In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein and senior editor Frederick Deknatel discuss Honduras’ corrupt police force, transitional justice in Cote d’Ivoire, and the political prospects for Turkey, Syria and Iraq’s Kurds. For the Report, Khaled Hroub joins us to talk about Hamas’ options for ending Gaza’s isolation. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles from WPR: Police Scandal in Honduras Could Lead to Even More Militarized Policing Gbagbo’s Trial Is the Latest Sign of Victor’s Justice in Cote d’Ivoire Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Syria Vacillate Between Hope and Despair Can Hamas Afford the Cost [...]
On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to deploy an additional 250 special operations forces to Syria. The increase will bring the total number of U.S. ground troops there to 300, and comes on the heels of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s announcement that 200 more troops are also being sent to Iraq. Both deployments are part of the continuing U.S. war against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), but as the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria has continued to rise, it has raised fears that the United States is being sucked into another military quagmire in the [...]
The words “cease-fire monitoring” are unlikely to create ripples of excitement in a group of military officers or civilian security specialists. Ambitious soldiers hanker after kinetic action, not observing static peace lines. Professional peacemakers associate tending to cease-fires with an outdated, Cold War-era approach to conflict management. This is unfortunate. Making simple cease-fires work is hard, and it seems that neither big powers nor international organizations are much good at it. Over the past week, the cessation of hostilities in Syria has lurched toward collapse, as violence escalated around Aleppo. It may be remarkable that the lull in fighting, which [...]
