In the last decade the dictatorship governing the United Arab Emirates has poured billions of dollars into backing the Assad regime in Syria, the warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya and the genocidal RSF militia in Sudan, only to watch all 3 lose their civil wars in slow motion. Besides Iran, there is no regime in the Middle East more dedicated to destabilising the region and financing the industrial scale slaughter of civilians, Iran however does not enjoy the luxury of alliances and lucrative business partnerships with western liberal democracies.

Rampant disorder was inevitable, given that these institutions were irredeemably corrupt and responsible for propping up the former regime.

In either case though, the interim government should have been better prepared for that disorder.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1898323743346147446

Sharaa’s failure to bring groups like the SNA to heel though is coming back to haunt him. Of course that’s easier said than done with domestic situation & relationship with Turkey to consider, but what we’re witnessing on the coast is unconscionable & fundamentally unacceptable.

European leaders need to stop saying to themselves that it can’t get any worse than this, it can and it will, and a European defence strategy against Russian invasion is critical.

Defence spending needs to be significantly ramped up and Europe must re-arm to prepare for the threat.

To not do so now is not folly, it’s sheer madness.

War is coming, whether we want it or not. The only way to prevent it is victory in Ukraine, and if European leaders aren’t prepared to stomach the costs for that without Washington, then it will be their own children who will be fighting Russian troops in the near future. The same people who told you Russia would never invade Ukraine are now telling you Russia would never invade the Baltic States.

They were wrong in 2022, and they’re wrong again today.

I love this as an insult.

Yes, I love regime change.

I want all dictatorships to be replaced with democracies.

As a liberal democrat, by definition, I oppose all regimes.

I support revolutions to overthrow regimes.

Put “regime change fanatic” on my tombstone, that’s fine. I am a regime change fanatic & you @aaronjmate are an accomplice to Assad’s war crimes, who advocated for him at the UN, at the invitation of the Russian government, and you and your colleagues, for pay, were the propaganda wing of a regime engaged in industrial human slaughter.

Remembering today Sam Heller and Aron Lund, who both lobbied the US government to force Turkey to hand over Idlib to Assad.

Remembering that they continued to push this policy even as Assad slaughtered those who remained in “reconciled” areas.

They share in Assad’s defeat. Remembering Aaron Mate, Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek, as they took selfies outside of concentration camps and danced on the graves of our martyrs.

Remembering Peter Oborne and Peter Hitchens, who denied Assad gassed children.

This is an understandable position from a CVE perspective, but here’s the thing, the US doesn’t get to have a say in this anymore.

Particularly when the prevailing school of foreign policy thought has been against supporting anti-Assad forces.

https://twitter.com/colinpclarke/status/1864678911780487272

What is happening in Syria today is happening in spite of those foreign policy decisions, and in spite of those who presented Assad’s victory as the only possible resolution to the Syrian civil war.

Now the conflict is no longer in the hands of the western powers.

The Battle for Aleppo is over, the Battle for Hama now begins. The Battle for Hama is over, the Battle for Homs now begins.

Imagine having a discussion about Lebanese sovereignty vis-a-vis Hezbollah without even acknowledging Hezbollah’s very existence violates my country’s sovereignty.

I’m insulting you because you are no longer even attempting to disguise your deference to Hezbollah.

https://twitter.com/alonso_gd/status/1861741270546219314

You aren’t talking about Lebanon in this, you’re talking about Hezbollah, no matter how much you want to backpedal when called out on it.

Yes, you are right that Israel violates Lebanese sovereignty and we Lebanese want that to end permanently, but you aren’t even paying lip service to the fact that our entire state has been hijacked by an Iranian proxy terrorist organisation, that has murdered our people for generations, launched a war without the consent of the country, which it then lost, at huge cost to the Lebanese people, and your only comment on this so far is to complain that Hezbollah don’t get favourable enough terms in their defeat agreement.

I’m so beyond respectful disagreement on this, if you want to have your arse kissed, go back on Owen Jones’ show, where you will get the kind of ill-informed ignorance that will never challenge anything you say.

For context on how seismic Hezbollah’s decapitation is politically, from the perspective of most of the Middle East the Iranian “Resistance Axis”, of which Hezbollah is a critical component, has never “lost” a war, and have come out with some kind of victory in every conflict. That image of invulnerability was bought and paid for mostly with Arab blood, with very little domestic impact on Iran, despite the vast sums it was pumping into its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Hezbollah was the crown jewel of the IRGC network.

We know from Hezbollah themselves that these were 5000 devices on a secure network that had explosives hidden inside & bought by Hezbollah for their own operatives, and solely their own operatives.

Not civilians, active members of Hezbollah with pagers for secure communications. By all means feel free to object to this attack on principle, but there’s no justification for pretending that these pagers were given to regular civilians going about their daily lives with no direct connection to Hezbollah’s secure military command infrastructure.

