Author: Simon Tisdall
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Being Putin’s stooge won’t win Trump a peace prize. The Order of Lenin, though, is in the bag | Simon Tisdall
Donald Trump’s sinister affinity for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has long been the subject of intense speculation. Former KGB officers claim Trump was recruited in Moscow in 1987 and cultivated as an asset in the years prior to his 2016 US election victory. Two retired Russian spies weighed in again last month, alleging that the…
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Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Vladimir Putin and pulled the rug from under Nato allies
In Graham Greene’s 1955 novel, The Quiet American, Alden Pyle, a CIA agent, reckons he has all the answers to conflict in colonial era Vietnam. Pyle’s ignorance, arrogance and dangerous scheming, intended to bring peace, result instead in the deaths of many innocents and ultimately his own. In today’s too-real, nonfiction world, Donald Trump is…
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Syria’s revolution hangs in the balance. The west must lift sanctions now | Simon Tisdall
Previously undisclosed Pentagon plans for withdrawing 2,000 US troops from eastern Syria received scant attention last week, overshadowed by Donald Trump’s surreal Gaza pantomime. The troops help local Syrian Kurdish forces contain the residual threat posed by Islamic State jihadists, 9,000 of whom are held in prison camps. If the US leaves, the fear is…
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Trump’s Gaza power-trip tells us this: he is just another coward denying the need for a Palestinian state | Simon Tisdall
It’s easy to mistake sheer ignorance for brilliance. Seeming empathy conceals unfeeling stupidity. In demanding the permanent emptying of Gaza and the forcible resettlement of Palestinian civilians on a wholly imaginary “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land”, Donald Trump tried to break the mould. Instead, he broke hearts – and the US’s word. His so-called…
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The world at war: the flashpoints that the west ignores
The world is becoming a more dangerous place. It’s an often-heard sentiment these days, but is it really true? Historical comparisons are of limited help. Last week’s 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered by the Nazis between 1940 and 1945, offered a grim…
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Cocksure Kim Jong-un is raising the nuclear stakes. Is it time for South Korea to follow suit?
So-called frozen conflicts can suddenly turn hot without warning. Look at Ukraine, Syria or Armenia-Azerbaijan. Might Korea be next? For almost three-quarters of a century, an armistice – not a peace treaty – has prevented old foes North Korea and South Korea tearing each other apart. Their respective backers, China and the US, underwrote a…
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Menaced by foreign foes, facing mutiny at home: how long before Iran goes nuclear?
Choices, choices. In life, there’s always a choice, or so that complacent saying goes. It didn’t really hold true for the people of Syria, bound and gagged by tyranny for half a century. Yet finally, after infinite pain, they chose freedom. Now the Middle East spotlight shifts to other victims of state oppression. Who’s next…
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Assad’s murderous regime has been toppled – but what will fill the vacuum in Syria?
For once, use of the word “historic” is justified in describing the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime after more than 50 years of brutal dictatorship, 13 years of on-off civil war and a world of suffering. The people of Syria, or most of them at least, are jubilant. They should enjoy the moment. They deserve…
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The Ukraine missile crisis: Putin’s shadow war against the west finally breaks cover
The unprecedented firing by Ukrainian forces of British-made long-range Storm Shadow missiles at military targets inside Russia last week means the UK, along with the US, is now viewed by Moscow as a legitimate target for punitive, possibly violent retaliation. In a significant escalation in response to the missile launches, Vladimir Putin confirmed that, for…
