Così intitolava Oriana Fallaci (prima maniera) uno dei suoi libri, sottintendendo che dalla storia non avevamo imparato nulla, e amen… appunto. Ma rassegnarsi a dire amen è un esercizio a cui non voglio fare l’abitudine, sforzandomi invece di andar sempre…
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Suspicions swell as Iraq elections near
Published: 05/03/2010DAMASCUS – The Iraqi government is printing 26 million ballots for the March 7 elections, nearly 35% more than are needed for all eligible voters. Several contesting parties are crying foul play, claiming that the extra 7 million ballots will…
Jundallah arrest proves timely for Iran
Published: 28/02/2010TEHRAN - If the snow-covered Elbruz mountains rising just north of Tehran took on an extra glint in the bright wintry sunshine on Wednesday, there was good reason. It was the morning after the dramatic capture of the 31-year-old leader of…
La guerra segreta degli USA in Afghanistan
Published: 17/01/201017/01/2010
Original Version: The shadow war in Afghanistan
La guerra che gli Stati Uniti stanno combattendo in Afghanistan non è più una guerra tradizionale, ma una guerra “privatizzata” e “appaltata” a contractor e mercenari, sulla base di informazioni prodotte da un’intelligence militarizzata…
The shadow war in Afghanistan
Published: 14/01/2010It was a Christmas and a New Year from hell for American intelligence, that US$75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so…
US spies walked into al-Qaeda’s trap
Published: 06/01/2010ISLAMABAD – The suicide attack on the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) forward operating base of Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost last week was planned in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.
The attacker – a handpicked…
Iraq – Surprises aplenty in selloff
Published: 18/12/2009The distinguishing feature of Iraq’s auction of oil rights this weekend is the relative absence of American companies, in contrast to five weeks ago, when US firm ExxonMobil and Anglo-Dutch Shell signed an agreement to develop the West Qurna Phase…
Clear losers and winners in Baghdad
Published: 12/12/2009DAMASCUS – In the mid-1970s, Syrian playwright Mohammad al-Maghout authored a beautiful scene about accountability in the Arab world. In it, the mayor promises his people serious reform and change, sacking the director of real estate from his post and…
The hypocrisy of al-Demoqratia
Published: 11/12/2009So this is how democracy works?
In 2004, France banned headscarves and school principals chased after young “defiant” Muslim girls who continued to cover their heads in school. Now, following a national referendum, Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets, because…
Is Obama’s Iran policy doomed?
Published: 08/11/2009While the tone of the Barack Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W Bush, both administrations subscribe at their core to the same doctrine: whatever the…
Rivals fiddle while Kabul burns
Published: 30/10/2009Political tensions are on the rise in Afghanistan as the country braces for a challenging presidential runoff on November 7.
On October 26, incumbent President Hamid Karzai rejected demands from his election rival, former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, that key cabinet…
Where Pakistan’s militants go to ground
Published: 28/10/200923/10/2009 - ISLAMABAD – The massive Pakistani military operation currently underway against militants in the South Waziristan tribal area is the brainchild of General Stanley McChrystal, the top United States commander in Afghanistan. The aim is to spread the Taliban-led Afghan…
L’antagonismo fra Iran e Arabia Saudita raggiunge il punto di ebollizione
Published: 26/10/200926/10/2009
Original Version: Saudi-Iranian hostility hits boiling point
L’attentato che domenica 18 ottobre ha ucciso diversi alti ufficiali della Guardia Rivoluzionaria iraniana nella regione sud-orientale del Sistan_Baluchistan è stato rivendicato da Jundallah, un gruppo sunnita attivo nella regione. Teheran ha spesso accusato…
Sunnis present a new face in Iraq
Published: 24/10/2009DAMASCUS – The Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the largest Sunni coalition in Iraq, is promising its constituency a major breakthrough in the parliamentary elections set for January.
Last weekend, the Front announced the formation of an all-Sunni coalition that plans to…
Saudi-Iranian hostility hits boiling point
Published: 23/10/2009Conventional wisdom suggests that the terrorist strike by Jundallah in southeastern Iran on Sunday might have had the backing of the United States or Britain. But Jundallah today holds “fatal” attraction for a number of foreign powers that are interested…
The ‘other’ Kurdistan seethes with rage
Published: 21/10/200916/10/2009 - QANDIL MOUNTAINS – Iraqi Kurdistan has maintained a reputation for relative tranquility and stability in a diagonal belt across northern Iraq while much of the rest of the country has burned with sectarian nihilism and anti-occupation insurgency.
