20 March 2011 Today Libya, Tomorrow Syria? By Gwynne Dyer Last Friday saw the first nationwide protests against the Baath regime in Syria. If these protests develop into a full-scale revolt, the regime’s response may dwarf that of Colonel Gaddafy in Libya. The last time Syrians rebelled, in the city of Hama in 1982, President […]
14 August 2010 The Mavi Marmara Inquiry: Denying the Obvious By Gwynne Dyer They are all lying, of course. The pro-Palestinian activists who said that the flotilla of ships that tried to breach the Israeli blockade and bring aid to the Gaza Strip had purely humanitarian goals were lying, and so are the Israeli officials
1 July 2010 The Treason of the Attorney By Gwynne Dyer Eighty years ago, just after the First World War and with the world rapidly sliding towards the next, the French philosopher Julien Benda wrote a book called “The Treason of the Clerks” – “clerks” in the medieval sense, educated men, intellectuals, who despite their
7 October 2009 How To Get Out Of Afghanistan By Gwynne Dyer President Barack Obama has just promised not to cut the number of US troops in Afghanistan or pull them out entirely as part of the current review of US strategy there, but he has not promised to increase them. Could he privately be
21 November 2008 Pirates of the Horn By Gwynne Dyer On one side are the eight navies, the world’s largest shipping companies, the rich Gulf states that need to get their oil to market, and the great powers, whose commerce depends heavily on the shipping lanes around the Horn of Africa. On the other side
19 June 2008 The Ghosts of Srebrenica By Gwynne Dyer Last week in The Hague, a Dutch court began hearing a case brought by surviving relatives of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, supposedly under UN military protection, who were murdered by Serb forces at Srebrenica in 1995. The survivors are claiming $4 billion in damages
21 March 2008 Abkhazia: Russian Bluff By Gwynne Dyer Last month Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, and most of the NATO countries recognised it. Russia condemned this as an illegal and dangerous precedent, and hinted that it might recognise other breakaway states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But early next month Russian President Vladimir
4 February 2008 Kosovo: The Least Bad Option? By Gwynne Dyer The Serbian presidential election on Sunday was a near-run thing, but in the end the good guy won. Not that President Boris Tadic is all that wonderful, but he positively glows with virtue in contrast to his opponent Tomislav Nikolic, an ultra-nationalist who served
26 December 2007 Taiwan’s Sleeper Crisis By Gwynne Dyer US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn’t go into much detail in her year-end message, but on one topic she was very clear: “We think that Taiwan’s referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name Taiwan is a provocative policy. It unnecessarily raises tension
18 June 2007 Kosovo and the Law By Gwynne Dyer The ratio of foreign soldiers to local citizens in Kosovo (16,500 NATO troops to two million civilians) is slightly higher than the ratio of American soldiers to Iraqi citizens. The soldiers in Kosovo are not fighting a war, but their presence has certainly been needed