Putting the health of the people in the South Caucasus at risk puts us all at risk. Diseases spread and mutate rapidly in refugee camps
When teaching history, it’s rare that an issue more than 100 years old becomes a current events lesson, but that’s what happened as I began teaching about the Armenian Genocide. The Ottoman Empire is responsible for the death of 1.5 million Armenians, primarily under the cover of the First World War. The empire collapsed after…
When you search the name Henry Morgenthau, you find remarkable legacies left by three men of one extraordinary family
As I examined the history of human rights in America, one name kept coming up: Henry Morgenthau. It turns out I was actually learning about three men: Henry Morgenthau Sr., Henry Morgenthau Jr. and Henry Morgenthau III, father, son and grandson. All of them spoke with courage and together advanced the cause of human rights…
In Lands of Lost Borders, Kate Harris ruminates on 10 months aboard a bicycle along the Silk Road once conquered by Marco Polo
Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road By Kate Harris Knopf Canada, 2018 Kate Harris is a Canadian Rhodes Scholar who studied the history of science at Oxford, dropped out of her microbiology PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and instead has found her métier as a modern-day explorer. Channeling…
In Hillary Clinton’s mind, it’s everyone else’s fault. So she’ll continue to hog centre stage and suck up the political oxygen
Two topics jump out from the current news. One is the continuing Democratic Party angst over the 2016 U.S. election. The other is the recurrent propensity for independence movements to stir things up. On the Democratic front, Hillary Clinton’s promotion of her new book What Happened is Exhibit A. There’s nothing wrong with authors promoting…
Erdogan asserts that his government has a right to a sphere of influence over the region that once made up the Ottoman Empire
Turkey's rogue role in the battle for Mosul suggests it wants to permanently upset the balance of power in the region. Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan has been insisting the Turkish military should take part in the liberation of Mosul. Turkish troops are already in northern Iraq. The Turkish force in the Iraqi town of Bashiqa,…
The liberation of Mosul is going to be the bloodiest, most bitterly-fought urban campaign since Stalingrad
The battle for Mosul will end in tragedy for hundreds of thousands of the city's inhabitants. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recently told the UN that the campaign to liberate Mosul would begin within weeks. He predicted victory by year’s end. U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has confirmed an imminent campaign. The…
The objective is to prevent the seizure of the portion of Aleppo province by U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces
Turkish military forces have crossed into Syria to oust Islamic State (IS) militants from the border area. The first objective was Jarabulus, an IS stronghold along the Turkish-Syrian border. It has been used to bring jihadists into Syria and smuggle out antiquities and oil. The Turkish intervention, dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield, is being supported by U.S. and…
Ankara’s rapprochement with Moscow may yet prove to be the beginning of an entirely new direction in Turkey’s foreign policy
On Tuesday, Aug. 9, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled to St. Petersburg for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That Erdogan would travel outside of Turkey, less than two weeks after an attempted coup, speaks reams about his hold on power. That his first overseas trip would be to Russia speaks equally clearly…
The coups may have ended differently, but both are consequential for Middle East stability
The eastern Mediterranean has witnessed two coups in the last three years: Egypt’s on July 3, 2013, and Turkey’s on July 16, 2016. In both, the military opposed a president committed to the steady centralization and Islamization of the country’s government. Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) had…
When teaching history, it’s rare that an issue more than 100 years old becomes a current events lesson, but that’s what happened as I began teaching about the Armenian Genocide. The Ottoman Empire is responsible for the death of 1.5 million Armenians, primarily under the cover of the First World War. The empire collapsed after…