Three years ago,…
Pakistan warns India to ‘back off’
Published: 17/10/2009The Indian embassy in Kabul has been targeted for bomb attack for a second time in the past 15 months. A least 17 people were killed in Thursday’s attack, when a car loaded with explosives rammed into the embassy’s compound…
La Siria e l’Arabia Saudita tracciano un percorso di pace
Published: 14/10/200908/10/2009
Original Version: Syria, Saudi Arabia plot peace path
La visita del re saudita Abdullah in Siria, la prima da quando è salito al trono nel 2005, è stata salutata dagli osservatori mediorientali come storica e pionieristica.
Abdullah, che è sposato con una…
Due “S”, e una “W” a Beirut – siriani, sauditi e americani in Libano
Published: 04/10/200904/10/2009
Original Version: Two Ss, and a W in Beirut
Mentre la costituzione di un governo libanese appare ancora lontana, a Beirut le principali potenze regionali continuano a tessere la loro tela. Se da un lato il riavvicinamento fra sauditi e siriani…
Kurdish lessons leave Iraqi Arabs cold
Published: 04/10/2009BAGHDAD – Baghdad teenager Amir Muayyad returned from a holiday in northern Iraq with a couple of words of Kurdish to share with his friends. “I was passing through an area and heard its name by chance – Swara Tukah,”…
Two Ss, and a W in Beirut
Published: 01/10/2009DAMASCUS – This year, Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, coined a phrase that has apparently entered the Lebanese political dictionary – the influence of “the two Ss”, in reference to Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Lebanese politicians have now…
A dangerous new Afghan road opens
Published: 23/09/200918/09/2009 - Increased insurgent activity in northern Afghanistan in recent months is likely to force the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to once again re-evaluate its and the United States’ escalation of the war.
Recent events in Kunduz province due south of…
Afghanistan by the numbers
Published: 16/09/200910/09/2009 – Here may be the single strangest fact of our American world: that at least three administrations – Ronald Reagan’s, George W Bush’s and now Barack Obama’s – drew the United States “defense” perimeter at the Hindu Kush; that…
Lies and illusions in Afghanistan
Published: 29/07/200918/07/2009 - KABUL – I’ve come back to the Afghan capital again, after an absence of two years, to find it ruined in a new way. Not by bombs this time, but by security.
The heart of the city is now…
Nabucco – un accordo che è una dolce musica per le orecchie dell’Iran
Published: 22/07/200915/07/2009
Come a un progetto di gasdotto trans-caspico sia stato alla fine attribuito il nome della famosa opera “Nabucco”, del compositore italiano del XIX secolo Giuseppe Verdi, rimane una cosa non chiara. L’opera è basata su una storia biblica relativa alla…
Nabucco ink starts to flow
Published: 22/07/200916/07/2009 – The signing this week of a transit agreement to govern the Nabucco natural gas pipeline marks an important staging post in bringing to reality the long-touted energy route, which is projected to run 3,300 kilometers from the Caspian…
Le folli spese dell’impero delle basi americane
Published: 21/07/200921/07/2009
Il recente annuncio della costruzione di una nuova mega-ambasciata americana in Pakistan segue di pochi mesi l’inaugurazione della mastodontica ambasciata americana di Baghdad, la più grande del mondo. Ma l’impero americano delle basi militari e delle ambasciate fortificate è destinato…
A leaner, meaner Iranian regime
Published: 16/07/2009Briefly, it looked like 1978-1979 all over again. The riots that engulfed Tehran – and to a much lesser extent a few other major cities – were ostensibly a protest at what the demonstrators (and their purported political leaders) considered…
Xinjiang: la via d’accesso all’energia per la Cina
Published: 15/07/200910/07/2009
I disordini nella lontana regione occidentale dello Xinjiang, in particolare nella capitale locale di Urumqi, arrivano dopo 15 anni di sviluppo e trasformazioni nella zona. L’obiettivo di questo sviluppo era far diventare lo Xinjiang un’opportunità sul piano geo-economico per espandere…
Turkey balances on shaky ground
Published: 09/07/2009This month, the Turkish parliament approved a bill to clear more than 600,000 landmines along the Turkish-Syrian border that were planted in the 1950s to keep Kurdish separatists harbored by Syria from infiltrating into Turkish territory.
