kurdistan, I feel a deep sense of isolation. The arrivals hall, which offers the only link to the outside world, is falling apart around me. The duty …
Syria is doomed to instability
The House of Assad endured for over half a century, but crumbled in 10 days. Ba’athism is dead and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani now finds himself the de facto leader of a government in Damascus, led by his rebel coalition Hay’at …
The Turkish Left’s love for Assad
Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years before getting his comeuppance, received silent support from one of the unlikeliest places during his dictatorial rule. Numerous groups in Turkey’s splintered Left, from self-professed Maoists to Stalin …
How Syria will shape Europe’s future
War is of its nature an uncertain business. Only in retrospect does Assad’s fall, so improbable last week, now look fated. It is ironic, given the opprobrium with which Arab normalisation with his regime was greeted by pro-rebel advocates, that …
Will Erdoğan crush the Syrian Kurds?
Syria’s two million Kurds have every reason to loathe Bashar al-Assad. His Baathist regime long repressed their identity, and there are many Kurdish activists among the countless people emerging, dazed and stumbling, from the dictatorship’s dungeons. But even as Kurds …
What next for Syria?
It was the clock tower that settled it. The images of rebels driving around the central square of Homs, its famous clocktower visible, confirmed they had taken the city. This meant they could now sever Damascus from the coastal regions, …
The men paying to be taller
When Ryan* arrived in Istanbul he was 5’7” — but when he returned to the UK he was 5’10”. By having his legs surgically broken and then extended at the glacial rate of 1mm per day, he had achieved his …
The betrayal of British Kurds
This week, two activists are facing trial under the UK’s Terror Act for the “crime” of holding a flag at a demonstration. But this wasn’t a Palestinian flag, which former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said could be a criminal …
Despotism is a beast of capitalism
As history speeds ahead in the Age of AI, it is also being thrown abruptly into reverse. Authoritarian rule is our current Zeitgeist, spreading across the globe from El Salvador to Myanmar.
This isn’t, in fact, all that surprising. The …
Can TV soaps get Erdoğan re-elected?
A well-turned-out man with a pointy beard stands in the centre of a luxurious living room, looking fierce. He waves away two flunkies — one of whom is a fat man with a large moustache, wearing a pristine white shirt, …
Turkey is the year’s most important election
This year hasn’t quite gone to plan for Turkey’s most powerful man. After two decades as Prime Minister and now President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could be about to lose his job. In a country of huge strategic and economic importance, …
Will Erdoğan survive Turkey’s earthquake?
It took barely two days for Monday’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria to turn political. On Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, warned of the danger of giving credence to “provocateurs”. He was referring to opposition figures who have …
Erdogan’s Turkey won’t save Ukraine
The Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TB2 looks like the malformed lovechild of a small plane and a large, angry wasp. But if the armed drone looks weird, there’s nothing strange about its performance. Over the past few weeks, the …
How Vladimir Putin weaponises refugees
For the last three decades, Europe’s leaders have pursued a noble strategy to prevent conflict using trade, aid and diplomacy. But their reliance on soft power has had an unintended consequence: it has left them divorced from reality.
Soft-power tools …
