The New York Times reported on Monday that Hezbollah’s warfighting in Syria is bolstering the organization’s capabilities, despite whatever losses it may be suffering, and that Israeli military officials now assess that the Iran-backed terror group’s involvement in the nearly three-year-old conflict has become “a major burden… but also a major advantage.”...

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Reuters last week revealed that “Syria will miss a major deadline next week” in the timeline describing how and when it is to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal. Washington and Moscow had inked the deal as an alternative to impending Western air strikes aimed at punishing Damascus for crossing a red line,...

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Analysts and journalists spent Wednesday assessing the geopolitical, diplomatic, and military significance of the overnight interdiction of an Iranian vessel carrying advanced missiles bound for the Gaza Strip, after reports began to trickle out of the Middle East early in the morning that the Panamanian-flagged Klos-C merchant ship had been boarded by elite Israeli commandos...

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Analysts, journalists, and lawmakers on Tuesday continued to unpack the geopolitical consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – both in general and specifically in the context of Middle East crises the White House is scrambling to contain – with evaluations building on assessments that the impending U.S.-Russia chill will badly complicate the Obama administration’s strategy...

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The White House’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being read by Middle East hands against the backdrop of the ongoing crises in Syria and Iran, with both the Obama administration’s credibility and its ability to substantively address those issues both at stake. The administration had very publicly and very explicitly embraced...

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Israeli officials have put Lebanon on notice that the country will be held responsible should Hezbollah launch attacks against the Jewish state, after the Iran-backed terror group declared that it would “choose the time and place and the proper way to respond” to what it said was an Israeli Air Force (IAF)...

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Descriptions of Iranian abuses in the State Department’s annual human rights review – unveiled at a Thursday press conference alongside particularly grim evaluations from Uzra Zeya, acting assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor – risk consolidating deepening concerns that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is either unable or unwilling...

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Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime retaliated against family members of Syrian opposition leaders who came to Geneva for recent peace talks, detaining them after having designated the delegates themselves as terrorists, according to a State Department statement issued on Wednesday by spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “The United States is outraged by reports that the...

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Reuters reported on Wednesday that February figures will show Iranian oil exports having risen for the fourth consecutive month. The increase in shipments is around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to one tracker company, which would take Iranian exports to at least 1.30 million bpd for February. A second tracking source familiar...

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Hezbollah has recruited Shiite radicals from inside Europe to travel to Syria and fight on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime, according to reports published in Lebanese media earlier this week and conveyed Monday by the Jerusalem Post. According to an article in the Beirut- based The Daily Star last...

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