1. Be Conservative
2. Spend 14 years transferring money from the young & poor to the old & wealthy
3. Enact cruel policies, punish those without generational wealth
3. Destroy the country
4. Suffer the worst election defeat in 100 years
5. Meltdown when Labour end those policies Do you think screaming at me about government cruelty towards retired landlords is going to work at all? I could barely afford to eat in my twenties and the government told me to suck it up and get on with it.

We’re taking your mum & dad’s winter bung. It’s over. Cry more!

Seeing a lot of analysis about last night's events in the Middle East that I think misses the wood for the trees, so here are a few of my brief thoughts on the situation 🧵: Firstly, immediately after October 7th I was very vocal about the fact that I did not think Israel's stated war aims were achievable, namely, 1) destruction of Hamas, 2) return of the hostages, and 3) permanent pacification of the Gaza Strip - I do not think that has changed.

I’ve survived a lot in my life, so it’s rare these days that I get too emotional over things, but receiving an email from one of my favourite musicians telling me how profoundly moved they were by my documentary has hit me right in the feels today. It’s still hard to believe I’m now a director to be honest! I spent so much of my career producing content for other people I had almost given up the ambition to create things of my own.

Somehow I managed to climb that mountain, and I can’t wait to share it with you all.

Who is ready for @OwenJones84/@Guardian to be forced into a humiliating retraction over his latest piece? One that exposes how lazy he is as a "journalist", who is so committed to his own ideological bubble that he has published an egregious error.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
This is not a small mistake, but first I want to point out that this truly does reveal how little research he does, he badly read he is on foreign policy, national security and defence, and why he has no business writing on any of these topics. This is why he is bad at his job.

The hysteria over this motion, or rather the precise wording of it, despite it having no impact on policy and no way of affecting the situation at all, shows not just how clueless most people are on foreign policy, but also exposes their own narcissism.

https://twitter.com/rmcunliffe/status/1760317588704285112

As someone who was very vocal on the last opposition party’s foreign policy positions, what I cared about were binding votes that had an impact on policy, like retaliatory air strikes in Syria in 2013, not empty motions that achieve nothing.

People are very emotional and they react emotionally to hearing news they don’t like and sometimes that leads them to accusing reporters - who are simply doing their jobs correctly - of lying or conspiring to spread disinformation

https://twitter.com/j_jhelin/status/1752035425202458909

A lot of journalism is based on sources, particularly political squabbles taking place behind closed doors. We cannot verify all of those stories using OSINT.

Branko Marcetic here, refusing to amend his fantasy interpretation of the Istanbul talks, despite the fact that the only source he has to corroborate them says that his interpretation is incorrect, and no withdrawal was ever offered by Russia.

https://x.com/BMarchetich/status/1750167149191029115?s=20

No such deal by the Russians was ever offered. In fact, the Russians specifically cited the campaign in Donbass as a reason for withdrawing from Kyiv.

Even though Branko has no sources corroborating his lie, he still refuses to concede.

https://x.com/BMarchetich/status/1750167152684933246?s=20

I think people dismissing the idea that Russia would attack a NATO state are woefully clueless. If Russia wins in Ukraine, and gets in Trump a President willing to abandon NATO, Putin will strike NATO. This isn’t a low-probability event, it’s Russia’s explicit goal in Europe. Every question about the future of European security and the prospect of a world war needs to be understood in this context. This is Russia’s plan, to destroy the West’s collective defence policy and then to conquer territory to rebuild the Russian empire.

My family come from a middle class Sunni district of Beirut that borders Dahiyeh. Our neighbourhood has been effectively under armed Hezbollah control since 2008. They have thugs positioned there with barely concealed weapons, used to threaten, intimidate & suppress local dissent Even though our neighbourhood is effectively controlled & occupied by Hezbollah (and the SSNP), it is not under their direct control like Dahiyeh is. The state still exists in my family’s neighbourhood. The state does not exist in Dahiyeh. Police cannot even enter the suburb.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has reportedly cancelled his scheduled speech tomorrow on the 3rd anniversary of the Soleimani assassination due to the Israeli assassination of Saleh Al-Arouri in Dahiyeh today. His last two speeches since October 7th have been heavy on threats and rhetoric while Hezbollah's armed response has been very quiet considering their known capabilities in southern Lebanon.

It’s been particularly depressing watching certain Arab American influencers cheer this on, knowing full well that they are going to feign shock at the catastrophe they are flirting with when it finally dawns upon them.

https://twitter.com/ngrossman81/status/1737100738562515084

And everyone knows I’m one of @mehdirhasan’s loudest critics, but he’s at least out here sounding the alarm while so many are willing Biden to lose in 2024. If Mehdi and I are agreeing on issues, you know things are serious.