Farzin Nadimi, RCW: Iran's Aggressive Naval Intercepts Serve Foreign and Domestic Purposes
The IRGC will likely continue using such incidents as a way to signal its domestic rivals, justify its large budget, and meet other goals, so Washington should remain vigilant and consider seeking an official channel for emergency communications.
The strategic Strait of Hormuz has once again been the scene of close encounters between U.S. Navy vessels and speedboats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), leaving observers to guess at the motivations behind the Iranian moves. The multiple incidents that occurred this week raised the risk of miscalculation in a sovereignly cramped part of the world.
Read more ....
Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- August 30, 2016
Turkey risks becoming bogged down in Syria: analysts -- AFP
Welcome to demokrasi: how Erdoğan got more popular than ever -- Christopher de Bellaigue, The Guardian
Iran's Launch of Shia Army Threatens to Escalate Sectarian Tensions -- Mehdi Jedinia & Noor Zahid, VOA
There Is No Thirty Years' War in the Middle East -- Lorenzo Kamel, National Interest
Qatar spends big to counter charges of lax stance on terror -- Julian Pecquet, Al-Monitor
Who Could Replace Uzbekistan’s Ailing President? -- Bruce Pannier, RFE
Kashmir: A story of defiance amid grief -- Elizabeth Puranam, Al Jazeera
Central Asia Is Less Stable Than It Looks -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg
Don’t be fooled. There will be damaging fallout from Brexit -- Will Hutton, The Guardian
Reforming Ukraine after the revolutions -- Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker
Dilma Rousseff: A Strong Woman Brought Down by Brazil’s Meek Men -- Claire Rigby, Daily Beast
Russia, China, and Cyber Espionage -- Luke Penn-Hall, Cipher Brief
There It Is: A True War Story -- Peter Munson, War on the Rocks
Apple's massive EU tax bill could irk the US -- DW
Why Ireland Doesn’t Want Apple’s $14 Billion In Unpaid Taxes -- Tom Sykes, Daily Beast
