Portside

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Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, called for peace and a de-escalation in tensions between the US and Russia. What is the future for dialogue between the two countries under current circumstances? Gorbachev spoke in Reykjavik on Monday, calling for increased dialogue between the US and Russia

The Turks don't want a Kurdish mini-state on their frontier any more than the Syrians want to lose territory to the Kurds (and neither do the Iranians, nor do the Russians want a Kurdish state on their border). And, Turkey is warming up to Russia and Iran in a bid to exit before a total rout of its proxies in Syria. Here Robert Fisk and Vijay Prashad present two nuanced perspectives.

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Though President Obama rejected the “Global War on Terror” label in favor of the anodyne “overseas contingency operations,” the conflict remains global, and it remains a war. No one even claims that the bombs we’re dropping over Syria are “smart.” And no one except the grieving families even try to count those they kill.

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Many "anti-imperialists" rightly condemn the U.S. but say nothing on Assad’s crimes or the rampant bombing by Putin’s Russia, which Amnesty International has accused of deliberately targeting civilians and aid workers.

Victor Grossman reports from Berlin on causes of the spate of violence striking Germany and across Europe. We need not look too far to find possible causes of such hatred or, frequently, of distorted despair. I think of what so many have gone through. War-torn home towns, shootings, explosions and bombings in their native Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrifying flight to get away, to find some haven, where they can escape and perhaps even realize their hopes and wishes.

An Iraqi politician once said that the problem in his country was that parties and movements were “too weak to win, but too strong to lose.” This is increasingly the pattern for the whole region and is spreading elsewhere. It carries with it the possibility of an endless cycle of indecisive wars and an era of instability that has already begun.