The bill was harshly criticized…
A new US envoy for Damascus
Published: 27/06/2009After informing the Syrian Embassy in Washington on Tuesday night, the United States State Department announced on Wednesday that President Barack Obama would send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005.
The move follows the renewal of sanctions…
La manovra di Rafsanjani si rivela un boomerang
Published: 24/06/200918/06/2009
La politica iraniana non è mai facile da decifrare. Il polverone sorto attorno elle elezioni presidenziali di venerdì 12 giugno ha intrigato molti avidi crittografi dediti alla decodificazione delle dinamiche iraniane. Sono apparse così tante false tracce che è diventato…
The IRGC shakes its iron fist
Published: 24/06/2009The disputed presidential election in Iran is transforming into a ferocious struggle between religious radicals and reformists. This has been a historical battle in Iran which has been going on for the past 100 years between tradition and modernity. Behind…
Beijing cautions US over Iran
Published: 21/06/2009China has broken silence on the developing situation in Iran. This comes against the backdrop of a discernible shift in Washington’s posturing toward political developments in Iran.
The government-owned China Daily featured its main editorial comment on Thursday titled “For Peace…
IRAQ: Al-Qaeda seeks to win over Sunnis
Published: 18/06/2009After a gradual handover process, the Sunni fighters of the Sahwa (Awakening) Councils have come under the responsibility of Iraq’s Shi’ite-led central government. From their emergence two years ago until recently, the Sahwa councils, which cooperated with Coalition forces to…
Iran wages lonely war on terror
Published: 11/06/2009The timing of the attack on the Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan in the Sistan-Balochistan province bordering Pakistan was by no means casual. Zahedan is a Sunni city. And Shi’ites were mourning the…
Iranian Elections: Mousavi makes a comeback
Published: 06/06/2009More than four years ago, this author correctly predicted that veteran Iranian politician and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi would run for the presidency in 2009. [1]
The elections in just over two weeks promise to be the most competitive…
La battaglia globale per il gas: la svolta irano-pachistana
Published: 01/06/200901/06/2009
La scorsa settimana ha visto la firma di un accordo tra Pakistan e Iran per la costruzione di un importante gasdotto. La firma, giunta dopo 14 anni di negoziati, segna una tappa di fondamentale importanza nella battaglia globale in atto…
Pakistan, Iran sign gas pipeline deal
Published: 30/05/2009QUETTA, Pakistan – Officials from Pakistan on Sunday finally signed a gas pipeline accord with Iran, without India’s participation, after 14 years of on-off negotiations over what was initially framed as the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.
Under the gas sale…
La strategia americana in Pakistan: il Baluchistan è il premio finale?
Published: 21/05/200921/05/2009
L’obiettivo finale della nuova strategia americana in Pakistan potrebbe non essere la vittoria sui Talebani, ma il controllo del Baluchistan, una regione poco nota e poco considerata dai media internazionali, ma di grande importanza nel grande confronto planetario che si…
Iran to US: ‘It’s a culture thing’
Published: 20/05/2009One of the principal characteristics of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was the anti-American sentiment ignited and intensified by the revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In his fiery speeches during the revolution, the ayatollah labeled the shah of Iran and…
Obama does his Bush impression
Published: 17/05/2009The “lasting commitment” Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, “Af” President Hamid Karzai and “Pak” President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end…
Muqtada comes in from the cold
Published: 14/05/2009DAMASCUS – In a surprising move that took observers off-guard, Iraqi Shi’ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr showed up in Istanbul at the weekend with a delegation of 70 supporters, including members of the 30-man Sadrist bloc in the Iraqi parliament.
The visit…
Pakistan – Ideas before bullets
Published: 03/05/2009The current crisis of militancy gripping Pakistan is the most serious threat to the integrity of the state since the loss of East Pakistan in the war of 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
Pakistan today is surrounded by…
L’Egitto tiene Hezbollah nel mirino
Published: 22/04/200915/04/2009
Che il rapporto fra il regime egiziano ed il segretario generale di Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, non sia mai stato cordiale è il meno che si possa dire.
Ma le divergenze politiche sono esplose la scorsa settimana, quando l’Egitto ha annunciato l’arresto…
Egypt has Hezbollah in its sights
Published: 20/04/2009The relationship between Egyptian officialdom and Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah has never been warm, to say the least. But political differences exploded last week when Egypt announced the arrest of 49 people accused of being members of Hezbollah, planning…
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