War

Saudi Arabia is to host what has been described as the “the largest and most important” military drills in the region’s history. The drills will last for 18 days with contingents from 20 countries, including Pakistan the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. The announcement which was made on Sunday said that participating troops were to begin arriving in “the next few hours” and follows Riyadh’s warning that Syrian President Bashar Assad would be toppled.

Early last month, we outlined the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Libya, which was transformed into a lawless wasteland in the wake of NATO-backed efforts to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The story is hopelessly convoluted but generally speaking, there are two governments. One in Tripoli and one internationally recognized body operating out of Tobruk, where the House of Representatives remains in exile after efforts to form a unity government in the capital fell apart.

Over the weekend, the biggest story in the geopolitical world was Turkey’s escalation in Syria.

With the Sunni-backed opposition on its last legs in Aleppo and under near constant bombardment by Russia from the air and Hezbollah on the ground, Ankara and Riyadh have a decision to make: intervene or allow the rebellion to be crushed.

The ninth Republican debate was the most vitriolic and angry one we’ve seen so far this cycle. Trump went after Cruz, Rubio, and Bush, and all of them directed most of their attacks against him for what seemed like the first time. The audience was packed with party regulars, who obsequiously cheered whatever Rubio and Bush said while loudly booing Trump. They were pretty clearly not representative of the South Carolina voters that will go to the polls at the end of the week. The biggest clash came between Trump, Bush, and Rubio over the Iraq war, 9/11, and George W.

Submitted by Jeffrey St.Clair via Counterpunch.org,

Poor ISIS. Try as they might, the men in black still can’t out-terrorize their enemies or, more pointedly, even their patrons. For the past three years, decapitations have served as the money shots for ISIS’s theater of cruelty. Then on New Year’s Day the Saudis upstaged ISIS by audaciously chopping off the heads of 47 men, including a prominent Shia cleric.